 Today had the chance to sit down with Dan O'Neill. Now, if you don't know Dan, this guy's been in the business for four years now. He's up in Long Island. He's got a massive team, right? And so he's under 30 years old and he's really done an incredible job here of being able to build this team out with really not being in the business that long and being super young. It's really incredible what he's put together here. Last year, they did $240 million worth of sales, 400 deals. He expanded his team to Florida here lately and he's just continuing to be a workaholic and really make it happen when he's supposed to. I remember back when I was in the building part of my career, you know, I was working 15 hours a day. That's what he's doing right now. So this is a very, very good entertaining interview and he gets into the details of his listing presentation. And I found this very interesting. I know you're going to love it. Smash the like button, hit subscribe. Let me know what you think in the comments and let's get into it. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for Ricky. Karoo. You're a 30 year vet in the business. You have a good sphere. You don't really need any of the resources. You're good at a 90-10 split somewhere. That's great. If you close the transaction, they have a weekly meeting with us. We go through every single number. It's all metrics, KPI days. Who do you think that they might, who might be getting the better leads there? You know, they'll get into the comments of like big influencers, they get thousands of comments and stuff and they'll like see a bunch of people hating on these people that are really great people. Oh. And then by investing in your brand, I mean, that could be having a, getting some pens, right? They have your name on it. I don't know if you can see this. That could be social media. That could be thinking outside the box. Well, there's plenty of ways to get free leads. I mean, there's plenty of ways, right? First, self-owners are free, door knocking is free, social media is free, sort of influence is free, and many people are public are free. I mean, like, you can build your entire career for free. Fairly graduated in high school. I only went to college for baseball and I got kicked on the team in a year. And we're making money like that. But it's everything that you put into it. I dropped out of college and I'm literally gonna be a billionaire. What up, dude? What's going on, brother? How are you? Good man, how you doing? I'm doing good. Happy Labor Day. Yeah, yeah, you too, bro. You working or you just doing this? A little bit of work and mainly just this. Yeah. Honestly, I really haven't taken a day off. Like an actual day off. Oh, we never get days off, but really haven't taken any time to spend with family, friends. I haven't golfed in a couple of months. So this weekend, you know, it's typically a little bit slow. So working on a lot of the backend stuff, we brought out a ton of agents the last couple of months. So just working on staffing, interviews, SOPs, everything. So it was nice to kind of get a few days by a few days of probably like 24 hours of, you know, spending time with my family, seeing everybody and, you know. Yeah. So you just like grinding. You're like in the building stages. Like I remember when I was like in that stage where like I literally worked 15 hours a day and never took a vacation. That's kind of where you are. But it's weird because, right? So I look at it almost like a chart, right? So I went through like the building phase, right? Then I hit a number and now it kind of like, I'm back to the building phase because I'm building something bigger, you know, like bringing on new agents, you know, adding to the team, we have Florida. So in many ways, like I am back to that, that, you know, kind of building stage. And it's funny too, like on that chart, it should be like, you know, like revenue wise, right? Like it's like, you know, revenue was good. Revenue is great, great, great, great, great. But it's like now I'm reinvesting everything at this bottom level again, because I feel that last June or July, whether everyone wants to admit we were in a recession or not, the writing was on the wall. So fortunately, I kind of had a little bit of a head start, right? I'm not just watching the news and everything I knew was going on through stats and facts. And so that's when I was like, you know what? Six months from now, 12 months from now, a lot of people unfortunately, and I hope that it changes. And that's what I'm trying to do. But a lot of people are not going to be in a good spot because they don't know how to follow up. They don't know how to cold call. They don't know those 15 hour days, right? They don't know how to get in. What you were saying last year, you mean? Yeah, yeah, like June, July, right? When I started to kind of figure out that we were in a recession or whatever they wanted to call it, right? Yeah. Not getting close. Like the definition of recession has changed. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's kind of been since then, but I really amped it up. I would say it was because of a bet I had with Lisa Chinati like two and a half months ago. A bet? A bet, a public accountability bet. Okay. What was the bet? I knew I was going to lose it from the second that I did it, but I'm a very competitive person. That's why I can't really golf right now because it drives me nuts. But the bet was basically, we were both sitting in the car, she was friendly enough to come down to Long Island to talk to my team. And she was talking to me about what are my issues and what were hers. Hers was she's not utilizing social media the same way that you and I are. And mine were that my P and L was getting a little bit skewed because I'm very fortunate not on wood to have had the same authority agents with me for four years now, right? But as they continue to do business, they get higher splits. So the company dollar goes down. So she's like, well, why don't you do any outbound recruiting? I'm like, well, cause I don't have the staff, I don't have the support, I don't have the help. She's like, well, let's make a bet, recruiting bet. Whoever can recruit the most agents from now until August 15th wins. And then let's do a side bet. What's your other problem? I'm like, well, our Zillow numbers aren't that great. We have Zillow Flex. So we weren't picking up the phone the right amount. We weren't setting appointments all the above. So I won the Zillow bet and we went from 42 out of 42 in the Metro, which is New Jersey, Manhattan, kind of get New York or Long Island to number one, which is pretty sick in two and a half months or months. Number one what? Just a conversion rate. So we have a 99% answer rate. We have the highest appointment rate, highest conversion rate all the above. Out of the Zillow Flex agents, you mean? Yes, correct. Those are the best 42 teams in the Metro. So we fixed that and won that, but I knew I was gonna lose the recruiting bet. Lisa has 90 agents. She had the SOPs, she has the staff, she has all those things. I was basically sitting there with two sticks of fire. Like a caveman, but what it did was, I knew I was gonna lose it, but it allowed me to get out of my comfort zone and bring on those agents, realize that I can help those agents and staff up. And I'm just fired up. So are you bringing on like new agents, experienced agents? Like, do they have to have a certain kind of resume to join the team or what's the MO here? Yeah, so I never thought that I could actually recruit anybody that was like doing business business, right? Because if you're doing 37 deals, you know, how'd you want to join a team? But again, back to my original point, I kind of realized that these companies, at least around here, I know offense to them, they don't really offer a ton. So if you're a 30 year vet in the business, you have a good sphere, you don't really need any of the resources. You're good at a 90-10 split somewhere, that's great. But for the people that, you know, I had a success for three years, four years, and they don't have any video, they don't have any leads, they don't have any ISAs, they don't have any, they don't have a cold call. They're, these agents would come to me, they're like, yeah, we have a $3,000 a month marketing budget. Like really, what are you doing with that $3,000? And they would, basically what they were telling me is they were throwing it on the street. So that's great, you have a $3,000 marketing budget, but they're not teaching you how to market, they're not teaching you what to do with that money. So now there is a minimum requirement of like five to 12 deals. And I'm figuring out that I can get people that are doing 40 deals, because if they're doing 40 with no resources, it's very easy for them to do 80 to 100, to 120 with the resources. And back to like what you told me four years ago, three years ago, you don't want the $250,000 agent, you want the $1,000,000 agent. So what are the resources that you're giving them that they don't have where they don't? Are we recording by the way? Yeah, we're rolling, right? Oh, okay, I thought we were just shooting the shit. See, that's how I like to do it, bro, because like when I catch everybody off guard, I'm like, I just start rolling. And then it's like the realest talk is before the podcast starts. And now like two, three podcasts ago, I was like, dude, I'm gonna record from the moment they click on and then act like we're not recording. And then be like, hey guys, we're recording, we're Dan O'Neill. Yeah. Everybody gets awkward. Everything you just said was like the juiciest part, like part of the juiciest of the whole show, you know what I mean? So congratulations. But it's so funny. What's he saying like the, hey, everybody, we have Dan O'Neill, blah, blah, blah, you read it off. And then he go, three, two, one. We both sit here like, you know, like go awkward. The thing is, man, is like the experience I'm trying to create with my show is like it's a natural conversation, you know? It's just a real conversation. Like I don't have any like questions prepared. I know nothing about your business. That's how I roll, I just talk, you know? Like I'm digging and trying to like pick your brain around, you know, what's going on in your world. Like I've had some incredible guests so far. Yeah. And well, that's why I respect you so much too. Like, you know, we have the bam quote unquote, like debate. You and I have, you know, hopped on podcasts many times before. And it's funny, like each and every single time we're both kind of in like a different, we're in like a different position, right? And these are just throughout the years. I mean, this has only been four years for me really. But every time I see you where I sit down with you, it's kind of like we're both in different positions than we were the last time we had spoken. Like I see now that you're on social and you're doing your own business and I love the content that you're posting. Like I genuinely laugh out loud like the, it's such a good catch, you know? And it's just funny over time, you know, things change. I forgot the question, damn it. Oh, the resources. So resources being CRM, accountability, team meetings, office space. We have a full-time content team of five people. We have full training. We have coaching, paid for coaching. Don't get any trouble here. Who's the coach? What's your