Hey welcome back to the podcast. What, if i told you you could give me 216 000 over 18 years and in return i would give you 9 and fifty million back. Would you take that bet? You better take that back because that's exactly what our guest today gantry wilson! What's up g money good to see you buddy great, to see you thanks for having me in, of course, and mary jad right, president of our coaching company, who was right there at the very beginning, this guy two weeks into the business we're at mile square park In orange county, california, i'm doing an event and he walked up as a two-week veteran of real estate and became our first coaching client outside of my original group. Yep, and actually i didn't didn't sign up right.

Then i wanted to think about it a little bit. I was a little bit hasn't even been, nothing has changed, even better, nothing has changed and what was interesting, you just got dog right there yeah. I love you but tell us the story. So what was interesting was there was a an age in our office.

Who was with your dad and she was a huge client with her dad and who was it uh, iona miller? Of course, oh my gosh yeah. I have a great story remind me. I almost got to fist fight i'll, just say that yes, in a tuxedo and she was in a gown, and so it was my wife, but but also very, like german, like she's amazing, she's amazed but sold millions of dollars back then yeah and she became my Client she gave my personal. I didn't know that post almost the fist fight.

Okay, so she said don't sign up for tom yeah. You need to come see mike and she said, come be my guest and she actually paid. For my she said: that's amazing. You need to come and see me exactly yes, yes, so come and see mike, so i showed up at mike in palm springs yeah.

I went and saw him on stage. Yes - and i was like this, isn't me, i've done sales, my whole life and - and you know mike, you know, he's very much like yes, that's all you do all you do. Is you make calls and - and you know, poo open housing on the stage yeah. I was like this: isn't that's not how i want to do it and tom's big thing at the time is still even now, because there's no wrong way to prospect right.

You can always get deals as long as you're out there and you're you're prospecting you're active. Okay, hold on really fast dad. If you're listening, we love you, we love you, we might be best in your jobs, but you know i'll see you for thanksgiving and for christmas and everything else all right, and so from that conference i called in and and said i want to sign up right While i was at your dad's conference that makes it even better, i didn't know that. Oh that's right! I remember that, but the funny thing is that we didn't even have a contract.

I had to make it for you, mary you're, not making us look very professional when you, okay, that was 18 years - we're babies, okay, so so gantry you're in huntington beach, but you serve greater orange county right and - and i shared these numbers - nine million. We actually decided it went through your entire. You know 18-year career, you made 250 000 your first year in the business 18 years ago, like that's nuts and you started like april you're old, that's right, i'm the oldest one here, i'm gon na get hit for that. So so i want to unpack the lessons the journey, the missteps, the mistakes, because there's a pretty good chance.

Someone right now is listening that is somewhere around the world and they just got into the real estate, business and they're thinking themselves. If i could take an hour with gantry and cut off a decade of learning, that would be a worthwhile hour. That'd be well there's, probably even a veteran listening going all right. Well, how did he make 9 million bucks like i want to do the same thing? So so i want to pack all that, but first give us context like 18 years ago.

What were you doing prior to real estate? Why did you go into real estate versus anything else? You could do give us the understanding so since high school, so i was electrical engineering at usc, yeah um, but i knew i didn't want to become an engineer. So i wanted to go into sales, technical sales, and so i and that was selling. I was selling to aerospace companies, i'm selling, to engineering firms and did that for quite a while, and you had a bunch of different sales jobs and once you learned to sell to me, it was like you can do, sell anything. What did you learn to sell? Yeah like well like: do you remember the courses they sent you to uh? I mean i've done them all like.

I did like everything from selling to ceos to spend selling to all the all of those and even as a little kid i used to sell door-to-door christmas cards, i'd sell it or cotton, the the caramel colored peanuts. Yes, yeah, i mean it was always something i loved, but but you've got this, like you know, blue color, you know high analytical and somehow someone said you might want to learn how to smile yeah right. So i've always been more of a people person and the engineers sit behind computers, i'm like that's not for me, yeah and so the the job right before i got into real estate. I was vice president of international sales for manufacturing company and i was traveling two weeks a month, internationally yeah and i was commuting to el monte from huntington, beach and and my wife was pregnant with our second child yeah, and i was like i just can't do This anymore, and so i literally you know, quit and said honey.

I'm gon na go cold. Turkey, we're gon na go into real estate. Now i mean talk about pressure, i mean my wife's pregnant. You know she was right, five months pregnant and you were, and you were loaded with cashews yeah.

We didn't, we didn't have that. We had some savings, but not a lot. Yeah - and i was just like - i don't have time to figure this out, and so i need somebody to tell me what to say what to do and who to go, say it to and that's what i'm going to do, and so that's why i was like. I got to get a coach, quick right, and so that's why, when you came and spoke, i was like this is exactly what i need like i said.

I don't want to figure this out. Just tell me what to do and i'll go do i was the most coachable. I've ever been in my whole life. Sure, that's true.

