Welcome back to team builders: today, i've got a 140 million dollar producer, lydia gable in the house, 11 agents, five staff - as i said, 140 million dollars and she's gon na do 120 transactions this year. Lydia. Welcome to the show awesome. Thank you for having me.

So you and i have known each other for a long time - i've been kind of a fan girl for a while right. As you know, we talk about your marketing prowess. All the things you've done to build this great business. The world is changing.

I want to talk to you today about what are the adjustments you're, making you're asking your 11 salespeople to make your marketing adjustments and what you're doing differently on appointments? Is that fair? It's fair! So let's give people some context and backstory how long you've been in the business. Where do you work? What did you do before real estate? Just give them a little scoop, um? Well, a so great to be here, and thank you for having me always i'm just jumping right into show boom um, i am out of west lake village, california, i've been in the business 16 years, coaching with you 15.. I know right from the beginning, never took a break um and you know just thrilled to be part of it, because i think when the market's pivoting, which it is right now, you are always able to keep us on track um. I my background is i'm a marketing background consumer marketing? I was a buyer for target from minneapolis.

I moved to california for mattel and was vp marketing for sake of america, went in the dot com, dot, bus business, yes, and then i got my realtor license in 2005 and it was actually a good time because the market was starting to turn and i had To work hard, i had to be gritty and i went into the short sale business and i don't think i've ever left took in my foot off the gas because i feel, like you always have to work hard. It really doesn't matter what market you're i mean. So so, literally this morning, if you, google, businesses that started in a recession, ladies and gentlemen, we are in a recession, it doesn't mean that real estate is in a recession and it's not two thousand seven, eight nine ten, but the u.s economy is in a recession. Correct when you, when you do the research you're going to see that some of the greatest most iconic businesses on the planet all started in a market like this, so knowing that you started in a similar situation is exactly why we're standing here today doing this podcast.

So, let's talk about um the adjustments that you're making personally the adjustments that you're asking your team to make that you're, making your adjustments from a marketing standpoint. We were kind of talking about it off camera, so so, as the world shifts and to be clear for my friends in the u.s we're talking about 6.9 million houses selling last year, maybe 6.3 million selling this year times two sides it's a lot of business, but When you go from going 180 miles an hour down to 120, it feels like the world stopped when days on market. I had a client say to me a couple days ago. My days on market are like 10 now and i'm like, oh, my goodness, 10 right, but it's a change.

What are the most important adjustments, disciplines and accountabilities you're taking on? Well, i think mindset i mean always. I just feel like, as my mindset is changing as far as getting more information about the market i feel like. We need to be continuing to educate right and i feel we are. We aren't a sexy uh team, where knowledge brokers is how we we're fact, people and i watch the numbers, i'm super analytical and i'm just about.

I do a lot of research. I you know follow kcm, i follow housing wire. I follow all all the economists that i need to and i feel again i'm i'm a junkie for that because i feel like i can share that right. So i feel i'm now uh.

It's no longer riding the wave of appreciation it's about. It's still a great time to buy, investors are still in in real estate in california, has always been a great long game, and my business is a long game and i feel it doesn't matter what market there's always people buying and selling yeah. We just want to get our more than fair share right of the market. I like that at 120 sides more than our fair share.

Yes, so so you talk about being the knowledge broker. You talk about not being a sexy team but sort of a fact-based team. Um, i always have seen you that way. So are you doubling down on that and if so, how are you getting the word out? How are you being the educator in your marketplace and how are you being the educator for your team um? So i mean, i think, the so we have for a couple things uh.

Let's talk about the team um. I think the team knows that i'm bringing a value and you're bringing in value and my coach is bringing them value and that if i share something, that's value and we're role-playing or we're talking about the market, we want to get comfortable around these numbers because there's Other agents who are very comfortable around the numbers - and i think we have to know our numbers - we have to know how many homes are on the market. How many are in escrow? How much down are we from last year? So we can be very real to our buyers and sellers and there's a lot of talk out there. But when you bring the facts in it, changes and i think it really matters when you can put down a graph and you can show them what's going on in the marketplace right and then i feel we are just out there big in social.

We do a lot of market updates, we're doing seller seminars, we're doing double downing on our mailers, we're just doing more mailers out there to let more people know what's going on, so the people who are interested will find us um. They they'll and the people who aren't interested will ignore us just like normal. So there's this interesting sort of uh. The word is not phenomena but there's just let's just call, there's just something interesting happening amongst great team letters like yourself when i say how long has the average person been on your team, the typical response is year and a half two years, which means these wonderful Individuals got into real estate or joined your team.