chosen? It's Jeff Mays through the Tom Ferry ecosystem. Jeff has done wonders for my business in terms of, you know, making me, holding myself accountable, but also now being able to hold my team accountable. Yeah. We have the Zillow Flex leads, which are some of the best in the area. And that Zillow Flex is like you get the lead for free and then you pay Zillow or Furl on the back end. Correct. But so what, what happens is, and why in my opinion, the leads are far better. If you are my, my neighbor, right? And you're tied into a zip code that has market-based pricing, which I believe is going to be going away pretty soon. And they have you for six, let's say six months, 10 grand a month, no matter what, right? We're in that same zip code, but we pay Zillow for 35%, or 30, 25, whatever it may be. If we close the transaction, they have a weekly meeting with us. We go through every single number. It's all metrics, KPI based. Who do you think that they might, who they might be getting the better leads there? Right. So we're closing leads at about a 20% ratio right now, which is really good, especially for a niche market like Long Island. And it's interesting to see what Zillow's doing with the 1% down payment loan and what they're doing in other markets, like Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Atlanta, they got rid of market-based pricing. It's strictly flex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know they were testing that out in that, in certain markets. And their goal was to just see if that worked. And then eventually, if it did, if it worked better than the just buy, pay for people's contact information, then they would kind of start to lean towards that. I think that day is coming. And that's why like I saw my numbers and they're getting rid of teams on flex. Like they're, right? If you're not performing, if you're not hitting these numbers, we're gonna give these leads to somebody else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. So we brought on an ISA and we've really hit it hard. And I mean, to go from literally, like we almost got kicked out to, if I show a screen share of my numbers right now, you'd be like, what the hell did you guys do last two months? And it's because I'm sitting here, right? For 15 hours a day. And it's because of our staff too. We have an incredible staff. So what are all your Legion avenues? There's Zilliflex, there's I guess organic traffic, from social referrals, past clients, stuff like that. Yep, so we have- What are all your Legion avenues? So those are four that you just named. A lot of it is direct mail campaigns, direct to sellers. A lot of it is circle dialing, prospecting, our team is absolutely in one when it comes to door knocking and cold calling. And it's nice because we have so much inventory that we create at a time of, excuse me, at a time where there is no inventory. So anytime we put out a listing, that's 200 doors that you can go knock. That's 200 calls you can make, all the above. And so every single, we put out probably seven or eight listings a week. Those are all opportunities right there. So instead of teaching everybody to be an indoor cat and just pick up the phone when the Zilliflex rings, we teach them how to be outdoor cats and the Zilliflex and the social media and all those things are supposed to be supplemental. So it's, I mean, even our office space too is a source of leads because of its location. You have people walk in, you have buyers and sellers walk into the office? They peek in, yeah. I wouldn't say it's like- I wouldn't say it's- Very old. Yeah, but it's just, we have a pickleball court, we have a podcast studio in there, we have, it's a very nice structure. And even the one that we have now in Sarasota that's gonna be opening up, it's right on Main Street. So this is like your building, like you bought or rent this building or is it your brokerages? Our brokerages, yeah. So they, so, but is it just your team in there? Is it the whole company? It's like their headquarters. So they have I think 20 offices on our island in the building that we're in has the owners, it's upper management. Got you. CEOs. I think we are the only team in that office. Do you love being a team leader? Like you, you know, you were like a, you know, obviously like you were a single agent for a while and then you started to try to build the team and now you've got this super successful team. Do you love that role? Cause it's totally different than being like a real estate agent. I think my life would be a lot easier, a lot simpler if I were by myself and if I just had maybe a buyer's agent and admin, but I can't tell you how much joy it brings me like truly, you know, bringing people on and seeing their success. At the same time, I can't put my head on the pillow at night if they're not doing well, right? Like that crushes me. But we have so many success stories in the last, I mean, even just four months alone, you know, from this recruiting stuff. Yeah. I had a 23 year old, shout out to Shaladen. He, you know, had a little bit of a speech impediment. I'm not a resource teacher. You know, like, or sort of speech that every coach nothing, all we did was we role played with them every single day. We gave them confidence. We told them, you know, hey, listen, open house starts at 12, come with me. We start our open houses at 9am. So I told them to come to the office. We printed out 200 mailers, 200 fires. I'm like, all right, we're going to doorknock. We're going to cold call. We're going to get leads to the listing. And he didn't know any different, right? He thought that that's how we do open houses, which you should, but I've done that many, many years. So he believes that, I hope he doesn't see this. And he's doing it every weekend. And he's doing it at times four. And he has gotten so many deals and so much confidence in those couple of months that you talk to him now, he's slinging it. You won't even hear an, uh, out of him, nothing. Right, right. We have somebody, these two, they're actually married, the gins. One of them worked in the OR. She worked in, she was a medical sales device. She made 350 a year. 350, yeah, that's, that's serious coin, right? But she was sick of, you know, having to go to the OR and the, and the rush of it. And she's helping the doctors. And she just, she didn't want to do it anymore. So she joins the team and in one month, she's able to make a hundred grand in GCI. Her partner, her wife is a former, I believe, Marine or army. I'm so sorry that I'm getting this wrong, but she's a veteran. So we call her GI Jen. So she now worked at the VA, you know, just front desk clerk kind of thing. She gets so excited. She gets up and quits her job. The both of them have already done, I want to say since May, probably nine, nine to 11 transactions. I've been in North at $100,000 in GCI each. So like that's me is just, I almost got you hooked up, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we, it's, it's cool to like hear you say that because, you know, that, that's what I do, you know? I just like it would be much easier, right? If you were by yourself, your life would be much easier in a way, but you can only go so far by yourself. And I think having the right people around you is the most important thing. Well, what I was going to say is that we did it in different ways, you know, like, I tried to do a team in 2012 and I had about 12 agents over the course of like a year and a half. And I was like, screw this, right? And like it was taken away from my business and these agents were coming to learn everything and leaving and I didn't understand like, like how to set expectations, like, right? All that stuff. Like I could build, I could build a massive team now, but, okay, but it's a lot of work, you know? Way more work than I want to do. I think most agents get into wanting to do a team so they can step out of production. And so they build a team and then just step out of production and then the team just falls apart. It's like you have to stay in there with the team for years and years and years before you get it to a place where you can kind of start to take some time off. And I was like, I'm just going to crush it as a single agent because my goal really was to make a million bucks a year at that point. I still wasn't there yet. And then I was like, I'll go make a million a year just me and my assistant and then I'll just keep all the money. And then I'll figure out a different way to like, you know, impact the world or whatever, you know what I mean? And so now I do it through, you know, the free coaching and the content and all the stuff that I do and like thousands of, you know, crazy success stories and all that stuff. It's the best one in the world and you're doing it for free. But even in your comments, like people that I speak to that you've helped, like that really for me is like the biggest joy of it is being able to, and people don't know that about you, right? Like unless they really have a relationship with you or they really get to know you, they think you're just, you're doing it for some other cause, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very easy to judge somebody or make, you know, a perception of somebody because you don't know them or maybe even you're jealous of them, right? So unless you really get to sit down and know you, people think you're trying to do it to make money, you're trying to recruit. Yeah. Just trying to help people, man. Well, you know, I mean, the better you get the more haters you have, I've really come to learn that over the last year or so. Hello teachers. And it's crazy, like the comments, like it's like, do what? Like it takes me back to like high school days, you know? I want to use to throw knuckles at people over like stupid stuff. I'm like, man, this is like, you guys going to bring the whole rick back. Yeah. But what I've realized, cause I get it a lot too. And I mean, I even get it like relationship wise, stuff like that, right? Where people are just trying to, you know, be proud of me or maybe take me off my game. What I've realized though is that working and doing everything with the right intentions and coming from, you know, the right place in your heart, I can go to sleep knowing that. So if somebody out there right now is talking about me or the comment or whatever they might be doing, that's fine because I know that they don't actually know me. And not everybody has a thick skin though, right? And that's what, that's what sucks about social media is that there's always going to be those trolls. And, you know, a lot of people, you know, they'll get into the comments of like big influencers, they get thousands of comments and stuff, and they'll like see a bunch of people hating on these people that are really great people, you know, and then they're like, shit, I don't want that. I'm not even going to try to post stuff. I'm not even going to try to become a content creator or build a brand or anything like that because there's no way I could deal with, you know, 470 hate, like hate comments, you know what I mean? That's the downside of the whole thing. You got to have a really thick skin. But I mean, and someone that's a producer, like a content producer, like yourself, I think the biggest change for me in my content, right? I used to make those silly, funny videos and I still, you know, do every now and then, but that's what got