[Replay] How Top Agents Keep Winning In A Down Market

In this episode, Chris discusses strategies for real estate agents to succeed in a challenging market. Let's be real: the media sells fear, and in order to win in a down market, real estate agents need to level up. He emphasizes the necessity of continuous learning, effective client communication, and strategic planning. The episode also highlights the value of a proactive approach in real estate transactions and the importance of personal motivation and dedication in achieving success.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris Craddock: Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd, be uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Saferite.

[00:00:30] Episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. /I'm your host, Chris Craddock. And I am here today to talk about how to keep winning in a down market, how to win when things are going against you, how to win when it does not seem like you've got everybody in your corner and things are going your way. So with that said, The goal and purpose of this podcast is to reach out to those that are like me, a real estate agent, but also like me does not want to live the whole rest of my life on the hamster wheel of transaction.

[00:01:04] I want to build wealth. I am building wealth. I have wealth that I have built through being good at real estate and wealth. The definition that I am working with, my working definition of wealth is when your money. Works harder than you work. So with that said, let's jump in now. What does what does winning look like when it is hard to win?

[00:01:29] Well, first thing. There's a book called shift that came out many years ago, and a lot of stuff has, has shifted from that book with the advent of technology, but there are a couple of things that are absolutely still key to winning today that we get from the book Shift. So the first thing that I would throw out there for all of us to learn, all of us to understand is this, when the market shifts, it is harder for us to get.

[00:01:58] Where we have previously been. So what's happening is picture yourself in the water at the ocean, right? All of us have been there. We're playing. We're playing with our kids. We're playing with our friends, boogie boarding, whatever it is. All of a sudden we look and we're half a mile down the beach, right?

[00:02:17] The tide has taken us away from where we wanted to be, right? That's what's happening. When we ship, we have to work a lot harder to stay put, right? Well, none of us. I'll tell you what. None of us wants to just stay put, right? None of us wants to stay where we are. Everybody wants to start winning, right?

[00:02:36] What does winning look like? What does it look like to not just stay where you are, but also to take ground, to take territory. So. What does that mean? Well, if the tide is against us pushing us away, right? Like it's, it's harder to get buyers under contract. I heard that the fed is probably going to raise rates.

[00:02:53] Another, basically another point, which is going to be a little painful for us. And just remember this, right? There is no such thing as a free lunch. Next time we hear the government talk about free, free stimulus packages, free, this or that, like, I mean, the inflation reduction act, just. Just is so painful.

[00:03:15] I mean, to me, I'm just like, man, why don't we just create the gravity reduction act? Right. Inflation is the result of the monetary policy that we've had. Right. So the only way to get through that is to have businesses crank while we're in a recession, right? So how do businesses crank, we need to have like if the government's going to do anything, let's just make it more friendly for governments or for governments.

[00:03:41] It's already been very friendly for governments, more friendly for businesses to survive. Right. So anyway with that said the interest rates are going to go up. It's going to be harder to get buyers under contract. Like they're buying power is about to go down. Right now. And so, I mean, this is a chance for us to say to all of our buyers, go out now, tell them to go under contract lock today, lock today, lock today.

[00:04:06] So that's where we need to go with that. But going forward, what are we going to do when buyers have lost some of their buying power? Well, we're still in a market that is a low inventory market, right? Inventory is going to go up as buyers go down. We're still going to be able to have a fairly strong market.

[00:04:24] If you compare it to historical averages, but It's not going to be anything like it's been in the last couple of years. We're going to have to fight harder. I look at my own company and when you have listings that sit on the market longer, your profitability goes down. It's just the way that it is because what they call it in businesses is a cash cycle, right?

[00:04:43] How long does it take to do your activity? To get to cash. And what I always teach new agents is the cash cycle we're in, because listen, if you think that as a real estate agent and individual agent, or if you don't see that the agents, let's say you're a team leader and you have agents that work for you or you're working on a team.