However, you know whichever direction it started and they've only been in one market, no inventory massive appreciation. Low interest rates jump in as fast as you can right, aggressive offers, remove all contingencies, how's that working now. What are the adjustments you're making or asking your sales team to make now? Well, it hasn't changed drastically. Yet yes, so good homes marketed well and priced well are still in real, quick right right, um, but that's a great distinction, but we are definitely seeing homes that aren't necessarily in that square and that square's getting smaller.

So those are taking longer. And so it is longer. How long are we talking about? I mean maybe two three weeks yeah, but it is an adjustment for our sellers who are like day one you're expecting multiple offers and all of a sudden. So when we're on listing appointments, we're like it is changing, but this is normal.

This is good. This allows a buyer to come back twice so again, we're getting into a normal market without being four to five months of inventory of supply, so and buyers are listen. If, if you're a buyer right now and you're a new buyer or move-up buyer, it's nerve-wracking you're, hearing higher interest rates, you're, hearing recession, you're hearing inflation, you're hearing all of these things, so we need to educate them about real estate and why real estate has always Gone up when there's a recession except for 2007 and eight right so um, look the team, you're right. A lot of the team members are used to things coming very easy.

This is a skill based market. This is going to be enough. This is going to be grittier. More phone calls you're going to have to touch more people, um we're really trying to implement accountability, which you know it's not all.

You know it's not been my forte right um and it's been something that every coach has wanted me to put accountability into place, and so what does that mean, when you say, put accountability into place? What are you, what are you trying to accomplish that isn't happening in the business today track and measure how many calls you're making how many appointments you're making so that you can know how many calls you need to make to get it to an appointment, to write? How many escrows to open us to close a deal? Why do you? So what we're talking about is having like a predictive business yeah right. So why do you think uh someone listening right now, who's like? Oh? I need to do that too, and i don't even have a team um, you know, or they have a team and they're like. Oh, i feel her pain on that, because people don't want to track a measure. Why do you think some of the agents on your team or others resist predictability, because that's really what it is? Well, i think most people get into the business thinking they don't they they want to.

They want freedom, yeah and they don't want a day. Job yeah and they want a lot of time off and they don't want to be tracked, and they don't want to be that right. So i mean you're so coachable i moved the microphone and you moved right in for the person. That's audio okay, coach.

I am coachable, you are so why do you think uh they resist being accountable um, it's not fun, to look at your numbers and to see that you might not be doing what you should be doing to help you move your business along like, but who says Business is supposed to be fun all the time i know, but we know that as team leaders. Yes, we know that and i think a lot of times people get into the business because they want to show homes and it's fun and - and i think everyone can get very lucky and do five. Six eight deals their first year. They have friends, but it's the consistency and the it's the grit.

That makes us stay in the business and i think it's interesting because i think most agents are less than four years in the business like most people get out in less than four years, because it's hard. The longevity is, this is a business right and you need - and my sales manager is like. We need to treat this as a job. Yes and treating it like a job is what do you do when you go to a job? What do you do from nine to five, or what do you do from 12 to eight? You do the work, you do the work or you get hired, but in real estate it doesn't seem to matter so you're trying to add in not not to every team.

That's that you know it's a blanket statement. I appreciate someone, that's like hey, not me um, so we think they resisted, because you know they got on this because they wanted freedom and fun and it's great to sell houses. But you know the world is shifting we're going towards a more normal market, i'm not saying a bad market, but we're clearly in we've got recession. We've got inflation, we've got interest rates uh.

One of my friends said to me. Recently, interest rates could be as high as in the sevens by october. Right now we can sell seven year, arms and five-year arms and ten-year arms to reduce interest-only loans. I mean so so you know we've got these tools in our arsenal.

How are you educating your team to be that person that you know isn't the one trick pony who just says home riders are going up, do whatever it takes, but instead saying yes, interest rates are here, but here's the different options. Let's look at the math. How are you doing that exactly that way, so i have a great lender that we work with and we're constantly looking at interest rates, we're we're bringing her in to talk about what is an interest only. What do the arms look like? I do believe in a couple years the interest rates are going to come down again and people can refinance.

So i i think, if you find the buyer who wants to, buy and wants to, sell and wants to move up, we just have to be the educators. We have to be the one that gets the business and they have to trust us. They have to like us and they have to know that we have their best interest and if we start, if, if you start getting into this salesy commission breath it's never going to work, and i say to the team all the time: they're interviewing 5. 8.

