 I'm going to have, I'm going to introduce you Ricky Carruth. I was surfing on the web about it about a year ago, actually, and I started just listening for other people's ideas on real estate and what made them successful in that. I stumbled across one of his podcasts, so I started following it, implemented a lot of the tools and techniques with sales calls and just what you do with the, just numbers to get to be successful and to keep that mindset. Everyday, Ricky is a agent, single agent with remax out of Orange Beach, Alabama. His numbers, he's just crushing it up there, 39 million on his own last year just in sales. So, without further delay, I know a lot of you guys have a lot of stuff going on today, so let's let him get started. Ricky, it's all you. Appreciate it. Good morning guys, how are we doing? Good morning. Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. You guys are, I feel like you guys are going to get a lot out of this. How many, like is everybody here in real estate? How many, is everybody real estate? How many newer agents? Wow. My advice for you newer guys is never raise your hand or admit that you're an agent. So, I'm going to talk for a little while. I'm going to go over a little bit about my story and kind of my mindset, philosophy. I'm going to get into some of the details of what I do, how I do it, how I create relationships, and then we're going to do some Q&A. So, I'm really looking forward to some of you guys' questions that you're going to come to me with at the end. Just to create a little context, a couple of things I want you guys to get out of this today. I want you guys to start really paying attention to and lining up who you are as a person, as a human, as a real estate agent. I want you to line that up with how you're communicating with your prospects and clients. And I want you to value relationships over transactions, right? So, I'm going to give you a little background. I'm 36. I got into real estate when I was 20. Before that, I had a roofed house with my dad as a teenager. He had a roof in business. When I got into real estate, there was no Facebook, Zillow, Mojo, Red X, none of that stuff. So, I had to figure it all out, right? There wasn't a lot of tools that you have today. So, what I had to do is, I was used to laying shingles and getting paid and roofing a house. And so, when I transitioned into real estate, I had to figure out what in real estate related to laying shingles, to roofing. Like, what can I do in real estate that's the same as laying shingles and roofing? What action is going to create the results and produce? And so, through asking and watching and trying to figure everything out, I ran across the mail-outs, postcards, letters, and I thought that might be it. So, I just started crushing that. I started just sending out massive mailing, and I didn't really get much results. Now, I continued that, and later on, I did get massive results, and I still do postcards and letters today. But it didn't give me anything right then. I'm looking for something now. I need business. I need money. So, I ran across cold calls, right? There was an agent in my office that told me how to look up owners, how to find their phone numbers, how to look up comps. And I started to make phone calls, and I started to do business. And I said, that's it. That is the equivalent to laying shingles in real estate. So, I just became a phone call machine. Like, I just started just crushing the phones. And I learned really early on that conversation, real conversation, that's the key to all closings. Like, there's not a closing ever that happens without a conversation. It doesn't matter where you get the lead from, right? If it's online, postcard, sign, where you get the lead from, you have to talk to them. And so, my thoughts were, I'm just going to talk to as many people as I can. And so, whatever agent talks to the most prospects and has the most conversations, wins. It's really that simple. Real estate is really simple, right? The hard part is implementing the simple tasks consistently over time and just continuing to grind it out. But it took me, right? I did close to $40 million last year. When I first started in real estate, eight months to make my first sale. And agents come to me all the time now that are two, three, four months in the business and say, I haven't sold anything. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. You know, it took me eight months to make my first sale, so welcome to the club. But in today's world, you can really get in and go a lot. You can really start a lot faster. So really new agents haven't made. There's so many things, right? To me, the most interesting technology for me now is the dialer. Like the dialing systems that will single or double or triple dial people. And you can have all these conversations, right? I love social media. I use social media. Email. Email is the foundation of my business. I send a weekly email to my clients every week on the same day forever. I've been doing that since 2007. That is the foundation now. That's the glue that holds all my clients and keeps me relevant with my entire sphere. And they call me when they get ready to do something. And I love all that stuff. But the dialer to me is where you can actually create business right now. Short and long term. So I make my first sale. I start selling things. I'm selling two of mine. I'm getting the hang of it. And then the market explodes. And prices double in a couple of years. At that point, you know, this was 2003, 2004. You know, I'm 22, 3. I make a ton of money. A ton. A truckload. And everything's going super well. And I'm thinking I'm on top of the world. I'm retired. Everything is amazing. I've got Hummers and Cadillacs. And then the market crashes, right? And when the market crashes, I absolutely lose everything and some. I was negative. And so here I go. I'm 20. I'm a roofer. I'm 23. I'm a millionaire. I'm 25. I'm bankrupt. And I'm sleeping on Prince Couches. And I go back to roofing houses. And I work in an oil rig for a year. And not even looking back, but at the time when this happened, I am literally thinking to myself, it's awesome. Because there were 40 and 50 and even 60-year-old guys right next to me that were going through the same stuff as I went through when I'm 25. And I knew that that was a blessing because I was about to learn the greatest lessons of business and life at such an early age where these guys that were right next to me, my partners, are having to learn it at 40, 50 and 60 years old. I read over 100 books. I had such a... I'm such a driven, like I have such a driven personality. I just wanted to know what I did wrong. Like where I went wrong. How did I fail? I just had such a... such a why. Like I wanted to know why. I read a ton of books. I studied the market. I asked questions. And 2005 was the last time I sold a property. And then 2008 was the next time I sold a property. So between 2005 and 2008 I sold zero. I was roofing houses, working on the whole rig and trying to figure out what happened. In 2008 I got laid off from the whole rig and I got back in a real estate. It was a really unique situation. I don't think I ever told anybody this. I bought a million e-mail addresses and I e-mailed every single one of them in 2008. And I said, hey, the beaches are half price. It's what they were three or four years ago. Who wants some? And out of the million e-mails a thousand people responded and 20 of them bought something that year. And that was my foot back in the door of real estate. So it was very interesting. As I'm doing this people are responding to me. There's a lot of foreclosures. All these people bought foreclosures. I basically was selling foreclosures to buyers during that time. And a couple of things happened. One, the people that were responding they wanted a weekly report of the foreclosures. I heard it so many times. You know, you sent me a weekly list of the foreclosures. And so that's where my weekly e-mail developed. I listened to my clients. They told me what they wanted. And so I just started sending everybody this weekly report with foreclosures. So as time went on and the foreclosures went away it morphed into just a report without foreclosures, you know. So since 2007 this thing's went out every single Wednesday, no matter what. And it'll continue to go out forever. That's what holds my business together, right? So I get back in. In 08 I do well. 09 I do a little better. 