 Hey, what's up everybody? Rikki Kruth here. Welcome back to my channel. Welcome to Zero Diamond show number six. I got Ben Steven with me up in Michigan. This guy is crushing it up there. He's been following the Zero Diamond program for what about a year, Ben? Just under hard for 44, 43 weeks. And I tracked that just off my weekly email. That's how I know when I jump on board. You are just under a year in the Zero Diamond like full all in program. Yes. It's starting to get wild. It's in a good way. It's really snowballing just like you said it would from day number one. So it's exciting. It's truly exciting. Just to put everything into perspective like you last year, this year up to February, January, where you closed more than you did all year last year. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I was probably at like 20k closed. I made 13k my first year in real state full disclosure. I'm not trying to deter anybody from the industry because it is a great industry but keep your side job, keep your primary job until you get a database. I could go on and on but I had a cash runway because I had I deployed and was making good money overseas. I built up my cash runway to make the jump and I burned through darn near all that cash almost so scary but I just kept following your principles and it's starting to work. So now you don't feel like it's as scary anymore? I'm not saying it's not scary might not be the correct word. It was scary because I was running out of my runway on that first year. Yeah that's what I'm saying like you're out of that you feel confident that you don't have to worry about if you're going to make it in real estate or if you're going to run out of that money you feel confident in your financial you know stronghold. Yeah no absolutely I have a ways to go obviously we all do but I feel that this industry is viable now all thanks to what you taught me. Last year when I wasn't following your stuff the first six months I closed two deals and I was getting so frustrated at my desk just sitting at floor time I was breaking pens I was like this is garbage what am I doing and then I I went and tried to sell solar door to door for two months I completely got out of the real estate industry and then that wasn't for me and then I just dove in straight up all the way jumped in feet first with your content after that door to door solar kick and it's been it's been spooling up. So you got in real estate and then in the first six months or so you sell two properties and you say this isn't cut and try to sell solar panels door to door for two months right? Two months yeah two months that's why I learned how to talk to people cold Yeah I knocked on thousands of doors out in Maryland and that selling solar is a tough sale you got to be good and I got good quick I was good at that job I just didn't like a few of the aspects of it I love my buddy he brought me over and said hey come check this out it's lucrative I could see I could see that it was going to be lucrative if I stuck it out but it just wasn't for me some of the structures and I just I found you back in 2016 I said if I'm coming back to real estate in St. Joe, Michigan I'm jumping full on board with what this Ricky Caruth guy has been telling me to do all along so and that's what I decided to do and now the fruits of my labor are starting to starting to sprout here so let's talk about the fruits of your labor so last year you closed $13,000 worth of commissions you did that in January and February but where do you stand right now like what have you closed this year what do you have pending what do you have listed I have my numbers for you and I know I talked about this with you a little earlier but for all you listening if you don't know your numbers get your numbers it's important because if you're not measuring it you're not seeing results either way it's so what you focus on expands that's a real thing so what I've closed to date so far this year is 2,860,550 and that's 15 units and I know 15 doesn't seem like a lot but it's starting to get exponentially bigger than last year from three four units my average median sales price is around in my area is around 200 when I won the trip out to Gulf Shores I guessed a little higher I thought it was like 280 but it's really closer to 200 so 2,860,000 closed so far current properties under contract I have eight houses and the rest are land for 15 and that's for excuse me I take that back current properties under contract are eight and those are all houses on the buy side and the sell side for 1.6 million and I have 12 active listings for 2.4 million listed so it's if I told myself that I'd be in this position a year ago talking to myself a year ago I'd be like dude no way you're you have a long way to go but a whole year I mean it starts to compound yeah it's like I was saying about okay so when you look at this and you think oh that's okay or whatever right but the thing is you have to look at the spike in growth the spike in activity yes you know you have to look at it like on a table you know like a stock and you have to see the stock of Ben Steven and then you see how it was right here for a while and now all of a sudden it came up a little bit and all of a sudden boom yeah it's spiked up a little bit now we're right here okay now what we have now is called momentum yes okay and this is where the snowball really starts to get interesting because when you start to accumulate the clients who know you like you trust you you're building these lifelong relationships of people who are going to do deal after deal after deal give you all their friends and family you're going to treat them like family then they're going to turn around and give you all their friends and family and the snowball just turns into a monster you're experiencing the very very very front end of this huge snowball that you're creating do you feel it oh yeah I feel it and people are telling me like straight to my face when I'm sitting with them in front of the listing paperwork then you feel like you're one of our best friends so your effect I'm definitely hitting that vibe with people and it feels good I mean I'm grateful for it I can't imagine like again talking to myself last year if I could talk to that guy I would say no way it's not possible but this next month Ricky the next 30 days I'm going to be closing 30k in commissions I'm just like that's unbelievable that's going to put you that's going to put you in such a comfortable spot to not only like provide for your family and like congrats on your second child man thank you and congrats to you as well man little girl on the way that's that smile dude congrats that's Ricky needed a little girl even the model I'm just kidding girl is going to be really good for you yeah I want to super excited actually this is probably going to be the last show in this studio we're turning this into the nursery tomorrow internet providers coming by to move rooms and we're going to start making that transition so we're super excited man but but back to the real estate yeah yeah I think that uh what do you think okay why do you think that the zero to diamond system is so effective because it's real I mean I was talking to a guy the other day and I know you teach scripts and everything but it's just your scripts are real and when I was talking to this guy that was saying hey how do you doorknock and all that I listened to his script it was verbatim you but it just sounded a little scripty still so I think I think it just is the genuine connection once you understand how to talk to people with your approach it's it's real but it takes it takes work to get