Everyone knows: five agents right, everyone's got an aunt, a sister, a friend, and so why are they going to work with you and they're going to work with you? Because they trust you, they like you and they know that you're going to look out for them. And so the only way to do that is to educate them and to really take the time and whether it's buyer consult in the office or at the car. Or at a coffee shop you just have to find your elevator speech and be able to condense it and be able to say it in a clear and concise manner, and and otherwise they know more than you, because they're doing all the research they're doing all the Research, which is a scary thought to say that they know more than you. I mean i don't think that's the case with everybody, but i, but i agree like there's.

Definitely especially the millennial buyers are far more educated, they're doing more research they're talking to their aunt, their mom, their brother, their. You know, pastor, they're, talking to everybody, okay. What do i need to know and then they engage with an agent. So what do you? What are you asking your salespeople like when it comes to interest rates? Like give me an example, like one of my clients said: hey we say lydia.

Is this your forever home like? Are you going to die in this home? I'm i'm 29. No, i you know this is the this is the first home great. Here are the options today when it comes to mortgages right, assuming we get this property today, at 900 000 option a is, you know, a 3.5 to 4 on a 7-10 year arm. Option b is option, c, is and then option d is a 30-year fix, which you know it's five and a quarter which of those is better for you from a payment standpoint.

Are you yes, like that basic with people or something different? No, i think that is really that it's and and again i think we we touch on it, but we're not the experts when it comes to loan and we're the experts where we're the experts, and i feel sometimes if we get into something that's too detail-oriented. That's not for us because i don't know their income yeah, i don't know their situation, but i can we have something. That's as general as that, and we're basically still showing look at prices are still forecasted to go up right. The next four years, everybody's saying and the first half of the year, they've still gone up 25 30 right.

So we're going to stabilize to get to that nine percent. There's no question we'll stabilize, which is that nine percent's, a national number yeah right so boise idaho, is at 42 talking to my clients in ottawa, ontario canada they're, like 38 year-to-date, so that national number know your local market yeah. So, okay switch gears. What are you doing differently? You mentioned you're, doubling down on direct mail.

You do a lot of social um seller seminars unpack that for us. If i want, if i didn't know what a seller seminar was - and i was listening to this - what's the intention, what does it look like? What do you discuss? How do you drive people? There walk us through it, tactically um, so we just think that there's a lot of confusion about how to sell a home in today's market. We did them through zoom through coved. We tried to do them through zoom a couple months ago and i think people are tired of zoom and we decided - let's try, bring them in the office and let's try them at night in a wine bar with wine and appetizers and getting people in, and i Think we just want to be able to talk to more people.

Talk about the market. Talk about. You know, selling your home talk about this. Is it still a seller's market? How is this changing? It's really the same information.

Do you need to change your home? Do you need to update what things do you want to do to your home yeah? You know you can do your forever home yeah right. Where are you going, and it's all about their motivation on wanting to sell and we're getting eight to ten people at every seller seminar, so we're going to stay in touch with them, we're going to drip on them we're going to stay in contact with them? Are they going to sell tomorrow? Maybe not? Are they going to sell six months from now, maybe and but from it, we're having great conversations and we're we're? Just you know, meeting more people in our in our neighborhoods, okay, so a bunch of a bunch of tactics. So uh frequency. How often do you do it twice a month? Wow? Okay, so we were two hours a month two times a month uh.

We actually have one this thursday night, nice um. So we have one on thursday night and then the other saturday in our office for lunch um, so we're basically uh doing it at on thursday night at the wine bar and in our lunch we're doing it, we advertise it through our mailers and our farm. I was just going to say to you, so you drive traffic through direct mail, direct mail. How else uh we a lot of social media? Okay, a lot of social, our email email? Is it a is a cta register here? So you have some sense of you know how many people - oh yeah, everybody - has to register.

So we use eventbrite um. We tell them. You know two or three things that we're going to share with them and obviously it's free and then we send out reminders. Do you do you like wine and apps? Exactly? Is there a little bit of that? I mean that it's like there's a social like where you live on the lake.

You know i could see you in the duffy boat, like cruising around, like it's a very social vibe um. So two times a month you drive traffic through direct mail, social email registered eventbrite you're, getting eight to ten. How long have you been doing this in 2022.? Like how many have you done so far? Well, we've we started in april, okay, so i think eight. So we've done we're doing our our fourth this week, um and then we have another one coming in two weeks so and then we're gon na we're gon na continue it through the summer.

Now we just think if we can get eight to ten. If we get six to eight every time, it's fabulous right. It's like it's like a controlled open house for sellers, yeah, yeah right. So so what was your hypothesis going in like hey? If we do this much and we invest this much, you know we we got to market it.

You got to do direct mail, you have to do eventbrite, you got to get the wine. You got to get the apps um. What's your what's your intention or expectations? We're all trying to get more listings right. We all want to find homes to sell whether it's an easy sell and you can do an off market or it's a long term sale and you want to help them get it ready.

