Calls with Chris Smith

I take a lot of pride in giving real estate agents the right advice about where the world's headed. Being a first-mover has tremendous advantages and what I want you to be a first-mover on this time is NFTs (non-fungible tokens). In this episode, I explain what they are, how you purchase them and what they can mean for the future of real estate.

Who is the "perfect" Realtor? As someone who has been working with top producers for more than a decade, I decided to put together a list of 21 Realtors who are the best of the best at a very specific thing. Basically, if you combined their 21 strengths into one Realtor that would be the "perfect" Realtor. While all of these agents do many things well, I highlighted one particular category that they excel in that's better than anyone else I've ever seen in the real estate industry. On this episode, find out who made the list and why.

You can't get the right answer if you ask the wrong question.  The most annoying thing that I'm asked about when it comes to internet leads is “What's the conversion rate?” I get asked so frequently that I wanted to address it head-on, once and for all.  It is a stupid question. On this episode, I explain why, and what you should be asking instead.

It's harder than ever to differentiate yourself as a Realtor. A lot of what you all do is the same. I'm obsessed (and you should be too) with figuring out how to identify and articulate genuine differentiators. Doing so has never been more important. On this episode, I go through several differentiators that are guaranteed to set you apart as a Realtor.

The real estate industry is over-indexed on marketing tech and under-indexed on sales tech.  There's a lot more you can do for your reps besides giving them a CRM, a dialer and a headset.  On this episode, I share 12 of the best sales tools agents aren't using yet - but should be.

The rules for real estate marketing all just changed, and our industry is not prepared. New laws and regulations are now in place and strictly enforced. They will get stricter moving forward. Think of it this way: Your marketing is no longer compliant. On this episode, I analyze what happened and what you need to do about it.

My wife and I want to invest in real estate but we have no idea where to start. The keyword is start. We're sold. We get it. Investing in real estate is a great idea.  In fact, it is so compelling that every single person you know wants to invest in real estate. I bet most of them don't know where to start either. On this episode, I explain how the internet and media have contributed to the appeal of investing and give you a couple of questions Realtors like you can answer for people who are ready to get started.

Real estate agents can now partner with and pay NCAA athletes. There's been a historic rule change in regards to “Name, Image, Likeness” that allows college athletes to legally get paid. They can use their personal brand to promote your business. In this episode, I tell you exactly what you should do to get the most out of an opportunity like this. Plus, I cover 5 specific tactics you can steal and use.

In this bonus episode of Calls, Neal Mitchell interviews best-selling author Chris Smith on his book, "The Conversion Code". Listeners will learn how to attract and convert new leads using proven online marketing and sales techniques.

In light of Facebook's recent changes, Chris and Jimmy host a live webinar presenting the best ad targeting options that aren't going away.

If you can't explain who you are and what your company does, how can you expect someone else to? In this bonus episode of Calls, you'll listen to the latest episode of Curayted, starring Chris Smith, as he meets with Curaytor's new PR company. When you work with a PR company, you're doing more than just getting your name out to the public: You're defining who you are as a company. 

You have to be able to put problems in perspective if you’re going to run a successful business. In this episode of Calls, Chris categorizes problems into three different levels and breaks down how to handle each. 

Join us Thursday, March 29 at 1PM for Pitchfest. You'll hear from top experts in the real estate industry, ranging from coaches to listing agents to buying agents. Don't miss this one-of-a-kind event! 

On this episode of Calls, you'll hear Chris' conversation with Richard who is trying to decide whether to invest his time into building his personal brand or his business brand. 

In the fourth episode of Curayted with Chris Smith, take a trip to Miami for Gary Vaynerchuk's Agent 2021 event and learn why you should be creating more video content (and how to do it).

Chris believes "Facebook is the internet", but what if you don't have a Facebook? In this episode, Chris breaks down ways to advertise your business or brand beyond Facebook.

On this Bonus episode of Calls, Chris and Jimmy host a live webinar breaking down the best Home, About, Sales, and Testimonial pages in Real Estate and beyond - and explaining why they work.

On this episode of Calls, listen in as Chris talks to his social media manager about one of many ways to build a following on Instagram. 

  In this bonus edition of Calls, you'll get to hear episode 3 of Curayted - "Everybody Loves Chris" - where Chris tackles the topic of online haters in his first stand-up comedy style session from Curaytor Excellence 2017.

As a business owner, there are times when you have to have tough conversions with your team. In this episode of Calls, listen in on Chris' call with the management team on the importance of breaking down silos

Chris takes a trip down memory lane on this episode of Calls as he recounts his entrepreneurial journey and celebrates Curaytor's 5th year anniversary.