We should call his coach right now, all right so so year, one which really was again. It was april right when you got started so year, one you did 250 000 in gci and from the 2004 12 transactions, 12 12 buyers with total transactions of 16.. So if you were starting over today, if i moved you tomorrow to san jose, if i move you tomorrow to whistler canada, what would you do differently as a new agent? So back then, it was all about getting buyers, you know, and it was you know, hey. How can i go get buyers, whether it was doing open houses or whatever it was? Nowadays it's got to be about sellers.

I think, and it's a matter of it's door knocking for sellers. It's i mean that's the cheapest thing. You can do right, um, holding open houses. You know talking to the neighbors, you know doing mainly your sphere and past clients is what i've i've learned.

That's a good thing to do. I guess, but that's, but that's today, right right. If you were starting over though right, would you go back to buyers? I mean buyers will get you the quickest buck, so buyers is the fastest way to get started, yeah and then try and switch quicker because it took me a while to switch into into sellers yeah. It took me a long time.

So so, let's, let's i again, i don't mean to only talk about the past, because we're gon na talk about youtube, you've had a lot of incredible, runs and experiences. Remember guys he got started, went right into the just you and i together in our businesses like 2006. Here we go 2007. holy right.

The whole world changed, you went through it, we were going through. We were helping a lot of clients yeah, oh my gosh yeah, but but i want to go back to those early days like what would you, what would you say were like the five or six most important things? If you were talking to a new agent today like knowing what you know now like what worked for you or what would you recommend, i mean number one is hire a coach. I mean that that's i mean not even trying to shield you guys. I mean.

That's. That's the most important thing you can do: yeah hundred percent. Why, though, because otherwise like? Why try and figure it out why you know have somebody who's who's working with other people, who's either been through it themselves or working with other people? Who knows knows the road? I mean why try and like just like you're trying to go from destination a to destination c without a map it doesn't make any sense. Are you do you get the fast pass when you go to disneyland or do you wait? Yeah always be trying to get fast faster right.

It's okay! So, like that to me like that's it like anything, i do to shortcut. Spend spend two days versus spending. Two decades makes sense. 100, so so get a mentor.

Get a coach right, get access to information. What's number two um number two thing i think is i mean i think it's it's a lot of it's getting yourself in order, so getting time management getting focused getting you know getting diligent like not take it out, treat it as a business okay. So so, when you say getting yourself an order like what goes through your head, mary, when he says that i would look at like you know, what does your day look like? How do you structure it yeah, you know. What are you doing with the lead generation? Lead follow-up: you know who are you reaching out to, especially if you're a new agent do you identify immediate sources of business? And i know you've talked about open houses door knocking you know.

Some people can't do that in their area, but and it's interesting that you say buyers - and i wanted to ask you when you said that, how do you leverage a buyer to get a seller? So i mean once you have that buyer i mean they're going to turn into a seller down the road of course, but then it's a matter of asking okay. What's who do you know? You know? Who else do you know because, typically during the escrow process, what do they say, you're going to bump into three or four people that are going to be buying or selling, because everybody's excited they're talking about it and i mean houses are exciting time yeah. So so, if number one is uh, get access to information, get a coach right, get a mentor all that good stuff number two. Is it's clearly like get yourself an order right? This is a business i'm running right.

This is not just i'm. You know i mean obviously that's predicated on you actually wanting to do that right. You want to make a lot of money which you did because you had to what about marketing lead generation. What about learning what to say, give us some insight there? Oh, so absolutely so that was the other thing too, is before you guys started, offering um nlp and start offering the the sales scripts.

I went to your brothers yeah because and did the action workshop where i could learn nlp, i could learn all the stuff and now it's so great that you guys offer it, but that was that was the other thing too. So i was practicing five times a week, yeah and not only with just regular people. I was practicing with like joe d and ty and like some of the best of the best, my buddies, yeah and, and i think you would call and put a good word in for me yeah and i was so nervous to get on each well. You were my first client out there, like all my friends once a week, and i had other people during the time, but i would tape record every every role play.

I did with them right, so i could practice over and over with there and i practiced on everybody else right and so the next week i could give them back their their their scripts yeah and they were always blown away by that, but it was because i Was copying it and listening to it and really just practicing overnight awesome, but don't you think you had the unfair advantage coming from corporate sales where, like that, that stuff was like mandated like you, you have to know to sell a technical product, you're not winging it. So you learn scripts, but it was it's so much better. It's so more personable right and it's so more intimate right and with the corporate stuff. You know you're selling, to the the buyer or whatever, whoever it is and it's more it's black and white yeah.

It's kind of maybe the difference between commercial and residential, potentially so country. I'm curious because it's like you had multiple role play partners, but was it the same script but different deliveries? So did you learn a lot from them? That's exactly so once you, we would go through a script and once we got it, then we move on to the next script, excellent, yeah, so great, and so then you it really it would stay on it for a while until you really knew it, you could Say it you could you've had it inside and you have to think about it. So, your second year, you went from 16 transactions. Four listings sold 12 buy side.