to that spot where it is slash feels real for people because I could tell when that guy was pitching me doing his his script I go it just felt robotic and I hear I hear you saying that on your coaching calls as well and I'm starting to understand because I'm getting I'm leveling up and I'm understanding the tone and making people feel comfortable with the quote unquote script it's it is a script but it's not a script it's connecting with people and and that's why it's so effective it and truly it boils down to the relationship over the transaction and I know that's your bread and butter plus the constant pounding of the weekly email and it's a tactful it's a tactful hit on them it's not like pounding them to death but I got a little long winded on that answer but did that answer make sense no yeah it did I mean it all boils down to the fact that what I'm doing is I've created a script that if you understand the intent behind the script and then you can use the F E yes right to make people feel comfortable with you okay then you take the script see the problem is training mainstream training you know is is I've said it many many times or put us in a box and say that this is how you say it this is how you handle every single prospect this is how you follow up exactly on every single you know situation but it can't be because everybody has a different situation prospects need to buy in six months in three months right now people need to sell right now they need to sell because of this they need to sell because of that it's always a completely there's no two deals that are exactly the same so how can we say this is exactly what you say to every prospect this is exactly how you follow up with every single prospect and what I've done is I've taken a script and turned it into a series of questions to design to read people and figure out how we can actually help them because that's that's the intent is helping them see what I think is really interesting is how most training programs are set up to just try to find the motivated people that want to buy or sell something today yes right and that's what I find so interesting because I don't really care if they want to buy or sell something today you know what I mean I want to know I don't want to know what I can't do for them like I don't want to know that they don't want to buy or sell today I want to know when they do want to buy or sell something and then I want to help them develop a game plan around their particular scenario involving me as their agent right to help them accomplish that goal whether it's to buy or sell in three months two years a year tomorrow whenever so I just feel like that that's the key to all this is taking what I'm doing and then going behind the scenes of it and understand why I'm doing it yes and I was talking about this too like because I'm a coach who is actually selling I'm a coach who is still in the game selling a hundred properties a year and now I've put out so much content so now I'm at this place where I'm like you know what quit listening to what I'm saying and just start doing what I'm doing right you know what I mean so I don't know I just kind of got on my soapbox right then too because the whole thing is around like why I'm doing this is because of the industry and the way that they're training agents and I want agents to understand it's about connecting with people you know what I mean so I'm just glad that you came on board and like you're one of the many that get what I'm saying and are applying it and using it and now look man your snowball is just getting to this place where you can actually you can probably take a snapshot of your business and predict where you're going to be in six months yes predict where you're going to be in a year in two years right in five years that's what we want you know what I'm saying that's we want a predictable business that it doesn't matter what the market does like the market can crash tomorrow that's fine we know what to do we're going to adapt we're in a changing market right now we're in a different market right now than we were six months a year ago we was talking about this before the show and I love it because now we're in this new market and I have adapted to it and now I'm still trying to get my bearings of exactly how to get to the point where I'm closing and listing as much as I was six months to a year ago but I'm right there I've almost made all the little tweaks in my business that I need to the the momentum it's always about adapting it's always about tweaking it's always about figuring out what works and what doesn't work because there's a thing the market never stays the same the market's always changing are you guys seeing a different kind of market now than you did a year ago or even six months ago up there you know on the whole probably but since I started from such humble beginnings and it's starting to snowball for me I'm as busy as I've ever been so I don't really feel that slow down in my personal market also our markets a little different because we are Chicago's playground because we're just 100 miles to the east so we're a little insulated and protected in that way but as a slow down no because I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off I mean a good way because well it's not a slow down it's not a slow down necessarily they're wrong it's more of like a market shift just a change of of the market the market's always changing and morphing into a different market you know what I mean I can tell you this is the first cycle I saw because I was in Maryland and I missed all that building that I could have been doing in those two months and it was definitely like a market shift it was the buyers are there's transactions actually happening well I know transactions happen every day but there's a lot more transactions happening so there's been definitely a summer shift for us for sure it's busy it's productive what do you think when people when you see comments in the Facebook group or you know just agents in general talking about now business and talking about how you know this creates now business that creates now business or how do I get now business they need now business they want business right now they want to close deals what pops in your head what do you think of when you hear or see stuff like that we talked about this on the last podcast I was on with you now business is everything if you're wanting now business everything is now business let me just put that out there everything is now business but if you want like immediate business go knock on 150 doors a day until you get some now business in the meantime be getting everybody's email address that you connect with and put them in the constant contact for the now business six months from now eight months from now two years from now so if you're complaining about now business make your 500 dials a day make your 200 door knocks a day you'll find now business but in the meantime have the foresight to gather contact information and stay in touch with those people weekly via your system that's what I think about now business yeah yeah you said it perfectly there there's there's no such thing as like now business or later business or this person's motivated that you'd only want motivated people listen everybody you talk to every property owner is going to do a deal in the future whether they know it or not and yeah yeah of course even the older even the older generation that thinks I'm going to be here forever no they are like I've seen it so many times they'll live another 20 years longer than they thought and they end up moving three more times yep what would you