The Open House Strategy That Built His Entire Career

welcome to the forward one podcast hosted by paul mark morris and josh spitson and today we have the amazing brian beagles thank you for having me excited to be here grateful to have you here brother we're uh we've got to know you quite well and uh we're uh again grateful and inspired every day by your hustle, how purposeful you are, how effectively you communicate with your clients and your colleagues. I think communication is so essential and just doing what you say you're going to do, which sounds so obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't do that with consistency and you definitely model and emulate that. Correct. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I really appreciate the recognition. Excited to be here. So tell us how your real estate journey began? So I started on a, do you want me to use specific names or kind of whatever, whatever you prefer? I started on a, so how interested in how long, how long have you been in the business? Sure. So I started off in the entertainment business. I was working in music and talent management and a bit of event production as well. And then segued over into real estate, working as an executive assistant for a really high producing broker over in Hancock Park. That was when? That was in 2020, end of 2020. So I'm about five and a half years into my real estate career. I was an EA for her for about a year and a half, ended up being an agent on her team for about two years. And then all said and done, I've been an agent for about four years now, but only, uh, an agent for four years, but solo for how long? Solo for two, less than two, about a year and a half. And that, so I consider that, you know, uh, a brand new agent on the pressure side. Yeah. Yeah. We are interrupting each other. You interrupted him. He interrupted me. Yep. so for yeah four years in the business two as uh two as an assistant which by the way is a is a great way to start because you can you can really learn the the ropes and that sort of thing on the other hand i see people that have been assistants to major agents for a long time and never are able to to get out out on their own uh what was the point what was the inflection point for you at the two-year point that you're like, hey, you know what? I can do this on my own. I started getting more involved in some of our deals. And I think really, if I had to pick a specific turning point, we had a listing. This was like in the height of 2021 massive selling market. We were churning out listings left and right. everything was selling in multiples we had a uh a smaller home over in pick fair village i think that was listed for about 1.4 million and i was out at drinks with a colleague of mine and i started getting phone calls left and right at 8 or 9 p.m in the evening and i I actually don't know if I should tell you this, but I was, uh, I basically drove up the price by about 300 grand over the course of about 30 minutes, just back and forth on phone calls with other agents. And, uh, I was licensed at the time. I was unlicensed for a short period of time when I first saw her on her team, but, um, drove that up to about one seven, which is about where it closed and the, the feeling of, um, of deal making and making that happen, driving up the price, knowing that I was doing an amazing job for our, our clients. Um, yeah, that was, I think that was specifically the turning point for me where I was like, okay, I can do this. And so first of all, EA executive assistant, cause we take that for granted. So just so So everyone knows, the audience knows, I think gives you to such access to information and processes that obviously is serving you extremely well now. And to Paul's point, though, we, you know, the behavioral profile of someone who's doing administrative work versus the behavioral profile of an agent is typically extremely different. Right. They're much more detail oriented, more risk averse. You know, obviously, as an agent, you're commission based where you've got, you know, a paycheck typically when you're an executive assistant. So to that point, like how, you know, how did you go from that sort of less risky structure to the more risky one? And how did your mind process that or, you know, how did you reconcile that? So in my entrance interview with this brokerage, I told that broker that I wanted to be an executive assistant for up to two years. I would lock in at least one year so she doesn't feel like it's a revolving door. And then ultimately, I wanted to leverage that into being an agent. And honestly, that track for me was just dragging and dropping my experience in entertainment. So in entertainment, you start out mailroom or assistant coordinator. You basically go through an agent training program at agencies or management training program at a management company. And I'd already seen that track record or that path work for a lot of people. So honestly, it kind of came from just a lack of exposure to what typically happens in a real estate office. And I just wanted to drag and drop that exact same path for myself. Um, in terms of transitioning from assistant to being an agent, I think you're absolutely right. A lot of people get sort of siloed or locked into that specific, um, into that specific role. It can be tough to branch out and start sort of carving out your own business. Um, especially in, I think in real estate where it's primarily entrepreneurial and, you know, everybody's business is a little bit different. Sort of like finding that lane. And I think for me, it was something that I always wanted to do. I don't know. It kind of came naturally. And I knew that I wanted to absorb as much as I could through being an executive assistant so that I could then transition into being an agent. And I think there are a lot of people who just jump right into being an agent. There's no issue with that. But I wanted to feel confident in my ability and competent in my ability to service a client. So you went in with that intention, which is the bottom line, which is that helps really. You went in knowing like I'm going to do this for a couple of years and then I'm going to transition to be an agent, which again gets back to like you had a plan and you had a goal and you had a purpose. And it basically played out as expected in that first. And, you know, to Josh's original point, which is the, you know, the behavioral style of an assistant is often very different from that of a successful salesperson. The salesperson behavioral style, if you're smart and driven, can force itself down into being a good assistant for a while. That's for sure. but the assistant behavioral style has a hard time then forcing itself into the sales profile. So we interviewed not that long ago. It's not uncommon for people to switch careers, but we interviewed not that long ago a quite successful realtor. She's a few years older than you. So she had, you know, 20 years crushing it in the entertainment industry and then shifted to, uh, shifted to residential real estate, luxury real estate. Now she's, she's, she's gotten there, but she didn't get there as fast as you did. And one of the things that she told us was, oh, you know, I crushed it in, in entertainment. And I just thought, well, everybody knows me, trusts me, likes me. I'm going to turn around, tell them I'm a realtor now and the business is going to come flooding in. And she would sort of, you know, emulate the call for us. Be like, Hey Josh, you