 I didn't want them to see your back half and as I speak for myself, I didn't want them to be like, right, and do you want to be like, so we had the stage one one way and so we moved it in the front so now everybody can hear you. And then we're going to have a zoom, so you're going to be on film, like you asked for, so that'll be it. I mean they're all super excited. People here that came from off camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, people were telling me they were coming from. There's a few people here. How you guys doing? Good to see you. Great to be back in Tennessee. Thank you Jesus. Hey, I want to thank Carrie Ann for putting this on. If you guys can give her a big round of applause. And also my man Dennis Steven, he's had my back from day one up here in Nashville. My team lead is also a zero diamond certified coach. If you guys know Dennis, give him a round of applause really quickly. And also my wife, where are you? There she is. Thank you so much for marrying me and giving us our beautiful daughter Whitley. Alright, here we go guys. You guys ready for this? Now, first question. Have you guys ever been to grilled cheesery? We stayed in Franklin. We're staying in Franklin and went to the grilled cheesery. I didn't know that was a thing, but it's a thing thing. So every time I say something today that makes sense, I want you guys to say, grilled cheesery. Let's try it one time. Does that make sense? Okay, how many of you guys are already following me online? Okay, good. If you're not following me online, what's up? What is the deal? I'm Ricky. I've been a real estate agent since 2002. Okay, for the last five years I've been on a mission to increase the success rate among real estate agents. So I'm working the industry from the ground up, from the very bottom level, which does what? It actually translates into brokerages staying in business as well. Have so many brokers reach out to me and tell me thank you so much for keeping my agents going that keeps my brokerage going. You see, a lot of people think that what I'm doing is just for new agents or just for struggling agents. It's not true. It's translating through the entire industry all the way to the top. Now how am I doing this? What am I doing? Okay, number one is sharing all the philosophies that I've learned over the years. Okay, and everything that I've done to create success in my business with as many agents as I can for absolutely free. That's number one. Now, in doing that, what happens? I can reach the masses. A long time ago when I started coaching, I would have 300 agents sign up for a webinar. A hundred would show up and one or two would sign up for my paid program. 300 agents needed help. I wanted to help all 300, but I had a paywall. You can only see my deepest secrets if you pay me. That didn't sit right with me. Anna couldn't come to speeches like this and tell you anything I want to tell you because they're paying and they're going to get mad if I say all the secrets. I want to just tell everybody everything, right? Now, we've had about 50,000 agents globally, most in the U.S., I would think, go through the Zero to Diamond program. We did a survey. Okay, seven out of ten say they get more listings and close more deals. 87% have better time management. Now right there, that tells me that the program is helping agents sell more properties in less time. And they're able to actually have a quality of life and spend more time with their families and do the things that they want to do. 75% say they read more than they did before the program. That's massive, but the one that really hit me was 98.8% of agents who go through Zero to Diamond say that they enjoy being a real estate agent more. Now that really hit home with me when I saw that statistic. Can I get a grilled cheesery? Okay, all right, you're listening. Now, to go a little deeper with this and what I want to do today, what my job is, I take my job very seriously, and that is to just help you increase your confidence level just a little bit. That's what we're going to do here today. On the way up here on the plane yesterday, I was watching Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, and he said something that hit me. He said, if you're in a room full of 100 people, you're in a room full of 100 people. Every single one of those 100 people have some level of self-doubt, some level of insecurity, some level of a lack of confidence. I don't care who you are. There's some level, some greater, some less, but you have some level. And my job today is to increase that, decrease the level of that lack of confidence, increase your level of confidence. That's what I want to do today. Now, let me break this down just a little deeper. I want to increase your confidence in three areas. I want to increase your level of confidence within the overall market itself, the outlook of the market. I want you to be super confident when you leave here that you're not worried about the market. The second thing I want to build your confidence in is your business and your ability to create a successful career and to have confidence within yourself. Because when you communicate with people, they can tell if you're confident or not in yourself. And this is the number one thing, this is the number one reason why you may lose a listing. A client doesn't pick you. There's other factors, but this is, I believe, the number one factor that don't fill the confidence in you for whatever reason. You may feel confident, but you're not exuding that. You're not communicating that to your prospect. We've got to increase that just a little bit. Not only that, but your ability to create a successful short- and long-term career. And the third thing I want to build your confidence in is the actual future of the market, a future of the industry, the real estate industry overall. Okay? You guys ready for this? Grilled cheesery! Now, 2022, gloom and doom, right? As far as the media is concerned, there's gurus saying it's going to be the