tell a brand new agent that's that's brand new they just got their license right now today because I get this all the time people DM me on Instagram and say I just got my license you know what are your what is your words of advice and so you being a brand new agent still in my opinion who is who is you know crossed over you have crossed over been into you know a salesman who who is who has a very promising future in the business 87% of real estate agents fail and you look like you are not going to be one of those agents that have to fail thanks to you truly coming from someone who looks like they're not going to fail in the business but still very new you know new in this market in this era of technology in the way everything is what would you tell a brand new agent because I don't necessarily know exactly I can tell you what I think but I have never I've never been a new agent in today's air you know what I mean of technology and how different everything is because when I started there was no Zillow Facebook none of that stuff so how do you how did you break through the distractions of of all the technology and all the stuff getting thrown at new agents and all the stuff how did you how did you get through and get past all those distractions get to the point where you have a very like you say viable business and looks like you have a very bright future number one I have to thank I have to give God credit I wouldn't be here without the grace I experienced about two years ago I'll leave it at that I got to give it to my faith and a strong church and I'll be here with God second I have to give it up to my wife she is the most supportive person so if you have a spouse or a girlfriend or you're living with somebody or a boyfriend or a spouse they need to be a hundred percent on board and support you in this because the first year depending on your market and your activity it could be tough it could be tough so number one God number two have a supportive spouse boyfriend girlfriend because if they're against against you, it's not gonna happen. You can attest to that with Carlin. If Carlin was not your advocate, it'd be hard. And probably be hard. It would be, it would be, yeah. I wanna say, man, that's a good one because Carlin, man, especially with me doing the coaching in the real estate, I'm traveling all over the world speaking and stuff. She's super, super supportive. And if she wasn't, I literally would not be here right now, I wouldn't be here doing the show with you. So very good point. So God, wife, spouse, significant other. Now to the nuts and bolts, not that those aren't nuts and bolts things, but you either need to have, I had a year's worth of cash saved up from my previous job. And I was looking out on the horizon at real estate. I met you, I talked to you when I was, it was 2017, I reached out to you from Northeast Africa while I was out under deployment, flying defense drones. And I was like, I need to get out of here. I'm away from my family. So I reached out to you and I saw the force like I'm going into real estate. So I was just banking all my money, banking all my money, banking all my money. I saved up about 50, 60K to make this jump. So I got out of the deployment and went into St. Joe, Michigan with my nest egg and started hitting real estate. So you either have to have a lot of money, relatively a lot of money, a year's worth, or you need to have a solid job that can pay your now bills while you're working on the real estate side of things. That's important. And I know there's a lot of people that don't have that luxury of having the money. So keep your job and make your phone calls when you can or knock on doors when you can. And then the other thing is support from your broker. If your broker doesn't support you or they're chopping you off by the knees, you need to get out of there. You need to go somewhere where they are going to nurture you, help you, train you, so you understand the paperwork side of things. There's a learning curve here. You can't just plug in and go. You need to have a good mentor. And my mentor is you and a guy named Mike Barber. He grabbed on to me. After Maryland, I said, Mike, will you help me? Will you help me on the listing side and teach me these things? So he co-listed properties with me on my first four months. And he was splitting properties with me. And I was grateful. I'll be forever grateful for him because without him, I'd probably be out of the business today. So God, wife, cash, job, support from broker and a mentor, whether that's Ricky. But you need Ricky's stuff, but you also need a mentor with boots on the ground, somebody that can sit down with you and look over a buy-sell with you, look over a listing agreement with you, show you how to go into a listing agreement and get through and get from that stuff. And then last is Ricky Caruth. Follow his, this is an older one, but follow his 90-day action plan. I carry this around in my backpack. And then action. You gotta do this. You can't just sit here and look at this. You gotta do it. So I got long-winded again there, but I'm gonna sum it up. God, supportive spouse, cash or job, mentor with boots on the ground with a supportive broker, Ricky Caruth and action. And that's exactly what I'd do if I lost everything today. I'd probably have to go get a job and I'd start knocking on doors and making calls and follow those items that I just listed out. That's exactly what I did when I lost everything and went to zero. I just went and started roofing houses the next day. Finally landed that job on the oil rig, but I wasn't knocking on doors and making calls because I didn't realize closings happened every day. I didn't have Ricky Caruth in my corner telling me, this is what you need to do. Like closings are still happening. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like, if I wish I did, I wish I did have somebody telling me what was really going on. It took me having to figure, I had to figure all the stuff out on my own. God bless you, man. I wouldn't have been able to figure it out. You hacked through the forest for us. Yeah. I'm just following you. I'm just copying your stuff. Right, right. Now I had to figure all the stuff that you're copying. I literally had to figure it all out on my own after like a decade and a half. You know what I mean? Yeah. That sucks. But no, that's what made you, dude. That's what made you. Oh no, no. I wouldn't take any of it back. I know, I know, I know. Yeah, like I was so happy when I lost everything. It's not even funny, you know? Like I knew, I knew what was going to happen because it's like Gary V says sometimes about, you know, if you're that good, then you don't have anything to worry about. Like it will, you know, it's going to happen for you. If you're that good, if you really are who you say you are, if you really, if your intent is really there, if you really care about people, if you really work hard, like you don't have anything to worry about. Now it's all about patience. Putting that work in and being patient. I love what you talked about, number one, with the faith. You know, me and Carlin go to church every Sunday, but like outside of the necessarily, you know, faith, the religion, right? There's also a part of that that plays in the business and being faithful in the fact that you understand that closings happen every day and business is unlimited. And sometimes when you have less pending deals, then you still have that faith. Like you can't let it get the best of you mentally and start getting down because you don't have as many under contract as you did three months ago, right? You closed a bunch of deals