If i'm reading that correctly to 25 20 buyers and five listings sold what impacted learning, what to say have in that, i mean almost doubled. My business, i mean just by learning those scripts and that's exactly what it was yeah, and that was a tough time too, because back, if i don't know, if you remember 2004 2005, it's kind of like right now, right 15 offers on every on on every every House and - and it was a difficult time um, but it was a matter - that's that's going in and i used to present in person back then too for my buyers right and i always had a little trick where i would leave. I would take a picture while i'm presenting the offer of my family on a little little frame, and then i would forget and leave it there. So, while they're looking over, you would bring a seller as you're presenting your buyer offer or give us give us a call a picture of my cute buyer family.

Oh okay, i was like i was like here's my family man. I got ta eat like look at my kids, i'm sure everybody i thought you were going. I was like whoa, oh my gosh chris now you can't do that. You can't do it anymore right, but i would leave the frame there so, while they're picking the best ones they'd be looking at this cute little family stuff, it's staring them on the frame.

Oh that's quite impressive! That is that's a mafia right there that's like, and if you don't take this off yeah, you know like how could you make them yeah right not take their offer? Okay, so learning what to say right what about marketing and lead generation? I mean you know you, you chose us because we are the no wrong way to generate leave. We want you to have lots of different opportunities, and ultimately it was. It was about understanding that people have individual, dnas and styles and approaches. So you find what's right for you and you have your own tribes right and so one of the tribes.

So i went to usc yep, and so what we developed was a campaign to go after sc people, and then mary jet helped me with that. Yes, and so we actually created a series of postcards that i sent off to my alumni network, that i knew and and was able to generate start generate sales off of that too. So right, were they freaked out by that um everybody loved it like it was it was. I didn't.

I was worried that i might get a little bit of blowback on it, but everybody was like you know, because we we did creative pictures. I hired a kid to go, shoot landmarks at sc yeah and then we made creative. You know things about houses, you know to interact with it. So right right and from your group and your networking group.

That's what it's all about. I mean it's like you refer them business, they refer you. So it's like exactly it's a tight knit scene, yeah yeah exactly. I mean that and that's a great message for everybody here, and so, if it wasn't college it could have been high school and if it wasn't that it's your church, it wasn't that it's the people you smoke weed with i'm just saying: oh mary jack, but i Think what was key was make it unique because they're used to getting all this other stuff, and so that's why i tied right into into what they loved was.

I see, pictures and essie stuff yeah people were gon na bust. My chops with that, but really i should have said jim bishop and riding bikes right that was married. I've got this great networking group we're all ride bikes, but i'm the only real estate agent. I was like brilliant all right so fast forward.

We go into the global economic meltdown. How did you pivot so during that time? Um right before that yeah, i thought i was the newest rockefeller. I was making great money, oh yeah, and let's go back you're at you're now at like between 28 and 35 transactions. Well, no 26 transactions in 2007 and the wheels came off because the next year you went from 420 gci to you down to 290.

and your average commission percentage retained went from you know, 2.2 to 1.8 yep overnight. So it's a haircut so that was that was a tough time. I don't know. If remember and personally what was going on is during those previous years i started buying rental property right with zero down negative cash flow like i just want to punch you in all.

All the stuff that i was i was young and didn't know. Yes, you know it wasn't that young, but i should have known um, but who cares it's all going to the moon right? You know so you're, like both my 20 year old to the moon down to the moon. Here we go and so what happened? I i i lost my ass yeah and and not only did i lose those properties i kept every like. I end up selling short selling so my thing, but i ended up maxing out every credit card to pay the negative cash flow on it.

So not only was i negative on them, but then i was negative like i was maxed by the end of it all. I was upside down about 600 grand. What was that like for you and your wife, that was tough, that was a tough period yeah so and so we're talking 08 yeah at this point, that's exactly right! So in an 08 that's the year you went down to 290., then i see reo reo, reo reo for four straight years, all the way to 2012.. So i hit the darkest point and - and it got to the point where i actually had a notice of default on my own house stapled at the door and it was it was a tough.

It was scary, you know, and i was like i don't care, i'm keeping the house no matter what yeah and literally i was like. Okay, my back's against the wall. I don't have. I've got to do well and it was kind of like before where my back's going.

I've got to do well and i just went out and sold as much as i possibly could and and and then at that time i pivoted, and that was right. When you would. You actually introduced me to my first reo account and all of a sudden we started, i started going after it. I was like okay, this is the this.

Is the route and so started going after reo accounts and by the end picked up 12 different rvo accounts and started selling those over the next? You know four or five years so but that, but it got to that low point saved the house um and then all of a sudden we took off. So what's the lesson i mean because there's probably 50 right relationship, lessons money, lessons, investing lessons! Don't put all your eggs in one basket, lessons um, but when you reflect back on those times like if you were sitting here with your kids - and they were, you know older by another 10 years, market goes up. Market goes down. What's the most important three or four things you'd share with them, i mean never ever buy negative cash flow stuff.

