 The next 12 months are going to be the greatest opportunity of your entire career. We're going to have a year where we hit 7 million existing home sales. How is it crazy to think that we're not going to hit it again? A brand is a name that reminds you of a story that you want to be in. But how do you build a great brand at scale with the highest level of integrity? That right now is your time to go out and tell your story in the marketplace at scale with the highest level of integrity to build your brand. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for Ricky Karoo. Soon to be remembered as a legend in the industry. We're going to break off into networking. We're going to go ahead and bring out one more person. I know we're going to get caught in 10, 15 minutes. We're going to break off. But we want to go ahead and do a quick little presentation on adding as much value as possible to your clients. You're going to go out there and get more listings. Give it up for Ricky Karoo. Give it up for my daughter. If you're a parent or a human or you're anybody, you know how special that was for me just now. I travel all over the country. I'm in a different city every week. Speaking to agents, helping them level up, helping them live better lives. I bring my family everywhere I go. So they're the reason why I do everything I do. Yeah, give it up for them. So Ryan said we're going to save the best for last. Here we are. No, I'm happy to close this thing out. I mean, honestly, let's just take a second actually to appreciate where we are. I mean, look around. This is amazing. Back about six months ago, Juan called me. It was a Sunday. He doesn't remember this. He doesn't remember anything. No, he's sharp as a tack. He said, Ricky, bro, we're going to do the biggest, baddest luxury real estate event that the world has ever seen. I said, oh, really? He said, it's going to be on Times Square, February 29. I said, you don't say. He said, we're going to have the biggest, baddest names in luxury real estate that you've ever heard of right there with us. Sir Han, all of them. I was like, I was taking it all in. I was listening. I didn't say it out loud, but in the back of my head, my mind I was saying, yeah, right. And look at where we are. Now, if this man, are you there? I can't see anything. If this man could take an idea in his mind just a few months ago and turn it into this reality right now, it's been amazing. If that doesn't inspire you to go do great things and be great, nothing will. So I have to acknowledge this man right here. Thank you guys. We appreciate you. What's up? Yeah, what am I doing? All right. Now on to me. If you want to make more money than you've ever made in your life over the next 10 years, make some noise. Okay, we're on the same page. Now, if you mean that, and you're not just like, whoa, give me some money. And you actually want to work you're coachable. You're trainable. I'm about to tell you everything that you need to know. All right, I'm going to give you the cheat codes right here. And this is not going to be a long speech. That was too early for the slide. That's okay. Go back to my name. And I'm going to go like this whenever I need a new slide. Okay, the first thing you need to know is that the next 12 months, the next 12 months are going to be the greatest opportunity of your entire career. And I'm not saying that because the market's going to explode. I actually don't think the market's going to move that much. I think it's going to be up a little bit. Nothing crazy. So why do I think the next 12 months are going to be the biggest opportunity of your entire career? It's because and I'm sure all you guys will agree, we're in a down market, right? My experience in the last 22 years is that when the market is at its lowest, that is the biggest opportunity to expand your influence in the market. Now, mark my words here. Slide's still up. Sorry, we're good. We're good. Mark my words. Over the next decade, we're going to have a year. I don't know if it's year three, five, seven or eight, but we're going to have a year where we hit 7 million existing home sales. All right? And when that year hits, you're going to wish to God that not only you are in real estate, but you've been doing everything you could do to expand your influence in the market up to that point. Now, in my mind, I know that we're going to hit this level. I know that the market is going to do this. So when do I take advantage of this? Is it before expanding my influence in the market, letting everybody know who I am, what I do, and I'm here to help? Or do I do it like every other average agent? Slow down with the market, wait for its pickup, and then try to take advantage. The time is right now. Now, you may be thinking 7 million transactions. That sounds crazy, Ricky. 2021 was the year of the boom, and that was 6 million transactions. How are you going to beat that? Well, we did 7 million transactions before. Boom. 2005. Did you guys realize that we've hit that level of transactions before in the country and that that's the record? Not 2021. 2005 is the record. And a lot of you didn't even realize that until right now, this moment. And so now, if you realize it, if you knew it before, how is it crazy to think that we're not going to hit it again with the demographic of people who want to become homeowners over the next 10 years? Not to mention the historic pent-up demand. Are there people back there? Make some noise. Okay. We've got historic pent-up demand. We're going to hit 7 million transactions. There's no doubt about it. The only question is, what are you going to do about it? Last year, last year was the same level of transactions as 2008. You see it? 2008 was the best time to go all in, expanding your influence in the market. Now, I got in business in 2002. I was 20 years old. So how old does that make me? I made a million dollars before I'm 23. I lost it all in the crash. I was broke, bankrupt, homeless, sleeping in my car, sleeping on friends couches, eating out of people's refrigerators. I didn't care. I knew I was going to come right back. That was temporary. And I was going to take over the entire game. But I got back in the business in 2008, and I went all in, expanding my influence in the market. And what happened? Boom. This is a nice little illustration of my business. And by 2014, I was selling 100 properties a year. And it was all because of what I did in 2008. My message to you, my first message is, this is your 2008. This is the moment to go all in, not waiting for something else to happen. It doesn't matter what the market's doing. I don't care about interest rates, supply, demand, inventory, lawsuit, commissions, AI, Zillow, buyers, dads, messing up inspections, losing deals. I was focused on one thing, expanding my influence in the market. You might look at this and think, what happened in 2014? What would you do differently that year? I'll tell you what I did differently that year. Nothing. My day to day, every year on that screen was exactly the same. Phone calls, postcards, and emails. That's all I did. So why did my business explode in 2014? Because I understood at a really young age exactly what I'm telling you right now. I understood the power of expanding my influence, compounding relationships every year on top of more relationships the next year, on top of more relationships the next year, until the year that the market resurgence. The resurgence is coming. It's going to be a perfect storm. Like I can already see it. We're going to have prices are going to be great, affordability is going to come down, interest rates are going to be at a really great place, but guess what we're going to have? Buyers and a lot of inventory. I don't know. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I don't know how long it's going to take, but it's coming. And the larger you can build your name in the process, you guys can do way more than I did. This is 2014. How much of prices went up since 2014? 100%, 200%. 100 deals now. I started looking at the market now, like if I'm still on 100 properties now, damn, the prices. Now what happened after 2014? I'm killing him. This is a screenshot of my MLS the next eight years after 2014. You can see I'm at the top. I'm beating entire teams. I did 100 deals a year every year after that. It's all because of what I did in 2008, nine, 10, 11, 12. Now what's so funny about this, one thing that's funny is I'm a single agent. I didn't have buyer's agents. I can see you guys. I didn't have buyer's agents. What's a buyer agent? When the agent comes to me now and says, I'm thinking about hiring a buyer's agent. You know what I think? Soft. Thanks dad. Now, I didn't have a buyer's agent, listing agent. I went to all the closings, made all the phone calls, went to the inspections, everything, marketing, Legion, I did it. And so what do you think when I tell you that? What's the first thing you think of? You didn't have a life. You used work eight hours a week. You know how many hours I was working when I was doing this? A two and a zero, 20, 20, 25 hours a week. Yeah, radiant week, team leaders. Because everybody thinks you're going to have a team to actually live the life. No, you don't. You just have to be efficient and understand how to leverage. So how did I do that? How did I have a business where I'm doing 100 deals a year as a single agent, working 20, 25 hours a week? Boom. Personal brand. When you build a great personal brand, which is what I did, I expanded my influence in the market. When you build a great personal brand, you don't chase clients. You don't spend time chasing clients. They spend time chasing you. And guess what? They pay you anything you charge. I'm worried about the lawsuit commission thing. Build a brand. You won't have to worry about money. Speaking of personal brand, how many of you guys just show of hands are following me online already? Okay. People watching at home, let the record show we got about 90% in here. Make a side note, the other 10% have been living under a rock. Personal brand. Now, what is a brand? Oh, this is good. One of my mentors says this, Myron Golden. He said a brand is a name that reminds you of a story that you want to be in. That's cold. That's ice cold. It's a name that reminds you of a story that you want to be in. So let me ask you another question. If you had the opportunity to be in business with me on a great deal, show of hands, would you take the opportunity? I can see. Okay. You got you. Easy. Y'all are like writing me checks or something. You're like, you got your checkbook out. Why is it that most everybody in this room so happy to raise their hand publicly and say, I want to be in business with you, Ricky. I've only met 5% or 10% of you at the most. Why is it? It's because my name, Ricky Cruz, reminds you of a story that you want to be in. What is the story that I tell you guys every single day? It's a story of perseverance. It's dependability. It's consistency. It's trust. It's working hard. It's making it from the bottom to the top. Everybody wants to be in that story. What have I been doing the whole time? I've been on stage the past nine minutes. I've been telling a story that you want to be in. So from this day forward, every time you hear my name, every time you see me post, every time somebody mentions me, you're going to be reminded of the story of the agent that went all in, expanding their influence in 2024. And every year after, until the market hit 7 million transactions, their business exploded and they became one of the top agents in the world. And that's the story each and every one of you want to be in. And that's my brand. Now, how do you build a brand? We know what a brand is. How do we build it? That's easy. You tell your story to the marketplace. But how do you build a great brand? You tell your story to the marketplace at scale with the highest level of integrity. What's integrity? Doing what you said you were going to do, when you said you were going to do it, every single time, even when nobody's watching. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm just trying to help you here. I'm just trying to tell you that right now is your time to go out and tell your story in the marketplace at scale with the highest level of integrity to build your brand. Now, the agents I connect with the most are the ones who are all in to expand their influence in the market, no matter what the market's doing. This market is temporary. It doesn't matter. The agents I connect with most are the ones who realize they're not building 2024. They're building their career. If you're going to be in the business for 10, 20 years, every prospect I talk to, I'm thinking how many deals are they going to do and refer out in the next 20 years? I don't care if they do a deal today or not. I just want to get to know you and get you on my team so that when you do business, I'm your guy. That's it. And that's what it's all about. So my message today is that now, the time is now to prepare for the market. Not wait on it. The agents who are all in, blinders on, expanding their influence, no matter what, that's the mark of a great agent. And the mark of a great speaker is one who when they're on the stage speaking, you never want to hear them stop talking. But unfortunately, that's my time. I love you guys very much. I love you more than anything. I want you to keep working, pushing, fighting for your dreams. And I'll see you guys all very soon. Let's go. Thank you so much, New York.