 When I, you know, look at an agent, I can't say, oh, cold call is the only way or social media is the only way or direct mail or door knocking or networking or whatever it is. There's so much market share. You have so much time on your hands because you're not doing a ton of transactions. You have time to actually talk to more people in the market that don't know who you are to make that introduction, plant those seeds, put them in your database, remarket to them forever. And you're right. There's so many different ways to lead Jen. And what I realized is the reason why a lot of people struggle is because they try to do all of them. You know, how many people can you talk to per day for the next three to five years? And then you never have to prospect another day in your life. And the problem is most people don't, I guess, don't have a big enough why. When I was coming up, my why was I'm going to bank a million bucks. But at the end of the day, everything comes back to just talking to people in your market, building relationships, helping them buy and sell, remarketing to them. And good morning. We're back and with Ricky Caruth, who is top agent coach, author, zero to diamond, the only real free coach in the country. Am I correct with that still, Ricky? So far. Awesome, man. Great to hear it. So I ask everybody the same question as we get started on this broadcast today. And I'm really excited to have you here. So I've got so much stuff I want to talk about. So I got to slow down a little bit with what's going on. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're a legend in your own time. You're really great stuff. But I got to ask you this, what does TGIF stand for? TGIF, man, I ate there a couple of times. It was pretty good. Yeah. Well, it means a little bit different on this broadcast. It means thank God it's finale. So here we are. And if we take the TGIC, it would be thank God it's Caruth's, but it's not, it's finale. So anyway, man, let's get right down to it. I mean, you know, there's, there's a lot of things going on in our business have been huge, huge differences in our business in 2023. And this is being broadcast October 27th, 2023. For those that watched this later, you get a timestamp on it. There's so many things going on in our business, Ricky. And, you know, nothing that's, one thing that has never changed is that listings are king. I mean, everybody wants, everybody should be looking at listings to really control their business. And I know you would agree with that. What, I mean, you've got some, you've got some, some things that you've been doing to help agents zero to diamond the whole thing. Talk a little bit about what you're doing to push agents and to help agents along and go from there. Well, I mean, I've been through this before, you know, as far as this shift, you know, when you go through a massive shift, you kind of learn how to handle a shift. And so a lot of agents that have never been through a shift, you know, they continue to try to do the same stuff over and over through the shift, they kind of ignore things are shifting. And they don't really go with the flow of the shift, right? The whole thing is to move like water. And to kind of understand there's going to be ebbs and flows in the market year by year. And to kind of be mentally prepared for that massive shift, you know, this year, we're going to have the same amount of transactions as 2008. I mean, this is 2008. The only reason prices haven't went down because the regulations are mortgages that they put in place after 2008 and all the institutional and non institutional investors that are out there who value these properties at a very high price based on the ROI of rent. So, you know, it's a very interesting place. And what it comes back to is that closings never stop. It's never going to go to zero prices are never going to go to zero, you know, it's going to ebb and flow every year up, down sideways, left, right. But the constant remains the same closings are happening and people need agents to help them through those transactions. So once you realize that you kind of get a little bit of relief from this whole my business could, you know, implode over the market crashing on me. No, it can't. If you slow down with the market, it does. Right. You know, right now, we're in the middle of, we're not in the middle, we're at the bottom of our 10 year housing cycle, right? That happens every 10 to 15 years. We're at the bottom of our yearly housing cycle where every fall prices soften, you know, new listing spike, days on the market go up, etc. The market always softens this time of year generally, you know, nationwide. And we're in the middle of this down the down of the 10 year cycle. So it's the best of both worlds where we're not only down decade wise, but we're down year wise right this second. And when the bottom when the market said it's very bottom peak, when it comes to certainly transactions, that is the most opportunistic time for agents to expand their business. Why? Well, a lot of agents aren't doing much. Number one, there's so much market share. You have so much time on your hands because you're not doing a ton of transactions. You have time to actually talk to more people in the market that don't know who you are to make that introduction, plant those seeds, put them in your database, remarket to them forever. You know, when you're busy and the market's great, you don't have time as much time to really prospect and talk to a lot of new people and make those, you know, new relationships and plant those seeds. So you're kind of more just servicing and closing deals on the market's great. But when the market's down, you've got time to really expand and you expand for the next surge. You know, when the market's down, you expand your footprint in your market and the market surges your business, you know, benefits from the expansion that you that you created during the downtime. And that's how you make more and more money every year. But it's even more insanely opportunistic right now because you've got the best of those worlds. The decade cycle is at its low and the yearly cycle all at the same time. So it's extremely slow right now compared to, you know, other years. It just gives you so much opportunity to really put a plan in place to talk to more property owners and get to know them to really expand your brand