worst-case scenarios, 2008 all over again. Hopefully by now you guys realize that's not going to happen. It's probably a little more scary when interest rates did jump 2%. You still have a lot of negativity in the media, and that's kind of what they do, right? So, the first thing I want you guys to realize is that it's only human nature to take this negative media and allow it to dictate our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, our execution, and ultimately our results. It's just human nature. It's called negativity biased. Which means that if you have a positive situation and you have a negative experience, and they're both equal, you're going to put way more weight on that negative experience. It's just human nature. The first thing we need to do is to realize this and grab a hold of it, and not allow those things to happen. Not to allow these headlines and trigger words to affect our emotions and how we feel about the market. When we put together a plan, we should be able to visualize that plan getting us where we want to go over the next 5 years, 10 years, regardless of the market. All we have to do is look at history. One thing that I'm doing right now to combat this is I started writing blogs again. What I'm doing is I'm reversing the stats. For example, NAR came out with one of their reports and said transactions were down 14.2%. In June, I believe it was. 14.2%. I write an article and the headline is transactions hit 85.8% in 2022. Thanks, Mom. Then I write an article with data. What I want to do is I want to reverse these negative trigger words and headlines. That's one thing that I'm doing right now. I'm going to go harder there to try to push the positive side of the data. There's an incredibly positive story here within data, within the industry. Incredibly positive side. Stop looking at the negative side. When you look at it, pay attention to it so that you know how to communicate with your clients. You can best educate your clients so they can make the best decision possible. Never try to predict to your clients. But use the data to try to educate them. It's kind of like a seller. Right now we have so much data to educate them. Let's just talk about here in Nashville, the Nashville greater area. There are days on the market right now. The average is, I looked, it was 15 days average on the market. An all-time low. An all-time low, even lower than last year in the crazy market. Did you guys know this? That we're lower days on the market, average days on the market than we were last year? Now, the days on the market, that data does not take into consideration the properties that aren't selling and the price that's sitting on the market forever. It's not taking into consideration the expired listings and the ones that aren't selling. See, inventory rising because sellers are in a denial that the market has shifted. Hello? But the properties that are priced correctly are selling within two weeks, on average. You have to educate your sellers on this data. If you understand this when you're talking to your client about listing a property, you can very confidently tell them that if this property isn't getting much action, when are getting offers within the first 30 days, something's wrong because we're at all-time lows on days on the market with all-time high prices. Properties are selling for the highest dollar ever in the shortest amount of time ever right now. This is the strongest market we've ever been in right this second. Do you guys understand that? Grill cheesery, grill cheesery. Interest rates, okay? Have you guys actually looked at what happened when interest rates reached almost 20% back in the late 70s, early 80s? Did you look at prices? Did you see prices dip? No. Prices continue to go up during that time. Was there a couple of leveling moments? Sure. Never went down. Were there interest rate spikes up and down in the 80s, in the 90s? Yeah. Did prices ever go down? No. The only time prices went down was in 2008 because you had the mortgage amount down, of course. I'm not going to sit here and educate you on that. But what I will educate you on is the fact that closings never stopped. One of my favorite quotes by Sire Richard Caruth who said, Closings will happen every day for the rest of your life regardless of market conditions. Now, do you guys believe that? Listen, who would say 2008 is probably worst case scenario doomsday? Is war as bad as it can get? No, you think it can get worse? Almost nobody raised their hand, so are you telling me that you think it can get, do you think that it's a possibility for 2008 in terms of the real estate market? I'm going to ask again. If it can get worse in 2008, okay, we can have a debate. But do you guys honestly think that it could get worse? Isn't that a doomsday scenario? Let's just assume that it is for just a second. Just humor me. In 2005, there were over 7 million transactions in the country. To my knowledge, that was an all-time high. 2008 was a low of over 4 million transactions. That was the worst from the 2000 on. That was the worst year. That was the biggest drop. It's increased every year since then. It's always been higher than that. Kind of did this a couple years, but it's always... The number of transactions in the country continued to increase from that point. That was the lowest point. What I'm saying is that if it goes from 7 million transactions to 4 million, there's still 4 million transactions happening. That's a lot! If you're selling property in 2005, and you're selling during the time that there's 7 million transactions, and it drops to 4 million, that's a little less than 50% drop, and your business drops 40%. That hurts. I get it. But it didn't go to zero. The punchline is, so many agents during a time like that are going to be out of the business. What does that mean? More transactions per agent for the agents who stay in. I guarantee you, if you look at 2005, and you look at... I'm going to do the data on this. I'm going to have real