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The show's own Patsy has foiled many a plot in her time. So Christian wanted to know who else has foiled a criminal undertaking?

I recently asked a few friends if there is a blog topic I should take on. My friend, Brooks Szewczyk, recommended I write about the responsibilities of an elder. You should note a distinction I will be making in this blog. I aim to explain the responsibilities of an elder and not the qualifications. There is overlap between the two categories, but my focus has to do with function. As an elder of a local church, the subject is not only relevant to my life, but it’s a topic I take seriously. So here we go. Here are a few thoughts on the responsibilities of being an elder along with a few defining thoughts. What is an Elder? Before delving into the responsibilities of an elder, it’s essential to step back and define the role of an elder. First, the word is used to describe an older person. So, for example, my biological father is my elder. Historically, an elder is a person who is suppose to contain wisdom from life experiences. If you are new to parenting, you can seek out someone who has gone through the gauntlet of raising kids. You seek out your elders. Similarly, an elder in a local church is supposed to have wisdom. This is why the apostle Paul tells his disciple Timothy the following: He [An elder] must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. – 1 Timothy 3:6 Scripture does not provide an age, and we do not know how far from conversion a man needs to be before becoming an elder. But a man must have the maturity to fight pride and the devil. So Christian maturity develops over time. You cannot microwave Christian maturity nor the wisdom that comes from growing in the faith. The other angle to approach 1 Timothy 3:6 is that a man must have been tested. It’s through the testing of faith in which maturity and wisdom grow. Instead of trials and suffering being an obstacle, they are actually opportunities. Pastor/Elder I have a couple more thoughts on biblical eldership before laying out the responsibilities. Scripture is decisive that elders are men. Back to 1 Timothy 3. The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife…– 1 Timothy 3:1–2 And then we read in Titus 1, …if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife… – Titus 1:6 In these passages, the qualification that an elder is the husband of one wife is accompanied by multiple qualifications. Only hermeneutical gymnastics can change the meaning of these passages. I also want to point out that elder and pastor are used synonymously in the New Testament. In Titus, Paul uses the word πρεσβύτερος (elder, older man). In 1 Timothy 3, Paul uses the Greek word ἐπισκοπή, which means overseer, or one who is watching over. In both passages, the qualifications of an elder/pastor are being laid out. The connections are made more explicit in 1 Peter 5 and Acts 20. Here is what Peter says about elders. So I exhort the elders (πρεσβύτερος) among you, as a fellow elder (πρεσβύτερος) and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd (ποιμαίνω) the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight (ἐπισκοπή)… –

Oh my gosh Oh my gosh, I’m dying. Oh my gosh, I’m dying.  That’s so funny! And in just three short lines our emotions boomeranged from intrigue, to panic, to intrigue again…and that illustrates the all-important concept of context! In this episode of Uncovering Hidden Risks, Liz Willets and Christophe Fiessinger sit down with Senior Data Scientist, Christian Rudnick to discuss how Machine Learning and sentiment analysis are helping to unearth the newest variants of insider risks across peer networks, pictures and even global languages. 0:00 Welcome and recap of 1:25 Meet our guest: Christian Rudnick, Senior Data Scientist, Microsoft Data Science and Research Team 2:00 Setting the story: Unpacking Machine Learning, sentiment analysis and the evolution of each 4:50 The canary in the coal mine: how machine learning detects unknown insider risks 9:35 Establishing intent: creating a machine learning model that understands the sentiment and intent of words 13:30 Steadying a moving target: how to improve your models and outcomes via feedback loops 19:00 A picture is worth a thousand words: how to prevent users from bypassing risk detection via Giphy’s and memes 23:30 Training for the future: the next big thing in machine learning, sentiment analysis and multi-language models   Liz Willets: Hi everyone. Welcome back to our podcast series, Uncovering Hidden Risks. Um, our podcasts, where we cover insights from the latest in news and research through conversations with thought leaders in the insider risk space. My name is Liz Willets and I'm joined here today by my cohost Christophe Feissinger, um, to discuss some really interesting topics in the insider risks space. Um, so Christophe, um, you know, I know we spoke last week with Raman Kalyan and Talhah Mir, um, our crew from the insider risk space, just around, you know, insider risks that pose a threat to organizations, um, you know, all the various platforms, um, that bring in signals and indicators, um, and really what corporations need to think about when triaging or remediating some of those risks in their workflow. So I don't know about you, but I thought that was a pretty fascinating conversation. Christophe Feissinger: No, that was definitely top of mine and, and definitely an exciting topic to talk about that's rapidly evolving. So definitely something we're pretty passionate to talk about. Liz Willets: Awesome. And yeah, I, I know today I'm, I'm super excited, uh, about today's guests and just kind of uncovering, uh, more about insider risk from a machine learning and data science perspective. Um, so joining us is [Christian redneck 00:01:24], uh, senior data scientist on our security, uh, compliance and identity research team. So Christian welcome. Uh, why don't you- Christian Redneck: Thank you. Liz Willets: ... uh, just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came into your role at Microsoft? Christian Redneck: Uh, yeah. Hey, I'm Christian. Uh, I work in a compliance research team and while I just kinda slipped into it, uh, we used to be the compliance research and email security team, and then even security moved to another team. So we were all forced to the complaints role, uh, but at the end of the day, you know, it's just machine learning. So it's not much of a difference. Liz Willets: Awesome. And yeah, um, you know, I know machine learning and and sentiment analysis are big topics to unpack. Um, why don't you just tell us a little bit since you've worked so long in kinda the machine learning space around, you know, how, how that has changed over the years, um, as well as some of the newer trends that you're seeing related to machine learning and sentiment analysis? Christian Redneck: Yeah. In, in our space, the most significant progress that we've seen in the past year, was as moving towards more complex models. The more complex models and also more complex way of analyzing the task. So if you look at the models that were very common, about 10 years ago, they basically would just look at words, it's like, uh, a set of words. Uh, so the order of words don't matter at all and that's changed. The modern algorithms, they will look at sen- sentences as a secret before and they will actually think the order of the words into account when they run analysis. The size of models has also increased dramatically over the years. So for example, I mentioned earlier that I've worked the email security at the [monastery 00:03:04] that we had shipped. They were often in the magnitude of kilobytes versus like really modern techniques to analyze the pensive language. They use deep neural nets and the models they can be the sizes of various gigabytes. Christophe Feissinger: What's driving that evolution of the models. Uh, you know, I'm assuming a, a big challenges to, uh, or a big goal is to make those model better and better to really re- reduce the noise and things like false positives or, or misses. Is that what's driving some of those things? Christian Redneck: Yeah. So at the end of the day, you know, the model size of translates in the complexity. So you can think of, um, the smaller model is basically they have very levers on how to modify their decision. If you have a very large model, it will just have that many more levers. If you wanna capture the variation that you have in your data set, often you need a lot of these levers and new models provide them. It's not just that, uh, there's one thing I didn't mention explicitly, the newer models... So traditionally old models, they were trained on the relatively small set of data that's split into two parts, the positive set, the negative set. And basically the machinery model was kinda trying to draw a boundary between them.             The more modern model affected rates factor different. Uh, we do something called pre-training, which means that we train a model on neutral data, which are neither positive, nor negative to just capture elements of language. So once the model is loaded up with like huge, huge amount of data, huge amount of this neutral data, then we start feeding into positives and negatives to draw the boundary, but it can use all this information that is gained from the general language to make that decision. Liz Willets: That's super interesting. Um, you know, when I think about technology and kind of leveraging, you know, the machine learning to get an early signal, um, you know, something like discovering a canary in a coal mine, um, you know, how do you go about, it sounds like we're feeding positives and negatives towards neutral data, but how do you go about finding like the unknown unknowns and, um, you know, maybe identify risks that you may or may not have been aware of previously, um, with these types of models? Christian Redneck: It, it's the, at the end of the day, it's the neutral. So the way you can see it as that is you feed it a few, say positives, um, known positives. And that gives you an idea of where, you know, we know that possible attacks are, but then what's happening is it's using all this language is learned from the neutral data to consider like, okay, w- we've had to state our point, but everything that is like semantically close to that is most likely also something that we wanna target. And, and that's really, that's really the recipe. I mean, th- th -the ML that we're using, it doesn't have magical capabilities. It can really detect patterns that we haven't had before. It, it's possible in other parts of the incident risk space, if you rely on anomaly detection. Um, so not only in tech, in some sense, anomaly detection is a, is not a negative approach.             So now in our approach, we have the positives and that's our starting point and for the positives for trying to see how far we can generalize from those to, to, to get a wider scop. In, um, what I mentioned in, uh- Christophe Feissinger: Anomaly detection. Christian Redneck: ... anomaly detection, thank you so much for Christophe. It, it's kind of the opposite. You're trying to learn from the negatives. You're trying to understand what the typical state of the, of the system is and everything which deviates from it is anomaly that you might wanna look into. So that has more abilities to detect things which are completely unknown. Christophe Feissinger: Yeah. Liz Willets: Love it. That's super talenting from both, both perspectives. Christophe Feissinger: That's, uh, I think, just to step back and, and to make, um, the audience appreciate, um, the complexity is, you know, a simple sentence. Like if I sent a, a team message to Liz and say, I will hurt you. Again, so first of all, there's no foul language. It's perfectly okay obviously, but the words that sentence targeted at someone else could mean a potential, uh, threats- Christian Redneck: Right. Christophe Feissinger: ... um, or harassment. And so for the audience, the challenge here is not to detect every time the word, uh, hurt, because hurt could be, uh, using perfectly acceptable context, but here targeted at someone, uh, that set of words potentially could be a risk. And I think- Christian Redneck: Right. Christophe Feissinger: ... that's the, that's the journey you've been on, uh, as well as, uh, the rest of the research team. And that's where you can just do look at single words, you get to look at a sentence, right Christian? Christian Redneck: Yes. That's exactly right. So older ML algorithms, they will just see the I, the will, and the hurt, kind of independently, and then do a best guess based on the presence of any of these words, more modern algorithms they will actually look at the sequence. I will hurt. They're perfectly capable of learning that the combination of these three words in that order is something that's relevant versus if they come in a different order or dependent of, uh, you know, in a different context, then it might not be possible. And let me pick up what Liz had mentioned earlier. So modern algorithms, if you train it or something like I will hurt you as a positive, it'll understand that there's a lot of words which are similar to hurt, which kind of have the same meaning. So it will also pick up on something like, I will kill you. Uh, I will crush you, even though you haven't fed those into the positive set. Christophe Feissinger: But that all falls into that kind of threat, which- Christian Redneck: Yes. Christophe Feissinger: ... stepping back is a risk soon as someone starts using that language, maybe, maybe they are actually meaning those things and they're gonna escalate or transition to physical threat. Christian Redneck: That's a real possibility. Yes. Christophe Feissinger: Okay. Liz Willets: Definitely. Yeah. I think it's interesting, 'cause I kinda feel like where you're headed with this is that you can't just use keywords to detect harassment. You know, it's kind of like thinking about overall sentiment and, and tackling sentiment is not, um, you know, an easy thing to do, you know, looking at keywords, won't cut it. Um, and would love to get your perspective, Christian, you know, from an intelligence and modeling view around identifying that intent versus just the keyword level. Um, you know, how do you get a string of words together that might indicate that, uh, that someone's about to, you know, harm someone else? Christian Redneck: Yeah. So first of all, you're right. Keywords by themselves they're usually not sufficient to solve this problem. They are very narrow, very focused problems where keywords might get you a long way. Like say, if you care just about prof- let's take the example of profanities. You care, just the profanities. There's a lot of words that you can put in the keyword filter, where we're gonna do a fine job? And this classifier is actually gonna do quite well. You're gonna start seeing borderline cases where it's gonna fail. So, you know, there, there are some words that are profanities in one context, but there are perfectly normal words in another context. Um, I mean, I don't wanna use profanities, but most of you might know that a donkey has a synonym, which actually is a swear word.             So if you including in your list, then obviously you will hit on the message every time that someone actually means to use the word that's if it was donkey, but from a profanity, you can get a long way. If you look at things like threat, it's pretty much what Christophe said earlier. Um, all three words I will hurt, uh, forwards. I will hurt you. Each of those words will appear most of the times in a perfectly, uh, normal context where no harassment or no threat that's present. Christophe Feissinger: Right. Christian Redneck: So you can put any of those into your keyword list. You can say, okay, I can evolve my model from a keyword list to a key phrase list. You can say, uh, I will actually take small phrases and put them into my list. So instead of just, will, or just hurt, you will put in, I will hurt you and I will kill you. But now the problem is that, you know, there's a lot of different ways in which you can combine seemingly in the normal words into a threat. And this is ext- incredibly hard to numerate all of them. And even if you were to numerate all of them, you know, the language of waltz, it, it might be something that is good today, but in maybe half a year, your list will, you know, will not update. If you have ML models, this problem gets solved in a very convenient way.             So first of all, the model by default kinda understands variations of language due to this pre-training. So we'll already capture a lot of variations that correspond to one of your input examples. And second of all, it's relatively easy to retrain these models based on new information that's coming in. So if you install like say a feedback loop, you give customers the possibility of saying, okay, Hey, look, this is another example, uh, that I've found that I would like to target. It can very easily be incorporated to the model and then not only catch this, but a lot of additional variations of a new set, this stuff came up. Christophe Feissinger: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, uh, the, I think what's important here is this is not a static, it's a moving target because like you say Christian, language evolves, you know, there's always a new generation, there's a new slang thanks to social media that spreads rapidly and new way to hurt or insult someone or to harass or whatever it is. Um, and it evolves. So I think it's, it's, you're right. That it's a moving target. So it's all about the learning part of machine learning to either, like you say, identify new part that didn't exist before because language evolve or dismissing what we call false positives. So if I'm a seller and say, I will kill it this quota, I mean, norm, I mean, like I'm gonna exceed my quota and maybe the model caught that and we need to say that's okay. That, that, that sentence I'm gonna kill my quota is okay. Uh, hurting someone else not. Okay. Liz Willets: Yeah. And I'd love to learn a little bit more, you mentioned this feedback loop kind of, can you tell us a little bit about behind the scenes, on what that looks like? You know, how, how you might see, uh, a model improve based on those, um, feedback points that, um, you know, end users might be giving to the model? Christian Redneck: Uh, I'll try my best (laughs). So like, you know, thinking about it being a lance and lance doesn't quite hit the target. If you feed it, if you feed it a new item back, it will move this lens slightly closer to the target. And if you keep doing it, it's gonna do that until it actually hits the target. And not just the target, once again, the ball can generalize, so it will hit everything that's kind of similar. Christophe Feissinger: Yeah. Just to add to that, I think, um, in addition to the model, again, you get, uh, listeners gotta remember that it's, it's an evolving target and that Christian say you're seated with data and we do our best to have representative data. But again, the world of languages is so fascinating because the permutations are infinite. You know, we haven't even talked about multi language support in globalization, but you can imagine that, uh, even in words, a lot of people might swap letters with, uh, symbols or, or just to try to get away with, with whatever, um, things are trying to do. But it's, you can, basically where the point is, the combinations are infinite.             So the only way to, to tackle that is to continue to learn and evolve. And for us to learn, that's when we need a feedback, not just from, let's say one industry in one region, uh, but from all industries across the world, as much as, as a school district in the US has a manufacturing, a manufacturer in the UK or whatever. Um, so it's, it's definitely, uh, a fascinating field where w- you know, we can, we're continue invest. Liz Willets: Yeah. Christophe Feissinger: What do you think Christian. Christian Redneck: Yeah, no. I completely agree. And at the end of the day, the same image, so the difference is you have a target, which is moving, and you have your lens, which is kind of like trying to catch up to it. It's a bit of a curse of the mail that you always a bit behind. So you always have to rely on people giving you samples, which usually means it's violations, which have already occurred. But at the same time, the retraining cycles, they're, they're fairly short. So you can adapt quite quickly to do information and adjust to new items that you would like to catch with your model. Christophe Feissinger: Yeah. Is it, is it a good analogy Christian, to draw from things we do on the security front or a malware phishing or virus it's an evolving target? Christian Redneck: Oh, absolutely. Uh, [inaudible 00:16:22] the risks in cyber security or, yeah, the overlap is massive. If you think about it. I mean, the way I like to think about it is that security kind of deals with the external attackers versus inside the risks and do some insight internal attackers. So you can see that, that the overlap assists, you know, very big, almost everything we doing compliance, we do security is very similar way. So for example, we have a lot of ML models deployed into production. They get retrained on a regular basis with new data, but there's insecurity. You know, there's a lot of other features that you can use as attack vectors, and then we have a lot of models built around those. Christophe Feissinger: Christian, how about the, one topic that I think is also, we hear a lot is sure you get valid feedback, but valid feedback is bias and someone's trying to, instead of improving the detections, trying to take it, introduce bias, whether it's racial or, or sexual nature, whatever. H- h- h- how do you make sure you mitigate for that type of, I guess, junk feedback or bias feedback? Christian Redneck: Yeah. Junk feedback is, is indeed a problem. There, there's a few things that you can do. Uh, first of all, we don't usually accept feedback from everyone, but the feedback we accept is usually people from admins and admins, we know our understanding is that they have a certain amount of knowledge that they can use to get feedback. Christophe Feissinger: Hmm. Christian Redneck: And that's particularly true if they get the feedback you're looking on from end users. So we usually, they won't just blindly trust them, but, but they will look at it, at it, and then only if it's right- Christophe Feissinger: And [inaudible 00:17:57] trash. Christian Redneck: Right, tri- [inaudible 00:17:59] trash. Thank you. So that's one way, um, then generally we don't just, so we're not rebuilding the amount of the data and then just automatically pushing it. There's actually a whole system, which ensures that whatever new model we've built is better than the previous model. So if someone feeds in poor feedback, you would expect that the model it gets worse, does worse of the test set. And in that case, we would publish this model and just discard the feedback and move on. That might store that data that will slow down the process. But at the same time, it ensures that the models will degrade and actually get better. Christophe Feissinger: No. So again, do you think saying, we do have a rigorous process to make sure that- Christian Redneck: Yes. Christophe Feissinger: ... a blind, doesn't blindly me, uh, role in production versus the quality along the way to make sure it's converging not diverging. Christian Redneck: Yes. Liz Willets: Definitely. Yeah. And I think having those responsible AI and ML practices is again, to your point earlier, Christophe, something that's always top of mind for us, anything concerning privacy (laughs), uh, really in this day and age. Um, but to kinda just change gears a little bit here. Um, last week, when we spoke with [Grumman Tolobby 00:19:07], we got into the conversation around like GIPHYs and Memes et cetera. Um, and you know, thinking about how we can prevent users from trying to bypass detection, um, whether it's putting inappropriate language into images, um, and you know, trying to think about how you might extract that text from images. Um, we'd love to hear if you can talk a little bit to, to that side of things. Christian Redneck: Yeah. Um, I'm actually not an expert in the area, but, uh, image recognition is, is in general variable theory. It's actually a lot more involved than, than text processing. Almost everything we have done text processing we kinda stole from the people that have previously done an image processing. Like for example, the pre-training that I, that I mentioned earlier and in particular of their excellent bottles which, uh, can extract text from images. So I, I don't know what Microsoft version is called, but it is very, very good. You can almost be guaranteed that if you have an image, we can extract the text that appears at the image, and then just process it through our regular, uh, channels.             So that's regarding texts and images. If it comes to images theselves and that's something that actually our team doesn't do directly, but there are lots of models which, uh, target, let's say problematic images. So what I've mostly seen is detection of adult images and gory images. Christophe Feissinger: Yes. Christian Redneck: And usually these classifiers, they actually operate in almost the same way as to [inaudible 00:20:47] I mentioned earlier. They start, so they're usually very big models. They start by pre-training them on just any kind of images. So they use these huge collection of public images to train the model and just kinda learns patterns. And in this case, you know, patterns are literally like visual patterns, they'll understand round shapes, square shapes. It will understand, it will have a vague understanding of the shape of a human than all sorts of different configurations. And, you know, of course, it can also understand the different color shadings. So models like that, they'll probably learn that if you have, uh, from human shaped with a lot of red on it, then it's probably more likely that there's, that you've already image as opposed to a promoter human with a lot of purple on it or a green on it. Liz Willets: That just kind of reminded me of something, you know, when, when you see those images and you're extracting that text, we're also still able to provide that feedback loop. Um, because I do remember we had one case where, you know, we were working with this school district and they all of a sudden started seeing a lot of homework assignments, um, being flagged for gory images. And it came down to the fact that the teacher was using red pen to kind of, you know- Christian Redneck: Yes. Liz Willets: ... mark up the student's test or quiz- Christophe Feissinger: Yeah. Liz Willets: ... or whatnot. And so there's always, you know, that feedback loop top of mind. Christophe Feissinger: Yes. Christian Redneck: Yeah. I think that ties back to, I think, to, uh, exactly what Christian was saying that obviously with a pandemic now, everything is online and doing annotation of maths exercise with a red pen. Uh, I guess the initial training set didn't take into account that type of data like in a school district, uh, using modern digital tool to do math assignments. And so that's a perfect case that, yeah, it detected those as potentially gory because it was a lot of red inking on a, on a white background with formulas. Uh, and, but again, it gets back to what Christine was talking about. Then we pass that feedback. So pretty much like we, the text detection need to evolve that image detection of what, what is defined as gory needs to ignore forming us with red annotation and start to be a little more, to be refined to avoid that in the future, because that's what we would consider a false positive. So it equally applies that any model, whether it's text or image, there is always that virtual cycle of, of constantly learning new patterns. And this one, that's a good example of a use case that we miss when we build those models. Liz Willets: Christian, um, you know, I'm just certainly learning a lot today (laughs), um, through this conversation. Um, but love to learn what's next. Um, you know, whether that's in your role or, um, just regard to machine learning and, and sentiment analysis. Um, but what do you think kinda the next big thing will be? Christian Redneck: That's a very good question (laughs). So, uh, from our perspective, our main effort is to get other features into the system, even when it comes to text processing. So as you mentioned earlier in, um, security, we have a much richer set of features that we've been using for quite a while now. We wanna do the same journey of our text models. So if you look at the communication, for example, you can induce, uh, whether it's falls under, it, it should hit on a certain policy or not, but you actually get more powerful models if you not just look at that one message, but that the entire conversation, or at least, um, you know, like the conversation, which is near, or, your target message. Like for example, the language that is acceptable between the students and the language that's acceptable between the student and teacher put different, it might not necessarily be the same. So there's a very rich set of, um, possibility that arise from looking at all of these metadata surrounding a message. Christophe Feissinger: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I'm glad you mentioned that of getting more context, because we did have a, uh, um, an example from the school district where, um, a student at [St. Litery 00:24:53] something like I will kill you in, in teams. And that was detected. Then the next question was what was the context around that? And sure enough, uh, the context was two students playing a video game. Um, so suddenly I went from a high alert, you know, the student is gonna- Christian Redneck: Yeah. Christophe Feissinger: ... hurt this other student, whereas no, they're just having fun. So I definitely second that they're just adding the couple messages above and before that- Christian Redneck: Right. Christophe Feissinger: ... you see that they're just playing a video game. And even though that language might not be acceptable, it's definitely not as bad as, uh, that intent to hurt someone. It was, I don't wanna hurt that virtual character in the video games. So yeah, definitely, uh, second down more context will definitely help really decide if this is really a, a high severity and more important what to do next in terms of remediation and cursing, the one thing I wanted to, we didn't really talk briefly, but we know that angu- language is not just US English. What are we doing to, to cater to other languages that our customers speak worldwide? Christian Redneck: Right. So we started all our efforts in English, but we're currently working on globalizing our model, which means that we want to provide the same protections for users in lots of other languages. We have like three tiers of languages and we're currently very focused in the first year, but eventually what we plan to get to all three tiers. And in principle, you have two ways of approaching this problem. The simplest thing you can do is you can basically build one model per language and that's something which works reasonably well. But in principle, what we aim for is models, which can deal with all languages at once. So there's been a lot of research in this area they're called multi-language models. They used the very same techniques that you use for, um, that you use for just English [inaudible 00:26:58] but then they have a few additions that make it suitable for applying it in a context with a lot of languages.             And basically what it's trying to do is so there's very powerful models which can use, which you can translate from one language to another. And if more than a few of the ideas from these models and incorporated them, which enables the model to basically in some sense, like relate all the languages, uh, to each other at once. So these models they will understand, I mean, I understand in a, in a machine learning way of thinking about it, that one word in Eng- one word English, as long as its translation into Greek or the Spanish or the French that they all kind of are, are the same. And, and then this provides that opportunity. So particularly, it means that you can train models in, uh, say like a set of languages and you'll actually get decent performance in the other languages, even though it might have not seen these samples are generally very few samples from this other language. Liz Willets: Uh, the more- Christophe Feissinger: That's great. Liz Willets: ... the more and more I listen, the more complex it gets, you know, you're using machine learning to, you know, look at different languages, uh, text versus images, ingesting things from different platforms. It's just mind boggling (laughs), how much goes into this, um, and really wanted to thank you, Christian for taking the time to, to chat with us today. I don't know about you Christophe, but I learned a lot. Christophe Feissinger: Fascinating. Fascinating. Liz Willets: Awesome. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Christian. And, um, thank you to our listeners. Um, we have a exciting lineup of, um, podcast series coming your way. Uh, next time we'll be talking to Kathleen Carley, who's a professor in social behavior analysis at Carnegie Mellon University. So, um, definitely tune in.

Jesus silences all challenges to His supremacy Knowing Jesus is the greatest of all delights! I pray that our worship together continues to fuel and deepen this conviction for every one of our souls this morning. Let's continue our worship now by opening God's Word to Matthew chapter 22. If you do not have a Bible with you, simply raise your hand to receive a Bible this morning. We are going to take the next two weeks to study Matthew 22 verses 15-46, where Jesus silences all of His religious opponents one final time before the cross. Since there's a whole lot for us to consider in these 31 verses, I want to introduce you to the, structure of this passage before we read it together. This last half of Matthew 22 is like an verbal sparring contest between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. In the first three rounds the religious leaders challenge Jesus with questions intended to discredit him in front of the infatuated crowds. However every time Jesus' answer leaves them speechless. Round 4 is the knock-out round, where Jesus Himself goes on the offense and asks the religious leaders a question they cannot answer, thereby cementing His supremacy over the religious leaders and proving for the final time before His death that He indeed is the Son of God, the Christ, who alone is deserving of our worship. 1 Exodus 12:3; c.f. John 1:29 After all, remember where we are in Matthew's gospel: In chapter 21 Jesus entered Jerusalem on Lamb- selection day,1 receiving the hosannas and praises from all the Passover pilgrims. Then Jesus cleansed the Temple, completely disrupting the lucrative system of temple commerce the Jewish leaders had placed within God's house. Of course these leaders challenged Jesus' authority, but only to have Jesus respond with three judgment parables: the parable of the two sons, the parable of the wicked tenants, and the parable of the wedding feast, that all previewed God's judgment against these unbelieving Jewish leaders who refused to recognize Jesus as their long-promised Messiah. So as we read our passage now, please understand, it's still Tuesday of Passover week. It's just three days before these same leaders will turn Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified. And these Jewish leaders are now nursing their wounds, their pride is still stinging after Jesus just applied three judgment parables to them.2 And so now, they make one last ditch effort to recover themselves in front of the crowds. This is one last ditch attempt to regain any leverage over Jesus. But of course, Jesus is God. And so Jesus always silences all challenges to His supremacy. Matthew 21:45 So please stand in honor of the reading of God's Word, as I now read this fascinating 4-part debate from Matthew 22, verse 15, in the English Standard Version: 15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. 16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away. 23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.' 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” 29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lordyour God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these twocommandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” '? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. This is the reading of God's Word. Let's Pray Together. What competition does Jesus have in your life? What voices or values challenge the Lordship of Jesus over you? What are you most tempted to obey or serve rather than our Glorious Christ? Matthew 22 reveals that, Jesus silences all challenges to His supremacy, for God has given His Son first place in every expression of reality. And yet, when we're honest, we admit that we often challenge Jesus' supremacy over us. Our devotion to God often gets strong competition from our devotion to our own self, or our devotion to our family, or even our devotion to our nation. And so what we need to learn from this two-week study is that Jesus deserves and demands our highest devotion that far exceeds all other devotions we may have to our country, our family, or even our own self. Before we dive into Round 1 of this debate, let's first Colossians 1:15-20, especially verse 18. properly introduce our challengers: The Pharisees were the Jewish orthodox legalists. Pharisees believed God's Word but then added layers and layers of man-made tradition onto God's Word in the name of holiness. There were many Pharisees, and socially they were common people. Of all the Jews, the Pharisees were the most outwardly religious. Politically they despised Rome as they did not believe God's people should ever submit to a Gentile power. The Pharisees' disciples were of course those training to become Pharisees. Just like we have Elders-in- Development and Deacons-in-Development at New Castle Bible Church, the disciples of the Pharisees were the PiDs in Jesus' day. The lawyers or scribes were those Pharisees with the greatest expertise in Jewish religion. So when you see the word lawyer in verse 35, don't think prosecuting attorney or criminal defense. Instead, think seminary professor. The lawyers were the most highly regarded scholarly experts of the Pharisees. History doesn't tell us too much about the Herodians, other than this was a group of Jews who were Pro-Herod, hence the name. A Jewish Herodian was considered a traitor, a political sell-out, because the Herodians received political favors and high-ranking positions in Israel's government as payback for their support for Herod Antipas. The Pharisees hated the Herodians for selling their soul for the sake of political expediency. But the Pharisees also hated the Sadducees since the Sadducees were the secular liberals who controlled the Sanhedrin, the high priesthood, and all Temple worship. The Sadducees, although fewest in number, therefore had the greatest influence on Israel's worship. Socially, they were very wealthy from their temple commerce. And politically, they supported Rome since Rome promised financial support as long as they kept the Jews peaceable. Spiritually, the Sadducees rejected all things supernatural, and therefore did not believe in angels nor the afterlife. Now obviously, the Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees were odd bedfellows. Normally, these Jewish sects would have very little to do with one another. But on this Tuesday before Passover, they united to challenge their common enemy, Jesus. So with that background, let's consider Round 1 where the Pharisees send their disciples along with the Herodians to try to trap Jesus with, 4 C.f. Acts 23:6-8 P The challenge of a competing allegiance. Verse 15 makes it clear that the Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to condemn Himself either religiously or politically. In order for this trap to work, the Pharisees enlist some of their own disciples who would not be as well known and suspicious to Jesus, along with the Herodians who have a credibility with Rome the Pharisees don't have. And the trap begins with flattery in verse 16, calling Jesus a respected Teacher, saying, We know that you always tell the truth, and you're not afraid of telling the truth no matter who is listening... But then here comes the trap in verse 17: Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? The Pharisees are confident that this question will condemn Jesus with either the Jews or the Romans. After all, they wrongly believe this question will force Jesus to publicly choose, Either Rome or the Jews. After all, if Jesus says Jews must pay taxes to Rome, then he'll lose credibility with the Jewish people who believe the Messiah is coming to deliver God's people from the Romans. But if Jesus maintains his Jewish allegiance by telling people not to pay the Roman tax, the Herodians can report Jesus as an insurrectionist, and Rome will then take care of Jesus. No matter how Jesus answers, the Pharisees are confident they can get Jesus in trouble with this question. But in verse 18, Jesus shows His divine wisdom. He sees right through their flattery, malice, and hypocrisy. And to prove His supremacy, He engages their question to show they have presented him with a false dichotomy, or a false choice. Their riddle is self-defeating the moment it is asked. For God's kingdom is never about competing allegiances on earth. Jesus' followers are never more devoted to one earthly kingdom over another. God's kingdom is about a supreme vertical devotion that transcends, informs, and makes possible all horizontal loyalties on earth. So Jesus asks someone for a denarius. This was the small silver coin minted specifically by the Roman emperor, worth one day's wage. On the one side of this coin, the emperor would engrave his own image. On the other side was an inscription, often identifying the emperor as god. Then in verse 20, Jesus asks a question so obvious that even a child could answer correctly: Whose likeness and inscription is on this coin? “Caesar's.” So Jesus concludes, Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Render means to pay back, or to return, or to give back what already belongs to someone. Jesus says, Give back to the world what it owns and give back to God what He owns. Caesar made a coin and put his likeness on it, and then asks for you to give it back to him, so give it back to him. After all, the coin is his currency, right? But don't miss the genius last part of verse 21, ... but give back to God the things that are God's. And what does God own? What did God stamp His image upon? The human soul, right? According to Genesis, God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.5 So give all your soul's worship back to God, but if some earthly king wants his money back, give him back his temporary currency. 5 Genesis 1:26-27, c.f. 5:1 6 Acts 5:29; c.f. Daniel 3:18, 28 In other words, pay your taxes, but only worship God. Jesus' followers are first devoted to God's kingdom before we pledge allegiance to any earthly kingdom. We show that we are worshipping God and trusting Him for all our needs by obeying our earthly emperors and governments – even while they are evil – and giving them whatever they ask, as long as they are not asking for the worship of our soul. For since only God owns the human soul, only God deserves our worship. So our allegiance to any human government is always secondary to our worship of God. And in fact, it is our worship of God that enables us to be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the [evil] emperor as supreme, or to governors who are sent by him...7 Romans 13 clearly teaches that Christ's followers eagerly pay whatever our earthly authorities ask us to give them because we recognize that our submission to earthly leaders ultimately demonstrates our submission to God.  1 Peter 2:13 Romans 13:1-7 Church – don't miss the practical application for us today. Currency minted by human governments won't go with us into eternity. It is our vertical allegiance to God that empowers our ability to give back to our earthly government whatever they ask... no matter how wicked their intent. Therefore, Devotion to Jesus makes all other human allegiances better, not worse. After all, our identity comes from God, not government.9 So Christian nationalism has no place in God's kingdom.10 Racism or ethnic discrimination has no place in God's kingdom.11 Cultural or tribal superiority has no place in God's kingdom.12 Jesus' answer is clear: following Christ is never a choice between any two earthly forms of government. Our choice is never even between the church or the state...but between the worship of God or the worship of this world. God's kingdom is about giving all of Philippians 3:20; c.f. 1 Peter 2:11 10 https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-much-patriotism-is-too- much-patriotism ourselves back to God in worship. And it is our worship of God that shrinks our earthly obligations and allegiances to be as small as they truly are. This vertical reframing of their question silenced these challengers, giving the victory in Round 1 to Jesus.Verse 22 records the Pharisee's disciples and the Herodians marveled, left him, and went away. Now, let's consider, the Sadducees' challenge from an earthly perspective. Verse 23 reminds us that these secular liberals refused to believe anything that their science, or their learning, or their personal experience couldn't explain. Their perspective on life and religion was entirely earthly, or natural. The Sadducees were only religious since religion was a means to their best life now! So Round 2 is a challenge from liberal skepticism...as  James 2:1-7; c.f. Numbers 12:1 12 Colossians 3:11 these leaders try to trap Jesus in a theological debate about the afterlife. This exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees will follow a similar format to Round 1 we just considered. The religious leaders will flatter Jesus by honoring Him as a Teacher, then present a false dichotomy, which Jesus will masterfully turn on its head and use to silence his opponents. Keep in mind the Sadducees believed that only the first 5 books of Moses were authoritative Scripture. So in verse 24, they quote from Deuteronomy 25 where God commanded levirate marriage, where a living brother was obligated to raise offspring for his deceased brother, so that no tribe would be blotted out of Israel's inheritance.13 Then they give a hypothetical scenario where one woman is sequentially married to seven different brothers before dying childless. And their loaded question is found in verse 28, In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her. Now again, these Sadducees think they have Jesus over a barrel here. For they wrongly believe their question forces Jesus to, Either break Moses' law (by supporting polygamy and saying that this woman will have 7 husbands in the resurrection) or Jesus will have to deny resurrection! But in verse 29, Jesus exposes just how wrong earth- bound thinking is. Jesus condemns these secular liberals on two charges: You don't know the Scriptures, nor do you know the power of God! Then in reverse order, starting with the power of God, Jesus explains the foolishness of their perspective. Look at verse 30, For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 marriage, but are like angels in heaven. In other words, Jesus teaches that, The resurrection changes our nature and our relationships. God's resurrection power is so strong that it changes our very nature...so that Jesus' resurrection body still had flesh and blood that could be touched,14 but could also go through locked doors as a spirit! God is so powerful, that when He raises us from the dead, He is able to transform what is earthly into what is heavenly. By the power of God, our natural bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies in the resurrection,16and we will be like angels. Notice Jesus doesn't say that we will become angels in the afterlife. That's not biblical. But He says we will belike the angels... in other words, we will be glorified. Then in verse 31 Jesus exposes the Sadducees' biblical ignorance. Knowing their preference for the first 5 books of the Bible He asks, Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39-43; John 20:17, 20; 15 Luke 24:31, 36-27; John 20:19 Have you not read Exodus 3:6? Where God reveals the resurrection doctrine to Moses, declaring, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Where were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when Moses wrote Exodus 3? They were long dead and gone, right? So then why didn't God say, I was the God of each of these patriarchs? Notice, God said I am... present tense, ongoing action... still today... I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These men still have an ongoing relationship with me as their God, which proves the resurrection! God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at Jesus' teaching, verses 33 concludes. 1 Corinthians 15:44 So why does Jesus make this point that resurrection changes our nature and our relationships? Remember, the Sadducees believed this material world is the best it's ever going to be...so get your best life now, because there's no existence beyond the grave. But Jesus' kingdom is far better! This world now is simply preparing us for an eternity in God's presence forever! Our resurrection life will be far superior to life on earth... so then stop living as if your highest devotion is to this earth, and your earthly relationships! Instead, Live in the present, in view of who you will be in Christ in the future. Let an eternal perspective of your future resurrection govern your priorities for your present affections! Jesus applies this to marriage in a way that can be startling. Verse 30 clearly teaches souls will not be married in heaven. But loved ones... this makes sense when you understand why God created marriage in Genesis.17 Remember how Ephesians 5:32 teaches the ultimate purpose for marriage refers to Christ and the church? Marriage is never ultimately about the bride and the groom. Marriage is not ultimately about having children. God says marriage is about picturing the Gospel oneness between Jesus and His redeemed Bride! Marriage is created by God to be a living picture of Jesus in covenant-faithful oneness with sinners! Genesis 2:24-25 Suppose I showed you my wedding picture: Wouldn't it quickly become inappropriate if I lived my entire life obsessed with this picture, talking about and focusing on this picture so much that I actually neglected my real wife living with me? That would be weird, if I loved the photo more than the actual relationship the photo conveyed, right? Ok. So God created marriage as an imperfect picture of Jesus' covenant relationship with His church. Right now you and I are separated from the presence of God, and so God creates marriages as constant reminders of what it means for Jesus to be in covenant-faithful oneness with sinners like us. Revelation 19:7-8 But once we are all in the presence of God, we won't need the picture of imperfect and earthly human marriage anymore. For we will all be part of the everlasting Bride of Christ, participants in the perfect and heavenly marriage with Christ Himself as our husband. So can you understand why there's no marriages in heaven? And while this is perhaps blunt, we need to hear that there's no sex in heaven either! Because God's good gifts of marriage and the marriage bed are simply imperfect earthly pictures of the perfect and everlasting intimacy that we will all experience with God in the resurrection! The pleasures and eternal joys of our future resurrection state ... when we are set free from our mortal bodies and the sin which clings to us...and we are glorified together as the radiant Bride of Christ,18 all make living for this present world look extremely foolish and short-sighted. Loved ones, submitting your life to the supremacy of Jesus makes all other human loves better, not worse. So overcome all earthly competition for the devotion of your soul by focusing on your future resurrection in Christ, which empowers our suffering and sacrifice in the present for the glories which shall soon be revealed! Jesus exposed the Sadducees as foolish liberals who were missing out on God's best simply in their refusal to believe God's Word and trust in His resurrection power. We're only half-way through this verbal sparring contest, and Jesus silences all challenges to His supremacy. No earthly allegiance or no human relationship here in this life can compare to the glories of living forever with God as our King! So today, we have a special opportunity now to respond, by celebrating our resurrection hope by taking communion together. If you didn't already get a cup and cracker as you entered, please raise your hands as ushers will come by in a few moments to serve you. Our elders recently decided that it would serve God's glory among us if we increased our frequency of celebrating the Lord's supper together on the first Sunday of every other month, rather than merely just once per quarter. So today is the first time we are benefiting from this new schedule, and of course it is quite fitting for us to celebrate in this meal of remembrance together after just considering Jesus' teaching about marriage and the resurrection. After all, when we eat and drink together we remember how Jesus shed His blood, and had His body broken, in our place, to make us His eternal bride. But we also partake with eager expectation...knowing that the day will soon come when we will all feast together in His presence – in our glorified nature of resurrected joy! 1 Peter 1:3-9 So then, if you are not yet engaged in marriage to Jesus by faith, and your heart has not yet been awakened by God's Spirit to love Him, please just simply observe us as we participate in this ceremony of all that Christ means to us. There's nothing spiritual about this juice or these crackers. They simply remind us of Christ's blood and body. There's no advantage of participating together in the symbol if you haven't first been united with Jesus' resurrection through personal faith and repentance. But for those who are thankful that Jesus' body was broken so that our sins could be forgiven, please peel back the very top layer of the juice cup to expose the communion cracker. The cracker or bread symbolizes Christ's broken body – to remind us that Jesus died so that we could live. For the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it,and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Now before we take the cup and celebrate Jesus' promise to remove all the results of our sin and make all things new in the resurrection, we are going to sing about this Wondrous Mystery we call the Gospel. And as we sing, let's confess any way that we've allowed our love for our country, or our love for our earthly family, or our love for any other earth-bound pleasure to somehow become greater than our love for Jesus Himself. As we sing together, let's glory in our forgiveness that has been secured through the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord! Let's celebrate all that Jesus has done for us – He is the supreme victor who alone deserves our worship and love! Amen and amen. Now please go ahead and peel back the second layer to expose the juice in the cup. In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Dothis, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” O Church – let's celebrate our joyful union with Christ as we long for our resurrection to come soon! Praise God that His kingdom is so much better than what we tend to think is all-important to us here on earth. Let's pray our benediction together as we dismiss and go out into our week of living as God's kingdomambassadors together in this world.