me to where I am today and that's what helped build my following. But I kind of realized, you know, the last year I was making content that, like I wouldn't post stuff because I didn't think it would get likes or comments, right? Or it wasn't good enough. Like, how do I outdo myself every single time? And the second that I just kind of like, I don't care anymore, you know? Like, I don't care if I get likes, comments. The second that I kind of had that shift in my mindset, my content has done a complete 360. I am getting the engagement, you know, I'm getting a lot more people that are reaching out to me like, hey, love this story. And the second that I did it was just so much more freeing. Truthfully. Because I would delete Instagram right now if I could. I can't stand it. Yeah. Wow. And you just do it because of business. It's like a job at this point. It's not even fun. It's, in a way it is fun. It's my outlet, but it's a consumption of other content, right? So if you get stuck on Instagram for, you know, you're scrolling for an hour, that's a waste of an hour. I could have been out cold car. I could have been doorknock. I could have been prospecting, calling. I hate that, by the way. I'll get, I'll get stuck and I don't get stuck for an hour. I'll get stuck for like five minutes. And I'm like, you know, there goes five minutes, you know what I mean? And I didn't learn anything. You know, that's, that's a lot of minutes. Right. It is. Break it down for you. It is. And so I hate, I hate getting into that. Or I'll see, I'll see a video or I'll see something that I'm interested in on like Twitter, let's say, right, like, you know, whatever that may be sports or otherwise or UAPs. And I just wasted 10 minutes, 20 minutes. And I'm like, damn it, what am I, what am I doing? So I just hate the consumption of social media. I hate what social media has become in many ways. You know, I'm not a hater by any means, but I just don't want to see people spreading misinformation. Right. Oh, here's why the housing market is going to crash in a year. Here's, here's why teams suck. Or here's why, you know, all these things. And I want to comment on it and be like, hey, like let's talk about this. I don't think you're spreading the correct information, but I guess it's a waste of time. So, well, I mean, you'd have to comment on like a million people's different posts, you know what I mean? And it's not, it's not only social media. It's mainstream media articles and New York Times and all of them, right? All of them are playing on everybody's fears to get more clicks. And, you know, I mean, you could, you mean, you'd need like a whole like army of people to comment and combat all the, you know, because a lot of it is opinion-based, right? All of it is opinion-based. It's all like, here's what's going to happen. Well, nobody knows what's going to happen, you know? It's crazy because these guys that say prices are going to go down 30, 40% or whatever, they've been saying it for like two, three, four years. It's a really longer than that, right? Really a lot longer than that. So let's just say since the pandemic, you know, they're like prices are going to go down like 30, 40%. They're still saying it. They come up with a new reason every month or two, right? And it's like, dude, you've been wrong for two years now. Like you said it was going to go down 30% last year. Now you said it was going to go down 30, 40% this year. Now you're saying it's going to go down and the prices still continue to go up, right? You've been wrong time after time after time again, but you still get 100,000, 200,000, 300, 400, 500,000 views per video saying the same story with a different reason, right? And it always doesn't happen, but yeah, people still watch your stuff. It blows my mind. And then here I am, you know, since the pandemic, I've been dead on the money when it comes to prices, right? The one thing I got wrong was I figured mortgage rates would be a little lower right now at this point. I thought mortgage rates would be a little closer to under six or something like that. So I got that one wrong, but like as far as prices go and transactions and all that, I've been on the money the whole time. And these guys will argue with me and I'm like, your track record is horrible. You don't have a good track record, man. You know, and it's like, I've hit this on the money every time, you know? And you take accountability for it, right? Like you just said, you were wrong. You thought rates, again, none of us know that that's really the thing. All we can do is we can follow the numbers. We can use facts and data, right? Objective data instead of feelings. And to tend to what you're saying, my mom's been watching my puppy a lot lately, right? So she's someone that watches the news every day. She watches the news. She's on Twitter, she's on Instagram. All she knows is the news is TV. My mom, if I go to Manhattan, she tells me to be careful because I'm gonna get killed. You know, don't go on a plane. Like, mom, you know, the housing market's gonna crash. So everything, okay, mom, where are you getting this info? Like, yeah. And in a way, it's almost helped me become a better agent because like you have to start off with, okay, I understand why you may feel that way because you've been watching this news channel every day, this incredibly biased news channel. They can't even get the weather right, let alone the housing market. They don't know what we're dealing with. They're not in the trenches. They're not dealing with buyers and sellers and follow-up clients. And it's our job to educate, to the best of our knowledge at least, right? And coming from a place of, you know, I don't know what the right word here is, but coming from a place where we're trying to help people, right? Yeah. We're not here trying to get clicks or scamming people or saying the housing market's gonna crash or it's not gonna crash or saying it's the worst one, right? It's like, oh, sure, you're a real estate agent. Of course you're gonna say the market's great. It's a good time to buy. Prices are gonna go up. You know, it's insane. It's like, bro, do you realize that I could give a shit less if you buy something or not? Or if anyone buys anything? I mean, if you knew how little I cared about if people are gonna buy or sell, I don't have to worry about that because closings happen every single day where literally the truth is we're at 2008 levels in terms of number and transactions, right? We're like 4 million transactions this year. It's what we're on track to do, man. That's 2008 levels. We're like in the crash right now. That is, I think, what, maybe the second lowest, I think, or the lowest record of inventory that we've had in 22 years. And on top of that too, we're now heading into at least my slow season, right? At the end of the summertime, right? It gets slower in the Northeast. But there's also $97 billion in commission. That's more commission-racking than there was in 2019. Yeah. Keep that in mind, right? There are gonna be less transactions, for sure, because there's low inventory and high rates, but there's still so much opportunity for everybody out there. And the same way that you just said, I can give a shit, right? I'm not putting out these videos to convince you to buy or home or not. If you don't think buying a house is historically the best investment that you can make, and I'm not gonna convince you, but you know what I'm gonna do? While you sit back and not buy a house and you just keep your money in a CD or stock market, wherever it may be, I'm gonna go up and buy houses because this is the time that makes people wealthy. This is the time to do that. And that's in a year from now, let's hop on a podcast, because I will either be working at Chick-fil-A, there's nothing wrong with that, but at least I'll have Sundays off, or I'm gonna be doing 3,000 times a year and I'll be on that new channel telling everybody that they're all idiots. Dude, I was watching the Bama game and there was 500 commercials for the Chick-fil-A, and I knew honey, what was it? It was the honey, pepper, pimento, okay? I'm talking 500 over and over, and I love pimento, bro, right? And I'm like, we are going to get this sandwich, man. And my mom, I was with my mom and my wife, and they're like, oh, you're gonna love that because they knew I love pimento and jalapenos at the bottom, they're just seeing this commercial over and over and over again. I was like, we are going tomorrow. I'm gonna eat one of them sandwiches. It's like, they're local Sundays. Listen, but look, they're not backing down, right? There are companies that you'll see, and I relate this to COVID. In 2019 or whatever it was, March or February, I couldn't get into a lot of the market-based pricing. Zillow counts in my local market because these senior teams and senior agents had them. I would refresh Zillow every like 10 minutes when we were on lockdown, so you couldn't even go outside the house, nothing. I would refresh it every 10 minutes, and I was waiting for them to pull out their money because I knew that they were gonna, I was watching that, I was actually watching the news, and they did, and I dumped everything into it. Like, I mean, I even personally, I almost didn't make my rent. And this is after I was already doing a lot of business. To buy Zillow leads, you mean? Yeah, to get into the market, like the really, really good market, it's market-based pricing again. What do you mean? How much did you put in? So the equivalent of what I have right now would be almost $75,000 a month in Zillow Flex, right, if I had market-based pricing. But at that time, and this is what I was doing, that was my year and a half into the business, so my team was fairly new. I probably put in, we had Smith Town, St. James, I probably in 10 minutes, I probably put in like $35,000 just like that because I knew that there would not be another chance to grab the number one in all of those zips. And then we started, I took the 35, I put it in the Zillow, let's say I had 100 grand saved up at the time. And I took probably 40, and we went to all the restaurants that needed help and we bought food, and we were younger and we kind of hoped that, listen, if we get sick, whatever, but there were so many people in need, my team and I, we went to all the local hospitals, VAs, and it was scary as shit. I'm not gonna lie, it was like Zombieland. We had like hazmat masks, and we went and we donated to these restaurants, we got the food, and then we brought it to all the workers, to all the nurses, to all the people that were in the hospitals, and we made everybody's day, and that $75,000 that I invested between Zillow and philanthropy, that I think it's 99% of the reason why we're here today. But if I didn't do that, and I just kind of sat home and I was just, oh, we can't go outside. So let's just, let me play Xbox today, or let me watch TV, I wouldn't be here. So I think that this is another time like that. Anybody that sits around and plays Xbox and hangs out at their house is not gonna do anything. But how many excuses could you make right now, right? A lot of people are in a bad way, because they weren't, they were in bad habits. They didn't follow up, they didn't use the CRM, right? They had no CRM integrity. They didn't work on their pipeline. They weren't doing Popeyes. They weren't sending out email lists. They weren't making social media. The list