2010 Bull Spill, BP Bull Spill hit our area really hard. That year rentals went away. Everybody was booked, canceled. Nobody's at the beach. Everybody's scared of the wool, the chemicals and everything else. That was a down year for us. So I looked at it as an opportunity. I said I'm going to take everything I learned in the big crash and I'm going to apply it to this mini crash. And I'm going to see if my theories and mindset are correct. Am I going to make it through this little crash? Who knows? Maybe it could have been a big crash. We did have black seeds and all that stuff. Nobody knew. That's what's scary part about it. Nobody knew what was going to happen with that. So I made more money in 2010 than I did in 2009. In a down year I made more money, a lot more money than I did the year before. So how did I do that, right? Well, when I did do it, that gave me the confidence that I needed. I always wanted to be at rematch. I always wanted to be there with the best agents. But I was always scared of the desk feet. I wanted to wait until I had absolute confidence that I could close sales consistently before I did that. So when I made it through the whole spill, I made more money in a year where transactions went down, agents were getting out of the business, so on and so forth. That's when I made my move. But just to break down what my philosophy was at the time and how I actually made more money during that time, because I want you guys to know how I feel about this because it's going to happen again and we're going to have a crash. It's going to happen at some point. Who knows when, but who knows how big it's going to be or small. It's going to happen. But what happens in a crash is transactions go down, right, a certain percentage. The number of agents that leave the business is a larger percentage than the percentage of transactions that goes down. For example, in my market during the big crash, we went down 50% transactions. We lost about 75% of agents. So what does that do? It creates more transactions per agent for the ones that stay, right? But how do you do business, right? That's great, but there's more transactions per agent, but how do you actually do business? You do business because you understand that during a crash, a couple of really great opportunities happen. One is that when the market goes down, you have to switch your mentality, right? Say you're helping homeowners buy primary homes or families buy condos or whatever. Those buyers are going to switch. Those buyers are going to go away. And that's what scares agents. What you're working with in this great market go away. But what you have to do is switch over to the other buyers, the investors, because when the market goes down, the investors want to buy right now before it goes up. There's urgency. So what you have to do is change your game plan. You call, I call property owners and say, hey, the market's crashing. What do you want to do? You want to buy because it's down before it goes up? Do you need to sell because you're in trouble? Or are you just going to hold and ride this thing out? Either way it goes. I want to know if you have an agent in place already. And if not, I would love to work with you whenever you do decide to do something. What's your email address? And I'm going to capture that forever in my weekly email where now they get to know me through my emails and now they call me when they get ready. But I'm going to run into people that want to buy right now and that have to sell right now. Does this make sense? That's what happens when the market crashes. Opportunity. So I made more money in 2010. I go to rematch. And now I combine this incredible, like all my strategies and philosophies with this really great brand. And that's when I really started to go to the moon. 2014 I did 100 deals, 1500 deals, 1600 deals. Last year I did 130 deals. I was the number one rematch agent in the state of Alabama, which to be honest with you guys, I don't really care about. What I'm proud about the number one thing is, is everything that I went through to get there. Like losing everything, figuring it out, adapting, all the failures, everything I went through, roofing houses, going back to roofing houses, working on an oil rig for a year. Like those are the things I think about when I think number one. Another thing is when I did hit number one I was like, I'm going to use this. Am I marketing? Nobody cares that you're number one. I think I made a post about that. I get less engagement on social media stuff where I'm saying I'm number one than anything else. Because nobody really cares. For one thing, everybody says I'm number one. So it almost discredits you that you're saying it. If you're really number one you don't have to say it, right? So it's an honor to be that, but to me it really, it's not number one in 2017, it's number one in life because it's all about the next level. I want to go to the next level, next level, next level. That's why I'm doing this today. I feel like I got to the top of the mountain of real estate and so I was discussing it with someone about, he was wondering about how I balance this huge real estate business I have as a single agent and coaching, training, speaking. How do I do all that? Well, how I do it is when you're building your business and you're trying to get to the top of the mountain, you have the time where you execute and then there's all this other time where you're trying to figure it out. Trying to figure out what to do, how to do it, how to get better. You're learning, you're reading, all that stuff. Well, when you get to the top of the mountain, now you don't have to really figure it out anymore. You've got it figured out. So now you have all this time where you work figure it out, open. And so I have to keep all my time filled up with something. So when I got there, I had to fill up this time with something else. So that's kind of how I balance it, is it's all relative to where you are in your career. I didn't say anything about selling a hundred profit. When I hit 100 in 2014, I didn't say it. I didn't post it, I didn't put it anywhere. You know, I didn't say anything about any of my success in real estate until I wanted to try to start helping other agents. And the only reason I would say anything about it is to use it to show credibility that, hey, this is what I did and this is why I feel like I have something that maybe you can use. So that's my story of real estate. What did I learn? Like what the big takeaway from when the market crashed the first time? You know, there was a lot of things but the biggest takeaway was that you have to value relationships over transactions. In the beginning of my career, I could literally call 10 condo owners and say he wants to make a hundred thousand and someone's going to do it. Like somebody wants to make a hundred thousand a day. And I would list it, it would sell in 24 hours, it would close in 30 days and we would go our separate ways. Me and the client. They didn't want to buy another condo for a hundred thousand more than they just paid for it. And I didn't really care if they wanted to talk to me again. I could call 10 more owners and do the same thing. So there was no substance, there was no relationships, there was no follow up, there was nothing. So when the market crashed, since I was so deal oriented at the time, I lost it all. I didn't know how to recover because I'm too concerned about the deal. There's many, many reasons why relationships are to be valued over transactions. But I believe that agents, mainstream training and agents are far more too concerned with how many appointments you've got and how many listings you've got and how many closings. And really to me, yeah, you need closings, you need listings and all that. You're going to get that if you're working, right? But what's more interesting to me is how many relationships did you put in place, right? There was an agent a couple of days ago that said, I've been teaching him how to do calls and do this and he said I've made nine thousand something calls this year and I've got four listings. And he said, what are those numbers telling you? And I said, nothing. I have no idea what those numbers are telling me at all. What I need to know is how many