The book of Philippians is often noted for its expressions of joy. What is the relationship between contentment and joy? Thank you, worship team, thank you, John. I just underline what John said about praying for the pastoral search team. If you're not aware of this, they are doing their first interview, a video interview of one of the candidates that they're taking a very close look at. They're doing that today at 3:00 p.m. and I know they'd covet your prayers. You pray for them, for wisdom, for discernment, just to hear the Spirit's leading even as they go through this season of very intense interviewing. Now, three o'clock today, if you want to mark that for prayer, if you have your Bible and I hope that you do either in print or on your phone, I invite you to open to Philippians chapter four, the Apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians. We are this month. looking at the Christian virtue of joy, that aspect of the fruit of the spirit that is to be growing in the life of a genuine believer. This is something the Holy Spirit blossoms as we come to Christ and begins to grow and mature and ripen. Philippians out of really any book in the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is the book that stands out as the book known for Joy. 16 times in the Book of Philippians either the word the noun form joy or the verb form rejoice is used by Paul sprinkled all through the four chapters of this letter. And I think it's particularly noteworthy that that three times he gives an actual exhortation. Actually, that's probably not strong enough. He gives a command. Rejoice in the Lord. In fact, the one you see up on the screen there, verse four, is is really a double command. Rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice. That word rejoice - the Greek word that Paul uses there - it literally means to be glad. It means to be delighted. Now, I wonder is if you think back about the last 12 months, I wonder if you feel some dissonance with us talking about Joy this month. I don't know if you realize it, but almost a year ago, I think it was March 10th or 11th. That's in 2020. That's when kind of all the restrictions of this pandemic came down around us. Think of all that you have walked through, all that we have walked through, all that people that you love have walked through and suffered and loss in the last 12 months. Does that stir up joy in you? Does that stir up being glad and being delighted? Think about our nation has gone through our world, but in particular our nation, with its unrest and its division, the lack of unity that we've seen not only in our nation, but even in the church. Does that stir up that sense of being glad, being delighted? You know, there's a real dissonance, at least that I feel in talking about joy. This again, this would not have been a topic that I naturally in my flesh would have picked. Maybe that's particularly why we need to focus on this virtue of joy this month. The source of joy, when we think about the last 12 months, if we root the source of our joy in our external circumstances, we are going to think about what we've lost and what we've suffered and what we've sacrificed. There isn't going to be that sense of being glad or being delighted. But here's the truth. Here's the truth of scripture. The source of this kind of joy that Paul is talking about, that God is speaking to us about through the apostle Paul. It is not rooted in external circumstances. In fact, even as we look at the context in which Paul writes this letter, Paul, whether you realize it or not, Paul is in prison writing this letter. It's probably prison in Ephesus. We have some evidence he is chained on either side to a Roman guard. He doesn't have his liberty. Do you think we were locked down over the last 12 months? He is ultimately locked down. You think that we have been cut off from from our friends and and Christian brothers and sisters and been denied having fellowship over the last 12 months? He is in a prison cell cut off from his friends and his brothers and sisters in Christ. That's where he is when he's writing these words, that is the situation, the external circumstances of his life as he is calling us to rejoice in the Lord. So we need to hear that command, that exhortation to rejoice in the Lord in a different way than we maybe naturally think about it. I like what A.W. Pink has to say about this command to rejoice in the Lord. A.W. Pink is a devotional writer in England in the 20th century. He writes this about that command Rejoice in the Lord. Does this mean that the Christian, as always, to be happy? No, he says it is actually the very reverse, it is because the Christian finds so much in himself and in what is going on around him to sadden him that he is directed to look above, look above and rejoice not in circumstances. Rejoice in the Lord. He concludes, We are not called to rejoice in our own experiences or our own circumstances, but in the Lord. And more on how we do that a little bit later. Let's look at our particular text this morning. I'm looking at kind of some of the closing verses in Chapter four, beginning with verse 10. In verse 10 Paul writes this - It's kind of the thank you note on the end of this letter. I'll explain that in a minute - "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have renewed your care and your concern for me." So a little background. We learn about the church in Phillipi, the people that he's writing to, we learned about it. And at 16, you may remember that Paul is in Asia Minor and he is attempting to go in different directions in his missionary journey. And he has stopped cold by the Holy Spirit. And he one night is given a vision of a man in Macedonia saying, come over here, bring the gospel to us over here. So Paul gets on a ship and crosses the Aegean Sea and he makes his way to the first major city, which is Phillipi. He finds a place of prayer. He finds where people are gathering on the Sabbath at the the bank of a river. And there he begins to speak about Christ. And you may know the story, but a woman named Lydia, a very influential woman, God does a work in her heart and converts her. She comes to faith in Christ through Paul's preaching, but because of what God is doing in her heart. And out of that conversion, the little church in Phillipi is born. It begins to grow and more people begin to come to Christ. There is a church, a body of believers. Now, Paul is soon after forced out of Phillipi by by persecution and he moves on in his missionary journey. But that group of believers, the church in Phillipi, they continue to grow and not just in numbers, but in strength. And we get some indication, as Paul writes Second Corinthians, that the church in Phillipi, they are financially funding his missionary work, Second Corinthians eight. He refers to the churches in Macedonia. That's Phillipi, the churches in Macedonia sacrificially supporting him. They were sending him funds to enable to him to continue to go and plant churches, preach the gospel and plant churches. And they were doing it sacrificially. They were giving money that they didn't have. So when he writes here in verse ten now at last you have renewed your concern or your care for me, that indicates that there's been a break in that. They had been giving faithfully to him in support of him and for some reason were not given details. It had been a while since he had received anything from them. Now he goes right on in the second phrase of verse ten to say you were in fact concerned about me. He's relieving any anxieties, relieving any guilt that they may have about this break and their support. In other words, he's saying, I know you care. I know you have not stopped caring for me, but you lack the opportunity to show it. Again we don't have really a lot of detail. We don't have the facts of why there was this break in their support. This lack of opportunity to show it may have been because of their deep poverty. That's what Second Corinthians eight indicates, that these were people who had little to nothing to begin with. They were already giving sacrificially. And they just may have gotten to a point where they didn't have anything to give or it may have been because they couldn't find him. You know, they didn't have the communication, obviously, that we have today. Paul went on his journeys. Paul got sucked up in the Roman justice system and found himself in prison in Ephesus. It may have taken them a while to track down what had happened to him and where he is. But he goes on to say it's not on the screen, but in verse eighteen. If you look in your Bible, he says, I am now received from Epaphroditus, the gifts that you sent. And so they send this member of their body Epaphroditus with a financial gift that is ample, as the text indicates. And it is now finally reached Paul as he writes this. So, you know, he's writing this a bit as a thank you, but that's not his main point in writing. This is not just a belated thank you note. He now uses this as an opportunity to encourage them about finding joy and contentment. And this comes back to our theme of joy, where do we find joy? Well we're going to see we find joy in Christ, but one particular way that we find joy in Christ is in contentment, in the contentment that Christ gives. He introduces that in verse 11 when he says, I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. That word content is the Greek word autarkēs. Strongs gives it some definitions here: to be satisfied, to be strong enough to need no aid or support, to be independent of external circumstances. Now, I don't know what you think about when you think of the word content, but the particular word that Paul uses here as they hear it and their culture with their background, it hits them in a way that I didn't really realize it until I studied this passage again in preparation for this sermon. Sinclair Ferguson probably says it best. Paul's use of this term, and this letter to these people must have been startling to them, shocking to them. Why? Because this is a stoic term. This is a term that is a main significant term in the philosophy, the world view at that time known as stoicism. Now, I don't know what you think about when you think about stoic or stoicism. Somebody told me after the first service today, I think about Bud Grant. You know, you Minnesotans who've been here a few years, do you remember the Vikings back when Bud Grant was the head coach? What was his facial expression when he won? What was his facial expression when they lost, you know, even emotions totally under control, not over reacting. Maybe you think of you know, I think of the the Scandinavians who made up my my first church in central Minnesota, the Norwegians and the Swedes, 90 percent of the church had son or quist on the end of their name, you know, and there was a stoicism because their ancestors had come over and started with nothing in the middle of winter, you know, and so they were known for their stoicism. Well, that's maybe, you know, maybe what we think of as stoicism that we're familiar with. But stoicism, of course, was a dominant Greek philosophy. There are men like Seneca, philosophers who are famous for it. Even a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, is known as a teacher of stoicism. But this is not just ancient history. And it's not just, you know, some some cultural significance. Stoicism is making a resurgence today. My three twenty something sons, they're they're reading Jordan Peterson. You know, Jordan Peterson is the clinical psychologist from the University of Toronto. Actually, Jordan Peterson, I think, is being drawn to Christ. But in his writings up to this point, whether he claims it or not, he advocates stoicism in response to all that's going on in our nation. He is a teacher of stoicism. I think about even in the midst of this pandemic, there have been YouTube sites, YouTube sites, YouTube channels that I have seen spring up that are about stoicism. And they're not for academics. They are for me and you, the average person making a case for how do you face the things that we're struggling with in the middle of this pandemic? The philosophy, the mindset of stoicism. So what is stoicism again? You know, this is not a sermon on stoicism. But let me give you just kind of what I think are a few main bullets of stoicism. Why? Because I really want to contrast how they may have first heard him use the word content with what he's really teaching here. So here's stoicism in a nutshell. Stoicism says, first of all, recognize what you can and cannot control in life. Stoics say there is so much suffering because we are trying to hang on to and control the things that are out of our control and basically they say about anything that is transient, you can't control your health is transient. I mean, you can do some things about your health, but you don't have ultimate control over it. Your relationships are transient. You don't have ultimate control over your relationships, particularly when people die. Your possessions are transient. You may think you can hang on to them, but, you know, circumstances happen and you lose them. So if you are invested in trying to hang on to the things and control the things that are transient in your life, the Stoics say, you are going to experience needless suffering. So recognize what you can control and let go of what you can't control. Secondly, the Stoics would say you determine your reaction to a crisis. The one thing you do have control over when circumstances roll over you that are painful, that are difficult, that bring suffering and loss, you can control how you respond to them. That's where that kind of moderated emotionalism comes into play. And that folds right into the third one. Don't let your negative emotions dominate you, the Stoics say. Master yourself and learn to move on. That's stoicism in a very, very condensed down nutshell. So let me ask you is, since Paul is using a term, the main term of stoicism, is Paul here teaching a Christianize version of stoicism? I've seen that out there in some of these YouTube channels that, yeah, this is Christian, Paul taught stoicism. Is that what he's teaching here? Is he is he advocating the Greek philosophy, the world view of stoicism? No. Let's go on. And I think we'll see this verse twelve. He expands on what he's just said about contentment. "I know how to have a little and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content." Now, Paul, preconversion Saul of Tarsus, you would have not describe him as a man who is content, Paul even says looking back to his pre conversion life, he says about himself in Galatians Chapter one, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my peers. I'm pushing. I'm pushing. I'm never satisfied. I want to continue to get ahead, he says. I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my teachers. I am at work. I am intense about this. I intensely persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it. So this is not a man who naturally knew contentment. Maybe you can relate to him. I know I can. Contentment does not come naturally. Contentment, the kind of Christian contentment that he's talking about here has to be learned. It has to be learned. And Paul, Saul of Tarsus, through his conversion and then all that he has been through, God was teaching him. He was in the school, God's school of learning contentment so that he can say, now I have learned the secret of being content. And let me tell you that secret is not stoicism. Now, you hear stoicism, somebody said after the first service to me, you know, I realize how much I'm kind of I kind of embrace that stoicism I can relate to. Stoicism is naturally a draw. You go through enough pain and enough hard things and life, and you tend to just naturally move in the direction of stoicism. But here, let me point out the subtle errors of stoicism. Stoicism says that contentment is found in self sufficiency. It's looking within. It's calling on my own resources and calling on my own strength. But it doesn't take long, does it not, to get to an end of our strength? It doesn't take long to find out that we don't have what is sufficient. So Christian contentment, the kind of contentment that brings joy, is just the opposite. It doesn't turn us inward. It turns us upward. Another error, subtle error of stoicism is it advocates seeking to be free from all wants or needs. Deny your needs, deny your wants. Well, that is a subtle form of Platonism, which often leaks into Christianity. Platonism is basically that mindset that says your body is evil, your spirit is good. Christianity is about your spirit, not your body. Repress your body, deny your needs. That's error. That is error. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus saves both our soul and our body, that ultimate glorification when we meet Christ face to face is a glorified spirit and a glorified body. Stoicism also has the subtle error of advocating seeking emotional detachment and indifference, deny, repress your emotions. But the Bible teaches that God is a God of emotion, and God has created us in his image as emotional creatures. And you read through books like the Psalms and you see that God actually encourages the reverent expression of all of our emotions. There's no denying our emotions in following Christ. So I just simply sum it all up and say this, especially if you're drawn to stoicism, like I'm naturally drawn to stoicism. What stoicism seeks contentment, peace, the gospel of Christ alone provides. And if you're drawn to that peace and you're drawn to that sense of contentment that you hear in stoicism, that you hear in writers like Jordan Peterson, it's actually the gospel that's drawing you. That's where true contentment true peace, true joy is found. We see the gospel in Paul's secret of contentment, and he says it here in verse 13. He's been building to this. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. That's how he gets through situations where he's in need, where he's deprived of even the basics of life. That's how he he subsists even when he has more than he needs. It is right here. Now, let me do a quick aside here, because this is one of the most misused and misinterpreted verses in scripture. This is, I read this week, and this is so accurate, this is a verse that you see trinketized. You know what I mean? You know, you see it on coffee mugs and you see it on bumper stickers and Bible covers, but it is so often misused. And I'll give you a classic example. I am a Tim Tebow fan. Tim Tebow is from Jacksonville, Florida. So I know his family kind of through acquaintances, wonderful Christian family, missionary family. Tim Tebow led the Florida Gators where two of my sons graduated to the SEC championship when he was the quarterback. And so I'm a fan of Tim Tebow. I just need to say that. He's a strong Christian man in our culture. But here is you see up on the screen, you see the cover of the Sports Illustrated in 2009. And this is at the height of his his college fame. And I think you can see it in this picture. But just in case you can't, the blacking that he puts under his eyes, then written in white on it is this verse Philippians 4:13. Well, you can imagine what so many people did with this verse - oh, he's advocating this is the secret to his football success. That if you just believe that God is able to give you all the strength you need, you can become, you know, a champion in whatever you do. And that is unfortunately, that is a common misinterpretation of this verse. This is, I'll read you the words of a well-known prosperity preacher who this is his message. He would preach from this verse or he has preached from this verse, don't focus on your limitations. All things are possible if you have enough faith, if you just believe enough, you can overcome any obstacle. You can climb to new heights. You can achieve your destiny. Well, that is a misuse. That is a misinterpretation of this verse. That's unfortunately what probably many of Tim Tebow's fans thought of when they saw him doing this. But in defense of Tim Tebow, he has publicly explained what he meant. And I've got it on the screen and I want to read it. Tebow says this. He said this publicly. After that, there was the controversy about this Sports Illustrated cover. "The verse (Philippians 4:13) is actually about contentedness in all circumstances. It's not about being able to throw a better pass or make a better play on the football field. It's about being content with the victory secured through Christ." How important that is, you see how we can misuse this verse so easily, can you imagine two football players on opposing teams and they're each riding in their cars to the game that they're going to play against each other? And both of them are are Christians and both of them are praying Philippians 4:13. God, give me the strength to accomplish the victory in this game. And I believe that you will. Well, what happens at the end of that game? Somebody has won and somebody has lost. So what's happening in the car rides home? Somebody says, God, you came through to me for me. And the answer to that verse, what's what's happening in the other car? Well, God, you let me down. God, you weren't true to your promise. You see how we can so easily misinterpret and misuse the verse. So when Paul says I can do all things through him, through Christ, who strengthens me, he is not teaching that God gives you the strength to do whatever you desire to do, whatever you set your mind to do. This is Paul who says, I have learned the secret of contentment both in need and in abundance. This is Paul who has learned it through persecution, who through being beaten, through going through times where he was starving. Paul is teaching this. It is in the context of serving Christ, doing Christ's will, that this verse is true. This is the assurance that Christ strengthens us to carry out his will, not our own will. That's not necessarily on the football field, but wherever Christ calls you to do your will, you are a young mom and you've got little kids and you are struggling to be a mom in the way that Christ calls you to be a mom and a wife. The way Christ calls you to be a wife, he gives you the strength to be able to do that. You are somebody who works out in the business world or the medical field, and you desire to walk with integrity that glorifies Christ in the middle of situations where it's often hard to be a man or woman of integrity. This is a promise. He strengthens you to do that because that is his will. So let me finish up with a couple closing comparisons of stoicism's form of contentment and the kind of contentment that Paul is teaching about that leads to joy. Just four simple comparisons, Stoicism says, again, recognize what you can control and what you cannot control. Christian contentment says, recognize that everything, everything, all of your circumstances, all that you have is under God's control. I love Sinclair Furguson, favorite preacher of mine. He says this, The contented believer is the one who believes that God's provision is always sufficient and God's appointments are always appropriate. God's provision is always sufficient for you whether you feel you have enough or whether you are lacking. He is provided for you out of his love and his wisdom exactly what you need to do, his will in the middle of the situation that you're in and God's appointments for you, where he puts you are always appropriate. The circumstances that you find yourself in even right today. If they are difficult, if you are going through trials, if you are suffering, he has again in his love and wisdom, put you right in the middle of them. And he is working in ways that you cannot see. And it is appropriate for how you live out his will that you are in the circumstances that you are in. That's Christian contentment. Stoicism again teaches seek emotional detachment, seek emotional indifference, deny those emotions, particularly sadness and grief. Christian contentment teaches. Bring all of your emotions. Bring them before the Lord in prayer. I pray every day. I pray through a Psalm. I work my way through the Psalter, get through it a couple of times in the year. I make the Psalm I'm reading into my prayer and the vast majority of Psalms there such great emotion. David starts at this low place in so many psalms or he is confused, he is frustrated, where he is angry, where he is sad he is grieving and he pours that out before the Lord. And as you go through the psalm, you see how God moves him in prayer to a place of contentment, to a place of peace. That's a model for us, bringing our emotions before the Lord in prayer. Stoicism says seek to be free from all your wants and all your needs. Christian contentment says no. Rejoice in the Lord, in your wants in your needs and even in your abundance. Don't forget rejoicing in the Lord when you have abundance. Don't think God has abandoned you when you are in want or you are struggling with needs. A.W. Pink says this "In every circumstance that the Lord has put us in, he's given us abundant cause to rejoice in him, to draw our joy from Christ. He has given us his favor. He has given us his love. He gives us his faithfulness. He gives us his forbearance, his patience with us. He grants us access to the throne of grace. He's given us the privilege of communion with him. He's given us the promise of eternity in his presence," the place of ultimate joy, the ultimate bliss. Finally, stoicism teaches, contentment is found in self-sufficiency, Christian contentment teaches contentment, and even joy is found in trusting in Christ's sufficiency. I am not sufficient in myself. No one here, no matter what resources you have, how strong you are, how smart you are, how connected you are, have sufficient resources in and of yourself. It is only through Christ. It is only in Christ, in vital personal union with him that we have, that comes from abiding in him, that we find true contentment and ultimately the deepest joy. We find deep joy, joy that carries us through whatever it is that the Lord has allowed into our life, no matter how much of a hurricane your circumstances feel like right now, he gives us that deep joy that comes from this form of contentment. It is in the words of the old the old hymn writer like this, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, thou fount of life, thou light of men from the best. Blessed that earth imparts we turn to you unfilled again. Let's pray. And Lord Jesus, we make that hymn, we make that our prayer. You are the joy of the hearts that love you, not what's going on in our life, not what we have, not what we think we have attained, which is all fleeting - there the Stoics have it right. But you are the joy. You are the source of the joy in our hearts. You are the fountain of life. It's where we find what it really means to live. You are the light of men. You are the one that guides us through the darkness, through the fog and confusion of this world from the best bliss that earth imparts. Lord, we just acknowledge there is no promise of bliss, of happiness, of joy that is offered on this Earth that is anything more than a vapor. And it's from now those false promises that we turn to you again. We ask you to fill us, fill us with contentment, fill us with joy, draw us to abide in you. Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Creating Opportunity and Disrupting a Traditional B2B Industry There are those entrepreneurs who seize an opportunity where others only see adversity, and then there are those who disrupt industries and thrive. In this interview, we have a discussion with one such disruptor – Rajat Jain (Founder, EOXS) - who talks to us about his journey as a tech entrepreneur. Rajat tells us about what motivated him to launch his own business, what he learned from his previous startups, and how he identified a gap in an industry that is traditionally known to be slow to change and dominated by global conglomerates – steel.Topics discussed in this episode: Rajat talks about his current venture: online marketplace for the steel industry. [2:17]How Rajat identified this opportunity to trade steel online. [11:30]Rajat believes there will be a massive change in the B2B space in the next 5 to 10 years. [16:11]Rajat shares one piece of advice to fellow entrepreneur: customer market validation. [23:51]Resources & links mentioned in this episode:Rajat Jain on LinkedInTranscriptSPEAKERSChristian Klepp, Rajat JainChristian Klepp  0:08  Hi, and welcome to the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. I'm your host, Christian Klepp, and one of the founders of EINBLICK Consulting. Our goal is to share inspirational stories, tips and insights from B2B marketers, digital entrepreneurs, and industry experts that will help you think differently, succeed and scale your business.All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. I'm your host, Christian Klepp. And today, I am absolutely delighted to be joined by someone I consider to be a very talented entrepreneur and I dare say also an industry disrupter. So Mr. Rajat Jain, Welcome to the show.Rajat Jain  0:48  Thank you. Thank you, Christian.Christian Klepp  0:50  Yeah, so it's, you know, it's been a while since we met at an in person event in January. And it's certainly nice to connect once again, although for the time being, it's gotta be on an online platform, like Zoom.Rajat Jain  1:03 Good old days, right? Like, that was just like, I still remember pre-COVID right? We are going out… And I don't even know when that's going to happen anymore.Christian Klepp  1:12 Exactly. And it was the middle of winter too, but I guess the company more than made up for it. So you know, let's, let's get started with this conversation. And you know, just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.Rajat Jain  1:25 Okay, so as you know, my name is Rajat, and I am the founder of The Steel Store. So now it's called EOXS. We just went through a rebranding. Right. And yeah, like, it's an online marketplace for the steel industry. Right. We started this like, a year ago, last year in August, and we've been through good and bad times. COVID has been difficult, like, I would love to be with my team, work with them. But we are just getting past one day at a time.Christian Klepp  2:01 Yeah, absolutely. No, thanks for sharing that. And we'll circle back to the topic on COVID in a second, but yeah. Tell us a little bit about, you know, on the topic of rebranding, and what you're going through at the moment, tell us about a current project that you're working on that's got you really excited.Rajat Jain  2:17 Sure. So Christian, as you know, we are working on building an online marketplace for the steel industry. We started this venture last year in August, with a bare minimum investment of like, $1500 dollars. And we went from inception to launch in two weeks. I mean, that this was my third startup after two failed startups in two years. And we were only left with a team of three people. My Product Manager and my Project Manager, so those guys thought I've gone crazy, gone nuts, like what is this guy coming up with? Right? He has like really a bare bones structure, MVP online website, which we put out in front of the customers, and it picked up,

One Bible scholar says, To be a man is to stand up and be counted when there is danger or other evil. This episode reveals that indeed, God did design Adam to be the protector/warrior of the garden. So Christian men are called by God to protect those around us, especially our families, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Understandably, most Christian men struggle to understand what it means to be a spiritual warrior. This episode examines two of the biggest obstacles to being a successful spiritual warrior and how to overcome them to protect those around us from harm, especially our families.

So Christian, you now know who you really are. You now know what God has provided for you in His New Covenant. Let’s walk together in His Love!

So Christian what rules your life- the law as given by Moses, or Grace which is of Christ- If we believe in Jesus and Jesus lived the whole law- then this sermon is for you....

