 Technology has come in and played a cycle or two and what we've done as an industry and as a consumer is we've taken these cycles of digital that's happened, this technology, these technological cycles in the market and what we've done is we've picked out the parts that we like and the parts that we don't like. I grew up in construction roofing houses and we had to be on the job side at 7, 6.30 or 7 but you know I literally woke up at 6.22 and just threw a pair of pants on and just you know jumped in the truck and landed on a roof so I didn't get up at you know 4.30 back then. Not till here recently maybe a year and a half ago maybe I started waking up at 4.30 just because my business has grown to a certain point where I need to squeeze I got I had to find another place of some time you had to figure out where I was gonna you know get some more stuff done you know with everything that has to be done so I started waking up at 4.30 not because I've been doing it all my life just because I've tried to find another couple hours in the day so no that's good man that's good no I I've been selling real estate for 20 years 19 actually 19 and a half I guess something like that since 2002 and got in when I was 20 years old made a lot of money really quickly the market exploded lost it all in the crash and went back to roofing houses actually and I'm through that man just I tell you I like lost everything went bankrupt sleeping in my car eating out of people's refrigerators my thoughts were helping people buy and sell you know what I did that for two decades now but you know now it's even turned into helping agents you know and who knows where it will go from here you know maybe I can take my sales experience and sales knowledge and help people in other industries at some point you know but it's all about helping people you know how many people you help you know regardless if they can benefit your business or not you know just help everyone you know the more you try to help you know and you build your brand around that you know when you build your brand around being the hardest working person who just loves to help people people love that they gravitate to you you know if you're an honest professional person you don't care what you do what you sell they're going to want to do business with you when you're not trying to pressure them into doing a deal you know you're just there to help them do whatever they're going to do anyway people are already buying and selling everything that's happening this changing is happening really for the better of real estate agents in my in my eyes in my view it's just things that are making our lives easier and easier you know even down to Zillow I mean Zillow has knocked out a lot of the searching process that I used to have to go through you know clients can go on Zillow and tell me what they want to look for what properties they want to see you know we want to see these properties you know well thank you thank you for that list let me set those let me set those up and and we'll go take a look at them yeah so you know every step of the way I don't see anything on the horizon you know that is going to replace agents everything I see is pro agents there may be entities out there trying to figure it out and they may get to a certain point with it you know nobody knows what the future is going to hold so you know it's all very it's all very interesting to me to watch technology has come in and played a cycle or two and what we've done as an industry and as a consumer is we've taken these cycles of digital that's happened this technology these technological technology cycles in the market and what we've done is we've picked out the parts that we like and the parts that we don't like you know like we went through a couple rounds of you know buyers basically choosing random agents online and that ended up not being such a great thing at the end of the day you know percentage wise you know so now the market's leaning back towards picking an agent they know like and trust and it's created this bond with and this relationship with and feels like they're a friend or family member we're leaning back towards that so that's one thing okay we may take the okay I'm going to find all my properties on Zillow but then I'm going to take that list and give it to my local agent I have a relationship established with instead of picking an agent on Zillow or one of these online platforms you know so so they're picking and choosing you know what what makes their life easier with technology they just want agents that care and will stay in touch with them answer their phone let them know when stuff's not going right smooth the deal out for them you know get them what they feel like is the best negotiated deal right so I think those are the things that consumers really want you know and have really always one I don't think it's really changed a lot over the years you know we're just that it we're just in a different playing field you know for these I just want to know what they're looking for and why they want to buy what are you looking like why do you want to buy you know why are you doing this and what are you looking for those are the two main questions right and are you working with an agent currently already you know if this is a buyer I don't know not a house kind of referral they're just out of the blue off the streets Internet lead you know called off a sign or you know saw something online and call me I don't know this person I want to know if they're already talking to other agents if they're working with somebody let's go ahead and clear that up right now before we go any further why are you buying you know and and what are you looking for right because the thing is is I will do the search for you I'll go online I'll go on MLS I'll pull up every property in their criteria I'll hand pick the best deals and I'll email them to you that's my go-to right there I'm gonna I'm gonna go for that first if they say if they say well I've got these properties already picked out of when looking on Zillow or wherever I've got these properties picked a cool send me those MLS numbers let me let me see if I can add something else to those MLS numbers that are similar that maybe you missed right and either way it goes well definitely and let me definitely try to set these up for us to go look at it's just up just the just the task of just dealing with the showings it was setting up all the showings dealing with appointments and and working on it having people cancel having people