and the market's going to bounce back very violently. The demographics of home buyers are it's we there's more hints up demand than we've ever seen in history. You've got more first time home buyers out there who want to own a home than we've ever had. I say ever, you know, maybe when the baby boomers were right. However, you also have the trade up sellers who are locked in the lower interest rates who really want to move. Okay, they want to buy that's that's demand that's pent up demand when somebody wants to buy but they can't that's called pent up demand. So you got so many sellers who want to sell but can't because they're locked into these lower rates. That's up demand. So you get first time home buyers, you got trade up sellers and you have investors who are also sitting on the sidelines right now who want to invest but they don't know whether the market's going to go down. They don't know if prices are going to go down. If now is the absolute best time to jump in. Interest rates are really high. Dude, this is like monument this is historic right now as far as the amount of people that want to buy that can't it's it's and we don't even know because we haven't we've never really experienced this much pent up demand, you know, in our lifetime let's just say. So it's going to be a violent rebound and what I think will happen is when when mortgage rates eventually do drop which I don't know they could go to 12 before they go to 6. I don't know. They could stay around 8 for another 2 years. I don't know. They could go down to you know 5.5 next year. I don't know but when interest rates do drop what we're going to see is the trade up seller list and buy so that's a net even for active listings you're going to see first time home buyers take properties off the market taking active listings from bad to worse and so we're going to see this rush of new listings rush of transactions prices will increase not double digits. I think we'll get back to the regular you know 2 to 4 3 to 5 percent appreciation but inventory is going to get from go from bad to worse and we're going to hit a new all-time we're at all-time lows right now inventory wise all-time lows from as far back as they can track it and we're going to go even lower I believe when you know when the fun when the day finally comes and interest rates come down you know and prices will get back to a normal increase every year. It's really exciting honestly I mean if you're an agent if you're an investor if you're a homeowner the market is a very exciting place for you the only place the only person that's it's not that exciting for our first-time home buyers you know and affordability is about as worse as it's ever been so that that's the that's the downside of this but you know what does that mean? So Ricky the way I look at this is 2008 but I think it's a little bit worse because there was a lot there was opportunity there for home buyers and sellers when it came to short sales etc etc as time went on but being on opportune time and the most opportune time we've seen to build the business I think is spot on what you're saying I mean there's so much opportunity in there a lot and the people that are going to grow their business as far as the agents are concerned need to see a downtime as the opportunity as you just said to build your database to build relationships etc which leads me to you know one of the most important questions that we need to answer I try to answer for agents I work with on a daily basis is is lead generation right so there's so many different ways of lead generation and you know one of the things I saw that that you had done is lead generation for the next generation what is right and talk to me a little bit about where you believe lead generation should be or or what is the best lead generation for any anybody right now new agents and stock agents yeah so the lead generation for the next generation I didn't know what it was either I didn't know if I was supposed to talk about you know Gen Z attracting Gen Z like the next generation to you you know through social media channels and AI or if it was to teach you know Gen Z agents how to build their business right so at the end of the day I decided that it was how to teach the next generation how to build their business right and you're right there's so many different ways to lead gen and what I realized was the reason why a lot of people struggles because they try to do all of them right or at least all of them that doesn't involve cold calling right and and um and you can only really be great at a couple things so people are so worried about the business are losing over here you know let's just say making videos they're so worried they're losing business by not making videos you know they throw that in the mix they're so worried about the business are not getting from you know doing handwritten letters so they throw that in the mix you know and they're cold calling and they're buying zill leads and they're doing all these things so they're they're not really mastering or not really going all in on something and I think for the next generation it's going to be a matter of trying to nail down efficiency behind what works the best for you and let me go all in on that and just throw all this other stuff away right even though we could be losing business here we're really maximizing this to really a place where we got more business than we can handle that I think that's the key that's what I did anyways coming up I just I hammered one thing and I had more business that I can handle at all times and that that's really the key is just maximizing what you can handle so when I you know look at an agent I can't say oh cold calling is the only way or social media is the only way or direct mail or door knocking or networking or whatever it is you know it's different for everyone you know and that's where the work is in the business I haven't heard a single lead gen strategy that didn't make somebody a million dollars a year you know not a single one of them and so it just it makes me think like you know I can't go in and say oh you should call call you should call owners you should call expired you should do for sell by owners you should write letters you should do social media I don't know what you should do right that's where the work comes in here's all the ways you can lead gen okay you've got to identify