I mean you generally. It doesn't matter how small it is, but as long as it's generating a positive cash flow um, that was, i mean 100. So i mean i will never buy negative cash flow again yeah and, like you said it doesn't. If the mark goes up or down it doesn't matter if you've got rents covering it right and we're gon na sit on it for a long time right right.

So that's one um: how about you and your wife? So it was, i mean it brought us actually closer because it was it was tough and cheap. You know it could have gone either way you know, but because of it, she's a good lady and stuck by me and said you know what, let's you know we're going to get through this and it caused me to to focus back and and came back to Kind of the basics, so by then you know it's already been four years right, so i went back to getting up and doing my affirmations and doing my role plays because i was an experienced agent four years in yeah i didn't either. I didn't. I didn't need to do script play script practice anymore, so brought me back to the basic back to script, practice back to role playing back to having a schedule back to you know all the stuff you're supposed to do yeah, but you kind of you get away From it yeah, so, if i understand correctly, like you deviated from your your plan, that's exactly right during that time, were you following up with your center of influence and past clients, or were you just totally laser focused on your reos um? I didn't.

I didn't go after the past, clients, fear and, and so because i feel guilty, because now it's like okay, i sold in these homes and now it's like worth half of what it was yeah and i was like it's going to the moon. You got to buy now, and so i was in and and so i didn't know what to say, and so i felt like because i was sorry i felt like it felt bad because i didn't know what to say to him. I say all the time: okay, yeah, that's the word we all like john grauman was dropping the fbi. Was it oh yeah like? Is that your brand he's like f yeah? He was just caesar in his sentences, that's great, but i felt horrible that that now i felt like i let him down, and but it was funny because later on, when i did end up calling them they're like answering because they knew i was buying all these Homes they're, like you, were right there with us.

It wasn't like you were telling us do something you weren't doing. You were right there with us, you were you know, that's how you felt and who knew nobody knew at the time. Gantry. That's important, really important part that you brought up because, like through my years of coaching, it's like when the market goes down, agents want to pull away and not educate, and it's like that's the time when they need you the most 100.

You know because it's like, if you buy stocks, your stock broker is not going to say. Oh my god, it goes down. I'm not going to talk to her again, so you know you have to keep them educated. It's.

I would even say too, like no true relationship exists with the fear of the consequences, so if we can't be friends on the way down, if we can only be friends on the way up, do we really have a relation? You know what i mean like when things are great, like it's easy but, like you know, when you're, when you're closest friends or you're like for me, like my best clients, because so many of my clients are friends or you what i mean like that strong connection, Like it's more, it's more so important to be following up and like i agree, the world's a burrito and i've learned that and i 100 agree yeah, and that was what i learned later on, because once i started making those calls after reo was done right. Everybody was so welcoming and so understanding and, like you said it was like nothing had happened. So yeah wow, that's the lessons in life. So how did you transition out of reo? So actually i transitioned i started to see.

We started to get slower and slower and the commission started getting cut and we were down to one one percent one and a half percent with a big team right, but it had to have not been fired. All the all the money up front check to get right exactly it was salary teams. It was expensive. So even though these numbers look great on there really didn't make that much in reo, yeah, um, and so finally, that started away.

So we switched into short sales for a while yeah um and then, after short sales. I made a huge pivot and went back into past clients, but then i went into online leads, but no, no, let's, let's go so short sales, which was indicative of the times right right in just the marketplace that we were in so so distressed, displaced, kind of All the same but different um, so you went from there into online or did you go there to your database first, some of both. So i didn't okay, but i love the it's easier for me to call online than it was for me to call past clients. Why? So i even dragged because i don't know - because i don't know him and and it's easier and it's always kind of been that way until recently, i'm like okay, what are you doing? Yeah um, but i've always been.

It's no problem, it's easier for me to pick up the phone and call circle, call around a neighborhood or call a bunch of people that just you know clicked a button on zillow or whatever it was rather than pick up and have a meaningful conversation with somebody. So you know so what's interesting is we're almost going through the evolution of everything we did with every client and gantry is like just personifies all of it, except i want to punch you in the face for not nurturing your database, the entire time so i'll take. It's my fault. I didn't remind you enough, yeah exactly.

I am the head coach because you see that every time so yeah well but clearly i didn't say the way that resonated you were like yeah, yeah yeah, not me so so what did you learn in the? Because we're we can go back to like early top of funnel facebook. You know like so give us like, like obviously you mentioned zillow - and i was a huge advocate of zillow almost 11 12 years ago - immediately right. So so that's what i was doing zillow. I was doing sync pay-per-click, yep um craigslist ads.