On this episode of Calls, Chris explains why you need to stop shitting on millennials and start hiring them.

I just got back from a family vacation that was equally a good life experience and sad at the same time as we were dealing with a death in the family. When an experience like this happens, you really get to thinking about life, happiness and death — it really puts everything into perspective. So, I began researching this concept of happiness — how can you become happy, or, ‘Why aren’t you happy?’   Recommended reading: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh   The four answers people typically give when you ask what their goals pertain to are: building a company, getting a great job, finding a significant other, and being healthy. But why? Why do you want a great job? To make money. Why do you want to make money? Because you believe that will make you happier. Whatever your high-level goal is — whether it’s health, income, spouse, or career — your low-level goal, if you just ask yourself, “Why do I want that?” comes down to this idea that you want to be super happy. So my challenge to you this year is: Make your one — and only — resolution to be as happy as possible.   How Income Impacts Happiness There’s a really good study by Princeton, and what they found was that about $75,000/year is the sweet spot when it comes to financial gain equating to increased happiness. So if you’re making $20,000 a year and you can double it to $40k or increase it to $60k, there’s a tangible increase in your day-to-day mood. But, there’s not much of an increase in happiness beyond that amount of income. Another thing they broke down in that study is that there are two types of happiness. One is your day-to-day mood, and the other is a deeper satisfaction that your life is going the right way. What they found is that even if you hit the magical $75k/year it improves that deeper life satisfaction — but, you don’t wake up in a more jovial mood. So it’s important to understand that if you’re not happy right now, it probably goes a lot deeper than your income.   Overall Happiness Coming from Strong, Interpersonal Relationships This brings me to the second study I took a look at from Harvard. They tracked the same group of men for 80 years. Basically, from 1938, they’ve been meeting with the same group of men every two years. Half of the people that they met with were from the inner-city, with very low income and not many socio-economic advantages, and the other half were Harvard students. So, every two years they would ask this group about their physical and emotional health, employment, family, and friends. What they ended up finding was that it wasn’t money or status that determined a good life. The people that were the happiest and the healthiest stated that it was strong, interpersonal relationships that made them feel better. The people that were isolated were the ones that declined in mental and physical health. So a deep set of personal relationships is actually what led to happiness — and everybody could have that right now. The ability to have great relationships is already there for you!   Here’s a link to the full study: Grant Study of Adult Development, 1938-2000   George E. Vaillant was asked, “Ultimately, over 80 years, what did you learn from this study?” And he said, “The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.” So I want you guys to think about that — relationships with other people equate to happiness.   There’s a great Ted Talk with 18 million views about this study as well: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness   A Few Other Notes on Happiness I’m sure some of you have some friends on social media where they really want you to think they’re happy. This happens a lot with couples. There’s a great article on Inc. about how the happiest couples rarely post online. It’s a great read — It’s ‘8 Reasons Why Happy Couples Rarely Share Their Relationship Statuses on Social Media.’ Sometimes the more you share, the less you actually care. The last thing I’d like to talk about is: How does all of this impact your work life? And what are some of the action items you can take with you to make 2018 your happiest year ever? I was reading a blog post from Neil Patel, and one of the stats from it was that people that have a best friend at work are 7X more likely to be fully engaged. I really, truly believe that the more effort you put into deep and meaningful relationships with your coworkers, the more you’ll enjoy your job — and there’s a lot of data behind this: 54% of employers feel that strong work relationships improve culture, 36% of people that have a friend of work say that they enjoy going to work and feel more valued and productive, and close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by almost 50%. Think about your happiness as you tackle your goals for 2018.

In this episode of Calls, Chris sits down with Sarah from the Curaytor team to get a quick rundown on her top takeaways from Harvard Business School's Two-Day Sales Manager Course.