know, uh, we, you know, we've done deals together. You know, I've crushed it for you in the entertainment space as a producer. You trust me, you know, Hey Josh, I'm now in real estate. And their answer was, Oh wow. That's, that's awesome. We, we wish you well because Josh doesn't need to sell a house right now. So, you know, that would be the normal thing to say, but it just did not turn into business. So, so how do you, you know, was there, while you were an assistant, did you have a sense of like, where's my first deal going to come from? I don't think that hit for me until I was an agent for like three months and had, you know, worked 10, 12 hours a day for six or seven days a week and had nothing to show for it. Um, that, that's, I think when that, uh, when the lack of deal flow or, or the, uh, I'm going to kind of start over. You did great, by the way, you were doing great. Awesome. But start over if you want to. Well, I'll start in the middle. Yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of a phrase for like a lack of deal flow. It doesn't make me sound like it doesn't matter. That sounds great. Yeah. There was a lack of deal flow for easily the first three months. Actually, I think I started April 1st of 2022 as an agent, and I don't think I sold something until February. If we can go look back at interest rates April 1st of 2022, I think historically is one of the worst times for anybody to go start trying to sell homes. that was basically day one of interest rates skyrocketing. I did a lot of leases for people who decided they didn't want to buy. So if you look at my track record, which I just did for coming on here, yeah, I started off with a lot of leases. In February of 2023, I sold a condo. I think it was like four or 500,000. And yeah, I don't know that there was anything that I particularly identified that would help me from entertainment, going from entertainment to assistant to real estate. But what I learned in entertainment that I think you can apply to pretty much any, really any representation or service-based business is just client management, people management, personality management. Josh, you spoke about how I can talk to colleagues and clients. And I definitely picked that up from, you know, both from the entertainment side and from being an executive assistant for this broker in Hancock Park. So, I mean, really, it's just those broad strokes. So how do you approach that? Like delve into that for a minute, communication and people management? Like, what does that mean? Unpack that for a minute. What are the pillars of that? So I think one thing that I try to deliver in pretty much every conversation is just being really transparent, honest, bold, blunt, direct. I find that a lot of people in this business like to have short phone calls. Time is money. You kind of got to keep the wheels turning and, you know, in any entrepreneurial role, especially when it's all commission based time is both your greatest asset and your worst enemy. And so being direct, cutting to the chase helps with open houses, qualifying people and just being direct. But I think most of my success stories at some point have a component where I was just really, really abrasively honest with somebody. And it usually kind of staggers people and they are taken aback a little bit. And then ultimately, they're appreciative of the fact that I didn't sugarcoat it. I just told them what was what. That's a major lesson. And was right. I'll be honest with you. If you do all that and you're wrong, it ends up working out a little bit differently. Done that too. So that goes hand in hand, I got to say, like with preparation. First of all, in order to be direct and transparent and quick and blunt, you've got to be prepared to know what you're going to say, right? And in order to be, as you say, quote unquote, right, you need to be prepared because it can work very much against you if you're blunt and direct and you're not delivering things of value and you're not accurate in what you're saying. So preparation. So what do you do to be prepared, I guess? I mean, it depends on what we're talking about specifically. If it's for open houses or meeting with a client or meeting with a seller, a potential seller, meeting with the buyer, especially for the first time, I think I'm pretty well researched. And there's no guideline for what you should or shouldn't know. There is, but there really isn't. Um, and for me, like I've even growing up, I wasn't the type of person to go check my GPA before or my grade in a certain class before I go take an exam. Um, you kind of go in, uh, assuming, I think if you go in knowing that you're your own harshest critic and that there's no real guideline, uh, for what you're supposed to do or what you're supposed to know or how you're supposed to prepare for me, um, that kind of, it gives me fire on all cylinders. Like there's no, how do I put this? There's no real bar. The only bar is what you set for yourself. And like, what would I want out of representation? I think I'm, I think I would be my worst client. I think my, my bar, my expectation is up here. I would expect handholding. I would expect somebody to know comps. I would expect to go into a listing as a buyer and be able to say, okay, well, what about the place down the hall? I saw that it sold because I'm going to do the research. You should definitely do the research. It's your job. One of the, one of the things, and that's, that's great. That's great insight. And one of the things that we're, that we're missing or taking for granted is that, um, how, how are you getting your business right now? Because that's, that's really the thing. So, Hey, I'm working for a big agent. Wow, I'm crushing it on the phone. I'm out with my friends. I just did this like, wow, I can do this. There are a lot of people, not to say that that doesn't put you in the top tier, for sure it does. And there's a lot of people with skills that don't ever get to use those skills because they don't have a client. So where are you getting – you go from entertainment to assistant to, okay, you know that dry spell right you know we interviewed a top top producer in our last episode and you know she cranked like you cranked and didn't do a deal very similarly for 14 months not one deal now after that there she did a lot of deals but you know she was doing the right thing she you know no deals so what what are you doing what do you what did you do to get your first deal what's your practice now to get clients? So when I started as an agent, and this is sort of what I learned from the brokerage where I cut my teeth, is open houses. I started doing open houses every Sunday and every Tuesday. It didn't matter if it was my birthday, holidays. I think it's really easy to say, oh, like Memorial Day or Labor Day is going to be a slow day. Well everybody that shows up on Labor Day or Memorial Day is serious So you might have two or three people instead of 10 but you got two or three people that are legitimate I think just putting your head down and working and finding those little strategies that work and tweaking I was not good at open houses. I wanted everybody to be my friend for a long time. And then it clicked for me that nobody cares. in fact I think I stopped telling people my first name upon meeting them it's like you know hi how are you or how's your day going and then it's immediately into qualifying questions and you really only have five to ten minutes of conversation max maybe five minutes of actual