Hey welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited today, uh to spend some time with maxine and marty gellens. I have been blessed to be their coach to be their friend for going on. You know call it 21 years so 21 years of monday, at 11, 30 uh.

I have so much respect and admiration for these two. They are a legendary luxury, mother and daughter team selling in coastal san, diego la jolla del mar the ranch, etc and they've been doing it for decades and when you think about decades and being legendary and remaining relevant right being current being modern, it is so impressive To me um so to have them here, think about it. They've navigated call it two. You know multiple recessions, a housing crisis now, a pandemic social injustices, and yet they continue to persevere, innovate and move forward powerfully.

So it is just my honor and pleasure to finally have you on the podcast. So let's go one at a time. What's up maxine? How are you i'm great, even though it's been decades decades, like four plus decades, i was. I was yeah, think about that four.

Four plus decades, i was actually sitting here with uh tristan my you know one of my producers here we're talking about the fact that you know between the two of you i mean marty. Are you? Are you 30 years in the business 25 years in the business? Give us some optics here, 35 years in the business 1985. I started right out of ucla right, so so just i mean think about it for the listener. Listening right now, these two have been legendary in the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010 plus and now here we are in 2020 and they continue to be dominant.

So so marty give us a quick like maxine was just giving a quick. You know sort of hey hello marty. How are you what's going on? I know you're crazy, busy we're going to cover a lot of ground today, but just kind of say hello to the podcast nation and tell them really quick who's. Marty, gellens hi everybody.

Yes, i'm marty gellens marty, gellen stubbs. I have a hubby two kids and um love to work, a very balanced life, which is why we have tom ferry as our coach. Back in the day when we started - and there wasn't technology - we worked - you know out of the house 724 meeting with clients whenever wherever weekends nights - and it was a very, very crazy life - it still is and we still work 724. But we have had you to help us balance our life and work.

Our business like a business and we've also used technology to our advantage and are able, of course, like everybody out there able to do so much more um. Virtually you know even before the pandemic, and that allows us to have a life as well, which has always been important to me. Um from the moment i became a mom. I knew that i didn't want to work 7.

24, so uh i haven't. I've been able to really have a balanced life and raise two boys that are now 27 and 23. uh being a real estate agent, the entire time pretty remarkable and considering those two both you know now play professional baseball and you guys travel to a lot of Games - and we know it's a little wonkier, you know today as we as we film and record this, but nonetheless you know you know the two of you. You know for as long as we've known each other you've been going to the games.

You you really do live that that quote-unquote, if there was a balanced life in this business, you two really live it. So we're gon na we're to get into that. But i want to flip back over to your mom, so maxine, how long you been selling homes. Now, 40, going on 45 years, okay, so going on 45 years, so so for the person listening right now, i want you just to think about all of the change that maxine has seen in the industry in 45 years.

Right from you know, i just think of the adjustments to lock boxes to you know from the hey, here's, the mls, and you handed somebody a book to today. You know zillow and everything else that we have available maxine. What do you still love about this business before we jump into all this other stuff that i want to cover? What do you still love about this business? Well, after being in this pandemic, i love being with all these people that i work with that's number one. I can tell you that for sure yeah and i think it's just - i still get the excitement of the deal, especially of the big deal.

I mean i it's just exciting and it's fun and i love that the clients still get me excited when they're happy and when they're content and when they're you know not disturbed about something. I i just love that yeah yeah, so so today, ladies, i wrote down 10 to 15 words depending upon how you want to look at it of things that i just want to explore with you. I just want to get your perspective on and and if you're listening right now, whether you're, watching or listening you know this is going to resonate with new agents with startups, with veterans with team leaders with you know, people that have been in the industry for a Long time short time and everything in between so no order of importance, but i want to get both of your perspectives starting first and foremost, you have a legendary family business right most family businesses are pretty chaotic and you youtube really keep it together. So my first question for you both and i want to go, i'm going to go marty first marty.

How do you make a business partnership with your mom or your spouse, or just you know, a family member? How do you make it work? Well, for us um, you know in in the early days. I think the big um reason, in my opinion why ours really worked is that um? I had a business myself beforehand for nine years and i think that helped our relationship when we became partners that it wasn't um, mom and daughter who was just learning her the business as she kind of went through it. I already had learned the business with my mom, as my mentor. Of course, you know i learned so much from her not being partners, because we talked about it a lot, but once we became partners, it was a little more of an even deal and i think that helped you know both of us.