email addresses you've got, how many of those owners, like how many people did you talk to out of the nine thousand calls and how many of those owners gave you their email address. Trusted you, felt good enough about you, was comfortable enough with you to give you their email address. That's what's interesting to me where your skill level is, not the listings, because you can't control if someone's going to list their house, right? Because they make that decision, not you. You're not going to talk anyone in to listing a house or selling a house or buying a house. You're not going to talk them into it. They've already decided when they're going to do that if they're going to do it now. They're going to wait until their daughter graduates college if they're going to, you know, buy an investment property next year because they're waiting on the stock market for this or that. They've already, whatever their personal decisions are, you're not going to all of a sudden call somebody up and say and say something slick to get them to move forward, right? Your job, actually, is very simple to make them feel comfortable with you. That's it. Like, the number one reason why somebody chooses a real estate agent is because they like you. Like, likeability is number one. And I think whenever you're trained to go after the appointment or the deal or the closing or to handle an objection, I think it's sending the wrong message to the prospect of you're just another realtor that wants to do a deal. And you can find those on every corner, right? But if you approach it in an angle of how can I help you, not you and about yourself but what can I do to help you today? And you're not trying to actually question them into doing anything. You're just trying to get in there to get a conversation going to see if there are is the possibility of a working relationship. Right? So, I just think that that if you really take a look at the mainstream training, it kind of sends the wrong message. So I want to go back to lining up who you are with how you communicate. I'm sure I'm looking around the room and I'm sure, like, I'm looking all you guys' eyes and I'm sure all of you guys are really good people that you mean well, that you care about your clients, that you really, truly want to help them. But most of us have not been trained to communicate who we actually are. You haven't been trained to actually communicate that, like, who you are as someone who genuinely cares. You've been trained to go after the deal. Close the deal, right? So if you can communicate who you actually are with someone, number one, it feels natural to you. Like, it feels awkward to try to force somebody into something they don't want to do, right? Like, that's never a good idea. But the thing is, guys, is when you're talking to people, if you make a hundred calls or if you knock on a hundred doors or whatever, however you get in front of people, the thing is, is they're not going to do what they don't want to do. You know, that's just the bottom line. But you're talking to them anyway, right? Most agents, when they go through their list, they just want to see who wants to do a deal today. That's all they're looking for. Who wants to do a deal today? To me, I think maybe less than 1% of people that you talk to, the first time you talk to them, they don't want to do a deal right then. But, based on your personality and if you line up who you are with how you communicate, I believe that maybe 20% of people you talk to actually like you enough to do a deal, they're just not ready yet, right? So you're talking to them anyway. Why not establish a relationship with these people, right? And so, most agents live off the less than 1% of people that want to do a deal right now, and they disregard everybody else. But if you have this mindset that, wait, if I come to them from a place of, you know, helping, and I can actually create comfortability and likability and 20%, not 1%, but 20% of people like me enough to do a deal and I can follow up with them every week by email and they call me when they get ready, that's where all the money's at. That's where all the money is. That's how you get to 100 deals a year. You get there by living off the 20% and here's the thing, you're talking to them anyway. Why not spend the time you are talking to them and establish a relationship, right? Does that make sense? So, I guess I want to like go real quick, like do maybe a phone script. My phone script and the thing about the phone script is, I'm coaching, but everything I do is free, right? So for the past year, I started coaching a year ago and I've tried everything and I was charging and I had 200 members that were paying me. A couple weeks ago, I canceled 118 payments, automatic payments that were coming off those 200 people and I go free, totally free because of a couple reasons. One, I'm losing people. I'll spend $1,000 on Facebook, I'll sign up 300 people for a webinar, 100 people will show up to it and one person signs up. 99 of those agents wanted my help but because I wanted a couple hundred dollars and have a handout, they said that was great, I learned a little bit but I'm going to go elsewhere, right? I'll learn stuff but Ricky, he just wants money, he's another one of those, right? I want to help all 100 people and I'll get paid on the back end speeches, books, etc. So I can be 100% genuine to two people when I'm talking to them, coaching them because there's no ulterior motive. I'm not trying to get anyone to pay me a dime, right? I generally want to help you. So I woke up three months ago and I realized that I wasn't running my coaching business the way that I'm coaching real estate agents to run the real estate business. I coach real estate agents, it's about the relationship but here I am trying to get people to pay me, pay me, pay me and so it took me some time to realize this and I'm always trying to do things and figure out what works and what doesn't work and this is going to work. The other side of it is is when I do come to talk to you guys before when I'm charging people I have to hold back. I can't tell you everything because I want there to be a reason why you pay me, right? And one of the things that I hold really close is my phone script. I feel like that's something that people really wanted and so I will give it to people unless they pay me but now I can give it to anybody that wants it, right? So I'm really happy about that and I'm really glad I can share this part with you because it is a little deep. It's more than just what you say it is how you say it, why you're saying it and it's about reading the person on the phone. So if I'm calling owners ring, ring, ring, hello, Mr. Johnson? Yeah, that's Mr. Johnson. Hey, Mr. Johnson, this is Ricky Caruth the remix of Orange Beach. How are you doing today? My tone, how I'm talking, how I'm relaxed. I want them to feel like they're a friend or family. Like I'm a friend or family and I want to get into that zen in my mind where when I'm calling my dad that feeling I get of being very calm and comfortable with somebody I've talked to a million times that's how I want to feel in my stomach. I want to project that same tone, right? So, hey Mr. Ricky Caruth the remix of Orange Beach how are you doing today? Good, good. Yeah, me too. I'm enjoying the day. Isn't it gorgeous outside? If you'll notice there's how you're doing today and there's isn't it gorgeous outside? There's two questions nothing about real estate. I'm loosening them up, right? And two questions to get two responses so that I can read how their day is going. I'm listening to their tone how quick are they dizzy are they sad or are they mad? What's going on with them? And then I'm going to adjust my conversation accordingly. And then there's the awkward part of the call because most people feel awkward about saying something about the weather but the weather can be anything. It can be Christmas, New Year's, Easter something in the news. It can be anything. It's just something that's not real estate related to to loosen them up. Then comes the awkward part where it's like, okay, why are you calling? Right? This is the transition part where you say, yeah, I got you. Well, look, I don't want to take up too much of your time today but a house down the road sold or I just listed something or something went under contract and I didn't