hey welcome back to the luxury code where we unpack with some of the best of the best what they're doing and wow right now people better be doing things differently so today and thank you so much for being on the show thank you for having me coming in from ventura california people would know oxnard ventura sort of coastal kinda mid california and your coach mark in the house coming in from san diego one from the north one from the south i guess yes i've been in sacramento for the last nine months oh somebody moved and didn't tell me all right so so ann literally i mean look last year your performance 104 million dollars 66 transactions and you're doing this in what i would actually call the stereotypical high producing tom power tom ferry method one dominant senior agent brilliant listing agent handling both sides of the transaction a part-time assistant a transaction coordinator and now you've snuck in a videographer and a marketing director that's exactly that that makes my heart sing because it means you're making a lot of money and you're keeping a lot of money but that's not why we're on the show we're on the show because people want to know just like back in march of 2020 when it was all time for us to pivot to adjust so headlines are terrifying people a lot of agents especially in the high end are like i don't know what to do they're pinging me like i did 400 million dollars in sales last year but i feel like the whole world's falling apart what do i need to do they need reassurance so we got your coach here and you on the spot what are the two to three most important adjustments you made to your business or what adjustments are you making right now to keep this momentum going just honestly going back to basics getting back to open houses getting back to my database calling my database daily checking in with them um how was that like for okay so what do you mean getting back to openhead did you stop doing open houses oh totally during the pandemic nobody should open houses but yeah so just getting back to doing more calling my database telling them you know i'm doing an open house at this address stop by come visit uh how could you possibly have time for that oh i have time for that so so okay so so have you made any adjustments with your schedule and you've you obviously added a couple new team members so that either creates more demand of your time because you're on boarding people but it ultimately gets you more freedom so what are the adjustments you made to your calendar so i do have a marketing team now so that freed up some time i'm usually up by 6 30 at the office by 8 30 making calls answering emails text messages just trying to wake people up or move the ball forward right yes yes so so mark what adjustments have you seen from i mean obviously she's right out of the gate hey i'm back to you know houses i'm calling my database and the truth is we just stopped right there and just said just do that everybody's going to win i mean what is it like 73 of all the listings you're coming from our past clients in sphere and the vast majority people as i show you aren't calling their database enough what adjustments are you seeing or advising right now mark well for her it's definitely about time management it is going back to the basics she built her entire practice initially on the beach because her specialty is all beachfront stuff in oxnard yeah and she built it all by open houses and getting to know the community getting to know the neighbors she was like way ahead of schedule in terms of like a mega open house so to speak right right so getting her back to that is one thing and she took i don't know what three listings yesterday and she looks at them they all came from past clients yeah so it's really hammering her just making sure that she's staying in the place that's going to pay her the best return for her time invested right so what do you what are you saying to your like so you got these three listings yesterday congratulations but everyone listening knows that was probably something nine months ago six months ago three months ago that the fruition was yesterday what were you doing back then and how was the conversation changed at all with sellers on pricing in this environment so what'd you do back then and how is the pricing different pricing uh you just have to be a little more aggressive now before i feel my sellers were reaching for the sky just to be realistic look at the comps and but you know okay so i i'm literally with my neighbor yesterday yeah and her home is for sale and she says to me i hear that prices are dropping and i said no a lot of high-end sellers have tried to raise the bar on their price and they've gone too far so now they are reducing but they're probably still not where they need to be to actually be at the comps right what are you saying differently to educate sellers because everyone's gonna say the same thing and i know what you're saying but not my house yes so what are you saying differently i'm just explaining to price it properly it will sell in this market our our prices aren't dropping okay they're just adjusting to where they should have been okay but doesn't that make some sellers a little like yeah but not my house right i mean yeah that does it does everyone else's baby is ugly but my baby is beautiful and you should add a zero to that price so how do you how do you when you say you educate him and you explain it how i i just tell him i would love to be wrong but i don't think i'm wrong okay i would love to be wrong and get you a half a million more but you know is it worth sitting on the market and then being a stale listing in three months yeah yeah how much when you show up on a listing appointment what do you bring with you i bring my listing packet my past sales um a little bio what's inside your listing packet um comps uh kind of what i do how i specialize how i'm different from the other agents and why they should hire me okay so do you find that your past clients are they are they just taking that and saying okay yes it's automatic or are they interviewing other agents it depends i i it depends on the client i just went on a listing appointment and they told me they stalked me for a year they go i'm not hiring anybody else we're hiring you yeah so it's my marketing is paying off it's it's working so you've been a client for a long time so when you hear me say things like there's a very clear and obvious flight for consumers to quality right with your transaction count 18 years in the business right are you seeing more of that or am i am i off base when i say i think sellers are still going to be unrealistic and they want to listen at a higher price and we've got to do more to combat that i mean you make it sound like it's just so