data. When you look at the 2005 and the 2008, I guarantee you there were more transactions per agent because there were so fewer agents in 2008 than there was in 2005. I know agents that were crushing it in 2008. I was jealous this could be. Mad, angry. How are you doing this? Tell me the secrets. And they told me the same stuff they told me when I got started. Postcards, phone calls, and emails. Nothing changed. All this stuff started to add up for me. If you look at canceled contracts right now, another metric that's interesting. The media is making a big deal about that. It shot up. Homebuilders are seeing it. Even existing homes are seeing it. Dear Horton said they had 24% canceled contracts in the second quarter. Last year, second quarter, it was 16%. Big jump. But you know what's cool about that stat and what made me open my eyes because it was the first time I looked at canceled contracts? I thought, are you telling me that 16% of people were canceling contracts last year during that crazy 15 offer per listing market? I was like, wow, that was interesting. If you look at the overall market, it jumped up to 17% during the pandemic. Now, that's pretty bad. No human-to-human contact. No, the economy is shut down. And he had 17%. It was all that was canceled during that time. Now, I would say that that's probably as bad as it can get. Can you guys agree with that? Okay, finally. 17% canceled contracts. Now, last year, the low, which was an all-time low of 10% canceled contracts. During 20 offers per listing, buyers purchasing houses they didn't even really like paying 100,000 more because they couldn't find anything else. You still had 10% of people backing out of deals during that time. But let's dig a little deeper. Right now, we're at 15% last month. It jumped up to 15% since this interest rate thing and all this, that and the other, which lines up with 2019, which was around 14%. What does this tell us? 2019 was a very normal market to me, in my opinion. It was a very normal market. We are entering into a very normal market. And this is again, you got the highest prices ever, which have leveled out, selling faster than ever before since they started recording days on the market. Can I get a hallelujah? Can I get an amen? Can I get a grilled cheese or read? Pizza, melt, pepperoni, crusted parmesan, pepperoncini. I looked here in the National Greater Area. Prices have leveled off. In May, where you guys were at a 26% increase from last May. Right now, we're at 18%, it's dropped according to Redfin, which means leveled out. It's really, when you look at the Redfin chart, it kind of goes here and then it kind of has a little dip, it goes like that. It's leveled out. 460 median price, and it's like 450, something like that. And it's leveling. This is a good thing. And we're still selling them faster than ever. If you look at the country overall, it's pretty similar. 16% was the peak of where we were over. Now prices are kind of leveling out and even dropping. They're dropping in several markets. Not a whole lot, just a little bit, but it's the leveling. Now we're looking at 9% year over year. Where are we going to end up? Will it continue to drop just a little bit more? Yeah, probably. NARS calling for 4% appreciation this year, something like that. It looks like that might happen. Next year, about the same thing. If you listen to some people, gloom and doom, but if you look at the data, it tells us a really incredible story. Now I could go on and on and on and on about the market and how it's great and it's the greatest ever. We're going to be finding all that. But I think you guys get the point, right? Now, if you guys feel like your confidence level has increased just a tad about the market itself, let me get a really loud, grilled cheese zerite. Place is good. How many people have been there? Oh, yeah. And if you hadn't, what's up? Your business. All right, let's dig in here. Build your confidence just a tad. I just want to increase it just a smidge because that can make the difference and create a massive breakthrough in your business. How many people hear, right, think about this question and keep your hand raised if you do raise your hand. How many people here know what to do? You know what to do. Think about it. Okay, keep them up. Let's get high. Let's get high. I want to see you. Now, keep them up. Keep them up if you know what to do but you're not doing it. Y'all are lying, lying, lying. Do we have 400 people here? I thought this place had 400 people. It looks like 400 people. How many people do things here? 398. Now, I'm trying to illustrate a point here, guys. The ABCs, the 123s, how to build your real estate business is not super difficult. Golden nuggets are everywhere. Just Google stuff. Go talk to agents that are succeeding. It's everywhere. The problem is you haven't figured out exactly what systems work best for you to build your business that you can fully commit to and scale. Now, what I want you to think about is, well, let's do this. How many new agents do we have? Listen, first thing for you guys is never raise your hand or admit. Don't tell nobody you're a new agent. How many agents do we have that aren't new? You've kind of broken through. You can tell, this is going to be a career. It's going great. You've got some momentum going. But you want to take it to the next level. How many team leaders? How many broker owners? Give it up for the broker owners. How many of you are retired? That was a trick question, by the way. No real estate agent retires. And in all seriousness, that's kind of the problem, right? See, most real estate agents, they're just grinding away. They're not really thinking about five years out. They're not thinking to that next deal. And that next sale. They're just trying to hit their 2022 goals. They're not thinking big picture. They're not thinking five years out where you can really be. And that's what I want to help you guys with today. I want you guys to really think about this. Because if you're