and now you're looking like, oh, well, what am I going to do? No, you should just maintain that faith that deals are going to happen if you're doing what you're supposed to do, you know? So sending out the weekly email is faith. I mean, it's just reaping what you sow. And it's the consistency. And I know if I send that weekly email out, I have faith it's going to bring me business, no doubt in my mind, whether it's a day from now or two years from now. Have you, like how many transactions would you say came from the fact that you, or how many people did you connect with that you started sending the weekly email to that kind of came back to you after a little while? There's like five under contract right now from the weekly email alone. I told, I think I mentioned this story on the podcast, but I knocked on a gal's door on Halloween and I had a real good connection with her. I got her email, stayed in touch. She opened up the weekly email for three months, called me out of the blue, said, Ben, I'm ready to list and buy. And I said, forgive me, I don't remember your name. Just like you said, you set them in there and you quote unquote, forget about them. Yeah. So that's happened five or six times now. It's unbelievable. And I know that's going to continue to happen. It's predictable now, you know? Exactly. You know what's going to happen. When you're putting the work in and you see the formula, you know what's going to happen. There's no guessing. This isn't a guessing game. No. And it makes everything super simple. Also, man, about the mentor, like the boots on the ground mentor, like your broker or an agent that's going to help you in your market. You need that. That's really crucial. I'm glad you brought that up because I can only take you so far in terms of how to build your business, motivation, how to get you there. But every market is so different. The paperwork that is required is so different for every market. Even if you go to the same different companies in the same market, it's different paperwork. Oh yeah. And then every market has different MLS you got to learn. You know, for the most part, there's a lot of different kinds of MLSs. There's also different ways to kind of like try to gauge the comps and try to figure out what properties are worth. Right. I think you need somebody who's in your market that will show you the ropes on how to price properties in your market, how to write contracts in your market, how to do this, how to do that. But what I want you guys to be really careful of is trying to learn all that stuff up front. I think it should be almost a learn as you go type thing because it doesn't matter if you know how to write a contract if you don't have any clients to write the contract for. I've seen so many agents come in and they'll spend weeks and weeks and weeks learning how to write the contract, right? And they won't make any calls. They won't do anything to create business but they want to have that contract. They want to know everything about it inside now before they even try to get a client. It's like you don't need to know any of that stuff until you have a client. Once you have the client, you should have an agent or broker in place. And as soon as you get that lead that says I'm ready to write an offer, I'm ready to list a property, you can call the broker or agent and say, hey, I've got somebody that wants to write this offer or write this listing up, I need you. And then they come, you do it together, they help you through the process. You really, really need that. I had that when I started. Even if your split is crappy at starting out, if you're learning and you have a, if you found a supporter broker slash mentor that is are teaching you how to do this, you latch onto them until you feel comfortable to fly on your own for sure. I mean, I'd be dead in the water without Mike, so. No, you have to have it. Like you have somebody to help you through that stage of learning the basics of your market paperwork, comps and stuff like that. And also putting in the action, like it's okay to watch and listen and learn, you know all this stuff, but then dude, hardly anyone is putting in the work, right? And that's the main ingredient. And that's why I created the levels. That's why I created Jim, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphires, all the way up to Diamond making a million dollars a year because I wanted to take people who are doing, who have already completed the 90 day action plan, who are doing the weekly email, who are making the calls and actually putting in the work. And having a call with them to make sure they understand the philosophies and that they really want Diamond, and then putting them in a separate Facebook group so that I could spend more time with them to help them get to Diamond. I think it's a great idea. And so that's why I did it because I noticed that there was a big divide in the group with people who are just talking and then there are people who are actually doing. You know what I mean? Let me ask you this, how many people, and it's unfair to ask you to put a number on it, but how many people do you think aren't doing the weekly email that are in your group? Probably a lot. Do you think? I really don't know because I think the people that aren't doing the emails and they're not doing, you know, not putting the work in, I'm not really hearing from them. You know, I'm just, so I don't know, you know, how many people. But there's 17,000 people. Let's put it this way. There's 17,000 people that are signed up on the Zero to Diamond website right now. Nice. And there's probably, there's like 10% of those who are signed up for constant contacts. But that doesn't really mean anything necessarily because they could be using a different service to do the weekly email. And then even if they are signed up for constant contacts, that doesn't mean they're actually doing the email. So I don't really have any statistics there, but I'll tell you this, it's way lower than it should be. Yeah. Right? Because people want everything right now and they don't realize how quickly you can do deals. If you start doing these long-term actions, you'll understand how quickly the money starts to come in if you approach it from this long-term mindset and start taking those long-term actions. I mean, you know, like Chad Mann is, he's over in Texas, I believe. You know, he started following me in November. He has closed a million a month this year so far. Man. Yeah. He went from selling a couple here and there to he's closed a million a month every month in 2019. Good. So he's almost to six million closed right now. I mean, from November and then January, start closing a million a month from calling and doing the weekly email and it's snowballing. Yep. How much, how quicker do you want your business to start growing and money to start coming in, you know? Amen. It's crazy. Now that guy I made cold calls with in Tennessee the other day, Friday, Nathan Lilly, he is 22 years old. He got in the business literally a month and a half ago. Yeah. A month and a, did you see those calls? No, I missed those calls. Oh dude, you should watch them, man. They're pretty funny. He's got a real accent. What's his name again? Nathan Lilly. All right. Yeah. I'll check it out. He made live calls Friday, but he's been in the business a month and a half. Yeah. Four listings and two are pending. Oh my gosh. Month and a half. And he said that I'm the only, I'm the only one that he, I'm all he knows in terms of how to build real estate because he's only been in the business for a year and a half and he found me somewhere started following. He's going to