 Next up, another Rockstar agent has taken time out of his day. Come on up, guys. Has taken time out of his day, driven all the way here from Orange Beach, is it, Richie? Mm-hmm. Welcome, Ricky Grewth, and Neil. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Zero to Diamond podcast. I'm your host, Ricky Grewth. I'm on a mission to help reduce the failure rate in the real estate industry by helping you master your skills on the phone, conquer your fears, and change in your mindset. Now, let's get into the show. Started out my career about the transaction, and that's why I lost everything. And so when I reversed it and I said, that's the ticket, then it took me another six years to actually build that up to get to 100 deals a year, to hit number one in the state, and all that good stuff. But what I found out at the top was that there is no top. Once you get there, you realize that that was just a mirage. Now there's this whole other mountain. And so the next mountain for me is, I started writing books, because when you are trying so hard to be successful, you spend all your off time researching and learning and trying to figure it all out. So when I finally figured it out, and I got my business to where it was pretty automatic, now I have all this free time that I was researching, trying to figure out the business. What am I gonna do with all this time? And so I had to fill it up with something. So I started writing about my experiences of losing everything and what I had to go through to actually figure out how to build the business correctly. And so that's why I started writing. And I did a speech in Biloxi a couple years ago. It was my first speech, and my last name spelled wrong. And I had such a good response from the crowd, they really resonated with what I said. And that was my aha moment, that I needed to really press forward and finish the books and start trying to spread this message. So you believe in giving back? You know, I've been in real estate technology now for nearly a decade, and the best real estate agents, they build up communities and they give back. But he's not just trying to give back to the community, he's trying to give to people like you. How many of you are a million dollar real estate agent? Like he actually wrote books to give you step by step by step instructions to how you get there, and then if there's a crash, he wrote another book, what do you do next? How many of you are a real estate agent during 2005 to 2008? And that pain. So he really does care about you guys, and he's not a broker. He actually doesn't even have a team. He doesn't even want one. I asked him, I said, why don't you want a team? You want a broker? So he doesn't have any ulterior motives here. He truly just wants to give. And so with that being said, how are you giving now? Who do you coach? I mean, are you coaching real estate? To see the new agents? Is it the top producers? Who do you choose to help? Is it everyone, or I mean, who's in your coaching group? So go back to your question about why I do this. After I started writing the books and going down this journey, because just so you guys know, I never did social media until January last year. I didn't build my business with social media. I did it all phone calls and emails and relationships. And when I started writing, that's when I decided I needed to try to dive into social media and figure it all out. So as I'm doing this and I'm writing and I'm doing these speeches and I'm talking to people and learning stuff, I realize what my bigger why is, with why I'm doing all this, and that is to reduce the failure rate in the real estate industry. When the market crashes, it's an incredible way to look at this. When the market crashes, what I learned through the market crashing is that when the prices fall, transaction fall, buyers wanna buy right now while the prices are down and sellers gotta sell, they're in trouble, the market crashed. There's all this urgency in the market and all the agents leave the business because they don't understand this, they're scared. And so what my strategy is to reduce the failure rate is that I wanna build up this message and get it into everyone's head that you don't have to be worried about a crash and how we're gonna handle it. And when the next crash happens, less agents will drop out because of the message and thus reduce the failure rate. But a side note is I'm already reducing the failure rate. I get emails and messages every day from agents saying that they found me or they were about to quit or something was going on and now they've got it. They've got some momentum. They have some sales, they have some listings. They're understanding that it's not about the deal. It's not about do you wanna buy or sell? Who do you know that wants to buy or sell? That stuff is out the window. Technology's gonna replace all that because people don't wanna feel awkward. They'll just go online and do it. It's about what can I do to help you? What do you want to do and why do you want to do it? And focus on that short and long term. Those are the agents that are gonna survive this technology boom that we're in at the end of the day. So you didn't use technology in the beginning and we've heard a lot about technology and I'm a technology guy. I love marketing. I love technology. I study engineering. I love this stuff. I spent my life dedicated to studying technology but you were able to, you talk about relationships. Like it's not about getting