what the top one or two strategies are that produce massive amount of conversations and when I realized it was about conversations it was over for me because I was just like oh I can skip all the marketing and I could just go I can go right back door on this whole thing and just talk directly to the owners for literally a penny right I'm not going to do anything else that was my mentality is I can just skip all the time money and energy people agents spend on marketing and open houses and ads and zilla leads and all that I can skip all that money time and energy and I can just talk to a property owner right now for a penny and that's the goal anyway right any marketing is really the objective is to have a conversation with a property owner or maybe a consumer a buyer whatever and by the way it's like I'll ask an audience would you rather have 30 active listings or 30 active buyers what do you think the answer is it's going to be listings all the time right and so but 95% of them all of their activities are geared towards attracting buyers to their business right so there's a huge disconnect and what they would like to have versus what they're doing and that's a problem you know buyers aren't like I take buyers 20% of my business for my entire career as buyers but where did the buyers come from it came from property owners who are now buying or a property owner's mom or a buyer that called me on a sign from a listing it's all buyers that came from having listings or you know prospecting owners you get you can choose what you want to do you know why are you choosing something that you don't really want you know versus you could spend less money going after you know listings so I don't know everybody's different you know that's what I've come to realize everybody's different everybody has to figure out what works best for them what works best for somebody I may disagree with because you know I I'm pretty hardcore you know but you know that that's that's what makes the world go around so we have to kind of conform to the fact that everybody's different so I see I see a lot of frustration a lot of agents Ricky where you know they they make calls and they get appointments and they don't convert or they're making calls and you know they're just telling people how great they are during the call and I've seen so much frustration and people want to quit the business because they're not you're not getting anywhere yeah you know we are getting somewhere see the thing is is convert okay it's like okay what's your definition of convert and most agents get the listing right well a listing is the byproduct of building the relationship and figuring out what they want to do and why and trying to put together a plan to help them accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do a listing is just a byproduct of you trying to help solve their problems and help them through their situation right the conversion needs to be not the listing but that you made a friend with this person a lifelong friendship with this person and in somewhat solidified yourself as their agent when they get ready to do something whether we now later a year five years whatever it is right so I think people have the wrong definition of conversion I think that they get discouraged because they're not making money when they need to realize this is a career they're building and everybody when you're talking to a prospect you're really talking to about 30 or 40 people because that prospect okay over the course of 10 years turns into repeat business referrals and referrals of referrals people are thinking so singular it's like okay I'm talking to this prospect and trying to do this one deal now you're not you're trying to solidify 20 deals over the next 10 years through this one person you don't understand how that the snowball happens and how the compounding happens from this one person people are thinking so singular number one they're thinking so short term number two and they're just money driven right it's like if you can't pay your bills get a job and have have your bills paid for while you're building this business right building the business doesn't mean making money right Amazon lost money forever all these companies lost money forever right that didn't mean that they weren't building a business right sometimes you don't make money when you're building a business so you need to think I'm building a business what is building a business building a business is building clientele that's going to do business with you now or later you know just because somebody doesn't do a deal with you today or even chooses a different agent that's okay people are going to choose other agents people are not going to do business with you today people are going to do business with you today you know and it takes time to really learn the process it really does I mean the important part as you as you said Ricky I mean get a job and do it pick one thing right get a job like for instance building your database building a database excuse for your influence let's say right which is which is I believe to be the number one most important thing that most agents need to have along with one or two other lead gen systems or processes that want to use and one of the things that you've said and one of the things that Bill Pipes has said is when you grow your database to a certain number then you don't have to prospect any anymore because it's all coming get it business etc right but I think that the thing that you said I just want to say it again is that if you're getting started and you're looking to grow to get business today to get paid tomorrow unfortunately that's difficult but you know you need to be able to pay your bills too and to do that and I I recently had a gentleman I work with you know say well maybe this isn't for me I said no what you've got to do is you got to continue with that part-time job that you've got and make sure that you make money to take care of your family and then do this and schedule it how important is that schedule how important is that calendar because I always tell agents you need to be calendared to move forward to be able to get things done how important is that Ricky well it's almost to the point where if you have to say that to someone okay if you have to explain to them that you need to be you know you need to work all day and be productive and do