not thinking about where you want to be in five years, if you don't have a daily routine and a schedule and systems in place, then you can visualize getting you where you want to be in five years. Then you need to sit down, think about what you're doing, to where you can visualize. That way, when you wake up in the morning, you know what you're doing today is going to get you where you want to be to that dream life in five years. Let's do a quick exercise. Everybody close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Let it out. And I want you to think about your life, your business in five years in a perfect scenario. That you hit all your goals. That your life is coming true. And you've got that perfect business, that perfect life. How much money are you making? Where do you go to church? What does your family look like? What are you driving? Where do you live? What do you do all day? Now open your eyes. What I want you to think about I want you to think about that from time to time. But the punchline is schedule. And your daily routine. Are you building a business for your five years self? Or are you just trying to get to the next deal, the next deal, the next deal, the next deal? And if you are working deal to deal to deal hopefully I can hit you with something of the day that makes you think about this and start to recalibrate your patterns behind calibrating the right routine. Because you can take this platform of real estate and build anything that you want to build. Now a clear example in 2017 that was the first year I hit a million dollars as a single agent. And that was the year I quit prospecting. But I hit a million dollars every year since then. I had the five year plan in mind as I was prospecting. I don't think about this. See there's light at the end of the tunnel. Regardless of how you get your leads it's all about accumulating relationships. And how do we create a scenario where no one ever forgets who we are once we give them that great first impression. That's what it's all about. But some people they just prospect that they're not. One of my mentors who I deeply, deeply respect and love and admire his name is Bob. And he was in business for 40 years. He moved from Birmingham to Gulf Shores, Orange Beach. And when I moved to Remax he had his own office big huge office downstairs I would go in and talk to him for a tiny time so much wisdom about how to communicate and the business and pricing and I learned so much from him. And we were just really close because he admired me as well. He could tell I was on the come up I was making like 200,000 a year or something and but he saw the hustle so he connected because I think I reminded him a younger version of himself. So one day we get the call Bob's gonna die and we're like man this is sad you know we're not gonna see Bob anymore. The very next day I walk into the office and where's Bob he's in his office calling expires and for sale by owners and he's got three months to live and that's how he built his entire business calling expires and for sale by owners. So here he is he's basically on his death bed he's calling expires and for sale by owners and he's in his late 70s the next day he was there calling expires the next day he was there calling expires finally I didn't say anything to him finally I asked Patrick my broker he said oh he's trying to he's just working as hard as he can so he can have as much money he's making as much money as he can to leave his wife and it hit me like a ton of bricks I was like that is not how I want to live my life can you imagine prospecting till the day that you die he prospected all the way till three days before he died till he was two weeks to come to the office he died three days later incredible incredible man but that's not how I wanted to live my life or build my business you have to be a progressive thinker who executes progressive thinkers think about the future they create a game plan around the future what they really want out of life but then guess what the missing ingredient that most people don't have is as they execute on that game plan and they stick to it until it happens so my question to you is are you a progressive thinker do you think about the future or only think about the next deal when you're prospecting I don't care how you get your leads you can cold call them you can warm call them you can social media you can for sale by owner you can open house you can network you can do or knock you can do whatever you want to do I don't care but are you accumulating these relationships are you talking to these people are you figuring out what it is that you can do to help them because that's what it is at the end of the day I want you to remember this because normally I use the phrase relationships over transactions but I want you to think about this one and keep this one with you when you're prospecting when you're talking to leads when you're talking to clients I want you to focus on the person not the property so let me dig a little deeper there when I'm calling an expired listing I could care less about the expired listing I'm not calling with a series of questions to try to figure out what I could do to get this guy to sign the listing agreement what I'm doing is I'm using that property as an excuse to talk to them to see if I can get to know them to see what it is they're trying to do to see what it is to see what it is they're trying to do to see what's going on in their life that's causing them to make this decision to possibly sell because once I have that data and I feel like I've created a connection then I can put together a game plan to actually help them whereas I think most coaches and trainers I mean look at the script look at the terminology, look at the verbiage it's all geared towards trying to somehow magically get a contract signed I don't care about that I'm just trying to figure out if I can get to know you I want to challenge myself every day every conversation I have and that's what I want you to do