conversation with the buyer who's walking through a house for 20 minutes to qualify them get them to trust you and show that you're capable and different or whatever, but you've really got a very limited amount of time. So I learned basically over a two-year period how to have those conversations with people and having them in real time with people, I think helped me prepare for having conversations like cold calling, which is not, it's different, but you're still doing a lot of the same conversations, a lot of the same cadence, A lot of the same questions. You can't just ask somebody how much money do they have? You know, what's their timeline? You can, but it's a little abrasive and people tend to kind of shut down. So you're you're exploring real conversations with people with an angle of everything you say kind of has to have some sort of deliverable back to you. And don't give me an idea of the qualifying question. So I walk into I walk into your open house. You know, I say hi or you say hi. You don't say I'm Brian. And what happens? Off the top of my head, spiel about the house because at the end of the day, when you're at an open house, you do have an incentive to usually sell it, especially if it's your listing. Even if it's not, you still want to do a good job for whoever else you're hosting for. So picture yourself in an actual listing. And let's just say it's not your listing. Sure. But it's a three-bedroom, two-bath, and it's located in an area that you service. That's a, you know, Miracle Mile or whatever. Three-bedroom, two-bath. It's in pretty good shape. You know, this is sort of your typical house. And I walk through the door, and you say hi, and I say hi. And then, so where do we go from there? And then you tell me about the house. Do you want to roleplay it? Sure. Okay. So I've given you the spiel about the house. are you looking at any other properties today to Sunday? We're in open house from two to five. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually we've been to, we've been to two and, uh, this, this honestly was not, you know, the highlight of our, of our list, but, uh, but it sort of fits. We wanted to come through and, uh, we'll probably see, you know, two or three more. Okay. Got it. Are those, do you remember the addresses by chance? Not really. I mean, it was one down on Barrow street. Sure. Sure. Okay. So, so you, but you're looking in this neighborhood. Oh yeah. I think I'm actually familiar with that home. It was listed for like one seven. It's also a three bed, two baths. So that's kind of what your general parameters are, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's about right. Yeah. Okay, cool. Um, I find that a lot of people go to this neighborhood because, you know, if you go a little bit further East, uh, into Larchmont, um, you know, three beds, two baths, 1800 square feet, it's going to run you closer to like two, two to two, five. Right. Right. We're at House Lizard for one seven. It's not really your cup of tea. It does need a little bit of work. But you're in that price bracket where this neighborhood actually makes a lot of sense to you. Is that like your sole determinant, you know, price and then square footage, bed, bath counts? You're interested in like the school. I prefer to be in Larchmont Village, like you said, but it is. But yeah, the stuff that I liked over there was I found really is more like two five. Uh, so we can afford to spend a little bit more than one seven, but, uh, but we can't afford the two five. Okay. Got it. Um, and it's, you know, coming up on April 1st, are you guys, you've, you've kids, are you looking at school systems? Um, is there a timeline in mind? Uh, we do have, uh, we do have one, one, uh, eight year old now and, and, uh, and trying to figure out where, you know, where the middle school future is. And we'll probably have another, another child at some point, I think. Okay, cool. Yeah. I don't know where you want to go from here, but we can keep doing this. Okay. So, so, so at what point I was thinking, at what point, at what point do you guys make fun at me if you want. Um, at what point, uh, where are we going with this, where you're going to then client convert? Are you going to say at what point in time are you going to say, do you have an agent? Yeah. Um, usually not right off the bat. Um, there are a lot of agents who prefer to front load this entire conversation with, do you have an agent? Um, to be perfectly candid, I don't care that much if they have an agent. Whether or not they've signed something is a little bit more important and a little bit more material for sure. But most people I find are not signing buyer agent agreements. They're just going to tour homes. And my question isn't really if you have an, it is less about if you have an agent, it's more, are you working with somebody that you, that you like, that you appreciate? You know, I've come across plenty people who are working with friends and family. Even those people I've had conversations where the great response is like, oh, okay. So are you happy with that? Yeah. Yeah. We're happy with it. Okay, cool. It doesn't feel like you're just doing it out of obligation. Right. And they're like, oh yeah. It's like, okay. So you're working with a family member or a friend, but maybe they're not delivering the service that you would expect. And honestly, it's the weirdest thing, but I see that all the time. People who think that they have already earned the business don't try as hard. And what I come back to every time is nothing is given. Everything's earned. You don't have a, I was talking to somebody the other day, I opened an escrow. They said, oh, let's go celebrate. I said, why don't we go celebrate? There's nothing to celebrate. It hasn't closed yet. And there's all these little milestones, right? Where it feels like, okay, you've won a listing agreement, a listing, right? You haven't gotten it signed yet. Okay. You've got these, all these different minds milestones. And at the end of the day, nothing could ever happen or materialize. So I think, um, like a, a, a huge weakness that I've seen in maybe I shouldn't say this either and some larger agents and I'm not that big of an agent yet, but my, yet, but my angle is always, do you buyer or seller want to work with somebody who feels like they haven't that they haven't earned it yet and is going to be hungry and go chase it after it or do you want to work with somebody who feels like it should be theirs anyway yeah take nothing for granted which is you had said something earlier that just was about that same thing so that that speaks a lot about the kind of person you are it's that standard of excellence that willingness to go above and beyond and be super intentional and and make sure people feel and sense that because that's how you build trust. And one of the things that one of the things about not asking whether they have an agent, I, I, I too would, you know, I'm careful about if someone's represented for sure. But I still don't, don't, and don't recommend asking right out of the gate. Here you, Josh walks to the door. I'm like, Hey, Josh, you know, welcome, welcome to the open house. I probably would say my name, but that's okay. I'm Paul Mark Morris. Let me tell you a little bit about the house quickly. If I say, are you represented by an agent? There are two things that I think are bad about that. And one is now Josh is already like, oh, this dude's like, what's in it for me, Just for starters. And secondly, that