stuff it's almost like I don't yeah yeah sorry I don't I don't know that you're gonna make it in the business if I have to tell you that that should be like common sense we all kind of grow up and we go to school and we go to school from whatever eight to three you know and then we go to some kind of sports practice or something you know we're busy from like eight to five every day as kids in school right get out of school and you know either go get a job or go to college in the summers you do you do a job normally where you know you you're working right right um and that could be part of the problem is is when you go to that w2 job you get paid to just show up whether there's any production or not and when you come to come to job as a real estate agent you get paid only on production so that that's a that that's that's a that's a shock right to most people you know I actually have to produce results to get paid here versus well I used to just be able to show up and clock in but my point is is that we grow up in this environment where you know we have to you know go go somewhere early produce all day work hard um now if I have to tell you that you've got to get up and come to work you know then what are we doing here you know you need to go to more of like uh you know more of like a life therapist at that point than a real estate coach you need to get your get your stuff together you know well no I agree I agree the 100% is why I asked the question I mean it's just all about you know knowing what you're gonna do and using using your time so I'll I'll typically ask an agent okay so what are you doing today yeah right and and if well I'm going to do a little of this a little that that's not a schedule to me that's not a calendar to me I just a lot of agents do whatever whenever right and um they never make it I mean you have to understand that the object here is to build a career to get to a million bucks a year you got to have thousands of one-on-one conversations with people in your market that could be over the next five years I mean if you talk to 10-15 people a day and you make five new friends in five years you got 6,000 people that you made friends with if you're doing the weekly email you're remarketing to them in some form or fashion where those 6,000 people never forget who you are even if it's five 10 years down the road they still see yourself and remember you you're gonna have a massive business right um the quicker you can have those thousands of conversations most people avoid the conversation um and so they drag those thousands of conversations whether they never even have I mean even all the way till they die I saw two agents pass away making calls um they were still trying to sell some for sale by owners when they're on their deathbed um you know uh you once you realize that it's as simple as this have conversations help people build relationships have some system on the back end where they never forget who you are you're golden right then it's just a race to how many you know how many people can you talk to per day for the next three to five years and then you never have to prospect another day in your life exactly I mean here here's the thing I mean you know I look at calendar I look at schedule like for instance Ricky I know what I'm doing three Wednesdays from now or three Fridays from now I know what I'm doing because I've got myself set up is that boring is that monotonous it might be for something I don't know I don't know I see it as exciting right um I mean like I have job security I know what I'm doing next week the week after and it all involves helping people and providing a service giving value to to my people and making money in return so for me that's exciting especially if you're in it right if you're if you're at this is a moment in your life where you're in it and you still love this and you know you you you know you're you're sacrificing these years to really build it out and build some wealth you know I mean you have different stages in your life later on you may not want a schedule you may not want to be busy and be locked up you want to have free time and stuff you know but when you're building your business you gotta think I'm going to put in 10 15 hours a day if I got to here's the problem most people don't have a big enough why if you're not making call if you're like oh you know I just I don't want to make calls I don't like making calls I'm not going to make calls or you know I don't like making video I'm not good on video you don't have something that you're chasing this big enough to make you say you know what I'm willing to do anything I don't care what it is I will do anything to succeed and to and to and to make my dreams come true and the problem is most people don't I guess don't have a big enough why when I was coming up my why was I'm going to make a million bucks I wanted it so bad I was willing to do any I didn't care what it was you could you could have had I would have swam with the alligators it doesn't matter to me what what it is right I was going to do whatever you put in front of me nothing was going to stop me and most people don't have that they don't they're not like I'm willing to do whatever I'll call lawyers I'll call I'll cold call owners I'll do I was willing to do whatever and get up I said this on a pod on a zoom yesterday when I was 10 years old I had this premonition that I was going to be great at something make a lot of money and then turn around and help people at 10 years old I had this vision and my whole life has been pursuing that vision I didn't know it was going to be real estate I didn't know it's going to be real estate agents that I was going to help but that's the vehicle that ended up appearing in front of me somehow I became great at being an agent I made a lot of money and then I'm turning around dude I've traveled three times a month and speak two out of the last three I paid out of my pocket not only for travel but also some I threw in on the event the one before that they only paid travel they didn't pay me anything I didn't make anything they just paid for travel like I'm pouring money back into the industry right and in an attempt here to really make a difference right and it's a that that's my why I don't have to do this podcast I could be sleeping right now I could be hanging out with my daughter I could be on the beach I could