when you talk prospects I want you to challenge yourself to see if you can get this person to open up to the point that they allow you to get to know them then magic happens because once you develop that skill to open up and tell you what's going on in their life so that you can actually help them that's something no market crash, no body can ever take from you that's a skill that's going to carry on that's going to follow you everywhere you go through your real estate career into other industries, whatever you do in life and the best way to make them feel comfortable with you is by being comfortable with them and there we go right back to confidence if you're not confident in yourself, in the market in the outlook of the future of the industry in your ability to create a successful career short and long term, they're going to feel that when you're talking to them and that's the downfall of most of the agents in this room who are struggling right now and you don't even know it you're saying everything that the coach told you to say you're doing everything that your broker told you to do and it's just not happening and you don't know why people are mean Ricky you don't understand up here in Nashville people are just down rude nothing like down there in a nice guff shores people now most of my clients are from Nashville New York, Atlanta all over the place I deal with all of them not only that I've coached agents all over the country and world agents in South Africa agents in Australia in Brazil people don't care about all that rudeness people just want to know that you care about them if they have a wall because of past experiences and most people are not out to get them I never think that but maybe have the wrong intentions they run across very few people they have the best of intentions which is you see they don't know you they don't know what your intentions are but see they're not going to get to know what your intentions are if you don't learn how to communicate properly if you can't get them to open up and they just shut you down and you don't know how to break through that wall and show them who you are they're never going to get a chance to understand what your intentions were so that's the skill right there now going back to I'm making the calls nothing's happened I'm saying what you say to say nothing's happened I'm posting on social media I'm doing this I'm doing the weekly email I'm doing everything you tell me to do it's just not happening you know what that's called going through the motions there I was talking to one of my agents last month or so he says man I'm having a rough time I said talk to me I made 250,000 calls I've sold two properties I've been doing this for two years whatever I said okay talk to me tell me what's going on so he's telling me all this stuff that he has going on he says I partnered with this other agent and we're doing your 28 day challenge and you know we're going through the motions of that and then he kept going he kept telling me this story and I'm just sitting back listening I'm absorbing everything he's saying he gets through and I said all right cool man listen did you just hear what you said to me you just said the words that you're going through the motions those words came out of your mouth now when you're talking to Ricky I'm sure you're sugarcoating some things even with the sugarcoating you still said out of your mouth that you're going through the motions that's all I'm going to talk about to you today good sir now let's break this down and I said bro there's your problem right there because what he's doing is he's just trying to get dials oh I made a thousand calls and I made 2,000 calls I made 500 calls I talked to this many people that doesn't matter I would rather you make 5 calls and talk to 3 people for 30 minutes a piece than to tell me you made 100 calls and got a couple emails without the number of dials I care about the quality of the conversations see when you wake up in the morning you better love what you do and when I say love what you do here's what you do you talk to people you better love that people you don't know better love that you better love talking to people that you don't know to see what you can do to get to know them what's going on with them in their life what you can do to help them your services as a real estate agent to help them through these big life changes that they have going on you better love it you better love and I can get an amen on this you better love talking to showing buyers for a week that ghost you you better love that you better love going to listing appointments and not getting picked as the agent you better love that you better love spending hours on the phone or doing your social medias or whatever that you do and getting zero results for a little while you better love that but most importantly you better love people and it comes from a place of genuine curiosity write that down and really think about it genuine curiosity see when I'm prospecting it all comes natural to me because I have this really deep sense of genuine curiosity about all of you right here I wish I could sit down and talk to every single one of you because I look in your eyes and I think man what is going on inside that head that's that's what, that's how I am that's how I'm built when I'm talking to prospects let's just throw a generic scenario that everybody's right into and everybody's handled wrong earlier in their career where a seller says hey yeah thanks for calling we're going to sell in three months call me then I'll call you in three months I'll call you in three months how many people here have done that maybe earlier in their career liars in that scenario you know because agents ask me this all the time oh the seller said they're going to sell in six months what do I do now Ricky how do I follow up oh okay dude listen I do not know why they want to sell in six months right so I have to break this all down for them you tell me you want to sell in six months that