could go on, but it was easy. It was a couple of years. It was kind of like easy, because it was like deals fell in your lap. And so you kind of grew accustomed to just how easy things were. And you weren't even thinking about, oh, this is gonna end and Zillow leads are gonna dry up and I need to build a database. So that's how I was in 2004 and five. The market blew up like 2021 and stuff. And I didn't do any, I just like, I would make 10 calls and find somebody that wanted to make 200 grand that day. And they were like, yeah, out of 10 people. Somebody was like, yeah, I'd list it, sell it in 24 hours, close on in a month. And then I'd call 10 people, do another deal. And like, I forgot about them. They forgot about me. I didn't care. I was just make 10 more calls and make 20 grand, make 10 more calls, make 20 grand. And then when the market crashed, I was screwed. Same thing with I think a lot of these agents now is they were too dependent on the market and whatever whoever was giving them leads or whatever the case may be, they didn't know how to go out there and create leads out of thin air, which is really a skill, you know what I mean? Do you ever think instead of spending like, hundreds of thousands on Zillow or giving 35% referrals and stuff like that, just call property owners and do deals and not pay anybody anything? Absolutely. But because we have so many people and it's such a good opportunity that the Zillow stuff is not meant to be their main source of income. If you're lying on that, then- You're done. Team and yeah, it's 30 days, right? So we're teaching them how to be outdoor cats and those are just supposed to be supplemental. And it's almost like a reward system because between that and open houses, those are people that are calling you, raising their hand saying, hey, I'm interested in buying a house. So that's more supplemental, but everybody's out there door knocking, scooters, the cold calling, they're doing all those things. There are 1.5 million agents right now in this business. That number, it should be probably 10% of that. And I think in the next six months, there'll probably- 50%, 150,000 agents? Yeah, am I opinion, I think so, truthfully. I think in the next six months, there will be at least half because how many people won't be able to pay their MLS or their association or their NAR dues, right? And how many people, Austin, Texas, for example, right now, in there, it's called ABOR, they have 15,000 members. Take a guess on how many of them have sold three homes or less out of a one- Okay, so 1,500, 15,000? 15,000, how many have sold three homes? Hold on a second, let me do the math. Yeah, let me do the math, let me think. 15,000, let's see, 10% would be 1,500. Austin, Texas is one of the hottest markets. Everybody from LA was going there. 100% of people- I'm gonna say 900. Well, no, 9,000. 6,000. 6,700. So half the agents did three deals or more? Oh, I'm sorry, no, no, you're right. It was 67% of agents have done less than three deals. 67% of agents have done less than three deals. Oh, okay. Okay, so 34% or whatever. Yes. Did three deals or more. So 33%, that's gonna be 5,000. That's a lot. Dude, the year before that in 2021 or whatever, there was a stat going around that out of the 1.5 million agents in the U.S., eight, only 8%, eight did four or more deals the first half of the year. I mean, you're telling me like a third of the agents in wherever you're talking about did three deals or more? That's a lot. No, no, no, no, 30% have done three deals or more. That's what I'm saying. That's a lot. But that's also in the, and then if you go even further, how many of them did six transactions, now it goes down to like 3%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't survive, you can't make a living off of those numbers. I understand, I understand. Well, supposedly we've lost like 100,000 agents since you're already, right? But see what I would love to see is the churn rate, right? That's net numbers, you know? We're like 60,000 to 100,000 net, right? But how many have joined and then how many total have quit the business, right? That's what would be interesting to me. I don't have access. I haven't seen that data. Yeah, and how many agents also only have their license for maybe they flip or they do interior design or maybe they just have their license for referrals. You know, that's a whole another story. But I mean, in a market like Austin, Texas, man where 100% appreciation you over a year, everybody's flocking there from California and everywhere. You'd think it'd be pretty easy to sell a house there but people just aren't in the right habits or they don't have the right resources. And again, I made it a point in the very beginning, somebody's getting a $4,000 marketing budget but they don't know what to do with the money. Yeah, it's like, what do you do with it? What would you tell them or what's the best use of that money? I mean, it's case by case, right? Like what might be the best for you might be it's completely different for me. Yeah. I think investing in yourself is, you know and your brand, what are we doing? How do you invest in yourself and your brand? I think you invest in yourself by education, right? So whether that be going to some conferences or getting free coaching or paid coaching but we're getting a mentor, right? Paying for a mentor, joining a team, you know taking it off the chin a little bit maybe taking a lower split to learn from somebody that can get you the leads and all those things and then by investing in your brand I mean, that could be having a, getting some pens, right? They have your name on it, I don't know if you can see this that could be social media, that could be thinking outside the box. I didn't have a marketing budget when I first got started in fact, I was net negative. I had, I was two months late on my rent. I told my parents and my listeners, give me one month if I don't get something this month I'm out, I'll go back to, you know be in the restaurant business and we'll figure this out but I gave myself the three month I had no money, I had nothing so I just got creative. I didn't need a marketing budget, I didn't need it. I found a way to go out and be an outdoor cat and hunt. I had nothing handed to me, no zeal leads, no social media, nothing, I didn't even have an admin. I would go to a, I told you the story I would go to a restaurant with my club soda to meet people. I would do five open houses a weekend but it was because the only way you could fail was if you let yourself fail and that just wasn't happening. Well, there's plenty of ways to get free leads. I mean, there's plenty of ways, right? First sale by owners are free, door knocking is free, social media is for free, sphere of influence is free and meeting people in public are free. I mean, like you can build your entire career for free entire career for free, like without spending a single dollar if you wanted to, right? I've never actually even taken a zeal lead. I've had zeal over four and a half years, four years. I've never even taken a zeal lead. Everything that I've ever done has always been through meeting people, connections, right? Just being personable and just getting out there. And I cannot stand, well, you know that's not true, I shouldn't say that. What bugs the crap out of me is when an agent says, Dan, I don't know what to do today. I don't know what to do. It just comes from a place that just not knowing, right? Like that's where the experience comes in. They don't realize that it's right under their nose. You know, and they need someone to say, it's right there. You know, it's right there. A lot of people are scared too. They just, they're scared to call. It's like this whole business is predicated on talking to people you don't know to help them buy and sell real estate. It's like, you don't want to do the one thing that this business is totally predicated on. Like you've got your license. You know, it's so true. That's why it's infuriating. It's like, you know, you got to get on social media to build your brand and to articulate to your clients, your sphere. And if you're worried about what you look like, look at me. I have a gash on my face. I don't even know what the hell this is. I'll be on social media. I'm on the podcast, right? I'll be out door knocking and talking to people. It all looks like a teardrop tattoo. It does, yeah. I was jet skiing and I smashed my face against that. Damn, dude. That's why I don't do that kind of stuff. What do you mean, do I? Clear example. Franchise injury. Daniel Neal wipes out on Jetski, smashes his face. I used to snowboard, kite surf, like do MMA. Like I did all. I've done all kinds of stuff. Roofing, football, like working an oil rig, like all kinds of dangerous physical stuff. But I won't do it anymore. It's a franchise move. What are you, because this is really the only time we get to talk, what are you kind of focusing on now for the next six months, year, two years? Because again, every time we talk, we're in different, I'm back to this, I was growth mode, revenue mode. Yeah. Honestly, like right now, I stepped out of production last year and I'm just focused totally on the brand and then whatever businesses spawn out of that. And right now, my real main focus is to buy a property a month for five years, right? Just a local rental property, a house, right? I'm buying a new office. I'm closing on Thursday. I have this huge office and only have one employee, right? I see that. I see that on your stories. She's there, right? And no agents are there. I have 40 agents locally and none of them come to the office. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get a smaller office for her. I can rent that building out for $4,000 or $5,000 a month. I own it all free and clear and paying cash for the new one, own that one free and clear. I'm just going to rent that, right? I'm closing on two new constructions. I'm $1031,000 out of a condo into two brand new DR Horton homes. Then I'm getting a little fixer upper that me and my partners are flipping. And I'm just going to buy them out of it. I flip with two other guys. We buy on the courthouse steps, four closures. And I wish I would have kept my favorite 30 properties. We've done 100 plus properties. But the top 30 ones were really prime properties. And I'm like, shit, we would be so rich right now if we would have just kept those properties. So if we get something that's in my portfolio criteria, then I'm going to just buy the other two guys out and keep it as a rental. But I'm trying to buy one property a month. And I did the numbers. If I buy a property a month for five years, I'll have about 100 properties at about 40 now. So if they average $500,000 per, it's 50 mill worth of property. And then I take 20 years to pay it off. It more than doubles within the 20 years. Now I got 100, 150 million worth of property paid off. That's just like something I can do no problem for fun. Just on the side. It's generational. And now you're setting up your children. You're doing it for everything, to have success when they grow up. Think about what you just said. Everybody is pulling out. And they're scared. And the market's going to crash, says that, the other. Whatever it may be. And you are buying a house a month. I just invested and got an office down in Florida. And I'm looking for property every day. Think about that. Two people here that have sold way more