be on vacay I could do anything I want to do I'm done financially but my why is still so big that I'm willing to do anything and that's how these agents need to be if they really want to build a massive business right so I you know I'm gonna look at look at that big why and and that's a I gotta tell you be honest with you it's always been a struggle for me because I've done I've done a lot of different things in this business for for more than 40 years and and I've been successful at it and now it's like I said you know like you said I don't have to do this I don't have to do this broadcast more than five years in a role on every every week I don't have to do that and I do it because I want to be able to give back I want to make a difference and when it comes to my own personal business I've just scrapped everything and I've started a new project and it's funny when people start a new product it's like what's my why I'm trying to think but why do I why am I doing this you mean I could be playing golf every other day I could be you know I don't know put it around maybe go build a house somewhere it was what I love to do but I decided to keep going in this in this one thing and and and to see exactly to see exactly where I want to take it so I've looked at it this way I've looked at what we're doing and I've said okay one transaction from this brand new project I got on right from this brand new project and so so now that's where it's at I mean this is at its infancy it's the NJ Heroes program that I worked on that was on the board a few minutes ago and it's brand new something I worked on for years and years and my why is to help as many people as I can there are heroes and I got to start with one and go from there does that philosophy does that does that manner of speaking the way to go with that does that make sense yeah yeah exactly man I mean you got to have you know some of these agents have a spouse that make a lot of money or they're going to get a big inheritance and you know in eight years or they're just kind of comfortable or whatever right and they don't have that desire that you know what I'm willing to do anything in the world you know put anything in front of me that that's how you have to be in real estate when you got 90% of agents who fail you got to be one that's just ruthless and just willing to you know do whatever it takes I mean that's really just kind of what it boils down to and you can dance around it all you want to but at the end of the day everything comes back to just talking to people in your market building relationships helping them buy and sell remarketing to them you know and you can make those systems so simple where you could literally do it as a single agent I mean I did a hundred deals a year for eight years in a row as a single agent with one admin I was the buyer agent I was the listing agent I went to the closings I did the inspection did all that stuff prospecting follow-up it was all me right because I had simple systems and I understood efficiency around 100% focusing on property owners so so as a as a single agent I mean tell me about the days that you had trouble getting going talk about that because no one hears that I we see it you and I see it with agents where they have trouble getting on I just talked about something like that a few minutes ago you're going to have ups and downs right you're just you're going to have you're going to have it's not going to be all just awesome you're going to have days you come in when you're fired up you're going to have days you come in that you just don't feel like being there we all have those days I had a day like that Monday I think we got back from Miami Saturday and like the time adjustment and stuff and Monday I was just kind of dead I just didn't really feel like being here and doing the videos and everything but you know I went through the motions I made it through that I think when you have days like that you're just like okay this is one of these days you just kind of go through the motions you're not too hard on yourself you're not like oh man I didn't crush it today it's okay you're gonna have days you don't crush it go through the motions you know kind of use that day to kind of like scale back a little bit and relax be you know kind of try to enjoy it a little bit and kind of let let your mind and your body kind of rest up a little bit by not going so hard that way you can kind of you know rest up a little bit for the next day where you kind of probably will come in a little bit more fired up but um I used to roof houses bro um and you better believe there's days when you're doing physical labor where you're climbing up on a roof and you're literally a mountain climber hanging by a rope your legs are literally tense the whole time right you're literally hanging on a roof with your feet and your arms are moving around laying shingles so it's not like you have your arms to hang onto the roof your your arms have to be free you're you're you're you're you're working you're moving shingles you're moving metal you're screwing stuff you're hammering things you're working so your your legs are the only thing really hanging on the roof besides the rope that's just kind of pressing you against the roof and you're literally in a squat position the whole day every day you know six days a week whatever you better believe there's days that you show up and your sore you don't feel like it right you know it's tough hard labor you're fixing to do this eight more hours but guess what you go up there and you just kind of go through the motions get done what you can get done and uh and so I so I had a lot of those days I think everyone should go roof houses for a year and if you're not and if you know in the beginning and if you're not you know I think everyone should roof houses right honestly roof houses for a year and also serve tables because when I serve tables I was able to develop all these people skills of walking up talking to people I don't know helping them serving them you know making them happy making them laugh having conversation it was amazing for my real estate business to just develop those skills you know as a server yeah it is really important to have to develop those skills and and you know we've talked a lot about mindset and I think a couple things that I think I think there's two things that people need to keep in