I did craigslist for a while yeah yeah. Those are the originals that was pre-dating zillow. It was like super easy on craigslist and, and so and it just it was enticing and that helped i started building a team off of that right, um and that's all we did. We made phone calls calling these online leads and we had success with it.

Yeah um but started once again neglecting the the past clients. You know i always had some past clients, but it wasn't. Was it substantial, yeah yeah? So so you did the online thing. It sounds like you did, the gamut.

Did you do zillow like at your site? Yeah, so the zillow leads, i did were a little bit different. They were, they were called zillow pre-foreclosure, oh yeah, but they were. Buyer leads so they weren't selling these they're buyer lists and it was unique because only certain you had a private territory and not many people. Most agents didn't like them yeah, because it's kind of a little bit of a bait and switch they're calling on a foreclosure house - hey, you can't have their house, but here let me go show you something else right.

It was basically what it was yeah um, but we were really good at it and good at capturing. Those leads remember that yeah and had them for a long time. They were. We were successful with the conversion on them.

Yeah, like do you remember, like the conversion percentage and as we're talking right so so standard commission used to be conversion used to be two to three percent and we were converting it five to six percent on the pre-foreclosure see that's bonkers, that's crazy, but that just That's good skills. That's good, nurturing like there's a lot that goes into that right. I think they discontinued it and you still got the leads too. So i kept getting it and we can we'll get into that a little bit later, but they shut them off.

On me this year, they're like who's, this guy gendry, that's getting all these things, but that was actually and we can talk about how that affected me, but that was actually a blessing yeah and we'll talk about how that happened this year, because there's a couple things Happening between then and now, but yes, yes, all right. So so what would you say reflecting back? This is what's so funny is because you were just you were right on the cusp or right in line with basically every trend that was happening like we've, always prided ourselves on being ahead of the curve. So what about video where's, your where's, your youtube channel, so i have a youtube channel, so we just i just started doing that in the last year and a half so i'm going to punch him yeah. I know i know like warning warnings podcast guys about to be punched in the head, so youtube.

I've just started the last year and a half there in 2008 and 2009 when you said, whenever he was running up by, i was calling the online leads. No, you were doing reos yeah right, but flip video cameras dave roberts. So so what what happened with you in video? I i don't know it always. It seemed like it took too much time it wasn't.

You know it wasn't the immediate return and right, you know it wasn't instant gratification, it was more brand building sure, and so i liked you know calling somebody up helping them find my house, let's go, do it back in the car yeah and you actually, when you Did video you're really good at it yeah and it's when i do it, i'm actually great and and now we've gotten more kids, because i hired somebody to like hold me accountable. So he comes in once a month and we shoot videos - and you know that's what i needed yeah all right - we're we're getting way ahead of ourselves. Let's keep going back so at what point. Actually, there's a couple things that stand out for me when i look at all these numbers, because you come out of the reo days and i know 430 to you, you weren't making any real money, because we just understand the economics of reo.

You had a huge team, yeah right, but then all of a sudden, like 2013, you make 450. Then you make 520. Then you make 630 580. 750.

870 730., like you run a nice little terror and and so to be listening. We're talking about his gci, not his team, like what was you know, money to gantry, so what was it was it? The online leads? Was it? What else did you do back then, because that sounds like a lot of revenue for just online leads, and then you obviously have the zillow funky dunky leads coming in that you were converting on the buy side right, and so it was up until about 2017. It was mainly online leads yeah. So that's when i started to build the team and and built it up to six agents and and that's all we did we'd come in in the mornings.

We'd call our leads all right and then about 2017. I read a book. Um the book was called perk, your sphere yeah mm-hmm, and so basically what it is: perk, yeah, dvrk gift, yeah gift, yeah, okay, okay, i was like perk like some kind of weird like pointy thing, and so basically, what it is. Is you give your clients a gift once a month right and but they have to come into the office? It's a reverse pop-up, oh yeah, yeah, and it's usually somewhere between my gifts were between 20 and 50 bucks yeah and ranged from like a hammock to uh.

You know fun stuff where, whatever it was a party remember the paint party right well, those are more events yeah, but so these were things they had to come in the office and pick them up yeah, and so i started in 2017 and started almost immediately getting Results from it right, but it was a little bit results. It wasn't huge results, yeah, yeah, um and then covet hit so yeah. So that's kind of well! You just fast forward it from 17 to 10. I know what to march 2020.

really quick. Well, let me back up actually so we started to grow, but i want to. I want to talk about the fact that um it's so so your lead sources were were perfect. For you look at the mixture of your clients right 40.

You know 40 buy side transactions in 17 on 50 total transactions, so you never seem to figure out that listing houses was important right, so i was more focused on buying. I said i said with love right right. So what was that? So? That was that so the 40 was was the team yeah and the 10 was me doing the listings got it and but what was happening at the time. I had this team of six people, but i was so focused on the team that my personal production went down, and so you can see how much money i made actually like.