I say, though, when we became partners. I checked my ego at the door because my mom was a rock star from day one and by the time i had been in nine years, she had already been in almost 20 years, yeah and a legend. You know for 20 years, and so i said well, what's more important to me - is being a mom and a wife and having that time with with with my family, and so we had to set parameters around our business and how it was going to run. And why i was coming to work with her and why she wanted me to work with her and why you know vice versa, so you've really got to set parameters and, thankfully, for us we're the yin and the yang we're very much alike, but we're also very Different in some of our our personality traits, where i'm much more like even keeled and my mom's, like a roller coaster, but our business acumen and the way we run our business and the way we think about things - is identical, yeah, so so maxine.

When you hear that, i'm just going to flip the question right back to you, first of all, what do you think when your daughter says all that and then how do you make a family business work? Well, i'll start with how we make a family business work? I think really going back the uh 30 years, almost 30 years right mark yeah, 20, well, garrett's, 27, so 26 years, 26 years together, i don't know how few times we've talked about business when we're in a family situation, i mean when we're on a vacation when We're together for dinner, we we just talk about family and we just deal with the family. We don't talk about business deals or what's going on, and i know that's a mistake: a lot of people make when they're partners, even when they're not married, not mother's daughter. If they're married, they bring it home and we don't do that and i think that's been a big help and uh. We get away from it too.

That way, because it doesn't happen very often that you get away from your business yeah. That's we're going to talk about work-life balance, which you know marty was talking about and and maxine it really like. Even though i had all these things that i want to discuss towards the back, there's one, but i want you to speak to it now. So i'm going to switch gears and say to you um, you two are both so mentally tough! Yes, marty to your point.

You know you're very steady, eddie, even keel um, you know, and your mom has that just that ferocious. You know crazy spirit about her, but but that's the beauty of your your partnership right if you're both the same one of you isn't necessary. Both of you share a trait that i respect and admire, and i would just i would i would call it just mental toughness right - the ability to deal with a lot of crap a lot of issues and stay even maxine. How do you like? How do you do that, like for the person listening right now? Who is that emotional yo-yo right? Who everything takes them? You know out of their, you know out of their guard rails.

What do you say to that person to help them get mentally tough? Well, first of all, i really have to say i think you're born a certain way. I really do and that's unfortunate. I can't tell people how how you're born that way and that's what you are, but i know as a child when something bothered me, i let it go like the next day. In fact, would someone say what were you upset about yesterday? If i was 7 or 10 or 15 years old, i didn't remember what i was upset about, so i think that's part of my personality.

So, starting with that and then i think the more you're given the more you can take and so 40 plus years in the business i've i've been through a lot. We've been through the good, the bad, as you say the, and when you say the 200 2010 things were good. Things were good in 2010.. We had to go through that.

I think that was the hardest part of real estate, and life was going through the 2009 through 12 situation, and that to me proved that we can go through anything if we can get through that, and you just have to look to tomorrow instead of yesterday, when You're trying to solve a problem. What did i do to solve this problem yesterday? I have to do that tomorrow and i think that's one of the things i can tell you you can do is look forward instead of back and and also marty, and i when we have issues we work them out between. I don't mean issues between us. We don't have that whether they have issues with the client or with the property.

We try to work out what is best to handle that situation. So if you don't have a partner have somebody that you can mentor with, and you can talk with to get that problem resolved because it doesn't go away unless you resolve it, it doesn't just disappear. Yeah i mean right now. I've got three problems on my desk that came this morning and i will deal with them this afternoon to get them resolved or try to resolve them.

Okay, but that also brings up another thing and - and you know, marty, i'm going to jump to you in a second here, but i want. I want your mom to finish this one of the things that again that i respect about you, two having worked with you, for you know two decades is everybody deals with problems, but but i noticed the two of you you've learned and i want to know how You did it that not everything has to be addressed in this instant. Oh, my god. This second, you know drop everything you know like you know.

I know my kids are. You know in the middle of a high school play, but i'm leaving now because the deal? Oh, my god, i just don't see you two doing that is that is that age wisdom is it. You know, you don't give a fly, and you know what like? How do you do that? Oh well, i think i was born with that. I think my mom has acquired that.

Yes, because she does want everything now now now and when something comes up, it's like we got to deal with it right now, so i would say that is her personality for sure yeah yeah, but she has learned to sort of put out a little at bay To have a life i mean honestly, you know my mom was very happy to work seven days a week and 24 hours a day and yeah and put that i don't want to say first, but out of necessity, many times first, but also just at the you Know wanting to take care of the client wanting to take care of the business, not letting anything you know go by the wayside. Of course, she's much more got to deal with it. This instant but she's become much better at it with you know, other things in her life that are important too, to be able to you know, put it aside a bit. That said, i mean our business, is you know paramount, and we do deal with things.

You know immediately, you know, there's, i think, there's a a lot of agents. I don't know how they do this, because we don't you know they they they're unavailable for a while or you they don't deal with something or you call, and they don't get back to you. That's not us. I mean, if you don't hear from us yeah, if you don't hear with us within a few hours, that's a thing, but we can put something aside for a few hours to do something else, whether it's another business thing or a family thing.