lends itself to a yes, I am before I've established credibility with Josh. And, you know, the one way to get out of a conversation he doesn't want to have is be like, yeah, I'm represented by an agent, even though he isn't. So I talk to a lot of people that are great at open houses like you, and they don't ask that question until they've built a little rapport. And then, like you say, are you represented? And they say, yes. It's not a terrible thing to say, are you happy with your representation? And one of my friends, a good friend of ours who crushes it and started with open houses and still does a lot of business from open houses, if they say, yeah, I'm happy with my agent. Yeah, I have an agent. You're like, oh, how's that working out? And they go, I'm happy with my agent. he'll go further and say like you know have you made offers and they'll say yeah and he'll go but we didn't get the offer and he literally will say let me tell you let me tell you my strategy on getting an open house accepted so that you can go back with your agent and get the next house accepted and like that's how like you know coming from a place of contribution and you know then he's telling him you know here's my seven step process on how i get an offer accepted you know write this down and they're like, Oh, this is great. Be like, Oh, I'll, I'll repeat it for you. So you can write it down. You can take it back to your agent to, to do it with your agent. And, and then, you know, before you know it, they're like, you're my agent. Yeah. Right. I don't, well, I don't have anything signed. I don't really have an agent actually. I just talked to, you know, a couple of agents, you know, uh, would you be interested in working with me? And that's really where the conversations will go with him. Yeah. So open houses coming back to that question, where's the business come from? So open houses being a foundational piece, and then you were doing them consistently twice a week. And what else were you doing to acquire clients? What are you doing now? I mean, today I'm doing a decent amount of cold calling. I just started using actually an AI cold calling system that can call. I don't know that I'm in love with it to be perfectly honest with you um and you can mention what it is because people always want to know what people are using it's called atlas okay um and you're not sure if you love it yet or not that's okay yeah yeah i mean what i i don't love it because it's not me having a conversation with somebody um and that feels inherently like a little bit disingenuous but it's at the end of the day it's not all that dissimilar from um you know bulk texting or or mailing campaigns, things like that. You're doing direct, you're soliciting, right? The solicitation, I think just blindly for me is like a little bit, um, doesn't feel amazing, but at the same time it has worked. Um, I've got, um, I think two people over in Venice and, uh, Mar Vista that are thinking about selling. Um, and so is it actually a bot call? It is a bot calling. Yep. And it's using your voice or it's not using your voice. No, it is not using my voice. That's actually an option, but I think I'm, I feel weird about that. And I also don't, I don't want myself, I don't want to be represented that way. Um, I'm, I don't know that I'm, I care about what other people think. I really care about what my clients think about me. Right. Um, I, or future clients, leads, whatever we want to call them. Um, I don't trust a robot in this day and age, right this second to accurately represent what I would say, how I would act to be, to toe the line between being a little too pushy versus, you know, backing off and then keeping a conversation going. Right. So what does Atlas get breakdown? Just cause I'm curious, what is Atlas doing for you? Explain just the process. So I'm effective. I'm, I'm pulling farms from title, I'm pulling phone numbers alongside those, those addresses. And it's, it's pretty dialed in. I think I'm doing no more than three to 500 homes at a time. The purpose of that is I'm looking for specific clients based on their wants and needs. So it's not just, it's not that I'm calling for no reason. If there's actual interest from the other party, they want to transact. I do have somebody to connect them with. You're buying on behalf of an actual buyer and you're looking for off market inventory. Right. And if we want to go back to the question of what have I done successfully to try to create more leads. It helps already have leads. It helps already have buyers. We've got a seller. You're calling other people saying, okay, we have this seller. If you're interested, this is what we expect to happen. Here's our open house, right? You should come by, whatever you're saying. You're basically doing double, you're marketing the listing and doing a good job for your seller client. You're also doing lead gen and that kind of outreach. The flip side of that is if I've got a buyer who's looking for something specific, because again, we want to qualify and try to narrow that funnel as much as possible. Then that gives me criteria to go work with pull from title and actually cold call those people and see if there's any interest in selling because we've got a very finite search parameter. And that's been like my bread and butter, specifically just narrowing down a search parameter and having a reason to call. I think if anybody calls and says, hey, do you want to sell your house? The answer is no. Even if the answer is actually yes, The answer is no, because I don't know who you are and I don't trust you and I don't like this. It's, it goes back to if you, the first thing you say when you, when somebody walks through an open house is, do you have an agent? The guardrails go up. The whole point of qualifying and having conversations with people is to make them relax. They should be calm. It's fun. It's good. Right. This isn't a money grab. I'm not trying to hustle you. Right. At the end of the day, I have something to bring to the table or else I wouldn't be bugging you. I know that I'm bothering you. Lead with value. I mean, that's right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yep. And have a compelling – which goes hand in hand with have a compelling reason to be engaging in the conversation. Right. Exactly. So Atlas is helping – is making calls on your behalf for inventory. Yeah. And the coolest thing that it does is it can rifle off roughly – probably going to get the numbers wrong – but like 500 to 1,000 calls in about 30 minutes. So what I like about it is I don't have to sit there and call 1,000 people and end up basically leaving voicemails. It leaves voicemails automatically. you can kind of program in what you want it to say. And the like speech cadence is like pretty, pretty human. Like, um, I think it does a good enough job for some of the time. Again, we're, we're talking about percentages here, right? So, um, it takes, uh, research shows that it takes an average of like six to eight phone calls for one specific person in order to actually get them to pick up the phone. That's not a lead conversion. That's just to have a conversation. Right. So I want 500 people. I've got 3000 phone calls, 500 people, six times. Who is Atlas representing themselves to be? Atlas is basically, I mean, they, they, that bot can do a handful of different things. So it's like CRM. They have a CRM. They have a, the tool that I'm using, which is basically call or calling or, or auto dialing that kind of outreach. And they also have a, uh, like a call center component, right? So if anybody calls in like property management company is actually a great example, somebody calls in their, their, you know, lights are out or, you know, their faucets leaking. Um, this is basically taking down that information, transcribing it, um, and delivering it to somebody else within like another platform. So it also has the ability, I think, to integrate. I actually don't think it integrates with follow-up bosses, which is the CRM that I use. But I've seen it for property management companies and handling basically intake. Got it. So it's multifaceted. So by the way, we've got to check to see if to make sure that's TCPA compliant and all that stuff. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. Knowing Brian it is. Yeah I sure that Atlas is doing their best on that but we better check that because there are some guardrails around And companies actually have gotten in big trouble for something like that And then Eleven Labs is the leader in voice cloning. So if you – I'll bet you whoever owns Atlas or whatever, if you're like, oh, yeah, hey, use my voice, they're actually – Atlas would be probably paying 11 labs to do the voice cloning because they're top shelf on that. And I'm always at the top of what can be done. And, yeah, I just think that I do think that that also in places like this, in places like Los Angeles, people are already worn out by the robocalls. So one of the things I've done is I literally my phone is programmed that if you're not in my if you're not in my contacts, you're automatically pushed to to voicemail so that my phone doesn't keep blowing up. And, you know, I miss a couple of important calls here and there. But if I check the voicemail, which I do sometimes, you know, that can work out. But that's where I do think the personal touch is important. I get that dialing thing. But you are also calling with a purpose. And so then you would have a buyer, specific buyer that's looking for a specific product. And then you're figuring out all the houses that could fit inside of that product. Correct. And I think the most successful tweak that I've made with cold calling in general and targeting specific things for a specific client is leading with a pitch about my client. It's not about me. It's about, I wouldn't be calling you if I didn't have a good reason. So here I'm leading with the reason. And it's usually like, here's a good example from a little while back. I had a family that was looking in Hancock Park for a home. They're a couple with like two young kids. So I'm starting that phone call with, honestly, hi, my name is Brian, because I'm not going to lead with I'm a real estate agent. They'll figure that out. Because if I say I'm Brian, I'm a real estate agent, I get hung up on. um so it's usually you know hi here's my name um i'm working with a family uh to relocate they're looking at a house with uh or they're looking for homes with four bedrooms and three bathrooms roughly like 2200 to 2500 square feet and this price point it's uh you know it's a husband it's a wife they have an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old and they really love school system here so their goal is to move from where they are right now and then put their kids into ex middle school. And, um, and that's really like the onus for, for my call and all of that without, I mean, hopefully that takes eight to 10 seconds max and all basically in one sentence. And I'm giving them every, I'm giving the person that I'm calling, um, as much context as possible that has nothing to do with me. They've already figured out that I'm a real estate agent. I'm not just going to come out and say that. Um, and their focus is now less about me as a real estate agent and more about, do I want to sell my house to this lovely little family? And that for me has worked super well. Um, and I've had, I've had on a handful of occasions, somebody actually say, this is the best cold call I've ever gotten. I am not irritated. I'm not selling my house either, but I'm actually not irritated because it actually sounds like whether or not you have this buyer, I don't know. But at least you're approaching this from the standpoint of just client service. I'm just trying to help out somebody else and being respectful of everyone's time, like I said earlier. You know, so let me ask you, I'm going to go back for a minute because it's applicable to this. You work with a very prolific agent as her EA. And I know of her and she does a lot of business. What were some of the major things, especially as it pertains to lead generating and where her business came from, that you learned that you're now applying to your business? Biggest thing is persistence. I've never seen somebody hustle and call an email and text and follow up with somebody aside from you, actually. The reason I'm here is follow up. I'll take it. Your follow up specifically. Yeah, just the persistence. And maybe she'll see this and she'll get a kick out of this. But she would always tell the story of of her basically parking. She couldn't get a hold of a guy, knew that that he wanted to sell and ended up basically parking out in front of his house all day, calling, texting, emailing, doing her job. It's a mostly remote job unless you're physically at a house. Right. Or an office. And she parked out in front of his house. he got home and she she i think she was maybe like catty corner like a couple doors down saw him pull him the driveway waited till he was getting out of the car and then drove off towards him and said oh hey like i was just passing by had a hard time getting a hold of you just you know if you've got two minutes just wanted to chat through things real quick and uh i've never gone that far that's yeah that's wild that is that is wild me neither But I think about that all the time, actually. Yeah, because it's what she would do. I know her quite well, too. I don't think it's a bad thing to say. To put her out. Yeah, to say it's our friend Sherry and we'll leave the rest to people who know her and know her. And I think what you talked about, it might violate the stalking statutes in some jurisdictions. Uh, and I also will say that, you know, Sherry is a demure and kind woman and, you know, no one, you know, and the guy that drove home is not going to be like, Oh my God, you know, this realtor like drove by it's Sherry. And, you know, she leads with like, Oh, Hey, hi, you know? Right. And, and she is cool and nice. And, and, uh, she also has a lot of interesting little marketing touches that are sort of her own signature marketing touches. Um, just out of recall, actually, she used to work for us. I don't know if you, yeah, you know that, um, we've been in the business long enough that, that so many people have, uh, um, and she's, and she's wonderful. So, um, so yeah, she's got, and little marketing touches that are, that are very humanizing, uh, which is important for, for somebody who is, this is back to behavioral style for somebody who is like knock dead, drag out, follow up, hardcore, like a Josh, right? Then, you know, finding ways to soften the edges are good. So like, for example, your weekly advice with your son is one of those softening edges. A lot of times, and I'm going to say this, know yourself, right? And so people should become familiar with a disc profile or something like that. It's going to tell you, hey, my dominant behavior is driver, which is which is what Sherry is. Drive, drive, drive. And then