Music to me is, and has always been existential. From when I was a little boy growing up with a concertmaster – in many of the world's most famous orchestras – as my dad, in Vienna, and constantly visiting his workplace, the famous Musikverein, to today where I am a music aficionado, an avid vinyl record collector as well as a (fairly amateur) music producer. Music is a passion, or 'addiction' as my wife would say, and a great source of joy for me.Having Till Janczukowicz on this show was a big personal pleasure. His classical music streaming app, IDAGIO, is constantly running a fine line between catering to the young and the old, the classical novice versus the expert, and it is a fascinating branding game.Till discusses how classical music, as a brand, was intimidating, and how he and his team are breaking that wall down, out their offices in Berlin, Germany. And how classical music's role and perception in society has changed over the years, and what role technology played in it.We discuss how to showcase music visually, with all of its nuances, is an extremely difficult task, one that IDAGIO mastered from day one.So many fascinating takeaways in this conversation, one that struck with me, and that should give you an idea on how deep we are diving into not only the brand discussion, but also the entrepreneurial journey as a whole: "The bigger you grow as a corporation, the more you have to bring things that are on a subconscious level to a conscious level."A delightful conversation that truly inspired me, and I believe it will do the same for you.To support this show, please head to Patreon.____Full Transcript:F Geyrhalter: Welcome to HITTING THE MARK.Today we welcome a guest who I have been looking forward to for a while now. The subject hits home in many ways. Not only is this founder based in Berlin, Germany, hence you will get a double-German accent episode today, but his is the world of classical music, which is the same world in which I grew up in, back in Vienna.Till Janczukowicz is the founder of IDAGIO, which is often described as being the Spotify for classical music.Till has more than 20 years of experience as an artist manager, producer, and concert promoter. In 2000, he established the European office for Columbia Artists Management, heading it up as managing partner for 11 years. He was responsible for organizing several of the Metropolitan Opera’s European tours, and his personal clients included conductors Christian Thielemann, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, as well as pianists Ivo Pogorelich and Arcadi Volodos. In 2008, he founded the Abu Dhabi Classics, a performing arts series merging culture, education and tourism for the government of the United Arab Emirates. That is where he arranged debuts for the New York, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics; the Bayreuth Festival; and Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Yo-Yo Ma, Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons, and countless other musical and artistic luminaries.I am thrilled to welcome you to the show, Till!T Janczukowicz: Great, pleasure to meet you and to be here.F Geyrhalter: Absolutely. So as I mentioned in my intro, this is truly a pleasure for me since my father was an amazing violinist who spent most of his life as a concert master and some of Vienna's best orchestras from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Kammer Orchestra, all the way to the Vienna Philharmonics, and appeared on over 50 records and radio productions. So he was also a sound purist who loved his audio gadgets the same way that I do now. He would've cherished to hear this conversation today.So listeners who are not classical music fans may wonder why. Why was there a need for classical music in an app form when you can find plenty of classical options on Spotify, Apple music and Tidal? Let me quote an article from Vogue that explained it perfectly well, "It all comes down to Metadata." While Metadata for most popular music is quite simple, there's the artist, the song, or track, the album it's from. Classical Metadata might encompass everything from the composer, the orchestra, the conductor, the choir, which may have its own director, various soloists, the title of the piece, along with perhaps some sort of number or nomenclature to indicate it's placed within the larger symphony of work.Then artists opus number, or in the case of composers like Mozart Bach whose works are ordered by their own system, their Kochel or BWV number. So it's not simple. Yes, there is a big need for it.Till, your biography talks a lot about the amazing journey you have taken prior to starting IDAGIO in 2015, but tell us a bit about the founding story behind IDAGIO. How did it all start? Give us the romance, the hardship of your startup's early days.T Janczukowicz: So where to start? Let's start with the Romance, maybe-F Geyrhalter: That's a good place. Let's start positive.T Janczukowicz: The very early Romance, but what I would say is that I was lucky and only looking back, I understood that I was lucky. I was offered to piano when I was six years old and that captured me immediately. So once I started to play the piano for the first time without knowing anything, I knew and felt, "Well, that's my life. I'm going to spend my life with this music that fascinated me.I could even say, probably I've never worked. I never felt I was working in my life. At the very end, it comes down to a variety of attempts to promote what fascinated me, in a very, I wouldn't say egoistic way, but it was a very obvious thing for me. Classical music captured me. It opened stories for me. It created images and so on.So I started to be a pianist at the beginning. Thanks god I became friends with a real pianist, Krystian Zimerman, when I was 18 years old, who by the way... You are from Vienna, it's probably you were even still in Vienna these days. He recorded the Beethoven Piano Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonics Leonard Bernstein in the 80s. So Christian became a good friend. I saw what he did, I saw what I did and said, "Okay, he's a pianist." So next step for me was then he wanted to push me into management. It helped me a lot.But first of all, I started to be a teacher during my studies, made some money. But I'm coming from a family of teachers and so, "Okay, my dad was a teacher, my mom was a teacher, my grandfather was a teacher. So do you really want to sign a contract at your end of your 20s and that's going to determine what you're going to do until the end of your life?" The answer was no. So I didn't want to become a teacher. I wrote a little bit, but also as a writer I saw, well, you can speak about it in part, but you can't really change things.So then I went into management and now I'm coming to your question to the necessity of IDAGIO. As a manager, my perspective was always a B2B perspective. If you manage a great conductor, or a great soloist, your touring orchestra, it's about, first of all, building brands. Any young artists you see or any unknown ensemble or new music you see, as a manager, you have some possibility to make these people famous, to assist them to find out how they work and how you can help them.What I saw then having spent my life in management, putting on concerts in all parts of the world and we can cover that a little later because there were many fascinating learnings. But the main thing for me was that, if the future of music listening is streaming and the all-genre streaming services aren't designed for classic music because as you said, they are around pop music and they're pop driven where you only have three criteria: The song, the artist, and the album, my clients are going to be invisible in the digital ecosystem.So the moment there is no digital structure that could trick down a recording where you have a conductor, you have an orchestra, you have singers, you have a soloist, you have the composition, and so on. The moment that doesn't exist, I saw that as a luxury problem from the user's perspective because you can still curate and so on. Maybe yes, it's a problem for aficionados, but at the very end, I want to push a button, and I want music to play without a huge cognitive investment that I like, fine, but even there is a huge group of aficionados worldwide that suffering from bad metadata, and bad usability of classic music streaming platforms.But if you look at it from an artist perspective, this is a real threat because if you can't be tracked down in the digital space and people don't find you, you cease to exist and with you, the entire genre ceases to exist. That was a motivation from you, I said, "Well, you have to do something." The main question at the beginning for me was, "How can we use technology in order to maintain that music genre that was the passion since I first encountered that.There was not at the beginning, the idea of, "Well, I have to found the best streaming service for classical music." That was the result of a chain of it durations. For us it's rather the beginning than the end.F Geyrhalter: It was really more of an action cry, right? It needed to be done in order to... in the biggest terms possible, save classical music for generations, right? To me, that's where it gets really interesting to think about who the audiences. When you think of classical music, many think of an older audience, but you're obviously a digital tool that already eliminates, I would say, the too old for tech audience, right?T Janczukowicz: Yeah.F Geyrhalter: You also clearly understand that you have to capture the hearts and souls of the next generations as the IDAGIO or IDAGIO... You and I had a little chat prior to this, it could go either way. So I don't feel guilty. The IDAGIO Instagram account, for instance. It nicely shows that it's going for the next generation. It's 29,000 followers. You have features like a relax playlist, which are perfect gateway drugs to anyone regardless of musical preference, right?T Janczukowicz: Sure.F Geyrhalter: Who do you cater to and how do you capture them in your brand communications? Do you constantly run that fine line between young and old, and classical novice versus expert?T Janczukowicz: Well, there are various levels to answer that. When I left my peer group, the classical music world that had been spending my life in, and started to enter into tech, I was, of course, reading a lot and all these blogs and I traveled to San Francisco, went to Silicon Valley just to be there to talk to people, to understand what it's all about.The first thing I learned, or the first thing at least that I remember is that one of the most failures of startups is to solve problems that don't exist.F Geyrhalter: Right.T Janczukowicz: For me, it was obvious that this problem does exist, both from a customer or user perspective and also from an artist perspective. So that was the beginning. Based on that, we did build our own technology, make a data model and so on and so on. Based on that, we can now, answering your question, cater for all varieties of audiences.What was interesting for me to see that after having spent 20 to 25 years in that world, more or less looking at things and reacting to things through my instinct, the assumptions I got over the years, they were confirmed in real numbers. Because the classical world is not really about numbers, it's about opinions. It's about being right, everybody is right. Everybody knows everything, it’s very controversially, very ego driven also.Now, I entered in a world where its numbers, "Okay, what you say is nothing more than a thesis, let's prove it." So that was totally new to me and very fascinating. What we found out that there are five, 10, 15, 20, maybe 50 use cases of listening to classical music and you can, of course, go and start segmenting classical music listeners.But interesting, is also to me that you can probably break it down into use cases because there are use cases that you would probably apply to an aficionado that sometimes also apply to a millennial listening to classical music and vice versa. So, for example, you mentioned this mood search we have and why do we have it? I wanted a tool where everybody, who opens the app and comes in contact with classic music, they can execute an action, move something, just touch screen with a finger, remove the finger, but already make a choice. So it can go to relaxed or meditative or joyful and so on. Then it's simply a playlist opening up with joyful or relaxing or focusing music.However, this is a use case and also some aficionados' life, because also aficionados are sometimes, I don't know, ironing their shirts, or cleaning the home. So this is the first thing I wanted to highlight because it was very interesting to me.Secondly, there are, of course, the obvious different segments. You have, the fact that classical music around the globe as a genre that's aggregating the high achievers. Classical music has always been, the music genre of the emerging communities. If you look at South America, you give underprivileged kids instruments and playing Beethoven makes their lives meaningful from one day to the other. So this is still system up. Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most known represented-F Geyrhalter: Well, he's here in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's now. So yeah, he's close to home.T Janczukowicz: Exactly.F Geyrhalter: Yeah.T Janczukowicz: Yeah, exactly. This is something that at the same time you have 50 million piano students in China these days. [] for example, used to say that the future of classical music is in China, which I wouldn’t say the future of classic music, but also be in China. But we see that a lot of young people in the Nordics, in Europe, but also in the United States are more and more turning to the classical, but they see and look at classical music in a different way, because especially in Germany... You're from Austria, central Europe, classical music is a heavy, serious thing. You have to gain some knowledge before you really understand it, which I believe is total bullshit. If music is great, everybody understands it immediately.The new use case that's coming up that I am listening to classical music because it helps me focus, it helps me calm down. But another word that I see in classical music as belonging, because if you listen to classical music and if you listen to a great concert with friends and a social environment, it also makes you feel connectiveness. You are connected with other people, you're connect with the musicians on stage. You are connected with the people you are listening with.So there was a very nice quote, which is very famous, but I heard it first from Yo-Yo Ma who once said, "The great thing about classic music is that it makes you part of something bigger than yourself." This is a very, very needed and a great value proposition.F Geyrhalter: I think, playing devil's advocate, that could be said about pretty much every musical genre, right? Because it is a very communal tribal idea. But with classical, just the idea that a lot of it happens in ginormous orchestras. There's so much where one person talks to the other via their musical instrument and jazz is kind of one step up from pop where you've got a couple of people that need to perfectly sync in an orchestra, make this 10, 20, 30 fold. So there's something by just the structure of classical music where it's more communal from the get go, I believe.T Janczukowicz: Yeah, I mean, jazz, I would say goes very much in the same direction, because it has various levels, but if you're looking at what is constituting music, first of all you have a melody, number two, you have rhythm, and number three you have harmonies. Then you can have one melody, which is the case in pop music, but then you can have two melodies, two themes.Then it starts with something that probably 70% or 80% of classical music have in common, which makes it so fascinating. You have two themes, and very often in the Sonata form, the first theme is male and the second theme is female.F Geyrhalter: How chauvinistic?T Janczukowicz: It's very chauvinistic, but everybody apparently seems to like Beethoven sonatas or Mozart symphonies where exactly this is happening. Then you have an exposition where the first theme, the male theme is being presented and after the female's theme is presented.Then you have the second part where these themes start to interact and to talk to each other. Sometimes there is tension and then comes down and so on. So it's very, very close to storytelling without words. This is something, probably, I said that earlier, what captured me at the very beginning, and I think it's a fascinating role because you can close your eyes, but you see stories, you feel stories, but you don't need to know when Beethoven was born, you don't need to know what is an overture. You don't need to know what is an aria. Just close your eyes and listen to it. This music is so appealing to everybody.I think one of the mistakes that classic music or classical music has made over decades is, is building this huge wall around it. Because if you go back to Mozart or Bach, it was entertainment music. It's agenre that comes from the courts and the people were eating and drinking and laughing and walking out and coming back. Something that the middle-class that occupied classic music for themselves, started to forbid. This created an intimidating...Let's say when we speak about branding, a part of this brand that is intimidating and it's not necessary because it's so embracing, and it's such a great genre.F Geyrhalter: I so agree with you. I so agree with you. Coming from a household where we constantly went to the Vienna Musikverein to see my dad play and others, it was always a big deal. Even though it's my dad on stage, and it's just normal, we go to his workplace, right?T Janczukowicz: Yeah.F Geyrhalter: There's something, there's an aura around classical music that feels like it's a cloud that should be broken. It feels like... I love how you talk about it. Even though I did not really realize that, but as I started looking through your brand work, through your website, through your app, it actually really is what you're doing. You're breaking that stigma. You're breaking that wall down, and I think it's beautiful.While we talk about musical terms, let's talk about IDAGIO, the brand name, for a second. It sounds a lot and pretty obviously to me like ADAGIO, which only has one letter replaced. ADAGIO for our non-musical listeners signifies a music played in slow tempo. So what was the inspiration for the name? Walk us through that a little bit.T Janczukowicz: It's very end simple. We needed a name, first of all, and we wanted the name to be self-explanatory. So we wanted something that people around the globe would associate with classical music. So ADAGIO, as you said, it's an international word. Many albums are just having one title, which is ADAGIO. If you have music that calms you down.At the same time, we wanted something that people understand context of technology. This is, I. The funny thing is that we had a law firm working for us this time and they were also representing a very famous American brand that has created many new devices that are starting with an I-F Geyrhalter: Whatever that could be.T Janczukowicz: Whatever that may be, and they called us back after three days said, "We checked it. You can use the name. No problem at all." So IDAGIO was born. That was the funny incident.F Geyrhalter: That's hilarious. Yeah, and it's not always the case. I heard of other firms that try to use names that started with I, and couldn't do it based on that same conglomerate that tries to own that one letter. But obviously, those are words where the, I, has more of a meaning in front of it with IDAGIO. It is a word. The, I, itself is not as meaningful.So, great. Well, I'm glad I got that quiz right. I'm proud of myself. How did you and your team obviously derive the brand's visual aura, so to speak? I use the word aura specifically since the gradient based imagery surrounding your brand has a very meditative feel to it. Even talking about IDAGIO, the idea of slowing down. Then you have the nifty mood selection feature, which we talked about in your app. Overall, you really crafted a beautiful slick visual identity that mixes the atmospheric, like in many of the Instagram posts with the harsh and crisp in the actual logo or the line work that apps dimension to the gradient artwork.Now, for everyone listening, unless you're currently driving a car, head on over to @IDAGIOofficial on Instagram to see what we're actually talking about. Till, how was the look derived? I think it just really found its groove, no pun intended, back in May on Instagram where everything started to have this very distinct and beautiful look. Can you talk a little bit about how this came about?T Janczukowicz: I think there are three factors probably, and, of course, none of these factors was conscious during it was there. Only looking back, you're connected in a meaningful way. Probably the first thing is that my grandfather, who offered me the piano, he had a Braun stereo system at home. We all know that Braun was one of the decisive branding and visual influences for this very, very famous brand we have been speaking about. I remember it was that it was the first thing.The second thing, as an artist manager, I was always in the second row. So that means you work as a catalyst. You are doing a great job if you work invisible. So you mentioned the Abu Dhabi Classics I created. The star was the series. If you manage an artist, if you build the career of a conductor, the conductor is the star, not yourself. You are always in the background.I think this is a thinking that also my co-founder was aesthetically a very big fan of minimalistic architecture. We said, "We want a look and feel that really highlights the musicians and the music and that's not dominating them. I think that's the second aspect.The third aspect is that, we had, at a very, very early stage, I think, our designer was a part of the founding team. He started on day one. I think he was one of the third or fourth people we hired. Because we believe it's very important that you reflect the beautiful and fascinating and special role that you also described. We were just speaking, that you going to the Musikverein with family when your father was playing. It's a fascinating thing. We wanted to translate that into a user interface and into a look and feel that respects the music and the artists.F Geyrhalter: Which is really, really difficult to pull off. It's very easy to look at and then criticize or get your own emotions about it, which by the way, I would never criticize because I think it is brilliant. It is so easy to look at something after it has been established. But to showcase music visually with all of its nuances, is an extremely difficult task. So bravo to that. It's really, really well done and it was one of the reasons why I got sucked into your brand.So while we talk about that, we might as well talk one more second about the actual icon, about the logo. It's a play on the play button and there is a horizontal line to the right of it, right below it. Tell us a bit about the idea behind it. Obviously you are not the designer, but I'm sure that that you played a role in signing it off and adopting it. What is the key idea behind it?T Janczukowicz: Well, I don't want to take a credit of others. My role was to not say no to it. Let’s put it like this, which at a minium I disliked it or I liked it, but my thinking here is rather, and thinking big, I was designing all this myself five, six, seven years ago. I had the first ideas of IDAGIO and I was very proud of, I don't know, copying some letters from an Italian luxury brand and I showed it to our designer when we hired him and he laughed at me. He was right there laughing at me.So I understood. I don't really understand this. I can express what I wanted for the brand and I could express how I believe it may look like, but he really did it. Then I think it's at the very end minimalistic thinking. I think when it comes down to that. Not something that disturbs and then some people get some agencies from outside before and they we're proposing a logo with some music scores and all this, a key, so it's really...I think we are in a different world.F Geyrhalter: Yeah.T Janczukowicz: Yeah. The icon that we have. Maybe one other thing. It's a little bit high level, but I was thinking when you were talking about... Again, I'm seeing in front of me your dad sitting on the stage of the Musikverein and what was the classic music 20, 30, 40 years ago, and what has really changed? Because also we were talking about different customer segments.When I started to work as a manager, that was '96, that was still a period where a conductor was still a maestro. He was the icon, you couldn't reach him, you couldn't talk to him. The entire management approach was to create a myth, create something that's unavailable because the less it's available, the more people want it. This is something, and this is an understanding of value. It's to the old world, which is an old world value thinking.I think in the digital world, and this is a big shift, in the digital world value is being created by being visible, by being transparent, by showing with as many people as possible what you are, who you are, what you do. So this is a total paradigm shift. If you look, for example, at a Karajan, you could not reach out to him. A Schulte was the same running the Chicago symphony orchestra for many years.If you now these days at young comebacks like Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the music director of the Philadelphia orchestra, music director of the metropolitan opera Andris Nelsons, music director of the Boston symphony and the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig Germany. It's a new generation of open minded and more communicating conductors.What was very interesting to me, I had a meeting with the Juilliard School of Music in New York some months ago. I didn't know that when you are making your degree there, if you leave school, you don't have to only play, you also have to moderate the performance. The way how you talk about the music you play, as an artist, is also being judged. I think it's a very interesting thing.But this is all owed to transparency that came through technology. All the scandals that we are seeing and witnessing these days, it's not that humanity has apparently become immoral, just our ways to measure things and to see things are much more granular than 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago.This is also an aesthetic shift in classical music and this is also creating a new type of classical musicians. I find that a very interesting thing to see how technology even has some impact on the way you perform classical music.F Geyrhalter: That is absolutely fascinating. I agree. I've never thought about it that way. But just like everything else, classical music is being touched by it and it's great to be on the forefront of that like you are. While we were talking a little bit about philosophy here, what does branding mean to you? The actual word, branding. How do you see it?I know we talked a lot about emotion, we talked a lot about how people feel something rather than just listen to something. But maybe even in the classical arena, like where you are, what do you think when you think of branding?T Janczukowicz: Well, I would spontaneously say branding is an aggregated public perception. If it goes well and first of all, you have a good intention and you succeed in running the brand, the way you want, then it's probably aggregated trust that says, "Well, yeah, I can turn into this complex thing without making a mistake, without failing."Because I've heard of the brand from, whomever, my brother, my peers these days, then through, through, through advertisement because I think trust is getting more and more local, and we less and less trust governments and we less trust corporations. So I rather trust my peers because I'm so over flooded with information and bombarded by visual things that want to get my attention.But I think branding for me done right it's something of, well, yes, I can go. It's a safe harbor, safe place for me. I can recommend it. I can package that when I talk to other people pass it on to others and recommend to others.F Geyrhalter: You talked about trust and failures. I'm not as familiar with the entrepreneurial scene in Berlin, but here in the US we love to talk about failures. There are entire business book sections dedicated to it. Even though in my eyes it's blown way out of proportion, there are great things to be learned from mistakes that startup founders have made or witnessed during the early days of the brand formation.What was an enormous fail that you went through with IDAGIO in the very early days? Was there something where you just look back and you're like, "Okay, that was a fail, we could have prevented this, someone can learn from this?"T Janczukowicz: Well, I have to say, I think we were lucky in leaving out many mistakes you can potentially make. But, of course, there were mistakes, but there is not this story where I would say, "Well, this is really, really, really, I'll never forget it." I think it's rather a pattern.What I've learned over the years is that, if you do something for the first time and being an entrepreneur and forming and building something new has to do a lot of with trial and error. Probably the biggest mistake that I'm trying to avoid more and more is that I wasn't listening early enough to my natural instincts. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I'm more and more convinced that this is the right thing. It sounds like cliché, but this is a principle that you can break down into any daily decision. If you feel something, but...and this is a personal problem that I have because everybody is, of course, different. I'm coming from the world of the arts. I'm rather intuitive, some people say visionary, but at least I have ideas. Some of these ideas have worked out in my life so far.But I'm also analyzing it. But if I feel that something is right, I start to do it. The bigger you grow as a corporation, you more and more have to bring things that are on a subconscious level to a conscious level. Then it has to arrive on the conscious level and then you have to explain it to everybody. Then you have to also give ownership to the people with whom you work with your team, because you are nobody with a team.You can form the North star, you can say that the direction and give a vision and the mission, I think in our company everybody is on that mission and people coming to the office, to our premise here in Berlin they say, "Oh wow, this is a great chemistry here. It feels good to be here." So that's the thing.But we're not talking about the good things, we're talking about failures. Of course, at the very end, nobody wants to fail. But thanks God, I was brought to this life by really an American entrepreneur, who was the owner of Columbia Artists, Ronald Wilford, and he was a typical American self-made man. One of his quotes was, "I didn't learn anything and that's why I can do everything."I think this is a good thing and this, and the combination that when I met him after our job interview in '96 where we even didn't perceive it as a job interview, but afterwards we had the first meetings. They will tell, "We are in an industry of ideas." Usually, we all have a lot of ideas and if you fail with 10 ideas, it's bad, you're gone. If you make one of the 10 ideas work, it's really great. If you make two of your 10 ideas work, this is highly above average.I think this is a mentality that's very, very un-German and having inhaled this kind of thinking for 16 years, I got more comfortable with the idea of making failures because, a young artist is like stakes you buy a company, you see something and you believe all to be there in two, four, six, eight years. Sometimes you're right and sometimes you are wrong. Then you have principles to figure out and to understand why you may be right.But going back in a nutshell, re-listen to yourself and if you feel something, you're really convinced, do it, whatever others say.F Geyrhalter: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, absolutely.T Janczukowicz: But listen to them, then think, but then do what you feel.F Geyrhalter: And the same holds true for data, because I'm sure, at this point, your app has been downloaded over 1.5 million times, I think it's the latest in 190 countries?T Janczukowicz: Yeah.F Geyrhalter: So you must have so much great data about your users at this point, and I know you're using it and you have studies made about listenership and about what classical music means today. But on the other hand, you have to balance that out with not always listening to customer data and just solely basing decisions on your instinct as well. It's always a fine line that an entrepreneur walks.T Janczukowicz: Yeah.F Geyrhalter: On the flip side now, we talked a little bit about failures. Now, let's climb over that hill to success. When you look back, what was that big breakthrough moment where you felt like, "Okay, the startup is slowly moving into a brand." People start using the name, the app becomes part of daily life. When did you know that you had something that would become a major player in the music world? No pun intended. May it have been a funding round or the Salzburg Festival where you launched or early user feedback. What was it for IDAGIO where you knew that this will actually be a success?T Janczukowicz: Well, I think in order to do something like that, you need a certain, what we call... I don't know how you may be able to translate that in German. There's a nice word, Gottvertrauen. I don't know how you translate it. You put your trust in God. You have to do something. Everybody was, "Oh, you're going to fail, you're stupid." But to trust, you trust that it will work.So this is something that was always there. However, I, would say two things. One thing was quite early. It was that we were indeed launching, not the app, a minimal viable product, even not the beta at the Salzburg festival in 2015. We were launching there and we were sitting on stage in the premises of the festival upon invitation of the Vienna Philharmonic.Then some days later there was an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. They wrote, it was 2015 and they wrote, "If they're not going to run out of money, they could change the way how people listen to classical music." This is something, I remember, we were by far not yet there, but having read that and then securing the next funding round, the combination of those two things that we say, "Okay, we are on the good way. Let's put it like that."F Geyrhalter: Right. That’s amazing. For our international listeners, which is not the majority of our listeners, I think we have 6% German listeners. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is the authority, not only in Germany but it reaches through all of the central Europe. So that is a huge deal. To go back to when you talk about Gottvertrauen, the idea of you trust in God, just to make it universally accessible. It's also for atheists. That idea that you just trust in the universe, right? You have this ideology where you trust in the universe.All right, Till, we're coming slowly to a close, but none of my guests can get away without answering this particular question. Mainly because I believe it is such a great exercise for any entrepreneur to give some thought to as they keep building their culture and brand. I gave you a heads up on that. If you could describe everything about your brand in one or two words that would turn into your brand's DNA, as I call it, what would it be like? Examples could be freedom for Harley Davidson or happiness for Coca-Cola. What would that brand DNA be?T Janczukowicz: I have to answer that with an anecdote and then I try to answer your question.F Geyrhalter: Perfect.T Janczukowicz: There was a young Romanian conductor, Sergio Celibidache, amazing, amazing conductor. Was for many years the music director, legendary music director of the Munich Philharmonic. He believed he would get the job of the music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, then Karajan got the job. I just have to say that because he said Karajan is like Coca Cola.F Geyrhalter: I think I know that story from my dad actually because it's so classic.T Janczukowicz: Yeah, exactly. So sorry to... But it's not exactly an answer to what you asked, but I had to raise that. If you would allow two words that are not very romantic, I would say, what people should think in three, five, 10 years when they hear IDAGIO, it's classical music. If you would ask me to really distill it down to one word, then I would rather turn to what the classic music does with people. Then we could say happiness because it brings happiness. It gives people a more happier life because it makes you healthy.There are all these studies, classical music connects when you're growing up the right and the left half of the brain in a more meaningful way. You learn empathy, the social skills and so on. You could say health, but probably if we could nail it. Ask to really nail it down to one word, I think it's belonging.I think it's belonging because, if you look at what happens, we come alone, we go along but we have this 60, 70, if you're lucky, 80 years. To overcome this, this illusion of loneliness and classical music has this power to really connect you with other people. You don't need to touch them. You don't need to look at them. You close your eyes, but you feel connected with other people. I think this is probably best described by the word belonging.F Geyrhalter: That's beautiful. I knew that belonging would come back up because you had talked about it in the beginning. It is such a perfectly emotional word to really capture the brand beyond, right, really the entire genre. Where can listeners find IDAGIO if they are intrigued enough after listening to us for the last 45 minutes to give it a try and perhaps even become converts to the magic of classical music?T Janczukowicz: Very easily, on the internet, idagio.com. In the app store, there's an Android version. Anybody, for example, who has a Sonos device. There's been Sonos implementation of IDAGIO. But I would say go to the internet and there you'll find all the app stores to find IDAGIO and the different partnerships we have also with hardware manufacturers. Yeah, that's probably the easiest way.F Geyrhalter: Excellent. Excellent. That's the beauty of owning your name online. So I know you launched the company at the Salzburg Festival or the Salzburger Festspiele in 2015.T Janczukowicz: Yeah.F Geyrhalter: That is exactly what I would be heading next week. So watch out for me Till. If you're in Salzburg, you might run into me at one of the many Festspiele locations.T Janczukowicz: Cool.F Geyrhalter: Thank you so much for staying late at your office in Berlin to have this conversation with me today and to share your stories and your thoughts on branding with me and my listeners. We really appreciate your time.T Janczukowicz: A great pleasure. Thank you so much.F Geyrhalter: And thanks to everyone for listening, and please hit that subscribe button and give the show a quick rating - it only takes 5 seconds and it helps the podcast’s visibility and growth.And if you really enjoy it, please head on over to PATREON.com/Hittingthemark to become a sustaining member supporting this show.There has never been a more important episode in which to give the theme music some credit. It was written and produced by Happiness Won. If you want to know who is behind Happiness Won, then also head on over to PATREON.com/Hittingthemark and you may find what you learn amusing.I will see you next time – when we, once again, will be hitting the mark. 

Pastor Nicole Sweetman continues our series "So Christian" with a powerful word on purity.