know if there's anything I could do to help you. I'm not asking them to buy or sell. I'm asking them if there's something I could do to help them. I'm respecting their time, don't want to take up too much of your time and I'm giving them some some very recent market information that they probably don't know because it just happened yesterday. There's always fresh market information like things are happening on the MLS every single day. There's always something that you can beat all the other realtors do. You can be the number one in information providing to your clients. If you're new and you just want to be, how do you stand out? How do you beat the experienced guys? Well, the experienced guys are too busy selling stuff. They don't have the time that you have on your hands to actually look at MLS and see what's sold today or under contract and you can relay that information to all the market first. So when I ask them if there's something I can do to help them, if they say yes, it's like, okay, cool. Do you have an agent you're working with on that? And then I'll follow through with wherever that goes. If they do have an agent, then nothing really you can do to have an agent. Their mom's an agent. Their brother's an agent. Their best friend from high school is an agent. You're not going to win that deal. Move on, right? So, but if they say no, there's nothing you can do for me. That's what I'm looking for. Because that's the opportunity to find out, I got you. Well, look, is there an agent you would work with if you were to do something? So now I'm pre-qualifying them if they already have a relationship in place or not. See, the one problem I see with agents is when they make calls and they don't really understand this, they'll have great conversations with people and they'll think I have a prospect. I have a new client. This is awesome. I'm really in, you know, but they don't know that their mom's a brillator and they're never, no matter how much they like them, they'll never use them. So this phone script does a lot and it pre-qualifies a lot and it sets you up for long term to win. No, there's not an agent. Okay, cool. Well, look, I'm sure at some point you're going to want to buy or sell something. I would love the opportunity to work with you when that day comes. I would like to know if I stayed in touch with you. Sure. Cool. What's your email address? And see how I set it up where I ask them if it's okay if I stayed in touch before I asked for the email address because nine times out of ten when they say, yeah, they're going to give you the email address. But a lot of agents mess up because they just say, after they say no, you're like, okay, cool, can I stay in touch with your email? And they're like, no, you can't have my email. But if you word it in a way of, hey, I'd like to stay in touch with you, is it okay if I stay in touch? Yes. And then ask for the email. You're a lot more likely to get it. But it has a lot to do with your tone, right? Because remember, if they sense that you're going after the deal, then they're going to be skittish because they feel like you're just another agent trying to put a deal together trying to get you, you know, but if it comes from a place of sincerity and your tone is right, and that only comes from making calls and getting better, like you're not going to get it the first time you make calls. A lot of people want to be perfect at calls before they make any calls, but it doesn't work that way. You have to make a lot of calls to get perfect. I'm pretty good, but I'm still working on it, too. So, that's my script. You guys can actually get it on my website, www.zernerdiamond.com. And if there's videos of me making calls, the whole deal. And you can figure out what I do there. We'll see. That's basically it, guys. I want you to really think about what I said about longevity, weekly email, relationships over transactions. But I guess, like, we're going to do some Q&A, so I'd love to hear whatever questions you have, but something I feel really strongly about is that you have to build your business on the phone, and then you build your brand with everything else. I think too many people are trying to build their business. Now, if I were new, I really would try to build my business on Facebook, right? But since I already had... I didn't even do social media until last year. I had a Facebook account. I had a YouTube channel, but I didn't do anything with it until January 2017 at all. And so I went from zero to a million, but I already had a really, really huge business before I even really touched or even thought about social media. I used it at zero because I was kind of stuck in my ways and it was working, so it's like if it isn't broken, don't fix it. So I just continued to do what I knew. Real estate is unique because there has to be that voice-to-voice contact. That's why I believe technology hasn't replaced real estate agents because there has to be the voice-to-voice contact and the relationship. So I felt like, and I still feel like, I still to this day feel like I could squash social media and everything. And I could sit with a dialer or even just a phone and a way to find phone numbers and do a weekly email and get right back where I am now. Email is technology. I mean, you know, like, it may be old-school technology, but people read their emails and it is a way to stay relevant. And if that email comes through on the same day, every single week forever, you guys, when I call and I establish the relationship, I get the email. They felt good. They thought we had a good conversation. Then they start getting this weekly email from me. The email does all the heavy lifting for me. When it comes every single week on the same day forever, it shows them how consistent I am and professional and hardworking and knowledgeable, right? It embodies everything that I am. Like, my personality goes through the email because I design it every week. I take an hour to design it every single week. It's not automated. I sit down. I come up with what it's going to say and I physically do it. Not my assistant, me. Because that is, that's the portal between me and all my clients. And it has to be the way I think it needs to be. And so, but it does all the heavy lifting for me. It stays in front of them. It builds their relationships. They call me when they get ready. That's the kind of business you want is when people call you when they're ready to do something. And there's no competition. When people call me, they've been getting my email for five years. They're not going to call any other agents. They're only going to deal with me. And so, it creates loyalty as well as, you know, build strong relationships. I think that that's what you guys, you know, should really kind of think about. And it doesn't have to be a weekly email, but you have to stay in front of people on a consistent basis to stay relative and just make sure that you're not trying to pressure anybody into doing anything, but be there when they get ready. Makes sense? Makes sense. Thank you, guys. Any questions? If we're going to get together, where are you getting the information or what type of information you're sending out? I have a Facebook group, Zero to Diamond Real Estate Agents, and I post my email on there every Wednesday for all these agents to just see it. But it's new listings, closed sales, a feature property, maybe an article about the area. It always has a big picture of something in my area, different links. You'll just have to look at it. It just has basic market information. Most of the links go to my website. Some of them go to MLS. It just depends on what I came up with that week, you know. What has been tough for me in the past is how do I come up with content in this weekly email that keeps people interested and opening it up every week. But what I realized over doing this for 11 years is that people just want to see what's sold. They want to see the new listings. They want to see what you think is a feature property. They really, because like I said, closings are happening every day, stuff's going under contract, and so there's always fresh information. And if they're getting that every week and it's showing that fresh information every week, that's really what they want. That's really what's going to keep them coming back. I have a lot of people that doesn't open the email. Two years later now they're kind of interested and now they're opening it. And so, you know, my list is over 10,000 people. 