the deals. It's not about getting the commission. Like these are people, they're people. And so you said like you cracked that code. Give us a tip on how to maintain relationships the best way. Like what are some of your secret sauces like that one thing that if you do consistently you can maintain a relationship forever. Not a transaction, not a month, not a day, but forever. How do you do it? But what's the secret sauce? What's the one thing? I think the first thing you gotta realize is that business is unlimited. There's more business for each and every one of you than you can ever handle in your whole life. You could work 24-7, never sleep for the rest of your life and never scratch the surface for what is available to you regardless of market conditions and seasons. You know like right now we're going into a winter season. Things start to slow down a little bit. This is when I sell a lot because all the agents lay down because they're going to all these parties and they've already made enough sales. They don't need the money or they're just waiting to reset after the first of the year. That's when I'm closing the gap on the people ahead of me and getting away from the people that are still behind me because they're slacking off. When a top producer is on vacation, I love it because I'm gaining on him, right? And so business being unlimited and not being bound to the limitations that you set in your head about there's only so many leads, there's only so many transactions. This is why there's several hundred people in this room and thousands and thousands of agents in the area because it's unlimited. If one person could do all the deals and it were limited, I would have already figured it out and none of you guys would have a job. Seriously, so that's a big, big point I want to say and how you create the relationships. I don't care where you get your leads from. It can be online leads, Facebook, phone calls, expired for sell by owners, your mom. It doesn't matter to me, right? The biggest thing is a house down the road sold. Didn't know if there's something I could do for you today, right? Focus on the answer and go deeper, right? The next thing is if you don't want to do anything today, is there an agent that you would work with if you were to do something? In the future, okay? That's a really important question because you may have a really good conversation with a prospect and think I have this future client, we're gonna do all this business, but you don't realize they're moms and agent or brother or best friend from high school. I think it's a crucial question to figure out where you stand in the pecking order where then you can decide how you want to proceed, right? And then that is the basis and the foundation of the relationship in which from that point you need a system in place to stay in touch forever to stay relevant. Well, you get on some many, many points there, but you also have a major brand online. You know, at the end of the day, when he's talking about dig deep or go to sleep, you know, you can have one person and if they're in a good community, every year they may know five people, 10 people, 15 people that are buying or selling a home. Like it's not, you can crack that code quickly. So if you treat people like they're worth, not one transaction, I don't care if it's a $300,000 property, $9,000 commission, but what if they're really worth like $100,000 next year? What are you willing to spend on that relationship? What was your time? How much would you invest? You would look at them completely different if you thought that was the case, but you can't go in there with the expectation. So Ricky, you know, you've talked about how relationships are important, but you also, you're online, you're digital. You're coaching online for free, by the way. He's coaching online for free. You also have a major Instagram. So you kind of like a media company, right? I mean, you are a brand, you know, and your brand is giving back. So if you wanted, if someone here wanted to work with you, if they wanted to follow you, where would they go? Okay, so last year when I finally did start the social media thing, it was to build a brand in the coaching world. My goal is to reduce the failure rate and I'm gonna do it by bringing awareness to all the things I said today. It's really important to me. It's just why I'm doing this. I could be at the house right now making phone calls, trying to make another million dollars, but I'm here doing this for nothing. I created a complete course of all of my mindset, everything I do, I wrote two books. I do live training twice a month on YouTube. ZeroToDiamond.com is where you can find all of my stuff. And it's 100% free. The reason it's free is a couple of reasons. One, when it's free, I can give you everything I have and not have to worry about it. Am I holding something back that you'll have to come back and pay me for? Or give you half a video and say, now you have to pay me $80 to see the rest of it. I can just give it all to you, right? That's my personality is just to give. And on the back end, I'll get paid eventually on books and speeches. I'm not really worried about it. I don't need the money. I want to build a brand and I want to create a movement to reduce the failure rate. And so that's how I'm going to do it. So everyone give Ricky round of applause and it's Ricky Karuth, C-A-R-R-U-T-H. That's right. All right, thanks for your time guys. Good luck out there. Thank you.