mind and they they add to each other and what is integrity and when you look at that what does integrity mean to you about yourself I mean not to others even to yourself and that can be hand in hand with one of my biggest things that I learned a long time ago is never make an excuse right I mean we can build in oh you know what okay you're gonna have the days that you just talked about you're gonna have those days um there's going to be days where you want to make an excuse just don't make the excuse have the integrity to not make the excuse and to keep going and mindset is like I think I think probably as um I think it was Yogi Berra that said uh 80% of baseball is 90% mental or something like that it was here's I think I think I think 80% of this business is mindset and everything else is all busy work right um because if you got the mindset to build relationships that's the most important thing I want to shift a little bit now because we're a little extended here which is great um I see a lot of agents that uh start building their business say well you know I'm going to get all my business from social media and you know they think okay so I'm going to post tomorrow and I'm going to post next week and Ricky is it possible to build your entire business based on social or do you need something else to go with it and and is it done by just doing it every now and then you can build your own business on social I know a lot of agents that sell you know 20 30 40 50 even 100 million purely on social media um so yeah you can do it all on social um they don't have databases they don't do weekly emails right their databases literally they're following um you know they have dms going back and forth they um you know they you know that that that's where they build their business and uh it's interesting right to watch that it is but it just goes to what I was saying earlier every single strategy to build your business works it's about finding what works for you for these men and women who like master the social media you know for for to build your real estate business they're crushing it on there not everybody can figure that out right not everybody is good at that not everybody is you know have figured out the things and are their mind doesn't work in a way that you know kind of like goes through and tries to put that puzzle together to figure out exactly how to drive business using social media um but some people do so it just depends on the agent you know like can anyone do it yes can everyone do it no no you know it's gotta you you know it's gotta be your thing and um yeah you know you can you can definitely build your business on it I mean I know people that don't even really post that much who who do fantastic because you know they're working groups and they dm people and they run ads they don't even really post that much on their page um you know so again like it like relationships well there's so many ways to lead Jen okay and then when you dive into social media there's so many strategies within social media to to to drive business right you could be organic or you post every day you could do Facebook groups um you it could be Instagram stories is your thing you know cold DMing people in your market your thing uh running ads um YouTube could be your thing Instagram could be your thing Facebook could be your thing there's there's like so many platforms and then so many different ways to use each platform um that you know um it's hard it's it's hard to be like a general blanket statement right about all of this because it's so customized around each person and what their strengths and weaknesses are but danger question yes you can build your entire business on social it is possible without doing anything else I've seen people do it um and do you need to post often no I've seen people create amazing businesses that don't really create that much content and I've seen people who create tons of content that crush it I've seen people that create tons of content who sell nothing on social media right so you know how do you answer the question you know it's it's it's a um right it's a very complex um you know question and it's so custom around you know each person I think the one thing that's really important there with with this question and this topic is that if you have a strategy you just have to continue to be consistent with it and I think that's the number one thing and everything that we do is the consistency and the commitment to where we've decided to to to go and you know as uh people will tend to well this ain't work and I'm going to give up or or they they buy zillow these are the zillow leads suck and and uh you know yeah they could and I know people that literally make a million bucks a year off zillow leads exactly right and I have people that say facebook sucks and people say cold calling doesn't work and people say all this stuff okay well it's either one of two things it doesn't work for you because it works great for other people okay so maybe it doesn't work for you or maybe you just suck okay maybe it's not the facebook ads or zillow leads or cold calling that sucks maybe it's you that sucks exactly a hundred percent there and and and that's a way basically into into the last thing I want to talk about now there is as I said this is October 27 2023 and there's a lot of this stuff going on with the with lawsuits and fire agency and everything else and one of the things I've heard you say Ricky is that no matter what happens it's still the same business that you will win either way talk to me about that no matter what happens in this in this suit that's going on right now that you win either way well um that I win or everyone wins everyone wins because you know you you're going to do the business anyways an opportunity I mean listen you you it could go so many ways there there's a lot of stuff so um let's say nothing changes okay well this business is normal okay um let's say that it doesn't become a law that you can't pay the buyer agent out of the out of the listing side commission on the HUD and the buyer agent has to be paid directly for the buyer let's say that that doesn't become a law but let's say that brokerages to conform so that they're scared to death they're going to get sued and have to settle out for 50 million that brokerages make it a policy that you that they want to allow their agents to pay