3,000 of those people open it up every week. So I got 7,000 people that get it that don't open it up. But I'll have clients that call me and tell me, hey, they act like I'm going to get mad that they don't open up my email. Like, I haven't really been reading it, but, you know, I'm calling you now and I want to do this or that. I'm like, okay, so I don't care if you open it up or not. Do you use some kind of contact manager? Do you personally sit down and do it yourself? Constant contact. Yeah, I've used them since 2010. It's a really funny story because when I first started doing it, when I did the million emails in 2008, I did it all through Yahoo. Right? And so you can only do, I think, 100 per email in Yahoo. So I was using Outlook so I could time them. So it set up like 100 of them to like go out like one every five minutes or so for like 24 hours or something. Yeah. Yeah. So that, and I didn't even have a website. That should be a statement to you guys that all that matters is that you're actually talking to people and creating relationships and stuff because I didn't even have a website when I started doing this. People are way too concerned with like what my business card looks like and what my website looks like and doing the details of their postcard and all this stuff. It doesn't matter at all. Just watching your presentation today, you have a great video presence but when you use the telephone you lose that video presence and I was going to ask have you considered having a video as far as responses to emails and things like that at the NAI convention a couple years ago, people were saying how much more successful that is and also you can time it, you can do it and send it to them, they can open it and see your response and it just solidifies one of your best features is your communication but not doing that, I feel you're probably wrong. So you're saying send them videos, are you speaking, you mean about the market? It's not so much personal emails like on mom and stuff? Well you could do the podcast, possibly a short five minute podcast for your weekly thing and then have all the detail associated but that would make it much more and remind them oh look Ricky's gotten gray or Ricky's doing this or whatever and anyway it's a great thing to embrace people more. So you're saying in my weekly email that I should do more video or have more audio or video? I think it's a composite thing and when he face to face on it I'm a licensed mortgage broker but I'm not practicing but there's these guys in California every day they have like a show or podcast I think it's a great idea so you guys you know, good idea go execute here's the thing guys everything works like for sale owners and the internet leads all of it works video and the email let's mix this who cares just do it just go do it and create results create relationships and do it you know constant contact does not have the ability to embed a video I can link videos to youtube it's not like you can watch it right there on the email you know I just started doing social media a year ago I'm actually kind of a really I really like the position I'm in because I've got to build my business the old school way completely old school and now but I'm young enough to understand technology and now I'm all in and so I've got the best of both worlds and I'm back and I'm not just making phone calls now I'm a combination of both sides I'm really killing it from both ends I can't do everything do I want to try doing them I've been thinking about doing videos on facebook, linking it through my email and doing all kinds of stuff I'll get to it but very good point try it guys so Mr. Ricky thank you for everything as a part time agent now and wanting to transition in the full time what would be your suggestions to make that happen ASAP and then once I do that what would you recommend to really crush it right out the back well I mean going from part time to full time my general advice is always on real estate until you before you make the move because I don't know if you have a family that you have to support so you can't just go cold turkey and just risk everything on real estate when you're not making any money on real estate so you have to replace your income with your day job with real estate before you make the switch so what hours do you work your day job work pretty much nine to six sometimes eight to six so here's the thing I sell real estate for a living but I'm a part time speaker so how do I do that I sell real estate all day and then I work on my speaking stuff all night and so for you what I would do is you get off at six this is what I would do I would have all my phone numbers ready and I would start calling them on my drive home from work I would literally call people in my car on my way home because you don't know what too late you can't call them at seven once you get home you know six is getting kind of late already but you need to make like five calls at least or five or ten calls on your way home right um have them in your phone ready where you don't have to dial the numbers go ahead and dial them and hit send and then in and that way when you get in there you can just hit send okay do the talk till I'm sent that way you're not getting in a red but but I mean being efficient though right like winners don't winners make it happen they just make it happen like there's no secret or there's no like equation like they just make it happen um a lot of stuff like speaking stuff for me has been a lot of work for nothing up to this point right um same thing with real estate you have to risk your time for the fact that you really want this you really want to help people and that you're going to make it happen and so you just got to tell yourself that I'm going to make this happen period right like I believe that there's four keys to long term success the first keys you got to believe right if you don't believe you're dead right there and when I say believe 100% fully committed no other options so in your mind you're already the number one agent that's the way you should be thinking I am the number one agent right even though you're not there yet you are in your mind like me I'm the number one real estate speaker in the world already I know that right the second part is work hard so I don't know you but believe work hard adapt and be patient see the people that believe they're everywhere people that believe in work hard not very many people that believe work hard and adapt very few people that believe work hard adapt and or patient the patient's part was my biggest straw because I always believe work hard and adapt it but the patient's part was the part that I had trouble with I uh in 2014 I did 600k I wanted to do a million the next year I did this huge plan I'm going to do this, this, this and this and I'm going to get there the next year January rolls around I'm trying to put the pieces in place February, March and I'm looking at my income and I'm going to make the same amount of money this year as I made last year and I start really getting down to myself really down to myself and that's really a bad place to be so I started searching again I want to know what I'm doing wrong what's wrong with me, why can't I do this and so I got a coach long story short I realized that I'm doing great 600k is awesome but the thing from 600 to a million is patients like I'm doing all I can do guys to reach your full potential is I refer to it like a cup right everybody has a different size cup your cup represents how much you can handle how much business can you handle because some agents have a couple things under contract it blows their whole day and I don't get that I've never understood how two listings and one pending takes up 40 hours in a week so to me like I keep 50 to 20 properties under contract 50 to 60 listings at all times that's kind of my cup I can handle maybe a little more but what you have to do is overwhelm yourself with business make 2,000 calls whatever you do to get business people are scared to overwhelm because they don't want to reduce their customer service right they're scared they're going to give up some of their customer service but things that scare you you probably need to do right so overwhelm