Changing two settings on my phone increased my focus, my productivity, and improved my personal relationships. If you don’t control your phone, your phone will control you. So, I’m going to share two settings that I want all of you to change. It took me less than two minutes to make this change and I estimate about a 10X increase in productivity since I’ve done it. This first setting I changed — and this one’s big — is you need to disable audio and vibration alerts for text messages. People spend an average of 145 minutes a day on their phone and will use it 76 times per day. If you’re calculating that for a 16 hour day, that means you’re checking your phone 5 times an hour — that’s every 12 minutes! So because we check our phones so often we don’t need our phones to tell us when to check it — we do it automatically. When you are interrupted by an unnecessary distraction, it takes 25 minutes to refocus and get back into the swing of things. So I want to challenge you to try this: Turn off audio and vibration notifications. The other big setting I changed is turning off all other alerts. The only thing I have on for an alert is the little badge icon where it shows that there is a number. I know it’s nice if someone tags you on a post on Facebook — but how many times are you going to check Facebook today anyways? I know it’s nice to get a push alert when your favorite team won their game — but aren’t you going to check ESPN later anyways? So for me personally, I only include badge app icons for the apps that I use on a daily basis. When there’s a banner or box alert that pushes up, on to your phone, it gives a lot context and makes you want to check and read it. But when you just see the little red number on the icon of your app, it isn’t nearly as distracting. So right now on my phone, I have zero push alerts on my phone — zero. These are small changes that can net you big results — Just try it for a couple of weeks. Not only will you thank me a week from now; the people around you will thank you! Being less digitally distracted improves your work focus, and it deepens your personal relationships. This is seriously a game changer.   Bonus Pro-Tips: During the holidays or on a vacation, uninstall slack and your email app — or any work apps that you use the most. Make it as hard as possible to go into those apps. When you love what you do, it’s hard to follow these rules, but not seeing the apps at all can be super helpful when you’re spending significant time with your family and friends.   Do a digital purge; a digital detox. Every December I spend a few hours going on to all the social media accounts that I use, and unfollow, unfriend, and turn off notifications for hundreds of people that I don’t want in my newsfeed ever again. I also go into my inbox and unsubscribe from all the emails that I always end up deleting. Unfollow all of those negative Nancys and twitter accounts that piss you off. It’s your newsfeed — you can control it.   In closing, there’s a saying that I learned while I was working at Quicken Loans, it goes:   “What you focus on, is what you find.”   My goal and my challenge to you is: let’s all focus on finding focus in a world where everyone else is digitally distracted.

With the release of Carvana, the automobile dealership industry is about to change for good. On this episode of Calls, Chris explains why - and what dealerships need to do to combat it. 

“If you want to feel good, brainstorm about it. If you want to appear good, test it. But if you want to know if you’re any good, ship it.” — Jason Fried   I love this quote. It talks about one of the things that we’re so passionate about here at Curaytor, which is this idea of actually executing on our ideas.   In order to become great at execution, you have to become great at decision-making.   Decision-making is one of those skills that pay dividends if you can develop it. Like communication, writing, self-improvement — it’s one of those skills that if you get better at it, it impacts every aspect of your business and life.   I’m going to cover three skills — or tactics — that can help you become a better decision-maker.   ‘Do You Even Have to Make a Decision on it?’   The energy and the effort that’s involved and required to make a decision can be absolutely exhausting.   There’s a wonderful book we have here at Curaytor’s Boston office called, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, by Steven B. Sample and it talks about this concept of, ‘Is this a hill you’re willing to die on?’ Is it that important to you or your organization that you’re willing to die on that hill? This is a really helpful exercise in decision-making because, here at Curaytor, we have three very stubborn, opinionated founders between Chris, myself, and Andrew. The reason there’s no drama or power struggle in our nearly five-year-old company is that we’ve all — in our own minds — decided the hill that we’re willing to die on.   So one of the things that we have to think about to become better at decision-making is being OK with saying, “I don’t have to make a decision on this because this is not a hill I’m willing to die on.”   ‘Can You Reduce the Number of Decisions You Make Every Single Day?’   There’s a wonderful TED Talk done by Barry Schwartz where he talks about the idea of having too many options, “The Paradox of Choice”. If you ask consumers if they want more or fewer choices, they’re always going to say, “More.” But, in fact, more choices lead to more stress, anxiety, and suffering.   So, one of the ways to become better at decision-making is to dramatically reduce the number of choices you have to make every single day. I can’t emphasize this enough. This is one thing that I think is so important to becoming a better decision-maker.   Chris does this thing every year where he asks the people he communicates with the most, “What should I be working on in 2018?” And he tries to boil it down to a few core items of how he should best use his time. Every time it comes down to one or two things. This allows him to do his best work going forward.   So, we want to think about, “How do we reduce the number of decisions we make every single day?”   Identify What’s Changed in the Last Six Months, the Last Year, and the Last Few Years, That Could Affect the Decision You’re Going to Make.   When we think about making decisions we have to think about the timing of those decisions, because that matters. Often times, what you’ll find, is that your ability to identify what’s changed since the last time you had to make this decision can help you dramatically improve the likelihood of your making the right decisions.   One of the things I always challenge our team to think about is to identify the blind spots — What are the assumptions we’re making that, potentially, are simply not true? These assumptions, often times — the things where we’re so convinced, unequivocally, that we’re right — can lead us to make the wrong decisions, at the wrong times.   At Curaytor, we’re all about helping our team develop skills that actually have an impact on their daily lives. What I want you guys to be thinking about now, and going forward in 2018, is your ability to become effective, productive, and satisfied in your job. It all comes down to developing the skills like decision-making that allow you to do the job and be confident while doing it.