I cracked a million in total sales right, but my personal income that i got even from the team was much was 500 yeah, which you know for me, but still yeah, yeah um, but about 500 here 500, but you've got the expenses much higher. So of course, so now you're spending a lot more money on all these leads you're buying and everything else, and but i wasn't focused on listings. I was still like you know, and i was all focused on them: making them successful and uh and not not really keeping my own production up at the time yeah. You know - and i didn't get over that hump, where yeah to me at least what i've learned now is: it's you've either got to get over six get up to eight ten, twelve sales, people right sales, buyers, agents right um, because up until then, that's the strategy Zone right, it's the danger zone.

Okay, i got to stop because, like someone someone's listening, that knows me and maybe he's met you in advance, like ah tom and mary, are like kind of beating up gantry. I want to be very clear. I have so much respect for you the thing that i'm hearing that i've never i mean because first time in a podcast setting like this really going deep with you on this stuff, um is when he goes after something he does everything that is such like a Lot, there's a lot of skimmers. Do you know what i mean like i'm gon na try this dabblers, we used to call them right.

Dabble this down like you're, like we're going all in online leads we're gon na be the best at it. We're gon na convert the highest. It goes deep right like that's something. So where did that come? So that's a positive and a negative, because i get so single-minded focused right, yeah and that's the so.

But but that's a huge skill set where did that come from? Is that you think it is that 80d ocd? However, you want to whatever you're right because is more like you're looking around, but also too, but it also gives you that laser focus it does and and - and that was that was all we did. So i would just okay, this is this is what we're going to do, and i think that's i mean, even as in engineering i mean i had to be so. Laser focused that exclude everything else, and so i missed the simple stuff, as opposed to focus on on. What's right in front of me, so that's right! That's why, with these online leads, i was like okay, that's all we're doing, and everything else and there's distractions plenty of them, and we can just keep getting it right and it's it's a math equation.

It's going to go on forever! Right, that's exactly until zillow says: why are we sending this guy and i need to beat all these? Ladies, we don't know so covet hits so kovid. So there's a few things that happened so coveted was a. I mean rough time for everybody. Yeah i mean it was, it was difficult and you did such a great job of coming on each week and just kind of keeping keeping everybody's.

You know spirits up yeah um. For me, that was a really tough year. So my why i mean it was tough for everybody, but why, like give us an example, so in that january that year my lead team buyer's agent left and he was the main producing. He was the guy who handled everything.

He was the one who trained everybody and he left rut row and i'm like crap yeah and then everybody else, yeah yeah, and so then i kind of shut down yeah and so for the first three months of that year. I i had, or for the first up until july of that of 2020, i had three sales and that was it and and we're talking like a consistent, 50 60 deal a year producer and i'll say you go to three three up until july six, seven months And so so i was like, but imagine still having the expenses of somebody who's making. 700 000. Now we've got three deals, so i had that stress and then just to kind of add on to it.

I shattered my ankle in june yeah and so now not only. How did you do that yeah so why we weren't supposed to be outside during june in southern california, so my wife says i came like i was 20 years younger, yeah, probably more like 40 years, but i was on something called a one wheel. So it's a skateboard with a big wheel in the middle. Oh, my god.

I know exactly and they go 20 miles an hour and they go 20 miles at a time and i have like i had 600 miles in mine. So that's what i would do is i go ride. This thing yeah but they're known on on occasion to just nose dive you're going along 20 miles an hour and just knows that and i've got the full. Like my mom or my uh, my wife says i look like the four-year-old virgin yeah.

Oh my gosh helmet. I got wrist pads. I got elbow pads. I got knee pads.

I got padded shoulders. Is there a photo of this because we're gon na walk out with the body? This is great, it's pretty bad so, but but i didn't obviously say my ankle yeah. So i was going along and shattered my ankle and full on with a plate and six screws and two pens. Oh man and i'm used to standing up to when i prospect and and now i have to keep my leg above my heart and keep it up and i was right still to date, no backup, oh, my gosh, so just recover yeah.

So but for several months i was like i couldn't stand up and and it would hurt and to walk and everything else and so uh. I have yvonne arnold, as my coach and she said gantry. This is a blessing yeah. She goes oh at the beginning.

Oh between losing my assistant, i mean between losing my buyer's agent. That's when the zillow shut off yeah the beginning of january of that year, and so the old livestock things come in threes. I know assistant lead buyers, agent and buyers, agents and your ankle yeah and the lost zillow yes and yvonne, looks at me or tells me of the phone yeah in her voice. Indirect way.

Yes, she says: gantry you've been in all these tony robbins things yeah. You know what you need to do: yeah get the hell out there and do it yeah, and so she basically said okay and so then what happened? Because i was now as depressed. How did you take that? It was careful, carefrontations yeah and it was it. I was back to once again i was backed into a corner yeah.

