 Right this business is about people and when a market when we have a downturn Transactions may go down temporarily, but people are here to stay You know my journey has been a little different for most I got in business in 2002. I was 20 years old and I made a million before I'm 23 Okay, so the market completely exploded. All right, then the market crashed on me. Okay, it crashed on me I lost everything. I lost everything that I had I had to go back to roofing houses and working on an oil rig For a little while and I was bankrupt. I was sleeping on friends' couches. I was sleeping in my car and During that time that was the greatest time of my life right there It was the turning point for me it taught me everything that I needed to know about myself about the business about You know life in general and what I did was is I took that opportunity Just like you need to take the opportunity right now. You need to take advantage of this opportunity I took the opportunity back then to take a step back Re-evaluate what I was doing in my business and I took that moment to read a hundred books Because I was so curious about why I failed and why other people were still succeeding it didn't make sense to me I mean, I was the hardest working most honest professional agent out there in my opinion So somewhere in one of those books. I realized that what I did wrong and this is what I want This is my big. This is what I really want you to take away here. I Really want you to take away that that went what I realized Where I went wrong was that I was focused on transactions, I Was focused on money. I was focused on closing. I was focused on getting the contract signed I was focused on getting the listing getting the appointment. I was focused on all those result oriented actions and results and What I what I realized that I needed to be focused on something in a book made it click and I realized that wait a minute This business and really life in general in all businesses are about people Right this business is about people and when a market when we have a downturn Transactions may go down temporarily, but people are here to stay Right the population does not wither. Okay. We were people are still here Properties are still here people still need to buy and sell properties. Okay, so I want to get to into my philosophies of You know market downturns and market crashes and market pauses we're in a market pause right now People are kind of have put on the brakes and they're just kind of waiting to see what's going to happen This is completely normal completely natural completely predicted. Okay, we've we've been through the one of the best Bull markets one of the the longest runs of a market that we've seen and in modern history Okay, and so you can't just sit here and say to yourself that was going to last forever Okay, so what you have to do is you have to put in perspective All right, and this is what I really want you to get this because I want you to take this with you Through the next Cycle of the market and the next cycle in the next cycle and every time something happens that makes the markets React to the way that it's reacted with coronavirus I want you to remember this and I want you to take advantage of every opportunity to every little stage in the market Okay, there's always an opportunity so Let's just think about it in a general sense for a second. Okay What makes a market crash? What makes a market have a downturn? What makes a market pause? Okay, it's because something happened that no one was expecting No one was expecting for a pandemic Okay, 9-11. No one was expecting for airplanes to hit the world trade Okay, no one was expecting those things and it creates fear when something this large Happens it creates fear creates fear in the market. It creates fear, you know for buyers for sellers. There's a lot of fear out there Okay, and that makes people sell stocks It makes people push the pause button when they're looking to buy or sell properties Okay, so what we have is we always this is this if you go back through all the different market cycles When that moment of scaring this happens when everybody gets scared and and push the pause button They sell they sell they makes them make I would think irrational decisions, you know to sell stocks People they take a second. Okay, so if you're in the middle of buying a house Okay, maybe you're under contract or maybe you were looking and you're not under contract yet And then the pandemic started. What would you do? You would push the pause button you would say wait a minute. Let's wait a minute Let's let's step back here unless you're in a situation where you need somewhere to live Okay, but if you were just upgrading because you want to upgrade or it's an investment property or something of that nature Then you're gonna push the you're gonna push the pause button for a second Okay So what happens is is when a real estate agent is working through these cycles and they have buyers and sellers that are Looking at properties or maybe under contract and then that scary moment happens in the market that that makes everybody push The pause button the current buyers they have the current sellers They have most of them will push the pause button and it scares the agent The agent thinks that you know, we're done for you know We're never gonna sell property ever again, and it scares them out of the business Okay, and there's been a lot scarier crashes than this, you know, you take the 2008 Crash for example, which really hit real estate extremely hard Okay, that that was that was a moment where you might look at real estate and say I don't know if I really want to be in This business, but I'm telling you that was the best time to get in the business So after I lost everything And read those hundred books and realized that it's about relationships over transactions actually got back in the business in 2008 2008 in the in the middle of the crash That's when I got back in the business and I started to build my business on people not deals I started to focus on people and what I did was is that There were a lot of foreclosure real estate agents out there who were making tons of money Everybody was jealous, you know, they were getting all their listings from the bank They were just processing and making tons of money and everybody wanted a piece of that pie and was kind of jealous That you know those those listings were already spoken for I sat back and I said, you know what these foreclosure agents They're they're they have zero customer service. They don't answer the phone when I call them about their listings They're just sitting back and they're not really working. They're just processing. I said, you know what I'm going to do I'm going to get out there I looked at foreclosures for a second and I realized how much work it actually is to maintain those bank Relationships and I said, you know what and I realized that when foreclosures went away All that work really is kind of put on the sidelines until there's another rush of foreclosures, which may or may not happen for a while I knew that foreclosures weren't going to last forever So I said to myself, you know what I'm going to create relationships. I'm going to find buyers for these foreclosure properties I'm going to sell these