[00:05:03] If you don't realize that every agent is a business. In and of themselves, and even if they're on their team, they're entrepreneurs, not they're, they're working in the organization. Heck I'm with the XP, right? I'm an entrepreneur under Glenn, Glenn Sanford's organization. I mean, I know technically eXp is, is held by the shareholders, which I'm part of.

[00:05:22] So it's technically mine, but let's be honest. The CEO is Glenn and, and I'm an entrepreneur in his, his organization, even though it's a massive organization and I can grow as big as I want it to grow. I'm an entrepreneur. So these business owners, agents are going to have to understand that they're going to have to treat their business the same way they're, they've got a cash cycle, right?

[00:05:42] The normal cash cycle for an agent is about 90 days. Okay. Like you, if I make my calls today, let's see, I'm recording this on in September. If I make my calls today, it'll be about 90 days before I see cash on average. Right? So I make prospecting calls today. Usually. I will see the results of this, not today, but I'll see today, September.

[00:06:05] So October, November, December. So the work I do today goes to December. And that's honestly, one of the reasons why most real estate agents struggle is because we want instant results. We want instant, I mean, heck, how many people join workout programs and they don't see the six pack in like three days.

[00:06:25] And so then they quit, right? We want instant results. That's the, that's the world we live in. We've got our phones, where we can get all the information we want in an instant, our, the, the amount of advertising has gone up because we're just getting inundated with everything. Cause we want instant results.

[00:06:40] So what do we do with this with this cash cycle, understanding that we're in a 90 day cash cycle, we need to realize that the cash cycle is probably going to go up a little bit. So. Here's why it's going to be harder to win. And those that are uncommon will actually be winning. Here. This is why it's going to get harder to win.

[00:07:01] The further away from gratification. Things are the less likely people are to stick to it. Right. I mean, tell me anybody, anybody here that doesn't want perfectly sculpted abs, right? Everybody will raise their hand and say me, me. Yeah. I want that. Then you say, well, here's the price that you have to pay.

[00:07:20] Okay. I'll pay that price. We all decide we'll pay it. And then we. Then we don't, we, we don't continue paying that price. Right. And so the reason why is because it gets further and further away from our goal. And we realized the price we, we didn't count the cost upfront and the price that we're paying is a little bit more.

[00:07:37] Well, that's what happens in real estate. Right. Okay. I'll make my prospecting calls. I'll make my prospecting calls. We do it one day, we do it two days, but we don't see any money from it. Right. And so then. Then it gets harder to do it day three, day four, day five. So the people that are going to win are people that are probably already winning people.

[00:07:54] And then there's every once in a while, there's those few uncommon people that say, you know what? I haven't been doing the things it takes to win, but I'm tired of living in a way that is not serving me well. And I am going to go right now. I'm going to change that and I am going to start winning. And what you have to do is just say, I am willing to do what it takes, even though I don't see the results of this for 10 days, 20 days, 30 days, literally 90 days or in a shifting market, your cash cycle gets longer.

[00:08:25] Remember? So maybe it's, maybe it's even 120 days before you actually see benefits from it. So we're working harder, longer cash cycle, longer times. And that's why the common people quit. Right. The common people say, Oh, this stinks. The common people get demotivated and don't make their calls. So this is the question that if you want to win in a shifting market, this is the question you have to ask yourself.

[00:08:49] Am I common? Am I like everybody else? Do I have, I, I love saying this, but it's so ridiculous. Do I have common sense, right? The common sense is like, Oh, it's too hard. Why would I keep doing this? I'm going to do what everybody else does. I'm going to, go get a nine to five and, get a paycheck.

[00:09:04] One of my best friends, it's so funny. He He says, I love working for the man. I don't like the stress. I like to clock in and clock out. I love the man. I'm like, okay, that's great. Keep working for the man. For me, I'm not, I'm not that I want my, I, I'll tell you, I, I.