LIVE on the Sport Physiotherapy Canada Facebook Page, I welcome Dr. Christian Barton on the show to preview his lecture for the Third World Congress of Sports Physical Therapy in Vancouver, Canada.  Dr Christian Barton is a physiotherapist who graduated with first class Honours from Charles Sturt University in 2005, and completed his PhD focusing on Patellofemoral Pain, Biomechanics and Foot Orthoses in 2010. Dr Barton’s broad research disciplines are biomechanics, running-related injury, knee pathology, tendinopathy, and rehabilitation, with a particular focus on research translation.  Dr Barton has published over 40 papers in Sports Medicine, Rehabilitation and Biomechanics journals, and he is an Associate Editor for the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In this episode, we discuss: -The inspiration behind TREK Education -Different mediums that facilitate knowledge translation from researchers to clinicians and patients -Common misconceptions around running and injury prevention -The good and bad surrounding social media and knowledge translation -And so much more!   Resources: Third World Congress of Sports Physical Therapy Christian Barton Twitter La Trobe University Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Blog Switch TREK Facebook Group Made to Stick TREK Education Website   For more information on Christian: Dr. Christian Barton, APAM, is both a researcher and clinician treating sports and musculoskeletal patients in Melbourne. He is a postdoctoral research fellow and the Communications Manager at the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre. Christian’s research is focussed on the knee, running injuries and knowledge translation including the use of digital technologies. He has written and contributed to a multitude of peer-reviewed publications and is a regular invited speaker both in Australia and internationally. He also runs courses on patellofermoral pain and running injury management in Australia, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. He is on the board of the Victorian branch of the Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Association, and a guest lecturer at La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne. Christian is currently studying a Master of Communication, focussing on journalism innovation. He is an Associate Editor and Deputy Social Media Editor at the British Journal of Sports Medicine, as well as Associate Editor at Physical Therapy in Sport.   Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy:                   00:00                Hey everybody, welcome to our live broadcast. I'm just going to take a look quickly on my phone to make sure that we are in fact live, which I think we are. Yes. Great. All right, so we're live, which is awesome. All right, so thanks to people who are already on and thank you to my guest, Christian Barton, coming all the way in from Australia. So it is my times as you're watching this. It's 9:30 New York time. So Christian, what time is it in Australia right now? Christian Barton:           00:37                11:30 in the morning. That's quite a nice time to do this. Karen Litzy:                   00:43                Yeah. So we're doing this over two different days, so Tuesday for me and Wednesday for you. So crazy. But anyway, thanks for taking the time out to come on to chat with us. So for all the people who are on right now and for as we go through, if you have questions, you can type them in the comments, we can see them and we'll be able to address them as we go along. But before we get started, Christian, what I would love for you to do is just to tell the viewers and the listeners a little bit more about you and how you got to where you are now. Christian Barton:           01:18                Yeah, sure. So I'm a physiotherapist by background have been for nearly 15 years now. So it's getting on. I've always had an interest in research and clinical practice and continuing to try and juggle the two. And that probably started from the very beginning. I finished my undergrad course and well tried to find a position to do some research assistant work on clinical trials and things like that. And quickly my mentors taught me to do your PhD and actually started that about a year and a half out. And so I did that quite early in my career and probably since then I've been probably a mix of half, half clinic and research. So along the way, probably as I've gone through more recently doing more and more research because it gets harder to keep the research, you can do bigger picture things, which is something I've become really passionate about and I'll talk more about later. Christian Barton:           02:05                And so currently I work three main roles. One is my own clinic in Melbourne, which is a sports and an injury clinic. And we work one day a week there and then also work at the Trobe university three days a week. And my main research focus areas around there it's translation and implementation. And then the past couple of years have been doing one day a week with a surgical group. So the Department of Surgery, it's in Newton's hospital in Melbourne and there big project or area of research is around preventing inappropriate surgery. So that aligns very well with what I do of trying to optimize what we do as therapists to prevent unnecessary or inappropriate surgery as we go along. Karen Litzy:                   02:44                Yes. Fantastic. Busy weeks. You have busy weeks. Christian Barton:           02:48                Yeah, I work alongside the three kids at home and yet it's not, not the easiest to juggle at times, but it's certainly all things that I enjoy. Karen Litzy:                   02:55                Yeah, that's amazing. And every time all the interviews ever had with all of the speakers who are coming to Vancouver in October, all do so much. But we didn't do one time is just have an interview on how you manage your time. But that's for another interview. But I think people would really enjoy that. So now let's talk a little bit more about physiotherapy. So why this field? Christian Barton:           03:23                Yeah, I think as a kid I was always active, playing a lot of sports and had a few injuries myself. And I think I always valued the physios guidance about getting back from some of those injuries. So that got me interested in the field and then you go to university, you actually realize physio has a lot more than just train sports injuries. And you need to have to think about pulmonary rehab and cardiac rehab and you're electrical physio. There's a whole range in spectrum that we through. But I think pretty quickly when I come out I would want it to go back to musculoskeletal and sports. And so we went back down that path. And I think what I enjoy about being a physio therapist is just keeping people active. That's your more sedentary person, where you're trying to motivate them through lifestyle changes to get active and manage their persistent knee pain or back pain or whether it's a really elite sports person. I really enjoy trying to get people to achieve their physical activity goals essentially is what I'm enjoying. Karen Litzy:                   04:18                Awesome. And now I can see more and more people joining you. Again, if you're joining, please write like where you’re watching from and if you have any questions, put them in the comments because we'll be talked with, you know, so now let's, you had mentioned this earlier, talking about kind of what you do, part of what you do and you're involved in several knowledge translation initiatives. One of them being the trek group, which I remember I guess it was last year after sports congress and we all changed our social media to the trek elephants logo, which was really great. So this is a nonprofit initiative created to enhance knowledge translation to healthcare professionals, but also to patients and general public. So can you tell us a little bit more about trek and how it all started? Christian Barton:           05:13                Yeah, sure. Also I think my research journeys being quite interesting. When I first started off doing research, I was in a gait clinic doing biomechanics research and I've always found that side of our practice really interesting. And you do this real integral research and you spend a long time for assessing data and finally end up with maybe a couple of things that you can share in the community and they share them. And then I started doing more clinical based research and trials. Firstly looking at biomechanics and then did you that exercise interventions. Very early on I actually worked on a lot of systematic reviews and my passion for doing that was, well we have all this great body of research, we need to bring it together so we can disseminate a little bit better. And then I actually did a project in London where it was actually looking at clinical reasoning of physical therapists and how they integrate evidence into their practice. Christian Barton:           05:59                And what I discovered really quickly is not only were people not using evidence based practice all that often when I actually talked to them about patellofemoral pain, which I'd spent the best part of seven or eight years researching, they've never read any of my papers, never read any of my research. And so it sort of made me reflect a little bit and go, well, why am I doing all this research? And it's not actually being translated into practice. And so I started to have a bit of a flipping all I did and instead of spending time in the lab alongside doing clinical trials, I started to focus a bit more time on actually getting information out there. And so have a good friend of mine, Michael Ratliffe who's based in Denmark and we often catch up and catch up at conferences. Christian Barton:           06:40                And actually one of the first times we spent a lot of time together was when I went to a Danish conference a number of years ago. It was actually after that conference, I was sitting down both quite frustrated, having a couple of Belgium beers talking about this problem and the acronym trek come up with just on a random occurrence sitting his kitchen table. I still remember it. It was like, how do we do this? We'd probably need to brand it with already and get people behind a movement and something happening. So trek stands for translating research evidence and knowledge. So it fits really nicely with that. It actually has more meetings in that. And if you look at English language for trek, it means a long and arduous journey, which I think an old translation very much use when you try and actually make change. And then it also fits with Christian Barton:           07:22                probably one of my favorite books I've ever read, which is called switch, which is how to make change when change is hard. I highly recommend people read this book. It changed my life. And it's a really simple analogy. You have a rider sitting on an elephant and you need to get to a destination. So there's three main parts to that. The rider needs to know where to go. The elephant needs to be motivated because it doesn't matter if the writer tells them how often to go. It's not going to go anywhere to be big beast. Right? Christian Barton:           07:48                We also need an appropriate pathway to get there. So if you picture yourself as an elephant rider on an elephant and an elephant in the middle of the jungle, we want to get to the beach. There's no path to get to the beach and it doesn't matter, you're not going to get there. So the concept of trek is that we have clinicians, we have patients searching for health information who are all motivated to learn more and to do better. They don't really know where to find that information and they certainly don’t know appropriate path to get there. So the idea of trek is to try and improve that. So that sort of started as an idea about how we do this. And then we've, I guess talking and trying to work with lots of people. It's been set up as a not for profit. Christian Barton:           08:25                So it's not meant to be owned by anyone. No one's meant to profit from it. It's trying to bring everyone together and break down the silos of competition between universities because universities don't like to talk to each other and help each other because they're in competition for the same grants and that they might be buried. The knowledge translation. So it's been really important to me from the beginning that yes, we'll try here where I work supports it. But it's not meant to be owned by the tribe. It's not meant to be by myself. It's meant to be everyone seeing. And it comes from a socialist I guess, concept called connective action where we actually, it's basically a meeting which we connect people with the same ideas. And then I did a communications degree and was focusing on journalism and multimedia and social media and writing a whole bunch of stuff around that. Christian Barton:           09:10                And I thought, well, this is a nice platform to use. I think about not just mainstream media, but also social media or whatever people turn. And then our favorite thing, doctor Google, where most people turn to health information. And when you start looking at doctor Google, it's a pretty broken system with a lot of misinformation. And so the concept and my hope is that in time, this trek movement or trek concept could maybe be something that we can't take over with Dr Google, but we can certainly contribute to the information that people find on doctor Google. And so it's getting people around the world to contribute information but create it in an engaging format that will actually get people to rate it and use it. We know there's lots of barriers to reading research for clinicians, understanding your research their reading, but also it's time. Christian Barton:           09:53                And if you can consume the same information sitting on a train, listening to a podcast or looking at a brief video or infographic that maybe gives you the key information from some research and you can trust that source, that it's not biased, it doesn't have an agenda, then that means you can be confident that you can bring that into clinical practice. And for a consumer or a patient that gets that information, they can maybe make health decisions based on that as well. So that was kind of the origins of the project and it's still growing and developing. A lot of people were helped along the way and hopefully we'll get more as well. Karen Litzy:                   10:24                And what has been, so this sort of launched last year, right? Like officially launched. So what metrics have you found from launching last year to where you are now? Christian Barton:           10:39                Yeah, so what I did is actually was lucky enough to get a small grant from the Australian physio association to build a platform to improve physiotherapists knowledge of exercise prescription. And so we did a study last year where we basically built a website, which is exercise.trekeducation.org and before we gave access to everybody, we made them do a test, which is about 20 minutes. And so I have this great data for grants. It's linked with your physios. You've still need to sit down and write up and we see big variations  of knowledge of exercise prescription. And we kind of expected, our hope was that we could then test the evaluate, right? This website helped to improve people's knowledge. Now out of 1,600, I think about a hundred filled in that follow up survey or questionnaire rate. But it was at least as the grant gave us the funding to build a platform. Christian Barton:           11:26                And it's a multisite platform. So since this time we've built a website now for many patellofemoral pain, which is a big area of mine for clinicians. We've actually just finishing up a low back pain site and a knee osteoarthritis sites. So by the time the conference is around, we will have launched them and be available and working with some other researchers to make a shoulder side. So think of all the big musculoskeletal conditions with variables. And we've also been developing platforms, consumer patients as well. And so we have one which a PhD student in new idea, Olivia or Silva has been working with me for the last two years and we did a super little trial looking to see how beneficial that might be by itself. And then in conjunction with physiotherapy intervention. And certainly the website by itself is incredibly helpful for improving patient's knowledge and self management strategies, their confidence in doing things. Christian Barton:           12:17                And it seems to lead to reasonable clinical outcomes as well by itself, but probably better outcomes if we combine it with physio. And we haven't done what to evaluation yet, but we're hoping that we can start to do that more and more as we go along. And most importantly, just have some quality resources that are free. You don't have to pay for it, just there, you can use them. And it's been nice to see the exercise site. And certainly the one with the value at the moment. There's plans to do this as well, but they've been embedded into teaching curriculum as well, which has been really good. So University here at La Trobe is using them, but other universities around the world have also used bits and pieces of content and that's the idea of it is to write and use it all way pointless multiple people around the world creating the same content when we could work, maybe be better together. Karen Litzy:                   13:06                No, that makes a lot of sense. And now you're sort of like you said in the beginning, sort of doing a little bit of both your research and clinician. So why are we, in your opinion, why is it so important to bridge that gap between research and clinical practice? Christian Barton:           13:23                Yeah, I think from, if I put not my research hat that my clinician hat on and I think about our physiotherapy profession, I think we have some amazing physios around. We do really, really good job. We have others who are very good physios that are working really hard to continue to improve knowledge. We have a lot of practice that I would also consider as pretty low value care and sometimes iatrogenic care where actually maybe delivering health education and information is actually detrimental to the patient. And so I think collectively we need to work really hard to establish our brand better and better because we can do better. And a big part of that is actually making sure that what we do know to be beneficial for patients all around the world is actually disseminated into the hands of people who can use it. And that's a big part of that is physios and other health professionals. So that's the big passion for trying to change it. And I see in my clinic second and third opinions and sometimes it's just the patient hasn't been motivated, haven't done the things that I need to do that have actually been given really good guidance. But equally we see cases where they've seen multiple health professionals and just the treatments and information being given is just not aligned with what we know of contemporary knowledge around evidence about what should help that person Karen Litzy:                   14:36                As physio therapists, what do you think we're doing really well and were doing right and what do you think we need a little bit of hopefully they’re not doing wrong. But what they just need a little boost. Christian Barton:           14:57                Yeah, it's a good good question. I think in the most part physio practice and physical therapy practice is moving towards more active management and there's lots of debates on Twitter and social media and people argue about the value or lack of value, whichever side to sit on about manual therapy and things like that. But I think overall we are moving to more active management approaches. We are moving more towards managing the pain science side of things and educating patients better about that. And I think that's probably what we're not doing very well is building that brand of what we deliver. And as a couple of hours to that one is I guess getting collective way across the board that we're all on the same page and delivering similar high value interventions. And what that means is some patients will go to see for therapists or physiotherapists, then they maybe get delivered a lot of electrotherapy or something else and they don't get better in a long time. And then they go back to their doctor or their surgeon and say, oh, I did PT, I did physio. It didn't help. Karen Litzy:                   15:54                Yeah, yeah. Failed PT. Christian Barton:           15:57                It failed. And I think that's something that drives me a little crazy is you don’t fail that profession, you fail an intervention. It's a lot of inappropriate surgeries and other treatments. I think collectively we need to be more on the same page, but that's something the knowledge translation probably helps with a lot. The other part that I think we do very, very poorly and actually worked with Rob Brightly, he's going to be presenting the conference and that is collecting outcome measures. So we don't actually measure what we do very well. We occasionally measured them and this is the same around the world for compensable patients because we're forced to. But if you were to audit most people's clinical practice and say, can you show me that what you do is truly valuable, it's worth something. Christian Barton:           16:48                Most physio practices won't be able to. And I reflect on myself and I can't do this very well. So we need to get better at measuring the value of what we do. So we can take that information to funders and say, hey, we are actually worth something in what we do is worth something. And so I think that's a cultural thing and it's a systems thing and I think it's something we collectively maybe need to work pretty hard to, to try and change. And certainly locally I'm trying to work with the Australian physio association here and it started to come up with some processes that you can, we might do that and knowledge translation. One of the projects I've enjoyed the most here in Australia is a program called GLA:D. I'm going to talk to Ewa recently and that will be certainly discussed at the conference in the biggest strengths of GLA:D isn't it aligns with clinical practice guidelines. Christian Barton:           17:34                That's education and exercise. So I'll bring that standard up across the board. So first to trust that when they send someone to the program they will get exercise with education and it also raises the outcomes related to that as well. So it can turn around and we have some great data in Australia which were yet to publish, but it certainly shows from now data that not only does pain improve, which is something that may or may not be the most often, but also changes things like medication and also changes things like surgical intention. So people may believe I need surgery or going down the line to surgery. Am I saying certainly in Australia that less people are desiring that. But we look at that in GLA:D that's great here. But the rest of  physio practice so you have nothing to contemplate. Suddenly we need to work. You don't run out. Karen Litzy:                   18:19                Yeah. And I know the APTA here in the United States does have an outcomes registry that they started I think maybe a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago is starting to collect that data so that we can take it at least here in the US to insurance companies to show that what we do is valuable and that what we do should be reimbursed. Christian Barton:           18:42                Do people contribute to it, do the people actually give data? Karen Litzy:                   18:51                I don't know the answer to that question cause it is voluntary. So I don't know the answer to that question at the moment. But I would assume some people do, but do the 300,000 physical therapists that work in the United States? No, but hopefully it's something that will grow over maybe the next, I mean it's slow. Right? So it may take like a decade plus to kind of, if we're being realistic. Right? If someone were to audit my books so to speak, I dunno. I can certainly show that. I don't know. I don't know. That's something I need to get better at, so I'm calling myself out, I guess. And it's something that I certainly need to do better at myself. Karen Litzy:                   19:52                So let's talk about your experience as a researcher. So we'll move from kind of the clinical dissemination to do you have any tips for, let's say, new and upcoming researchers or even physio therapy students who maybe want to go into the research track to kind of help maximize their potential for reach and for knowledge dissemination? So, you are the researcher, you're doing great work and then what? It doesn't get to where it needs to go. So what tips would you give to people to help with that dissemination? Christian Barton:           20:37                Yeah, sure. So we put together a paper, which was just recently published in BJSM, trying to remember the exact title, but it's time. I think it's something along the lines of it's time for a place, publish or perish. We've got vanished. Yeah. So we have this in research that if you don't publish your work, then obviously there's no record of you doing it. But also you can't give credibility to your work in peer review processes. Very important to doing that. When we go for job promotions and we got the scholarship, for example, to do a PhD or whatever it might be, they're a competitive process and people look at metrics and one of the key metrics is really simple is how many papers have you published? What journals are they publishing? So it's really hard to get away from that. But ultimately, as we've discussed, that doesn't put the knowledge into the end users hands. Christian Barton:           21:23                And what happens is we end up with commercial companies selling pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals and surgical interventions. That can be, I guess maximize money. And even pay teams event and for that matter. And so therefore the researchers, good knowledge doesn't get there. And maybe in health information that if news information gets cut through to clinicians and to patients, so you simply have to allocate some time to do it and you have to be quite aware and understanding that that might mean that you take a little bit of a heat on your academic gap or from a publication perspective because when they have so much time in the day. So that's a thing. It's just having that expectation that you can't do it all. That's really important. Spending some time on it. But in saying that it's not a ton of extra time to, after you publish a great RCT that was part of a PhD or whatever it might be, to spend some time with your media team at the university, put out a press release about that RCT and what the implications might be, which there may be ways from a radio interview or getting picked up in papers. Christian Barton:           22:27                And so that's not a lot of extra work on top of maybe two or three years of the study even. Right. I think linking in with me, your teams at different universities is a really good starting point if you can. Then we have the social media world, and the social media world as a challenging one because there's a lot of strong and loud voices on there. Some of them are good, strong amount, Sometimes there's misinformation from those strong loud voices. And so you're going into competition for the microphone essentially on social media to do that. And you can get on and you can have debates and arguments and discussions and conversations about your research that you've done. But ultimately the people who disseminating, interpret that are the ones with the loudest voice and that's kind of, you can lose your information, which is a bit of a frustrating thing. Christian Barton:           23:12                So yeah, so people get very frustrated about that when they've spent two or three years doing some research and then it gets misinterpreted by someone on social media who's got the microphone. So there's a few options around that. I think one of them is either creating a skill yourself or working with someone who has the skills to create knowledge translation resources. So we know from research that we've done and certainly evaluation of this is that the general consumer and that consumer can be the coalition or it can be the patient won't engage with your article, but they are likely to engage with your article but they are likely to engage with an infographic or an animation video. And so spending some time and effort on creating those types of resources to summarize your research findings is probably time and money well spent. So I'd strongly encourage people to price some emphasis on that. Christian Barton:           24:04                And then you've got an asset on social media, and if you already have a big following on social media, you have to be the one that shares that asset because you've created the asset. So you've controlled the narrative of what goes into that asset and the key messages. You can then leverage the people. We do have a market friend and hopefully they can then share for you, et Cetera. We help with so you can spend your time arguing with the people, misinterpreting your work on Twitter or you can spend your time maybe creating some of resources. And I guess the concept of trek is to try and create resources with those types of things can be embedded into a web page. So if you've done research on my back pain and it's game changing research, then those knowledge translation resources can be put onto a platform on trek. Karen Litzy:                   24:50                Yeah. Great Advice. Anything else? So we've got getting to know the media team at your university to release a press release, which is huge because that can lead to other opportunities. And knowing how to either get your original research onto an infographic or an info video or a podcast, and then use that as your vehicle via social media, attaching that to some social media influencers, if you will in order to kind of get that out there. But I definitely think that's much better advice than banging your head against the wall and arguing with loud voices. Christian Barton:           25:34                Yeah, exactly. Probably the other advice, if you go back a step in terms of designing search, it's probably really important and this hasn't been done well, but you engage the end user from the beginning. So going back a step and when you're designing your clinical trial, no good designing an intervention that no patient is going to engage or to use. So you might design an exercise program that you think is amazing and it's fantastic, but actually when the patients in the trial do it because they in a clinical trial, but then you go into the real world, It's too challenging for them to do. It's just too difficult. And therefore you're going to get criticized for your intervention that isn't clinically applicable. You want to cop that criticism in that design phase and people say, this is not clinically applicable. This won't work. Because then you've got time to redevelop on it and evaluating it and then realizing it won't cut through. So that's, yeah, I will probably important thing to think about. So when we talk about engaging the end user, particularly patients as the end user, but also clinicians as well, and getting their input because they're all going to be the ones delivering yet. And just to some extent, funders, they're a little harder to talk to. Karen Litzy:                   26:45                Yeah. Yeah. A little bit easier to get in with the patients or your fellow colleagues, hopefully. And now earlier you had mentioned that you have done research into topics such as patellofemoral pain. We also know that you do research in running injuries, obviously knowledge translation. So let's talk about kind of some common misconceptions around, we'll take running injury prevention and management, right. Cause these misconceptions come about because of poor dissemination of information I think is one aspect of it. So what would you say are some common misconceptions around running and injury prevention? Christian Barton:           27:32                Yeah. So we can go into lots of areas here. Karen Litzy:                   27:35                No, it’s a lot of branches. Christian Barton:           27:37                Yeah. So let's stick to running because it's a popular thing again. Everyone likes to manage runners and treat runners and not a lot of people like to run themselves. We actually put an infographic series out on our trek website. So James Alexander who is a master student environment moment putting together a series and we have the graphics and there's a few key ones for running injury prevention. One being stretching helps. And so that's something that has long been ingrained in people's beliefs that why you’re getting injured is that you haven’t stretched enough then stretching doesn't actually help us prevent injury. So it's not that it's a bad thing necessarily, although there is some evidence that stretching might impair muscle function, might actually reduce your ability to have muscle function but certainly it doesn't prevent injury. Christian Barton:           28:31                So focusing on that as the problem is probably not the answer. Footwear often gets blamed for injuries, prevention and also as though the key focus. Now typically most of the times if you changed before where yes, it could definitely cause the injury drastic change, but a lot of times it's not the fault of a footwear. Someone buys a new pair of shoes, but they also decide they want to get fit and lose weight at the same time. And they go out and they overload and they train too much. Karen Litzy:                   29:01                Yeah. So those things kind of do overlap cause you get motivated, you go out and buy the new shoes and then you blame the shoes and not so much the amount of load that you just put through your body that you haven't put through your body in months or years. Christian Barton:           29:14                Exactly. This is not the shoes that are important because they will moderate where the loads go can to some extent. But I think we get very obsessed and part of that comes back to who controls information that gets out there. And it's shoe  companies, right? They sell shoes. There's all these motion control technology that shock absorption technologies. And so that's a big marketing campaign and that changes what people buy. And what I will say, it's a big problem. People have that answer. And then we have big pushes about minimalist shoes and they're the answer to everything. And in reality it's probably going to be very variable across different people in it. People with running shoes, all their life will be taken into women's shoe. That's a big change. So that will probably injure them. So yeah, might help. They need, they might get some acuities buying. Christian Barton:           29:59                It might help their heel pain or forefoot stress fracture. So again, just that big emphasis on footwear and often because it's a commercial and marketable thing is offering the way what happens? I always love the example of Australia by a guy called cliff young. So some people are watching may know him, but those who don't, he actually run the first ever Sydney to Melbourne ultra marathon. So that's 800 kilometers or so. And one of our quite a few hours now, cause John did most of his training in numbers. He used to run two or three hours on his farm every day chasing sheep in Gum boots. So Wellington boots, clearly he didn't have any significant injuries. Right. And I have some great footage that I take when I teach my running course. That's some great footage of me doing that. And that's not to say everyone should go out and run in gumboots. Christian Barton:           30:46                But certainly for him he was doing it his whole life. So he's adapted to doing that. And if you're adapted to doing something, don’t change it, right? Maybe maybe you might modify footwear to reduce the weight because that we know that helps with performance, but beyond that we don't really have a lot of good evidence that changes footwear will help with injury or performance or anything like that. So my philosophy mostly before where it ain't broke, don't fix it. But there are some nuances around some biomechanical considerations depending on what you want to try and change. But that's probably a couple of the key points of stretching and in footwear and the importance we place on them. I think it's probably more important to get our training loads right. And probably also thinking about, and these are my biases and there's not strong science on this, but doing a resistance training program might be more beneficial for preventing injury. We could do more loading with our muscles and tissues without that impact. And so that's possibly beneficial. And we do see some evidence that may be doing a resistance training program helps with performance as well. And most people get down because they're trying to run personal best times or beat their friends or whatever it might be. So rather than smashing yourself more and more on the training track, maybe get in the gym and do some resistance training would be my advice. Karen Litzy:                   31:57                Great. All right. Now, we're gonna shift gears just a little bit here. So the next question is what is or are the most common question or questions, I'll put an s on there that you get asked. And this could be by researchers, clinicians, patients, maybe you've got one for each. I don't know. What are the most common questions you get asked? Christian Barton:           32:28                Yeah, so I'll start with researchers. So academics, you sort of touched on this a little bit before, but it's often around how to dedicate time and make knowledge translation, but not just that. So creating the resources we've talked about before, but how to navigate media or platforms like Twitter, like you get on Twitter and someone's attacking your research and let me see, interpret it. Or you get on Twitter and you put something out there and someone gets offended and that's a problem as well. And so it's actually, it's very difficult on social media because when you're typing things and writing things in, emotion gets taken out of things and people interpret emotions. So you might write something that has really no emotion attached to it, just a simple statement, right? But someone who thinks that you might be attacking them, we'll take that as an attack and then that creates a problem. Christian Barton:           33:19                All the time. And I know that I offend people at times because they tell me that I've offended them and that's what I really appreciate it at least it gives me a chance to reassure and go look. It's not meant to be offensive when used social media is a positive way of translating knowledge and then other people probably get offended and just don't talk to me anymore. Yeah, I think I've been blocked a couple of times. Christian Barton:           33:51                So my advice usually to people about Twitter is I think it's immediate that you can get a really good understanding about how part of the world is thinking. It's only a small part of the world. And then I think it's important to understand that that's the case. You're only getting a snapshot of some people and often it's people who have louder voices and want to go on talking, but it does give you some insight into that. And I think for me that frame some of my research questions and maybe modify as and move it and helps me narrow it down. It gives me a media where I can use assets that we've created to put them in hands of people who will disseminate them. So I think that's really, so sharing a good infographic or podcasts or video on that platform is one of the influential people there who hopefully then share your message. So I think it's important to have some presence there for that reason, but don't get emotional about it. If you feel like you're engaging in a circular conversation, you probably are engaging in circular conversation. You just stop, don’t keep going. Karen Litzy:                   34:48                Pull yourself out of it. Like I think often times what I see in those circular conversations is like somebody, it just seems like one of the parties within that conversation wants to win more than the other one. Or are they both really, really want to win. And so it's just like, I'm going to get the last word. No, you're going to know I am. No, I am. It goes back and forth and you just like, Christian Barton:           35:14                My advice in those situations, for someone who feels like they're in a circle of conversation, they're beating your head against the brick wall. Just step back for a little bit and just think why is this happening? Why is what I believe or what I think not being interpreted the same way. Right. And it might be that actually you discover your own biases and it might be that. And that's a good reflective thing. It's ok to change you mind and beliefs. That's a good thing. That's a positive thing. Or it might be that actually you don't have as much supporting evidence for what you believe in. And maybe that's because you need to do some better quality research to test your biases and maybe you discovered that actually you were wrong, or maybe you test your biases properly and you discover I was on the right track, so that's good. Yeah. You usually have to prove myself wrong more than I proved myself. Right. That's a good thing. Yeah. Or actually worse what's happening, it comes back to that communications is you're not disseminating your messages very well. So you're actually not providing an adequate messenger. You can sit back and think about that and don’t keep argue with that person. You think about some strategies to disseminate and put together a podcast or a video, or write a blog about the topic that has really good details where you've got more than a couple of hundred characters. Karen Litzy:                   36:30                Yeah, that is really useful. So, and sometimes in these kind of conversations, if you will, sometimes you can also just take the person and send them a direct message where you can write a novel if you want to do as a direct message. And I find that when you do that and you kind of can explain yourself a little bit better, it helps to kind of foster better communication and a better conversation. And oftentimes when it's in private, people are different. Christian Barton:           37:07                Yeah, that's great. And, taking the conversation off the social media platform is often a really good strategy too. Navigate and get over those miscommunications that can happen. Yeah. Karen Litzy:                   37:17                Yeah, I've done that before. Christian Barton:           37:20                That's really spread enemies. Right. And then probably the other advice I'll give to people when I've actually put a tweet about this I think earlier this year or late last year. It's just, I'll refer to them as trolls and I'll call them trolls in until they show their face. People who are on there who don't have a public face. So it's social media. So for me you should have the transparent profile and the reasons for that is you want to know where people come from and where their beliefs come from so you can understand their point of view. And if you can understand that point of view, it makes it a little bit easier to have discussions with. But there's probably people on Twitter who just set up their identify profiles just to kind of attack and stir the pot and it's just not worth engaging with those people's I used to try and have their fun with them and make a few jokes and I've done that a few times. If you'd be probably saying that like, so that's also a time wasting. So it's kind of entertaining, but it's also time wasting as well. So I think when you identify, communicates, asking you persistent questions and almost feels like you're having circular conversations just block that person. There's no, you don't know what their alterior motive is. You don't know what their conflicts of interest are. You don't know where they're coming from. Karen Litzy:                   38:28                Well, you don't even know who they are. Christian Barton:           38:31                Exactly. And so I don't think we should engage with those people. That's my first way. Most people won't like hearing that and they just keep creating new profiles. Right. Well that's okay. I never used to block anyone until six months ago, are quite a few people in racing time for that very reason. In short, if you get it, get into social media and you kind of, so you can learn from it and focus more on giving some quality content and having meaningful discussions rather than arguing. Yeah. Karen Litzy:                   39:01                Yeah. That's sort the idea of social media, especially when you're a professional, you want to be a professional because you're a professional and so, and the point of social media is to be social. Christian Barton:           39:20                Yep. I like that. Karen Litzy:                   39:21                You know, it's not to go on there and be antisocial and argumentative. You're there to be socially it's fine to debate. It's fine to disagree. But some of the things that people hear this all the time that you see on social media, you would never see that kind of an argument with people face to face. It just wouldn't happen. You know? So you have to remember to keep this social in the social media and not be like a maniac. Christian Barton:           39:52                I like that phrase. Keep the social in social media. Karen Litzy:                   39:54                Yeah. So if you could recommend one must read book or article, what would it be? Christian Barton:           40:02                Yeah, so I mentioned earlier about with the trek origins and the concept around that. So switch is probably my book. I think it's influenced my life the most from many respects. I think I gave a really brief, probably poor synopsis of it. It is the elephant, the rider and getting to the destination. But it just changes the way you think. And when you're trying to make a change, it gives you nice, simple way for you where your barriers are. So is it people don't know what they need to do? Is it about the emotion and motivation? There's lots of great analogies that examples within that that I think will kind of really inspire you to think about the rest of your work. Not just research it, it's not just clinical practice but how to change relationships with different people and things like that. So I think it's a really good book to read. I'll give you a second one as well. John Rockwood. Yeah, no, he's translation and dissemination is a book called made to stick and that's basically made to stick. So it's around how to make your messages stick. So that's a really nice book as well. So if you're trying to communicate more clearly, that will hopefully give you plenty of ideas and concepts to look out for. That'd be my to go or recommendations. Karen Litzy:                   41:12                Perfect. All right, now let's get to the conference. It is October 4th and fifth in Vancouver of this year, October 4th and fifth of this year. And can you give us a little bit of a sneak peek about what you'll be speaking about at the Third World Congress? Christian Barton:           41:32                Yeah, sure. So we've got a couple of presentations. One is actually in the session review, which I'm really looking forward to discussing with yourself and all around knowledge translation. And one of the things I want to talk about in that is how healthcare disinformation develops and spreads? Cause I think it's important we understand the mechanisms of that. And that also allows us an opportunity to understand how we can spread good information because we understand how, how can this disinformation grows and spreads. And hopefully that gives us some insight into how we can grow and spread the good quality information. And so we'll go through some of that and break down some of the things we've talked about around using I guess digital assets for knowledge translation in. One of the things I've actually really looking forward to talking a little bit more about is some of the outcomes from the research we've been doing, particularly around patients and finding them and what we can achieve through a good quality website. Christian Barton:           42:23                So we have a review at the moment, which is under peer review looking at patellofemoral literature and it doesn't just do a systematic review of patient education. It also looks at online information sources. Basically when we look at all of those is the vast majority of conflicts of interest, often financial conflicts of interest. There's a lot of missing information on there. And so for the person navigating that, that's really challenging for them. And we've done a lot of qualitative work with people with the patellofemoral pain. And then part of the new ways work I talked about before, we actually did reasonably if we needed to clinical trial where for a period of that trial all they had was a website that we developed for them. And we put multimedia and engaging resources with quality information and accurate information, simple exercise program that they could do. Christian Barton:           43:12                And so we're still pouring through the results and we'll have it done before the conference and I can see from the preliminary stuff was actually do really well by themselves with quality information. And certainly that then makes your life easier as a physio cause you don't have to fill in as many gaps. I can focus on adequate exercise prescription or clarifying some information and things like that. So it makes us more efficient. So yeah, really looking forward to talking about that in our session. And then the second session I'll be talking on is around exercise prescription and I think the title is beyond three sets of 10. And so I mentioned at the beginning my research started in the biomechanics lab and I used to think biomechanics, were the be all end all and I've probably changed my opinion on that over the years and very subtly, very slowly and I still think biomechanics matter, and exercise prescription around that can be important, but equally education alongside your exercise prescription to address things like Kinesiophobia and pain related fear or something that we find is a really important factor in managing people’s pain. Christian Barton:           44:19                So yeah, a huge barrier to actually getting engagement, but even getting, they might do exercise but they won't get as much out of it if you haven't tackled those fears and beliefs. We'll talk some of the research we've done in that space recently around how that can guide exercise prescription and some processes around that. And then I've had some fun almost on the other end of the spectrum where we've actually just got people in the gym and focus more on physiological responses and we just smashed it in with strength and power. And one in physical therapy in sport, which is just a feasibility study. Probably 10 people, people who we just put through a resistance training program of strength and power and the reason we did this study is when you look at all the patellofemoral literature, no one has done a program of adequate intensity of progression and duration. Christian Barton:           45:10                You would actually see any meaningful changes in strength and power despite the fact that a lot of them say that they do strength from your title when you actually look at their protocols are not true strength protocols. So we decided to just put great people through this program and just smashed them in to do. And they did better than I thought they would do. I was actually surprised. And so we'll talk about some of the findings and implications of that and how to put that into your clinical practice. And I think the whole idea for me is we have these programs that physios focus on around motor control and they often low dose exercise. Don't know what the education part alongside that done very well around pain, weighted fear and even exercises to tackle that. And simple great exposure. But equally we don't get the end stage stuff done very well. Actual really good progressive resistance training. Yeah. I think we get the middle part done well, but we kind of miss those two elements that's trying to bring all that together. So I'm looking forward to that where it’s not just three sets of 10 of hip abduction and knee extensions. Karen Litzy:                   46:11                Yeah, no, that sounds great. And, and I know that anyway, they'll probably be a lively discussion around that topic. I know here in the US, if people are using their insurance, they're often cut off before we would ever even remotely get that. Let's get you in the gym and really do it, you know, let's really kind of work and like you said, like smash it out, get them stronger, get them confidence and, and it's unfortunate, but that's the system that we have to play in and yeah. Christian Barton:           46:44                Well, we can put a link up to the paper on the Facebook group. It’s actually open access at the moment? It's appendix of all the exercises. I think they're really simple exercises which was kind of cool about. So we just, we really just pushed it straight away and we only went for 12 weeks. And that was purely from a feasibility perspective of yeah, it just costs money to do these projects over a long period of time. Yeah. But my bargain is that if we kept going and with the clinical hat on, they continue to improve, at least in terms of function. A whole different kettle of fish, but they can do more exercises, more progressive. We make it, the more they can do and wherever their pain usually reduces. But wherever it gets to the point where they're happy or not, at the conference we'll talk about that. Karen Litzy:                   47:29                Yeah. Sounds great. I look forward to it. And are there any presentations at the conference that you're particularly looking forward to? Christian Barton:           47:38                Yeah. So I think, and not just because I'm talking to you now, but looking forward to our presentation, not just from me talking but also hearing from yourself and rod and I, I think one of the things I've appreciated about knowledge translation and using social media experts, there's no person in the world that knows everything you guys had it through. Then over the years I've actually learned quite a bit from yourself with the podcasts and stuff you do and really enjoy some of yours. And I think I like the process and approach you've taken and I think you've been quite inspirational about how you can actually find a model where you can spend time doing it, which is really cool. I'm so looking forward to hearing more about that and maybe you have some good tips for me, but also Rob Whitely presenting in the same session. Christian Barton:           48:22                I really like the way rob thinks, he thinks very differently to most people. He's got my favorite Twitter profile picture that I've seen so enough. Those are not from Australia where I quite understand it, but there's a picture of a kid with his head down looking asleep. We've got ex Prime Minister Tony Abbott talking at the same time. So it's quite a funny picture. But he's, yeah, he's a bit eccentric, but also very clever for instance. The whole conference is really good with lots of, I think clinically focused presentations because everyone presenting going through it has a really strong clinical focus here in what they do. I think that's a real strength of it. The Saturday morning there'll be a couple of really good workshops I was looking at it yesterday and trying to work out knowing that you would ask this question where I want to go. Christian Barton:           49:13                And you've got that and it's allowing presentation with Ewa Roos, Christine, both of which have a huge respect for and I’ve learned a ton about exercise. And so I'm looking to that and saying what other things I could learn from my clinical practice. But at the same time, talk to you about upper limb, the same stuff. Now I see a few cases in shoulders. I don't see as many as Rollin, so it'd be great to learn some things from them, but also I liked to take knowledge from other areas and see how I can apply that to lower limb in my research and yeah. One interesting to do that, but I reckon I'm going to have an apology to those guys for saying that I won’t be able to make both. I'll have to make sure I send someone along. Karen Litzy:                   49:55                It’s going to be hard to choose, but you know, you'd take someone over, you have to divide and conquer. Exactly. You know, can you send someone with that? Yep. Need a team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over a beer or wine Karen Litzy:                   50:32                No, for me, like a small little glass of beer. That's right. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And you know, look at sports congress. This past year I did not have the flu. So drinking those like small little ones kept me awake. Christian Barton:           50:49                Good, good, good. Karen Litzy:                   50:51                I found like this sweet spot. Well Christian, thanks so much for coming on and giving your time. Thanks everyone for coming on and listening. And Christian, where can people get in touch with you? Where can they find you? They have questions or they want to give you some unsolicited feedback or arguing. Christian Barton:           51:26                Very happy, very happy with any feedback or questions. Probably easiest way to engage is probably on Twitter. So do you use Twitter a little bit for that? We also have a Facebook group for the trek exercise group. So if you look that up, I might put a link to that as well. So it's trek exercise group. And so that's not a bad medium to kind of start to engage with the trek initiative. And we'll actually use that to launch the back pain and also arthritis websites and I can put some links on there to the top from a website which we set up. And actually the other thing on that note, and I might put this on the Facebook page here as we have a course for anyone who's interested, it's a free online course learning how to critique randomized controlled trials. Christian Barton:           52:14                So basically it takes you through some modules about how you go back to taking them. Before that we kind of get your knowledge and confidence on your capacity to do that. Do the course and then you could take a few articles and then at the end of it there's a followup test to see how you go. There are actually some prizes as well. So at this point in time we've had I think over a hundred people sign up to this. But only around about 20 finished. Yeah, there are two $500 prize as far as with Australian dollar prize. So at the moment those 20 people will have finished it or, and we've a one in 10 chance we'd pop your dollars. Say I would suggest that you jump on board and have it for learning, but chances to win a prize Karen Litzy:                   52:51                This is 500 Australian dollars or US dollars. Christian Barton:           52:56                It’s about $350 US. So it's not as lucrative. It's not a small amount. So this is actually part of the, the trek project in collaboration at the University of Melbourne who established this. And so that's the sort of stuff that we're trying to do with trek is to put these types of resources out there and Yep. So hopefully we can get a few people on board back. Karen Litzy:                   53:21                Yeah. So you will try and put all the links. I'll find the links to books and everything that you had mentioned. Switch and make a stick and trek and we'll put them all in the comments here under this video. So that way people can click to them, and join the trek group and figure out how to get in touch with if you have any questions. So everyone, thanks for listening, Christian. Thank you so much. This was great, and I look forward to seeing you in Vancouver.   Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes!

Being a Christian and being wealthy can seem like an oxymoron. I confess I have struggled with money and faith. As a Christian should I give it all away and go live a life like Mother Teresa? Or as a Christian, how do I recognize my gift of serving others through education and business? Could it be that the Bible is the best business book ever written? Today, I will share a bit of my story of how becoming a Christian helped me to grow wealth like never before. >> [02:41] I have always been focused on success thinking. Whether I am teaching future engineers, working with professionals, or helping others start companies, I am always focused on ways to help them become successful. >> [05:44] Our culture connects wealth with evil. These messages are powerful in music, movies, the news, social media, and even in schools. So Christian wealth seems an oxymoron. >> [13:05] I started to become service-oriented and think a lot about how I treated and served my customer (and my boss). >> [19:08] I begin to see my gifts. What I thought I was good at was wrong and the source of a lot of my struggle. I found my gift and served better knowing it. >> [23:01] The work I did was becoming more valuable because I was using my gifts and not being timid and hiding them. I paid attention to the needs of others, saw a place I could serve, and served.   Click here to listen now. Subscribe & Review in iTunes Are you subscribed to my Company of One? If you’re not, I encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in iTunes! If you like what you hear, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast. I also love reading them and connecting with you. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you! Links mentioned in this episode: Episode 119: Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset Master of Engineering Management in Information Engineering and Management Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