when that's your dominant behavior, which is a very small, it's a small subset of people. And then the drivers really need something to soften themselves out. And then other people who are great realtors, like another guy that we interviewed, Jeff, Jeff Yarbrough. uh he's he is you know if you give him the same disc profile now he may he may do more business than sherry he may do the same business but they these people do a lot of business and sherry is all driver uh she uses some stuff to soften the edges and jeff believe it or not is all i he's all he's all interpersonal he's all so so he doesn't need anything to soften himself what he needs is something to drive the stake in the ground. And, and, you know, Sherry is not afraid to say, here's the contract sign here. Um, Joey and I were talking about another agent from, because Sherry used to work in Joey's office and Joey and I were talking about another agent, uh, who dominated that area was business partners with one of our recent guests. and, you know, and he was, she was so good at lead generating that at generating clients that Joey said to me, you know, I think she actually talked people into selling their house that didn't even want to sell her house. And I, and I laughed and he's like, no, actually like, believe it or not, I'm kind of serious. And I'm like, wow. Okay. You know, so you've got like You've got that crazy driver personality, which most of the time most people don't have. Then you've got the really, really connector personality. So somebody like Jeff needed that way where he didn't feel uncomfortable asking for the order. And he had to learn that. Just like the drivers have to learn how to soften the high eyes, the influencer, the people person, the people who really care about what people think. They don't want to offend anybody. They don't want to whatever. And I remember Jeff's – what Jeff did was when he realized that about himself, he then turned the signing a contract into a heavy-duty thing that lands like a joke that he could say comfortably. And he would go like – let's say it was lunchtime. He'd go with the contract. He'd do all of the things you needed to do right up to the time where it's time to sign the contract. And he'd say like, oh, hey, by the way, here's the listing agreement. And, you know, take your time, you know, thinking about it or signing or whatever. You know, I'll be here till dinner, you know, and it's noon when he says that. And he really says it like in a joking way. And they go, oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then he knows to absolutely be silent. and they're like, oh, okay, well, uh, actually I've got to talk to my husband or I've got to talk to my wife before I sign. I'm really leaning towards you. And then, you know, then he learns the follow up from like, okay, well, when is your, you know, when are you going to talk to your wife? You know, that's because we want to glad you've decided that's get this thing rolling, you know? So, so there are those things that are very personality dependent. Um, and you know, from what I can tell, it seems like you have a, some people have a good combination of both. In particular, Josh is a good combination of both in particular. You know, some of the, some of the drivers are all drivers. Some of the people, you know, the people, the people influencers, the ones that are like, yeah, I've been driving around in the car for like nine years with the buyers. You know, and, and I can tell just by what you're saying where you're like, hey, I only have a certain amount of time in the conversation, so I've quit saying my name. I know you're driving, so you've got that driver. And then the question is, you know. Yeah, it's like set yourself up to succeed. Know yourself, know your natural tendencies, and create methodologies and systems that allow you to fill in the gaps on the other things that are important that helps make things happen, right, and get accomplished things and candidly get deals closed when they're supposed to be closed, right? So let me ask you this. So you're on pace, correct me if I'm wrong, to exceed half a million dollars of gross commission this year because you and I had a conversation about that very recently. What do you need to do to ensure that that happens? What are the priorities in your business that gets you to exceed $500,000 of Broke's Commission this year? I think one of my biggest priorities right now is finding projects for a builder that I've been cultivating a relationship with for about a year and a half. We just did our first deal in January and I see the writing on the wall. He's got a great price per square foot for a build price per square foot. And, um, I think that he's able to get things done that a lot of people are not able to get done. Uh, he can make things pencil when a lot of people can't make things pencil. Um, and so he's a, uh, that builder in particular is a huge priority for me. Um, you've done one deal with him, one deal, one deal in January. Um, I've got, um, we did a showing yesterday. I think he's going to write on that. Um, it's over in Marvista. And he and I are working on a deal over in Silver Lake, which I've been on the phone with him on and off all day. That's what you've been saying. And that's for an SB 1123 small lot subdivision. So I want to get more into development in general. This guy's going to be, I think, pretty instrumental in doing that. But aside from that, I mean, more of the same. So mailers, cold calling, having a stable of buyers, of active buyers that I have still to this day, either from open houses or referrals, repeat business, things of that nature. And just being active on the phone. Active on the phone. With intention. Again, your phone. With intention, right, exactly. When you say cold calling, it's a very targeted purpose. Right, it's cold calling with a hot lead. Yeah. Right? So, or an active client, it's not cold calling for cold calling sake. Um, and I would like to think that I don't do a whole lot of things just for the sake of doing them. Um, I think that would drive me up a wall. Um, but yeah, I mean, to, to get to that number, um, you know, which I'm, which I'm on track to, to hit, if not beat, I think it's a lot of the same doubling down, really doubling down, doubling down. And then investor relations, I think, are going to be the two things that get me there. How did you meet the builder, the developer? Referral from another client. So I did a deal. I did a multifamily deal with the guy probably about two years ago. He and I kept in touch. We went out to lunch one day and he said, oh, one of my good friends from my childhood is now a builder and you guys should meet. you know I think we all the three of us could make something happen and again that was about a year and a half ago and a lot of this it's been a lot of legwork a lot of shot down ideas but again if you're constantly tweaking things and learning what to do what not to do I think ultimately you'll find success and there's no difference between me you know working with this guy for a year and a half and then finally closing on something and then all of a sudden we've actually got a foreseeable pipeline of projects over the next three to six months into the next year to half to two years, right? Because some of these are larger projects. There's no difference between that and figuring out, okay, I've been an agent since April and it's now February and I'm just now figuring out how to convert somebody from an open house