yourself find out where your breaking point is how much can you handle right and then once you know that until you overwhelm yourself you don't know how much you can handle you have to take that leap overwhelm yourself figure out how much you can handle and then stay there that's how you reach your full potential keeping as much as you can handle at all times so and it's author right I just think that making it happen with no excuses is the big punchline for you but making calls in your way home could be really big and put everything you got into it from that 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock where if you spend time with your family you make calls you get home you spend that time with your family you put on a bed now you have an hour to develop the email write some letters do some postcards strategize study the market see what the new listings where they came up to do see what's under contract target the neighborhood that you want to go after right plot right closings are happening every day every single day so it's not the market right they're happening it's you you haven't figured out how to make it happen and it's all about relationships what was your you say 4 keys I got believe in yourself work hard adapt patience is it 2 more is that the 4 work hard 2, 3 more believe work hard adapt most of you guys I can talk to anyone in here for 5 minutes that is not successful or not as successful as they want to be I can have a 5 minute conversation with you and tell you which of these 4 things you're lacking in because it boils down to these 4 things period and most of you it's the adapting part it's the patience of course but you don't get to patience until you learn how to adapt that's after adapt most of you get here here but the adapting part is the part that most people stumble to adapt I've always been an adapter I adapt immediately to everything I could come in this market right here and crush all of you guys here's the thing agents you know I have a thousand or 2,000 agents who follow me and all this stuff and ask me questions and something I get the most question I get is about voicemails which is silly because it's just like tell them who you are and what you're calling about and call you back use voicemails as a branding tool don't think of it as I got to figure out how to say something special to make them call me back don't worry about calling back just use it as a branding tool where they heard your name and number and everything but another big one is open houses open houses aren't big in my market at all for whatever reason and they're like oh you don't do open houses they're like thinking you're not even a realtor well if I were in a market where I'm losing listings because I'm not doing open houses I'll now be the open house king if I'm in a market where horse farms take 2 years to sell and you got to spend $3,000 to market it I'm going to be horse marketing pricing king I'm going to price it just right if I'm going to spend $3,000 to market that property I would adapting is just in my blood to answer your question your background you didn't really share everything but as far as have you ever been like a you're a broker associate but you've not had any agents working with you or for you I try to do a team one time that's for that your remax experience obviously you have the brick franchise and the tools and so forth but before that you operated without the big franchise could you sort of tell your thoughts about the pros and the cons and what advantages nothing it doesn't matter where you were it doesn't matter how hard you were with a small company you're going to eventually plateau and you're just going to feel that pressure on your shoulders like I got to go somewhere else to learn something new or to have more exposure and so forth and that's when you move to the big brand but until then it doesn't matter if you're building your business who cares where you're at it doesn't matter you have to learn how to make people feel comfortable with you that's it tone, body language what you're about who you really are as a person that's what matters they're going to like you for you not because of where you work they don't care how much you sold if they like you but if you come to them kind of nervous how much have you sold that's when you get that question when they're trying to evaluate who you are because it sounds like you just want to do a deal right so people think oh how can I break into the market I haven't sold anything well if you're doing your job of making people feel comfortable with you it's not an issue they tone of each of visiting thank you but on your telephone calls in that pre-qualification stage when you said I ask them if they have a relationship with another realtor do you, if they say yes my mother's in it or the girl that sold me the house you did a pretty good job do you end the conversation right there or do you probe them a little further but I'm normally ending it right there because they've already said they're not interested in doing anything right now now they're saying that they got an agent whether they're lying or not it's like well they're telling you there's two negatives there they don't want to do anything and they got an agent sounds like they just want to get off the phone so what can you do there you can't really do much so what I normally say is when they say they have an agent I'll say hey who is it oh I know that agent you're in really good hands and I'll move on and maybe some people change agents all the time so maybe they see your sign and they see this and they see that and then their agent didn't call them back that one time and really made them mad and they say I'm going to call Ricky so yes question do you have a brand new agent first day in the business they sit down in front of you what's the first thing you tell them to do and what goal settings do you have them make I tell them to make calls call property owners, create relationships or send them weekly emails are you talking about forced out by owners or just property owners property owners for self by owners that expires I'm not against them at all I am I don't call them I don't think it's the most efficient way but you know it's a high pressure situation for self by owners that expires two other agents are calling them it's high pressure if you're calling random owners very low pressure they're open they want to talk they want to know what's up with the market they want to get to know you but when you call for self by owner they're like oh you got another villager so it's two different ball games a lot of people really succeed with for self owners and expires I know a lot about them not my game I feel like I crush those guys because I'm a long game and I want I want quantity of clients who love me because I didn't try to pressure them so they love me now and now when they decide they're going to come to me so I think the biggest thing for new agents is learning a couple things one is that losing deals is the greatest thing that can ever happen to you right too many agents take a loss and get down on their cell because they were looking at what the closing was going to do to the bank account and then they lose the deal and they think they lost the money but really they never had the money so what a loss actually does a seller decides to use a different agent a buyer backed out of a contract cold feet no reason what happens is is very incredible the biggest thing is well not the biggest thing but you learn something right that's the cliche part of losing deals but let me tell you the biggest part of it people don't even realize what's more valuable than money time time you can replace your money if you lose it all tomorrow but you can't get yesterday back you can't replace time it's more valuable it's your most valuable asset when you lose a deal now you get future time back that you don't have to spend on that deal anymore this is where people really I lose them a little bit the future time that you get back that you don't have to deal with signing that listing meeting them taking the pictures, putting the sign up show it, negotiating the deal going on the closing inspection, financing you don't have to do all that anymore on that situation you get all those hours hours back and now you can take that new knowledge you got from whatever you learned