[00:09:20] Get massively stressed when things are not going well, but I also want my life to be as big as I want it to be. Right. And so I've decided, I am an entrepreneur, right. I'm, I did not start my own brokerage. I'm working with the XP. And so I am working within the confines of that, but the confines are so big that I can continue to grow as big as I want it to grow.

[00:09:42] The agents on my team, as soon as I stopped growing, they stopped growing and then they hit that, that glass ceiling. And so, they're all entrepreneurs as well within EXP and then also within my organization. And so I do not take it lightly that if I stopped growing, if I say, oh my gosh, this gets hard and I don't want to wake up in the morning and I'll tell you.

[00:10:02] I have not wanted to wake up. Recently, I hate pointing this out, but I see it right now. I've got some bags under my eyes right now. Oh man, I, I hate pointing that out. But the reason why is just cause I haven't slept as well recently. I've got a bad shoulder and when I roll over on my shoulder, I just.

[00:10:18] I just don't sleep as well. Right. And so I wake up and I don't want to get out of bed in the morning because I'm tired. I had a bad night's sleep. I'm getting to the end of when I had my last cortisone shots in my shoulder. So I'm certain to have more pain in the middle of the night and I don't want to wake up and get out of bed, but I also remember I've got people that are depending on me.

[00:10:39] I need to do this. It's not just, it's not just my family, but it's my agents. It's, it's the people in my world. And I know that if I don't do this, that I let everybody down. Right. And so there, there is stress on that, right. The stress level is high, but on the other hand, it also reminds me, Hey, if I'm going to do what I've been called to do, I've got to get up out of bed.

[00:10:59] I got to do this. I got to. Got to do that. And, and Simon Sinek has a book called, it starts with why, right? Start with why it's something with the word why in it from Simon Sinek. And now I'm drawing a blank. But the the big key there is if we want to be motivated, we got to understand our why.

[00:11:16] We got to understand why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we getting up off the mat and continuing to go forward? And I'll tell you what. The market has shifted more than I had expected, but less than what all the media folks had expected. We got to understand that the media makes their money by selling fear, right?

[00:11:37] So they're going to continue to tell everybody that, that the market's crashing, this is Oh eight all over again, it's worse than away. Then there's all the gurus out there that are. And listen, a broken clock is right twice, every day. But there's all these quote gurus out there that are trying to make their money based on the fact saying, Hey, the shift is coming.

[00:11:55] The shift is coming. And I think about it now, somebody who I respect greatly. I got him Gary Keller Keller Williams, right. He predicted the Oh eight crash, right? Well, it's so funny. I guarantee you, he's going to claim credit for this and. I say this, I want you to know, I have the utmost respect for Gary, right?

[00:12:14] When I left Keller Williams to go to EXP, so many people were trying to get me by talking so much trash about KW. So please hear this correctly, right? Like I, I do have a little bit of judgment here on this, but I say that as somebody that respects him immensely, I think he's one of the smartest minds in real estate.

[00:12:31] Um, You know, Gary, it has predicted a crash like four or five times. At least when I was in Keller Williams, there were four or five crashes that he predicted since oh, eight coming. And and the interesting thing is one of the days he's going to be right. And he'll be able to say to everybody, I predicted this crash too.

[00:12:51] Right. Cause they're like, the real estate will have cycles. I don't believe we're in for a big, big crash. Right. And. I, I may be wrong, right? If I had a crystal ball, I'd be, I wouldn't be here. I'd probably be on a beach in Tehiti somewhere. Right? Actually, that's not true. I like helping people.

[00:13:05] So I'd be, I'd still be chatting with, with you. But with that said there's all these people that are trying to predict it for their own personal gain. And again, I say that no, please understand no disrespect. But there's all over the place that everybody's like trying to be the one to predict the crash.

[00:13:21] So they can say, Oh, Chris Craddock, he predict the Oh eight crash. Chris Craddock, he predicted the 2022 crash, like, like that's a revenue or, or sorry, that's a, a resume boosting, piece. And you'll hear it now, this person predicted every crash in the history of crashes, since the beginning of time, all these things like that.