So to me it's an investment of i'm doing mailers anyway, so we're doing we're almost ship mailing every other week. So it's something to add in our arsenal for mailers we're doing it emails anyway. So my cost is not a lot because the wine i have a great deal with the wine club and um. It's not a lot, and if i can get one listing out of each one, i've won right right and again.

What i'm hearing is it's probably top to middle of the funnel from a you know where that potential home seller is so have you had any early signals of hey? This is a good idea. Um yeah we've had some early signals. I in fact i had a phone call. The other day was somebody who was gon na their tenant was moving out, and so they came in i mean people know us, because yeah you're everywhere we're everywhere.

So um hey, it's so great to meet you. Thank you. So much i just want to let you know my tenant, you know extended through august or september, so we're not going to list until august of september perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for thank you for telling me and telling me. I guess i was supposed to call you, but thank you for calling me so so let's talk about that. What is the you know for the person? That's listening right now, they're, like okay yeah.

I can see how you know getting eight to ten people in there that are thinking about selling is a really good idea, especially in this environment, trying anything new and different. That's working um! What's your post event follow-up like so we send them a thank you and we're i'm assigning the agents on the team to nurture and follow up because they all want to learn how to take listings too, and i want to help them grow. So we split out the list afterwards and who's going to take who, if i know them i'll, take them, otherwise the agents get them and then we start nurturing them. We put them on drip plans they're in our email now they're in our arsenal, yeah, okay, good.

How are you holding so go back? You know back to the sales people on accountability. Um. Are you spot checking that so we use follow-up boss, um, boss, follow-up boss, my um sales manager is really tracking and measuring, and you know i'm holding him accountable and he's great at it and just really trying to nurture the agents in a good way about look How many calls are you making every week how many appointments we had contests around it? We are starting to turn off leads because with eleven agents now i can turn off leads we're actually bringing three more on. We do realize we're gon na lose some people through the okay.

So, let's, let's unpack this, you've got 11 agents you're, adding three you're talking about turning off leads. Why um the leads we as a team together, earned the respect of our being able to get the leads, so we're zilla flex we're home like like so so. The they're tracking and measuring us, and i don't want to lose them. And if my agents can't convert - or they don't want to make the calls or they don't want to nurture um, i'm sorry like i love everyone on my team and i wish everyone would want to stay there, but i'm not a non-profit and i'm in this for Business and i want to be surround myself around the people who want to be there right and if they don't want to be there, i say it lovingly like i love you guys, i'm fine, if you guys, if this isn't for you um, because this is this - Is what we need to be doing? This is business it's business, so is that a radical shift for you from okay? So just for people have context i was thinking of when we were in barcelona.

That sounds funny like we, you know lydia and her son and her husband. I was there with my wife and my son and we we got to have you know, drinks one night and sort of connect socially, which was super fun um. I see you as just this bright light and i mean super bright but light energetic fun. Is it? Is it hard to have those difficult conversations to look somebody candidly in the eyes and say maybe this isn't right for you um yeah, because i, as i more than anybody, want to have fun right and i love celebrating yeah and i love our group events and I love being able to do that.

Um so, and i really enjoy everyone we bring on the team, so i mean my current coach said to me a couple weeks ago, like uh, you need to decide if you want to run a camp or you want to run a business and i'm like ouch That hurt big shout out to jeff mays, hey man, do you want to run a camp or do you want to run a business? I can hear it totally and it really sunk in and it was like. No, i i am running a business um. I work really hard and my staff works really hard. Um, yes, they're on payroll, so i hold them a little bit more accountable, but the agents are assigned to us as the team and they want to be there and we give them a lot.

Yes - and you know back to - we bring on new agents, but they might not appreciate us because they don't know what it's like to be on their own right and so we're having this constant conversation about with the market shifting. Is it a time to go after the agents which we do think is it time to go after the two to three year agent for sure who maybe doesn't know how to i mean i remember the girl on stage with all the different marketing and teaching nurturing And maybe we can recruit some agents, that'll appreciate what a team has to offer, because the newer agents they've come in we've had the training we've had the crm we've had the brand we've had the marketing we've had the support and now they've closed deals and they're Thinking, oh, i can do this on my own and not give you 50. Well, i mean we're going to have that fallout. New agents are great, but maybe it's a time to find those.

We think it'd be a great time to bring on some agents who are two to four years in the business. Okay, big shout out to uh. So many of our clients - and i don't know if you've done this - that they've switched up some of their advertising for recruiting on. Indeed, where they're paying for have you done this yet paying for sort of premium placement at the top when they're searching for you know, careers in real estate and they're literally saying i have the flex account for zillow, i've got realtor.com market vip.