real estate than I have, but that have sold quite a bit of real estate are buying real estate now. I mean, look, if it's cash flowing, like the thing that I look at right now is like, if I can make a cash flow with today's interest rates, it's like, run that scenario past me. Well, here's how it goes. Right now I'm making X amount of cash flow, right? Okay, later on as rents increase incrementally and the mortgage rate decreases when I refinance in maybe two or three. I don't know how long it's going to take to get to five or four or whatever, but it's going to happen in the next two, three, four, five years. In the meantime, I'm making cash flow day one, that cash flow increases as rent goes up. And then when I decide to take a point or two off of my mortgage, then my cash flow increases dramatically. So like I'm cash flowing today and the cash flow is going to do nothing but increase over time. It's like now is the best time because if you find a cash flowing property in today's environment, that is a huge winner because it's like going to exponentially expand as time goes on and then you've got appreciation, you've got appreciation and I'm just like, it's paying itself off on top of the cash flow. It's just like, okay, show me something better that I can get into. And I like more than half the agents don't own investment properties. And I'm like, you say you want to sell forever, but that day will end. There will be a day where like me, you cringe every time a client calls and you're going to wish you had put together. Okay. I would, this is a true story. Like a million dollar clients were calling me to list their properties and I was like, damn it. Like I did not want to answer the phone. That's how bad it was. Like I was so burnout, bro. Like 20 years of just single agent busting my ass. You know, a hundred deals a year for eight years in a row, just me showing everything, bro. You got a team. This was just me, no buyer agent, no nothing. I get it. Two deals a week, every week for eight years in a row. And I still was like, I love this. I'm never going to not do this or whatever until the day comes that you look at your phone and you cringe when a client's calling. That's the day that you know that you should have been buying real properties years before. Yeah. And it's funny. So I kind of had a little bit of, and people have various opinions on burnout. I kind of had a little bit of a similar feeling because again, I have, you know, the 40 agents. We have Florida going on. I was traveling to Florida four times a week, right? Like same clothes. I would get a call and I would go to, I would just fly down and come back the same day. So it started to kind of take its toll on me a little bit. I haven't taken a day off in very, very long, like I said before this weekend, but I will never tell my team to do something that I wouldn't do. So whether it be a cold call, whether it be a door knock, an open house, anything above. So I actually, I started doing it again, right? So like it was showing these agents how it's done. Like, you know, this is how I do it. Maybe it'll be different from you. And I got like seven appointments. I'm like, huh, seven appointments times ex-commission, right? Like, I hate to say it like this, man, because of the people that are probably watching that could be kind of struggling or whatever, but dude, this is so easy. I mean, I hate to say it like that because it sounds like I'm like thrown it in the faces of people who are having a hard time, but they're having a hard time because they're complicating the process and they're over, they're over communicating and they sound nervous when they're talking and they're not really making a connection and they're not asking the questions and they're not looking at it for what it is. You know, you use the property, right? You use the property as an excuse to talk to them to see if you can make a connection, get to know them, see what you can do to help them, see what they're looking to do. They have nothing to do with the property they own or that they're inquiring about on Zillow or whatever. And people are so focused on that property listing that expired, selling that, you know, one they were looking at online or whatever that the prospect's like, I'm out of here. Yeah. And the agent doesn't even realize what they did wrong. They're like, what did I do? A prime example, right? And I think it's also too, like it's easy but you have to surround yourself with the right people and you have to know what you should be doing. So a lot of the people that I have to speak to across the country, they almost get like, what is it, like paralysis, like fear paralysis. It's like, they know what they should do but then they're scared to do it. They don't know what to do. Yeah. So like prime example, right? Is, you know, going through our numbers on Zillow and our inbound leads or leads that I've dispersed out and seeing our conversion rate. I'm like, hey guys, we're not converting these. These people are coming to our open houses. You did 81 open houses and you convert one lead. How does that make sense? Whereas, you know, this other agent, if we look at her numbers, she did six open houses and she actually sold all six houses. So what are we doing wrong here? Or Zillow, right? Same thing. I mean, it's like a minute on the phone with these people. That minute is not, you know, a tryout to be their agent. It's your experience with, like their experience with you. So the first thing that agents were doing that I picked up on where, hey, this is so-and-so, by the way, are you pre-approved? That's horrible. You don't even, you don't even, the people, literally the first thing is, hi, I saw you're sitting in one of the main street. Are you pre-approved? Right. That person is, as soon as you get off that call, they're out, right? Because they don't know you from a whole lot. They have no rapport with you. It's like being all night at Starbucks or dating somebody. And the first thing you do is ask for their credit score. Nobody's gonna, they just want an appointment, right? Put yourself in your shoes. So as soon as we kind of, you know, started implementing the KPIs and the measurables and seeing what was going wrong and why it was going wrong, it's easy to fix it. But when you have the fear paralysis or another example is video. So every day I make an appointment to go down my, go down your contact list really quick. On your phone. Go all the way down. You do it right now? How many contacts do you have? I'm 1961, almost 2000. And I don't save anybody's number. But that's 2000 leads right there, let's say. Yeah, 3,200. Every day, this is what I've been doing. This is what everybody else should be doing. Same thing. I start from A, right? And I'm at like E right now. Think of your phone. Hey, what's going on? Ethan, just, you know, how's everything? I'm sorry, I know it's been a long time. I, you know, I've been super busy but I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. How's everything by you? Oh, everything's good. Maybe they bust my chops for a minute. And then what's the natural question? Yeah, what's going on with you? What's going on with you? How's the market? How's the real estate? Yeah, they want to know what's up in your world. It's such an easy, or even a video, right? I've been doing this thing where every day I spend about 10 minutes. This is a new habit that I've implemented. I'm being consistent with it. I spend 10 minutes to think about people that I'm thankful for. This could be a high school teacher. This could be somebody from 10 years ago. And it actually takes time to think about, right? Who you want to send this to. I'll sit there and I'll either write an email or I'll take a video, like I would, you know, on my face. What's up, Ricky? Just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you today and I just wanted to, you know, I'm super thankful for our friendship, our relationship and you're the man who loved the new content. Keep crushing it. God bless, I'll see you soon. 10 seconds. And I'll send that to you. You'll watch that. You're gonna be like, wow, that was really nice. Yeah. And that's just the easiest way to reach out to people. I think the punchline is that this business is a one-on-one contact sport, right? And that the only thing between any agent and a million bucks a year are thousands of one-on-one conversations with people in their market. Yep. Right? And it's like, okay, how long are you gonna take to have those thousands of one-on-one interactions? Right? You're not out over 20 years. Are you gonna jam it up into a couple of years so we can get this thing over with and start making a million bucks a year? Right. Right? That like, I'm gonna get, I wanna do it now. You know what I'm saying? They can't, they can't fire it up, they can't about it. That's why I got into the cold calling because that was the only thing that I could just pound out one-on-one conversations as many as I wanted at will. Right now, today, without any other like, you know it was like straight to the source instead of like doing all these activities like open analysis and social media and video and postcards and all this stuff to try to get, try to get into conversations with people. I'm like, let me just hack the system. Let me just go back door. I'm just gonna call them. I'm just gonna have a conversation with them right now. So I can go ahead and get these thousands of conversations over with so I can make this meal. Yep. It gets me like fired up because you're right. It is, it's easy, right? Maybe that's not the right word to use but it's just, it's right there. For everybody watching this, whether you've done two deals, 100 deals, it's right there. And I'm still doing the forced sell by the rest because it gets me so fired up when I get the deal, you know? I get, it's, it gives me like adrenaline. It's like, do you feel like an agent that's not on social just won't make it? Unless you're the 30, you know, your vet that doesn't need social and you already have that book of business and all those things, I think there, they'll be fine but I do think they'll start to get weeded out. I do think that social media is, it's been a huge, huge, like I cannot even tell you. But I mean, like it can enhance your business, right? But can someone build a million dollar business from scratch as a new agent in today's world without it? Unless you are a master on the phone, unless you are a guru on the phone and you have the best script and you are the most personable, you know, human being alive. Which is kind of like the fundamentals of the business, right? To say the right things, the right way to build friendships and relationships and stuff like that. But I can argue that without social, I don't think that they could because let's say you went on a forced sale by owner appointment or expired, right? And I did too. And you give your listening bench and I give mine. I'm gonna beat you every single, well, maybe not you but you know, somebody that doesn't have social media, let's say, I'm gonna beat you 10 out of 10 times because I'm gonna be able to show facts and stats on, hey, listen, this agent, you know, these agents forced sale by owners, they sell list to market price at 92% in our market. The top 3% in our market, they sell it at 102%, right? To list to market price. Our team sells 136% list to market and it's due to the fact that we get 