Or what have you we've learned to compartmentalize and and and have a life? It's very important, very important yeah, and i want to be clear for the for the listener: we're not talking about not having exceptional customer service and a great experience we're talking about when you do the kind of volume and transactions that these two do. There is a problem or a fire every day and if you're constantly just putting out fires, then you're not moving your business forward. Is that a fair assessment? Ladies yesterday i told my team and i put my phone on silent. I went to the padre game in the middle of the day, and that was three hours and i just that's what i did and anything that was urgent is not as urgent as three hours worth.

You can deal with it after and that's what you do and someone called me a half hour before this podcast and said uh. You need to do this. You need to do this, and i said i will do it after the podcast around 11, 30 or 12., and i mean, as smarty said, i used to drop everything to handle a problem and that would create another problem. So i learned that that sometimes your problems are not as great as you think they are yeah and there is a there is a balance i think for everybody listening.

I was talking to josh rubin, who you both know uh this morning on a coaching session, and he said i said you know we're talking about sort of the scenario of the new york city marketplace. Right now - and he said he said tom, my answer to everything in new york city right now is bruce lee's, most famous quote be like water. He said you just have to be fluid with people right now, like you can't you can't be rigid, you can't be stiff, you got to be more fluid and i think you know youtube balanced that to me very effectively, but i'm going to switch gears. You ready, because i've only gotten through two of my 10.

um talk to me about staying relevant, staying fresh for the ever-changing psychology of buyers and sellers throughout decades. How do you, how do you remain relevant to buyers and sellers at this level? We are always willing to learn every day. We are consistently looking for what is relevant. What is the best thing for our clients? What can we do to elevate um, our our properties out there? You know, especially my gosh.

Through this pandemic i mean the the water faucet completely turned off and we were sitting there going. Oh, my goodness, we have a team which you know they're amazing and i was going to interject about them too. They allow us to also have balance and yeah and deal with problems because we're smart and we have people that we hire that help us so that we can do what we love to do, which is you know, negotiating and all that, but anyway segwaying. But so we're through you and watching you know the various tools that you've given us through our company and the tools they have given us.

We're always looking for what is the best thing now and we're always wanting to change and willing to change and trying to be on the forefront of whatever's. You know now yeah and my godness and then in this world where now things are, are changing. You know daily rapidly and when the pandemic happened, we i feel we were really great about not freaking out. It was a 30 day.

Nothing was going on and we every week we were on with our team and and then some with zoom and checking in and helping everybody. You know come up with things to do during this time and we said: look when we come out of this thing. We're gon na be on the other side of it because we didn't stop. You know it's like you were saying.

Don't you know? Don't corn, don't what was your words? I don't know, you know, don't quarantine yourself, don't don't furlough yourself, yeah exactly yeah. We didn't. I mean, even though there was nothing to do. We were doing this.

Do you remember the time right? I guess we were about three weeks into the into the pandemic and tom said to me: why are you so negative you're, not a negative person get out of this get out of this negative, because, like for seven weeks, we didn't have a call or any showing Yeah and we're going, oh, my god, what are we going to do, and you just told us to snap out of it and we did we snapped out of it both mentally and physically yeah. So for the record, the people that are listening uh, we have a lot of rapport like we spent a lot of time together. So i was probably not even that nice and for me to be that carefronting to maxine gellens takes a little uh courage, but you know you were you were in a funk, but but okay maxine, let's go back to this. The thing when i first met you two now we talk about this, like this growth mindset, this incredible book by dr carol dewack.

The thing that always stood out for me is your openness both of you, your willingness, you didn't always execute it, but you didn't say you know you. I never heard from the two of you, not in my market that doesn't make sense. That's not a luxury thing. It was more like that's really interesting, haven't really figured out how we might do it or if it's right for us yet like maxine, where did that come from because you know like most of the world? Is they have? They have a very small perspective.

You seem to have a bigger perspective. How do you maintain that? Well out of respect for you tom, i mean we you've been with us 20 years, and we've learned more from you than you've learned from us trust me. So the fact that i respect and recognize and admire your conversation and your direction and your learning and teaching god gets me into that mode. I mean you've given us so many thoughts and and suggestions that we've followed and a lot that we haven't, and it has nothing to do with you.

It has to do with us yeah, because we just we're not real good at uh uh. What do i want to say schedule of having to do this this this yeah, the regiment, the routine? I'm not a regiment, as marty said, i'm not real regimented. I become better and i do get my things done and marty writes everything down on a schedule and she gets her things done at the end of the day. I just kind of do it and it gets done and that's just the way i am, but i think part of this uh pandemic trying to get forward is i i started thinking about in the beginning.