help a lot of people and make a lot of money. He's so good, man. He did, there was a couple of wrong numbers. You should have seen him. He just went right in for it and got the business. Good. Like it was crazy how he, you know, he's fearless on the phone. That's the way you have to be, man, because what I've realized is that sitting back watching a lot of these people who have these excuses and they complain and they don't make any sales. What I've realized is that they are creating what they fear. Yep. If they fear they're not, they're not going to make it. They don't make it. If they fear they're not going to have a good phone call session. They don't have a good call session. If they fear people are going to hang up on them. If they fear the market's going to crash. If they fear this, if they fear that, those are the things that happen to you, right? It's all perspective. So, but if you, if you sit here and say, I'm going to have a great call session. I'm going to sell a lot of properties. I don't care if people hang up on me. You know, I don't care if the market crashes and you focus on the positives, right? And you're fearless about it. Then that's what happens to you. You succeed. Yep. You know what I mean? It's just crazy. All the way you look at it, it's, it's the way you perceive it is what's going to happen to you. You create your reality. And I don't mean to get too crunchy, but you're saying that the way you see it is the way it will be. No, no doubt. That's, that's just the way it is. So, man, I want to hear. Now we, we did this last time, but I want to go through this again because this is straight gold, man. I want to, I want to, I want to re-listen to this because I want to hear it again too. Sure. Because the way that you've tweaked it and the way that you do it, this door knocking script, I want to, I want to hear this thing again because it's just pure genius, the way that you took my script, my circle prospecting script, you tweet it for door knocking, you took your experience from door knocking the solar panels, right? And then turned it into this incredible conversation that you have and have sold so much property, door knocking. So let me hear it. Well, let me show you this first and I'll show you what I leave on the doors. I thought about this. I know it's probably reversed here, but I have my business card state and then this is just I value relationships over transactions every single time and what in the world can I do for you? So this is, so this is like a package you leave with them? Yeah, I leave this on every door and the cool thing is rather than a voicemail, I don't know what the stats are with people are calling with the voicemails. Probably not a great callback rate, but I get people calling me back with this almost every week, say you dropped a flyer off at my door, can you come do a CMA for me? I'd like, yeah, I'd love to. And then I go back, do the CMA, get their email right in the constant contact. So this is just a branding thing. So it's a picture of me and a couple of nice reviews, a little bio letter on myself so they get to know me. Don't make this too long if you're gonna do this short and sweet, simple. They don't want your whole life story. The recent market activity just, it's really basic. It's just an MLS printout of what's sold in and around their neighborhood in the last year. And then a couple MLS sheets, that's it. Sometimes I don't even add the MLS sheets because it starts, if there's 20 properties sold next to their house, I just do the list because I don't wanna print off 20 extra copies. So I'm gonna do this, I'll ask you just to, don't even say anything and I'll kind of talk, I'll talk the way through the script the way I do it. Is that all right? You wanna like role play it? No, no role play and I'll kind of explain and pause and what I'm doing to connect with these folks. How's your connection, you good? Yeah. Okay, cool. So I'll just go, I go knock, knock, knock and then I'm gonna try to get into the camera a little closer. They answer the door and I'm stepped back and I'm turned like this acting like I'm doing something. I'm not doing anything but this is non-threatening. When they see my shoulder, they're like, okay, this guy's not gonna, he's not threatening. And then when I hear the door open, I step back, smile and I go, hey, how's it going today? Good, good. Well, my name's Ben, I'm a local real estate agent. Don't worry, I'm not trying to get you to sell your house, I promise. If they smile there, Ricky, I know I'm gonna have a normal conversation with them. And then I go, hey, I don't wanna take up too much of your time, reason for my knock is I provided you a market snapshot, a bio-letter customer reviews, that's for you. I close the gap, I give them something. Then I step back and I say, and I'm just seeing if there's anything that I could do for you now or in the future. And I shut up and I listen. I listen, 98% of the time they say, no thanks, I'm good, I appreciate it. They posture towards the door. I say, I gotcha, well let me ask you this, then I'll get out of your hair. If you were to make a real estate move, do you have an agent that you would use? And then they say, no. And then this is where I've kinda, this is really important here because I was feeling a little too scripty. I just kinda step back, I take a breath and I say, because genuinely this is how I feel. Ricky, I'd love to be able to help you in the future if you ever need anything. And they say, great, I'm gonna get you out of here. I'm gonna get you out of here, I'm gonna get you out of here, I'm not gonna say anything. And they say, great, thanks. Would it be okay if I stayed in touch with you? And they say, sure, Ben, that'd be great. When they say that I look right down at my yellow pad. I don't look at them anymore. I say, wonderful, what's your first name? Thanks, Ricky, what's a good email address for ya? And then after I get the email address, I just thank him. I say, thank you for being open-minded and friendly. I appreciate it, if you need anything in the future, real estate or not, you have my card, Give me a call. And if they want to shoot the shit a little bit, I sit there and talk to them. They invite me in. I have a drink or whatever, you know? I'll just talk to them, connect with them. So I know that was kind of chopped up and I was explaining what I would do, but that's gotten me like 400 emails off the doors. Yeah, it's crazy. It took a while to learn that though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No dude, it's just, you've got it down to an art where even down to the body language, when you knock, you just kind of step away. Oh yeah. Very non-threatening. Then if they smile, you know, you got them, then you give them something. And then it's a really smooth conversation. I really love it, man. That's why I wanted to bring you back to go through that again for people that didn't hear it the first time. I got crushed in my first neighborhoods. Don't get me wrong, crushed. I was using some wax scripts and I got beat. Just for the, just for education, I've never heard this. What script were you using? I can't even remember, like what three things are you looking for in an agent? They don't want to be talking to somebody at their door. So don't say that stuff. Act like you're getting out of there quick. I'm not gonna take up too, I'm not taking up too much of your time. Just use your script, but just tweak it a little. And I'm not knocking the weather part either, but I've tried the weather on the doors. They don't want to talk about the weather because they're like, who is knocking on my door? Like who