Coppell Real Estate Podcast with Maria DiPoce

Taking ownership of your business is the key to making your real estate career what you want it to be. Here’s how you can get started. Today’s topic is very near and dear to me. It’s something I talk to my agents about almost daily: Taking ownership of your business. You did all this work to go out and get your license and you essentially become a business owner. Whether you’re on a team, joined an independent brokerage, or somewhere in the middle, taking ownership of your business will make the difference between having a life worth living and one not worth living.  “Come from an abundance mindset versus a “gimme” mindset.” An individual who waits on other people to get things done is typically an individual who has not quite realized that they are in control of their own business. It’s such an empowering mindset if you think about it, waking up and knowing that we are getting paid to make things happen. We’re not calling our brokerage asking about leads. We’re coming from an abundance mindset versus a “gimme” mindset. This applies to everything in your life. If something isn’t working right in your business, it’s most likely because you really haven’t made a purposeful plan around taking ownership of that component. Right now, the big thing that everyone is going to have to wrap their minds around is technology. Facebook, Instagram, and more are great ways to touch your database but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you have to take the time to get educated and learn how to create business through those platforms.  I hope this message has empowered you to want to take ownership of your business. If you want to talk more about what that looks like in your day-to-day activities, I’d love to sit down with you for a one-on-one consultation. I promise that if you take a bit more ownership of your business every day, you’ll have such a more productive and purposeful day. If you have any questions for me in the meantime, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

According to Gary Keller’s book “The Millionaire Agent Mindset,” you should touch your database 36 times a year. How many times a year should you touch your database? Back in the day, the number was a lot higher because communication wasn’t as fast as it is now. Things have changed quite a bit over the years, though. Not only do we use social media resources (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) all the time, but so do our clients, which means they’re bombarded constantly by other companies trying to take their business away from you.  The good news is, we don’t have to put a lot of thought into how many times a year we should touch our database, because Gary Keller’s book “The Millionaire Agent Mindset” actually tells you how often you should do it.  When the book was first published in 2002, the standard number of yearly touches was 33. Now, though, this number has been increased to 36—the additional three should mostly be phone calls.  In any case, you should start with 18 touches that should be emails or campaigns of some sort. Don’t worry about being annoying; emails aren’t annoying. If they don’t want to look at them, they’ll just delete them. If you’re a shoe shopper like I am, you probably get tons of emails from DSW. I delete most of these, but whenever I need a coupon, I know where to find one. It all comes down to what you’re sending them and what value is presented in those emails.  “Don’t worry about being annoying; emails aren’t annoying.” The rest of the touches break down as follows: Eight “thank you” or “thinking of you” cards Three phone calls Two birthday cards A Mother’s Day card A Father’s Day card If this topic is a foreign concept to you, you’re in a bit of an interesting predicament. Your database is constantly getting marketed to on every social media channel, so if you’re not touching your database enough, you’re at risk of losing business to the big companies that are entering the real estate brokerage game. I won’t name names, but we all know who these companies are.  If you’d like to talk more about touch campaigns or other strategies you can use to grow your business, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to speak with you. 

Why does leveraging your business matter? Today I’ll explain. I first started in this industry about 10 years ago. When I was three transactions into my real estate career, I went to my broker and said, “You know what? This isn’t working out. I picked the wrong career path.” Of course, he was shocked because those three transactions occurred all within of a month and a half. He told me, “Maria, you’re great at this! Why do you want to quit?” I responded, “Listen: The amount of paperwork I’ve had to do in the last month and a half and the number of dates I have to remember in order for a transaction to close successfully isn’t something I want to deal with. I don’t want to have the stress of forgetting dates or making sure paperwork is filled out correctly.” I’m just not detail-oriented. Some of you may be detail-oriented yourselves, and you’ll have your own issues leveraging that because you won’t want to let it go. For me, however, the problem was the very opposite: I just didn’t want anything to do with paperwork. “A transaction coordinator will assist with all your transactions from contract to close, including reminding you of dates and helping with paperwork.” He said to me, “Well, why don’t you hire a transaction coordinator?” I didn’t know what those were or what they did at the time, but since, I’ve found them to be life-saving additions to any real estate team. For a couple hundred dollars per transaction, a transaction coordinator will assist with all your transactions from contract to close, including reminding you of dates and helping with paperwork.  I was so fired up about the prospect that I went right out and hired my first transaction coordinator. Doing so allowed me to create leverage in my business.  As agents, we get paid the big bucks because we have a lot of fiduciary responsibilities to our clients to make sure they’re being taken care of. That doesn’t mean that we have to be the ones doing all the work. For those who aren’t detail-oriented and are stressed out by the amount of paperwork to deal with in a real estate transaction, consider hiring a transaction coordinator.  I can recommend a good one for your purposes who can handle all of the back-end details of your transactions. It helps to sit down with someone to figure out if you’re doing $15-an-hour work when you could be doing $300- to $500-an-hour work. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Let’s go through your business and identify the areas where you can incorporate leverage to help your business grow.

