 What's up everybody? Welcome back. And today I have to share this interview I did yesterday. I get extremely hype about the state of the market, about the psychology of agents and buyers and sellers in this market moving into 2023. I get into scripts and everything else. And it's just really, in my opinion, a really incredible interview to end the year. To end 2022, put this behind us with a completely different mindset moving forward so that we can go out there and absolutely crush it because we know what's going to happen here. It's, it's just, it's laid out for us. Inventory is going to plunge, mortgage rates are going to ease down, and all the buyers are going to come out at once. And then what's going to happen? Everybody's going to be fighting over the same houses. So enjoy this interview. Let me know your thoughts and feedback in the comments below. And we'll see you guys next year. So Ricky, you know, you talk to a ton of people. In fact, I have to tell everybody what you said before we even got on. I said, Hey, are you taking a break for Christmas? He was like, No, wait, he's like, I'm glad Christmas is on a weekend because there's a lot to get done. You're talking to a lot of agents. We talked to a lot of agents. We know a lot of people are kind of worried heading into 2023 saying, you know, is there a recession pending? Is the market going to be too tough to sell in? What are things that you're talking to agents about? What are you telling them right now as they're getting ready for the next year? And as things have changed? Listen, man, nothing has changed. Everything's just exactly the same. Right? We've been talking about this for a long time, the market shifting and, you know, closings continue to happen every single day, no matter what by the truckloads. You know, honestly, it's more of a question of what are you guys scared of? You know, everything is the same. Nothing prevents you from going out there and talking to people in your market and creating relationships and marketing to these people, you know, forever. Might your, you know, transactions fluctuate a little bit from year to year due to the market fluctuating up and down. Yeah, last year it fluctuated up, you know, as far as income goes, it was record high prices and stuff. Did that happen because of something that you did or something that mattered? You know, it's like, it never goes to zero. You know, that's kind of the golden rule. It never goes to zero. And there's always more than you can do. Plenty of transactions to go get. So again, what would there to be scared about? You know what I mean? And a lot of people just, they, whenever the market shifts, all their current clients kind of start to scatter. And so it scares them because they think, well, I can't go through four months without a paycheck. And so that's where the scary part comes in. And then it's the unknown of what's going to happen on the other side. But when you've been through so many of these different cycles, you know, I went through 2008, I went through a little mini recession down here with the oil spill, you know, and several other little hiccups in the market, so on and so forth, like every year is different. Every year is different. And at the end of the day, you just have to realize, closings continue to happen forever. And it's all about the base of people that know who you are. You know, when you're building your business on relationships, then the market doesn't matter. Because, you know, when the market, like, for example, like, if the market crashed really bad price wise, and they went down, say 30, 40%, how easy would it be to sell properties at a 30 to 40% discount? Right. And that's what that's what's keeping the prices up right now. I mean, we're down. Pace Schiller just came out with a report that showed that prices are down 3% from the peak. You know, who was it, FHA? One of those organizations came out and said we were down, oh, I want to say like four or 5% from the peak. Okay, like, we're going to have to go down if we went down 20%, we still wouldn't even be down below pre-pandemic prices, right? And we're down like 3% right this second. And what's keeping prices up is supply and demand. And the fact that, like, exactly what I just said, if prices went down 20 to 30%, how easy would that be to go out and sell those properties? Really easy. You'd have like a million buyers. And that's why prices aren't going there. Because prices have adjusted just a little bit. And with the lack of inventory, the few buyers that are there are jumping back in the market. Yeah, on these prices. So what's going to be very interesting is when we get to the spring, because look, if you if you look at every year, I have a graph I could show you every single year, every single year from 2012 to now, which is when the market rebounded, you have a you have an increase in inventory in the later part of the year. And then you have a literally a plummet of inventory, right? In January, February, March, it's a plummet, like the line goes straight down every year. That's what the chart looks like. It comes up and it's kind of rounded. And then boom, straight line down. And then it comes up and it's kind of rounded boom straight line down. And it does this every single year. And we're already seeing it come down from the highs of August as far as inventory goes. We're fixing to see a plummet of inventory, builders of quit building, people aren't putting their properties on the market. It's going to be even worse this year as far as inventory production. And