is this? I don't know this guy. So that's why I just, I take that objection right away, try to get them to laugh. Hey, I'm not trying to get you to sell your house, I promise. That's kind of like the weather part, you know? That breaks it. Exactly, exactly. So you've also made a lot of cold calls though, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you used the weather part with the calls? Yeah, that helps big time. The other day when I was doing four sale by owners, I've been tracking a guy for quite a long time and I used your script verbatim with Hal. He, I said, hey, I just use your script. And I said, great weather we're having, it's awfully rainy. He's like, yeah, we need a let up. But then I went, hey, I don't want to take up too much of your time Hal, reason for my call. Saw that your property expired and I didn't know if there was anything I could do for you. And then I let him talk. I'd love to be able to help you in the future and I listed it the next day. So it's. People want to buy and sell. Yes. You don't have to try to figure out how to force people into buying or selling property. No. They already want to do it. You know what I mean? So that's a prime example right there. You literally, like, our job is to get into the conversations and to get the conversation moving and when they start talking, when you get them talking, that's when you know that they're starting to feel comfortable with you. Oh, yeah. So when you said, you know, hey, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I saw that your house expired and if there's anything in the world I could do for you and then he just started talking, what all was he telling you? He's like, yeah, we had, we were for sale by owner a little bit. We started out high. We went with this guy. He didn't follow up with us. Da, da, da, da, da, da. I just let him talk, let him talk. Was taking mental notes on what he needed, what he wanted out of an agent and he said, yeah, we want to get it on the market as soon as possible. You want to go meet me at the house so you can see it again. I was like, sure, I haven't seen it in about a year and I just printed up the paperwork and brought it and we got it done right then and there. Sometimes it goes smooth like that. Sometimes it doesn't, you know? And if you're not making the calls, you're not going to get the easy ones. Right. You know, there's going to be tough ones. There's going to be easy ones. There's going to be, you know, bad ones, good ones. You know, you have to take the good with the bad. So I guess this guy wasn't getting calls from a bunch of other agents or did he say that other agents had called him? Well, no, he didn't say that, but he remembered me and you know why he remembered me? He door knocked his house. Well, I did door knock his house. I left him a $5 gift card to a donut shop. He opted to go with another agent. So he was for sale by owner for like six months, couldn't sell it, went with this agent for a year, couldn't sell it, but he was getting the weekly email for the entire term. And then he goes, yeah, I look at your emails every week. I was like, beautiful. That's what sold the deal, man. I just didn't, I didn't do anything other than the weekly email and connect with the guy. So you, so hold on. So you door knocked a house, you got an email. He listed with someone else. This was just a random door knock? No, he was listed on Zillow as four sale by owner. Okay, okay, okay. So you, so you door knocked it for sale by owner. You didn't call him first, right? No, I called him first. Okay, you called him and door knocked him. Okay, you called him, he didn't answer, so you door knocked him? No, he answered and said, well, we're just trying to still four sale by owner. If you want to preview the property, sure you can. I said, wonderful. We didn't get previewing, but I did drop off a listing packet at his door with a $5 gift card because he told me where he lived and everything. So that's kind of how that went. I know that was kind of vague, but four sale by owner for six months, I tried getting him, wouldn't let me do it, listed with another agent, and he remembered me from the $5 gift card, the listing packet, the weekly email, and he converted. So, okay, this is just wild. I mean, this is how it works. It's like a spider web, and this is the, that comes back through the snowball. So, so this all kind of came to be when you, and you watched it, and then you called him when it expired, or you were just calling random expires. I called him the day after expired. Okay, so you like watched this listing like a hawk? I just checked the hot sheet every day. I was like, oh shoot, there's that property. I'll give him a call. He was in my phone from the four sale by owner. I said, hell, anything I can do for you. Beautiful. Do you watch the hot sheet every day? New listings, pinnings, closing, stuff like that? Yes. There's some days that I can't see them all, just because you get bogged down and you're doing other business when you get busy. But yeah, generally, I check it every day. I think that's so key, man, to like keep up with the day to day, new listings, closed sales, pinning sales, withdrawals, expires. Even if you don't really do anything with it, all that data is going into your mind. Oh yeah. And it's becoming second nature that you just know. You know what's for sale. You know what's closing. You know what's pinning, days on the market, price per square foot. You just know all this stuff. Oh yeah. And then every once in a while, you'll see something like that. And it'll be like, oh yeah, I need to call this guy. Like, oh, sometimes when I'm looking and I'll see stuff that closed, I'll think, wait a minute, I know like three people in that neighborhood. It gives me a reason to call them. Oh yeah. Hey, just thinking about you, this house or condo or whatever and your subdivision or complex just sold, I was just thinking about you. Is there anything I could do for you? Perfect. It gives you a reason to reconnect, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah, no doubt. So that was a plethora of things. That was a cold call, basically a doorknock and weekly email. And that's a winning formula right there. And that's now a business. Yeah. How long did that take to come to be? That took like a year and two months. Wow. I have two months. A year and two months ago? Yeah. Wow. Well, no, no, excuse me. 10 months ago probably because he's only been getting the, I've only been sending the weekly email out for 42 weeks or so. So 10 months. Someone else. Yeah. OK, so give me your, give me your, like how, what time do you wake up in the morning? I've been getting up at like, with the kid, depends five, six, 30 or so. And do you work out? I got to get better. I've been getting busy and the working out's been going by the wayside. But I need to get back on the working out train. Yeah. I mean, sometimes, sometimes you waver away because you're trying to build this business. Yeah. And then you have a, and then you have a couple of kids. So I'll leave you, man. Everything kind of gets haywire for a second. But however, I've found the people that are successful, they make working out like you may leave it for a second, but it's always in the back of your mind that you're going to come back to it, and you're going to make it a priority in your life. OK. I'm going to get back to the gym. I've been out of it for like a month and a half. But yes, I work out. OK. That's not too long. OK, what's your week? What's your weekly schedule? Like, do you have a set schedule, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Or how do you, I mean, how are you doing? What do you do? I don't have a super set schedule, but the end of the day, 4 o'clock till 8 o'clock, if I don't have anything going on, I'm going to be going to hit 50 to 100 doors. At 4 o'clock? 