triggers that genuine curiosity immediately okay cool what's got you wanting to sell in six months tell me more about this situation you just tell me what I want to hear so I can get off the phone or do you actually thinking about selling in six months no I'm just telling you what you want to hear to get you off this damn phone goodbye no you really want to sell great cool tell me about this are you wanting to close in six months or you want to start the process in six months why are you looking to sell in six months your daughter's graduating from high school and going to college and you want to downgrade you don't need the extra bedroom the information this data is so important and a lot of you guys are leaving it on the table why because you don't have a sense of genuine curiosity this stuff just comes out they say something and it triggers me and I'm like oh tell me more why what's going on oh I can relate to that my mother went through this my friend went through that I went to school there connections don't be so hard on yourself don't compare yourself to other agents do you the best thing I can tell you guys about communication is to relax and stay calm because they're going to feel that walking to every situation not caring about what the outcome is I could care less if you want to sell that property today or not I just want to get to know you and see what's going on and through that I'm going to be this person's agent for life because they're going to feel that wow this agent is different they care about me they're not just trying to get me to sign a listing today they're not handling my objections objections are is just rejection and objections that's just your prospect telling you what they want to do you don't have to combat objections listen to the objections I don't care if you want to sell in three months well if I could get you this price would you sell it sooner? I'm not going to do that I want to learn more about the psychology what's going on behind the scenes and make this decision the reason why I sold so much property honestly because it finally dawned on me that I wasn't trying I'm not in the business to sell real estate I'm in the business to just help people do whatever it is they're trying to do when I started to let go of the transactions and just completely detach myself from the transactions itself and just went all in with just how are you doing what's going on what can I do to help? that's when everything exploded does this help? a little louder when you're going through the motions guys like that agent he's like I'm just going through the motions I'm making the calls and I don't want you to say what you're going to do and I sound really sad like I didn't go to grill treasurer yesterday and they have a pizza mount with the parmesan crust and a little pepper cheese and I just sound sad he doesn't realize that he sounds sad he doesn't realize it he thinks that he sounds upbeat and happy so understand when you're communicating with people you don't even know it you don't even know that you're not you're not sending the right message you don't even realize it because there's a part of you that's going through the motions because Ricky said you're going to get rich if you do this and you will do it if you love doing it grill cheesery now we're starting to sound like a church one more thing guys the future of the industry now this is very interesting and there's a lot there's a lot of stuff going on in this space with real estate tech that hasn't taken us out and hasn't really affected our commission you know so it's kind of off our radar if you will ok let them do whatever they want to do but let me tell you there's companies working as hard as they can possibly work to take your job from you and what they've accomplished so far is really remarkable they've made our lives 10 times easier in the process and they've lost billions and billions and billions of dollars so I'm telling you dude pizza melt pepperoni, pomegranate crust make no mistake though right they want part of the real estate commission pool ok you guys know how big that pool is is he made now it's 100 billion last year was over 100 billion dollars in real estate commissions now this year it's going to be less because less transactions but prices are so high we're still going to be about 20 billion more than 2019 about 10 billion more than 2020 even with less transactions because prices are so high they want a piece of that pie and they've been trying to figure it out for years you got redfin billions bad reviews open door lost billions Zillow lost billions but they got billions too in the bank and they're going to be here a long long time and I think what's very interesting is that especially with this new partnership between Zillow and Open Door you guys I'm sure heard about that maybe not but you know last year Zillow said no more eye home buying losing too much money actually it's quite funny because they blamed it on Zestimates right like our Zestimates suck so we can't buy houses because we thought it was worth more money it's the truth that's what they said we can't we don't know how to price homes so we suck we can't buy them right we can't sell them we don't know what's going on so they said okay come on in here Open Door we used to compete to see who could lose the most capital venture capital let's just let's just combine and see if we can't just really screw this thing up but it's very interesting and I think it's a really big play for everybody for those two with Zillow and Open Door doing this you can go on Zillow you can click a button and get an Open Door offer okay that's big for Open Door now they have the eyeballs of everybody on Zillow which is the largest traffic website for real estate and for Zillow what did they get out of this? well last year Open Door wrote about 2.1 million offers they bought about 37,000-38,000 houses so they bought about 1.5% of the houses they made offers on wish that was you 99% of the people who got the