a buyer broker commission out of the listing side right nobody's thought about this and that's something that could happen with the snap of a finger and you better believe that the MLS is changing their buyer broker rule from one dollar to zero and you know watching uh these big brokerages say that you know their agents don't have to be part of NAR anymore and um you know uh remax paying 55 million in a settlement and anywhere uh paying 83 and a half million in a settlement um you know isn't opening up the door to some big changes that could happen with a snap of a finger not it doesn't have to become a law right it doesn't have to be oh the plaintiffs win you know the defendants are going to appeal it's going to get drug out in court for years and years and we don't have to worry about this right a brokerage could say you know what we're scared of death we're going to get in we're going to get involved in the suit and these class action lawyers that don't understand how the industry works at all are just c dollar signs they're going to come out trying to make real estate agents look like a scam not realizing that the current model the current system is the best it's kind of like 30 year fixed rates 30 year fixed rates is not in a lot of countries well the the the these other countries are suffering why because they have short-term rates on mortgages which means in five years their payment could double which is what's happening in a lot of these countries and they're seeing foreclosures and they're getting crushed and these people are losing their homes now we have a 30 year fix which means okay people are locked into a lower rate which means lower inventory which means prices go up and there's no inventory okay but wouldn't you want no systems perfect but wouldn't you want the system where people at least have a place to live and they're not getting kicked out of their home and losing their house it's the same thing with this yes we can take the buyer commission broker commission out of the equation sure but at that point what there's no incentive for the all the buyer agents that are working right now to help the seller sell their homes right sell their homes and by the way when the seller sells the home and pays the six percent and three goes to the buyer agent guess what they're going to buy their next home and guess what they're not coming out of their pocket for to pay their buyer broker to represent them so they're really winning it's like it's like a net even here they're paying six percent when they sell but they're paying nothing when they buy so they're really paying right now three percent for each you know what they're doing they're making it it's going to be if this goes through and the policies change the buyer broker agent goes you know the commission goes to zero and buyers have to pay their own commission that one lady that went on the stand her mom was an agent she's like i bought i sold four houses and bought five it's like well you got you paid four commissions and none on five okay and she said and her mom was a broker for 30 years right she probably she her whole life was paid for by buyer broker commissions all right and she's on the stand saying this is unfair and she says my kids are coming to the age where they're going to buy homes does she realize that she's put her kids in a position because she's like i will help my kid i'm going to help if i can help my kids i'm going to help them exactly ma'am you do you know that you're putting your kids in a position where they're not going to have representation unless they pay out of their pocket do you realize that you're doing that to your kids that now they're going to have to pay if they want representation otherwise not be represented do you realize what you're doing you know she's like i'm not doing it for the money yeah right why else would you be screwing up a good thing and that's what they're doing if this if this changes the way that we operate as agents it's really messing up a great thing however if it does change massive opportunity why well i i would think a good 20 30 20 percent of agents are out the door because they don't they're not going to understand how to you know adapt so to the new you know world that we're going to live in uh listing agents are going to crush it but guess what they're going to do twice the work for half the money right and buyer agents are going to emerge you're going to see this emergence of buyer agents who advertise we only work with buyers right we don't even take listings we're a buyer specialist and buyers are going to come in and they're going to pay a retainer upfront and they're going to pay the rest at closing and buyer agents are going to be getting paid before the deal even closes they're going to get paid just to start looking for homes right and it's going to be interesting and it's going to be a lot of fun it's going to be kind of like a new car you know you get a new car you'll excited this new thing right that's what that's what it's going to be it's going to be different it's going to be exciting it's going to be fun you know man a lot of opportunity i i remember being in this business as long as i've been i i remember when we went from cooperating agents to buyer agency and seller agency and all that stuff and it was like what huh well people got to realize that in the beginning for years buyers weren't even represented everybody represented the seller at least that's what it was in new jersey for for the various long time so i want to i want to just get into one last thing man you're doing something really great with a lot of ages um with your with your with your challenging 30 days talk about that man talk about what you got going on there yeah um so about a month or so ago i opened up the 30 listing challenge and it was to go get 30 listings and it was really designed to where even if you've never even got a couple listings in your life you look at this and you you see the plan how it's laid out and you think you know what i think i can actually go get 30 listings in the next 90 days like i'm it it makes it feel possible a tangible um and it's 10 from uh direct mail handwritten note it's 10 from expireds it's 10 from for sale by owners for sale by owners a listing left and right right now you know they're overpricing it a little bit the market's softened and they're having a hard time