to my first closing ever. It's no difference. It's just doing the legwork, tweaking, figuring out what works and figuring out what doesn't work. I'm pretty good at Excel and spreadsheets and things of that nature. I didn't know what I was doing when I was first working with this developer. He shot down so many projects because I didn't have the full scope of what costs were going to be, how to analyze that, or how to predict, how to project what something was going to sell for in two years. I could do comps for sure, but I think it just goes a lot deeper than that. And over the past year and a a half. If you heard me on the phone with an investor developer today versus like a year and a half ago, it's a night and day difference. I remember candidly when I met you for the first time with David a few years ago and how different you are now than then. I mean, that just hit me as we're talking, you know, and it's a difference candidly. And it's, it's a great point. It's a difference between quote unquote failure or rejection with an opportunity to adapt pivot and improve because what most people would say failure rejection I out Other people will say hey this is just another opportunity and more fuel and ammunition to learn from and adapt and pivot and improve. And that's exactly how you perceive it. And that's what makes for people who achieve at the highest levels. And I'm going to say something because it could get lost. is that Brian talked about this particular builder because first of all, builders are not going to want you as a realtor unless you're bringing them deals that make sense to them. And so that's where Brian's learned what, okay, so I've learned what this particular client, what their needs are. So I'm not bringing them stuff that they're going to shoot down anymore. And now they know when I call, right, I've got, I've done the underwriting to their standards. It's credibility. Yeah, for sure. But one of the things that he said was that there's a builder who can do things that others can't do. And, you know, like, okay, you know, that could go over your head pretty easily. And so what that means to me is because this builder can build something really nice, let's say for 20% less than another builder, that opens up a pipeline of now, let's say you've got builder A who can do things that others can't do at that price. And you've got builder B. Builder B is going to need to see deals that are harder to get than builder A because it's going to pencil better. So it's on one hand, you know, you want to make yourself as attractive to a developer client as you can by being able to underwrite a deal enough to know exactly what's made. Oh, wow. I saw one. This is going to be great for you. And you show it to them like, oh, this makes no sense. You know, you're going to lose credibility. There's that piece to it. But then the flip side, which I haven't thought about that much, is finding a builder that that can crush it. And therefore, you can bring them lots of opportunities. Right. Exactly. And I think like one major difference between when you and I first met today is that I feel much more selective with who I who I work with. And that's actually something that Sherry would preach night and day. I think I still there are a handful of things that Sherry said over the four years I was with her that I think about not infrequently. And one of them is you can this is a business where you can work two to three thousand hours a year and make no money. Where you put your time is the most important thing. Who you spend your time on is extremely important, if not the most important thing. so yeah I've got a handful of investors and a handful of builders but I want to pitch things that I think are a good idea or that I believe in where the numbers make sense and everything else but I also want to pitch those ideas to people that are going to be receptive because pitching it onto deaf ears makes no difference it doesn't impact me at all nothing ever gets done. And then you just go see this thing get sold. Three months later, you check on it, resold everything that you predicted that would happen, happened. And you're left high and dry. Your builder's left high and dry. Your client's left high and dry. It's not good or productive for anybody. So yeah, you're exactly right. I've tried to be, the reason I spent a year and a half on this is it makes sense. At the end of the day, winning that business makes more sense than maybe winning other people's business and sinking that time into it has made sense and it also gets back to playing the long game as i always say and not just what's in it right now it's having the forethought and the discipline to recognize what could be in it for me in the future if i plant the seeds and earn the credibility and again so many people don't have that foresight nor do they have that belief in themselves that they can actually plant the seeds and stick stay the course to earn the credibility and and also also brian mentioned something uh sb 1123 which this is a national podcast so the importance is not what is sb 1123 as much as this is it's sb stands for senate bill it's it's a california initiative and it just took effect. They talked about it in 2024, but it took effect in mid 2025. So what that's telling me is that Brian is up on what people are looking for right now and what can work and what couldn't work. Now, maybe he figured that out because he talked to a developer and they're like, oh, we're looking for SB 1123 stuff. And he's like, what's that? And looks around and finds it. But it doesn't matter how he came to that. You know, if you want to represent developers, you want to figure out what's going on in your local jurisdiction that's creating new opportunity. You will see more and more of that happening because the whole ADU movement, people think it's like a national thing. It's actually done state by state. And and but just every state's adopted it. And then it didn't work for a while. And why didn't it work? Because you still have parking requirements. They're like, OK, well, it's not working. We, you know, what are we going to do? And then like L.A. just said, OK, forget the parking requirements as bad as that might be. Right. Because now you can't find a place to park, maybe. But they're like, we want more houses. So it's not happening. The ADU bill didn't work. They built no ADUs. So what do we have to do? So there's all these little changes and, you know, with all the access that we have now through through AI and, you know, it's not you're not very many searches away from like, hey, I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And, you know, what are the you know, what, if anything, are the new laws that are affecting building here? You know, it's taking initiative and being curious and figuring out what's in it for someone else to create value for them as in your clients. Right. Well, the other side of that is if you want anybody to do anything, you have to give them a good reason. So it's not all that different from working with a family or an end user. You're trying to prepackage something and make it appealing or it is appealing, but you're trying to shed new lights or you're trying to make it a little bit more obvious, a little bit more apparent. I can't tell you how many times I've sent something to an investor or developer. and they want my opinion on what they should do with it. Well, if you don't have an opinion because you don't know what the best usage case is for a specific