foreclosure buyer these foreclosure properties. I'm going to be on the other side representing the end user I'm going to create a lifelong relationship with this person I'm going to sell as many of these foreclosures as I can sure it seemed like a lot of work at the time But I would develop a database full of people who love me because I went over the top to help them as Time went on I said to myself before I did this I said to myself as time goes on and the foreclosures go away and prices rise The people that bought those foreclosures from me are going to turn around and sell that foreclosure for a profit and then Upgrade to another property and refer five of their friends to me And I'll be the number one agent in my area and all the foreclosure agents will be on the sideline And within three to five years after that moment. That's exactly what happened So you have to take a hard look at different business cycles and market cycles and real estate how the game really works One thing that's really cool Okay, once we enter that scary moment where where everybody jumps out of the market and pushes the pause button It's only going to be a two to four month period go back and look through history There's a two to four month period where there's a lot less transactions for a second because everybody's sitting on the sideline Waiting to see what's going to happen once we get through this right now. That's where we are right now We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know when the economy is going to open back up exactly We don't know what's going to happen once the economy does open back up This is all unknown to us right now So no one knows really where the economy is going short term. And so everybody's just kind of sitting back now once We do open the economy back up Okay, and we do get our feet up under us and and you know the water is under the bridge with this thing for the most part We're gonna enter into a new market All right, we're gonna enter into a new market and this new market is going to be in your favor Okay, it's going to be in your favor. Why because prices will just adjust To the to the price point that buyers are willing to buy What does that tell us? There's going to be a lot of transactions going on So when we get through this pause period, I want to call it When we get through this we get to the other side. There's only three things that can happen Right prices are they're going to stay the same Okay, prices are going to go up or prices are going to go down Now you can take it further prices could go up really fast or really slow or prices go down really fast or really slow Okay, so there's a lot of different scenarios there But it's only going to be one of those three to five things Okay, and it doesn't matter which way the market goes our consumers our clients the people buying and selling properties We just need to know which way it's going so they can make informed decisions on how they want to operate in the new market Okay, now, what is our job as a real estate agent at this point during this period right now? Our job right now is to take full advantage of the moment that we're in that we have time Because we're not out there showing property. We're not out there going to listing appointments We're not out there, you know hustling bustling and doing our thing at the office We're at our house and we really have all the time in the world to sit there and call as many people as humanly possible And no guys this is coming from someone who is actually in the market doing this, right? I've been selling for since 2002 Okay, and when it crashed on me and I came back and I built my business I've been selling a hundred properties a year as a single agent since 2014 Okay, right here in Alabama go shores Orange Beach So you're the I'm telling you this from experience That when the market crashes the first thing we need to do. Okay, and it's something that I Couldn't do for a long time because I'm so busy selling Like I have such a big clientele of people who love me. It's it's repeat its referrals It's referrals of referrals and it's so massive that it keeps me busy I don't have time to really chase any deals deals are just coming to me because the way that I built my business But when the market takes a downturn like it has what does that do for guys like me and for you It opens up your time that you can spend Talking to more people right and the first thing you need to do is call your entire database Need to call your entire database and just check on them right that conversation looks like hey It's rookie crew. How you doing? You know yeah more I've been working out of my house for the last month. It's crazy, isn't it? You know, this is this is a past client. This is someone who is who is supposed to be your friend You know this person should look at you as an extended part of their family Okay, well your your number one job as a real estate agent is to make people feel comfortable with you Okay, that's your number one job in real estate. Yes, it's to close deals It's to do transactions to get listings to do all those things But you're not you're never going to get to that part of the business until you can first Create comfort or ability between you and your prospects. Now. How do you do that? It's how you communicate with them right if you talk to them like their friend or family Then they're going to feel like they're a friend or family member Right if you if you talk to them with the intentions that you don't care if they buy or sell a property today All right, you just want to help them if they do and if not now you want to help them later when they decide to because the fact Is this they're going to buy or sell something at some point? They are going to buy or sell something at some point It's just a matter of which agent they connected with the best who they felt comfortable with who they felt would work The hardest was the most dependable did everything they said they were going to do when they said they were going to do it So these are the types of experience that you need to create an incredible experience For your customers okay and your clients so when you're calling your past clients these people should they should feel like you are family And you you know this is long-lost Ricky calling them to check on them and see how they're doing through the pandemic And you know what they're always going to remember that you called them during the pandemic to check on them They're gonna they're gonna remember that you called them during the pandemic and they're going to think wow You know That's my real estate agent You know they're not gonna leave the business a pandemic is not gonna scare them out of the business Nothing's gonna shake this agent You know this agents out there calling me talking about we're still selling a couple properties didn't know if there's anything I could Do to help you You know so I'm a pretty firm believer in not necessarily asking people if they want to buy or sell I'm a big firm believer in asking just listen I don't want to take up too much of her time But a house around the corner sold or I just listed a house or you know whatever the case may be You I saw your property expired off the market did know if there was anything in the world that I could do for you