Find out what you can do to compete with discount brokerages. I talk to a lot of you on a weekly basis, and one thing we commonly discuss is, what is going on in the industry, what’s with all the discount brokerages suddenly appearing, and what can I do to make sure that I stay relevant in the conversation and my commissions don’t go away?  FYI: This is an extremely relevant topic that you and your brokerage should be discussing because your commissions fund your life, they fund every bill you pay. “This is an extremely relevant topic that you and your brokerage should be discussing.” The way I believe we are going to be able to compete with discount brokerages is by being more deliberate with how we connect to our database. We have to come up with a way to consistently touch our database. Not only that, but also be aware of the fact that our clients don’t want to know what’s going on with home values all over the area, but what’s going on with the values in their specific neighborhood. When did the house next to them sell, and what did it sell for? We call this hyperlocal information.  If you want to know how Keller Williams is helping their agents methodically market to their databases and become hyperlocal real estate agents, then schedule a time for us to sit down for 30 minutes and I will do what I’m calling “Extreme Makeover: Your Business.” Together we will come up with a plan on how you are going to be able to directly compete with discount brokerages, and not have to lower your commissions any further.  If you have further questions or want to discuss anything concerning real estate, please give me a call or send me an email, I would love to speak with you.

Today, I’ve got an important question for my fellow agents: Do you really see yourself as the CEO of your business? If you aren’t picturing yourself as a leader in your own career, then something is amiss. Running your business like an agent, instead of like a CEO, means that you aren’t making decisions the same way a leader would. Allow me to explain: When you’re operating your business as an agent, your main concerns are going to be with the day-to-day activities of real estate, like answering phone calls. You’ll ultimately find yourself stuck in the “whirlwind” of your business.  “Agents who run their businesses like a CEO create sustainable systems and powerful brands, which are crucial to long-term success.” When you run your business like a CEO, your focus will be on the big picture. Agents who run their businesses like a CEO create sustainable systems and powerful brands, which are crucial to long-term success. People who run their businesses like agents, meanwhile, will consistently struggle to stay afloat. So, how are you running your business? If you aren’t already running your business like a CEO, or even if you are, I’d love to have a conversation about your goals and strategies. It would be my pleasure to help guide you toward improving your career. So, as always, if you have any questions or would like more information, don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

We are in a crazy, competitive seller’s market right now. Although I know there are homes that are sitting on the market a little bit longer than normal, there’s a little sweet spot in the $200,000 to $300,000 price range where sellers will still get multiple offers on their homes. With all the competition that homebuyers are sure to face in that price range, today I want to share a few pointers that will help ensure that your offer is the winning offer.  1. Call the listing agent before you show the property. If they don’t answer the phone (which happens often), then send them a text message to let them know that you have a buyer who is ready, able, and willing to come view the property and who will follow through to closing if you submit an offer. “A lot of times, agents assume that the seller is all about the price, but many times price has nothing to do with it; it could instead be about terms or timing.” 2. Have the representative loan officer reach out to the listing agent. The loan officer can pass on the message to the listing agent that your buyers are pre-qualified, pre-approved, and all-around solid candidates for the home purchase. 3. Make sure to lead with the seller’s best interests. When speaking with the listing agent, make sure that you’re getting what is important to the seller. A lot of times, agents assume that the seller is all about the price, but many times price has nothing to do with it; it could instead be about terms or timing. Or perhaps they’re looking for a seller leaseback—does your buyer have the time to allow the seller to stay in the property for a few more days after closing to make sure that the seller has time to leave?  There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to submitting a winning offer. We just want to make sure that you’re doing good work on the front end so that your buyer’s offer is accepted and you look like a rockstar to your clients. If you have any questions about crafting a winning offer, please reach out to me. I’d love to have a one-on-one consultation with you.

We all think about our daily mindset like it’s something you either have or you don’t have. I challenge you to think about it this way: If, for example, you decided to commit to your physical fitness because you want to lose weight or feel better about yourself, you have to make a regular commitment to go to the gym, hire a personal trainer, and change the activities you’re doing with respect to your goals. If you want to look and feel better, you’ll need to exercise and consume a healthy diet. Those who are truly committed will undergo these changes and reap the benefits. However, those who aren’t truly committed and/or can’t make these changes won’t benefit. “We have to make a daily commitment to feed our brain more good than the world is trying to feed it bad.” Our mindset in real estate is a lot like physical fitness in this way: We have to make a daily commitment to feed our brain more good than the world is trying to feed it bad. This matters in real estate because your attitude determines your activities. So if you don’t do a ‘mindset workout’ every single day and you pick up the phone at 9 a.m. to start lead generating, are you going to be willing to call those people who intimidate you? Or are you only going to call those people you know will already answer their phone, but might not have anything substantial to say? To get my daily mindset workout in, I watch YouTube videos, TED Talks, and read books about improving my mindset—anything that dispels negativity in my life and promotes positivity so that I can have a more productive day. If you find any of this advice beneficial, I would love to sit down with you to do a one-on-one coaching session to help you work through some of these issues that you’re having with your mindset. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