lot or an opportunity or you don't know how many ADUs can be built onto a duplex, a zoned R2, whatever the situation is, they're not going to end up doing anything because I'm probably one of 20 different agents sending them ideas. And some recent feedback that I got from a different investor was that he loves my spreadsheets, the best spreadsheet that he's seen from an agent because most agents don't go through the links to fully underwrite and vet a property or an opportunity and provide all of the numbers so that you can go investor and make an actual educated decision. And I'm taking a lot of that legwork out because again, these people are looking, if you're an investor, you're a developer, and you're doing this as a full-time job, you're looking at probably, I don't know, 20, 30, 50 deals a day. It's constant, eight to 10 hours a day of just vetting deals. So if I can take that legwork off of your plate, number one, hopefully I'm becoming a little bit more of a reliable agent or a reliable resource for you. Number two, I'm gonna be in a better position to actually get you to understand what can be done here because I believe it and I've run the numbers and you should believe it too because here's everything that you need. It's all in a package. It's all in a spreadsheet. The comps are in the spreadsheet, links to the comps are in the spreadsheet. Everything is right there basically at a glance. It comes back to where I started this conversation. Presentation communication matters, right? It instills confidence. It It creates convenience. It allows people to process the information more easily. It saves them time. These are the things that matter a lot. And so many agents pay very little, if any, attention to it. And the best ones do. Right. And that's clear. You're super purposeful on how you're presenting stuff. That's part of your brand. That's part of your standard. And that's going to reflect on the whole process and the whole experience that you have with a potential client. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and it is that it is that setting yourself up to win. You know, I'm still I'm still back to the to the conversation. I'm going to I'm going since since I know Sherry well and she she hasn't she hasn't told me that I'm going to attribute it to Brian. Um, what Brian told me was, um, you can, you can spend, this is a business you can spend two to 3000 hours a year in and make $0. And that, that is intended to scare and should scare a lot of people, uh, because they're watching a wake up call and it should be go ahead. Yeah. And they're watching selling sunset or wherever they're watching. and uh you know it's just not like that um i just looked at the rosters that's selling sunset by the way i'll just leave it at that yeah literally truthfully yeah you look at the productivity go ahead the right right right and if you have access no no no diss on all all power and i know a number of people they're great people yeah and and and how much are they selling versus what people think they're selling. I don't have a gauge of that, but I do. Yeah. There you go. Uh, well, we don't know how much people think, but that's to say, let's assume people think they're selling a lot and, and, and many of them aren't. So, um, you know, but it makes for good, it makes for, for good television. Uh, not so much out in the real world. Um, one of the things that I did, um, was a friend of mine's wife. We remain very close today. They're since divorced. I don't know why I felt like I had to show that. The husband and ex-wife, they're still close. I'm close with both of them. She came from the entertainment industry. She's super personable. And she was doing production, which means she can like get stuff done also. So she's like highly personable, loves houses and can get stuff done. And I and she's like, you know, I want to go to lunch with you and pick your brain. And, you know, the lunch turns into like three hours. And at the end of the lunch, she decided not to go into real estate. And to this day, she thanks me for it because that that conversation was like eight or nine years ago. she then went and got her degree in, uh, her MFT, which is a master's in family, family therapy, um, couples in family therapy, whatever it is. And she's, and she's also a great therapist, loves what she does. But what I, what I talked to her about was the slog that is, um, generating leads. And if that's in your nature to do that, you know, then then more power to you. If it's in your if it's in your nature to generate business, we can build systems around you all day long. If it's not in your nature to generate business, it's it's a slog. It really is. You know, and this is why we see realtors whose businesses, even realtors who do a great business, go up and down and up and down because they don't have that. They don't have that super business like a lead gen funnel. And, and that's, and that's what you need. Yep. And more and more information is, is, is becoming commoditized. Um, it's going to drive a lot of businesses, a lot of industries out of business. Um, you know, I talked to someone about that in my last podcast on the Paul Morris podcast, you know, how, you know, a trillion dollars has been knocked out of value has been knocked out of software as a service business just because of the advent of certain technologies. Certain industries have been pushed out totally. We do not believe that that realtors will be pushed out because it's so important. It's so personal. it's so uh specific and it's a lot of things we've discussed with you today i mean it's it's apparent just that and it's just it's you've got to get with the program more one thing we all agree on is more deals will be done by fewer agents so yeah there is that yep so fire round yeah Brian, you know, it's been a total, uh, total delight, uh, chatting with you and, and love to, uh, love to see how, how, uh, somebody goes from, you know, being an assistant to doing, I mean, on track for 500,000 GCI. Beyond them. Yeah. That's where, that's where, that's where a lot of people, a lot of people want to be. And he's just getting started. Oh yeah. I'm betting on them big time. Me too. Me three. Especially you. Yeah. Yeah. So we ask these questions. They're just give your honest, visceral, quick response. We're not going to typically follow up on them and they're just fun and insightful. Okay, cool. What's the attribute you most admire in others? Selflessness. What's your idea of perfect happiness? Perfect happiness. a day on a boat. What's your greatest accomplishment? Moving to LA and not knowing anybody and feeling like I actually made it. What's your greatest fear? Failure. Who do you most admire? This is low hanging fruit, but my dad, we could dive into that, but, um, made a, made a lot for himself. Um, mostly by himself. Nice. What's a talent. What's talent you don't have that you would most like to have? Oh, that's a good question. I'm used, I'm more used to what's your greatest weakness. Um, the ability to tell people no. What's your favorite travel destination? I think Puerto Vallarta. Sure. So you're very active. I know that. So you go on a great hike here in Los Angeles. You know, nice size mountain. You're working hard. You're ascending to the top. You get to the top. You look down at your friends, your family, your colleagues, perhaps your clients, the people you care about most. And you shout one thing down to them. What do you shout? I think I made it. I love it. Thank you.