Oh my god is this going to be another 2009. 10. 11. 12 right, i need to prepare for it because we were not prepared for that, because we kept saying this is going to end.

This is going to end and it didn't end. This will end and the good news about it is: everybody is in the buying and selling mode of houses right now across the country. I believe, because they've experienced not wanting to be where they are or wanting to be somewhere else and that's given us the ability to buy and sell homes for people yeah yeah. So so i wan na i'm gon na go two totally different directions, but this is.

This is gon na be super valuable for the listeners i want. I want you both to take a step back and imagine you're starting over in real estate in 2020. Today, as brand new agents or either one of you, you're mentoring, brand new agents today so kind of either you know like marty, i i take you and i say: hey i'm moving you to. I was going to say you know the bay of dreams.

Without you know, i'm going to move you to santa barbara right, which is you know, coastal california, you're in la jolla del, mar right, it's kind of the same but different. You know different vibe. I move you there. You start over brand new.

What do you do or you two are mentoring, a brand new agent? What advice and direction do you give that person? Whoever wants to go first, you want me to go. Come on yeah, go i'll! That's fine! Go ahead! Well, first of all, i i probably have to say that i don't know that i would do anything differently and when i say that when i started i was like the fix all do it all. I i took people's homes and and started having them make the repairs, even if they didn't have the money - and i didn't have money either, but i loaned them a couple thousand dollars and put it on on the bill, because i wanted them to make the profit That people are making on on flippers right now, yeah also, i think i would the only thing i would change big time is. I would go more simple and lightly and stop doing the amount of expenditure on hard copy advertising because the internet has taken over.

So, unbelievably, now that that is the way i would advertise myself and market myself because again, if you don't market yourself inside your company, then you don't get out there. You don't get known unless you do phoning every single day, two hours a day, get on and call cold call that's another way that people have become very successful, which is not my cup of tea, but i would tell you that i would not change anything. I would do other than i would just be so out there in the internet and get myself marketed so that people would know who i am. What company i work for and and specifically work a specific area and hold an open house every single saturday and sunday.

As long as it wasn't coveted, obviously you can't do that now, but that's how i got started and that's how i built up my business in a neighborhood that i ended up with after 20 years i had 80 market share and that's how i did it by Holding an open house every saturday and sunday and that's how i got marty started too so so i want to marty before you before you answer. I wan na just unpack that i heard open house every saturday sunday. I heard basically be a solution for every seller and every buyer, whatever it takes help them, do it right and everybody gets that, but, like you re like that's just who you two are like it's whatever it takes, we're gon na make it happen. I also heard have a geographic farm right, whether it's have a territory you're gon na start for sure, right and and then obviously you know remember for context for the person listening.

You know when you're going back to the 80s, the 90s. You know we were all around when all of a sudden this transition to you know this. It went from the companies being advertised to the agents being advertised, my friends at hobbs and herder that started creating personal brochures for agents and putting their brands on the map. Today, that is one of the hottest and most important trends for a real estate professional to stand out amongst the competition so you're saying back, then you said you wouldn't have done the advertising.

I would argue that i think back. Then you had to do it today. You just don't have to because the internet makes it easier, faster, more efficient, less cost. Is that fair maxine? That's correct and i did the hobbs herder brochure.

I know you did. Was it you with a tennis racket? You know? No, actually, i did the hobbs herder without hobbs herder. Yes, yes, so marty, what about you? If you were, if you were starting over in santa barbara or you were mentoring, a brand new agent who's marty ready sh, it's a she she's got two kids right and she has got to hustle. She has got to make money.

What do you tell that new agent? Well, first of all, can we pretend that it's not during the pandemic? Yes, okay! Yes, because there's a lot of different things that we can't do at the moment, of course, of course. Well. So, as my mom kind of said, and she, as i said earlier, was my mentor and she told me a lot about what to do to get my business started and we were not partners for nine years. So the one thing i definitely would agree with, and we tell our team who my nephew, my brother's son, is new to our team, and so he ha.

He has been mentoring us right and it's amazing because he's a family member and helping him through. All of this brand new right out of college um, but i know you didn't ask that question about him, but i would totally do the open house thing. That is where you meet people, especially as somebody brand new into the business um. It's very difficult for um.

Even your friends, and what have you to trust you that you know what you're doing as a brand new agent, whether you are 21, like i was when i got in or if you are now a mother with two children trying to look for a different career And you're, you know 35 and you thought it was great yeah and you've got a great sphere to look to, but they're, not really like sure about you know using you, so you've kind of got to go out and find at first other people um and by Doing the open houses, in my opinion, is the greatest way and stay in the same area every weekend so that you get to know people geographically um. I did that every weekend i also knocked doors back in the day. I wouldn't do that today, but i would then once i had some success with that, be sure you tell everybody about it: um and with the internet today: social media, instagram, facebook. Of course, every open house you have, you can blast it to the world um.