200 to 300,000 views on social alone on top of the fact that we have 40 other agents who are marketing your property too. Right then and there, if they look you up versus us or the team, so I do think you need social, I do. Well, it's powerful, right? Like impressions, views, and you're like, this is what we do. I had Matt on Linedi, he does the same thing, like that's his thing, right? Is showing the view, showing the impressions and stuff like that in his listening presentations and I'm like, that is some powerful stuff. I always say like, in today's world, okay? Like if you go out and take the old school tactics, right? Just having conversations with people all morning and then crush social all afternoon, you're the most dangerous, like you're an unstoppable force, right? I'm trying to, I think I have my listing packet right here actually, hold on. What are you guys, what's your guys' volume been over the past couple of years? Like what'd you do in 21? What'd you do in 22? What are you guys on track to do this year? 21, I think we did, I wanna say like 178 sides. We won number one in units in our company and we came in second for GCI 22. What was the volume? The volume for 21, I don't even remember. I think it was- Well, your average price is what, 800? No, no, no, back 21 it was, no, way less, in 21 it was about five to 550, you wanna say? So you did about 80, 90 million? Yeah, and then 22, we did 400 in something sides and we bumped up our average sale price so I think it's now 650 or 655. And this year we're probably, I think we're pushing right now, we've done 67 deals in Florida and I think we're at the like 150 mark here. My goal for this year was to get to 500. I think we will fall a little bit short of that, but with the new people that we brought on and the staff and everything, next year is guns blazing. And I knew- I wanna say I'm having a down year, I'm doing like 200 deals so far, you know? Wow, this is actually funny, this is from last year. This is part of our listing presentation here. That was from, I guess, 22, but hold on, I just wanna show you the social media part of this. We have, this isn't even updated, but we have our philanthropy and this is on NYSER paper as well. We have our reviews, we have the entire buying process, that's the buyer packet, damn it, hold on. When you see this page of the analytics and the social and all those things, it is near impossible. It's a bit of a buy-on, damn it. I guess it's- Well, what I like about it is it's not like a can presentation. I don't even go over it. I leave it, here it is. Like I don't even go over it, right? So this is one company that I started with and I thank them very much for everything they showed me, but they had a listing presentation. I swear to God, it was as big as this poll right here. You can see this. And it was a, like you had to fold it over, like it was like a weapon, right? Yeah. And they would, we would sit there, it was laminated and you'd have to go over it page by page and then they would take it with them, right? I don't need to go over this page by page with you. I just, I leave it, I know what it says. I articulate it to the homeowner every single time. This is it, here we go. When you see these numbers, and I leave this with them, just take a look whenever you get a chance. I usually, I don't even bring a listing packet with me. I mean, I don't even bring a, you know, like a whatever, listing documents. And I leave every single time with it, with the listing. This is another, I guess, bad example here, whatever. But this is an older one. And you can see, right? It has all of our impressions and it's just easy to show. And so what's happening now is our signs are everywhere every weekend. Whether I have an open house or not, I make sure my face is on every main road here for from Friday to Sunday. And if somebody takes it and throws it out, okay, I will buy new ones. Then they see the social media, then they get referred by a friend. And it's just the omnipresence of all the above. So now when I'm going on a listing presentation or I'm bringing a new agent or somebody, we're leaving there with the listing because they already know who we are. They've already heard about it. And that's why I said social media is so important because it's just another avenue. In my opinion, in my schedule, in my time block, that's prospecting. The same thing as doing cold calls, the same thing as, it's prospecting. Do you run ads or is it all organic? I can't run ads. My account got hacked in like 2018 from somebody, you know, and whatever. I saw that, dude. They changed your profile to us. They changed your profile to DJ. So I can't run ads. And it's like, it was time. How was that? Was that you that changed it to DJ? That was me, yes. Okay, that was a joke. What was the deal with that? No, it wasn't a joke. That was me trying to hack. I was telling a joke. Like, I saw it got hacked. You changed to DJ for a second. What was the deal with that? Yeah, the truth behind that was DJ for a second? No, no, no. The truth behind it, I don't think I've ever told this on a podcast, but I don't care. It's funny. I was trying to get verified. So I paid a company to verify me because I did kept, I kept getting hacked. And I'm like, listen, if I lose my account, like that's a big problem. I can't start over. That's why I shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket. But I paid a company to hack me, right? And make me into a DJ. Like they actually had, there's a song. Like I have a song out and everything. It's a pretty good song. And I got verified. So it worked. And then like three months later, they took the blue badge away or maybe six months later. And then now it's $10 a month. So that was a great investment on my part. Did they take the blue badge away because they realized you weren't a DJ? No, it turns out the guy that was running the scam, they're like the people, they had a, they like snitched on each other, the two partners to try to get like the other one out. And by doing that, they basically blew up 400 people's spot. Yeah, Alex Hermosi was one of those. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I thought it's to God truth, but I was getting hacked for a very long time. So to answer your question, I can't boost anything I wish. Why? What is it getting hacked have to do with boosting? It's some, maybe I'll show you right now. Like it won't let you, like it's just like you're blocked from running ads. Why don't you do it on Facebook? I'll show you. Why don't you? Like I'm just saying like, you're going to run ads from somebody in your team's account. The option is not even available. And if I go to like, you know, payments or meta anything, it won't let me boost that available. So why don't you just like have like Dan O'Neill team, like somebody like somebody else start the Dan O'Neill team page. Yeah. Anyway, you don't run any ads. So it's working so far. So all of the social media stuff is all just organic. And like your whole team, like it's all just organic and you just preach and try to help them build like organic content, organic leads, no paid stuff. No paid stuff. And I think that what I try to do with them is just share their story. Right. Because if nobody, if you don't share your story, how are people going to know it, right? If you didn't share that you were, you know, a roofer for X amount of years, I would never know that. Think about Gary V. Everybody knows Gary's Gary V story. He worked at his dad's, you know, wine store or whatever sold baseball cards, Pokemon cards, whatever. Everybody knows, you know, the story that's brand, right? That makes people like and trust you. That's why they're going to work with you. But if you're not going to go out and you know, sometimes brag about yourself or if you're not going to be the go-to person for information or you're not going to go out and you know, build that brand and tell your story because everybody has an amazing story whether you want to share that or not. You know, I have a couple of agents on my team. One had leukemia at like 20 years old. It's a great story. Maybe you'll motivate and inspire somebody just by sharing it. I had a 19 year old kid on my team that, so sad. He lost his mother, his uncle, his brother in like a week's like month's span. And he's still in the office every day getting, putting his head down, working. Like that's, right? You're not, you're not posting that to get people to, you know, feel bad for you or anything, but maybe you inspire one person. Maybe you, maybe you help someone go through something bad or a bad time. And that seems to be really working is just sharing their stories, sharing deal stories, right? Success all the above. And I just find that stories, man. Yeah. Cause like they, then they start to watch it and if it's got a good hook, you know, then it's like a, then it's like a movie. They just have to see how this thing's going to end. Like what's, how's this, you know, what's going to happen? Yep. And every, every, every person that's watching this or if nobody watches this, even like your stories, right? Like I use my stories every day with intent. Everything that I post out is, is with intent. I'm not just out there taking a picture or something. And everything that I'm posting is, is for a reason. Stories or, or otherwise. And I try to preach that to the team too. If you're afraid to get out that like you're doing right now, you were probably the first one to adapt the green screen. By the way, I'm going to give your flowers on that too. Like if you're not out there with, with all the, the news and the articles every day that are coming out from the news and these mainstream media, like you said, somebody else is going to, and now, right? Your consumers, your buyers, they don't know. And if you don't practice, like how, I can't even imagine how many cold calls you've made, all the lessons you've learned, how many FUs you've gotten, how many times somebody slammed their finger, your fingers in their door. But that's all experience. That that's, that's all helps you to get to where you are, where now you could be buying a rental property a month for the next five years. Yeah. You know what's so funny? I made a hundred thousand calls. I probably had like, I don't know, a dozen people cuss me out, but I never door-knocked a single door ever. Really? Yeah. Because I was like, why? Right? I like, I grew up roofing where I'm like in the sun, sweating my balls off, right? It's like, I'm not going to go outside and do anything if I can sit right here in the air conditioning and just call person after person after person after person, you know? And it's like, it works. So like, I try different things, you know, like mail-outs and email, I mean, honestly, like there was nothing back then. There was no social media. This was 2002. There was no nothing. Yeah. But when I, but when I ran up against calling and like it worked, I was like, okay, like until that didn't work, I wasn't going to try something else. Like once I find something that worked, it's like, you go all in. I think that's the biggest problem is there's so many options nowadays to lead you in and build your business and agents are so spread out because they're scared of the business they're going to lose on this thing if they don't do it. And so they're doing like 15 things. When the top producer, you never hear a top producer say, I made it doing