I've got home light elite they're, like letting people know. I have all this stuff, but then the ads like, but it's only for people that want to work right. We will give you leads, but you got to follow that you know you got to follow the program like it's very direct and and many of them that are out there that are running that ad are are seeing. People like okay, i've been selling real estate for like four to five years.

This is not the grind that i thought it was going to be. If you got the leads, i'm willing to do the work, i got to make money, let's go. What they want. Is consistency yeah right? They want.

Let me receive this. They want consistent income. What they recognize after a while is. I need to be consistent to great, consistent income.

Yeah, you mentioned three times to being in this show and we'll kind of end. The show with this you said grit and gritty multiple times yesterday with three of the teams that i coach, i sent them the grit score from angela duckworth because they were complaining about i'm like look, you got to be gritty in this market, send in the score. I'm like take this test and then consider having everybody on your team. Take it.

I know you've taken that test before i know you probably read. You know angela's book when you say get gritty, be more like analytical. What are you asking the listener right now, who's? Listening to do what is what does being gritty mean? Well, i mean we actually think two hours of power a day. We think one hour is not enough, because we we're definitely two hours of power a day.

I love it. Let's go. I have that sitting at my desk too, yes, um um. We believe that you we need to be making at least two new appointments a week, new appointments um, and we just need to be calling more people, and we just need to be making sure that we put good notes in and good follow-up and good nurture.

But if, if you have one escrow or two escrows or no escrows, what are you doing all day long and you know you're not doing the marketing, and i mean we do all the popeyes for you. We do. We just did mother's day popeyes, like we have everything for you, we're just asking you to go out and make some conversations and really understand your clients and listen. A lot of people.

Don't listen and we're just asking them to take a step back and listen and feel the feel where their clients are coming from match them where their clients are coming from, and you know, look door knocking like we have a girl, a new. You know somebody who had their license and we are getting agents who are four years five years in the business right now, calling us so we're super thankful. Yes, happy. We are one of the largest teams in our area.

They know we have the zilla flex. So i love what you said as far as marketing goes, but um, i think we're i'm excited about the change in the business. I feel we're going and everybody we're interviewing we're telling them. This is work.

This is accountability. This is what we expect. We expect you to track and measure. We expect you to make your calls and follow up boss only because we want to help you right.

We want to listen to the calls. I want to listen to them and be able to say how could you have said this differently? Let's have a conversation and i can't do it when you're, making it out of your cell phone and you're, not allowing me to track and measure right. So people who want to come and work we'd love to have them come and work because it's fun it's fun when everybody's working and making money and then we get to celebrate and we get to go to cabo and we get to do some great things. But when you have some team members who don't want to work, they seem to drag us down and it is a matter of find the people who are like you like-minded, who want to work who want to be gritty.

This is a gritty. This is. This is not easy, yeah yeah yeah. Well, it's the uh.

What's soft markets create weak agents, yeah and strong markets right or you know more challenging markets, great strong agents right like that's it is, i mean, that's. You can replace agents with anything kids, life relationships, business. So lydia, i'm so proud of you congrats on this year, congrats on just the incredible run of the last 15 and and i'm going to say to you, i truly believe the next five to seven years. If this is the market, this is the new norm right.

I think i i'm gon na go on record to say the ukraine war is going to end right. That's going to that's going to fizzle out right, we're going to get through in in the u.s the midterm elections and politicians will keep politicianing along and there's nothing that the masses of us. You know so even complaining about it, like you know, give it a rest. Um, but those of us that just go out and do the work and serve our clients, we're the ones that are gon na win right.

Do the work serve the clients, you're gon na win, you do that you're gon na kill it that's how she kills it. Every single day so lydia, if they want to connect with you what's the best way for people to reach out like instagram, give out your home number. You know what do you want to do? I don't answer my own phone. I still have it because i am that generation that can't get rid of it come on, but i i mean my cell is a great place.

My instagram great facebook, i mean i'm on every platform. So, what's the best instagram handle to to lydia gable, all right, lydia gable, lydia gable, just like it's uh, phonetically, perfect lydia! Thank you so much for being on the show, i can't wait. We're gon na spend the next. You know 24 hours masterminding with a whole bunch of great team leaders.

Uh, you are the best. Thank you for everything make sure you like share subscribe, hit the notification button. Do all those fancy things you know you should do to get more of this information or katie will be mad at you. I promise don't get katie mad.

Alright, we'll see you guys on the next show see you soon take care. You.