You know with facebook ads and instagram ads so important. It's amazing how many people you can reach. You know online and so there's some tools that are there today that we didn't have so kind of a blend of the old-fashioned way through the open house. Is geographic farming to go along with the open houses? You know, make sure you send out cards and then doing the online things to back it up and to be present there.

Something we've been doing actually during the pandemic, which i love, which we're going to continue to do. Afterward. Is these facebook live open houses? We haven't had a lot of traction of people going on live with us, even though we're advertising it and sending out email blasts and putting it on our newsletters and all those things we haven't had a lot of live traction, but the traction we have had after The live event is incredible, and we've had two buyers who have bought properties who have literally been into these videos because they've they really see the house. I mean photos are very, you know sexy and they show the home an angle, even the videos we do, that are very broadway.

Show production like they are not the same as these basic someone, my husband on his iphone filming me walking through the house and the things i talk about, i'm like wow, i that was awesome that i said that you know you're talking about the area you're talking About lots of different things that you spend 10 15 minutes on a tour and a buyer loves it you. I remember watching one same thing. I think everybody knows like you do these and it's like. Oh, there was only like three people watching and one was my mother, but then but then you boosted and all of a sudden, you got 400 500, 1, 000, 2, 000, 3000 views and and that's where the action is right.

Thousands of views, thousands of views on our facebook live open houses, it's been great and because of the boosting and everything but right um. But and then it's been real people that have you know, looked at the property because of those so yeah. So we're going to talk about marketing in a minute but maxine any kind of closing thoughts on new agents starting over. What would you tell them? Well i'll, just reiterate what marty said in fact: zach our art, my grandson, her nephew this last year before covid had five sales because of open houses.

That's the only way he met those people and he sold three four houses over a million dollars and he's 23 22 years old. So i mean any people, don't trust 22 year olds or 23 year olds, but they trusted him because they met him and got to meet his personality instead of cold. Calling somebody where you can't really meet somebody face to face and like he had a facebook live yesterday on a property. That's going to go viral too, and so that's what you do and he's a young young kid who we're trying to mentor.

So i would mentor those people out there the same way yeah. You know what i love about this. It's like. I should if i wanted to start my business over today, because i had no business and that could happen yeah.

I would go out there and hold an open house every saturday and sunday yeah, that's what i would do and i can't tell you i won't say one other thing, because that's the best thing you can do for yourself, yeah and listen. I think most agents know especially all the veterans out there listening, even though they're like, oh god, maybe open houses. You know and - and you know, pre-covered post cove during covet - it's all different, but like andy c, who you two know really well, i mean andy. That was the that was the cornerstone of his business and still is today, and he did 12 or 13 million dollars in commissions last year.

He you know: he'll he'll fly his family to hawaii and then hang out with the kids and then he'll leave on the red eye on friday night to land saturday do saturday, sunday open house and then take the red eye back to hawaii it's. He said he said when people say well, that's weird, he said no, no. I put my family up in a beautiful house because i do open houses right. We can go on a two-week vacation because i do open houses and he's been doing it.

That way. For you know 20 years so so he can go home and pay for the vacation on the weekend and come back bingo. So let's, let's talk about marketing for a second, i actually wrote down one two, three, four, five: six, seven, eight, nine ish things and here's. I'm gon na i'm gon na say it and i just want you to give feedback so you're ready and you could say, don't do it hate it love it.

Oh my god best thing ever just whatever your opinion is so ready direct mail love. It then, okay, why do you love it? We actually get business from it. That's why people hand us the card when they walk in and say, give us a listing, presentation, yeah and they hand you the card they do they do. We always ask where our business comes from.

You know, of course, when we get a listing call and a lot of that we do almost all of la jolla geographic farm. We do most of del mar and we just get a lot of business from it. So we love it yeah. Would you say it's would you say it's predictable has to be yeah right, so it needs to be every single week or every single twice a week and it's very expensive.

But it's worth every penny. Yeah yep. I i agree. One thousand percent, so we said open houses, so we don't even need to go there um ready email, marketing marty.

How important is email marketing today, good bad works doesn't work. Tell us works, we um have been inconsistent with our email marketing and we are trying to become consistent with our email marketing through the pandemic. So now it's been four months or so. We now have religiously had a tuesday uh email to our database and a thursday email to our database with two different goals in mind.

One one is simply about our listings. The other is a little it's about our listings also, but gives more information about the market. And what have you so two touches to our email database per week, and i just got a call yesterday from a client who, thankfully, i've kept in touch with her um and she was she just as a side had said? Well, yes, you know, i get your emails every week and i'm laughing because those have just started religiously over the last few months. You know, and she probably thinks she's been getting them for years and not that we haven't done emails, but i mean we are twice a week for the last four months and before it was, if we were lucky, we thought about doing it and it was monday On you know, april 1.: okay, send it.