Download this Episode Video marketing is a common discussion among real estate agents right now. Today we discuss some of the things to avoid during when video marketing listings in real estate. reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 23:49 RTRE 62 – Video Marketing in Real Estate [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I'm Chris here with Christian and Nate. And today we're talking about…Nate what are we talking about?  [Nathan]: What are we talking about? Listing videos and… [Chris]: Listing videos. We're talking about listing videos today.  [Nathan]: We're gonna be talking about listing videos. What's great about this episode, I think is, I'm not gonna be talking a lot, because I don't do listing videos. So that's…that's great. But Mr. Harris here is…is really…God he…what's the proper…he got a wild hair posses on this one. It was brought up I guess. [laughter] [Christian]: Oh boy.  [Nathan]: He has got has got some strong opinions people. About these listing videos and so I mean… I guess I have opinions. It's you don't need to do them. But I guess if you're gonna do them we're gonna let Christian talk about what you should do and shouldn't do. As we always talk about I guess on our podcast. I'm actually intrigued to hear what he's got to say. Because maybe I'll learn something since it's not something I ever venture into. So Christian you want to talk about listing videos and…and how they're done. Right. or how they're done wrong? Or maybe it's about content but you got some strong opinions. But what got this wild hair up, you know, to be so “eick” about it? [laughter] [Christian]: I don't know how much of a wild hair. But, I mean, Nate so what do you do to market your listings? Because that's when I say listing videos, I'm using it as a general term the agents use to market their listings. [Christian]: Well I tell all my clients up front too that if somebody comes in here and tells you they're gonna market their home, well I'm gonna tell them “Dude that's a [censored] word generally.” In our market, again we talked about this in the last two episodes, when I say our market here. You know what you have to do for marketing in Columbus? Put in MLS. It hits Trulia, Zillow, Redfin, boom boom boom boom boom. Right. great pictures I think are a giant, enormous and key. I don't see the need for video and unless it's depending on the caliber of the home. Right. I could…could do it. And then I'll segue. I think a lot of it depends on what you're also charging the client. Right. But…marketing…you put it in…put it in MLS.. Right. now that's about all you need to do. I mean… [Christian]: OK so let me let me ask you so what…so if you believe that all agents marketing is automatic, what value are you bringing your clients? What do you actually do for your clients that other agents don't do? [Nathan]: Boom. I'm better at negotiating then I think about 90% of the people out there. I guide them through the process of preparation getting their home prepared to put it on the market. What may need to be done or not need to be done to that home. Right.  [Christian]: So how's that presented if you're not doing a marketing? And you're doing photos. Right. But everybody does photos. [Nathan]: But yeah everybody does photos. But again everybody does photos, b ut there's a difference in the quality of photos. Right. you got plenty of agents to walk in with their own camera or their iPhone and take photos, yeah. Right.  [Chris]: Stay away from the Galaxy you all. Just… [Nathan]: Yeah right. Or you have an agency and a professional photographer to photograph a home. Right.  [Chris]: Which standard should be standard.  [Nathan]: Should be but I would… [Christian]: They can't…[crosstalk] [Nathan]: 50% of agents in the Columbus market do not use professional photography.  [Chris]: And Christian yes a photographer should be standard even on a vacant house. [Christian]: Oh no it should be. That was a little throwback to our last episode about the value of staging, you know. Yep professional photos help a house.  [Chris]: Photographer yes. Stager maybe not. [Christian]: Right. [Nathan]: And again I think it depends. Now what I do, I offer three options when I go on a listing presentation. You have a four percent of five percent and a six percent. Right. And they all vary with what you get for that amount of commission. Some people don't want to spend six percent. Most people go towards a five. But… [Christian]: So you give them options? [Nathan]: I give them options yes. And a lot of people like… [Chris]: It's a menu. [Nathan]: Yeah it's a menu. Right. It's no more. But I personally don't believe video sells a house. Why? Didn't [censored] sell a house 10 years ago. Why? Because they weren't doing it. And things sold just fine. So… [Christian]: Well I mean that's…I mean it's a, you know, you know, you don't want to get into that topic because there wasn't an internet ten years ago. And things have changed so… [Nathan]: Right. So… [Christian]: You know what that last brokerage said? “This is that we've done for 40 years, I'm not going to change it now.” [Nathan]: Famous last words. [Christian]: I don't think that's what you're saying. I hope not.  [Nathan]: No. But like so you say, well “What do you provide?” Well I also offer…I hate the word [censored] “discounted” but I will list your home and provide what generally is the same as any other agent, I just do it as a better rate. So but go back to your videos. [Christian]: OK OK. I wasn't…that was intended as a joke. As just kind of… [Nathan]: No it's OK.  [Christian]: I wanted to hear what you thought was the value you provide.  [Nathan]: Here is the other thing I provide. I provide them [censored] honesty because most real estate agents are [censored] liars. They won't tell the truth. They'll say anything to get the [censored] listing. I don't know if I talked about it. Let me rant on this one. I just went, did a listing presentation, like three weeks ago. I don't think I've talked about this. Right.Bbut the client walked me upstairs and I walked in the room and I went “Oh my God that [censored] wallpaper has got to go.” [Christian]: Yep you mentioned that in the... [Nathan]: Right. [Chris]: Yeah that's a good one.  [Nathan]: Right. So yes she laughed. Right. And I said what's so funny Jenny? She says “All the other agents came in here, just told me the room look beautiful. You're the first one to tell me it's ugly and I know it's ugly.” Most people just don't tell the truth. [Chris]: Was that the dentist? [Nathan]: Yes. [Chris]: Yeah I remember that one.  [Nathan]: What? What…what do you get? Right. You get pure honesty. You don't like it? Than don't [censored] hire me. Enough about that. [laughter] Let's go back to…we were talking about videos. How do we get back to videos? This all started with videos. [Chris]: Back to listing videos. [Christian]: Right.  [Chris]: Bring it in.  [Christian]: We've believed at this point a little bit. Nat's value is not in the marketing. And I'd say most agents' value is in the market, because honestly it is pretty automatic, it's pretty syndicated these days. And it's something, you know, I tell my…my clients too. It's like “Listen this is what an agent is gonna tell you. This is [censored]. This is, you know, this is…this is how it works.” I think my axe to grind when it comes to listing videos is that what most agents call listening videos are glorified slideshows. Stop calling it virtual tour or a listing video. [Chris]: Yeah we're…we're gonna give you a virtual tour. [Christian]: A moving-picture is not a video with some you know, generic music over. That's, you know, pet peeve of mine. I don't know why people still pay for that, you know, because I'll look on the MLS we have that virtual tour link. Right. Half the time I click on it some, you know, [censored] tour factory slideshow, with some crappy music go over. I'm like “What the [censored] is this?  [Chris]: Like yeah for us its property panorama but it's the same thing. Takes all your listing videos, automatically adds the background music and there you go. I've turned mine off in the MLS. [Christian]: Yeah so that bugs me. So to me I think when it comes to marketing there's two main things you can…you can do. And maybe three. I mean you could do a dedicated, you know, listing website. Which I think could be helpful, especially if you're seller is gonna share it, you know, as opposed to sharing like the MLS link or something, which looks, at least for us, looks archaic and cheesy. So having a dedicated landing page can be a helpful tool. Something like Kingston Lane. Really cheap. They do a good job. Or doing like a Matter Ports [phonetics] for 3d tour. I still think that is really powerful as a way for people to do a walk-through without actually being there. So they get a good feel for the house which you… [Chris]: Matter Ports is good. [Christian]: Yeah so we use that on all our listings. If you're gonna do video, I think you can either detract or enhance the house, to pay on how well it's done. So I say for most agents is probably not what you want to do. One, it tends to be expensive if you do it right, because you're gonna hire it out. If you do it yourself…you…you better be pretty damn good, you know. The reason I go with Matter Ports instead of videos, is because it allows the end user to control the experience. They get…it goes as fast as they want. They get to look at what they want. They're not stuck with “Oh it's a 30 second video and I didn't get to see what I wanted in the house.” Or “It's a 5 minute or 10 minute video and oh my God why is there five minutes of drone footage outside, before you get inside the house. I'm done.” They click off. So the problem with video is that nowadays people want it quick. They want to see what they want to see. And so it can really shoot you in the foot if you're not…if it's not done well and it's not done timely, it doesn't have a specific point. But I do still think there's definitely room for it. And…and there's some great people out there doing some…some really cool stuff.  Like I don't know if you guys saw the listing video for Ryan Lewis's house out here in Seattle. It's, you know, thirty million dollars or some crazy mansion. And they basically hired a influencer to do a twenty minutes basically like a roast of his house, under the guise of he's breaking and entering into Ryan Lewis's house. It is as they're making fun of it the whole…whole time through. And it's hilarious. It doesn't really good job to showcase the house. In like a normal listing video I won't last three seconds, and this thing, you know, watched all twenty minutes of it. Because it was funny. It was memorable. It's an amazing house, you know, then, you know, some more grassroots people, they're doing some amazing stuff with. Like Tim Macy, you know, our common Cameron, which we've had both them. [Chris]: Yeah they've both been on the podcast. [Christian]: Yeah but, you know, the RETV Facebook group is great for kind of forward-thinking, video focused content makers. [Chris]: Erica Wolf just did a new tour of a home.  [Christian]: Right. Yeah…yeah that was pretty…pretty funny.  [Chris]: See those are the things that the MLS won't allow as like listing videos though. Because with an MLS, at least in Georgia, for our listing tours it has to only be the property. So you can use Matterport or could do a video walkthrough, you can't do anything creative on the MLS board. So that's…that's outside of our listing video territory. That's social media marketing. That's promotion… [Christian]: This is if you want to stand out and actually provide something, not just as your own brand, but like if…if your clients want to be aligned with that outside-the-box viral video stuff, you know, I mean…I know like Phil Greeley, locally, he's a Sotheby's and he's just double down on video. And he's gotten some really high-end listings because he's done some…yeah from like doing some amazing videos. That get some great traction, you know. Like that he wouldn't have got that if he just did photos. [Chris]: [inaudible] with Gary Vaynerchuk [phonetics]. [Christian]: Yeah I'm just saying… [Chris]: And he was one of our first guests.  [Christian]: Yes. But I'm just saying it's not like it's worthless. [Chris]: No. [Christian]: But if you're gonna do it, do it right. [Nathan]: Some people do like…what's his name, The wolf of Whistler. [Chris]: Wolf of Whistler?! [Nathan]: Oh tell me you've seen it. [Chris]: Oh I know what you're talking about. Yeah.  [Nathan]: Well I mean his is good. I mean, you know, it's very much like a dollar shape for housing. But it was…I mean it's catchy, it's good, it gets people's attention. [Chris]: So let's talk about quality of listing videos. Because Christiane you kind of got into it and I did a lot of Matter Port. I think Matterport is good spending the money when it's not a seller's market. When…when you don't have to worry about, you know, the property being on the market more than 24 hours. [Christian]: I just do it in all my listings. But I own the camera. [Chris]: So out of Christian… [Christian]: I am just saying it's, you know, it's part of what we offer.  [Chris]: OK. I'm glad, you know, like staging is part of all your listings. I'm sure there's exceptions. [Christian]: If it makes sense. If it makes sense. [Chris]: Yeah yeah it's part of all my listings. So Matterport I've done. And…and I found that the Matterport increased the quality of the showings. Because by the time the people are coming out there, they've seen the property, over and over again. They've already walked the property over and over again. It's decrease the number of showings before contract. And then during the contract period its decrease the number of walk throughs. Why? Because we've already got a diagram that has every measurement of the home that's listed and it's online.  So we've got the entire floor plan of every floor of the house, that Matterport comes with. In addition to that they can continue to walk and do whatever they want. They can be screen shots and save the images. Whatever they need to do at night, in bed, kids are asleep. Whatever it is. Husband and wife. Whoever is buying the house can look at the property together or by themselves and just figure out where their furniture is gonna go, without coming back out to the house while it's under contract. So it's dramatically decreased the number of showings, but it's also decreased the number of times the buyer has to come to the house. In substantially sized homes.  Video. 100% has to be quality. I have fired video or content companies, for photo, Matterport, video. They do it all. I fired them because when I saw the video that they turned out, I can see the footprints in the video going up and down as the photographer's walking through the freaking house. And it just drove me nuts because it's like giving me motion sickness. And I know that my eye is better for that than like most of the public. And hardly anybody's gonna notice. But I notice. That's my brand. So that [censored], not acceptable. It's hard to find a good photographer. Somebody that can do video. Because they've got to have  the equipment. They've got to have the stabilizer. They've got to make it so like they're walking through. They're not like… [Christian]: If you're paying for it they better at least have a gimbal. So you…it doesn't look like they're walking, you know, bouncing walking through the house. I mean it's a basic. You could buy one of those for 80 bucks yourself, you know.  [Chris]: Well if you're using it for an iPhone. But for a camera it's not 80 bucks.  [Christian]: Yeah I mean they're more expensive. But my point is, you know, if you're like that's what you do, you better had the equipment for it. [Chris]: Yeah absolutely. So I've got a great photographer in Georgia. His name is Keith Hirsch, Georgia home view. Best photographer in the state in my book. I've had a lot of people come across my desk and Keith is the only one that I've looked at and I've said “You know what? I can't do this. That's like…that's way above like my…my level.” And I've been in a darkroom since I was 14. So I've been around a camera… [Christian]: They locked you the closet? Under the stairs?  [Chris]: Like developing, you know, each other. [Christian]: Oh OK I thought you were talking about child abuse. OK. I'm sorry. [laughter] [Chris]: A real darkroom. Not Harry Potter's bedroom. [Christian]: Got you. OK. [Chris]: So when I saw that, I got in. and he doesn't have a gimble. He uses a shoulder rig or I think he's got like one of those rigs for his camera, where you hold it with two hands. He's just so good that it looks fluid. Like you can't even tell. I asked him. I thought he shot the inside video with a drone, and he didn't. It was just his camera and he was walking through the property. Look the quality of your media reflects the quality of your work. That's what you're putting out there. If you're putting out a free MLS provided, you know, flipbook, of the properties that you have, the pictures that you've already listed and just putting it to music, nobody's gonna watch that. That's a waste of time. And for you to market yourself and saying “This is a video. Like we're gonna give we're gonna give a video tour of the property too. We're gonna turn all you have pictures into videos.” Welcome to 1997 like tech class in high school. Like that's…that's….we're way beyond that. [Christian]: Sure. Well and that's why I like…I mean when I first got into real estate, you know, I pretty quickly started pushing back against kind of the idea, you know, a lot of agents were being told “Hey you just do something. Just get something out there. Get content out there.” Now I'm like “Well no you better think about it. Better get it right.” Because if you put bad content out there, that's gonna hurt you worse than you if you had nothing out there, in some situations. Because… [Chris]: It's like that note, it's like that saying “There's no such thing as bad press.” [Christian]: That not true. Well because I mean if…if I…if I did…Let's say I did listing photos with my iPhone and you look like [censored] that's not better than having one good picture up there. You know, or, you know, you know, and so far we've talked about like listing videos as far as like if you're gonna do them do them, do them right, do them professionally.  But if there's…I think there's also room for, you know, more on the social media side. For the Facebook lives, Instagram lives, you know, the walkthroughs, the impromptu type stuff. You know, that's not gonna be professionally done edited, that's in on the fly type of thing. There's definitely room for that. But, you know, again have a purpose to it. Don't just be, you know, talking to talk or going live to, you know, to do it. And yeah I don't know.  What are you guys thoughts? Do you go live [Chris]: Nate? [Nathan]: No. Again… [Chris]: [laughter] “No. Not me. I don't do it.” [Nathan]:  I think a lot of these… [Christian]: I think in social media you can. [Nathan]: I think a lot of what we do right now is all dependent upon your market. And were, you know, buy or seller market. What, you know, what you're charging commission. I mean we talk about a lot of things. But a lot depends on what you charge. What condition is your market in. What…what's the house like. How much…you know, let's be honest, you know,  you're not gonna stage one hundred thousand dollar house with three thousand dollars furniture. You know, staging. Right. So it's all relative.  It's each…each situation is different. I am…like I said. I have not staged a house. I've not done video on a home. I do have one that I would consider doing video of. But I think a lot of it is overkill. It's just my opinion. Whatever you do in whoever you use just make sure they're reputable. Like here if I was to have video done, I'd called Joey…Joey T media. He does an awesome job and that's who I would hire. Right out the gate. So just make sure, you know, whatever you do it's…it's professional. That's…that's kind of where I'm at with it. [Chris]: You talked about Facebook live? And go and live on Facebook right now. Just as we're gonna wrap up this episode. [Nathan]: Oh God Almighty. [Chris]: Oh God Almighty. Heaven forbid I go on Facebook live Nate. Like really. So I mean Christian I think you've got some great points when it comes to listing media and making sure that the video is quality. Not using the stupid slideshows of images and how we do the…like the property panorama. What is it? What's the service that you have where you are? [Christian]: I mean whether it's a tool live or a factory. I mean if you wanna do a slideshow, do a slideshow. But don't call it a listing video. You know. [Chris]: Yeah.  [Christian]: Don't call it a virtual tour. [Chris]: Yeah it's a slideshow. It's not a listing video. It doesn't help market the property. Nobody's gonna look at it. Make sure that the quality's there. Or, you know, be like Nate and don't do any of it. Just be honest and, you know, what's your humor show. And there we go. [laughter] Christian is playing us back. [Christian]:  I'm watching you live well recording this.  [Chris]: Hey Christian Harris is watching. Bring them online. I'm not bringing you on camera Christian because… [Christian]: No that would be bizarre. We have like us some time vortex. [Chris]: Yeah be like…we will be looping back and forth for like minutes. So it's…it's important that we make sure that the quality of our marketing material is on par with the brand that we want to portray as our business. So, you know, any last words guys before we wrap this up? [Nathan]: No I'm good. [Christian]: Yeah….yeah I mean it's I'd say for any service you provide, any marketing, I mean it really comes down to what are you doing for the client. You know, like do you have… is this intentional or you just kind of like throwing stuff out there? You know, so whether you choose to do video or not, whether you choose to state or not. What…you know, like however you do stuff. Like make it consistent. If, you know, and…and set the expectations up front.  You know, if people are paying you to like be honest and, you know, you…you think all marketing is the same than hey or just, you know, say that out of the gate. You know, but if you think you really do something that kicks [censored] in marketing and that's why they're hiring you, hey make sure to emphasize that. [Chris]: Yeah when…what…definitely. And I will reiterate that. When it comes to your marketing, it is your name, it is your brand, it is you building your business. And if you want to be good at it you need to focus on all of the aspects of your business. You need to make sure that that media that you're putting out there to the public is a reflection of who you want to be. Period. So alright everybody thank you so much for tuning in. this has been another episode of re:Think Real Estate. We're so happy to have you on board. If you haven't already, please go to re:Think Real Estate's website which is rtre.podcast.com. Subscribe to the newsletter. You'll get a notice every time a new episode drops. And please go on…find us on iTunes at re:Think Real Estate. Leave us a five star review. Tell us what you think about the website or about the podcast. You don't even have it…you don't even have to listen to us. For anybody that's watching on Facebook live right now, just go and leave us a review. We'll be happy. [Christian]: I think. I'm the only one live now.  [Chris]: Yeah one person that's watching live right now. More people will see it later. They're always watching the recaps. So thank you so much. We will see you next week.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode Join today's discussion about how we can compete against a barrage of pressures affecting the real estate industry. We discuss where to focus attention and how to back a value proposition. Value is always more important than price. reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 33:09 RTRE 59 – Fighting the Commoditization of Real Estate [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. Nate is sick as a dog, so it's just me and Christian today. Christian how're you doing? [Christian]:  I'm doing pretty good, how are you? [Chris]:  I'm wonderful thank you so much for asking. So we're sitting here just talking and trying to figure out what the hell are we gonna talk about today, because nothing is just peeking our interest. But, you know what, we did get off into a little bit of a tangent about the commoditization of real estate and what we think real estate agents are gonna have to do in order to really pick up and continue to charge a premium service for what they're doing over the next, you know, a few years. So Christian why don't you let us know your thoughts on the matter and we'll just start the conversation. [Christian]:  Sure, I mean my, you know, initial thought on the matter and I have been thinking about it for years. And part of the reason I started my own brokerage is to have a little more leeway and, you know, how I did things and service I provide. But I think it's really…it seems to be a pretty polarizing issue for agents. The topic of compensation. Right. So there's…we all know there's a lot of, you know, new players on the markets with, you know, Redfin obviously being one of the big ones and then, you know, Opendoor and, you know, there's all these other…other ones that essentially are commoditizing the process where they're using tech to make it more efficient. Also trying to make it a better client experience to varying degrees of success. You know, if they figure it out…if they figure it out like, you know, Amazon's figured it out, you know, like the traditional brokerage models in a world of hurt. But luckily right now, you know, typically if, you know, you're…you're able to hire someone to for a discounted commission that experience is lacking. So there's still plenty of room for us to provide, you know, a more traditional compensation while being able to provide more service if your client's into that. But, you know, I think there's always going to be, you know, people who want to feed no matter what the experience or the end result they just want to, you know, save some money or they think they're, you know, they're pretty handy. And so they can do it themselves. But I think for a lot of us there's room to really double down on the experience we provide, the level of service, the complimentary things that that will pay for and take care of, you know, that sort of stuff. But I think where you get into kind of some more controversial aspects is where is the market going, you know, with…with our compensation structure, you know. And I think it really hurts us as industry and as agents and brokerages if we just have a defensive posture of protection. Because you're basically saying, you know, “I don't care what consumers want, I don't care what technology and the changing market is dictating I deserve blah blah blah.” And I think that's sticking your head in the sand. [Chris]:  That's why realtors are where we are. I mean, you know, they did the same thing on data. Right. “We're not gonna…This is our data. This doesn't belong to the public. The public they shouldn't have this. It's ours.” And now Zillow is there and Zillow has a great relationship with the consumer because they gave the data to the consumer. So I think yeah it's…you got to think about this stuff. Right. There's, you know, auto manufacturers make a variety of different cars at different budgets. Yeah, real estate is not a one-size-fits-all business. It shouldn't be. The commission is always negotiable and I think it's negotiable for a reason. I think it's negotiable because we're able to tailor what we're doing to what the client needs. If somebody goes in and says “I charge this on every single deal and I do all of this on every single deal”. Right if they charge, you know, one price to do an amazing marketing job and then they've got this little rinky-dink house that's coming along that doesn't need it all, because the price alone is gonna sell the house, why would they charge the same rate for all the same marketing, when the house does need it. So I mean… [Christian]:  It's dependable on your rates and on your service yeah.  [Chris]:  Yeah and I think that there's there's a lack of transparency there in the industry. I think that the… that that's an area right there that I just pointed out, that there's gonna be some changes in in transparency and how brokerages operate over the next, you know, few decades. We're see…we've already seen the transparency happen on the…the data being shared. But we…it's still very opaque on the pricing. [Christian]:  Yeah and, you know, and I think that transparencies is were I'm really passionate. Like we all kind of understand that there's, you know, a range of compensation structure and services provided, and…and whatnot. But I think the real key is for us as agents and brokers is to think about it from the client's perspective. Put ourselves in client's show.  [Chris]:  How dare you.  [Christian]:  And our, you know, the commission rate you think you deserve and start putting yourself in…in their position. I…I didn't…I remember when I was sitting down, you know, I did it with one of my friends who's, you know, VP of yeah this tech company. And, you know, I was kind of picking his brain but what his real estate experience was like. And, you know, he said some pretty harsh things, but I couldn't argue with him. You know, he's basically like, you know “Hey let's look at the hourly rates that, you know, agents make, you know, if they're making, you know, this amount of money on a half million dollar home sale that's like, you know, five hundred dollars an hour, you know, literally”. You know, if…if you said, you know, he kind of broke it down by…OK let's say…let's say you spend a week working on, you know, a listing. Not including, you know, that the cost you incurred or whatever. Like that's…that's a lot of money. And I'm like I can't…I can't really argue with that. Like, you know, so you better…you better be earning that or figure out to be more affective and efficient way of doing it, you know.  And I think that transparency is huge because agents may be on the face of it will argue and have their, you know, defences for why they think they deserve that compensation and won't reduce…won't reduce it. But at the end of the day, you know, you get behind closed doors and agents will talk about your main job is to prospect. Is to find new clients. Find new leads. Now the reason we have to charge so much is because you…you have to make a living, you know, doing so few transactions that so has to be at this high dollar amounts to have basically you're charging your paying clients all that time that's unbuildable that you're trying to get new clients. [Chris]:  I don't know about that. I think it can be…you can look at scales. Right so if…if an agent's making, you know, a hundred percent of their commission and paying a flat fee then yeah. Their job is to prospect. But you could…you could take all that responsibility off of the agent and you could have a brokerage that's just doing a higher split. And they've got somebody that all they're doing is setting appointments for that agent. In which case the agent job is now…the agents job is no longer the prospect. The agents job is to go out and sell homes. So it's…it it's up and… [Christian]:  All you've done is… [Chris]:  It's up to us who we will pick. Because you can take the same transaction, you could take these same structure, the same brokerage and you can make it work in like 20 different ways. There's…there's multiple ways to skin a cat. But the…the end result is that the agent has their own practice. It's just like a doctor, right. The…they are the Rainmaker. They're the producer. People come to see the doctor because it's a practice. Right. Not the doctor, it doesn't exist. So you've got to build that over time. And frankly because of the size of our transactions and the scope of our transactions you can't you can't expect us to handle a volume of, you know, low transactions to be able to give a high quality service. Because it requires a lot of attention to detail, a lot of hand-holding, a lot of nurturing, a lot of expectation setting. And…and it's not just once the property is listed. Because yeah once the property is listed, it's pretty easy. You…you get the contract and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's not. But you you're always getting that…Some…some properties are gonna be the 16 hours some are gonna be like a hundred hours. Some are gonna be multiple years that you're working on selling them. And there's…there's a ton of expenses that go into that so I just don't know. [Christian]:  Let's see and I understand that. I mean I understand all the arguments, you know, I've…I've heard it all and I probably used some of them, you know, at one point time. But the fact of there's so many different kind of models and, you know, whether or not the brokerage provides leads and different splint stuff like that doesn't matter. Because the model still the same. Like the time and money and energy to produce that lead is still in the system. It's still baked in. Right. [Chris]:  But that's the process in every business.  [Christian]:  [crosstalk] [Chris]:  That's the same thing in every single business.  [Christian]:  You know when I go buy a car I'm not paying $14,000 for it to the salesperson. You know, I'm not paying… [Chris]:  No but you're probably paying about 3% of the car value. [Christian]:  If I went…If I went to a doctor and the doctors like, you know, “Hey your…your half hour doctor's visits was, you know, ten thousand dollars.” I'm like “What the hell.” He's like “Well you understand I got my cost and got this and insurance and this and that.” [Chris]:  No but your half hour doctor's visit easily could be six hundred. [Christian]:  OK but I'm saying [laughter] we can't lay high cost for the time spent and he explains to me all of his costs and how the industry works and this and that. And sooner I'm thinking “I don't give a [censored] how broke it down in your practice.” [Chris]:  Yeah well don't explain it. This is my rate.  [Christian]:  But I'm saying that's the…that's the excuse that…that I get anytime I bring this up to other agents is “Well but I got this cost and the split and this and that”. And, you know what the consumer says “I don't give a [censored]. I don't care how you broke it and assist in this.” [Chris]:  So…so…so… [Christian]:  So I'm saying we can't…we can't basically say “hey this is just how it is. The industry is broken and I've got all these costs.” The consumer is thinking “I don't care it shouldn't cost me, you know, $500 an hour to hire an agent”. You know, somewhat my point there is we need to stop defending the industry and our compensation if their values not there. You know, like if you can't, you know, have a compelling reason for like “Hey this two days I spent on your house and I got ten thousand dollars out of it”. You know, if a consumer, you know, is savvy and breaks that down you better have a good reason for, you know, why…why you're charging so much. If, you know, if that value is not there, if the consumer doesn't see the value otherwise, I think more and more the consumer is going to Redfin.  And the Opendoors and they push a button to sell a house option. [Chris]:  I think I see. I think I understand what you're trying to get at. Which is it's not that what we're doing is not worth the value, but you're saying agents are out there to their consumer in conversation trying to justify the costs associated with running their business and their rates. [Christian]:  Sure I mean even my friend who makes his point he's like “There's value in an agent I just don't think it's as high as, you know, what…what some would say is, you know, kind of the going rate for…for hiring an agent.” So it's not that there's no value, it's just that it's…it's kind of inflated especially in this day and age when technology should be making it more efficient and cheaper. Not, you know, not keeping it the same for last 30 years. [Chris]:  But it's not. Technology has improved drastically and agent productivity has decreased over the last thirty years.  [Christian]:  Right. And so that my point is basically, I think the writing's on the wall that even for traditional brokerage models like you're not gonna be able to defend your compensation model forever because technology is going to make you obsolete, you know. New models are going to make that a harder and harder to defend. Even if you go with the “I provide, you know, a Nordstrom experience or Rapala [phonetics] things inn”. And that's guys the way I went, you know, because I don't really have an answer for how to make it cheaper and provide a good experience, you know. If someone does great but, you know, so that's…that's the one route I went instead of the I'm competing for, you know, the one percent listings or whatever, the…the discounting of…quote to discounted listings, you know. [crosstalk] value but I don't. [Chris]:  Because we have a…we have a business line that is it's basically marketing for first sale, buy owners. Gives them access to the MLS. And what we've found is that the…the properties there do on average sell for less. You know, when somebody…it's supported by all the studies that you've ever read on commission's in real estate. When one party realizes that the other party is saving money they try and take advantage of the other party. So if a seller's coming in without an agent or if the buyers working with the seller and the seller has no agent, the sellers gonna try and get that property for less than the market value by about the equivalent that the seller would have ended up paying an agent in the first place. Because when…when one party is trying to save money the other party's gonna take advantage of that and nobody ends up saving. Except maybe the party that takes advantage of it. So it really doesn't matter. The experience is ultimately key. If somebody feels like they're getting the value and that's important and I think you're right that we need to make sure that we understand our value proposition. I can't tell you how many real estate agents I've ever talked to and said, you know, what…what makes you stand out. You know, if I was talking to them about sending a referral their way or something like that and they're in a different market, I did that once for…for my admin. When I was looking for an agent in Orlando to send to them. So that they could sell their house. I went through nine agents, nine of them. All of them very reputable, very highly visible in the community, before I got to one that could literally tell me “This is why I'm the best and this is why you need to hire me.” Everybody else they were…they were spewing. I had somebody say “What do you mean?” Tell me what do I mean when I asked them why I should send business to them. Like come on, I had other people there was somebody at Exit Realty and they'd they just kind of spewed like their…their brokerage model and the tools and techniques that they had. You know, the…the agent that ended up just really impressing me her name was Dallas and she's out of Orlando spectacular. Now I'll send business to her again because my agents had or the…my admins parents had an amazing experience. She came in, she did everything she said she was gonna do and no big deal. But agents don't know what their value proposition is.  And to your point we don't need to be hung up on that number. Whatever…whatever the number is that we charge we need to make sure that accordingly for what our clients need, and then we need to make sure that we are letting them feel like they're getting value there because if, you know…I could go in and charge a million dollars and if I asked enough people I'm sure I'll get one sucker to sign on to it, but that's just a numbers game. [Christian]:  Sure well when it comes to the whole idea about your value proposition you…again you need a, you know, to do our job well you need to put yourself in that consumers place, you know. Because I've heard so many agents, you know, say “Well my value is this.” And I'm like “You're, you know, that's what your broker tells you to say. Your consumer doesn't give a [censored] about that quote value” You know, like they don't care that you have an idea X home search site. Why don't you, you know, come up with a value that the consumer is willing to pay for not something that you tell them “Hey this is a value you better value it”. You know. [Chris]:  I want to know things that I can't find out on my own. If I'm a consumer like if there's something that I can't find out or there's something I don't know, that's where my value…that's where I'm gonna find value and hiring a professional. I do not clean my own teeth, you know. I'm…I'm not a dentist, I'm gonna go…and I'm not gonna run my own x-rays. You're not gonna see me diagnosing my own medical diseases. It just like Nate said on the last episode. He called up a dentist who said “How should I pull out my teeth with the pliers or Visegrad [phonetics]”. And he goes “What?” And he goes “Well why are you listing your house for sale by owner?” And immediately…and now he has the listing that I thought that was brilliant. But it just comes down to making sure that 1-we know what we're doing and where we're providing the value that they need. And 2- that we are being better than the average bear. Right.  We want to make sure that when we're meeting with people if we're charging that premium, if we are going in and making a good bit of money on a property we need it to be worth it. [Christian]:  Right. No exactly I mean bottom line, you know, we need to be thinking about it from the consumers point of view and be flexible on what that conversation is , what the value is, you know, we're bringing what the services are. You know, don't get stuck in kind of the navel-gazing or whatever the saying is, you know. We're basically we're just kind of inward looking and, you know, all we can see is our industry talking points, you know. Don't get stuck on defending your compensation at all cost if your client doesn't…doesn't see the value there. You don't either move on to clients that do see the value or change. You know, be willing to adjust that compensation. [Chris]:  Definitely so we're about halfway through the episode today and we're gonna go ahead and do a real estate bonus thought. Christian I want to get your ideas on some of these because these are actually some new household products that just came on the market. So I don't know if you guys have it out there but we have a grocery store here called Sprouts. It's owned by Whole Foods. It's like a Trader Joe's meets Whole Foods. And I think that that's who's making these. But it's Pencils by Sprout. They get…so there's these pencils and then when they get too short you actually stick them up right into a pot and there's seeds in them. There…so there's like plant seeds embedded in the pencil. So when the pencil gets too short and you can't use it anymore you just stick it in a pot and water it. And it starts growing things. [Christian]:  It's interesting. Not something I would buy but OK [laughter]. [Chris]:  I mean hey it's like you can have your little pencil in the kitchen and then when you're done with it you stick it in a little pot and maybe grow some basil or cherry tomatoes or a mint or something like that. They come in all different…different like styles of pencil.  [crosstalk] Yeah I mean…let's see what else do we get? We have a…there's…they're now making the LED light bulbs that flicker like flames. So I don't know if you've seen those. But now they're…they're coming in LED NITOR. N-I-T-O-R I think. Is…they make a flip…flicker flame effect LED light bulb. So you can…if you've got outside electric lanterns you can put in a flame style now and they're LED and they're low power saving. Have you seen the disposable plungers? [Christian]:  No. What do you like flush it down the toilet we've done using it? [Chris]:  All right. No I think you throw them away. But… [Christian]:  OK.  [Chris]:  Do you remember a long time ago they had that…it was like that plastic wrap but you would like push the seal around the end edge. So you could take like plastic wrap and put it over a canister and instead of like it wouldn't go. [Christian]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  You push it and it would like bind together.  [Christian]:  OK sure.  [Chris]:  Well apparently that wasn't really healthy but they've got it's like a giant piece of saran wrap and it's got stickers around the edge and you put the sticker on the edge of the toilet so it covers the whole bowl. And then you just kind of push down on it creating the seal. And yeah that…creating…it's a disposable plunger. So when you're done with it you throw it away.  [Christian]:  OK so it turns the whole toilet into a plunger. OK.  [Chris]:  Yeah. Yeah it makes the…the whole seal it's like turning the…the toilet into a giant balloon and you're just pushing down to create… [Christian]:  OK. That could be a great practical joke on someone. Just put that down. [Chris]:  Oh yeah just put it down and then shut the seat and see what happens.  [Christian]:  Just wait for him to try to take number two. [laughter]  [Chris]:  Yeah or number one with the little kid, you know, I mean there's…there's no safety there. I don't know hopefully it's not clear because if it's clear then yeah. [Christian]:  But just make sure you do that joke at your friend's house. [Chris]:  Yeah don't…don't do it at my place. Definitely don't do it in my office. [laughter] So yeah that's this week's bonus thoughts. Everybody if you have any ideas of things that you want to hear on the show please make sure you let us know. Go to our rtrepodcast.com. sign up for the newsletter. Hit the contact form. Let us know what you think and what you want to hear about. If there's something cool that you think we should talk about just shoot us an email or let us know in the contact us form on the page. But please make sure you subscribe. Give us a five star review on iTunes. We really need it. We're desperately in need of them. Now… [Christian]:  Please listen.  [Chris]:  Please, please listen. Please like us. No but getting back to what we're talking about which was the…the industry creating value for our clients and making sure that we're not going to overboard and we're looking at things at a consumer's perspective. So Christian I'll let you continue on with…with what you were talking about there with making the consumer step it into their shoes. So how do you step into the consumer shoes? [Christian]:  [laughter] See organize my thoughts. I might to edit out some of this… [Chris]:  This will be edited, highly edited, highly alcoholic, highly flammable. [Christian]:  OK I mean I'm trying to think about like everything…anything else I haven't already kind of… [Chris]:  How do you know what the consumer wants?  [Christian]:  I mean I think that comes with experience. I mean the key to put yourself in the consumer shoes it's thinking “OK if…” Try to…try to forget that you're an agent in the industry. It's all easier to do if you're new which I think is kind of what gave me the edge, you know, when I got into this. But try to say “OK if I was buying a house or if I was selling a house what would I want? What would, you know, what would I want my agent to be able to do for me? What would my expectations be? What I'd be willing to pay for and what? would I expect him to turn from that?” Now I think a lot of…it's usually the more savvy clients I have this pushback, you know, on the commission or on these specifics of the marking marketing and analytics and what I'm actually doing for them. And I think that's great. I mean those are usually the best people I enjoy working with because, you know, they keep you on your toes and they keep you…keep you honest, you know. Like if those are people that you don't like working with you, maybe should re-evaluate exactly what your value is. If they're kind of calling you on, you know, what you're charging and what you're providing for that that fee…On and on I mean that's just kind of how I try to approach things which can be challenging because it kind of goes against a good chunk of industry which tends to maybe stay there for the consumer and the experience and client stuff. But they, you know, tend to kind of take their talking points from the NAR and their brokerage and, you know, kind of defending the industry as opposed to defending being and doing its best and what is required.  [Chris]:  Being the little soldier or worker bee. [Christian]:  Yeah well it's tough to do because I mean a lot of that kind of stuff you don't necessarily see. You know, it's more in the subconscious level like “I have been doing this  for 10 years or 20 years” and than that's just how it's always been done. Like if…if an answer to, you know, a question is “Well that's just how it's always been done” like you need to stop right there and re-evaluate. Like that's never good answer for anything. [Chris]:  It really isn't. So I think that's a good idea is try and imagine what you would like as a consumer. And…and if you've been in real estate for a while, you know, imagine what you would like as a consumer in another big purchase. Right. Imagine what you would like as a consumer if you were looking for a financial adviser or some…you were looking to purchase a boat. Or I don't…I don't know. Something that you have no idea where you're getting into. But then another thing I think you could do is ask. Talk to your consumers. Go back to your client and survey them. Say “Did you think the service that I provided was worth the value that you paid?” And if you get a lot of yeses then you got something to build on. There's…there's a lot of leadership books and one of the biggest things that I've seen be a reoccurring thing is, you know, if you're trying to figure out your why and I think Simon Sinek [phonetics] is good at this. Simon Sinek says “If you're trying to figure out your why, you should go to some really close friends, somebody that's not afraid to give you an honest answer. And say “Why are you friends with me?”” And Simon does that and it's really weird and it's really awkward. But…I've never done it. But if if you're having trouble, you know, you can go and ask somebody because that is gonna give you a starting point for what your purpose is. Because if…if somebody tells you, you're caring or this or that of the other or “You know what, I really hate you but, you know, you're…you're just kind of sticking around there so I just let you be a part of my life.” Yeah I mean it's gonna give you an idea of where you are and who you are and what people think about you.  So you've got to find somebody that you trust. If it's a past client, if it's a friend of yours go and talk to them and just say “Hey look what did I do well? What didn't I do well? Was it worth it? Do you think that I saved you the money that, you know, do you think I got you more money than I was worth on the property? Do you think that I saved you the time and headache of you trying to figure everything out on your own?” And then go from there. [Christian]:  Yeah I mean that's what I did when I first got into real estate, you know, I basically went to my friends that I knew had, you know, owned houses and like, you know “How did you find your agent? What do you like about them? What didn't you like about them?” You know, you start seeing these themes, you know, of who… [Chris]:  Wait you actually did the market research? [Christian]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  I didn't know real estate agents did market research. [Christian]:  Well I mean I knew from the get-go that like you've got to stand out. I mean there's so many agents like you. You can't just do your job and, you know, expect that to be enough. I mean maybe it is because there's a job… [Chris]:  Can I quote you on that? That's…”You can't just do your job and expect that to be enough.” That's good. [Christian]:  Yeah I…I agree. And then to make sure that I don't fall into, you know, kind of the trap that I'm, you know, railing against with agents. You know, we, you know, always do like, you know, kind of as part of the initial buyer or seller consultation ask them “What do you expect from me? Like what are your past experience is like?” You know “What was good? What was bad?” You know, to kind of gauge, you know, like what…what maybe some of the tough points might be or how we can make it a better experience for them. And then after the transaction, you know, follow-up survey of like “Did we do everything that's your hoping? Did we exceed your expectations? You know, to make sure they're like if we did drop the ball or something happened like we can we can fix that. And, you know, move forward so it doesn't happen again. [Chris]:  Yeah well I think that that's definitely a good…good strategy making sure that you're…you're asking for feedback. Talking to the consumer. Finding out what they want. And that…that could be different in every market. Because if…if I'm here in Atlanta and I'm talking about, you know, what…what value I can bring to a seller, you know, it may be different, Christian, what you're going to get in in Seattle, you know. A seller in Seattle may want a free bag of coffee with every purchase whereas in Atlanta they may want some Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. I don't know. But it's just a matter of making sure that we understand our audience and that we know what we're doing and why we're worth what we are. And, you know, for anybody that doesn't know if you're worth what you are just reach out to us. I'm sure we'll be happy to have that conversation and help you get bit down to…down to the grass roots of it. And see, you know, exactly where your value proposition lies for your clients. Christian any final thoughts for the for today's episode? [Christian]:  Think for yourself and think from the clients' perspective. That's my thoughts. [Chris]:  Think for yourself. Alright thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of re:Think Real Estate. It's great having you here. We miss you Nate. We hope you're feeling better and we will see you next week.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode When the transaction closes, do you continue to develop and nurture the relationship or do you move on to the next deal? Tune in to todays show to hear what some agents are doing to keep the momenntum going! reThink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 33:22 RTRE 58 – Keeping A Relationship Great Post Closing [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. Missed you in the last week. We're glad to be back. Got Christian, Nate here. And last week we left off with Christian kind of giving a little tease. We're gonna talk this week about how to continue the relationship with your clients post closing. So let's not waste any good time. Christian let's dive on in. What are you doing to improve and continue that relationship with your clients once the deal's done? [Christian]:  Sure yeah I mean, there's so many things you...you can do. Unfortunately it's...it's kind of the consistently lacking aspects of a lot of agents business even if your tool rock star and you do a great job it's often very easy to lose track of your clients. And they lose tracking you and, you know, you're later they're like “I can't even remember my agent's name or how to get a hold of. I'm gonna contact someone else.” So to help avoid that obviously the creating unique content, you know, whether that's through email or social media. Whatever it is kind of the...I won't say the easy way, that's probably one of the harder ways. But there's a lot of services and companies you can use that will help provide value as well. I kind of alluded to a the service that we have started using called Home bot. And that has been very cool because you can essentially…now it doesn't work with sellers because they've just sold their home, you know, unless they bought a new one. But it's kind of geared towards homeowners. So obviously it's gonna be your buyer clientele. But it's pretty cool because it's...it's cheap and you sign them up for it. And it will send them a monthly email that's real easy to use information, you know. With like says, you know, your estimated value for your home is X and it shows a graph of the value. And it'll, you know, he knows your mortgage and whatnot. And it will say “Hey your your net worth of your home is this. This is how much you've paid in toward your principle, toward your interest.” If you're to, you know, refine in 15 years or 25 or 30 this is what this payments would look like. If you made a payment of an extra whatever, you can choose that within the...within the portal. It will show you how much you'd save over the course of the loan. If you're to Airbnb out a room it will show you, you know, based on the average in your area how much your revenue you would have, you know, extra per month.  [Chris]:  So hold on. On a per-room basis? [Christian]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  Wow that's cool. That's really cool.   [Christian]:  Yeah so it's got all sorts of cool analytics, you know, that show you all your options. And, you know, and it has its own firm within it. You know, you're...you're the one that's branded in there and, you know, so it's always kind of putting the bug in the air. If like “Oh look at this is, what the market's done. This is what my house may be worth…” You know, and prompts them to like “Get a CMA from your agent”. And then it has all the links in the backend of like “How many have been sent out, what are they clicking on, do they open it?” But like the open rates and click through rate on this stuff is way, way higher than any email. You don't care how cool and revolutionary your, you know, your email marketing is.  [Chris]:  Like what are you talking like… [Christian]:  If you're...if you're killing it with the email marketing you have like a 30% open rate. I think the average in our industry is 16%. So you typically will get 20% where did a lot of, you know, unique content it's just... it's hard to get people's attention. And, you know, in email marketing so...so this is… [Chris]:  Have you heard from your clients on what they think of it?  [Christian]:  I mean we…were pretty early on and using it. So not yet. But I know some agents that I really respect, you know, they're really killing it. And they've got great things to say about how you've actually gotten the listings from this tool, you know, from people that are their clients and the other people who aren't their clients. So if you can use it as…as marketing and lead gen as well, even though it's kind of set up and branded as something to provide value ongoing for your…for your buyers. So that's one…that's one tool. You know, I've got a whole workflow process to stay in touch with them that reminds me to actually, you know, reach out to them.  One good point of contact can be, you know, if with your buyer clients to remind you, you know “Beginning of the year hey don't forget to send out, you know, that…the final settlement statement.” And it gives you a reason to contact them. Say “Hey, you know, here's your final settlement statement in case you misplaced it. You bought a house last year. You're gonna want this for your taxes.” You know, so…so that sort of thing. [Chris]:  That's awesome. Nate what are you doing to continue that relationship afterwards? [Nathan]:  I'm not [censored] out all my data to other people like Christian. [laughter] [Christian]:  [censored] out what data?  [Nathan]:  Just teasing. I keep it simple. The good old 26 and 52 rule. I'm sure one of you know what that is. Right?  [Christian]:  I say marathon. No it's 20 miles. I don't know. [Chris]:  26 contacts for 52 weeks. [Nathan]:  You got it. Keep it simple stupid right. That's…it's…there's 26 letters in the alphabet. You just go down twice. Make…make your phone calls. I don't do anything crazy. Again it's…I call it the…the personalized organic thing. Just call people and say “Hey Chris what's up? How are you? How's the kids?” I think people appreciate that as much. And the reason I do that is because that's what I like. All the [censored] I get in the mail, all the stuff that I get an email, I just hit delete delete delete. Or I throw it in the trash. But if somebody actually takes the time to reach out to me and say “Hey” I find value in that. So I forget who it was talking to the day. They were talking about, you know, lead gen and all that. And they said, you know “Find whatever you're good at and you enjoy doing and do it well.” I don't enjoy making the calls and doing all the other stuff. I'm annoyed by the other stuff. So I therefore don't do the things that I would find annoying. I just rather make a call and say “Hey how are you?” And, you know, my wife was just down you know, in Athens Chris. And did me a favour [crosstalk] Well and, you know, I call it…I called a client, a past client of mine. I said “Hey I know you love creature Conference. Wife's down in Athens.” And he said “Oh my God please have her grab me a case.” Right listen that…that case of beer goes a long way. [Chris]:  Oh yeah.  [Nathan]:  You know. [Chris]:  Because it's not just the beer. It's not the item. The fact that you thought about him.  [Nathan]:  The fact that I thought about him. That's right. Yeah for me it's, you know, that's what works. I…I…I'm really turned off by…I like what Chris and Christian mentioned. And I've looked into that a little bit. Not read a lot on it. What I don't like is these automated things that go out that they don't have…they just…they have no personal feel. And so I think, you know, that's a value out on my side. I think it's where realtors really lose sight. They just…they turn into this transactional thing and they could'tn care less after they're done with you. [Chris]:  So the way Christian's working it I think it's kind of like the best of both worlds. Because utilizing something like this to automate some of the contact, but then also following up within the CRM to make sure that those relationships stay nurtured and that it doesn't become an automated feeling. [Christian]:  Right. Well and…and this isn't a replacement for those touches. This is an excuse to reach out and be like “Hey I just set you up with this cool tool. This is how it works.” And , you know, and, you know, because…because I know for me…I mean the key really is find out something that works for you, that's natural, that you enjoy doing. Because I know for me if I just get a random phone call from someone that I haven't heard from for a while I'm thinking “What do you want? What's your angle?”  Like, you know, and, you know, and I used to kind of approach it when I was a new agent that way. But it always felt weird because I'd be like I just call someone out of the blue and never really coming around to. So I'm kind of looking for business, you know, like “No I am not looking to buy or sell.” So like don't do that. You know, but if you don't have an excuse or you haven't built, you know, done the hard work of building that relationship either through the transaction or afterwards, you know, it's going to come off as I'm calling for a self, you know, motivate gain. As opposed to “Here's a tool you're gonna find really cool. It can benefit you.” And it gives you an excuse to also reach out and contact them, you know, in person. Which really is going to have your biggest…your biggest bang for the buck. You know, over email or text or something. [Nathan]:  I'll be honest too. They're the clients that I don't I don't want a referral from them. And it's not that there was a bad thing or the transaction was bad or anything. I just…they weren't my type of people. And so, you know, I…I don't really need a referral from them. If that makes any sense. I just, you know, it's…it's kind of the way. I am…it's like I developed these almost deep emotional bonds with my client. I mean it's…it becomes a friendship. So, you know, if we're not buddy-buddy afterwards that's OK. You know, and maybe they do refer me somebody but there's some that I just…I don't really give a [censored] about. And I'm OK with that. [Chris]:  Well I think that having an excuse to reach out to people is definitely a good thing. There needs to be a few touches where, you know what, you're calling them just to call them. And make them feel like you were just thinking about them. But one of the things that I've kind of talked about with my agents over the last few years, is that keep it…keep a tab on when the anniversary of their house is and every year send them a CMA. Let them know “Hey this is what your home value is.” Seems like Home bought does that on a regular basis for you. So… [Christian]:  You can still send out your own or call them.  [Chris]:  Yeah send out your own and call them. And check in on the value of the house. In Georgia we have a lot of…we have homestead exemptions where the tax break is different on your personal property. And that has to be filed by a certain date each year. So before that filing date, January, February, having the agents contact their clients from the past year and reminding them “Hey don't forget to file for your homestead exemption.” There are…there are lots of reasons to reach out to people over the…for post closing. And I think that, you know, as long as we're doing it that's the most important part. [Christian]:  Yeah oh no sorry I mean to interrupt. [Chris]:  No go ahead.  [Christian]:  OK. The…what we're talking about so is kind of the ongoing long-term stuff, right. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  You know….you know, if a big thing to you is providing, you know, an exceptional client experience is something that's gonna, you know, help, give them something to talk about so they're actually, you know, advocating for you. You know, something that's been really effective for us is doing a complimentary housewarming party. You know, for us we have a lot of people here that are new to the area and, you know, they may not, you know, have a close network of family in whatever. And something that if we can provide some drinks and some appetizers and organize it for them, and there is this, you know, fun event to welcome in their neighbours and their friends and co-workers and whatever else. Like that that is going to be way more impactful and help you build relationship with them. And something remember then, you know, customized steak knives or some cheesy ask-your-realtor closing gifts [laughter]. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  You know, I mean closing gifts are a huge waste of money and time if you're just trying to like get your quote brand in front of them on some cheesy kitchenware. [Chris]:  Cutting board or knives or…Nothing against Costco but frankly… [Nathan]:  I go for the experience over…over the things. I mean items are forgettable experiences. It's much harder to forget. [Chris]:  Yeah I mean that's like gift-giving 101. Right you give a gift that you…that means something to the person not because you want to give the gift. Like if you're gonna give a gift you make sure “Hey look this is…this is…I'm giving it to you because I think this is something that's gonna mean something to you”. Not “Hey I'm giving it to you because, you know, this is my personal brand and this is what I do.” Like everybody. Because now you no longer stand out like somebody that is thinking about them. You just stand out as, you know, they're one of everybody now. So it's making people feel unique, I think is definitely a huge thing on the gift-giving front. And Client Giant does that, right? Christian you're using them. [Christian]:  Yeah, yeah they do kind of like touch point, you know, gifts when you passed your inspection. And then, you know, half of your transaction they'll send out moving boxes and your closing gift and move your utilities over. And, you know, all with handwritten notes from, you know, white gloves. Coming from you. And if it's…if the gift doesn't seem like something that's appropriate for your client you could, you know, send a message say “Hey do you have something else because blah, blah, blah, blah.”  You know, if they don't cook they don't a cutting board or whatever. You know. [Chris]:  Yeah I mean and for some people like a housewarming party that's gonna be a big thing. Unless they hate people. [Christian]:  If they're so introvert that's probably not a good gift.  [Chris]:  They're probably not gonna want that. But I think your idea behind that is that during the course of that relationship you're gonna determine whether or not that person is somebody who's gonna want that. [Christian]:  Sure. Well it's great because it it's something that they may want to do but may never get around to. Or it's a big hassle. And it also gets you in front of all of their closest people, you know, so it's a natural networking, you know. Because I mean they're gonna be like “Oh here's my agent that helped me blah blah blah.” They'll be talking you up, hopefully, if you did good job, you know. So all sorts of opportunities, you know, for you. But then also for your client. You know, because I mean you don't just want to be thinking about, you know, ask ask ask. You're gonna be like give give give give. And they're doing the, you know, reciprocating and advocating for you without you having to directly ask them. [Chris]:  Sounds good. So we're…we're approaching the halfway mark in the episode now. So we're gonna go ahead with week two of doing the re:Think Realty bonus thoughts. So as I'm just seeing this for the first time. These are some thoughts on things that exist in real estate and we're gonna get everybody's two thoughts on it.  [Christian]:  What is it? [Chris]:  Signs in neighborhoods and in houses. OK so this one I think this is signs that have been found in houses.  [Christian]:  Not signs from God? [Chris]:  Not signs from God. But these are some signs that have been found in houses and in neighborhoods. I just want your first reaction on them. Christian you're gonna go first. [Christian]:  Yeah well so I show the house. [Chris]:  I've got some some here that I'm gonna read off. I want your reaction on them. [Christian]:  Yeah. Oh I got you. I got you.  [Chris]:  So a sign that says “Please do not drink this water.” Above a toilet. [Christian]:  Yeah w-wait that'd be weird. That would be weird. I have never seen that.  [Chris]:  Yeah that's a little weird. “Please do not flush paper towels tissues and wipes kitchens…kittens and puppies hopes and dreams. Thank you.” [Christian]:  OK OK trying to be funny. Cute. [Chris]:  Trying to be funny. Thing…things in houses. “Beware of smartphone zombies.” Nate. [Nathan]:  Stupid.  [Christian]:  Stupid. [laughter] Hard crowd today.  [Chris]:  “Don't make our butts pick up your cigarette buds.”  [Christian]:  OK. [Chris]:  The roaches are getting cancer. [Christian]:  Cool. [Nathan]:  I mean… [Chris]:  Found in neighbourhoods.  [Nathan]:  Yeah that's gotta be somewhere like [crosstalk]. [Chris]:  Yeah like an ATA. What are some weird signs that you guys have seen in houses? Anything? [Christian]:  Well…Sorry go ahead Nate. [Nathan]:  Well I mean I've never seen it on a sign. I have seen it on a billboard. It's in Atlanta and it stands out. But that's the only one that ever…you know. [Chris]:  Which one? [Nathan]:  One for the pink pony it says “Do you love candy? We do too and all our friends.” [laughter] OK that's creative marketing but like I've never seen like…I've never seen signs. I've seen things displayed that I thought were inappropriate. Maybe.  [Christian]:  OK. If it's inappropriate for Nathan it's gonna be really bad. [Chris]:  Oh yeah. You gotta share that. You can't let us hang. [Nathan]:  So no like I got a client ready to list his house and, you know, he was a good old boy. And that's fine. But he had rebel flags and things of that nature all over the home. And some other very derogatory racist things that, you know, he's like “What do you think I should do with them?” And I said “You take them down.” Like, you know, cuz somebody like might come and burn your house down. Yes that's right. Yeah but it's like, you know, I've seen things like that. But not, you know, not sign…signs that are cute or… [Chris]:  Things that are divisive. [Nathan]:  Yeah right. like you want to sell your house. You don't wanna have it burnt down. [laughter]. [Christian]:  Yeah I mean I've…I can't think of any, you know, memorable signs per se. But I do remember showing a house once where, you know, sometimes listing agents will have like, you know, house signs up on the wall or whatever to like highlight unique things about the property. And this person went to town. I mean I walked in and it was like just signs everywhere on everything. I was surprised they had like a sign on the floor that said like “Floor”. [laughter] You know, I mean it was…it was over the top. I took some pictures of it because I was like “Why do they have a sign in the kitchen saying, you know, “Kitchen counter”. Like obviously it's a kitchen counter. That's not a unique feature.” Like… [Chris]:  Nice.  [Christian]:  Yeah it was ridiculous.  [Chris]:  That's good stuff. There wasn't one of my properties or one that I've shown but there's an agent that I know here in Atlanta, and she posted the other day a property she was in. It was like an old commercial property and there was like makeshift altars and just like the stuff nightmares are made out of. They had upside-down crosses. They had crucifixes. Like in the basement to support beams they had like big crucifixes. It was absolutely bizarre and there's a lots of… [Christian]:  Blood pools on the floor or anything? [Chris]:  No no I didn't see any blood pools but it did look like it was like an old school. So imagine like an old like elementary school basement. Like tiny windows like 1942…15 build. [Christian]:  Hounted.  [Chris]:  The windows are like plastered over. Like and then you just see these crosses that have giant crucifixes. And look…and there was like altars. And just weird. There were mattresses on the floor like something weird was going on there. So yeah there's crazy stuff out there. But that that kind of ends this segment of re:Think Real Estate bonus thoughts. Tell us what you think, whether you like it or not. Just kind of switching it up a little bit. Leave us a message on Facebook. Shoot us a review. Comment on the website rtrepodcast.com. And make sure you sign up for our newsletter.  So getting back to our topic today talking about continuing the relationship with your clients post-closing. And we've covered a lot about how to just keep talking to them. And basically just keep talking to your clients. But how do we…how are we able to make sure that we're doing that? And I want to talk to you Christian on this. Because I know we all kind of gave up on Nate ever building out his CRM. [laughter] So that…you're never gonna live there. But Christian so it…how are you utilizing your CRM to continue your client relationships post-closing? [Christian]:  Yeah I mean in a nutshell I'm using it as a tool…as a tool to remind me to stay in touch with, you know, my clients. It's not doing it for me. It's not a drip campaign. It's not automated in that sense. I still have to take action. I still have to send an email or still have to call them. So I mean that's…that's what I think the real strength of technology is. Because usually if something's fully automated people can tell. And it's really hard or if not impossible to have that personalized touch, you know, and so I use the technology to remind me to send out, you know, anniversary email. And I usually coupled that with, you know, once again we're talking about to buyers, you know, homeowners. Couple that with a handwritten note and maybe a CRM or, you know, one-page snapshot about their house or something. So trying to hit multiple layers not just like once a year they hear from me from an email or a phone call. It's, you know, a layered effect. Where Brian Buffeny [phonetics] says is a stacking effect. So, you know, you strategically have OK an email followed up by a call followed by, you know, a handwritten note or something. Yeah whatever seems like… [Chris]:  Different avenues. [Christian]:  Exactly different…different touchpoints that's complement each other. Not that look sporadic and un-thought through or inconsistent.  [Chris]:  So using the CRM to remind you to do this stuff, how difficult was it to set that up? [Christian]:  I mean that's the…the big challenge I think for a lot…for a lot of agents, you know. They got great ideas but, you know, how they do it or how they have time to do it or it seems so daunting that they never do. You know, from for me it was like “OK here's my process.” I mapped it out and then I found the platform to be able to do that. For me it's Realvolve. And so over one, you know, Christmas break I basically took a week and set out and just built out workflows. Not the funnest thing to do but I mean it's…it enables you to really provide that client experience and make a consistent thing. Then, you know, I'm kind of constantly tweaking it as, you know, I'm refining my process and whatnot.   And as a brokerage owner we provide all that to our agents, which is a huge value gained over maybe, you know, a brokerage that provides a CRM but there's no processes involved. They just have an address book that they have to upload stuff into, you know. So to be able to have, you know, those reminders and touch points all built out and stuff for you is pretty big. [Chris]:  Awesome. Yeah that is huge and kudos for you for building that out for your company. So Nate I know you're not using a CRM, what are you using to track…like making sure that you're going through the alphabet twice every year? And you're using the…what is that? Just your phone? [Christian]:  Garmin [phonetics]? You're using your Garmin? Your phone? If you unmute yourself we could hear you a little better.  [Nathan]:  Yeah. Yes I am using what you thought. Yes that's…I am not… [Chris]:  Our audience can't see us.  [Nathan]:  Yes sorry. Yeah the iPhone, the iPhone X. Give me that. But yeah and I use my brain, you know. It's  our computer out there. Right. [Christian]:  That's the most defective part of man.  [Nathan]:  I know I get crazy with it. Could I be better? Oh absolutely. But I'm forwarding… [Christian]:  When you gonna build out your CRM Nate? Just think about workflows. You just asked for those.  [Nathan]:  I don't know. I just…I discontinued Realvolve months ago. [crosstalk] [Christian]:  The decline starts. [Nathan]:  Why pay for something that I'm not using.  [Chris]:  That's a big thing with real estate where agents pay for things they're not using all the time. And the whole power of a CRM, everybody asked “What's the best CRM out thee?” “The one you use.” [Nathan]:  Yeah, you know, and then I use Google for about everything else. And I use Google a lot so if you wanted to say I had a CRM, Google I mean…I use all my transactional stuff, timelines, everything. All that is all built into Google. So I've in essence created what works for me. I guess if you would. But I don't have a traditional third-party both on technology. But again I use Google. It's a free platform and I like it. So… [Christian]:  You just mean like the calendar essentially? You're… [Nathan]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  What aspect of Google? [Nathan]:  Yeah the calendar, the contacts, the whole shebang. I mean docs. All of it. I mean what else do I use? [Christian]:  How does that…how does it help you with your…when you're working through a transaction? Or  staying in touch with clients? Is that just like a reminder? You have on your calendar? [Nathan]:  Yep. I plug all the relevant dates into my calendar. And then I set reminders. And that's what I do. And that works for me.  [Christian]:  Well if it works… [Nathan]:  Luckily…luckily for us here in Ohio, contracts aren't that difficult. You know, the timelines they're not…it's not rocket science, you know. So… [Chris]:  Yeah I've seen your listing agreement. It's two pages. [Nathan]:  Yeah it's…it's not… [Chris]:  Tiny. [Nathan]:  It's not…it's not complex. So again if you can like…if I go in here, I mean I know when all my stuff's happening because I just put my reminders in there. Make sure you don't have your reminders set ten minutes before. You know, I know people like come in and say “I had it set but then it reminded me 10 minutes before it was due.” I'm like “Yeah you might want to do it a couple days out there.” But… [Chris]:  Maybe. I don't know.  [Nathan]:  There are plenty of CRMs that integrate with Google. I just don't use one. So just me. But again what I do is way different than a lot of people. [Chris]:  Yeah so I do want to talk a little bit more about what you do. Because some of the things that you're doing are very similar to what Client Giant does. [Nathan]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  So instead of using Client Giant, you're actually putting in the legwork to make the client experience special. And…and memorable. So what are you doing in some of your transactions now Nate? [Nathan]:  So I…I mean I stole a lot of J's stuff if you would. Best ideas are stolen. Right? But from having carpets clean, homes clean, cars clean, boxes delivered. There's all kind of different things. It's what I like the ability to do is tailor each one of those to each individual. I don't want it to be every client gets this and every client gets that. Because we all know that every transaction is different and so there may be some concessions I make. I may do something different. Right. I give up part of my commission sometimes to bridge a gap. Right. Does that suffice?  [Chris]:  Good agents do that. [Nathan]:  Right. Does that suffice? Doing something above and beyond for your client? Yeah I think it does. So each one's different but I like to do something that it's just a personal touch. Again we've talked about it before that, you know, you're…you're marketed or branded candle that I really don't like, I don't want in my house anyway. So or you just got paid 10 grand and you bought me a $20 bottle of wine is kind of the biggest f you I think in the world. So again I literally, you know, like I said with the cleaning company I contract with that does house cleaning, carpet cleaning, all that. When I met him I did exactly what Jay said. I said “Hey I have an opportunity for you. If you can do this for me. Give me a better rate and I'll give you business.”  Works out great. I just had an agent the other day she said “Hey who's that guy you use?” He calls me and he's like “Dude thanks so much.” It's been a…it's been a great relationship. But again it's each…each one's different. But like I said a lot of what Jay does. I'll have your carpets cleaned. I'll have your house cleaned. Post…post-closing or before, you know. Just each one's different but I think those things are the value that we need to deliver. I'm helping somebody move. So, you know, it's a… [Christian]:  OK some legwork in there.   [Nathan]:  Yeah you need your house power-washed. Fine so be it. There's different things you can do that I think are way better than a bottle of wine and a candle.  [Christian]:  Yeah well good on you for flushing that out yourself. Like I know initially when I heard Jay's presentation, the setup a 5 star service in a 3 star industry I was like “That's…that's the missing piece”. You know, and I started, you know, flushing out “OK how can I build this out myself?” And then like a month later you came up with Client Giant because, you know, there's so many people in the industry that are…want to do that but I mean that's a big administrative overhead, if you're gonna do that for entire, you know, for your clients or let alone for the entire brokerage, you know. But good on you for doing that. But as a point of clarification, the Client Giant stuff is customizable. So it's not like every…every package is the same. So you do have that option. [Nathan]:  So then let's just check that box where it says I'm a control freak. So… [Chris]:  We didn't know.  [Nathan]:  No I had a client. The one that I told you about in the last episode with the, you know, that I told her that her paint was F-ing ugly with the wallpaper. [Chris]:  Yeah. Like “What do you think of this room?” “I think it's [censored] ugly.” [Nathan]:  Yes so I called one of the companies I contract with. Final Touch Painting here. And had him out. We needed to do some painting. And what the bathroom that had the wallpaper and of course I said “Well this is all gotta go” And she's like “What color should I choose? And I looked at her and I said “Jane what do you mean?” She says “What color should I choose?” I said “You don't get to choose.” She said “Why not?” I said “You're selling the house. It's not yours anymore.” She goes “Are you gonna let me make any decisions?” And I said “No I'm not.” She goes “OK”. [laughter]. And might you, my broker is with me on this appointment and he's like “How do you get away with that stuff?” I am like “I don't know”. But, you know, again it's…it was great. I loved it and, you know, she wants to be…I don't, you know, she wants to be told what to do to get her house sold. I think people appreciate that. [Chris]:  I think a lot of…in those interactions I think a lot of agents are afraid of making the wrong decision so they don't make decisions at all. And I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people don't see value in real estate agents. Because they feel like “Oh this person is just gonna be a yes person. This person…what am I paying them for? Walk me through a contract when they're just gonna ask me what I want in the contract?” You know, don't be afraid to grow some. And, you know, actually have a conversation where you're taking the lead and walking your clients through it. Because it's part of being memorable.  [Nathan]:  And being a professional.  [Chris]:  Definitely part of being a professional. Definitely part of being memorable. And if you're doing a good job then guess what? It's a lot easier to keep that relationship alive post-closing. [Christian]:  Yeah. If you're just an order taker I mean it's gonna be harder to justify, you know, the…some of…some of the rates that are common for agents. You know.  [Chris]:  Yeah. You go to a great restaurant you're not telling the chef what to cook. [Nathan]:  Exactly.  [Chris]:  Alright I think...I think that just about does it for this week's episode of re:Think Real Estate. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Again please don't forget go to our rtrepodcast.com. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss a beat when we drop a new episode.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode This week we discuss how to keep a real estate transaction moving forward. Listen in to hear ways to keep a real estate transaction on track to closing. Rethink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 30:43 RTRE 57 –  Keeping the Real Estate Transaction Under Control [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. We're so happy to have you here this week. We've got Nate back. He is not selling homes right now. We've got Christian here and as always here to talk real estate and all thing real estate related. So just before getting started we were talking about how agents can control the transaction better and make deals go smoothly for our clients. Nate you are always taking listings. What are some things that you are doing to make sure that you are on top of the transaction? [Nathan]: Well again I was start thinking about this a little bit more before we got to recording here but I…again I think you as an individual…we all have different types of personalities but it also setting an expectation to our client. Right. Whether you are the list side or the buy side but you have to set that tone up front.  I am a little bit of a controller. Actually a lot but I like to control the situation. You have to have confidence and knowledge in what you're doing to do all that but that is the way I operate. Most of my clients appreciate that. And the reason I brought this us is because I have got a buddy I met the other day. He is a lender and another lender he knew was taking a beating because unfortunately buyers are liars and this buyers agent is calling and is literally in Ethany [phonetics] and all over the phone. And you know at a certain point you gotta tell a client you know whether you're the agent or you are the agent or the client and your client is the buyer or lister, you gotta have control over the certain things you can't do.  For that lender the agent was his client, I would have fired him. I wouldn't have taken that you know, it is just the way it goes. Same thing, I don't tolerate certain things from my clients. I mean we call it respect. You know a lot of people like to whine in our business but it is OK to lose a client. It is OK not to get every client. And I think we often forget that. It is kind of one of that win at all cost mentality maybe. I don't like that. [Chris]: And I think if you are winning at all cost you are not factoring in what makes this industry fun, it is being able to enjoy it. [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: So obviously yeah I mean I feel like you are at the point in your career where yeah you can choose and have the option to fire your clients. But why was it…why do you think it got to that point in the transaction where the agent was calling and cursing at the lender? [Nathan]: Again, you know, I have said this before in our podcast. We want to be emotional. And I have always…I think the best thing I was ever taught when I got in this industry is to take my emotion out of it. [Chris]: Amen to that. [Nathan]: We realtors…You know I am gonna beat us up but as I have said the large majority we just love to feel so important, right? We love to know that “Hey look at me, hey look at me. I am an awesome, awesome relator. I am an awesome realtor”. Like… [Chris]: “Let me tell you about me. Let me tell you about me. It is all about me. Really what do you think about me”.  [Nathan]: Yeah. And so take the emotion out of it. You know, I don't know. [Christian]: Why do you…why do you suppose…I mean I have my thoughts on this. Why do you suppose he thought it was acceptable and call the lender and cuss him out and get all emotional about it? [Nathan]: Well the guy is an [censored] [laughter]. If he were listening, that is what I would tell him. Right.  [Christian]: OK.  [Nathan]: Bottom line is whether we are in realty or not you don't treat other people that way. Like you know… [Christian]: Why… [Nathan]: Yeah why did he treat somebody that way? Probably because he had really bad parents I don't know. [laughter]. [Christian]: Yeah I mean… [Chris]: A lot of people don't think about other people as actual beings. Human. I think that si the problem. [Christian]: I mean and I am on that. Obviously treat people as humans. Treat them with respect. But you know when it comes to like being professional in this industry I mean there is a lot of things that I like to push back on in industry like you know our job is to be the rock when our clients are emotional and deals you know on the brink of falling apart. I mean if we get emotional I mean I don't know any of you…I mean I know you guys have kids. I know that when I am near my kid's emotions and he is getting all ramped up and I am ramped up, that doesn't help. [Chris]: That makes it worse. [Christian]: Worse. But I mean if I can be a consistent calm and I am able to bring it back down to like “OK let's look at the reality of things if you know…” But I think a lot of agents kind of lose their cool because they think “I am advocating for my client. I am passionate when I am doing my job”. No no you are just being a [censored] and you are [censored] things up for your client.  [Nathan]: Yeah well said. [Chris]: So that gets to a great point on helping to control the conversation to control the transaction. Is controlling emotion. [Christian]: Definitely. [Chris]: Because if we can control our emotion and understand that when we are interacting with a client it is a very…they are in a heightened state of emotion. Right. Buying a…Buying a real estate parcel, right a house or a commercial or whatever it is, is extremely stressful for people because they have a lot invested in it. It is a lot of money. It is a big transaction.  So if something bad happens they are gonna think it is the worst thing in the world even if it is just you know a small hiccup. If something miniscule like good happens they are gonna think it is the best thing in the world. So if we can just kind of maintain a level of neither good nor bad on the emotional scale than holy hell like that really can do exactly what it does for your kid Christian. It is just like calm. When something bad goes on don't worry. Got it under control.  [Nathan]: I…you know I wasn't here the last episode we recorded because I had a deal going sideways. Even my client's father flew in from Boston. He was… [Chris]: To help the deal or to ruin the deal.  [Nathan]: Well at first I thought was honestly he was gonna ruin it. He was very emotional. It was his son's house. It is you know a lot of things going sideways on this.  [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: And you know he called me “What are we gonna do?”. And now we're just [inaudible] we're great. We're good buddies now. But I said “We're gonna work the problem.” “What do you mean?” I said “We're gonna work the problem. Work the problem”. I mean we get…this is 3 days of craziness in my life here recently. And he called me and said “Man I gotta tell you kept your cool.” Yeah I did because me getting upset is exactly what Christian said. It is just gonna make everybody else upset.  .So I am..I am like the captain of the ship right. If I am freaking out everybody else is freaking out. I am you know…It was not fun. But we got through it. And now here is a gentleman that like he is my biggest advocate that I could possibly have now. But I think if I would have reacted the way he was initially reacting it was gonna be really, really bad 3 days for me. And it turned out an Ok 3 days, you know what I mean. [Chris]: Yeah you gotta control that. [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: That is definitely one thing that agents can do in a transaction to kind of control the tone, control the pace. It is just control our own emotions because whether you want to believe it or not people are gonna mimic you. That is just how it happens. So obviously in the deal that you mentioned Nate the agent got upset with the lender. Obviously something at some point was not communicated clearly. Because if the lender had all the information and the agent had all the information and the buyer was given all the information than usually…I don't see a circumstance where somebody is gonna yell at somebody. Christian… [Christian]: It sounds like there is an unmet expectation there. I don't know. [Chris]: Yeah it sounds like it. So Christian when you are working with a buyer and you've got all these different wheels that are moving more so than with the seller, what are some things that you are doing to set expectation with people? [Christian]: Yeah I mean I say setting expectations specifically but communication in general that is probably the most important thing you can do as a real estate agent. [Chris]: I agree. [Nathan]: Yeah. [Christian]: Because you can be a terrible agent and totally incompetent but if you can communicate well you look like you're doing your job. You know now whether or not you do the back end and actually have knowledge and stuff that is all a different thing but you can be a rock star agent and know exactly what you're going but if your communication sucks your agent is gonna think you suck. [Chris]: It is like you're up on a show. You've got the curtain right and the clients are seeing what is in front not what is behind. [Christian]: right. And so that is a long answer to basically say I am mister kind of control freak I have got processes for everything. And part of the process is this template email as part of my CRM and first thing we do “Hey we are under contract. OK here is the 5 things you are gonna expect, here is what comes next, here is what we're gonna be doing for you in the next 3 days. Here is what you are gonna be doing”. You know. And after we get past our expectance commencing here is what it is gonna look like.  You know now that is not the only communication but that is like it sets the expectations up front you know because you get a contract and now there is a whole bunch of stuff going on and now they're stressing out. You know I can't be on the phone with them every 10 minutes you know and call them off the ledge. But if you set these expectations and say “This is what happens and this is what we're doing.” And you know checking in with them whenever there is a new bench mark. That has a calming effect you know on them as opposed to they don't hear anything. [Nathan]: Oh yeah you don't have to do a lot. I mean I send out Friday updates. That is what I call it. Friday updates. Every Friday I touch my clients no matter where we are. Just to give them something right. But I mean Christian you hit…all your points were spot on. Maybe you should just have the Christian Harris school of mentoring real estate agents [laughter]. All people can learn from that. [Chris]: Definitely. [Nathan]: You know communication is key. So…I am with you on that one. I am seeing great agents who know everything very well but they are horrible communicators. [Christian]: And to your point Nathan I mean, part of that communication is even if nothing is going on once a week touching in. I do my touching on Monday because typically like if you are working on a listing that is when it is going to be the most information that we can pass. So I do my updates on Mondays. The point is going on “Hey there is nothing going on and I just want you to know so that you are not wondering what is going on”.   [Chris]: Yeah for both of you to reach out and tell somebody nothing has changed, is one of the key differentiators that I have seen for people who are successful  and who are not. Because if you are having that communication level when nothing is happening they know “Oh OK nothing is happening but I am not hearing silence”. Because it is when the seller or the buyer, they hear silence that is when they get in their own head. And they start thinking “Well is this agent really doing things in my best interest. Are they really working on my behalf”. [Christian]: You have to interfere with the doubt and the emotions kind of you know. [Chris]: It comes in the silence. Exactly. Awesome so we're getting about halfway through the episode right now. I want to…we are trying out a new segment called re:Think Realty bonus thoughts where we have a topic to discuss that none of us have seen before. We're just pulling it out of an envelope. So this one is “Things seen in houses.” I am really not sure. I guess we're just supposed to talk about things that we have seen in houses. Things like “Where is Waldo”. Print frames. Eye level in the bathroom. Things like that. Blurred out dog face on a listing photo. [Christian]: So like funny or unique things that we have seen? Is that like… [Chris]: Yeah what are some unique things that you have seen in homes that you have listed? [Christian]: I have seen atrocious staging and unfortunately it was one of my first listings when I was trying out a stager so… [Chris]: Was it really? [Christian]: I had to fire that stager and the stager I use now was the person that came in like 2 days noticed and saved the day. But yeah I have seen that. I have noticed that you want to make sure you have a local stager. Here in Seattle we've got a couple of…Well we've got a lot of island like 107 islands. And one of the…I had a friend who had a mom who does staging so I gave her a hot but she was from one of the islands and she came over and did it and her idea of staging was weaker in floral prints. And it made it look like a grandma's house and it was not gonna fly in Seattle. [Chris]: Wow. [Christian]: That is unfortunately that was kind of my fault but that was something I have seen that was atrocious and made sure it didn't get to the listing photos and that was a learning experience. [crosstalk]. I am sorry? [Chris]: What do you got Nate? What is something you have seen in a house? [Nathan]: Guns. [laughter] [Christian]: Alright. [Nathan]: No, yeah I mean like literally guns just laying out around the house. [Chris]: Oh yeah I have seen that. [Nathan]: Like hand guns and rifles. And magazines in the club. I love guns don't get me wrong but I have got clients who have a kid with me and I am like “Holy snap” like you know what's going on. Like… [Christian]: That is a different world in Ohio I guess. [Chris]: It is not just Ohio we've got that in Georgia too. I have walked through homes and opened up a closet and boom there is a shotgun just sitting right there.  [Nathan]: That is…the oddest…[crosstalk] [Chris]: Yeah so one of the oddest things that I have ever seen in a home is in a basement they…put in multiple urinals in a restroom.  [Christian]: Like a restroom? [Chris]: Like a bathroom but then they…When they finished the basement they made it like a big bathroom with like 3 urinals but no divider. Really, really weird I have no idea why. [Christian]: Were they having like a fight club in the basement?  [Chris]: Yeah yeah it was really weird. I ended up not getting that listing. Because I don't think he liked what I said about marketing that. [Nathan]: Have you guys ever been in a home where they have pad locks on all the doors on the exterior like on a bedroom? [Chris]: I have seen that one. [Christian]: That is creepy as hell.  [Nathan]: I saw that a few weeks ago and I was like “That is really weird”.  [Chris]: Yeah.  [Christian]: I wouldn't want to know what they do. [Chris]: You are either doing some child abuse there or you just got a lot of guns in that room. [Christian]: It's sketchy. [Chris]: Whatever it is. Yeah it is in the living room [laughter]. “You are not getting into my living room. This is mine”. It could be like one of those…Did you all see the listing that it was making the rounds on a few weeks ago, the sex dungeon in the basement? [Nathan]: Awesome. [Chris]: Yeah I mean just things like that.  [Christian]: Yeah like the brokerage had some pretty fun stuff, the lighter side of real estate had some pretty funny things like that.  [Chris]: Yeah definitely the things that they come up with that is absolute hilarity. I can't believe that you know when Kellen [phonetics] when he did his deal to our show got picked up by lighter Real Estate. It was… [Christian]: That was awesome. [Chris]: It was in one of the shows. OK so yeah re:Think Real Estate bonus thoughts. Giving it a shot. Tell us what you think. Make sure you leave us a review on iTunes for anybody listening. I…shoot us a comment either on our Facebook page or on the website on rtrepodcast.com.  So back to today's topic which was the agent's control of the transaction. Where they can make a big impact. Nate what is one of the most impactful things that you find you are able to do for your clients outside of communication and setting expectations? [Nathan]: I don't know. This…I mean it sounds weird but just being upfront and honest. I feel like…I feel like there are so many agents that just are not forthcoming. Do you know what I mean? [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: Again it is the win at all cost or lie at all cost just to get the listing. I mean I just went on a listing in an apartment a couple of weeks ago and she walked me up in the room and she said “Nate what do you think about this room”. I started to laugh and she said “What is funny?” And I said “This is a [censored] ugly room”.  And that is all [laughter] I said all these things in here and in the bathroom too and she starts laughing and I say “What is so funny Jane?” And she says “I have had 3 other agents in here and none of them have had the balls to tell me what I already knew.” [laughter]. She said “I love that you already told me that it is ugly”. She said “I know it is ugly but everybody else says this is gorgeous, this is lovely, we will do this to make it look like this”. She is like “It is an ugly room. Why won't somebody just tell me the truth?” And I told her the truth and guess who got the listing?  [Chris]: There you go. There you go. [Nathan]: Tell the truth. If they don't like the truth than they will hire somebody else that will tell them whatever lie they want to hear. [Chris]: And if you feel like you're not up to telling somebody “This is a [censored] ugly room”. You don't have to say it like that.  [Christian]: You can be more diplomatic to be honest. [Chris]: Yeah be more diplomatic. [Christian]: That is not Nate's style. [Nathan]: That is not my style lets be honest. [Chris]: Just so that our audience knows. You don't have to do it Nate's way. You can tell somebody “No this room may not be up to the aesthetics as the rest of the house. We probably won't focus our marketing efforts on this room”. [Christian]: Or “You can burn this room down”. Or something like that. [Chris]: Yeah. Or “We could put up some fumigation label outside so nobody comes in”. Whatever it may be, but yeah on that line with honestly I think one thing agents have sometimes gotten self-caught up in is when they find something that they don't know they will try and [censored] their way out of it. Instead of saying “I don't know, let me get you the answer. We will make sure that we do this the right way”.  And people feel like you know winning at all cost they want to feel like the expert they always want to be in the expert shoes, they don't want to step back and admit you know, “There might be something I don't know here”. You know that is kind of one thing that I think goes a long way in controlling the transaction is don't be afraid to admit where there is something that you haven't dealt with. That is why it is important to have a good team unless you are Nate. In which case you are solo.  But if you've got a good team or resources or you know even friends and people that you respect in the industry and people that you can reach out to as long as they're you know you are following your broker's direction, you are making sure that everything is legal and ethical. I don't think we have to cover that at this stage in the game.  But yeah just making sure that where your shortcoming are you are not [censored] through them. Christian what do you think are some things that you now can help control the situation a little bit more throughout the transaction especially due diligence, getting into financing and getting up to the posing table? [Christian]: Sure so I mean there is obviously like a minimum standard of what an agent has to do. I am more like how much can I do to help an agent. You know. So for us you know I mean like we all know that is…you know good buyers. You know it is the buyers responsibility as part of their…you know once they get a contract and they're talking to a lender and get all the documents they need and stuff. They need to reach to interns company and get a policy in place and that kind of stuff.  But like that is not really on our shoulders but I still make it a point to you know a day or 2 after to send out an email and say “Hey this is a reminder, these is the things that you need to do. Make sure you get your lenders documents at town manor, make sure you get a quote on home insurance because they can't hold an appraisal before you do”. You know just stuff that is not necessarily in my ball part but it helps them know that, like “These are things that you need to do as part of the process”.  [Chris]: Yeah and going an extra mile is huge. We've got a lot of good feedback ever since we started implementing move easy, which ties into our transaction management system. So move easy when our agents mark that their client is under contract they get this digital check list and resource bank that tells them everything that they need to do during the move from “Don't forget to order your moving supplies, don't forget to line up your child care, you're getting all your pet immunizations” whatever it might be. We put all of it in a checklist and our agents…our clients seem to love it. For those that take advantage of it. [Christian]: And that as I recall it is free for agents right? [Chris]: Well it has to be set up on a brokerage level but yes it is free. [Christian]: So talk to your broker about setting it up for you. Or if you do something like client giant you know per agent they do kind of that concierge. They take care of all your utilities and that is helpful too. [Chris]: That's awesome yeah. And that was Jay O'Brien [phonetics] we had him on last year. Definitely a great episode to go and listen to about providing what was it 7 start service in a 3 start industry? [Christian]: Yes. 5 start service and 3 star…7 start... [Nathan]: 7 star… [Chris]: 7 star in a 3 star. [Christian]: It's a good… [Chris]: Yeah it's a good one. He's a really good person to listen to as well.  [Christian]: Yeah for the service yeah.  [Chris]: Yeah I mean there is so many things that we can do to go above and beyond. You know in Georgia the typical transaction is byer gets contract. Contract gets due diligence. Due diligence gets home inspection. After home inspection there is no other inspection done. They may be right on. I have never seen anybody do a lot of base paint test. They just kind of waive that and you know that is it.  But there is so many other things that we can do. We can advise for air quality testing if there are allergies present which that I have seen happen. Partnering them with an insurance agent to make sure that the home is insurable and check for what the previous claims are. Like getting a clue report pulled. All of these things are huge and can make a big impact in not only your client experience but also controlling the situation, making sure that things are discovered before we get too far. So that at the last minute when we get to the closing table things are reared in their ugly head.  [Christian]: So speaking of kind of above and beyond just us doing our jobs for our clients, I mean what are you guys thoughts about health warranties? Typically I have written those off because they are so limited typically. As far as what they replace in the time frame. But like recently I helped a friend of mine buy a house kind of outside of my normal area a little farther outside in Takoma. And the recommended inspector from some of my you know, agent friends down there, they actually include a very inclusive home warranty that I was very impressed with.  And no extra charge you know like because they already did the inspection on the roof so they guarantee the roof is gonna hold for 5 years and appliances for this long and you know all these extra stuff that seems like a real value add for no additional money either to your pocket or out of their pocket. But what are you guys thoughts on hat? [Nathan]: I mean here in Ohio it is long. A seller typically pays for home warranty. I like them but I like to choose it because there are certain home warranties that have what they are called caps or limitations on what they will cover. And if you know those I don't think that is a good value. The ones that I typically go with on home warranty has no caps. The other side of it form a listing side is they have seller protection from the moment we put that house on the market, the items are covered in warranty. But I think you have to articulate to your client that a home warranty is good for your major stuff. [Chris]: Yeah sure. [Nathan]: Your HVAC furnace. [Chris]: Sometimes. [Nathan]: Yeah well OK again here they're smart like don't go and have a home warranty claim when you had an inspection that said it was bad right. That is not the way to do it so… [Chris]: And on top of that if you have a 25 year old HVAC system it is not gonna pay for a brand new system if it [censored] out. It will have a maximum amount that it will pay towards but on a 25 year old system it is gonna not cover that switch over from you know what was it our 20 to now 4 10A or whatever the new coolant is. So you got explain that to your clients.  Again back to what Nate was saying. Expectation setting. Back to what Christian was saying. Expectation setting. Making sure that everybody understands where the value is when they get it. [Christian]: So what you're saying is that home warranty can be of value just make sure you do your research that is actually a quality home warranty that provides something. [Chris]: Yeah. [Nathan]: 100%. [Chris]: On the first home that my wife and I ever purchased, 3 months in the stove shorted out. It came out 50 dollar call, rewired the entire thing and it worked fine. It is still in that home. But that was a lot less than it would have been you know to have you know a new stove or bring out an electrician so it has its values. [Nathan]: Yeah yeah, I just had to call a client and we were 2 days outside of closing an she was the seller and the hot water tank failed. We had seller protection on it. Guess what 65 dollar call, brand new hot water tank. [Chris]: There you go. [Christian]: Save your 500 dollars. [Nathan]: Saved probably more than that and you know she was already stressed out and called the client. I said “Let's have home warranty take care of that”. Again if you know what you're getting can be a great value. But… [Chris]: Absolutely.  [Nathan]: There are a lot of junk ones. [Chris]: And all of this…yeah all of this goes in line with taking control of the transaction and making sure that we are directing it in a way to get it to the closing table and we are directing it in a way that is in our client's best interest.  [Christian]: Yeah and speaking of staying in control of that transaction one of the things that I see…I moved to a whole other topic on this whole episode, but is that you know what do you do to continue to provide value and stay in front of your clients after closed? Or what the agent is gonna feel at that? [Nathan]: That is a whole episode.  [Chris]: Yeah that is a whole episode. Why don't we get into that next week [laughter]?  [Christian]: OK well I will give a little teaser than. [Chris]: Let's give a teaser and we will get into it next week.  [Christian]: What we started to do is a sort of called home button and that has been great because it is cheap. Right now it is only 25 dollars. You know, to use it and you get it for 500 clients. But basically it provides every month to your home buyer, it provides them with an automated like “Here is what your home is worth and if you refine,  this is what it would look like, if you are AIRBNBed one of your rooms this is the value if you added 300 dollars a month extra payment you know you would pay this much less over the course of yadayada”. So basically provides all these really easy to understand analytics for a client's house that is branded to you.  [Chris]: Awesome.  [Christian]: And instead of you know you sending out some junk email drip thing every month where they probably don't even look at, here is something that directly relates to their house that they're probably gonna look at it. And you can see all the analytics and back end when they're click on it. [Chris]: Thanks for tuning into re:Think Real Estate. Make sure you join us next week as we talk about how to provide value post-closing and control that relationship into the future. Christian you gave a great teaser on that. For anybody who hasn't please go to rtrepodcast.com. Sign up for the newsletter so you never miss when we drop an episode and leave us a 5-star review on iTunes. Have a great day everyone.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