cancel having people not show up you know no shows and stuff like that you know they get they get tired of it before they even get to a contract then if you get to a contract okay now you really need a third party you need a third party to help you negotiate this deal you know the you know you as the seller I mean you can sit there and say I'll take this and I'll take that you know and some some some sellers can pull this off they're they're good negotiators are good business people and stuff but your average person is not a great negotiator and they can leave a lot of money on the table whereas if you have that third party you know agent representing you to help you negotiate that deal and get the best price if you look at the fact that business is unlimited because closings happen every single day forever regardless of market conditions then you know you can start to break down how this business really is unlimited in terms of you can't talk to every single person in your market ever in your life okay that would be the goal if if and then once you did you'd have to turn right around and do it all over again because everybody changed their mind after five seconds so it just creates a scenario where if you look at the business correctly it's an unlimited abyss of work to do take the deals out of the equation and start to concentrate on database growth but people don't understand how much work really goes into this on a foundational point of view or a strategic you know technical point of view on actually closing the deals I mean you know let's go juggle you know I would love for someone out there who thinks real estate agents don't do much and come stand up 15 minutes over here in my office and juggle the things that I have to juggle just to try to maintain and just help everyone feel comfortable and keep everybody happy make sure that they feel like they're getting the best service and they're getting the best deal you know there's a lot and somebody's making 12,000 and they didn't return your calls for a week during the transaction somewhere you're just like what in the world like this person does not deserve $12,000 they literally went MIA for a week and here they are we're at closing and they're getting a $12,000 check you know so yeah no I totally understand it that we were talking about it before the show you got to have this drive that no one can teach you you know you've got to have it inside of you that you're gonna do this you know and you've got to be dependable you have to answer your phone you have to be responsible you have to be professional you know when people make you mad sometimes you have to bite your lip right sometimes you have to not show those emotions you know I mean it you know you got to wear it on your sleeve and and let things go in certain situations and you got to know when to get mad there's definitely times to get mad and there's times to let things go it's called being professional you know I've had the same lender for over 10 years and when he tells me that he has never let me down if he can't do a deal he tells me this is not gonna work if he tells me I can make this work it always comes through you know we might as well check cash on the on the contract when we're dealing with this guy because he just he it always happens you know but I didn't just I didn't go out and interview a bunch of different lenders to find this guy it was through trial and error so as it's the same thing you know I used I used a lender didn't like the experience use a different lender didn't like the experience use a lender had a great experience and then the next deal not a great experience so he's out finally I find this lender boom it's just been like clockwork now there was one hiccup one time where he got really busy he didn't answer a couple of my clients calls I quit using him for a second he called me months later and says hey what's the deal here I said well listen man it you're too busy to help my clients I'm not going to I mean as good as you are I got to have service to and since that moment that was about six or seven years ago never had a problem since then with him answering the phone or helping my clients but it's the same thing with consumers looking at agents you know you got to get in there and get some experience you don't know what you're looking for until you've got it you know so so get in there and you know you can talk to an agent you can interview an agent you can say hey are you gonna answer your phones you're gonna be dependable do you have experience you can ask all those you know typical interview questions but at the end of the day they're I mean they're gonna tell you whatever you want to hear they're gonna tell you whatever they think that they need to say to get the business and then only their their real experience through the transaction is going to be the tell the real tell if they're really who they say they are you know so you know it's hard to say okay what do you ask them or how do you pick one you just got to get in there get your hands dirty and do a couple transactions and then you'll know and if they're not a great agent you didn't like the experience you move on to another agent and then you move on to another agent so you find one that you really like and then you stick with not tell them you have a buyer but in your mind you know tell yourself I have a buyer okay just to build that same amount of conviction and confidence it's like it's like people say okay I'm living on Zillow leads okay and I'm spending $100 a lead or $15 a lead or $20 a lead for Zillow okay but these are warm leads Ricky and I feel comfortable calling these leads even though when you call the leads they don't know who you are what you're calling about anything any sort of the matter you're right back to making cold calls they're buying Zillow leads to get around the cold calling activities because they're scared to make calls so they're spending all this money scared to make calls just to turn around and make calls but what I'm saying is is you can actually target the exact property owners you want for two cents you can say okay I want this subdivision I'm gonna call all the all the property owners in this subdivision you can get all their contact information for two cents you can use the same philosophy there if you need it to be a Zillow lead to feel comfortable enough to call them what you need to do is pick out the exact properties you want to sell get their contact information for two cents and then pretend like they're a Zillow lead