[00:13:39] So just be aware that, that people make money for that. So if we understand people's interests, we understand why they're saying what they say. So what do we do to win in this market? One, we've got to up our activity. Right. And, and some of you guys may say, be saying, Oh, what am I doing? Like, like I'm already working so hard.

[00:14:01] Well, that's true for some, but for most people, most people, it's not that. So I want to do a, because I'm not talking to anybody individually. I'm not, I'm like, I'm not looking at, at a person understanding all of the, like, listen, excuses are good. There's, there's plenty of great excuses and you can have them.

[00:14:23] They're like limiting beliefs. If you want to fight for them, you get to keep them. But because I can have a, this conversation, that's a really, really in your face conversation with a with kind of a hypothetical person, instead of somebody where I know actually what they're struggling with and what their real life issues are I'm going to have it.

[00:14:42] So. Here's the question. Let's call the person, John or Jane. Let's call it Jane. Okay. Cause I don't know what Jane, at least that's in real estate. Sorry. Any Janes out there? This may be you. Oh, I'm sorry, but here we go. So Jane, what are your goals in real estate? Her goals are, I'd like to make over $200,000 this year.

[00:15:04] That's awesome. What are you, what are your daily activities to, to do that? Right. Cause there's lots of people in the world that would love to make over $200,000. But obviously to make that money, you have to add that kind of value to the marketplace. What are you doing to add that value to the marketplace?

[00:15:20] Well. I'm talking to 20 people every day. I'm not, I'm not finishing a day without talking to 20 people. And I'm doing a minimum of one hour education. I'm listening to audio books, listening to podcasts, listening to all of that while I'm working out in the mornings. And when I'm at the gym for an hour, I'm doing that for an hour.

[00:15:40] So I'm working on my activity and working on skill. Awesome. Very cool. Great plan. You do that and you're going to make the money that you want to make. Right. That that's just it. Now yesterday, how many people did you talk to? I talked to seven people. Okay. Jane you said your goal was to make $200,000.

[00:16:01] And in order to do that, you needed to talk to 20 people every day. Although yesterday you spoke to seven people. Well, I had a lot of showings. Um, You know, I had a couple of buyers that, that were in town from out of town. And so they had, they took most of my day. So I I was with them. I was like, okay, I get that, but you had a goal and a plan to talk to 20 people every single day.

[00:16:25] Yeah. I get it. But I, I just ran out of time in my day. All right. So what time did you start meeting with with the buyers? Well, we met at one. Okay. So what did you do in the morning? Well, I made some of my calls. That's when I got my seven people. Okay. What about the rest of the morning?

[00:16:41] I had to return some emails. I had to I, I had to put out a fire with a closing that was coming up and, and all that. So how much time do you spend prospecting? Well, I, I prospected from nine to about. About 9:30. Okay. That's cool. Can, can you actually pull out your your phone and let's, let's look and see when the calls were made.

[00:17:03] Okay. It says right here, it was 9 to, or sorry, 9 to 10:30. It says here that the calls were actually, you made a call at nine. You made another call at 9:18. Another call at nine, another call at nine 18, another call at nine 18, another call at 9:25, What were you doing in between that? Well, I talked to somebody there and then, I had to take a coffee break and somebody, somebody texted me.

[00:17:30] And so I, I ended up having to just deal with a personal thing. Okay. Well then what did you do from 10 30 until one? Well, like I said, I had to return emails all, all the different pieces there. Okay. So first of all, let me just say this. During that time that you, you were dealing with personal items, I get it unless like your kid's in a hospital or your house is burning down.

[00:17:55] This is, this is a personal item here. You are letting yourself and your family and all those that depend on you down. Right? You, you should have just been making those calls. You, you hang up the phone. You make your next call. You make your next call. You make your next call. Why was there a break in between 

[00:18:10] some of those calls? Well, I wanted to check my notes and make sure that I knew what I was going to say. I wanted to look at some of the houses in the neighborhood. So I knew what I was going to say. Yeah. Jane, I totally get it. Have you heard the phrase? This is a phrase that I've, I've heard a lot of my successful friends use massive imperfect action.