As real estate agents, there are three things you need to thrive in this industry. We like to call these things “the three L’s.” The first “L” stands for leads, i.e, potential clients. No matter if you’re doing $2 million in production or $10 million, you need leads to succeed.  And, of course, you also need listings—as signified by our second “L”. Listings are king in real estate because if you have listings, you have our third “L”: leverage.  “Leads bring you listings, and listings bring you leverage.” Leads bring you listings, and listings bring you leverage. So if you struggle with any one of these areas, both other areas of your business will suffer. It’s all about balance.  If any of these problems sound familiar to you, please reach out to me. I would love to coach you on how to put your three L’s back in sync for your business. If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Today I want to emphasize a point related to agent productivity: Willpower is not always on will-call. What do I mean by that? Let me explain. Think of your willpower like the battery in your phone. You start your day with your battery in the green, you have energy, and the world is your oyster. However, each time that you make withdrawals from your willpower, your “battery” runs lower and lower. Before you know it, you’re in the red. “Statistics show that people are most productive in the first three to four hours of the day.” Willpower is different for everybody, but statistics show that people are most productive in the first three to four hours of the day. This is the best time to get all your lead generation activities out of the way; that way, you know that by the time you start winding down, you’ll already have those done. Here at Keller Williams, we refer to a book called “The One Thing.” This book is a guide to making sure that we’re working on the one thing that could propel our business forward. “Willpower is not always on will-call” is a phrase and a lesson that I learned from “The One Thing.” Now that I know it, I always like to share it with others to help them improve in both life and business. If you find this as interesting as I do and would like to talk about it more, or if you’d like to schedule a consultation with me so we can determine if you’re working on your ‘one thing,’ feel free to reach out to me. I’d love to schedule a one-on-one coaching call with you. I hope to hear from you soon.

As a Keller Williams Realty agent, I recently had the pleasure of being able to participate in “Red Day”—Keller Williams’ annual day of service. The point of Red Day is to renew, energize, and donate to wherever we spend our time as real estate agents. For me, that means the Dallas Metroplex, and today I’ll show you a video of our whole team in action at the Austin Street Center. We had an absolute blast handing out donations and doing other service work, and I hope you enjoy the footage as much as I enjoyed making it.

Our business is ever-changing thanks to the technological shift we’re moving toward. The fundamental question before us is, “How will it continue affecting the way we run our businesses?” We consider the times we’re living in right now as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and it’s taking shape through advances in artificial intelligence and “big data.” When those two things converge, you get an individualized customer experience.  This touches many areas of our lives: Your Netflix home screen looks different than mine, for example. When each of us logs into our account, our respective experiences are different. That customizable experience is a major reason why we come back for more. “When A.I. and “big data” converge, you get an individualized customer experience.” With that mind, I want to close by asking you two questions: How are you delivering a Netflix-style experience to your clients?  And secondly, what does your brokerage have planned to help your business survive and thrive during this Fourth Industrial Revolution?     If you have any questions or if you’d like to request a one-on-one coaching session with me, please get in touch. I’d love to have a conversation with you!

Too often, I see agents struggling with their goals. Why is that? Well, many agents fail to give careful consideration to the daily activities that have to occur between the time they set their goals and the point at which they’re achieved.  Here at Keller Williams, we put a simple, yet effective, goal-setting model called “Four Conversations” into action. Those four conversations are the business activities to which we, as agents, need to devote time, effort, and thought. These include listing appointments, listings taken, closings, and profit. “Think of each conversation as one door leading to the next.” As simple as it sounds, those four conversations have directly tied into the goals I’ve personally set over the course of my real estate career.   Think of each conversation as one door leading to the next. That is to say, if you’re not seeing enough profit, it means you’re not doing enough closings. If you’re not doing enough closings, you don’t have enough listings, and if you don’t have enough listings, it means you need to increase the activity with which you operate when you go on appointments.  When I’m conversing with agents, a lot of them express their desire to earn $100,000 a year. I decided to run the numbers to see what kind of activity it would take to realize this goal, and I found that you’d need to close two deals a month, have two listings taken, and go on around four appointments each and every month of the year.  If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one appointment or webinar with me to discuss how you can set and reach your goals in your business, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!