offers thought they were silly and so there's all these people on the table so what happens so Open Door creates a situation with Zillow to make more offers or more properties and hopefully buy more properties and lose more money and Zillow gets the aftermath of the people who didn't accept the offers and then what? they can give that to a Zillow Premier or Flex agent for 30-35% on the back end of those listings, of those seller leads that's a big play that's an interesting play these guys are going to keep moving around and juking and jiving but what's really interesting is that play involves what? Agents so you see the pendulum swings and when Zillow came on on the scene 87 79% of 76% of buyers were using Agents now we're at 87 since Zillow came into the picture it's risen every year now we're at 87% of buyers are using Agents traditional real estate agents it's at an all time high 90% of sellers which is at an all time high more people, a bigger percentage of buyers and sellers right now ever in history are using traditional real estate agents right now as we speak one of my theories behind this is that the faster technology gets and the better technology gets the more fear that I'm seeing in the consumer because this is a transaction that some people only buy or sell houses you know what three or four times in their life it's once in a blue moon they're going to move, they're going to do this they're going to do that this is a big big big deal for them and the quicker that technology and these companies try to make the transaction I think the more the consumers like this is too quick of a decision here it's such a big transaction I don't know, I need somebody on my side I need representation I need somebody that's looking out for my best interest making sure that I'm making the best decision here handling all the back end servicing the contract to close so on and so forth plus I want to see reviews of these companies and think I don't know about this but I find it very interesting there's a lot going on in this space I feel like there's a lot of things there's a lot of brokerages that allow us as agents to actually offer these cash offers to clients there's a bunch of brokerages that do this and literally are your own eye buyer which is I think very interesting I'm looking at this as a big picture here the agents can actually compete with the eye buyers out there I mean Mark Spain does this right there's there's a lot of brokerages that offer this certified, get certified to be in part of their eye buyer program bam you can compete, you're literally your own open door at that point competing now they have an actual real agent as opposed to a corporation handling that transaction form anyway I just find this very very interesting commissions have been squeezed just a tab but nothing like people were predicting back in 2010 when a lot of these guys came on the on the scene right it's really incredible how resilient us agents have been it's not us it's the market it's the consumers it's their choice they've spoken they want an agent and I find that very interesting so here's to us for not only dominating the market but continuing to dominate the market right grilled cheesery on three so we talked about building your confidence in the market itself building this short and long term and the future outlook of the industry and I hope this has helped increase your confidence level just a little bit where you can go out there and feel more educated you feel like you have a better sense of how you need to communicate with your clients right stop focusing on the deal so much focus on what you can do to help people alright I love you guys so much I'm going to take a couple questions thank you and somehow it happened in like December and I thought it was just like a breeze remember so I played on it, said it when I missed my high school season but it would just like pop out and go back in I was like didn't tell anybody and finally it popped out and wouldn't go back in it was so bad eventually I'm going to hand it over because like a year later it definitely is fun again it doesn't hurt anymore I just know I can't I also just don't want to go through being in a swing again I should have stopped you yeah don't get me started it's literally going that way thanks bud be good brother what's up bud you know alright you know me do I know you I know you I know your mom I know your father I know your whole family we talked before you called me several times you keep supporting and encouraging her however you know everybody has moments in his life I just retired and came back I like her speech but here's the point here's the point about the confidence I have a fully confidence I'm very confident in myself however this is how I feel when you approach like different nationality like I'm from Egypt and I'm American if I approach American I feel that the American want to work with the American you know what I'm saying this is the point is really you know it's making me down so I don't want to eliminate myself put myself in a circle of my community you know what I'm saying I don't know how to overcome this what you're doing is your stereotype in every situation and you're saying Americans only want to work with Americans but that's not true there's a percentage of Americans that want to work with Americans and there's a percentage that want to work with you same thing with me when I talk to a client there's a percentage they don't want to work with me maybe not because of the nationality so let's take nationality out of the equation there's a percentage of people that don't want to work with you for whatever reason and there's a percentage who want to work with you there's always going to be that for every single age what you have going for you is that the nationality thing and the accent and everything else is a massive with the language barrier and the accent of course you can hear it all that is a huge advantage because you're looking at it see again negativity biased