easy like i just tell them i'd love to be wrong but i'm not i mean if everyone's writing down the script i'd love to be wrong but i'm not i mean it can't be that simple right sometimes it is sometimes you just gotta let them fall in their face you just gotta okay let's list it here and you know she was in the beginning of the year she was a little freaked out because we could kind of feel that shift coming on right and she was like oh my gosh everybody's kind of evaporated which is really what caused her to step back into doing the basics again right and just like in pricing this is something we've all been talking about and thank you for leading that conversation for all of us it's um having the courage and the skills to be able to look them in the eye and say i'm a professional you're paying me to tell you the truth even if i know you don't want to hear it and i think anne has the ability to do that with a smile on her face where as it comes and she's got such a reputation it comes across much more digestible i guess is the word i'm looking for yeah that's what i was asking like what's inside the packet because if it's your track record your experience you know success leaves clues so go back to um where the listings came from did you call them do they call you the three i got yesterday yeah one called me okay uh one i called him and the other one we had been talking for probably the last month okay so so kind of all sounds like kind of a little bit of everything yeah like that typical sort of inside of 90 days they're like we've been thinking about it forever yeah one was like let's keep it as a pocket listing so i just called him i'm like look this isn't the way to go let's just get it listed let's get it on the market and go for it and don't blow past that one so far quickly because we were talking about this prior to getting on air and she was like yeah you know he was talking about maybe down the road keeping the pocket and she literally just said in your best interest i need to tell you yeah we need to do this now yeah yeah so what is that what is that because literally i answered a question on instagram like this morning someone's like i've got this high-end seller and i wanted to be listed you know active and have all the exposure but the seller you know is like no i want to keep it as a pocket and i'm like look my experience is that seller has a reason why they wanted pocket maybe maybe it's an exposure issue maybe they don't want the public to know or they're just grossly misinformed like so which one is it right so what do you say to the seller that says i want to go pocket when we know the data says it's going to sell for more and it's going to sell faster if it isn't what do you say i pretty much tell them it's going to sell for more and put more eyes on it and let me market it and get more people through the door yeah try to get you more money and what if they're like yeah but like my house is really special and unique or you know i've got dead bodies in the basement you know my jewelry box from you know my grandmother from 500 years ago what do you do with that person you know i'm not saying they're difficult right it's not an objection it's a condition they for them that's very real right so what do you do to help that person or do you based on their concern if it's the concern is people walking through the house i let them know i'm gonna hand hold everybody through the house if it's you know just basically depending on what their concern is yeah yeah i see a look in your eyes right now that i know your sellers get don't don't smiley on me right now because all of a sudden she was like i was close okay so go back to this thing around making your phone call so mark let's let's do a little be honest here was anne not calling her database what's a database oh absolutely not yeah she wants she doesn't have a database she does she has a great one and she had been neglecting it for a long time face it with the way the market had been is your listing presentation how much you want right so now essentially back to the skill side and engaging right and engagement so so was that a hard pill to swallow i mean you're like this rock star you're making millions i love you i love emailing right i i just have a hard time picking up the phone but i i'm getting over that i heard i heard something recently because you know obviously we're a very tech enabled coaching company we want our clients to be tech enabled and we want video for as much as we can yes but one of my coaches said to me recently his client was like i just i don't want to go see him face to face if i don't have to and he's like great so why don't i just record my next coaching session and i'll send you the video and the client was like well then i couldn't ask i couldn't ask you any questions he's like yeah exactly exactly we can't have that exchange exactly so you got over that yes was it hard you know it's hard just it is hard but it you're right they ask you the questions you right you know so what about what about the just discipline of like scheduling time to make phone calls you're busy you're under staff for your performance i'm busy no i'm busting your chops i'm losing your jobs that's a great question for because we were talking about that and tell them what you said i don't have a schedule and then she went look i kind of do i you know i work out 6 30 home by 7 30 at the end of the day at 8 30. it's not a schedule and then what are you doing when you get to the office and then i'm just you know answering emails or making calls or yeah i don't yeah prioritizing tasks and taking care of businesses yeah yeah mm-hmm what is it with luxury engagements i don't i don't have a schedule but i do this and this and this and this and this every single day but that's not a schedule that's just stuff i'm just managing my business all right we're totally busting your child i know you're just dying punch your coach so so and you you started by saying i'm back to basics open houses right calling your database is there anything else if someone listening right now and they hear us having a little fun and they're like no i'm like i'm kind of stressed right now like i i need to get my business going is there a piece of advice that you would offer to that agent who could be sitting anywhere in the world and they're like and tell me what to do what do i need to do to get to your level or beyond honestly when i first started i did open houses and i didn't do open houses for buyers i did and i did every day of the week i did it to meet the neighbors i'd stand out in the driveway i'd talk to everybody we have a you know it's a beach community they're riding their bikes they're walking their dogs pet the dog that's why i did open houses to meet sellers