You know i've got all these bills coming in, got every kid's, my my daughter's in college. I've got you have another one, getting ready to go to college. I'm like okay. We've got to make this work, and so, first of all, she said you need to hire a showing assistant, i'm like well, i never had one before so i hired a person to go, show the homes.

For me, i set up the appointments and she would go. Take the buyers around she'd go, you know, go in and actually for listings and set up and have a little camera. So i could talk to him and that was the biggest blessing of all, because it forced me to change my business and and change your comp. Your comp model right right dramatically way more net to you right, so she was paid hourly, plus five percent of each of the deals that you bought.

That's the model. I know five percent of commission sorry yeah. No, i got it five percent for the listener. Yeah hourly plus five percent versus half 50 yeah and all the other expenses right, brilliant, especially for your own personal book of business, yeah, yeah and so but then i got.

I got my mindset back because that was the problem, so she said you start doing your affirmations. You start doing your daily accountability, yeah daily daily, accountable checklist, yeah and what that was. I used to do it a long time ago and basically, what it was was a checklist of things. You need to do each day.

So one of the coaches realized that, like i wasn't doing it at the right time - and they said i don't care just as long as you get it done in the day, then i'm okay with it yeah, and so you know it would have things on it. As you know, simple things, as you know, contact five past clients. You know five five, four, so all right, yes, but also have meditate, do affirmations work out, have all these things and each day to check it off and then i'd also have on it. How would you rate yourself today on a scale of one to ten yeah, so it forced me to say: okay, how did i do yeah and, and so each day my goal was trying to get better, so it would start off at a five or you know, Four, even and then finally start to get up at eights and nines, and i didn't give myself a lot of nines and tens.

You know unless i you know, took a listing or you know had a like, multiple listings or whatever. It was because i was pretty hard on myself, but i wanted to keep keep the pressure on and keep driving yeah and so from the three the first half of the year. I ended up with 17 total that year, but it started me off because all of that groundwork with the perk, your fear, stuff, yep started me back. You know it planted those seeds for the past clients, yep and so this year with no team.

Basically, i've got one buyer's agent he's done a couple deals yeah, and then i got the showing assistant yeah. Now we've we've taken off and had the highest profit. I've ever had right right. I could switch yeah, so we took it up we're at 920 for the profit which is and but it was all about focusing back, and so i have no online leads.

This year yeah we had a database of twelve thousand, so we would call through those has been nurtured for the last five years. You know more than that ten years, and so now we're back focused on like on the past clients. I just got your email, it just came in, yes, welcome back yeah, and it's and it's so much nicer like because i like them right and they're. Actually, like me too, yes, yes, it's good to call past clients.

Yes, okay, say that directly to the kids, you've heard me say that you've already said: like hey, don't worry about, don't call your past clients, it's okay! Someone else will right. Somebody else is gon na call him someone else. Gon na fall in love with him got ta, nurture him so gentry. There's so many lessons here, but the thing that i'm looking at and i i think i might be missing one, but you said something that is just so um like it just it just it drives this wedge in my brain in this conversation back against the wall.

When you first started back against the wall, when the market turned and really went south in like seven and eight, was there a back against the wall moment when you came out of reo back into regular, because clearly there was a massive back against the wall. There. Absolutely was because my reo had gone away right and i hadn't talked to the past clients, and so now it forced me, like that's why i was like okay. How are we going to do and that's we were calling online leads for eight nine hours right, so that was my that's how i came out of that one.

So so you know you and i we all live and die by run, plays at work. Clearly you once we've acknowledged like once you get into something man. It is all in and you run that play i'm just sitting here. Thinking to myself, as your friend like, what's the defensive position, we need to take when in clearly every two to three years.

You have one of these moments, not that not like more than that, but yeah yeah. I don't know okay, now we're starting to build it. So now we're one of your closest friends over here nodding by the way. So you know hello, yes, um! It's now you know staying out now being consistent.

I think you know having that consistent mindset. Yeah, you know getting up every day doing the the mental preparation right makes all the difference in the world and it seems like such a simple thing to do. But when i don't do it, then that's when things tend to fall apart gantry, you said something: that's really interesting. You said each day you tried to be better than the day before so you're.

The wonderful thing is that you're competing against yourself, which is so impactful. You know and like can you take that and look at that and say you know what i did over the years. You know this is what i'm gon na make sure that that's i'm getting better, i'm competing against me. That's exactly right! Yeah and it's, and because i do i look at okay, hey i did this last year - i've got to do this this year, um and grow every year.

You know, okay, how do i do it and how do i do it in less time and how do we do it, and now it's now it's focused on how do we do it, so we can spend more time with the family and how do we? You know keep growing those numbers at the same time, so, okay, so so, if i was starting over today as your coach and i'm like all right gantry so where, where is your business going to come from? What are the buckets for 2022 so buckets for 2020? The primary one is now that we're able to do events again, yeah so we're starting we're doing events we're starting perky sphere up again, yeah, so um, so past clients as a primary past client center of influence database. So you know we break database into like six different cohorts right so there's past clients that can do transactions past clients that can refer sphere. They can do transactions versus agent agent referral, which we haven't even unpacked, and i know you get a ton of that business and then those old leads that you have right. So there's really six um who's going to get the most concentration best, clients, 100.