4 o'clock PM. That's when people. How long does it take you to hit 100 doors? Depends. That's if you're talking to people, you can't do 100 doors in a day. If you're talking to people and connecting a lot, you might be able to do 50 a day. Like how many hours is that? 2 to 3, hour and a half to 3 hours somewhere in there. Last year, when I was going really hard on the doors, I was going from 4 till 8. I'd have a stack of papers this big, and I would just be, I was just bombing neighborhoods and just pulling email addresses left and right. So it depends. But 50 doors, I'd give yourself 2 hours. Don't try to rush it, though. You got to connect with the people. You don't rush it. If they invite me and I'm going in, I'm not saying, oh, I got to hit my numbers. I think one of the biggest problems with people that are new to cold calling or new to door knocking is that they're just kind of going through the motions, and they're trying to get to that end result, which is an email address or an appointment or whatever it is that you're focused on. And then you miss these little opportunities where the prospect is actually telling you, hey, we have this other property down the road. Or we're thinking about this, and you just kind of like move right past that and you try to follow the script kind of robotically that kind of stage. You have to listen to kind of be watching out for those little opportunities of people mentioning other little things. And if you can listen deep enough and hear those opportunities and then start asking questions about those opportunities and get them talking about this other thing going on, like this lot down the road they're thinking about selling or that they said they might sell in a year. Like a lot of people are like, OK, let's stay in touch. What's your email? No, let's talk about the year. Let's talk about why they want to sell in a year. Let's talk about what's going on with that situation. And it helps us go deeper with the relationship and the connection right then. You just said it. You got to find their why. What's their motivation? Let me tell you a quick story. I door knocked a door five months ago. He lives just across the street from me. He has a lot for sale. And it's $30,000, $40,000 lot. And I still have yet to get that listing. I'm going to be getting that listing. But he invited me over. And lo and behold, he has his daughter and his son-in-law living in the house that had a transaction just fall through. And he invited me out. We talked about listing a lot. And then he said, let me introduce you to my daughter and son-in-law here. They need another real estate agent. So that was off a door knock, weekly email, and then pursuing why he wanted to sell led to another buyer transaction. But I was sitting in their backyard sipping coffee like I was an old-time friend. It's awesome how it works. And you just have to listen to people. Be the last to speak. Let them speak. Yeah, like I was saying, you were saying, don't try to rush through it. No. And I just want to emphasize that. Don't rush through it. Listen to what they're saying. Try to find the hidden gems within these conversations that will allow you to go deeper and show them how much you actually care with your intent. So like I said, man, so when you get to the office, since you don't have a set schedule money through Friday, you don't have a routine, a weekly routine, what do you do when you get to the office? I'm doing admin stuff right now, which is I'm learning. And it's kind of bogging me down right now, because I have all this business coming in. I have to split documents and dot loop, and I have to send a title company, and I have to upload listings. It's pretty fluid, my schedule right now. Plus, with the three-month-old and the two and a half-year-old, it can get wild. So there's no super set schedule right now. It's kind of just working chaos, which is working for me right now. But I still prioritize the doors. Jessica is starting to take off two days, or she's going to be, my mother-in-law is going to be taking off two days from work. She's semi-retired. Jessica is going to come in and start doing my admin work for me with dot loop and contracts and putting in listings, stuff that is really tedious for me. And I can just go make calls and knock on doors for those two days. That's what you need. So are you? So the reason that, so you love door knocking, that's how you got going. And then it started snowing through the winter, and you can't really knock doors. So you started calling. I started with antibiotics. Yeah, so you started calling, but now it's warm back up. So now are you just door knocking, or you're door knocking and calling? What do you think your percentage is? Just door knocking right now. Yeah, that's your thing. You're just in the door knocker. I actually canceled the Red X a couple of months ago because I've just been on the doors. Yeah. And it feels inefficient, but what I'm finding is it's not, because, and I'm not knocking the calling. Calling works, no doubt about it, but I just reap so many, I just get so many email addresses when I go knock. I can go get seven to 10 email addresses today in a neighborhood in an hour and a half or so. Well, you're a prime example of what I want out of the program, dude, you're taking what I'm doing, and then you're tweaking it for what works for you and what your strengths are, and then you're capitalizing on it and you're executing. I mean, that's the name of the game, brother. Yeah, amen. Okay, so you're just door knocking. So, and then you do that about four o'clock in the afternoon? Yes, that's, and then you start getting, you'll interrupt people at dinner and stuff, and it's, you just got to move right through that. Just stick to it, connect with them, you know? When you approach them like, hey, I don't want to take up too much of your time, da-da-da-da-da, here's some stuff, just, you know, you want to stay in touch, it's a lot. I mean, when you're acting like, when you do respect their time, and then you back that up with how you're talking and your actions and your body language that you really want to respect your time, and you want to make it quick, you just want to stay in touch, then it works. Amen, man. And then I remember something that you told me a long time ago. You said once you start getting busy and you feel like you're missing your prospecting time, enjoy going on that listing appointment, enjoy going to show that property, because that's why we prospect and work. So obviously try to try your hardest to get your prospecting in, but if you don't hit it that one day, don't beat yourself up and get back on the train the next day. If you don't hit it that one day because you're going on a listing appointment, or because you're showing property, not because you didn't feel like it and you went home to watch Netflix for a couple hours. Right, yeah, screw that, don't do that. Right, if you miss the call session or the door knocking session because you have a listing appointment or a lunch appointment with a big client or you're showing property all day, those are good reasons to miss a prospecting session, but like Ben said, don't let that throw you off for the rest of the week, get right back on the wagon. So I've got a question Ben asked, I mean, Marie asked, Ben, how many email addresses are you currently sending your weekly email to? Curious how many email addresses you've gained since you went back into real estate? 