we know that inflation is getting is trickling down, it's going to continue to trickle down. That's correlated to the senior treasure, which is correlated to the 30 year fixed, which isn't correlated to the federal fund rate, which they're going to have to maintain. They're going to have to get the federal fund rate up and maintain that. Why? Because of wage growth. If they increase the rate and inflation gets down to say 3%, but wage growth stays at 5%, it's going to spur a second wave of inflation. So they have to keep federal fund rates high. But what does that do? It keeps inflation down. Which does what? It keeps 30 year fixed down. So if you can imagine a world where inventory plummets over the next three months, mortgage rates trickle down with inflation. In demand, there's so much pinned up demand. It's ridiculous right now because of the people that had to step back because of interest rates. And all the buyers are sitting there waiting on interest rates to come down. So think about that scenario. They're waiting on interest rates to come down. And so as interest rates do come down, it's all going to happen at once. Interest rates are going to slide down. Inventory is going to slide down. And then soon as interest rates get to the point where buyers want to come out and buy again, there's going to be no inventory. And so every buyer is going to be fighting over the same house. And it's not going to be a rush like we had. But there's going to be a moment where all the buyers are fighting over the same house. It's going to be pandemonium come March, in my opinion. And I'm here for it. So it's interesting to see how all this is playing out and what I foresee happening, which again doesn't mean nothing because closings are going to continue to happen. They could raise a 10-year treachery could go to the moon along with 30-year fixed. And all this stuff could go to hell in a handbasket. And guess what? You still go out there and create five new friends a day with property owners, build your database. Because guys, you're not building your business for right now. You're building a business for 2027, 2028, 2029. When I got back in the business in 2008, it was what I did 8, 9, 10 and 11 that got me to 100 deals a year by 2014. It wasn't what I did in 2014 or even 2013. It was all the work I did in 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. You know what I mean? And everybody acts like 2023 or even 2022 actually means something. It doesn't mean anything. You know what I'm saying? The only thing it means is, is did you grow your database that year? And did the people in your database here bring you frequently? And do they really like you? Do they really connect with you? Do they really feel like you're bringing them some kind of value that's a little bit different than the rest of the agents in the market? Yeah. And I've always loved this exact philosophy that you have of getting ahold of people and growing your database and making friends. For those that might be listening to you for the first time, maybe they haven't heard all of that before. And so I'd love to talk a little bit more about that, about what you're doing to make the new friends every day and what you talk to other people about, about making new friends, growing that database and setting yourself up for success in the future, which I think is a great, because if someone's scared right now, then do the controllables that will bring you your business in the future. And that's what you preach. So tell us a little bit about making friends. Dude, I don't care what you do to make friends, right? There's so many different ways to do it. It doesn't matter how you do it, honestly. The problem is, is that the amount of agents who try to avoid making calls, who spend thousands upon thousands to get leads to then turn right around and call them is just absolutely scary and absurd. And when you really look at it from a bird's eye view from a 30,000 foot angle, you realize that the same leads that you're buying, the same people you're interacting with on social media, the same leads that walk into open houses and you meet at networking events and all that stuff, they're just people in your market. And you could have got their information for less than two cents. So Geo leads plus and just called them. And so the problem is this, cold calling is dead and stuff. Well, my thing is, what's the difference in cold and warm calls, right? Because warm calls, to me, it's just all calls. And so what I did was, I never saw the value in, okay, let me buy leads for $100 or a 35% referral or something like that. Why would I do that when I could just go call that person and get to know them for literally free? I mean, it's basically free, right? On top of the fact, bro, that like, let's say you can't afford nothing. Let's say you're rock bottom right now, right? You're brand new. You got a loan from your mommy to get your real estate license and here, you know, to pay for your, you know, your fees to even become an agent. Okay, dude, and like this agent asked me, they're like, um, you know, will you pay for my red X and stuff? And I was like, bro, me paying for your red X isn't going to magically turn you into an ambitiously hard worker, right? If you're not right now for free, knocking on doors, doing social media, calling your sphere, going to networking events, calling for sell by owners, all that is free. You can literally drive around and knock on doors, call for sell by owners, meet people at the grocery store, go to networking events, have open