In this bonus edition of Calls, you'll get to hear episode 2 of Curayted where Chris and team discuss their top takeaways from HubSpot Inbound 2017.

The New Curaytor has launched! In this special episode of Calls, Chris answers the marketing team's questions regarding our all-new platform.

In the world of business, there really isn’t a Ph.D. There are people with Ph.D.s in the business world — but you really can’t get a Ph.D. in business.   But, there is a PHD: Passion + Hustle + DNA.

With the New Curaytor, we're redefining what all-in-one means. Bottom line? The system as a whole is more important than a feature. Chris discusses more on the latest episode of Calls.

Instagram is a juggernaut that businesses can no longer afford to ignore. On this episode of Calls, Chris talks about how you can take advantage of it as a channel.

At the Excellence conference, I explained a concept called ‘flipping the funnel’; it’s about qualifying your leads before you call your leads and attracting people to your business — not chasing people that haven’t shown interest.

"Momentum is hard to get but it’s easy to lose.” We have massive momentum right now coming off of Curaytor Excellence, and I believe the only people who can stop our momentum — is us. In this episode, Chris explains why it's up to us to maintain the momentum that we’ve created.

On this special episode live from Excellence, Chris sits down with Sarah to show you how to crush your quota with Mass SMS Marketing.

We don’t want you to be the best real estate agents; We want you to be the best business owners. This year at Curaytor Excellence, Chris shared our principles of growth-- and now, on this special episode of Calls, you'll hear Part 2 from his session, "Growth Rules", Live from Excellence.

We don’t want you to be the best real estate agents; We want you to be the best business owners. This year at Curaytor Excellence, Chris shared our principles of growth-- and now, on this special episode of Calls, you'll hear Part 1 from his session, "Growth Rules", Live from Excellence.     

We’ve all been there — we get to the end of a great call with a great lead and they say ‘no.’ Rejection is a difficult part of sales, but it comes with teachable moments. On this episode, Chris shares his method for effectively handling and overcoming rejection.

Every great team starts with great management. From Passionate to Purposeful, Chris breaks down the 16 P's that make a great manager.

Our event is literally called ‘Curaytor Excellence.’ With that name alone, there’s a very high standard. And excellence is hard — It takes a lot of small things done by a lot of smart people. I want to share what I’ve learned about what makes an excellent show from my experiences attending conferences, as well as putting together one of our own — Curaytor Excellence. This is the checklist that makes our event special.

At Curaytor, we know fortune is in the follow-up. In this episode of Calls, Chris helps you put an end to useless action plans so you can start applying the best follow-up campaign ever built. 

Want to grow your company the right way? You’ve got to hire the right people. On this episode of Calls, Chris teaches how to attract the right employees (and just how impactful word-of-mouth really is).

Six figure salespeople are masters of their craft, but at this level only two things matter: focus and mindset. Chris shares the best three apps for zoning in and time management on this episode of Calls.

When is 4 > 40? When it’s 4 great leads vs. 40 decent ones. Chris explains that the quickest way to improve the quality of your leads is to qualify them through copywriting.

Habits are powerful and they can affect you positively or negatively. In this episode of Calls, Chris breaks down what habits really are, plus how to form positive ones for optimal productivity and success.

In this bonus edition of Calls, Chris introduces his new show on YouTube, Curayted with Chris Smith. You'll get to hear the first episode of Curayted where Chris shares the guiding principles that have helped Curaytor become one of the fastest growing companies in America. These are the Growth Rules.

“Why aren’t we working together?” is the best question you can ask in sales, and the reason is always one of three things: features, pricing or timing. In this episode of Calls, Chris breaks down the FPT acronym and how to overcome these objections early on. 

Influencer Marketing has taken over as the fastest growing online marketing channel. In this episode of Calls, Chris explains why this new trend is blowing up and how you can take advantage of it.  

Whether it's in business or your personal life, the smallest gestures leave the the largest impression. On this episode of Calls, Chris gives examples of how going the extra mile improves a company's culture and creates exceptional experiences for your customers.

What elements transform a sales page from good to great? Chris explains how things like video, testimonials, accolades, and more can make your sales page your best salesperson.

Mastering the art of storytelling will set you apart in an industry filled with statistics. On this episode of Calls, Chris walks you through the simple elements of a great story and how you can apply them to perfect your sales pitch.