[00:18:27] Have you heard that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, calling and making sure you have all your notes, everything ready to go for somebody that may or may not pick up. Is that massive and perfect action or is that is that not massive, just regular, perfect action? Well, it's, it's regular, perfect action. Okay. So picking up the phone, smiling and dialing, just, just make things happen, be, have a bias for action.

[00:18:53] Would you describe yourself as doing that this morning? Or yesterday morning. I mean, I showed a ton of houses, right? That, that is part of the cash cycle. That's the second half of the cash cycle, right? Like that is getting your clients, putting them. These are clients that are already in the pipeline already signed with you.

[00:19:12] Hopefully, hopefully you're not showing houses to people that aren't signed. These are clients that are already signed with you and very close to the end of this cash cycle. And it's important that you push them through. But if you do not continue working to build that pipeline, what are you, what are you going to do in 60 days when you have to restart?

[00:19:30] That's why most real estate agents have the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows. They get busy and then they, they stop doing the things to fill the pipeline, right? They can't focus on more thing, more things. At once, then, then they need to do. They're either focusing on building the pipeline, focusing on servicing the pipeline, or focusing on putting out fires to get that, the pipeline to closing.

[00:19:52] I don't think that's the right analogy, but let's call it, let's just pretend like we're, we all know what we're talking about. So the reality is you've got three stages that you have to always be working. And if you can't put that time in your calendar to do that, you need to change your goals or either change your goals or change, like, just change your, your calendar, right?

[00:20:13] Like you don't have a choice. And so that's the issue right there. I know that as you're listening, if you're not hitting your goals, I promise you, the reason why is you're not talking to the number of people that you said you talked to and you have a good reason. I mean, all those reasons that quote, Jane gave me, those are great reasons.

[00:20:32] Great reasons. Lots of showings. Most people would say, yeah, yeah, that's right. You don't need to do that. You're already doing things to be productive. Right. Or I had some personal things that I had to take care of, right. Yeah. Okay. That sometimes that happens sometimes family stuff happens.

[00:20:48] Right. And, and you're not working, I, I had something this morning where I. Spent a bunch of time dealing with something instead of being productive. Right. And the reality is, it's something that needed that was happening, but it, it costs me money to do that. Right. Like that, that's what you have to realize.

[00:21:05] Like when you, when you step out of production. During the time that you're supposed to be producing that cost you money, right? And you got to realize it. And so you understand like it happens. I get it. But how often does it happen? Is it, is it a regular occurrence? That's one of the things that James clear says in atomic habits, be the person you want to be.

[00:21:26] You don't have to be perfect, right? Massive and perfect action, right? You don't have to be perfect, but you have to do the right thing more often than you do the wrong thing, right? When you're, when you're raising your hand you, every day, every action you take as a vote for the person that you're looking to become.

[00:21:41] Right. And so are you becoming that person that let's say Jane, the $200,000 earner, right, are you becoming that person that has, that makes all those calls every day, or are you the person that always dreams to be the $200,000 earner, but you make 60, 000 a year because you get busy in prospecting and you don't work your pipeline and don't work your like get people under contract, or do you get busy getting people under contract and you're not working to prospect and build your pipeline, or do you get busy and not work to make sure that all the fires that.

[00:22:13] Can pop up or put out when they're small, like a little ember in the, in the forest where you can stomp it out before it grows up and becomes a big forest fire, right? Kill the monster when it's young. Like, are you, are you doing all of those things in your cash cycle? And if you're not doing those things, then you're going to be like most agents.

[00:22:31] You're going to be like the common agent that has the ups and the downs in real estate. This is the, this is the prescription, right? I just went to a doctor earlier today. She gave me a prescription, right? And and here's the deal. Like if, if, if the doctor is in, like, this is your prescription. And I get to say that I really am a doctor.