houses, right? You can do all that for free, right? So you're not doing any of that now. You're not doing anything right now that that that promotes you actually building your business. And now you want me to go spend money for you and invest in someone who isn't even working now. You're not going to, that isn't going to magically turn you into a hard worker. You're going to get the product and then you're not going to use it, right? Which, which is the, is a big disappointment, honestly, the people that, you know, they want, I don't know, honestly, I don't even know, because like, what do you, what else are you going to do? Right? You can, like, what's the option, sit here and make calls or what? You know what I mean? Yeah, like, what's the other option? I mean, like, besides, okay, I'm going to go work for, I'm going to go have a, I'm going to go start a different career, maybe even work for somebody and like work, work my face off and really grind hard for somebody else's business. But outside of that, within real estate, like, what's the options, like make calls or what? That's right. And, and I just love the philosophy and I love when you break it down talking geoleds plus, we always talk about being able to make friends as you're calling around just as a just sold or just a geoleds list that you pull, that it's less than two cents a phone number. Well, what I'm saying, though, like, like, what else is there? You tell me. Yeah. I mean, if you've got listings, I suppose you need to go to your listings appointments, but to list the appointments. Okay. But that doesn't take all day. If it is, then what other agents say, though, like, what are other agents doing, right? Social media, they're making videos, they're posting on YouTube, they're running ads, they're buying Zillow leads, they're doing open houses, even door knocking to me isn't as efficient. That's about as close as it gets to, to, to sit in an air conditioned environment in one spot with all the data at your fingertips. When you door knock, I guess you could pull the data and know whose door you're walking up to and have a little info there. But it's not like auto dialing through property owners like a machine gun. You know what I mean? Dude, it used to take me 15 hours to, to look up 100 numbers one at a time on Spokyo, Bigfoot, ypages.com and then, and then call them hand dialing 15 hours to look up 100 and call 100 15 hours. I know because I did it many, many, many, many times. All right. Many times. And so now with this technology, you can literally look up thousands of numbers with the click of a mouse and call 100 of them with the auto dialer within a matter of an hour to an hour and a half. You can do things 10 times. You can do things that took me, you can do a whole entire Ricky day back in the day in an hour and a half and still have your whole life ahead of you for the rest of the day to go brush it. You know what I mean? It's insane. Yeah, and for everyone tuning in, this is just, this is amazing advice, especially to people that are worried about going into the new year that I, what I'm hearing you say Ricky is that, hey, things don't change because the people that are out there working, the people that are out there willing to make the calls, make new friends, grow their database. People are still buying and selling houses and they're going to work with people they know. I'm not even worried about buying and selling houses though. See, Robert, that, that's the thing, right? That's the thing. Cause I take it to a whole another level because I'm just different and I could care less if they buy or sell a property, right? I just want to know, right? If I can get them to open up to me to tell me exactly what it is they're trying to do and see if I can figure out a way to help them do it. If that results in me making money, great. If it doesn't, great. It doesn't matter to me for two reasons. One, I'm playing the long game, which is this person is going to do a lot of business with me in the future and refer a lot of people to me, right? The second thing is I'm playing the numbers game. I know that if this person doesn't buy herself for me, I'm going to talk to so many other people today. I'm going to find somebody that wants to buy herself for me. And if not, that's okay too. Cause there's another day tomorrow and all I need is two, three or four sales to really ball out in this business, right? Because being a real estate agent is incredibly lucrative. If you treat it like a job, if you treat it like a job where you clock in and you have to work diligently all day, like somebody's over your shoulders, like it's somebody else's business. See the question is, do people work harder if it's somebody else's business or their business? Right? And I think you almost have to say, you know, why don't you treat this like it's somebody else's business that you're clocking in for that, you know, you might lose this job if you don't stay busy all day, right? And be productive all day. That might be the mentality that we have to move over to and shift to, to try to help agents understand like how busy you really have to stay to really, if you treat this like a job, it would be the best paying job you ever had. I love it. I love it. So let's say someone's, and we have several people saying to someone said, I just signed up today. Thanks, Ricky. I'm going to give it a try. Because that's what they want to do. So you talk about like, Hey, when I hop on the phones, I'm worried about how can I help somebody maybe walk through a little bit