why you lost a deal now you're a better agent because you learned something but you got hours of your life back where you can take that new knowledge and go get five more deals in the same amount of time right you realize that everything in real estate is a win-win there's no way to lose that's when you really start to understand if I can get that inside new agents head then I think I can really have a shot at helping them succeed because they can just power through okay I'm doing deals I lost that one cool I got that one okay I lost that one and just keep moving forward when you take advantage of the future time you got back instead of moping you can always notice a losing agent always talking about the deal that got away the inspection that went back the financing that fell through that's what they're talking about in the office when I hear that I'm like oh lordy they're not gonna make it so concentrate on the deals that are working forget about the ones that fell fell apart and use that future time it's the most valuable thing in the world and you just got some of it back for newer agents or people who are trying to implement their goals and everything is there sort of self-health type thing where you're taking care of yourself in those moments of weakness those overwhelming moments in those moments where you like just go to my YouTube and just every time you feel bad just seriously though I see what you're saying and yeah it's all about being around people that are minded like me like if you can find someone to be around like me like follow me on Instagram and YouTube whenever you feel bad, literally I go there because all the stuff that I'm saying is right there and like you look and be like oh oh oh you know yeah I'm good I'm good you see what I'm saying alright so for agents that are like new to an area or it is a new agents period where do you think the majority of time should be spent as far as phone calls she said as a new agent where should your time be most spent or even just like new to the area study your market if you're new to the area you don't know what's going on what you need to do is study MLS for about a half a day figure out what's going on in the market like pull up all the sales from the last year and figure out which price rangers are selling the best and all this stuff right and then target a subdivision say that's going to sound pretty good it's 3-400 range it's sound pretty good there's 100 houses there I want to start here then you're going to go to all the listings call all the listing agents and go look at all the houses drive through there talk to as many people as you see really become familiar with the layout and the geography and everything then we're going to go to redx we're going to get all the numbers we're going to start calling the owners we're going to have all the comps in front of us and we're going to go to town start developing the relationships get the emails send weekly emails you talk a lot about building new relationships as much as possible and the volume of building a new relationship so when you have 10,000 relationships how do you still have hair on your head they get a weekly email from me so when you have a lot of those interpersonal relationships working when they all start hitting you do you have any advice I should say for agents that find themselves with a large volume of good quality I think it's a good problem to have I mean please give me 100 people call me at once I'll be glad to sit down and make a list of all those people and start calling them one by one it may take me 3 days to call them all back but I welcome that scenario and like I told author winners just make it happen doesn't matter just do it whenever I had my coach I was trying to get to a million because I hired the coach because I wanted him to show me how to make a million dollars because I was going to make 600 again and so he set up this plan for me it's kind of similar to the one I had before I called it you need to make this many calls you need to do that much right I'm like okay cool cool cool so I set it up I'm going to go Monday I'm going to make this many calls two I'm going to make this many calls the stuff got in the way because I am making 600,000 I do have a lot of deals going on so I'm working on my deals I can't get to the calls so when I have my coaching call I said I couldn't do the calls I'm too busy I'm like what do I do how do I do this so I set up with deals that I have to do versus time blocking to make the calls I need to make to hit my goals tell me magical coach and he said all that other stuff I said yeah what he said just do it as in just do the stuff that you have to do because you have to do that stuff so when a hundred people call you at once you sit down you make a list of all the people that called you and say how can I help you you know it does get hectic at times you will find yourself in some very tight situations like last Wednesday my report goes out every Wednesday last Wednesday it was a little wild because all kinds of appointments pop up and so it was really getting down it was like 4 o'clock and I still had a lot of people had a call back and deals I'm negotiating it happened and it went out like 5.15 or something right so that's your question you just make it happen it's that simple I mean this stuff is really more simple than you say how many admin people do you have one she's an absolute animal she's a beast so just to follow on this young man's question when you say how can I help you today and what can I do for you it comes across as really being genuine and authentic out the box so how do you really handle if someone is like ok well I need my garage clean something off the wall or something non related to real estate because I think I would have a problem with people I'm a pretty nice fella I know you say time is the most important thing so how do you as professionals draw the line so to speak I think establish yourself as the real estate agent not the contractor right I think that that's a big part of it as people know you're a real estate agent and not a contractor and so they draw a line a little bit and say in their self about that but I do get people to ask them to make stuff kind off the wall I have contractors that I'll say I'll call so and so and I'll just refer it to somebody it's a garage guy they want their house clean they need something painted they need floor redone or whatever I have people in place I've got contractors that will do that kind of stuff and I'll just pass their number along now I'm out of it the problem with it is if you're a firm with somebody who does a really bad job and now it's kind of like it's back on you so if I don't have anybody I'll literally tell them hey I don't have anybody for that I'm sorry I can't help you with that so there have been moments like there have been plenty of windows of time where I didn't have a contractor that I felt good about and so if there was somebody that needed flooring or something done I couldn't refer them to anybody and I would just tell them hey I don't have anybody and here's the thing when you're honest they appreciate that they don't have anybody it doesn't really matter if you're not giving them somebody because hey I don't feel good about anybody I wouldn't feel good about giving you anybody so and they're like okay yeah please don't give me anybody if you don't feel good about it but on the flip side when I do feel good about somebody I say listen I don't refer people unless I feel super good that they're going to take care of you the way that I would take care of you if I were in that business I wouldn't have a person to you so you just say no when you got to say no and you never put your reputation on a lot as much as you can even if you refer somebody you feel good about and they do a bad job you felt good about but they did a bad job that's not a good situation to be in so you got to be careful right yes ma'am readex redex.com if you call them they'll wave the $150 startup fee and get geo leads on the bar and then it'll find up to 300 addresses I mean phone numbers of the owners around that address it'll find 25, 50, 100, 200, 300 the different tiers but it's $50 a month and it finds them in a split second you put a address in and it finds 300 owners numbers around that address you just click a button and boom they're