[00:22:50] So like, here is my, here is my prescription for you. Is, is this do your activity? Right? Make your calls. Is it 10 calls or is it 20 calls, right? If you want to make a couple hundred grand a year, you got to talk to 20 people. And we have a, in our Redux group, we have two different ways that we categorize it.

[00:23:12] We have a one way and a two way, right? You got to make a lot of one way calls to get a two way call. And the two way call is when somebody actually picks up and you have a substantial conversation. If they pick up and say, Hey, let me give you a call back. That doesn't count, right? You have to have a substantial conversation.

[00:23:27] So one way is when you dial and you either connect and they say they'll call you back or you connect and or you don't connect, you get voicemail. Two way is real conversation. So 22 ways every single day. You need to have, and I'll tell you all the other stuff will come from it. Right. And then if you want to solve the, getting them under contract and putting in them, putting out the fires, then you need to be doing your personal education.

[00:23:54] Right. You're already listening to this podcast. Keep listening to this podcast. Listen to all the back episodes of this podcast. Also listen to audio books, right. I'm re listening to Jordan Belfort's the way of the wolf, right? Whatever you think about Jordan, his book is, it's super.

[00:24:09] It is so good. I haven't listened to it in years and I'm re listening to it. And I'm like, man, I'm a different salesperson than I was two years ago. And wow, there are a lot of things that are hitting me different on this or, or in class pitch anything or his book flip the script, right? Those are three of the best sales books ever.

[00:24:28] So, there you go. You've got, you got the, the beginning where you, you're just prospecting. You get the second part where you're doing the sales part. You're getting people under contract. You're, you're getting agreement signed. And then the third part, you need to be able to, to read the patterns, right?

[00:24:42] What are you listening to, to be able to read patterns? All the podcasts will talk about things that pop up, things that are going on, all the different. But what are you doing to level yourself up where you can see patterns? Oh man. This, this lender is an out of state lender.

[00:24:57] It looks like an online lender. This guy, I haven't been able to get them in on the phone. Like, is this like just some, some dropout that, that just got a, a cheap job, like a 40, 000 a year job and doesn't know what they're doing and brand new. And, that's it. Or is this a skilled lender that knows what they're talking about and working here and is really going to get it to closing, right?

[00:25:19] Like, what are the things that we're asking ourselves so that we can identify the fires before they get put out? So anyway, I just wanted to talk through, these are the things that if you want to win in a shifting market, if you take my advice right here. I'm telling you, I just gave you a prescription take the advice on the, on take my prescription and you will continue to win.

[00:25:40] You will not only stay put in the ocean as the tide is pushing you out, but you're going to actually take territory. If you can actually make your calls, do your business, have a bias for action, massive, imperfect action. Don't let all the, making things pretty imperfect, get in the way of you doing what you need to do.

[00:25:58] So with that said, if I can serve you, please. Send me an email at, or send me a DM at crowd rock on Instagram. Check out my tick tock Chris Craddock official. If, if anybody wants to join us with the XP, you don't have to join our team just in our downline. So, I, I'm doing a lot of personal coaching for you.

[00:26:14] Feel free to reach out just Chris Craddock. com my website. I would love to have you in our network and help help you set up your business, do some coaching with you to set your business up so that you could double your business. I think anybody doing less than 300 deals a year, I can almost guarantee I can help you double your business within within the next 12 months, at least be pacing for it.

[00:26:34] I've, I'm coaching a lot of people right now and I'm seeing the the growth over and over and over again. So please let me know if I can help you on that front. And honestly, regardless of the XP front, like if I can do anything to serve and help you, people are so generous with me. I want to be generous with you.

[00:26:48] Let me know how I can help you out. Let me know how I can serve you. Go out kick butt take names. Listen live uncommon. Don't let anybody get in the way of your dreams goals. Make it happen. See ya Thank you for tuning in to this episode of uncommon real estate Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from chris Jeff and other uncommon real estate industry leaders If you love this podcast, please write us a review and to fast track your real estate career go to chriscraddock.