so andy c who i'm sure you've met or you know seen inside her ecosystem he said the same exact thing timmy smith said if you could hold an open house seven days a week hold it seven days a week i don't care what the price point is yeah you're gonna you're gonna run into something yeah um do you do anything beyond that would you recommend anything beyond that so one is open houses which i love right what's the second move well i definitely mark it i'd market i i picked a small community that when i first started that i could afford to market and then i branched out and now i do i probably 4 000 pieces okay and you're gonna laugh because i do recipe cards i'm not gonna laugh do you like it he laughed at me he goes please tell me no but i go everybody i i swear i probably hear it five times a week oh my god i made that recipe like beef stroganoff i'm just trying to make it past the trash can right that's my whole goal to make it past the trash can and i went on a listing appointment last week and my recipe card was sitting up in their kitchen right so they're looking at my name face name face and what was the price point of the listing uh 1.2 okay uh you know not too bad not not too shabby no all right so it's a 60 000 plus recipe card right that's a very expensive recipe i do it because it works well and i think there's a there's a key message for everybody here it's it is it's running plays that work yeah right and i know in talking with mark like what he's so proud of is that you know you come across as this very joyful elegant fun agent but you're a little ruthless like i could see like behind all that when you gave me that look i was like oh she's got a little intensity behind her it is it's running plays at work yeah so have you made any and any other adjustments with your buyers today with my buyers um i don't do a whole lot of buyers okay okay so is the adjustment you're gonna start working some buyers maybe the adjustment is i refer them out okay and why is that just because i don't have time yeah and how many listings will you take this year um hopefully 60. okay that's a lot of listings my dear especially at your average sales price i have 11 right now i love it we need to sell those quick markets yeah did you have to start talking price reductions now call okay so mark what's the question that i haven't asked ask her how she's doing on her video production because she is very much attached to the fact that oh my god okay i'm a latecomer i gotta surrender this though and she's hired a videographer so this is gonna be a big step for her so why'd you hire the videographer why do you why haven't you video you're wildly successful what are you thinking because he's making me you have to have something in you that said like i have been so blessed i think i'm at like 65 000 hours of coaching and that doesn't include the millions of just q and a's and just right right passing moments of just hey what are you working on right um people like you and i we don't do anything unless it's ultimately our idea you know what i mean so you can have your coach nagging your ear but until you go i'm going to do this so so why are you doing it no honestly the whole reason i i told mark i'm just i just want to level up i want to go to that next level with customer service with everything i want i just that's what i want to do so i love it i think video is going to put me there it's definitely going to streamline the process of faqs and q a regarding escrows or here's where we're at with the listing launch like some of those things that we can automate and do on video have proven to be super powerful leaning in on her heart as well as other client coaching clients about controlling the narrative because people talk about the shift in the market but the real shift in the market it's always shifting right when the market was on fire doing this it was shifting which is flat shifting it's how do you manage and navigate through that so turning her more into a value delivery yes right about information how they can actually profit from what's going on and the sky is not falling right yeah right well congratulations thank you yeah thanks for being on the show thank you for having me mark thanks for uh thanks for making it happen and uh and so where are you gonna finish this year since we'll document this on video yeah come on now come on um before you even say let me let me make a comment to the listener right now yes so i work with all these incredible ceos as you know and every one of them i basically said to them look we're all super competitive we all want to beat last year we all want to win the championship every single year yes but the reality is the at least in the us we'll probably do between nine to ten percent less transactions that doesn't mean you right that just means the country could see nine to ten percent less transactions and if that's the case what i tell people is just look back at what you did in 2019 if you beat 2019 the last normal year in real estate you're winning yeah you're with me now i'm not trying to lower your goals just listen very carefully for people especially not you but so now where are you going to finish are you going to beat last year i'm not last year was a phenomenal year yes it was a stellar year so yes so what do you think if i come close i'd be happy and and listen for the person first of all thank you for your honesty right thank you because i think it's it's not that we want to lower our expectations but i i see so many people beating themselves up right now because because they're behind last year and i'm like yeah you won like five nba championships last year yeah you already made like think of every professional you won six of them last year right all in one year which was a total anomaly so we need to reset our expectations you know re-evaluate what success is to us today and be happy with it yes you with me yes did you spend all the money did you save something oh no i saved a lot of money oh my god makes me even happier okay good all right so i hope you got some value out of this conversation make sure and what's the best way for them to follow you instagram facebook instagram and by the beach bui oh by the beach okay i love that and mark what's the best way for them to connect with you if they want to um you know then connect me with me on facebook at coach mark prestera and that's mark with a c yes it is p-r-e-s-t all right so make sure you follow those these two characters and ask lots of questions send some referrals her way as well she's she's kind of ruthless i can see it you can probably see it if you see this camera all right so thank you so much for watching thank you so much congratulations you both and we'll see you guys on the next show take care so you.