Okay, so past clients - and that's even now that we've because i'm finding for us bon bon's not getting through as much and so now i'm texting more yeah, i'm sending them stuff and and sending them to my bomb letters that i've sent out previously like in others. If we send out a bomb bomb email, we get maybe a 15 open rate right, and so now i'm texting them a link to the bombbomb, email and they're opening those up, and now our open rates have skyrocketed. What do you find that your clients thought your past? Clients want the most from you, they so same thing. So we do.

We also use a product called homebot, so they want to know what's going on in their what's going on with their house, so they want to know evaluation. So that's the other thing we're doing is dropping off cma on their individual house, so homebot gives them an automated evaluation and now quarterly we're giving them a cma, a quick and dirty one. You know as letting them know what they're what the value of their home is. So i love that because it's like with homebot it's like, have you looked at your analytics? Has anybody opt out of that? I don't think of anybody.

Yeah everybody, everybody and it gets opened all the time and it's cheap. It's it's it's a great thing: yeah, it's like the the knowledge of their equity, like what's the value in their home and we use wilopo with follow-up boss. Thank you. I was just going to ask okay we're going to go tech also, but i want to go back to so database past clients, events, perky sphere, homebot, cma quarterly.

What's your next lead pillar, um next bleed player after that is uh is going through our existing database. So so we have the older older, ladies and so with the older leads. What we're doing is we're retargeting them through ylopo, okay, so and there's no need to buy any leads. We've got so we've got 12 000 leads in there yeah that these people just raise their hand hey.

We want to go, see a property. Now we want to go see this or that, and it's because they're seeing they're getting targeted on facebook they're getting targeted. You know all across yep, so um other lead source that we're doing is agent referrals, like you, said yep, so how? How are you i mean? Obviously you know so agent referrals. I don't so that one we're not as specific, so it's systematic right exactly so.

I have a few made it like their thing right, so it's not my it's not i'm not great at that, but i've got a few clients in areas like san diego that send us leads that we do a great job on, but you're. So now we're getting like in our community. It's like, i think part of it is too, is because of huntington beach and because of orange county is expensive, that it's tough for people to come in, except for a few target like unless you're seattle or northern cal or new york, or which they're all moving. Here in droves, exactly - and so that's where that's where we get our leads from - is those places yeah exactly okay, um.

Let's talk about tech, okay, so you mentioned ylopo yup, so we do ylopo right with followupboss right with follow-up boss. So big shout out to both those companies love them both using homebot, too yep home bot i got um is follow boss, your primary crm or okay, so we switched from commissions inc over to follow to follow us and mainly because of the ability to plug other Things into it, yeah so because sync is very close-minded: they don't let you plug stuff into it, and so now we can sorry sync, and so we also call action is a big one for us, too call action, big jessie, um jesse, if you're listening just call Me call action, yeah um. Let me think what else collagen's great like track and measure everything know every source kind of know. I spent a dollar here, whatever it is like it's it's it's all about.

So, what's so one of the things that's fantastic about call action is, if somebody calls so, let's say it's a sign call. So i've got to sign up. I have a special phone number on it. If somebody calls that number before i pick up the phone it'll tell me if they're most the time, if it's a neighbor it'll, tell me if it's um, if they're from from the area, how much and sometimes it even gets very detailed like what high school they Went or what college they went to, how much their income is right, and so that way it's a different conversation, if they're from out of the area.

Now i'm saying: hey, it's probably a buyer who's looking at it, if it's a neighbor now i'm talking about you know this is where the house is. If you thought about selling exactly yeah um a funny one with call action was a couple of years ago. I was out to dinner and a lot of afternoon i just let it ring you know, because it once again once they call in, has automatic text messages that go back to them right and also up on the on the name. Um comes the secret stumps yeah, and this guy and and and i was like whoa, could it be? That's your surprise.

Hey i want to say i saw your name. I want to see this home yeah um. It was, and so he said, i'm not gon na. I'm a prominent family in california, i'm not going to tell you who i am and so they're one of the big huge families you're.

Like that's, okay, i know exactly who you are yeah. So that's why i said you want to see tomorrow, yeah and so yes ended up showing a property um. We didn't have, you know, closing deal with them, but we've we've still gone, we're still talking to them and everything else. But the fact that i knew to step out of dinner to go talk to this guy.

That was a good idea. Really fantastic. Was that last name bren. I think okay, people take that call.

Yes all right, so we talked about lead sources um. Let's talk about video talk to us about like what's your ambition for video, so i'm so i've been doing a lot of instagram, so more focused on. So i have a person for who specializes in instagram um. We do facebook, obviously we're doing google, my business or good, the the new name yeah.