kind of the outline or your script that you do when you hop on the phones for the day to help people out. Listen, man, everybody needs to think of theirself like they're a gosh, a volunteer worker, right? Let's get in the mindset that we're working for free today, guys. Can we just take a step back for just a second and make this about people? Because like real estate agents out here trying to just do a deal or a dime a dozen, they can find one of those like they can throw a rock and hit one of those in the head. The what you want to do is think of yourself as a volunteer worker doing community outreach to see what you can do. Like, okay, you know, here's a lady, you know, you call her, she owns a house. Now I'm not calling to try to list that house. That's the difference. If it's an expired, I'm not calling to list that expired. If it's a first sell by owner, I'm not calling to list that house. I'm using that house as an opportunity to see if I can get into a conversation with this person to see if I can get to know them for a second. Because if I can get to know them for a second, figure out what it is they're exactly trying to do, then I can truly help them as a human, right? As a human being. And so that's what I'm trying to do is just help human beings, right? Using my services that I got a license for to help them buy a real estate. Obviously, people need help buying a selling real estate, right? Just about every transaction is done through a real estate agent. People need us. There's no way around it. They can try to do it on their own. Most people that do deals on their own, they use an agent the next deal. They do one deal on their own and they're using an agent the next deal every time. But yeah, when I'm talking to them, listen, I'm trying to, as soon as I come in contact with them on the phone, I'm trying to give them what I want, right? I'm trying to give them some familiarity. I'm trying to help them feel like that I care about them, right? And that this is the same thing as a brother, a cousin, a mom, a dad, a best friend from high school calling you to see how you are doing. What is going on with you? And is there anything in the world I could do to help you? You know what I mean? So it's like, Mr. Johnson, hey, Mr. Johnson, Ricky Caruth here, local real estate agent. How are you doing today? Oh, good. Me too. I'm enjoying the day. Isn't it gorgeous? Yeah, man. Well, listen, I don't want to take it too much of your time, but there was a house right around the corner from you that just sold, didn't know if there's anything in the world I could do for you today. That's it. If it's an expired dude, expires are my favorite, bro, because they literally tell you a story. See, I'm trying to get on the inside to try to get inside their cranium to where I literally know everything they're thinking about, right? And when people open up to tell you a story, that's giving you all that data. They're just giving you all that data. And so when I'm calling an expired, it's the same script. How you doing? Enjoying the days and of course, don't want to take it too much of your time. I saw you were trying to sell this house. Whatever happened with that? And so now I'm approaching it like I'm a detective, like I'm an investigative unit trying to get to the bottom of this and find out what exactly happened with this property. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this situation. They're like, oh, well, this is what happened. We sold it. Are we didn't and this, that and the other next thing you know, they're telling you exactly what they want to do right now. And you're in your head formulating the exact game plan customized around their situation to help them do it. So that's how I approach everything in this matter of fact mindset that I could care less if they do a deal or not. I'm just merely trying to open up the conversation to see if I can get to know someone to see what I could do to help them. I love it. And that's what people are saying in the comments. I love your mindset, Ricky humanized real estate. And someone asked, hey, can we have an opening conversation for a fizzbo? So you kind of told us just us to just sold an expired fizzbo probably pretty similar. But what's what's Hey, Mr. Johnson. Hey, Mr. Johnson, Ricky Cruz, local real estate agent right here in Gulf Shores. How are you doing today? Cool me too, man. I'm enjoying the day. Isn't it gorgeous out there? Right? Well, listen, I want to take it too much of your time. I see you're trying to sell this house here. Tell me what's going on. And then they tell you, they tell me, right? Is it still for sale? Tell me about the house. Oh, well, it's all over Zillow. You know, there's pictures and remarks all right there. Okay, great. Why are you guys selling? I see it on Zillow. It looks like an amazing house. Tell me, why would you a seemingly really intelligent person want to sell this amazingly beautiful property in a really good location? Why would you ever do that, sir? Boom. Now they're going to tell me everything about why they're trying to sell that property. And then I can turn around and take that information and try to figure out if there's a way that I can help them do it. Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't. But until I know, Robert, why someone wants to do something, there's no need of me even trying to figure out how to convert them. That's the problem. Nobody is trying to connect before they convert. They're trying to convert and then connect or maybe even never connect. They're just trying to convert, convert, convert, convert, convert. Yeah. And I've heard someone call that commission breath, right, that they can smell it. And so, but trying to make a, trying to make friends, trying to get to know people, humanize the person on the other end of the phone and actually mean it when you say, what else can I do for you really changes that conversation a lot. Now, Ricky, we're getting close to the other time. And I don't want people to miss out on a couple of really important things. One is, and you're going to get last word, but I want to make sure everybody knows to go to zero to diamond.com slash events to see, because you're going to be traveling the country here in the next couple of months. You're going to be all over the place. I'm going to Vegas. I'll be in Vegas for Ryan Panetta's then I'm speaking there. That's going to be second week of January. Then I'm going straight to Long Island to do an event there. Then I'll be in Orlando for Gold Bar event there where I'll be doing an all day workshop. How to become number one in your market, social media, real estate investing. It's an all day spin with me, workout with me in the morning, lunch is included. Same thing at Gulf Shores, February 10th in my hometown. So I'm excited about all those. I'm trying to put something together in Chicago, Kentucky. I've got a lot of other things in the works, but January, I got three big ones, New York, Vegas and Orlando. Then I got one here in my hometown in February. So that's pretty exciting stuff. Yeah, just you guys can go to zero to diamond.com backslash events. I'd love to meet you, shake your hand. I'd really love for you guys to come to my all day workshops, because that's kind of what I was born to do. Honestly, these keynotes are really cool, but they're not 100% natural for me. But like in a classroom setting, teaching people everything that I know and all the finer micro details that I can't really, I mean, it would take, that's why I'm doing a whole day, because it literally would take a whole day to really map out exactly how I became number one in my market, built the Ricky Caruth brand and all that good stuff. And someone says cost for workshops. I love that question. It varies. The one in Orlando is $5.50. The one in Gulf Shores is $6.50. So that's where the prices are for those. It includes lunch, breakfast as well in Gulf Shores, but also your gym pass for the day to come work out with me in the morning and all that good stuff. So I just want to spend time with people and try to get around people and try to let my energy rub off on them so they can go. Dude, I've got like, I don't know, I could count 10 right now people that are either number one in their market out of their entire MLS or in the top five or 10 in their market that are in my coaching program. So I can help people become the top agents in their market 100% and there's a specific formula behind it. That is awesome. And yeah, everyone should go there. I've also seen a whole bunch of comments because Ricky's let you know that it is our big end of your cell here at RedX. So if you're listening to Ricky saying, hey, I can do that in 2023 and be successful and you're looking for the right tools, RedX, we do have our end of your sale going on. If you call in, make sure you let them know that Ricky sent you and you'll get up to 32% off the leads and tools. You know, Ricky was mentioned, GeoLeads, GeoLeads Plus, our expired physical, everything up to 32% off and tell them that Ricky sent you so that you get that end the wave setup fee. Ricky, we always love having you here. Is there any last thing that you want to leave with everybody before we wrap up? Yeah, just guys, quit worrying about everything. Nothing at all should be a worry of yours. It's good to pay attention to the news and stuff and the market trends and everything, but it has absolutely zero bearing on your success, where you're headed, what your 2030 looks like and all that good stuff. You guys got in this business to do it for 30 years and most people are quitting. It's nuts. Dude, you're in the business for six months, 12 months, 24 months, 36 months and you're thinking about quitting this business. It's crazy. There's so much business on the table for each and every agent. You just have to calm down, take a deep breath and look at it for what it is. It's a relationship building, database building business. It's not a transaction business. It's a database building. It's a relationship business. If you can extend your personality through your marketing efforts to these people after you meet them and give them that great first impression through, I like to do a weekly email, a lot of you guys know that through your social medias and stuff like that, you're golden because these people are never going to forget about you and they're going to want to do business with you. Listen, some will and some won't. It's okay. The ones that do, it's going to be a great experience and the ones that don't, that's okay. That's why there's enough for everyone. The fact that they didn't do business with you and they did business with another agent is the reason why you're going to be successful because the same things happening with the agent, the people that do business with you, they chose not to do business with another agent. So you just happen to be the agent that decided not to do business with. It's the circle of life guys. It's a circle of life and we're all going to be just fine, but at the end of the day, you got to grind and treat it like it's somebody else's business.