On this weeks episode of reThink Real Estate, we discuss ways to clear your mind and focus on your business. There are hundreds of headlines vying for our attention which serve as little more than a distraction to our businesses. We discuss our thoughts on what to pay attention to and what to ignore so that our businesses don't suffer. Rethink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 14:41 RTRE 55 –  Pay Attention to What Matters in Your Real Estate Business [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris here with Christian. Nate can't join us today. He is too busy selling homes. What is going on Christian? [Christian]: Not much just running into the office after frantically dropping off my son at school and yeah trying to stay cool. What are we gonna talk about today? [Chris]: What is going on in real estate. There is some headlines out on Inman. Open Door picks up another 300 million dollars at a reported 3.8 billion dollar evaluation. Caldwell [phonetics] does some rebranding and agents how to become influencers.  [Christian]: Yeah I was really enjoying the comment section of the Caldwell [phonetics] branding. That is always gold you know seeing what people decide to what hill they decide to dive on [inaudible] [laughter] with rebranding and the broker decided to… [Chris]: Well brokerage that are not at and even agents…Everybody has an opinion and everybody wants to voice their opinion in trivial [censored]. I mean remember with NAR. NAR changed the logo last year. And it threw up such a sting that they changed it back.  [Christian]: Did they change it back? I didn't notice. [Chris]: Oh yeah yeah they…So… [Christian]: 100.000 down the drain. [Chris]: So they did a boxed R. The cube with the R on it. And then it threw such a sting that they got rid of it. They spend like 300 million dollars for some astronomical…  [Christian]: It was like 300.000. [Chris]: Yeah it was a lot of money. [Christian]: That's a lot of money for yeah, changing one R into a different type of R so… [Chris]: Yeah and then everybody hated it so… [Christian]: People do. It's funny as we're kind of going over the headlines of what is happening. What is getting all the buzz in real estate. You brought up a good point that all this stuff probably has nothing to do with my business or your business or any agents actually doing business. It's all distractions and shiny objects.  [Chris]: Yeah I mean for a…it gives people an excuse to not focus on doing what they need to do which is sell real estate. Or train their agents to sell real estate if you're a broker. You know it's like watching the local news right? It takes up a lot of time, but what is the same news every single day? Somebody died, somebody got robbed, something broke in the city and somebody is doing something crazy for consumers.  [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: That is the same news every single day and people spend hours of their day, in the morning and the evening paying attention to that [censored]. [Christian]: Right. Well it is funny too I mean you know kind of running with that example. Because what we're talking about here is information, right? We're talking about our awareness of our world around us or what we considered the world around us. It is interesting if you do a little like kind of historic reading of like how technology changes, how we interact with each other and with technology you know like the value of information has changed from 100 plus years ago where the value was largely isolated to your local community. And it only had value if applied to your life directly. You know if like “What is the rainfall gonna be so I know what my crops are gonna be this year”. That's is what mattered. Nowadays most information is human neutral stories. Which means 99% of it has absolutely no bearing on your life whatsoever. [Chris]: What did…What did Breaderman [phonetics] write about today? And usually when he writes something it is pretty good. But you know like what is Zillow announcing. What evaluation is iBuyers gonna have now? And it all is… [Christian]: Sure in 10 years 60% of the market is gonna be iBuyers. So…That may or may not be true but what to do with my business today you know like some of that stuff can inform but by in large nothing comes of it and it doesn't really affect your stuff. Like you know so the question really becomes why do we get so easily distracted, wrapped around excel about stuff that doesn't help our clients or doesn't get us more business or doesn't grow our brokerage. It is just distractions… [Chris]: People need something to talk about. [Christian]: You mean today. Right. [Chris]: It gives people something to talk about at the water cooler. “Oh what about this? What about that?” But you know what, the water cooler doesn't make you money? Does it?  [Christian]: Yeah but you know it gives you that dopamine to be upset about something. Or enraged about something or worried. [Chris]: It allows people to feel about things that aren't important. [Christian]: Yeah. And I wouldn't say like these things aren't irrelevant. Necessary. But by in large it might affect things years down the road. But again you know it's energy. It's…You know you've got  a limited emotional and mental energy and response so much of it on Facebook or on this you know kind of what's the big distractor and whatever else.  As opposed to building something, doing our business, staying in our lane. Doing our thing. You know like when I was at a larger franchise yeah there is people shuffling around doing transactions but mostly it was people sitting around [censored] about other people's business or “Have you seen what that person is doing or that person is like”. What does that have to do with you? Like mind your own business you know.  [Chris]: “I think our broker is sleeping with the loan officer…[crosstalk]. I think our broker is sleeping with the loan officer”. “Really?” Yeah I mean think like that that those permeate offices and corrupt culture. And you know from a macro level it is important to understand where the industry is going. So that you know how to kind of steer and navigate the industry with your business. But for the most part every other day when you see a new evaluation all you need to know is venture capital funds are putting money at high buyers. That's it.  [Christian]: True. Yeah. Well for the average agent like you know if Compass is growing in a market or Open Door has you know some hundreds of million dollar you know the funding you know round fund how does that affect your business? You know maybe if your brokerage is thinking about the future and how you want to structure your business it could you know just looking at trends but I mean I think a lot of it comes back to you know, we've got limited time and resources. Why are we spending it on these things that don't directly impact us? [Chris]: It's easy. Because it is easy to talk about that. And it is harder to go in and put the work into growing our business and to talk about that. It's not…It's not cool to talk about the work that people don't want to do or that aren't doing. [Christian]: Trust me… [Chris]: And when you're at the water cooler and you're sitting there talking about “Oh I just made this call and that call” and people are like “Eh” and they clam up and they're crossing their arms because they don't talk about that because they're not making their calls. [Christian]: Sure. [Chris]: They're not out there prospecting. They're not talking about you know, the next best thing in growing their business. For a couple of reasons. So there is the idea of competition selling a lot of offices. They don't come up at their training and their culture from an abundant perspective. They think everybody is competing against one another and therefore they don't share ideas. And then you know the other side of that is they don't know what the [censored] they're doing. So they… [Christian]: I mean I think part of that…That is practically true but I think the other side of it is most agents know what they need to be doing but they're not willing to do it. [Chris]: Yeah. [Christian]: You know and so it comes down to why do so many agents hate being real estate agents [laughter]. You know they're not willing to like do the work. You know and thinking about this from a brokerage perspective, you know like I have had to think about whether the different models we could have. How much do we provide? Do we provide leads? Do we just provide systems? Do we provide nothing? You know and we try to do like this middle road of competitive commission split with the essential tools to help them be successful with serving their clients. [Chris]: Yeah.  [Christian]: But you know than there are some models that like provide you know leads and this and that. You know initially that is like “OK well that would be great if we got to a point when there is like abundance of incoming you know business that we could refer at those leads or whatever”. But at the end of the day if a brokerage is providing all that to their agents than what the hell do you need agents for if they're not…I mean what is their job if they can't even provide their own business? [Chris]: A brokerage at that point becomes a big team.  [Christian]: Right because essentially I mean that is what you're doing if you're providing leads. You're doing everything for that agent. They're just sitting there you know. [Chris]: Wrapped up and happy. [Christian]: Yeah they get it handed to them. It's like I mean the point of brining that up is you know what is the role of an agent if they're not willing to like do anything. If they're not willing to provide their own business, grow their business. Find new clients. You know than there can be a lot of different ways. That's not just I mean your classic cold call meeting. I mean you can do so many different things. But the point of it is you have to be doing certain actions everyday to move that ball forward. [Chris]: Oh yeah.  [Christian]: If they're not sure how to spend their time talking about the thread of Open Door or Compass or the NAR or Lumion [phonetics] Legal Battle or how that may change the industry like yeah that is interesting but it's not gonna help you in your business today, you know.  [Chris]: Definitely. I think that you hit it right on the money. If it is not gonna help you in your business today I don't think you need to be paying that much attention to it. Get back. Put the horse blinders on. Look down. One step in front of the other. And you know what a lot of agents don't do is they don't go out and try new things. They will just sit there and look at what other people are doing but they don't actually go out and try something on their own. [Christian]: Well they'll poop on it. They're gonna be like “Oh that is the stupidest thing ever. Until it starts working and they try to copy it. [Chris]: There was a…there was a video that I saw going around and you know gets mixed reactions. There is an agent. Erica Gotiwolf [phonetics] she did a home tour where her entire body was blurred out and looked like she was naked. I am sure she wasn't but she well picture it was naked doing a naked home tour.  A couple of days having that video out, property is under contract. She has 5 listing appointments and 2 referrals. There was a lot of negative feedback on that video but you know what half of the people really thought she was ballsy for doing it. And she got additional business out of it. You know I shared that example with my agents this morning. And low and behold they you know I think a light clicked and they started realizing you know what not everybody has to love what I am gonna do in order to be successful at this. So… [Christian]: Well and the reality is if you're doing something different or better you're probably getting negative feedback than positive. [Chris]: Definitely. [Christian]: And you just have to…You have to know that the people who you know the haters are people who are gonna be stuck in mud and go and hate anything that is new. Don't worry about them. You know if you're doing you know Sutton you know naked home tours, if the goal is to get more eyes in that listing for your client, that is affective. You know you called the stick or, you know, whatever but it was effective and aligned her wish people who likes the outside of the box marketing ideas so got her more business for her ideal client base. Who cares what people who don't understand that think. [Chris]: Absolutely. So I think the whole point of this episode is don't pay attention to everything that is in the headlines in real estate because it is going to distract you everyday. It's all the same stuff. Somebody has gotten more of an evaluation. Somebody is telling you how you can become an influencer. Somebody is saying that this company did something else. Focus on your business and just the how…if you pay enough attention to the headlines you don't understand where the industry is going. Don't worry about all the shiny objects. [Christian]: I mean at the end of the day I wanna say…You know I don't want to say “Don't pay attention to this stuff” but just be intentional about how much time you're spending. I mean I know like people who are really intentional and really killing it on social media they're not doing it that way because they're on social media all day but they're doing it because “This half hour is dedicated to me building my social media” and they don't touch it the rest of the day. So they're actually productive. Do the same thing with these headlines. “OK here is my half hour to read the most sensational headlines and then move on to my day”.  [Chris]: All right. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of re:Think Real Estate. Stick with us. Go to rtrepodcast.com. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter so you get notified every time a new episode drops. Thank you so much for tuning in and please make sure that you give us a 5-start review on iTunes. We'll catch you next week.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode It's easy to for some agents to get along well with their peers. For others, not so much. Tune in today as we discuss the skills necessary to be a pro that other pros want to be around. Here are the secrets to playing nice in the sandbox. The rules are simple. Play nice in the sand box. Rethink Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 31:05 RTRE 36 –  Erica Ramus on Promoting Women Leaders [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hi everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am your host Chris Lazarus here with Nathan White, Christian Harris. Guys how are you? [Christian]: Hey. [Nathan]: Hey, I am fantastic and beautiful. [Chris]: Hey Nate how is that CRM going? [Nathan]: I knew that was coming why didn't I [inaudible] [laughter]. The think about my CRM. I am embarrassed. I swear people it is happening. It is going to get out of my head and… [Christian]: We do know you swear a lot. [Chris]: Yeah you do swear a lot. [Nathan]: Yes I am going like…Man it's gonna be bad. It's gonna be bad in my office. I am gonna have to shut the door. There is going to be a lot of curse words probably. Probably. But you know I drink a lot of caffeine and I swear a lot people, if you don't know. So yeah we're getting there. It is process right. So I should…The episode after this hands down I will give you some feedback. [Chris]: It's OK. We're gonna keep your feet to the fire. [Christian]: Focus that caffeine and rage to getting your CRM up and running. [Chris]: Definitely. So.. [Nathan]: Yeah I am going to. [Chris]: For everybody tuning in if you get a chance, if you haven't already. Go to and check out our website and our new newsletter at rtrepodcast.com. If you go there, you can click on the little box. Type in your name and email address and every week when we launch a new episode you will be notified. So this week we have an amazing guest. Her name is Erica Ramus. She is the broker owner and magic maker at Ramus Realty. Erica welcome. [Erica]: Thanks guys. [Chris]: It's great to have you on. For our agents who are not in your neck of the woods, why don't you tell us a bit about you and your company? [Erica]: Sure. I am the broker of a small independent boutique company in rural Pennsylvania. I run the middle of the North East. And so most of the cities around. I am very, very wear off. And we have less than 10 agents. I have 8 agents and me and an apprentice in the office. And while we are small in boutique we are mighty. So, we have only 8 people in the office but we have 13% market share.  [Chris]: What? [Erica]: Yeah. The largest companies in the area have 15, 20 and 80 agents. And consistently we have…typically we have…I checked yesterday. We have 40 sites pending currently. And the biggest company has 75.  [Chris]: Wow. That is incredible. [Erica]: So highly productive.  [Chris]: Very highly productive. So when we first met it was…You know it feels like this entire podcast is right around the Inman crowd because Erica and I we met out at Inman. Christian was there also when we were doing the…feeding the homeless. Before the conference started and we were at the same panel about being a broker and non-producing.  So you operate your brokerage a little bit different than I do. Which is you know I am the trainer right I don't go and do really anything. I hope people build their own careers. Tell us a little bit about how your office is run. How are…how are you able to obtain 13% market share with only 8 agents under you? [Erica]: I think of my office as running almost like a super team.  [Chris]: OK. [Erica]: So my name is on the door and before I was in real estate I was a magazine publisher. And I had multiple magazines which…one was a local scoop living magazine. So you probably have Atlanta Life or Atlanta Living or Seattle Living. Something like that. [Chris]: Yeah. [Erica]: So I started that and everybody in town knew me. I was the magazine lady. I was selling ads. And hawking my magazine. And than I got into real estate so when I got in I was almost an immediate success because everybody already knew my face. And I used the magazine to my benefit as well. All of my houses of course were advertised in my own magazine. [Chris]: Nice. [Erica]: So it as a great jump-start. But I built a team under me. I very quickly realized that I couldn't service the leads that were coming in. And so than I left to go out on my own. I built a team up of people who just honestly want to be fed. I produce the leads. I state myself as the reign maker ruler. I do all the marketing on the back end. My face is on almost everything.  And when we're agent advertising my name is on the door so I have very strict control over quality. I do all the marketing and produce all the materials myself. The leads come in, the get filtered through the agents and than I am to deal with after  in the background if something goes wrong. But that is my role. I see it as feeding the agents and making sure that everybody is happy and productive.  [Chris]: And recently you were telling me I think a couple of months ago that you started doing a lot more travel recently and talking and really try moving into more a leadership role within the industry right? [Erica]: yep. So I have always written. Obviously magazine writing was my background and blogging. And so I have always written articles and so I am speaking locally. But recently in the past 2, 3 years I started taking up national speaking engagements. I spoke at Better Homes and Gardens about 2 years ago at their last region event. And Inman and National…NAR. And so my inner circuit.  [Chris]: I am impressed.  [Christian]: Awkward pause OK. [Chris]: Awkward pause.  [Christian]: OK. [Chris]: There we go. Alright there we go. So…So you…Inman, Better Homes and Gardens, NAR. Now you're on one of the committees with NAR too right? [Erica]: Yep. Next year I am on the research and development committee. This past 2 years I have been on the housing opportunity committee. I have dome some professional development so… [Chris]: That's fantastic. So the reason I am bringing this up is because there has been a lot of talk. And a lot of focus on women leaders within our industry. Because let's face it, Christian, Nate and I are the majority. I am sorry we're the minority in real estate. This industry is almost 60% female and the leadership is skewed the other direction.  So tell us what it is like to be not only a broker owner as a female because that is something we will never know but also to be putting yourself out there in the leadership role as a speaker and travelling across the US to talk about helping other women to step into a leadership role and grow their business also. [Erica]: That is something I have always been passionate about, it is owning my own business. I started my own businesses from scratch. When I was in my early 20s. And it was the magazine business. I was not content about just being the editor or publisher. I wanted to own the magazine. And I did. So I have always been an entrepreneur.  And once I started in real estate I knew very quickly I either wanted an ownership role in my company or I was gonna start my own. So to me it was never a question of why would I try or why would I do it. I question all the time why ever women don't step out into leadership roles. And why they don't start their own brokerages. A lot of women seem to express that they're unhappy where they are. And they search for other brokers. When I was unhappy I just started my own company.  So…But I think it is something that is inside of you. It is innate. And a lot of women I believe are afraid to take the chance. It was a huge risk when I went out on my own and I had a young son and my husband but who totally supports me and everything I do. All my crazy ideas. But you know why don't women say “I want to make a change”? And instead of jumping from broker to broker “I want t start my own company” or “I want to be a manager in the firm”.  But almost all the managers and owners in my area they're all men. So…Local especially when the kids are young and if you have children you can relate. I know you have children and I know Christian and Chris you both have young children. But I didn't have a husband at home taking care of the kids. And he works too so that was challenge and that is probably why I didn't travel and didn't do a lot of speaking. Occasionally I would travel but I didn't do the NAR stuff. I didn't do the contract until the kids were out of the house and it was much easier. Now I just have to worry about the dog. [Christian]: So Erica being the reign maker at your office you mentioned kind of matching leads and giving hose out and kind of working all the back end stuff and being very involved with the transactions. What is your means of acquiring that new business. Do you kind of do the traditional you buy them or are you just a known entity that you actually got a lot of community coming to you? When they have real estate needs? [Erica]: WE do both because while I certainly have enough organic coming into the site…The site is…I don't know 15 years old basically. We get great Google traffic on our own but we also do buy some leads. So specifically we have about 35% of our closing will be repeat referral business. Out at a given point and the remainder are just walk-in office street. We have a very prominent location on a busy highway corner. And we also have a little bit of Zillow paid. Not much. We actually cut that back significantly. But Zillow pushes a lot of Facebook ads. And we get great leads just from Facebook and also some Google paid.  [Chris]: Has there ever been anything that has happened to you that you think would discourage another woman agent from becoming their own business owner or stepping up into a leadership role either on NAR or on a national speaking arrangement? [Erica]: I think there still is a disconnect between strong women and the belief that strong women versus a strong man in negotiating or even running a company, the woman is not necessarily respected as much as the man. I just…I still see that. And I believe that a man who is negotiating a problem on a deal who is a broker and if he is perceived as being strong is not necessarily being perceived as difficult. He is just being a strong businessman and negotiating or advocating for his client.  Whereas women when we step up to the table and argue on behalf of our client or try to push something through that is strong in our belief we're seen in a negative light as opposed to a positive right. And I haven't necessarily seen this happen on a national level. Every meeting and committee that I have been involved with in the state national has been very respectful. But I see it locally. Most of the brokers around me are all men The managers are men and there is definitely still the stigma against the strong women.  [Chris]: In your office what is the breakdown on demographic, men versus women that are working with you? [Erica]: I have one fantastic man [laughter]. [Chris]: One fantastic man so you have 7 agents working for you that are… [Erica]: All women.  [Chris]: All female. So…Christian and I are running our own office. We each have our own company and obviously we do not fully understand the female experience. If we wanted to create an environment that is conductive for females to come in and be successful and grow their business, what should we do as male brokers in an industry that is 60% female? [Erica]: I would say bring them along with you. Bring them up and along. Bring them to meetings. Bring them if you're going to say chambers of commerce function. Or local meetings. Board meetings. Bring them with you and mentor them up. I think women have to be told that it is OK. It is OK to be strong. It is OK to get a babysitter some nights and go out to business functions. You don't have to be home every night with the kids. I… Women feel guilty about this. I know I did. Getting my broker's license I had to have my best friend at the house from 6 to 10 Thursday nights when I took my classes. And I felt terrible that they were in school all day with my friends rather than with me. But…You have to empower them and also listen to them. You should listen to. A lot of women get stepped on their voices get stepped on and they don't necessarily feel like they are heard.  In my office meetings for example the man in my office he's named Will. He is fantastic. He is very open to giving suggestions at our office meetings. His voice is very vocal. And I have watched some of the women step back a little bit when he speaks and I will pull them out of their shell and say “That is a great idea Will. What do you think about it Stephanie?” And pull them up so that they are not shrinking violets in the background. [Chris]: That's a…I think that is fantastic. we'll have to make sure that we are doing things like that because you know right now we…at least my office is predominantly female. So we try and create an environment where no ideas are really shunt. Right we want everybody to feel empowered that when they come into the office their ego is left at the door and everybody is here to either better themselves or better the people around them.  OK If they're not in the office for one of those 2 reasons they're not welcome because every…So we want that environment where people feel “Oh hey you know what everybody's voice is heard and everybody gets the same amount of focus form the office on how they can grow their business.” And I think one of the challenges being a male broker is that we just instinctively we yell at each other. I mean guys, that's what we do. [Erica]: Right. [Chris]: So when we sit in meeting we're gonna yell at each other. Politely but we're gonna basically be vocal. And what I have learnt is that a lot of women let that happen. They kind of step back so I really like that. That's one of the things that I am gonna have to work on. When I am in those meetings recognizing when they are kind of stepping back and binging them forward. That is great. Thank you Erica. [Erica]: What's the body language? And you know when someone has something to say but they're not gonna say it. And I pull them out of it and make them say it because I wanted them to know their voice is important to me.  [Christian]: Yeah I thing that is important as a leader whether male or female. You know people have different personality types and you know kind of as a type females in general tend to be not as aggressive. So…But you know I know that guys are like that too kind of pick them out like “Hey you know I see you haven't said anything during this meeting, what do you think about this” you  know and try to pull them back in. [Chris]: I think that is excellent advice. So take note brokers. Male brokers. This is what you gotta be doing because face it women are on the move and it's…They're the majority we're the minority, I am the user minority because I am not only a man, but I am a millennial. We make up 4% of the industry. So…It's important to pay attention to this stuff. Nate? [Nathan]: So to pick back on that Erica I always like to ask our guests questions that we have on the show. So the first one I would almost think maybe it would be applicable maybe I am wrong, but first question I want to ask you is how is failure and current failure set you up for later success? Question 2 is what are bad recommendations you hear in our profession and then the third one is if you can have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it what would it say? So go [laughter]. [Erica]: OK and the first question is easy. The biggest failure in my entire life was when I had the magazine. I bought the magazine from my prior boss. I got tired of doing all the work. That's what I thought. Doing all the work and not being the boss so I just bought them out. And I blamed the pregnancy on that one.  So I bought it without looking at the numbers without the advice of my attorney, my accountant and my husband. [laughter]. The trifecta and a couple of years later I…the whole industry changed. Destruction came in. The disruptors but we already hear them all the time in our industry. And domino started falling and I was 3 quarters of a million in debt. In this tiny little rural world and I somehow managed to start a second magazine which actually was successful but I learned huge, huge lessons in that first failure, like when you get a pay, pay roll, you don't use a discover card. You know or huge lessons that I never repeated again.  All having to do with my ego and the handling of overhead. Which leads me to number 2. So handling the overhead whether you're the broker or the agent. Everyday my agents come to me I feel with this great news scam. This great new product that somebody wants them to buy it too. “It's only 99 dollars a month. It's only 25 dollars a week. Only…It's only 100 dollars to put a business card up on our program.” You know over and over again. “It's only…It's only”.  And there are people who make lots of money selling products off the backs of agents who should not be spending that money. So, I warned my new agents “Please don't spend any money on any lead generators. I will make your leads for you. Just sit back and work the leads. And do not ever say it's only, because in January when you're adding up your taxes it's gonna be a huge number”. So that to me is one follows the other. Keep your overhead low. [Chris]: Shiny object syndrome.  [Erica]: Yeah the new shiny object thing. [Nathan]: Yeah we have talked about that before but that is a great recommendation. I mean awesome. Awesome recommendation.  [Chris]: “It's only gonna cost me my success”. [laughter] [Erica]: Yeah and than they say “You only need to sell one house”. If you only sell one house you can't pay off the thing. Now I don't want to hear that. [laughter]. And then I guess my billboard would be “Be fearless”. Just that's my motto “Be fearless”. I am… [Chris]: Where would you put it? [Erica]: I would… [Nathan]: I didn't ask where. [Erica]: Yeah he didn't ask where so I don't have to answer that question. [laughter] [Chris]: OK OK ,be fearless. [Nathan]: Yeah I mean literally the question is “If you could have it anywhere with anything on it…” I mean it doesn't matter where it is it's what's on it I guess. Is the message. And be fearless. [Erica]: Yeah. [Chris]: I love that. So Erica we were talking the other day and you were currently working on an article for Inman. About how we focus our business. This kind of piggy bags off of our last episode with Billy a little bit. So what is your philosophy? You are running this business, you've got 8 agents, you are the reign maker. They are killing it. You've got great market share. What is your business philosophy about how you treat your clients and how does that set you apart? [Erica]: I…A lot of brokers say “We're agent centric, we're agent focused, we're all about the agent”. I believe the broker owns the client and I am client focused. It's all about the client. If you serve the client well the agents will be well fed and taken care of and that side of the coin takes care of itself. But it all begins with the broker and the client and so our entire office is very client centric. Even to the fact that if somebody is working with the client they're not handling it well or they are not mixing well with this person, they're getting frustrated. We will just pull them off that one and say “Give it to this person”. And switch them. It's about the client not about you and your commission or the money coming into the office. [Christian]: Preach it sister.  [Erica]: So…Say it again. [Christian]: I said preach it sister. [Nathan]: Preach it is right. I mean if you go by even our last episode part of this. Again it's client. This is like another one of the common themes in our podcast right guys? I mean and lady.  [Chris]: It's tuning in. [Nathan]: Listen listen, this is not rocker science. We are not reinventing the wheel. We are not…We are not coming up with something new. We're actually just going in and doing what we should be doing and taking care of the client. Good Gosh I mean we can't say it enough. But I mean why do we have to keep saying it? [Erica]: Because people are too dump to do it. It's simple.  [Christian]: Right. Well and I think it's because we push it back against the status quo of the industry. The franchises… [Chris]: They're like KPIs KPIs KPIs. [Christian]: All of that stuff is set up to be focused on sales and numbers and money and getting as many agents as possible you know. [Erica]: Yeah. [Chris]: Recruit retain recruit retain. [Christian]: Exactly. So I mean being client focused or caring about people is not…You are going against the flow of how the whole industry works. [Nathan]: Right yeah. You know there are stats and all that good. I had an agents yesterday…sag way real quick. Sorry. They chased bank at their home office. I get invited to their…their first time or their home buyer programs. And it is great being a chased preferred agent but they are having to be another agent there that is new and one of the other agent speaks and said “Hey we haven't lost the house and in our competitive market you probably will.” And she said “Not me” And I was like oh come on just stop. Like here we go with the ego and not making it about the client, you're making it about you. And can we just…More people. I am gonna stop. Just stop making it about you there. [laughter] [Chris]: Yeah it's the ego. [Erica]: And brokers can be afraid to get people out of their office when they don't fit not only the culture but the way the agent should be. I terminated one who was all about her. She rebelled on a client because the client was 10 minutes late on an appointment [laughter]. And the client forwarded me the text message and she said “I don't have time to wait for people at houses”. I was “You need to leave now” [laughter]. [Nathan]: If this was online and like a quote I would be doing that arrow and this…This this right… [Chris]: Yes. [Nathan]: Man that is…Yes. Don't be afraid. [Chris]: One of the…One of the things that I have learned over the last few years in kind of the leadership role of running a company is your culture that you build and that you operate is based off of thousands of tiny interactions. When you have people like that the ego, the meltdown, the trip, like they're just gonna suck and drain all the energy away from the people that are really trying to do good. So I couldn't agree with you more Erica. You just gotta get rid of those people. Unfortunately, I think there is too many brokers that if you got a pulse and a license you're… [Erica]: When you're being judged…When you're in a major franchise and you're being judged by the head count in  your office…I don't judge myself. People ask me...I will go to Inman and the first word out of their mouth is how many agents I have in the office. So I have… [Christian]: It's the metrics of measuring success. [Erica]: Exactly. I am proud of my market share. I am proud of the fact that my agents do a minimum of 24 sites a year. I have 2 that are doing 40 this year and one who is approaching 60. That is a lot of site. [Chris]: That is a lot of site. [Nathan]: That is slaying the dragon. [Chris]: I think that having…A lot of people put pressure on the metrics. “Oh number of agents, volume sold”. But I think the biggest metric is per person productivity. Because I think if those numbers win the per person productivity I think you are destroying Remax who is the…I mean their franchise on average is the highest per person productivity at like 16 sites per agent on average.  They don't even bring in KW because they are the biggest but they don't have the numbers per agent that KW has. That Remax has. And your average real estate agent in the industry is gonna do like what? 3, .4 deals per year? And that's just sites. So 3,4 sites per year I think is the average. And you are destroying that. And that is fantastic and you're doing it with a complete math of 10 people.  [Christian]: Yeah and that's the…That's the business number side of it. Anything else taken into accounts, smaller you know indie brokerages like ours you know can have the luxury of being able to be in charge, in control of developing that culture, how happy are your agents? You know, like on Remax or whatever. You know name any franchise and you know largely they have undefined culture. Like there is no distinguishing factor as to you know….What is like in their office versus anther franchise. Like they're just there to you know have head count. [Chris]: Our office has the best coffee machine. [laughter] Stuff like that. So Erica for any…We've had the theme kind of today of being the woman business owner. For anybody who is thinking about like stepping up like what advice would you give them? [Erica]: I would say that if you're not strong in your leadership skills or don't feel like you're there, that don't know how to be a leader, get a coach, get a mentor. There are at least in my areas there is classes you can take as far as leadership. Or find someone who you admire and ask them to take you under their wing because it really is by osmosis I think in this business and if there is someone in your office who shows promise bring them up with you. I take my agents all the time to chamber of commerce function, to mixers and just have them by my side so they can watch me interacting with other business people an helpfully bring up their confidence level. [Chris]: I love it. That's great. Erica for anybody who wants to get in touch with you and say they've got somebody moving to Pennsylvania or they just want to reach out and pick your brain on some of the things that you have accomplished, what is the best way that they can reach you? [Erica]: They can always call me or email me. My email address is easy, it's my name. ericaramus@gmail.com. And that's –E-R-I-C-A-R-A-M-U-S@gmail. And my phone number is 5704492131. If you google me it's all over. [Chris]: Awesome. Erica thank you so much for taking the time out of your day today to join us here in re:Think Real Estate. For everybody who is listening in please visit us. Go to rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe to the newsletter so every week when we launch a new episode you're gonna get notified. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next week.  [music]  [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