You know because yeah that seems like years, the four months yeah yeah. So so any specific software recommendations. Do you just use whatever the company has you know someone's someone's got? Do you even know marty you're asking us? We were using mailchimp and i know we've changed during movement to something else, but i don't know yeah yeah yeah. It doesn't matter.

Google, google, that okay um, no i'm - i i know who to ask on that one um: let's talk about making phone calls and texting to your database maxine. Does that work? Does that not work? Of course it works and i've this during covid. I've learned a lesson that keeping in touch with clients is really important, because out of boredom, i got went through my phone. I have thousands of numbers on my phone and i started calling people that i hadn't called or people that we had expired listings that took them off the market and lo and behold guess what you get business from it and they love to hear from you surprise.

Yeah but i mean come on, you said you said of course, but like listen as your coach, like you know, marty you and the team, you know you've done so many. You know database, you know, competitions five contacts a day and your mom resists, that, like like nobody's business and yet then, when she does it she's like oh, i got another listing and i got an appointment. I got to sell it out maxine. What is that about? I don't like to be pinned down to uh to something i have to do it's in my personality and and it's like and i'm very um.

I don't have a lot of patience and sitting for two hours on something that i'm really not enjoying, and i don't like rejection like i don't like rejection and so to call people and say hi. I haven't talked to you in two years. How are you doing? Is like bothers me, but i know i have to do it. Yeah and i've said that for how many years 20 yeah 20 20.

- and i know tom, would say, think how much business you would do if you just followed up on your database right right. We that's been a constant, that's been that's been a loving battle between the three of us for 20 years. Remember remember what i said: let's just give that since you're not going to call him, let's give him to the team pride. At least somebody could go and say: hi, i'm going for maxie and marty gellins.

We are getting better at that. We are yep. Okay, so uh so marty, video video marketing, whether it's properties, we talked about a little bit. You you resisted video, i mean you, listen do do you see what's here on my desk right? This is an old flip video camera which, after gary vaynerchuk, spoke at the summit a million years ago.

Everybody ran out and bought one. You two always knew you should and you always were like yeah. That makes a ton of sense, but you you resisted, but i think pre-covered. You know the singing songs, while caravan, all of a sudden something something flipped with the two of you.

What what was it that flipped and then what advice do you have for people today with video? Well again, we had to do something to get in front of people, because we really couldn't be in front of people and what a better way than video and then boosting it to to the world. And you know we just were lazy and didn't do it and that's all it was about. I mean every time we would get in front of a video or whatever, not enough time. It was fine yeah.

We just were lazy. We just made excuses. Why not? To do it but, as i said, we have been working harder than ever these last four months and part of that has been getting in front of a video camera and exposing ourselves to you know the world. So we can talk to our clients.

So we can talk to people, we don't know, so we can expose our clients listings. You know we were like, we've got, ta, we've got ta, do things and we were, like my mom, said, calling our clients more and really being present. In a time when we couldn't really be present - and it's been amazing - so you know our businesses has gone crazy in the last three months. You know since the initial pandemic started, so so when, when knock on wood right, when sort of this version of covid ends right or or whatever the new norm is the new norm is video going to stay? Is that going to be? Is that going to be a constant forever or when things get back to normal? Video goes away.

For you be honest, this is being documented. No, this is i'm even doing video and, if i'm doing video it's staying yeah because i am so technical, technically unstable, technically unstable. That needs to be a hashtag we're so blessed because we have like amy our marketing person. All we have to do is do it and then send it to her.

I don't like doing instagram posts like personally even every month. I might send out something i just it's just i'm just not into it. I don't have time to even look at a lot of stuff. That's again an excuse! Sorry i can make the time, but it's just not something i make the time for very often yes, but having amy and being able to just do something and send it to her, and then she does these amazing posts and jessica.

I mean that's something else. Through this, we have been religious on our instagram and facebook post on behalf of our clients. Right, you know, our team has been extra awesome, yeah they've stepped up, like you cannot believe every one of them and as far as amy i had a virtual open house. Last week i at the last minute, and i called amy she met me there.

She videoed me got it out there and it was out there before i even finished the it was crazy and it was it was. I didn't know it was live right and i started she didn't tell you she did, but it just kind of forgot it didn't matter, i'm going! Oh! No! I don't want to do it. You're live okay. So so, let's, but let's talk about that right, um, you've heard me say before, and it actually the credit goes to a client up in minnesota.

Who said to me: hey dunn is better than perfect right, sometimes just getting it done. Just shooting the darn. Video is better than perfection, and here we are in a scenario with you know: two legendary agents. Maxine you're live you don't even know and you're like okay.