610, I sit at Constant Contact right now and when I started with Ricky 43 weeks ago, I was at like 150. And that's through any email address I get is going into Constant Contact, anyone that I come across, so open house people. But the bulk of that's come from door knocking. It's been like 400, 450, 500 email addresses from door knocking. I have to put another caveat on that. Every one of those people that I've connected with on the door got a handwritten card from me with a business card, Kressie Everett. That's my broker name. Says, dear so and so, if you need anything in the future, reach out anytime, I'd be honored to serve you. PS, thanks for being kind and open-minded. All the best, God bless Ben. And then I put in another, a different customer review sheet like that in with that letter. So it's been a lot of, it seems inefficient but all this inefficiency is starting to turn into business for me. Yeah. So where do you think, like now you're at a point where like we talked about, you can almost predict where your business is going. Yeah. And when you say 400 email addresses, these are not Zilla leads. No. These are Facebook leads that never called you back. These are property owners who literally voice to voice gave you their private information to please stay in touch with them for the day that they wanna buy and sell multiple properties, right? Yes. There's nothing better. These aren't, this isn't a database of 400 Facebook leads that you got off a Facebook ad, they clicked something. These are people, real people that already on the type of property that you want to sell, right? This is the way that you build a business. This is it. So over 44 weeks, how many of our weeks it is, 400 email addresses, that's 10 a week. Yeah. On average, okay? So if you get 10 a week from here on out, that's assuming that you don't get any better, you just do the exact same status quo where you are right now. If you pick up 10 a week moving forward in a year, you're gonna have over, well, I mean, you're gonna get, let's say 500 in a year, 500 a year, okay? So in a couple of years, like in like three years, you're gonna have 1500 people on that database. And that's not to mention the snowball of the people out of that group that refer people to you, that now their email address goes in there and then the more people from the open houses and the buyer leads you get from sign calls and online leads that are free because you have all the listings and all that stuff. That's not to mention all that. I mean, you could end up with a database of like 2000 people over the next two to three years of concentrated group, concentrated people of the highest quality leads that know exactly who you are cause you're building your brand through your weekly email. Yep. That is powerful. That is number one status. That has been being the number one agent in the area status right there within the next two, within the next two years, I'm predicting it, you're gonna be the top selling agent in that market. Thank you. I gotta keep shoveling email addresses into constant contact and it's kinda, I'll be honest with you, I'm not scared but I'm looking at if and when I get constant contact up to 1500, I don't know how I'm gonna handle all the business by myself. You have to get a full-time assistant. Yeah. It has to be a full-time assistant, not your wife or your mother-in-law. It has to be a full-time assistant that is just a business relationship. We're there to get it done, somebody who is very highly motivated, that you pay them really well, that you have a long-term vision with this person, you have meetings, they know that they're there for the long run and they're there to accomplish the bigger goals and then when we do accomplish these bigger goals, everybody wins. Right. You know? And so you have to make that happen. You gotta get a good assistant. You need to get them pretty quick because literally if you would hire a full-time assistant, you would double your business overnight. Yeah, I could just be out on the doors and deal with it. All day, every day. Yeah. Yeah. I like how you're thinking, thinking big. Yeah. Yeah, well that's the first step to doubling your business. Once you get to your level and now we're doing, you know, 150k a year, it's time for an assistant so we can get that to 300. You know what I'm saying? The next year, you literally double your business because you can double the people, double the doors you're knocking. That's what it boils down to. Yeah, no, I hear you loud and clear. That's, I need to get on that. Chad Maynes just commented. The guy said that sold a million a month over the last this year. Yeah. As he just put another 2.5 million under contract in the last three weeks, all directly related to circle prospecting and weekly email. Nice. That's a beast. That's crushing it. Cool, man. Well, just wrapping up, thanks for doing this. Thank you for the opportunity. It's always a pleasure getting to spend some time with you. Yeah, I think this helped a lot of people because we touched on a lot of stuff. I think people really like to hear the inside stories, you know, the behind the scenes deals and how this happened and how that happened, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Just do your weekly email, please. I plead with all you watching and in the group, just do it. And if you can't afford constant contact, get it, deliver some pizzas or pick up a job and do it because you're gonna make a whole lot more money in real estate eventually. Yeah. So just do it, follow Ricky's stuff. Just do it, man. We're gonna leave it right there. Thanks everybody for tuning in and watching today's show. If you guys need anything whatsoever, Ben has always been helpful to people in the group so you can reach out to him, reach out to me of course. I'm still, can you believe it, dude? I'm still answering every single DM on Instagram. I don't know how you're doing it. You're beast, dude. You're beast. Crazy. He's still answering every single and like I'm nowhere near close to not being able to do it. You know what I mean? I'm still staying right on top of it. So if you guys need anything, hit me up there. Look out for the next video coming soon. I also have the 28-day program, the Rookie Crews Real Estate Challenge coming. One video a day for 28 days. I'm putting it together. I'm almost done with week one. It's gonna be an incredible little series of videos for you to get right where you need to be. Put you right in a place to gain momentum just like Ben, just like Chad, just like all the other guys in the group that are seeing so much success. What do you think about, oh, Parker, man. Parker Gray. I like Parker a lot. I talked to him the other day. I actually sent a lead up his way. He's northeast of me about 40 miles. So I still talk to Parker. Yeah, he's funny, man. He's a good dude. Yeah, I like Parker a lot. Cool. I can't think of any other announcements. I'll be in El Paso Thursday. I'm coming to Charleston next month. Of course, we have the big one down in Dallas September 20th and 21st. That's gonna be Brian Casella, Danny Morrell, me chasing Jay Miles, Colton Linsley and several others. So that's gonna be a big, big two-day event of all the Joshua Smiths gonna be there. It's gonna be all the real estate influencers. It's gonna be a big, big deal there. Also, I have Vegas September 26th working on Atlanta. So I have all those in the works. So if you guys have any events or anywhere you want me to be, just reach out to me. I'll be glad to show up and do my thing there. So I love you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Peace. See ya, Ricky.