these eight things. It's always like, how, what was your, how did you do it? It was just like, oh, I would circle prospect it or I did Zilla leads or I did social media. It's always like one thing. Yep. You know, and it's like, I'm a source of errors too. Just like you. I've been trying to push, like have two main Legion activities that you're all in on. And maybe a third one on the side is kind of like a secondary Legion activity. But this whole like doing eight things. And then through that, it's like, you're sacrificing the business that you may be losing on these other avenues, but that sacrifice is what's gonna like help you close more deals in less time going all in on these few, I think that's a big, big problem right now. Cause back when I started, there was only like three things to do. You know what I'm saying? And now there's like 25. You didn't have phones back then. He raises the fucking, they use literally was a flip phone. But, but you're a hundred percent right. And they'll, they'll, right? There's so many different things to do. So they try to do all of them, right? And they, they're only giving each one of them, maybe 20% where they only do it for 30 days. And they go, I'll say it working and they stop. That is, you can't do that, right? You need to commit to three, let's say three things like you said, give it 90 days and give it everything, right? A hundred percent and maybe have some side projects, but commit to four sale by owners, commit to expireds, commit to their circle dialing. What's going to work for you, maybe different than what's going to work for me. I've never had success door knocking and I've never had success really with expireds. But I, if we did a live call right now, I'd get five, four sale by owners easily, right? But that's, that's what works for me. That's what's so cool. That, that's why I'm very collegiate and agnostic. I'm like, I'm not going to tell you just cold call or just do social or just do or knock or whatever. Number one, I'm not charging you for a program, but number two, like I've seen everything work. I've seen it all work. So it's just like, figure out what works best for you on the expireds. It's like my thing, my thing is when I hear that, I'm thinking, okay, you were using, you know, like a Mike Ferry script or something and you were going after the listing and you weren't using the property as an excuse to talk to someone. You were just trying to list a property. That's why you didn't have any success. And then like for me, it's like, hey, I see you were trying to sell this house, whatever happened with that? And now the whole thing turns around for me being this agent salesman to a detective and they're trying to help me solve the mystery now. And they turned into my little helper. You know what I mean? So I did a case study. So this was one of my tactics that I used on expireds and it worked, but it was just a lot of work. I was calling for a case study. Okay. So I saw that you're one of 400 homes that expired in the last six months in this area. That's just what you did back in the day when it didn't work or this is what you do now. No, this is what is working. Okay. And I would, you know, ask them, do you mind just two seconds? Why do you think your home didn't sell? You know, we're doing a case study. And 90, 90%, actually I would say it's 50-50. No, you know what? It was 90%, it was, it's the agent. The agent didn't communicate. The agent overpriced it. My agent was horrible, all the above. Would you mind if as part of this case study we sent you something, just take a look at it, packet of what we do, how we do it, all the above, you get an employment 10 out of 10 times. So that's what worked for me, right? But then I got through every single script that you possibly could imagine. Well, it's the kind of the same thing. You've turned them into your little helper. Right. I'm doing a case study. I'm trying to figure out why all these listings haven't sold. Can you help me? Right? I need a partner here. What do they call it in the PD? Like you're- Yeah, I need some backup here. Like I need some help. For me though, like a lot of the expires that I represented, I helped them buy something. And I never listed the property that expired. Because what would happen is is I'm like whatever happened with that and I get into this amazing conversation and they're telling me all this stuff and I'm understanding what they want to do and realizing that they don't even care if this property sells, but they're way more interested in buying this or doing that or whatever. And those calls, like more than half of them that I closed turned into a deal that had nothing to do with the property I'm calling about. And then like 30, 40% like I re-listed the property because that's what they wanted to do, but like most of them, more than half of them, it turned into a completely different deal, a commercial deal on the other side of downtown that they're trying to sell, something they want to buy or whatever. And that's what I find very interesting about this is that there's so many opportunities outside and I think we're so folk, all the strategies, the mainstream strategies seem to be focused on one thing, trying to relist that property in some form or fashion. And that's what I'm not a big fan of, right? I'm a big fan of it if that's what they're trying to do, but I'm more of a fan of how do I create this? How do I make friends with this person, get them to open up to me about what they really want, you know? Yeah, and coming from a place of, I guess maybe the word is like empathy. So when I'm going on appointments now, whether it be expired, four, seven, whatever, even recruiting, I genuinely believe that if they don't work with us, right, that they're doing themselves a disservice. And I'm incredibly passionate about it because I do believe that we are the best. The agents? No, it's consumers and agents, truthfully, honestly. And I truly believe that, right? They're doing themselves a disservice. So I'm there to help whatever capacity it may be. I don't care. I have people that for three years, three years I would follow up or they'll call me. It's almost like buying a car. I feel bad for the guy that I bought my car through. When I wanted my car, I'd reach out to him. I was in a car mood, right? Then I didn't really want it anymore. So I would go us over two months. But if he didn't follow up with me, he wouldn't have been top of mind for all this time, right? And I can show you, I mean, he was following up. But I tell everybody follow up until they either block you or until those messages go green, keep following up. So six months later, I would call him, hey, I want the car again, and then I wouldn't. I dragged this guy through the mud for like two years and I finally transacted with him. But I have the same thing with clients or consumers of mine, right? That will follow up with me. If something happens, they fall off. No big deal. I'm still here for you. Here's an update on the market. Here's a video of myself, whatever it may be. And if I didn't do that, right? If I wasn't following up and if I wasn't staying on top of them or a simple objection of they're at an open house or they call on Zello and I have an agent, they don't have an agent. You find it out in two seconds by asking the right questions. You know, who's your agent? I may know him. Who's your agent? They're like, oh, it's not a good agent. I know, oh, and they're just horrible. I don't even, they think, oh, I'll forget their name. Okay, sure. One little quick little tip here is what we've been doing. We have a packet at every open house where signing code, you know, QR code and then right next to it says in big letters, off market listings, there's nothing in the folder. It's literally bare empty. As they're scanning in, they look and they go, oh, you guys have off market lists. But we ask them, do you have an agent? They go, yeah, yeah, okay, no big deal. Just sign in and let us know who your agent is on the QR code. Then they look to the right, which is right in front of them and they see off market listings and they go, huh, you guys have off market listings? Oh yeah, you know, we work with three of the largest investors on the island. We have about 140 off market properties. Let's head to the kitchen and they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean you have? How do we get to that? Oh, well, you could have your agent reach out and we could potentially set that up, but that's really for our VIP clients only. Do you know how quickly they don't have an agent anymore? After that, it's like that fast. So it's implementing these little strategies, but I think the biggest thing that it comes down to is tracking. I bet you track everything that you do. I bet you have KPIs, I bet you are accountable, maybe you have an accountability buddy, but if you're not tracking these things, conversations, appointments, conversion ratio, right? If you're not tracking where your ROI is coming from, you're just going out there with no game plan. And that's what I see the most right now is agents don't know what they're doing because they don't have a game plan. Yeah, yeah, they're just, well, it goes back to there's a million things to do. So they're just like running around. Like, that's why they don't know what to do. When they come to you and say, I don't know what to do, it's because there's too many options. And they're scared to put time over here because they don't know if that's gonna work. When there's all these other things, this is a big problem right now. I'm doing a talk coming up and it's gonna be just strictly on, guys, figure out what your top two prospecting avenues are, right? And focus on those and quit doing everything else. Yeah, you know. We had somebody reach out to me two weeks ago and they're like, listen, we spent, he was a newer agent with another company. He spent 10 grand in six months. He was a plumber in the city and he made very good money. He's like, I've had no luck. So my God, let's sit down, let's see the direct mail campaign that you've been sending and let's go through it. Turns out he was only sending it once. He's sending one piece of mail to the way home and that's it. You know what they were probably doing? Again, they're getting it. Garage. Oh, so how do you send 10 grand sending one piece of mail? Well, he would send it to, let's call it 10,000 people, but he only did it one time. So everybody was taking it on the first time and they're throwing it right out. Got you, got you. Times three, times four, you got to send them a CMA. You have to go there in person, call them. You can't just send direct, one piece of mail and expect everyone to start calling it. I did direct mail for a long time. I was doing 5,000 pieces or I was spending five grand a month. So I spent 60K a month, a year on it and I would do some deals. I don't even know if I broke even on it, to be honest. But like when I'm making calls and I'm just doing deals, I'm doing these postcards. I got the point where I was just like, why am I doing postcards? I'm trying to get them to call me. I could just call them. There again, like I just hacked the system. Like every time I turned around, I was like, I can just call them. Like, oh, why don't I do this? No, I can just call them. Why don't I do that? Going back to your off-market thing, I can take a bad conversation and like they're like, you