In this episode, Ed and Jam talk about some killer stats (see below for sources) - and they really are compelling. It may feel like we're fighting a losing battle, but actually parents and the Bible have far more influence on kids than you might think. So Christian parents can have confidence in their status as parents and their habit of opening the Bible with them. Turns out it works. Who knew? This is the Faith in Parents podcast for parents who want to read the Bible with their kids, from toddlers to teens. For more information on Faith in Kids, go to Faithinkids.org Please email us at podcast@faithinkids.org and consider giving to the ministry of Faith in Kids.This episode supports Day 13, I AM (Luke 22:66-23:1) in The Wonder of Easter which can be purchased at The Good Book Company. Readings performed by Anna Nicholson and Ian RidleyProduced by James CaryTheme Music: Seize the Day. Written By Shawn Michael Williams, Hipp Sarah Hart. Performed By Lion's HeartChurch of England mapping surveyhttps://www.comresglobal.com/polls/church-of-england-mapping-survey/At what age did practicing Christians come to faith?At what age did you stop considering yourself to be a member of this religious group?Gen Z: Rethinking culturehttps://yfc.co.uk/rethinkingculture/Who or what influences the way you think about faith or religion?Talking Jesus: Youthhttps://talkingjesus.org/about/Which two or three reasons were most important in bringingpracticing young people to faith?Support the show (http://www.faithinkids.org)