back in 21 you couldn't get for sale by owners they were just selling it for 100 000 over ask in price of 15 offers now it's things have changed and um i got a guy that's listed like 60 for sale by owners this year he's listed 10 not 10 for sale by owners that guy has listed 11 since we started the challenge he's on track to do 30 you know before the end of the year went when we started the channel i've got like three agents that are on track to hit 30 but i got tons of agents who are like picking up maybe one listing a week not on track to do 30 but picking up real good inventory from doing the uh the challenge but i'm telling people what the handwritten letters do a thousand of them you know find 20 uh expireds you know maybe two year old three year old four year old that are considering to relist and uh for sale by owners call every for sale by owner in your in your market but also do a video every day right for instagram mainly but put it on facebook and everything else because when you do one every day it piles up the views and you're able to impress your seller with how many impressions you're getting on social media and that helps you how helps you stand out amongst the other agents that might be trying to list that property you know hey i'm getting 100 000 views a month on my on my platform on my socials and i'm going to be pushing your property out on those on those platforms right um that that means something to these sellers in today's world so yeah i've got uh about a thousand agents who are in the challenge and um it's exciting seeing everything uh all the agents you know uh participating and you know we do date everybody's post or daily updates every day in the facebook group and stuff so yeah it's been exciting because right now bro if you go out and get you know five 10 15 20 30 listings between now and the end of the year you're gonna you're gonna cross 2020 2024 is like yeah at that point right so okay that people can still get started with this right because i put yeah i put the link up for your youtube your extensive youtube broadcast you did it's about two two and a half to three hours so i put that up there and they can also get it through your text as well is that correct yep okay um so as we move along we get this going this is something really that that that's that's extremely cool and i saw it and i've watched the video and and i may even get involved as well 30 listing challenge ricky talk to me about is this the way that people should get started in their business is this the way is this the one thing you would tell people to do brand new agents you can go get 30 listings right now um you know experienced agents you know go get 30 lists like right now be in the down down moment of the 10 year housing market and the yearly housing market right now you actually have time to go get 30 listings right because next year is going to be busy even if rates stayed 8% whatever happens next year is going to be busy um you know if rates go to 12 if rates get higher into the nines and 10s and 11s we'll see what happens um but even in listen in that moment that rates get into double digits uh that that's a point where you could see some price drops you could see some prices come down which right if you ask a if you ask any agent you say hey how many buyers are you working with or are you working with a ton of buyers who are waiting on prices to come down what are they going to say they're going to say why no no no if you say hey are you working with a bunch of buyers who are waiting on prices to come down yes they're going to say i'm working i've got like a hundred of them that are waiting on prices to come down right right so if we get into a 10% rate prices drop how busy do you think we're going to be because because here's the thing if you get to a 10 or 11 or something like that there's still going to be buy downs right you're still going to be able to buy rates down sellers are going to have to come off the price so that you know to sell properties i mean it's just going to happen and you're going to be extremely busy in that environment yeah it's really important for you to be on top of everything that's going on because it i think when it's when it starts changing and and the environment changes it's going to go it's going to happen fast if you said it before the market's going to bounce up bounce back violently and that is so true that is so true we had a question before i just want to hit this i didn't want to ignore the question is talk about letters you talked about 10 from from from letters handwritten notes 10 physicals 10 from expires we had pop up before someone asking about talk about letters using that the prospect with okay yeah i mean there's the tech there's a text number at the bottom of the screen okay text the number 2513128844 put your contact information in i'll send you a link to the 30 listing challenge where i just in detail train about the entire thing it's a letter that i hand write the envelope i hand write the letter it's one question and i've made millions off of this letter and agents if you go to the zero diamond real estate agent facebook group and scroll through there you'll just see post after post after post of people doing these letters talking about getting listings and everything else awesome um so yeah just dive into the content ricky i really really want to thank you for coming on today and and extending the time uh it's i sincerely appreciate it i've been doing this a long time and i've been lucky to have you on twice now and and it's an honor for me um what can i do day finale do to help you grow your business oh man listen i my business right now is just building the ricky caruth brand you know so just having me on the show and exposing me to more people that um my content can possibly help is is is plenty bro great i'm so i'm so excited for that and as you know i mean you heard there was a new hat so you said you know what let me go help david out and i'll get a new hat for it so we only have top-notch people on no matter who they are and i want to again ricky thank you so much for coming on and i look forward to um one second i want to put that back up where'd it go where'd it go we're good there it is uh i want to thank you just hold on for a second as we go out next week at cremesky thanks so much everybody we'll see you next week and hit the videotape now