know, being rude or whatever. And I'm like, hey, before I let you go, if I, let me ask you this, have I had a great deal on a rental property? Would you be interested in that? And you'd be surprised at how many people their ears perk right up and now they're just Mr. Nice guy, right? They're like, whoa, what you got? You know? And I'm like, well, let me get your email, right? And like, I start talking about their criteria, what they like. And now all of a sudden I got an investor client that came from somebody that was rude. When people are mean, people have to understand when they answer the phone, they're not answering the phone. They're hoping for this negative outcome, right? They're hoping for something positive to come out of this phone call. They're guards up a little bit because they don't know what you're gonna throw at them, but they're giving you an opportunity here. You know? And the problem is you're blowing it and you think it's them cause they're mean, but the fact is you suck, right? And you're, but you have to say it like that because they're like, they're thinking it's the person on the phone. Oh, people are just mean and all that. No, they gave you an opportunity and they want a positive outcome. You suck. They won't point their thumb. They want to point their finger. They just can't, they can't get over that. You know, it's not me, it's you. Yeah. You know? It's like, come on now. Like let's step up our communication game. How important like for you and your coaching clients and the team that you had and whatever, how important is it for you role playing? Like going over scripts and bouncing stuff, like practicing, right? I think it's good. I never did it coming up. I always role played and practiced on my prospects because nothing beats the real thing. Like reading the script, looking at it, but I didn't get good. Like I role played a little here and there. I got a little like, you know, like where I got really good was practicing on my prospects. You know, being in those real life scenarios and there's the like, people are scared to mess up on a call, right? It's like they're not going to recognize you at Walmart. Like they don't know what you look like number one, right? This isn't the end of your career. You know, you mess up on a call, right? They're like, where you live in Long Island or whatever. Like what's the population? You know, 2 million. Yeah, probably something like that. Yeah. Like 2 million people. Okay. If you mess up on one, it's okay. You got a million, 999 other people to call that you can get better every single call and get a little better, a little better, a little better. I agree. So I don't know. I never was big on it to be honest with you. I never was either. And I did the same thing. I just trial by fire. But what I'm finding for the newer agents or the people that are struggling right now is they don't know, they don't even know what to say or how to say it or how to communicate. So when somebody says or asks a question about inventory or the market, you know, wherever it may stand or appreciation, having those stats and facts right at the top of your head like I did earlier on this on this, right? But you speak with confidence. Because I know it. And then they're like, well, you know, a lot about the market. So if you don't role play and you don't really know what to say, you're going to call those 2 million people and they're going to click. I think there's two things to think about that, well, you can never call 2 million people. That's punchline, right? But there's two things to think about, right? Because when you talk about role playing, a lot of people will role play instead of making calls. And they'll chalk it up to, oh, I'm getting better. And like my thing is, it's okay, you want to role play for like five minutes, go for it. But get on the phone. Because none of the role play matters unless you're talking to people. The next thing is, is knowing the stats and everything. Too many people sit around and try to learn every little step before they make calls or talk to people or whatever. And the 10 stats that they didn't look at are the 10 questions they're going to get from people. Yes. Every time. And so I got to where I didn't try to figure anything. I didn't try to learn any stats. I didn't know any stats. Like I know stats now because this is my job is to analyze the market and bring information. And I think real estate agents need to be more like that than I was. So don't like watch what I used to do when I was coming up, you know, watch kind of what I do now and be more of like an analyst and really try to provide information. But at the same time, don't use it as a crutch, you know, to not reach out to people. Cause there are, one thing you got to get really good at when it comes to like role playing and thinking about making calls and stuff is how are we going to handle questions that we don't have the information? Or we haven't heard that question before. How are we going to handle the ones that kind of throw us off a little bit? How you handle those questions is really going to define the relationship, especially if it's in the first conversation with the prospect, you know, like how well are you to be able to kind of think on your feet and transition the conversation where you don't sound like a complete, you know. Yeah. Doofus, right? We do it, we do it every Wednesday. We do it for just 30 minutes. And what it does is I find that it fires everybody up to make the calls. We do it at a time where most people aren't answering the phone anyway, cause they're probably at work or they're out and we have everybody bring, you know, three objections that they found from the previous week and we go through them. And it's been super helpful. I love the role playing sessions that I do cause I literally just scream at people. Make your calls, call everybody. I mean, I don't say make your calls, but like I'm like, and when they're done, I'm like, you know, critiquing them and stuff. I'm just screaming at everybody for like 30 minutes or so. And it fires everybody up. And I'm fired up afterwards, you know. Bro, it's Labor Day, man. I got a role. I got to go to my wife's grandfathers and do some dinner and all that. It's good talking to you. Probably chatted up for hours and hours. I don't know. Oh man. What, and to answer your, go back to like what I'm focusing on before we dip, I'm just continued to build a brand, you know, take the income from the businesses there and just buy properties, man. That's like my main thing. I thought about syndicating and I'm still kind of there, but I'm like, I'll just buy the properties on my own. It's almost like build a team versus single agent. So I was like, syndicate versus you syndicate, you own 10% of a thousand units. Well, I could just go buy a hundred units on my own. You know what I mean? And I have to report to the investors and do all this stuff. Not to say I'll never do anything like that. I'm just, I enjoy what I'm doing, you know what I mean? I got the coaching money coming in. I got the brokerage money. I got the investments. I'm still making money on commissions. So I'm trying to step up with like doing better, like bringing on better names like yourself to the podcast and like trying to do some real, bring some real, just different, you know, perspectives. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Are you so, are you and Wantsville doing the, like road to a thousand agents? Are you guys still trying to bring on people and mentor them and do all that stuff? Yeah. So like with the brokerage side, when the market shifted, all the new agents love the business, right? And so I spent countless hours with new agents. And I was like, okay, not a good ROI. And so I'm just focused on higher producers, you know, as long as you're doing a couple of mil a year, you know, 10 mil is a good number. I want to take those like, you know, five, 10 mil agents that want to go to 30 mil. And like, it's so much easier to take an agent from five mil to 30 mil, then from zero to five mil, right? Way easier. How to write a sales agreement. You want to be teaching them how to go out there and get that listing appointment. Exactly. Well, it's like, okay, how to write contracts on one side. And then the other side is, okay, how do we be more efficient? You've proven that you can do this and you know, you know how the game works. Now, how do we take what you're doing and make a few tweaks and triple your business? Correct. Those are a lot easier conversions. And then I've still got the free coaching, you know, for all the new agents and stuff. And we're still reducing the failure rate and doing all those great things in the industry and stuff and traveling and speaking and doing a lot of stuff. But I'm having fun. I knock off at five every day. I'm off on the weekends, you know, just chilling. We went to Disney for a week, two weeks ago. And it's like all the money I have coming in from all my income sources come in, whether I'm here or not now. That's like, I don't have to be there. And that was really the first time I took a vacation where money rolled in no matter what. And it was like, okay, this is how it's supposed to be. How, and last question, cause I know we got a roll. How long have you been doing this for? The content, the coaching and stuff like that. I don't know. Just how long have you had your real estate license for? I got in an O2. So you've been, what, 21 years? 21 years. Yeah. 21 years. Now you are finally at a point in your life where you can go to Disney with the kids and you don't have, you can clock out at five and you can have the weekends off but 21 years of 15 hour days, making those walls of doing all the above 21 years. I see that, right? And the second that I feel a little bit burnt out or a little bit tired or whatever it may be, I'm on your four and a half. Yeah. I got a long way to go. Yeah. I am excited because there's so much opportunity in this business and investing and all the above to make as, you can make, you were making, we're making as much money as pro athletes. Yeah. As surgeons, as doctors. I barely graduated high school. I only went to college for baseball and I got kicked on the team in a year. We're making money like that. But it's everything that you put into it and. I dropped out of college and I'm literally going to be a billionaire. That's got to be the intro. It's fucking awesome. Sorry, but I just want to say, you man, I love when we get to talk like this. I appreciate you having me on. And I love the content, dude. Keep it up really. Appreciate that man. Appreciate that. The only video that I stop and watch, truthfully, right now, maybe the BAM stuff and Eric, whatever. But like, I watch everything that you're doing and just know you got a fan and a friend in me and I appreciate you having me on. Oh dude, I appreciate you saying that. And likewise to you, you want me to tag your Instagram below or where do you want people to follow you? I think wherever. I'll put it in the comments or something. It's no big deal. Daniel. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know, whatever. You're like, I hate Instagram. It sucks. Don't follow me there. Everybody leave me alone. I'm trying to build a team, but please don't reach out to me. Yeah. What are you? You're mad. I appreciate you very much. All right, bro. We'll see you man. I'll talk to you soon. Be good. Thanks man.