There's been lots of industry chatter about the difference between running an agent-centric brokerage vs. a client-centric brokerage. Today we break down the article written by Erica Ramus for Inman News. The client experience drives the culture, training, and behavior for how brokerage offices interact with their sales agents. We spend time clarifying the difference between the two philosophies and share insight into how our businesses are run. Tell us what you think in the comments below! Episode Transcript RTRE_Ep_46  Audio length 25:46 RTRE 46 – What is a Client Centric Brokerage? [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Nathan White and Christian Harris. Guys how are we doing today? [Christian]: Great thanks for asking. Happy to be here.  [Nathan]: Fantastic and cold as you know what because it was 66 the day before yesterday and now it is 21. I don't understand what is going on. [Christian]: The joys of being in the mid-west. [Nathan]: Oh my God.  [Chris]: How is everybody coming across with the weather? [Nathan]: Listen I can't wait to…I can't wait to get to Florida in a week in a half so it's coming. [Chris]: I feel you. We're heading there the same weekend I think. [Christian]: We are yeah. [Chris]: So we were just talking before we started kicking off and there was a great article that came out on Inman recently by our friend and former guest on the show, Erica Ramus about the difference between agent centric brokerages and client centric brokerages and why an agent centric broker is not the way to go for the future.  So…There was a lot of kick back. It was a hugely popular article. I got a little bit of a quote in there. Christian was majorly quoted in the article because… [Christian]: I am very quotable.  [Chris]: Yeah you're a very quotable guy apparently. [laughter] So Christian why don't you tell the audience a little bit about the article and what the difference is between being agent centric and client centric? [Christian]: Sure yeah I mean in a nutshell you know it was nice because we met Erica at Inman Connect last year in 2018 San Francisco and between me you and Jackie Sotto [phonetics] you know there was definitely some like mindedness as far as how we run our brokerages or any brokerages and focus on building it with a client experience in mind.  And so I think the article is based off of you know kind of the strength we so in Inman or different conferences where a lot of…you know the bigger brokerages would get up and just kind of tell and tell they're agent centric. You know it's all about the agent experience, all about the tools, all about the support. And very little talk about the client you know which to me and to her seems very backwards.  So, you know, she reached out to us and we got some of her ideas and wrote an article and it seems like it kind of hit it…It hit a nerve. You know a lot of people understood that. Essentially what we're saying with being agent centric…or sorry with being client centric is that everything we do is informed by how we as a brokerage can empower our agents to provide a better service and experience for their clients. And ultimately their clients, our clients if they're successful you know brokers become known for something, we're doing something big and better as opposed to just turning up transactions like a big franchise might and not really having any oversight or care how the agents do the business. They just want them to do business. [Chris]: So it's…It's not about attract, retain, recruit the agent. It's about providing the experience for the client and how…how can…I think a lot of the pushback from some of the comments on the article talked about “Well why can't you have both?”.  [Christian]: There was a…when there was pushback that's kind of what I saw. And to me that says that they don't really understand the mindset. Because you can't have both. You can't be centered on 2 different philosophies. Right? You're either agent centered… [Chris]: You represent the buyer and the seller at the same time. [Christian]: Exactly. There's a conflict of interest there because it's…your focus and direction is gonna be going in 2 different ways. Because I think a lot of the franchiser are focusing on they're talking about being agent centric, they're focusing on recruiting, retention, how can we give the agents the things that they think they want, that they think will help them to be successful. But most of that stuff centers around legion back office stuff, CRM, technology. Very little that interfaces with the client and has anything to do with the client experience.  I mean there are some exceptions in there as far as like the marketing maybe with Compass or something. But most of it is geared around you know “How can we please the agent to build our brand?” And to me that seems backwards you know. And maybe that's just the mentality but in the indie brokerage we have lectures about being smaller and how to control that experience and how the agents we have and their focus better. You know to me it's all about how can we service the client better and everything we provide to the agent in support to new tools is geared towards that. As opposed to just making them feel good or providing free business or something and it doesn't really have an impact on how they service their clients or how they interact with their clients.  [Chris]: So Nate you were the big franchise and then you went to a smaller more growth orientated firm. What's your take on this from an agent's perspective? [Nathan]: Oh man well I feel like if you're agent centric than you're more of an owner centric kind of guy. Right. It's about profits and bottom lines to the individual that owns that brokerage if you would. Shoot. I also…well you know if I go back to when I became an agent I wasn't taught about the client experience. You know I was taught “Let me show you how to lead generate”.  There was never anything about taking care of the client, putting the client first. It was about “You need to make 100 calls a week, you need to have your lead trackers sheet and out of 100 you hope to get 1”. But nobody said anything about “This is how you take care of a client”.  And so for me luckily coming from a hospitality background I get it. I understand what it means to take care of a client. Have I not hit it out of the park with a few? Yeah I have. We all falter, right? But I…I…I have better grasp I guess because of the hospitality industry. And I actually see people that, at least in my market, that got into the industry the same time I did that have a hospitality background have done well because they understand client focus. So you know not the 2 mowed horn but as we were talking I am in the top 15% in Ohio. For agents. I am a solo guy. [Chris]: Congrats. [Nathan]: Again…Thank you. I go to…I take care of my clients and I think 98% of my clients would tell you I would bend over backwards. I would do what is necessary for them because ultimately it is my reputation as well. So… [Christian]: Yeah I think…I think that's a good…Obviously agents tend to have a different perspective as brokerage owners. Well I think the good brokerage owners have been agents or still are in some regards so they're connected to that side of things.  You know it makes sense I think to a lot of people if you're gonna be client centric that's the agent who is doing that. Some of the push back I have seen is, well the brokerage client is the agent and their job is to service them while the agent's job is to service the client. You know I think that kind of goes to me it says you don't really understand this mentality. You know, because if you as a brokerage owner if the brokerage doesn't care about the client experience or the clients, well their agents aren't gonna care about them. You know that mentality and that transaction mentality is gonna triger down. [Chris]: That is amen. Amen. It all comes from the leadership. Leadership sets the tone for everything that is gonna happen in the company. And if the leadership is saying “You know what go on sell, sell, sell and not focus on the relationship or the experience that that client is gonna have” than how do you think that that is gonna play out long term?  [Nathan]: Yeah. [Chris]: If the firm said “Go on recruit, recruit, recruit” and all it wanted for you to do is recruit for your down line than how does that benefit the end user? How does it benefit the consumer? Because the broker owns the contract. The agent leaves, the broker still owns the client. And every single industry except for real estate, every single industry cares about that consumer experience. Any financial advising firm, any single one of them. You know all their advisers are independent contractors. They still care about the end user experience.  [Nathan]: Again I go to the restaurant background. It's simple as like caring about the food that comes out of the window that goes to the guest, right. It's about driving those relationships. We talked in the last episode and the one before that about 2019. Back to basic relationships.  Again this relationship is not only from agent to agent but more importantly just agent to your client…to you to your client. And having that relationship that is meaningful. I don't know, you know, I called a client the other day and just to say “What's going on?”. They haven't bought or sold anything for over a year but it was just “Hey what's going on? How are you? How is Bobby? How is Sue?”. You know like you just have those relationships. Care about your people. It will go a long way to serve you better. [Chris]: Wait you actually care about your clients? I didn't realize you did that. [Nathan]: I do. I don't care about the co-host I work with but I… [Christian]: He pretends not to care about people. He is a teddy bear inside. [Chris]: OK. [laughter]. [Nathan]: I pretty much am a teddy bear. People figure it out and I am like [inaudible]. So… [Chris]: We have seen those articles come out on you. [Nathan]: Yeah. They didn't interview me about those things. I don't know it's maybe because I drop the F bomb too often. But… [Chris]: Probably they did the background on you and they were like “Yeah…” [Christian]: we'll pass. [Nathan]: Yeah and you know looking through some of the comments that you said you know on this article some people just truly they just don't get it. I am like, you know, you want to beat them over the head. I am just like “Really how do you not…how do you not understand that?”. [Chris]: Well I think one thing I have learned over the last year and a half, if you focus on the consumer that doesn't mean that you're ignoring your agents. [Christian]: Exactly. That is a common misconception. [Chris]: It is a common misconception so that's why I think a lot of people don't understand why you can't have both. But a broker that is running an agent centric firm, the job for that broker is to recruit, retain and develop agents and that is it. It doesn't…They don't care about the interactions that that agent has with that customer or the client. The end user experience does not matter. It is all about the experience that the agent has with the firm. Does the agent have the technology? Does the agent have the tools and the training to do their job? Is the training going to allow them to sell and create a massive income? It doesn't necessarily mean it teaches the agents how to have a great customer experience or built a referral based business.  [Christian]: Yeap. [Chris]: And when we're talking client centric from a firm perspective it means that we are teaching and training the agents how to give their clients the best experience possible. It doesn't mean that we're not training them how to lead gen. It doesn't mean that we're not training them on all the tools. It doesn't mean that our agents aren't important to us. Because the agents are the life load of the company and their success is our success. [Christian]: Amen. Yeah. [Chris]: But it does mean we're putting on the clients first. [Christian]: Yeah I mean just got a second there if someone I mean a listener is having…can't wrap in their head around this I would say that you know if a brokerage is agent centric you're probably not gonna get a great, you know ,customer experience from that agent. Or if you are it's gonna be very hit and miss depending on you know the agent.  But if you're client centered you're also going to be providing the tools resources training to that agent to make them as successful as possible. So you know you focus on one you're not gonna get the other. You focus on client centric you're gonna get both.  [Chris]: Absolutely. [Christian]: You know another way to look at it is you know if you're at a brokerage and you're like “I can't really tell like are they…like are they client centered or they're agent centered”. I think one key indicator of that is does the brokerage, the guy who does the brokerage, does the managing brokers, do they care how you do your business? If they don't care and they just want you to follow up on your leads and they close transactions they're agent centered.  You know they don't care about the reputation of the brokerage. They don't care how they…you know if you get referral business because they don't care how good you are at servicing your clients. [Chris]: If it's uniform? Right? If you go from broker to broker and you get the same type of answers. If it's all focused on the client versus if it's all about your business. That's another good way to tell. [Nathan]: I would like to add actually ask a question because I don't know. I am sure there is but whoever is listening, hey Sean Carp if you're listening email me at nathan@linkapm.com but I want to know who teaches, if there is a brokerage that really teaches this. I don't know about it either that… [Christian]: Wait we do but… [laughter] [Nathan]: Well right right I am just saying outside of our… [Chris]: If you're in Georgia 770-509-0265 call us for career info. [Nathan]: Outside of our spectrum like and I specifically mean more big bucks but like… [Christian]: Sure. [Nathan]: I would like to go you know of it's possible on my market but I would travel to within the Ohio region, to go and hear somebody. I would really love to hear somebody speak about it and just see what they're saying because I feel like I have a good grasp of what I again hospitality is and that's customer, client centric. I mean hospitality right.  I would love to hear that. So anybody out there knows hey hit us up, shoot us an email. I'd love to hear it. Sean Carp I am sure you know somebody you could direct me to so do that. But I would be curious. [Chris]: I would like to hear that too mainly because I feel this is a growing movement. I think after…after the whole Facebook debacle with peoples' privacy and big companies, the focus really for the last 6-9 months in business has really been on being human. Humanizing business, focusing on the relationship and I think that has just started to gain steam. So anybody who is doing that please let us know. [Nathan]: Amen. [Christian]: You know I would say you know for listeners who are listening to this, this would be like “Why do I care like hay are you guys talking about this”. I would say it matters because the reputation in that industry is not great. And it's not great because of the transactional, non-relational sales, salesyness of industry.  And because of that there has been huge gaps in the industry that left room for people like Zillow and Redfin to come in. Now you can you know be mown to them and whether on not become a brokerage or whatever but it's your fault. It's the industry's fault that Zillow is thriving. Because they're…they're unapologetically client centered. And here we have agents who are arguing about whether or not you should be client centric. It's like you don't get it. Like you're gonna become obsolete. [Nathan]: Because of [censored] like you we have the reputation we have. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: But we're talking about the agents. [Christian]: Right. In our little spheres we're trying to make a difference, you know. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why NAR sold realtor.com.  [Christian]: Yeah. [Chris]: It being all about the agent is why the MLS has kept all the data public and Zellow exists. Agent centricity caused the problems that are there because we didn't focus on the consumer. [Christian]: Yeah exactly. [Chris]: Period. [Christian]: Exactly.  [Chris]: So if I am agent Christian… [Christian]: You're a Christian agent or agent Christian? [Chris]: No if I am an agent, Christian. [Christian]: Oh comma Christian. OK got it.  [Chris]: Comma Christian. If I am an agent and I am looking for a broker. I am building my business. I am with a broker. I don't know if I am agent centric or client centric. And I am hearing this podcast and I am like “Maybe I want to be with a client centric broker”. What impact would that have on my business?  [Christian]: I think that would have a huge impact because they are gonna be focused on your success and your repeat referral business based on the outstanding experience you provide which unfortunately a good experience is not a common thing or focused in real estate. Even…even from an agent perspective.  So I mean I think it would…Yeah we were talking about how you're differentiating yourself. Having a good client experience I guess is a general thing. You can do it in many different ways but being that…having that as a focus that is going to differentiate you more than anyone else. And you know a big part, a big key part of that is what systems you have in place in order to have clear and consisting communication because the single biggest thing you can do when it comes to, you know, servicing your client is communicating well, being available. You know to me it's basic stuff but you know when I hear you know other people's clients or friends of mine who have had bad experiences it almost always centers around “I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't get a hold of my agent you know they didn't tell me anything”. And that is a really simple problem to solve.  [Nathan]: So let me ask the questions to the broker. I mean I have my own answer if you would but so what does that look like? What's…what's an example. I don't want to use I use myself in fact which is great, right.  So I just closed on a very nice home for a client of mine that is from Brazil. They relocated here for work and they are back in Brazil doing some stuff. They needed the home painted. They needed new flooring installed and several other things. They were gonna be and actually are as we speak gone to Brazil. Who do you think is taking care of getting that painting estimates and getting the house painted, letting contractors in and getting contractors in for the floor. Finding the selections, making sure…To me that is client centric. I've gotten my check, it's already cashed. It's in the bank. But I want to make sure when they get back from Brazil that this home is ready to go. That they can move in and be seamless and I know plenty of agents who once they got that check they would have been like “You're on your own”. [Chris]: Oh yeah. [Nathan]: So to me…To me that's…that's client centric. Like I don't want to say I am going above and beyond but I feel like that's…that's what I need. I've got another client getting ready to sell their home. They're older. They're moving into a retirement community. They have to move all their furniture. They're 80 years old. Who do you think is moving it? Me. [Christian]: Your contractor filling for Home Depot? [Nathan]: Nope me. I am the one out there. My title company is actually gonna assist me and we're gonna get these people moved. Those are the things to me that there's…you can't even put a value on it. And it reaps rewards. So if you do things like that for your client you will win all day. That to me is what it looks like. I would assume to you all that's the same kind of thing or different examples.  [Christian]: Word. I want to hear what our listeners think. I want comments. I want dumpster fire. I want bickering. No I don't want that. I just want to know what people just think. [Chris]: Yeah I want the client to tell us if an agent centric is better. [laughter] No one thing is we're all on the independent side but I don't want our listeners to think that being client centric is exclusive to the independent side. I don't want them to think that you know the franchise or large firm cannot be focused on not being client centric because we have a great example of a client centric person which is Joe Rand. Who is Rand realty, metro…not metro. Better homes and gardens Rand realty out of New York. And he literally wrote the book on this. [Christian]: He's got a new one coming out that talks about it.  [Chris]: Exactly. It's coming out and it is incredible. And it's all about being good at your job. And that is what client centricity is about. As the agent it's about being good at your job and if you're with a client centric broker they are going to help you be good at your job and not just at lead generation converting and selling. But long term business building, creating a referral book that is going to help you set yourself apart like the best agents. Because the bets agents are the ones that are getting 80-90% repeat referral business because they have done the work, they have built the relationships, they have focused on the client.  And that's it. It's not…It's not exclusive to a small firm, it's not boutique, it's not independent. It's not franchise. It's about the leadership and whether or not the leadership is setting the example with the agents that…It is not OK to not focus on your clients. Or if they're setting the example that as long as you keep closing the numbers we're gonna be happy with you. That's it. [Nathan]: Yeah I agree. [Christian]: Yeah you're right. Amen.  [Nathan]: Alright and drop the mic. Mic dropped. [Chris]: I can't drop it it's on a suspended arm.  [Christian]: That's true it's suspended yeah.  [Chris]: Alright so before we wrap up for this episode any final thoughts on agent centric versus client centric and I think we're starting to beat a dead horse here but final thoughts? Nate, Christian go.  [Nathan]: It's not rocket science people. We didn't invent anything new. We're not coming up with something that's different. It's…I don't know. It's kind of the human thing. Be kind. Do what's right if that makes sense. So it should. I don't know thought the easiest things to do are the hardest things to get done so… [Christian]: Yeah I agree you know. You know it seems like it should be kind of the basics for like how we do business but unfortunately it's very rare so hopefully it becomes less rare but then we'll have to figure out some other way to distinguish myself in our brokerage so [laughter]…but I will cross that bridge when it gets there.  [Chris]: Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you guys more. I think that one thing that agents should look at if they're trying to figure out if being client centric is for them, look at every single other business industry period. And whether or not they put their clients' needs above everything else. Or if they decide that selling and then forgetting about them is the best thing. If they're…you can look at any company, any case study, any MNA they're all going to involve how the customer is treated and how the client experience is. I mean you can look at Ask Jeeves versus Google. Does anybody talk about Ask Jeeves anymore? No they don't. Google has… [Christian]: In the last 15 years.  [Chris]: Google has focused on the client and they have provided what the customer wanted. You can look at Zillow that's because we didn't do our jobs. So let's start now.  It's been a great episode. Thank you everybody for tuning in. This is re:Think Real Estate. Please go to rtrepodcast.com. Subscribe to the newsletter so you get a notification every time we launch a new episode. Go to iTunes leave us a 5 start review and share this. Please share with your friends, anybody in real estate that you think needs to hear it. Share the message. We'll talk to you next week.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licenced for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

Download this Episode Learn to stop wasting your time and money. Reign in your focus as a real estate professional and double down on things that will make you money in 2019. Today we discuss where agents are making their mistakes. We share how agents can refocus their efforts on what they're currently doing and how they can change their direction to make more of an impact in their business. Real Estate Podcast Transcription Audio length 33:57 RTRE 43 – Stop Wasting Time and Money [music] [Chris] Welcome to re:Think Real Estate, your educational and hopefully entertaining source for all things real estate, business, news and tech.  [Christian]: I am Christian Harris in Seattle, Washington. [Nathan]: Hi, I am Nathan White in Columbus, Ohio. [Chris]: And I am Chris Lazarus in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks for tuning in.  [music] [Chris]: Hey everybody and welcome back to re:Think Real Estate. I am Chris Lazarus here with Christian, Nate and this week we're talking about shiny objects and things that real estate agents waste their money on. [Christian]:  And time. [Chris]:  And time. OK let's do that again [laughter].I have run out of words today. Christian start us off man. What are agents wasting their time and money on? [Christian]:  Hi. I think it depends on if you're a brand new agent in the business or if you're a veteran. If you're brand new you should be focusing on sales. Spending much of money on IDX websites, waste on time and money. It…because it's…everything that is expensive and doesn't directly co-relate to new sales, new agents should not be doing. But I think it is very sexy when people say “Hey you need a website, you need this, you need that, you need to buy leads”. Don't do any of that.  Like that's all maybe once you built up your business and you have the experience to be able to convert leads maybe you can do that but I think initially it should be a lot of new tech network, thinks that are cheap and easy and free which is gonna be social media profiles, you're getting out to you know community events, reaching up to people you know already via email, phone calls, that kind of thing. Those are several in one but the first thing I am thinking of is like a website or something that people tell you need to do but probably isn't the best use of your time or money to get sales now. Thinking of business now. [Chris]:  So I am gonna agree and disagree with you at the same time.  [Nathan]:  Well you're wrong. [Chris]:  [laughter] I don't know about all that. So I think you're right for most agents. You know if somebody comes in and they just buy a website and do nothing with it, right. It's a waste of money. If somebody is gonna come in and run as part of building that business, if they're coming in as a new agent or even an experienced agent, if you're doing the right way, you have landing pages, you're going out doing ads, lead capture… [Christian]:  No agent does that unless they're coming from a professional marketing background no agent is gonna do that. [Chris]:  People do that. People do that. I try… [Christian]:  Maybe one person. Maybe one person that has an actual conversion rate on their website that is a brand new agent spend money on that. [Chris]:  They're not brand new agents. [Christian]:  Well there you go. I said as a brand new agent. If you're experienced and you've got some runway to go OK that's a project that you can work on and you have some money to spend but that's not gonna get you business in your first year.  [Chris]:  Yeah and that's why I am agreeing and disagreeing. [Christian]:  OK. [Chris]:  Because the website could be, it can be a business hub, right? It is not something that you need right away but it can be an extremely well utilized source of revenue for agents if they do it right. It can also be a supporting piece for their marketing collateral that they create and they're putting in front of people. So…But… [Christian]:  Eventually yeah. [Chris]:  But most agents in my experience, there was a time when I paid for 20 professionally done websites, gave them to 20 of my agents, one of them updated their bio. Like completely waste of money. So I agree with you for 99% of the agents. They never gonna use it. Whatever their profile is on the MLS is whatever they need.  [Christian]:  Right. Well and I say that also understanding that even if you do a website and you're doing all the right stuff I mean I think statistically it is like across you know the whole nation, it's like 10% of business comes from people's websites. And that's in the high end. That's if you're killing it. That's if you have actual quality SEO. And… [Chris]:  Visitors [laughter]. [Christian]:  And marketing is good. And they're actually doing everything right. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Christian]:  And most agents don't do that. [Chris]:  So instead of doing a website, instead of doing a website right off the back Christian what would you recommend they start with?  [Christian]:  I say spend your time and energy getting your database together, so that you can set a mail chain for something similar and get in front of the people who already know they can trust you as opposed to trying to reach people that don't know you from you know, Adam and it's gonna be a much harder sale, much harder conversion. Take a longer, lumber longer you know to convert.  So you know go for the low hanging fruit and you gotta let people know and that's through social media, through mail chain, thorough that kind of stuff. And that's all free. Cheap. And just requires some time. [Chris]:  Absolutely. [Christian]:  Because as you get busier your time is gonna become more value and you have less of it but you have more money. And you can switch 2 things that are gonna take more money to get set up and more of a long term marketing strategy. [Chris]:  Oh yeah and I think instead of having a website right off the back you can create a Facebook business page and still have all of the lead capture features that a website is gonna give you if you just run Facebook lead ads. [Christian]:  True story. [Chris]:  And any conversion system is gonna have Facebook ads as part of that whether you push them to your website or your business page. That's just a personal preference based off of what you have out there. So you can easily replace the website initially with a Facebook business page. [Christian]:  True.  [Chris]:  Gives you the stats, the insight, so all the analytics too once you get 100 followers. So definitely. Definitely. [Christian]:  If you have a place to you know have your persona and drive traffic to. [Chris]:  Nate what is one thing that you think real estate agents are wasting their time and money on? [Nathan]:  They're wasting their time on time. I don't know if that makes sense but it makes a lot of it to me. Why? And what I mean by that is they don't have the product. They don't have any direction. They're literally like that ship, that went out to the bay but it never reached the ocean. They don't have a plan. They have not thought about what they're doing. Right? I mean I know Chris you know what you have been doing lately. I know what I do.  You know you wake up with a sense of purpose every day and we know the direction we're going. I know the direction that my ship is pointing from when I get up at 4:45 in the morning. Versus you got all these other agents. I can't tell you the [censored] callus time I have talked to somebody and I am  like “Hey what are you up to today? What are you up to today?”. And that's another agent. And they'll be like “Oh nothing”. And that is a common response.  Well [censored]. Nothing yields nothing. You don't have to be a genius to figure that out so stop wasting your time. Either do what you set up to do and…or at least develop a plan on how to do that and achieve it. I…you know…So stop wasting time. That's what they're doing. Wasting time.  [Chris]:  Zero plan. Zero equals zero. [Nathan]:  Yes I mean it's you know it's a zero sum game. Right you know it's like when I was fat I didn't just lose fat by doing nothing right? I had to go on and do something. I had to develop a plan. Well you're not gonna go sell a [censored] house without a plan. I mean you might get lucky but you know you're throw [censored] against the wall, it will stick. So… [Chris]:  I thought that's all real estate agents in the business.  [Nathan]:  Yeah right I just… [Chris]: They think they're just gonna list it and sell their house. There… [Nathan]:  Yeah right. So… [Christian]:  Well I was gonna say the other side of the coin on that, you know like you wanna have a plan whether you're new or realizing that your business is disorganized and you need something to give you direction. The other side of the coin to that is analysis, paralysis. Where you're always waiting to your ducks in a row, you do too much planning and you think everything is perfect before you execute. You need to execute while you're planning. Planning execute. It's a cycle not like I have this done where I can now start getting business, you know. I commonly see that where they're always planning and they always got something they have to do before they can actually get in front of their clients. [Chris]:  For everyone who wants to learn more about business planning and how we do it go to our website rtrepodcast.com and check out episode 40 which is our 2019 business planning episode. So it's a few weeks back. [Nathan]:  Right.  [Chris]:  But I gotta agree with you. People come into this and a lot…I think Bufenian [phonetics] company, on one of Brian Bufeny [phonetics] podcast. He said that they did a study. And in that study they tracked the time management of real estate agents that were working from home. And they found that on average like 0.5% of the time was spend on income generating activity. And here's why.  Because when you're working from home for somebody who is not monitored, who has zero accountability in the activities that they're supposed to do, when they get faced with getting the kids off to school, coming down, sitting down and then they look around and they're like “I gotta vacuum”. So they vacuum and they sit down and they're like “Gotta get the laundry going.” And they do that and they constantly find something to distract them from making calls.  And I am not talking about expires or foosballs I am just talking about calling your sphere. Warm calling. Calling to let people know that you're doing what you're doing and trying to set appointments to get referrals. It doesn't have to be cold calling. But nobody does it. So on average the income generating activities that are done by real estate agents that are not in an office, less than 1%. It's ridiculous. [Christian]:  Yeah and kind of going along that same, I am feeling a theme here of wasted unaccountable time. And one of the big ones, and this is a little tricky because really if you start off with your planning and your tensionality, time blocking, whatever tool you use to account for and manage your time so that like you know like a prior guest you know was talking about, it's all your focus and intensity of focus not the amount of time you spend. So like there's very real place for social media in your networking and connecting and getting the message out there. But you should be like “OK this is my 50 message off in a half hour and then turn off”. Don't be on social media all day long because they will sap your productivity. I guess. [Chris]:  Definitely. [Nathan]:  Man this is yeah I agree with Christian here and common theme I guess where we're going with this. But I am reading a book here now, by an author named Peter Changman [phonetics]. And it talks faster than normal, turbo charge your focus, productivity and success would be the secrets of an 88 charge de-brain ADX my brain right. So we'll use me as an example.  What have we talked about here in several episodes that I have yet to do and complete? My CRM right and get that updated. And I was struggling with that. And continue to struggle but finally started to get things done on it and I took it out of the book and figured how to get that done and for me what I had to do is set a deadline. You know I can have like you know Christian said I was the king of you know I plan on doing it, right. Write it on the list even but once I started putting deadlines on when I needed things done my…the way my brain worked at least was “Alright you gotta get it done and you got until this date to do it”.  So for me that works and I think part of it is you know than you can get into further and say “What are those triggers?” And you have to figure out for yourself what works and I knew for me if I didn't have a date I wasn't gonna get it done. So when I do a lot of my planning now I do a put dates behind it because than I am working towards a completion date and it helps me stay on track for where I need to be. Therefore, I am not wasting my time. So… [Christian]:  Yeah well you can take that to micro level and use an app or regular timer to say “Hey here is my hour to do this project and have it counted down. So it creates that artificial timeline that kind of forces you to focus. So… [Chris]:  Sense of an urgency. [Christian]:  Yeah exactly. [Chris]:  Yeah. [Nathan]:  Yeah you gotta know what those distractions are you know. I…you know like for me distractions are the lower but after I read the book, impressive how he wrote the book. He knew he wasn't gonna get it done so he booked a round trips fly to China and back. And just [laughter] flew out, flew back and he got the book done. Than he got even more distracted right. You know you don't have to go down the extreme but if that is what it takes, that's what it takes. [Chris]:  You know that is impressive I gotta say. [Christian]:  Yeah. [Chris]:  All right so one thing that I think agents are wasting their time on, and their effort and their money is spending time with vendors, spending time going out getting coffee with your title rap or your home warranty person or the lendors that are begging you for business. Taking those meetings as an agent is just a complete waste of time. What do you guys think? [Christian]:  I, I tend to agree and I will take it one step further. Where there…I don't know about you guys but I get inner dated you know I work my best to keep my email clean you know unsubscribe from everything that ends up in there. But I get inner dated with marketing people and you know LinkedIn connections and basically all these people that want to sell me something.  And with my mentality I am like you know I have got stuff in place that works. I don't need to perpetually be spending my time entertaining “Well maybe this is a little better, maybe this time title company that…” I have got people that unless we have a pinpoint that needs to be fixed you know like you said you're wasting your time is taking out an hour ago meet with coffee with a new lender that you know is trying to sell you on you know their products over whoever someone else's.  You only have so much time in a day, don't spend it entertaining meetings that aren't going to…you know people are gonna try and ask you for your money. [Nathan]:  I agree and disagree and I think this goes back to what Christian said earlier.  I think that is where you are in your business. If people are a new agents those relationships aren't doing anything for you at the moment. Give them business and then you can nurture those relationships. If you're an established agent than yeah taking those meetings, I do that all the time now but I am established.  I took a gazillion of them when I was new. The thing was none of those helped me getting new business. Yeah. [Christian]:  Yeah they're not gonna lead to new business by themselves so… [Nathan]:  Yeah yeah. Exactly. [Chris]:  Yeah. This is one of the reasons why you know when we started doing team meetings and team training we made it clear that outside vendors were not coming in. Because with about 100 agents I have people calling me all the time wanting to get in our sales meetings. “Oh we'll bring breakfast, we just want 15 minutes”.  “I have my agents for an hour. I am not gonna waste 15 minutes of that hour letting you pitch them on something that they don't need to be spending their money on. They don't need to be buying a magazine. They can be doing other things to build their client base. They don't need your website or shiny object or social media tools so that they can manage all.”  Now granted when a lot of people do need those things but for the most part as new agents, people that are growing their business they don't need that stuff. And when they do get up to the point where they need those meetings, those coffees with lenders and marketing people they've got money to spend and that's fine. But off the back just it's a complete waste of time. Just anything that is not getting you directly in front of a client or mailing it so that when you do get in front of a client you are polished and professional; and they want to do business with you, anything other than that not worth it. It's a waste of time. [Nathan]:  I got another one that you all are gonna disagree with me on that. But… [Chris]:  I love disagreeing. [Nathan]:  Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right. What are people wasting their time on? They are wasting their time on Facebook.  [Chris]:  You're wrong. [laughter] [Nathan]:  I…This [crosstalk] [censored] standing concept in what you're trying to do, I use it as an example Chris. I watch X,Y because you stuck with it. You continue to do it. Then I see these others kind of one head wonders or they do it twice or 3 times, the content sucks. It's got no purpose, no meaning behind it. Just stop. Like you know, 1-just quit. Find another angle but don't be that guy or gal on Facebook if you would because it just gives me some stuff. It's…put some thought. I have a great time but it causes a distraction for me watching your really horrible Facebook post.  So get off Facebook if you're not good at. It's just another one of those things that if you're a new agent and you're on there going weekly as an agent I don't know, it just doesn't do anything for me. And there's gonna be several people out there that I am you know they're gonna say Facebook is the amazement of the world. I will say this and I will challenge anybody.  I had a lender comment a week ago who said “Let's get on Facebook” and I said no. I want to do what's next and here is my belief in what's next. And it's already happening. Is an Instagram app. Why? I look at all the women in my neighborhood that my wife is friends with. And they got off of Facebook, took it off their phones. Have chosen to go to Instagram. And I have asked all of them why. And they said “You know why because there is no [censored] and complaining, there is no whining, theirs is no…” you know any of the negativity. So they have chosen to go to the Instagram realm and Facebook is a thing of the past. So what's next? Maybe, maybe we are already seeing it. [Chris]:  I think that Facebook is going to be around but the extent to which people use Facebook is way more than it needs to be. And I am so guilty of it. Over the last 7 days, 6 hours on Facebook, screen time. [Christian]:  That's disgusting. [Chris]:  I hate this app. I hate the fact that my phone tells me, it judges me and says “This is what you're going”. Now granted a lot of that, primarily most of that is work related, it's keeping up what the conversation is amongst other brokers. It's posting content with other brokers and it's having conversation in those groups. I am not sitting there you know taking quizzes on what cats are. But it's about an hour a day. That's… [Christian]:  You spend that much time on the toilet? That's amazing. [laughter] Or is it just me? That's where I spend most of my Facebook time. [Chris]:  Well I've got 3 kids. So I am trying to you know you've gotta hide. [crosstalk] “Sorry, busy can't come out [laughter]”. No it's…but seriously look at your screen time people because I have and… [Nathan]:  I just…I just did. I am actually proud of myself.  [Chris]:  Yeah? [Nathan]:  Yeah 3 hours in the last 7 days. [Chris]:  Good for you. That's half of the amount I have spent so I am working to spend less and less time doing that. Most of my time is spend mailing messages and then granted, in Instagram. So…But seriously doing that stuff like Facebook, the network, there is a ton of potential there. I would be lying if I said I never got business off of it. But the extent to which most of us use it is just way more than it needs to be. And even with Instagram. You put that much time in Instagram. How many pictures do you need to look at in a day?  So back to, back to the topic at hand. What Christian…anything else? What things are real estate agents wasting their time or money on? What are…Because we spend a lot about time. What are agents wasting their money on?  [Christian]:  I mean this one is kind of controversial but in general buying leads is a waste of time and money. Obviously it kind of depends where they are coming from and stuff but by in large you know I think it's really expensive even if you have a perfect system in place. Otherwise it's really low. The conversion is really low and takes a lot of time.  You know I am more of an organic guy you know like if you…you know if you're gonna built your business being totally based on someone else being able to turn on and off a funnel controlling the quality of those and where those are coming from I don't think that is super sustainable. You know I know some teams here locally that like that's their business. You know, and they spend you know, multiple you know 50-60 thousand in Zillow leads and they're hurting because they're conversion is low and their ROIs is even lower than it has been.  Because of you know, Zillow kind of going through some of their figuring out you know what kind of lead services they're gonna provide and you know and I think like you're talking about with Instagram kind of being the new sexy and you know people going over there. Yeah there's still place for Facebook but the market shifts, the user you know how people use Facebook or Instagram or Zillow that shifts based on the market, based on whether or not…yeah I mean it's shifting you know. 10 years ago Zillow leads were a lot more valuable because there was a lot more people willing to give information out. Nowadays people just want the information but they don't want to put the information out there. I mean like that's… I know from myself my ideal contract is not someone who is naïve enough “I want the information on this house I am going to give you my email and my phone number and my real name”. You're not gonna do that. That's stupid. You know, because they don't want someone calling them because they're not actually in the market buying a house and that's you know 98% of leads who buy form realtor or Zillow is not a real lead. Is gonna be you know as Bufeny [phonetics] says “It's not a lead, that's you know a touchpoint when someone is going to the age”. That's someone curious you know not someone who is ready to buy. So you're gonna spend a lot of time sifting through that for one deal. Like it's not usually worth it. [Chris]:  It's interesting that you bring that up because I have that same kind of thought process before we started doing some work with Zillow and now granted our business model is not run solely off of them but we are…we are a premiere broker with them. And for anybody you know in our audience if you're interested in the premiere broker program just shoot me an email Christ@sellectrealty.com. Two “L”s in Sellect. I am happy to talk to you about it. But there are solid numbers and after running it for 3 weeks now we've got 3 homes in the contract. Those are 3 properties that my agents would have not had otherwise. It's additional revenue to the company. More than covers the cost of the lead generation that we've done. [Christian]:  Does it cover your agents' time they spend in converting them? I mean you've got the hard cost of leads but what are they doing? 8 hours a day… [Chris]:  They're not doing 8 hours a day. They're at about an 11% and conversion rate. Well actually it's higher than that. We've had…We're probably running about a 13%  conversion at a premier broker program. We've had about 22 leads come in and 300 contract so far and 2 active buyers and 3 that are thinking about looking next year that are in conversation. So there's…we're doing it really well. We're putting a lot of time and effort into planning how we're gonna…How we have it set up. [Christian]:  Sure. [Chris]:  And there's a lot of accountability in place with us and I think where people get tied up with lead generation and online lead providers is that accountability factor. There's another agent friend of mine, he is with KW we both went to the knights of Columbus together. You know he, he would go up to spending 300.000 a year on it as long as the ROI is there. And he just closed 3 or 4 buyers this month or last month now. They were all Zillow leads and it's giving him the ROI.  So the…trick with doing Zillow leads or any other lead provider is making sure that you're strategic about it. Trying to find areas that are gonna give you a higher ROI than maybe aiming for the most expensive neighborhood. Right. So there's a lot that goes into it. But I do agree with you. It should not be your full business model. 80% of all deals in real estate are done through people's individual networks and it should remain that way. But as a supplement tool, a way to help new agents grow their business or a way to help agents that are just coming in, if they do it right and they have the right training and the right tools it can be… [Christian]:  If you've set up the right systems and accountability… [Chris]:  It can be beneficial. [Christian]:  You can make it work. [Chris]:  That's the trick. That is the trick 100%. If it's done properly. The problem is most people don't do it properly.  [Christian]:  Right. Well the other problem is new agents come in and they're told “Hey go do this.” You're not gonna…as a new agent you're gonna be out of money before you get your first conversion.  [Chris]:  Right. I wish I could do a mic drop but it's in the thing [laughter]. But yeah. [Christian]:  You probably need big numbers for Zillow to be sending you, you know looking at the average numbers you're talking 2% you're talking you know 100 leads before you get one that converts. [Chris]:  Yeah and that's on row. The 100 leads on row. We're not doing row. We're in the premiere broker program so we have the concierge that is supporting us and helping us and we have…there's the trainers and all sort of stuff. I probably would never have done premiere agent as a solo but as broker I think that the premiere broker program is excellent. [Christian]:  Sure. [Chris]:  And I have been very happy with it so far so…I will be an advocate and haven't closed anything yet but again with 3 weeks in and we've got 300 contracts so if I…Hell if I average 1 closing a week off of this thing than I'm gonna be doubling down. Like…but so far we're just kind of waiting to see. So yes and no. I am kind of in agreement but kind of not. Nate what do you think? You're Redfin partner agent so you're got a little different aspect. [Nathan]:  Redfin partner agent, former Zillow premier agent. My ROI with the Zillow PA program was [censored] so I terminated it. Hopefully I am still a part of one of their small groups that operate, that they seek out agent advice in what direction they're gonna take the premiere agent program on…I again prefer Redfin just because I play on the back end when I close a deal. It's 30%. Again I don't think it's a bad deal. Again I think it depends on your situation. I am on a flat fee model so premiere works and it comes with it. But if you own a 70-30 split than a team split that's probably not right for you. So…you know. [Christian]:  So getting back on topic Nathan do you have any more rants with agents wasting their time and money on?  [Nathan]:  Time Facebook. What else do they waste their time on? We waste our time on a lot of silly things. Again Travis Robertson talks about you know squirrel. We're just distracted like that it doesn't matter right. We're always looking for the next best thing instead of just taking what we have and using that and giving it time to…allow it time to work for us.  I think we're all guilty of getting something and going 2 months later “Well that didn't work”. Well months is not enough time to judge if something works or doesn't work. You know we have talked about this forum and set it. When we started this podcast we said 100 episodes. Because we wouldn't be able to judge anything in 30. But we're just over that. [Christian]:  I judge you guys all the time though. But…Oh that's not what I am talking about. [Nathan]:  That's very true so again… [Chris]:  We'll see how long we make it Christian [laughter].  [Nathan]:  Stop wasting time. That's my big one. It's one I have struggled with. I still struggle with you know find things that work for you. And you know I heard you guys the last week we're talking about…Oh Gosh what was it. Oh it hit me after we're done recording this but I don't know. Something I said in last week's episode that I was not part of. [Chris]:  Last week we were talking about Christian pivoting. [Nathan]:  Oh right you I think Christian had mentioned something about sometimes when you take a break from something and you come back to it you look at it different, right? And so you may be able to find something that didn't work before but works now. So again yeah you may have to pivot. Zillow didn't work for me. When I go back to it if they change the structure probably maybe my attitude will be different. I don't know.  So just kind of parlor up what you talked about last week. Yeah sometimes you do have to pivot and you've got to shift and if not you got still in all. But I don't know time is a big thing with me right now because I am still trying to understand how to manage my time the best and that's between being a dad, being a husband and being a realtor and then wanting to do my own thing. So…Don't get distracted by your own time.  [Chris]:  Alright, well I think that we've kind of given a lot to rant about today in what we think is wasting time and money for agents in the real estate base. Guys before we wrap up for the day, any final thoughts for our audience? [Christian]:  Nope [laughter]. [Nathan]:  Is this going out before the end of the year? [Chris]:  This is going out before the end of the year. [Nathan]:  Well than have an awesome rest of 2018. I hope everybody has already started to think about 2019. If you haven't, than you need to get on it. But I hope that any of our listeners just an awesome holiday period. Great Christmas. Great New Year and just with a great close out to what has been a good year for all of us here and then I hope that everybody that listens and that I share this with that you have a great start of 2019. [Christian]:  Word. Merry Christmas and Happy New year. [Chris]:  Merry Christmas. Happy New year. This is gonna be our last episode for 2018. So we will see you bright and early in 2019. We hope that you have a very blessed Christmas, new year and hit the ground running as soon as we get back. Talk soon everybody. Have a great year.  [music] [Chris]: Thanks for tuning in this week's episode of the re:Think Real Estate Podcast. We would love to hear your feedback so please leave us a review on iTunes. Our music is curtesy of Dan Koch K-O-C-H, whose music can be explored and licensed for use at dankoch.net. Thank you Dan. Please like, share and follow. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/rethinkpodcast. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone and have a great week.  [music]  

We live in a sexually chaotic world where the standard is to “be true to yourself”. Young people’s sexuality now includes sexual gender confusion, social app hookups, and the elimination of sexual boundaries. Girls seem to be more likely now to make sexual decisions based on their culture rather than based on their personal convictions. So Christian singles seeking their true identity in Christ need to be equipped with a bold biblical perspective of sexuality. That is why I’m excited about our new series that starts today. My guest is Dr. Juli Slattery. Juli is a clinical psychologist, author, speaker and the president/co-founder of Authentic Intimacy. We’ll be discussing her new book this week, titled, “Sex and the Single Girl” which is a six-week study that empowers single women with a comprehensive understanding of what it means to honor God with her sexuality. In today’s podcast, we’ll discuss several things: 1) How has the sex conversation changed over the past 20 years? 2) Why women have a hard time reconciling sexuality and their walk with God. 3) Why women are experiencing emotional wounds from today’s sexual liberation movement.

  Today's Speaker: Carey Green   Who best knows the technical capacity and ability of an engine? Wouldn't it be the engineer who created it? What about a poem? Who best knows its meaning and imagery? Isn't it the poet who wrote it? The designer knows best how his or her creation is to be used. The designer knows its capabilities the best. They understand why they made it and what it's for. When we think about marriage, the same is true. God knows what marriage is all about because He designed it for specific purposes. So Christian marriage is not something we should learn about first of all from books or psychologists or therapists. We should turn to God, the Designer to find out what He says is best for Christian marriage. In this episode you'll explore what God intended when He created marriage and find out its glorious purpose and the power it can have in impacting the watching world. RESOURCES RELATING TO THIS EPISODE: The Compass Weekend The Marriage Improvement Project   SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRISTIAN HOME AND FAMILY PODCAST LEAVE FEEDBACK AND A REVIEW ON I-TUNES   NEXT EPISODE: June 5, 2013 - Podcast 39- Positive Affirmations in the Home with Pastor Sam Crabtree The main music track used in the Christian Home and Family Podcast is entitled, "Midian" and is from Adam Rey's instrumental album Meat & Potatoes - Adam has generously given me permission to use his music, so please, support his generosity by checking out and purchasing his music at www.heyreyguitar.com - (no affiliate relationship, Adam's just my friend.)       Share your stories about grief and the sovereignty of God. Leave your comments below!