right there theredex.com who said that yeah theredex.com and if you call them and tell them I sent you they'll wave the $150 startup fee and then you can just start paying 50 a month all you need is geo leads they have a dialer you can use their dialer if you want or you can use mojo's dialer or you can call them from your cell phone jaylin jaylin you said geo, geo geo, yeah geo geo leads geo leads yeah it is awesome because a lot of the numbers, not a lot some of them are cell phone numbers the quality of the numbers that it finds is the best and I've used everything I don't think it had to really use as cold resources if anybody's ever tried that but I don't know how good their quality is but I've tried a lot of them and this one is really really good they've already screwed up against the two and I called this they make a note next to it it says some of them say dnc next to it that's do not call so if you're against doing that I don't really care is it for as far as the do not call they already scrub it they have it labeled there next to it so it's for the they don't scrub it they still call it but it's just labeled dnc it could be your rebuttal for a seller on the phone that says they already have an agent that is willing to do it for 1% 1% I was talking about these are agents that are about the quantity not the quality is this like a redfin or one of those technology based? no actually it's not just some agents I know in the market here well here's the thing on discount brokers let them go use them and find out how horrible the service is so is that what you would say to them? yeah go use them find out how horrible the service is and then I'll see you in a month right? here's the thing too like the discount brokers like okay they're going to sell their house through the discount broker right? but then they're going to buy a house right? so if you do your job and don't make it a big thing and mad at them for using somebody else maybe you still get to sell when they buy so it doesn't matter because you're not trying to do the deal you're trying to help them and if they feel like that's what's best for them I want them to go there and you go do that now I have extra time on my hands because you went there I'm going to go spend my time with these people that pay me 3% and I'm going to help you when you buy something because you love me because I didn't get mad at you because you went through a discount broker that's how you handle it they're going to come back to you most of them that use discount brokers find out the service is not where it needs to be and it's definitely not what I'm going to give them and so they find out I'm worth my money some of them don't care about the service they'd rather sacrifice money for service and for those guys that's fine too there's unlimited deals for everybody like it's unlimited as much as you can handle your cup your cup's always full who cares if something spills over how do you handle overpriced listings overpriced listings I try to set the expectation with the seller hey it's not going to be shown at all probably it's not going to sell you need to be here I try to get them down or at least get them down as low as I can and just make them understand that this is going to be tough probably not going to happen but I do list it if they want to if they understand that and they're good with it and they still want to list it because I again don't care about the deal I want to do what's best for them and so what happens is a very cool thing listings I think will never sell sell in a day and listings I think will never sell never sell I listed one for $5.50 a month or two ago last sale is $4.85 and I tell the seller I'm like never going to happen you're just crazy but I sold her the condo for like $4.62 years ago I'm like okay cool let's do it or whatever sold her for $5.30 closing on in a couple weeks something I thought would never sell so here's the thing you're not the real estate god of pricing fires are you don't set the prices what makes you the god of pricing you look at the comps and now oh that's what it is Ricky said so actually the person that's going to buy it will set that price and so what happens is a really cool thing you overprice it then the market catches up a little and the seller reduces a little now we're close in three months or a year or two years I have listings for two years that sell because I overpriced it but I stayed in touch with the seller because I didn't care about it not being shown I cared about maintaining that relationship so they just let me keep the listing it sells in two years so concentrate on the relationship, not the deal you speak a lot to listings and prospecting on listings do you work with a lot of buyers? tons of buyers, 50-50 this year my buyers come from property owners that's my source of buyers zero buyer leads zero whatever buyer lead I don't do any of that I concentrate on the property owners that's the most efficient way to work they're dual they can buy or sell or both and they're unlimited you can't call them all in your area I mean this is like the biggest county in this side of the equator you'll never call every single one of them so it's unlimited you have unlimited amount of prospects to buy and sell why would you even talk to a buyer lead unless they're a seller too but there's people that crush with the buyer leads and I love them for it but I feel like the most efficient way to do it is to build long term relationships with property owners who buy and sell so like I say, my ratio this year is 50-50 is there a reason why you send your email not on wednesdays? no, you can send them out any day of the week you want saturday, sunday, monday too it doesn't matter, what matters is that whatever day you pick that's all that matters they want to see consistency how are you going to stand out in the market because they got that email from you for five years every single Tuesday every single Thursday that's how you're going to stand out that's why they're going to pick you because of that do you anything different to break into the higher priced market? yeah, just start calling higher priced property no ma'am no ma'am I wouldn't say anything different to them I wouldn't say anything different to an expired or for sell by an owner, a buyer-lead or any other I would say, hey, this is Ricky Kruth how are you doing today? yeah, I'm enjoying the weather look, I'm taking too much time today but I saw you look at something online I saw your house expired I see you have this property is there anything I can do to help you? it's the same exact script business in general you're really a user for anything it's building relationships and it's not going for the kill it's loosening them up reading them what's going on with them today and then respecting their time giving them a marketing info and finding out what you can do to help them same thing two questions how do I get that five minute conversation with you? what's that? how do we get into your coaching? go to diamond.com you just go there, it's free just sign up five minute conversation you can call me anytime my business cards are on the table back here you guys can grab one and call me anytime email me, text me anything else guys? yes sir? your farm area, is it just the county that you're in? yeah, he's asking my farm area if it's just a county I am or what my county is like that's pretty big so there's a whole other world on the north side of our county the south side of our county is the beach and Gulf Shores Arms Beach and all that, I grew up in Arms Beach Gulf Shores, went to Gulf Shores Elementary in Foley High School, so Foley Gulf Shores Arms Beach is kind of like the same area to us locals and then when you get into Florida it's pretty do-key, I've got my Florida license so I could actually I could actually just move down here start crushing these guys right now but anyway there's so many condos on the beach you know and houses right across and that's where my office is and that's where I grew up right there so I just kind of focus on the beach in terms of my farming now I sell commercial lots apartment complexes, houses I sell it all just from being in the business and people seeing me and coming to me and stuff but as far as my farming prospecting efforts I really want to be mid to high end, Gulf front right across the street thank you guys