Let me redo that. I want to say that over again and she's, like no you're alive, i mean you say you don't want rejection. Some people would take that as like catastrophic to their ego, and yet it just rolls off your back. Well, i yeah.

I know that and that a lot of things i say, roll off my back and they shouldn't probably, but they do and that's just who i am and again i'm a lot more complicated than is visually out there. Okay, but i kind of like uh put it aside and move on and after you're, my age you've had a lot of experience, doing that yeah, yeah yeah, well, two children, four grandchildren, later yeah all right! So so tell the the listener, who doesn't know you uh and what is your age now, 82 plus 82, plus think about 82 plus born in 1938. You listen, ladies and gentlemen, do you understand why i keep a why i say to them almost at the end of every call. I love you right.

Um right i mean think about like i was pretty much every call's like okay, i love you, you know and we so it's so funny we say call it's all zoom, but we still call it a call whatever um, better yeah. So all right. So i would love maxine, tell the story, and this is leading to another marketing component - tell the story about the listing appointment. You went on with a guy named joe who said to you.

So what do you think about this zillow thing? Oh, you don't remember who i'm talking about of course yeah. I know yes uh, so we went on a listing appointment and uh after the listing or during the listing appointment. What do you think about zillow and i went, and this was kind of new with zillow. I mean yeah.

This was like five years ago. No, no, no longer it was like seven years ago, yeah before this was before the time we listed it and he said uh. So i told him what i thought of zillow and fortunately i said good things. I didn't say bad things and he proceeds to say to me.

Well, i'm glad you like it because the last broker i had here doesn't like it doesn't understand it, and my son is the president and the major own majority whole owner of zillow in washington or oregon. I can't remember, but anyway p.s we ultimately listed his home. I think two years later or something and sold it and uh his. Unfortunately he passed away yeah but uh.

His son is and has been with zillow right yeah. So that's uh, so the for my audience. It's a spencer, raskoff who's, the former ceo uh. Now, the ceo of dot la uh, which i'm an investor in yay, super great guy uh but yeah.

It was joe raskoff who you know just a legendary human being, which all of you should just google to to understand. How incredible that that man was so. Unfortunately, i was positive and we got the listing, probably because of that, but i liked zillow at the time, but i didn't like the fact that they were. We thought they were going to take over the real estate market, but nobody's going to take over the real estate market other than the real estate agents, who do a good job.

That's right! So, let's, let's talk about that, was really my segue into how important is it marty to have an online presence? You were mentioning you know. Instagram is a struggle for you because you know you'd, probably you'd, probably post every live baseball game if you could be at one right but uh. So how important is it for an agent today to be active on social and really to have their their google page set up their? You know their zillow profile, whether they you know advertise or not, realtor.com right on down the line. How important is that today? I think it's imperative.

I mean everybody goes online to look for real estate today period, end of sentence, and you know we even get i'll get buyers. That call and want me to you, know, be their agent and help them and you know they're. They find the properties they they find the listings before we do, i mean i would i have a client who i've said you know i. I am not going to be in a race to find the house before you do, because i'm doing things all day long i get the hot sheet.

I get the notifications, but you're just looking for you specifically. So of course you may find the house before. I do that is not my expertise, that my expertise is in negotiating and dealing with the problems and and marketing your home. If it's a listing and what have you so my point is but as an agent, you need to be there.

Your listings need to be there, you need to be there and clients want to see, see you there and you know, we've used it as a tool not only for ourselves for personal marketing, but we have used it as a great tool for our listings, be it On our own pages of all the people that follow us, insta, facebook, twitter, linkedin, yeah, but um i've - you know used it as a tool for for listings every day and it's just become a great thing to to get our properties out there. So i love it. So i'm going to throw another one at you, both and uh, and i'm shocked that that most agents - i don't say, don't get this, but i think they don't understand, in my opinion, how powerful it is talk to us about agent-agent relationships and agent-agent networking right how How important in your world is it to know a lot of agents around the country be friendly? You know, like be a part of their sphere. Talk talk about that.

Well, it's a huge part of our business. I mean my mom and i number one uh within our own local um community. We think having a good relationship with the agents we sell properties you know with is the most important thing we can do. I mean we compete with each other every day and then we have to do a transaction together every day.

So it's the strangest uh relationship right. You compete for a listing and then you bring an offer to that agent on that listing or another listing so you're in this interesting environment. But we feel that that's one of our strengths is the relationships we have created with the agents to get along with them. To make it easy to show our properties, they know when they call our office.

It's streamlined easy to show easy to sell our listings. We'd never say no. We just always have somebody available to help another another agent, even if they can't make it with their buyers. We we will be meet them there, so anything we can do to um to create that great relationship will do and i'll.