you're thinking about this this accent and it's weighing a lot more than the fact that a lot of people love the accent like that's the no no no maybe but see if you don't believe that then they're going to hear that in your voice this is a chicken and egg thing if you don't believe that this is your superpower that you're from Egypt and that you have this accent if you don't believe that then people aren't going to hear that in your voice and they're not going to do business with you right not because your nationality but because your confidence level because you think the nationality thing is an actual problem when it's actually a huge positive so if you can flip your mind to realizing that like you want to work you don't want to work with people who want to work with Americans do you want to work with Americans who only want to work with Americans do you want to I don't I mean if I get the opportunity and we can work together this is business and business has no emotions but if they only want to work with Americans so no because I'm going to be listen listen listen I don't even but outside of the rejection somebody like that because the mindset yeah I don't want to work with somebody like that that's that close minded that's not my people but listen man there's always going to be percents of people that don't want to do business with you maybe because of lack of confidence your accent you didn't say the right things you're too high pressure they have another agent they don't like you they don't like the way you dress there's going to be percents of people that don't do business with you for whatever reason and there's going to be percents of people who love you and want to do business with you for the rest of your life always you're holding yourself back from having enough conversations to find the people that want to do business with you because you're worried about the people who don't like you for whatever reason that doesn't matter see what I'm saying dude you need to own this you know what I'm saying like you need to own it you need to like put it on billboard I'm from Egypt you know what I'm saying okay I feel that you came on the perfect time okay I start on 2020 I retired then I came back I sold like from 2020 till today like 5 years tomorrow one of my closest friends sent me an appointment with one of the VIP people he's not from here he just came to purchase a property I'm being prepared just for a week as for you know business dressing you're over thinking everything so you're just over thinking own it right own it whatever happens happens you're going to go out there and do the best you can do to help people right you care about people that's it if somebody doesn't want to do business hey don't say that you're a new Asian it was a joke how about if you asked me hey how many years you've been what is your volume absolutely right how many deals have I done none and that's why you want me I hear that in your video that's why you want me you can turn every situation around to your benefit where you never lose even if the client walks away you still won because you filtered through the population and found out that wasn't somebody that's going to work for you that's a positive now you check that box off on that client find another client who wants to do business with you go build your business on the people that want to do business with you right until you've built your database up to the point that you're making you're closing the amount of properties you want to close you got to get out of your own head none of this is an issue I could say I could say you know I I don't do social media I don't do social media for real estate I could see here and say nobody wants to do business with me because I don't do social media for real estate you know what I mean I could think of a lot of things I can't think of it right now but I could think of a lot of things because I try not to think of it I'm always thinking about what's the advantages in every situation so I'm so far this way it's hard for me to even get my mind to go there right but there's plenty of negatives about me I'm not organized I have too much going on there's a lot of negatives I can see here and pick those out of the bunch and say nobody wants to do business with me I'm too busy I don't do social media and all that stuff or I could say I work hard I'll do everything I can do to help you if you don't want to do business with me find somebody who does that's the attitude you need one more thing I'm sorry I take a lot from your time yesterday I received two calls that people want to purchase a property with me what is the impulse I took all the information I need and okay great second day I texted them nobody responds second day I texted them the day after I tried to call nobody responds then after that you know what sorry we have circumstances both of them and then I asked myself what did they do they just cancelled you know what I'm saying so do you think when you over follow up with them this is going to follow up absolutely you don't want to over follow up if somebody ghost me or isn't responding then I'm not going to try to reach out to them I'll try it twice I'll call no answer no call back the next day I might text if I don't get a response back I'm not going to reach out to them anymore they don't have to reach out to me they don't have people who respond and communicate with me how am I going to do business with a ghost that's a waste of my time if they come back to me great maybe I'll try like a week later give them like a week and I'll call them say hey what happened last week you know whatever if they do answer but I'm not going to sit around dude I'm going I'm going this way I can't go back I got to go this way more people there's dude there's millions of people here that need your help thanks man can I take a picture yeah yeah let's go good to see you bro be good man thank you yes sir can do drop box we transfer I can put it all on easy sounds good yeah yeah honestly