Let my mom talk about our more national and and the broader network of agents that we have well. I also think it's really funny. It's gotten so that we're we're so respected in our community for helping the brokers and getting them into the properties that, if within five minutes for some reason, we don't get back to them because maybe somebody's on the phone in the office and can't answer it. What the heck's, the matter with the gallons, it's five minutes! Yeah, i mean that's how really unbelievable our team is yeah in getting them into our properties or answering a question or even helping them with their own problems, that they know we're going to be able to help them with because of our expertise and as far as Nationally, we're recognized all over the country because of number one, our longevity in the mob in the marketplace and the fact that we've been so helpful and when we get a referral, we sell it or we communicate with them and they get paid.

And - and i just think that that out of the what how many thousands of agents are, there million agents, 1.4 million agencies in the us alone. I bet we're in the top 100 000 as far as uh people, respecting who we are and that's very important for our clients, properties too, and for your relationship with other brokers. I mean if someone says who should we call in la jolla or who should we call them to call the gallons call the gallons and that's that's really important and we go to all these conventions. Unfortunately not lately, but we go to.

We go to tom ferry. The summit we go to the berkshire hathaway we go to nar. I've been involved with with theopsy and learning how to respect other agents that do the same business. You do yeah.

I think there's there's so much to unpack in that, but the one thing i want everybody to get what i know about these two and so many people that are like us. It's. How can i help like you? Two are always there to you, know: you're at a convention you just come off stage, winning some award and someone's like hey. Can i pick your brain on something you two always say? Yes, i think that, like i don't know if that was just intentional, but you know today when you look at like our client list and and how many referrals are done agent to agent and how how important that is, it just seems like it's like binary, like One camp gets it and the other one doesn't right like you, two clearly get help people give back share, answer questions, offer advice, and i think that has a massive impact on your brand from an agent agent standpoint for sure, and especially with your own community, even Though, with the new nar rule, it's a little more difficult, i mean you still have to have a good relationship, but now having a relationship with your own company is really important, and i think my personal opinion is maybe i shouldn't put it out there.

I think this rule is going to change within the next 12 months, because i don't think it's a benefit to your sellers. I think it's a disservice to your sellers. Talking about the clear collaboration cooperation, uh thing has been: it's been a very big, difficult situation, but anyway yeah all right. That's for another podcast! That's for another, we'll see how that one pans out, but we you heard it here.

First, ladies and gentlemen, we've got a prediction from maxine gellins marty's like yeah. You can enter your conversation too marty, but i know i agree with you. Like i said it's a whole nother podcast. We could have right right just on the lemonness we could get.

We could get a million agents to go on it with it. Yes, yes, we could hey. We could all do that. One live that would be a that'd, be a hot seat.

Conversation i can get bob goldberg to come. Join us. That would be even more fun. So so, let's not wrap it up, but i want to you know so much of what has allowed you to be successful.

Is you figured out what you're good at and and what someone else could do better than you right? So we're talking about building teams um, you know when i met you youtube had assistance, but you always resisted the sales side. You remember that say always, but for years you resisted the sales side and then we got mark and mark's mark been with us now 16 years i was going to say 15, but it might be 16. he's given us a long time right i mean so so For everyone listening mark, who is this just extraordinary guy right mark's in the house right he's in the office yeah i mean you know, he's he's at every event. He's you know, he's terrific married kids, you know he's like he's done it all and we knew him when, yes, you knew him when when he didn't have kids and he wasn't married yes, yes, it was just a lot of surfing and craziness.

So, let's, let's just talk about teams right and maybe maybe, let's start with mistakes, to avoid with hiring sales, people, transaction coordinators, marketing coordinators, showing assistance. What are some of the mistakes to avoid marty? I'm going to you first because you got a lot of the people stuff. On your end, yeah, i mean, i think, something that we've made a mistake of in hiring is sometimes hiring people that are more like us and liking who we're hiring, which, of course, you need to like who you hire. But i think my mom and i are such people - persons that on our team, we would, you know, lend ourselves to hiring people that were more like us and that's a mistake, because you can't have too many of that same type of personality or you're.

You know you're not going to get the job done if you will and i'm not going to be specific about anything um. We have an amazing team right now, like the bomb we have every facet of our business covered like i've, never seen it before, and the personalities are different, and so they they're good like it. Just everything is gelling right now. So i think that's a mistake.

We've made in the past - and you gave us that test that i i don't even remember, but the last two hires we had what you we gave you the info and then it was perfect. It was exactly what crystal knows crystal knows: right off their linkedin bit. Yeah, like just higher higher the personality profile, not the person right higher the profile for the job was the the conversation we were in yeah. It's really been amazing, so i think that's really important and and and then when you have your well so we'll go on.

If you're gon na have more questions, that's the first question yeah, but i want to know so break break down and then and then maxine, i'm coming to you break down each role. You have today right and you could say the person's name or not right.