Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're continuing our journey, looking at the future of real estate, the immediate future, the things that are here today that are going to shape this next decade of the '20s.
This is the third of 4 sessions from our recent Real Estate Summit in Toronto, talking about the future of getting listings, the future of multiplying our listings, of getting referrals, and of converting leads and finding buyers.
Today we're looking at the future of getting referrals, and the trends already in motion, that are going to work in our favor and really give us an advantage if we embrace them to move forward on each of the elements of the Listing Agent Lifestyle.
You're really going to enjoy this as you direct your thinking, not just to a new year, but to a new decade. What is it really going to mean to go into the '20s, and how can we equip you to be completely prepared to embrace all of these opportunities.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep098
Dean: Hello and welcome to the listing agent lifestyle podcast. My name's Dean. Today we are closing in on the end of the year. Not only the end of the year, we are closing in on the end of a decade. The first real decade of the new millennium here, the 20s. So I'm very excited about that. We had an event in Toronto this October to talk about exactly that. The future of real estate, the immediate future, the things that are here now and the things that are going to shape this decade of the 20s. Where are the moving sidewalks? Where are the things that are trends that are already in motion, that are going to work in our favor and what are the things that are really going to give us an advantage, if we embrace them and move forward. On each of the elements of the listing agent lifestyle. So we had a mastermind and I recorded some sessions for us.
So these next few episodes will be different sessions that we did, talking about getting listings. The future of getting listings. What does that look like? The future of multiplying our listings, of getting referrals, of converting leads and finding buyers. So I think you're really going to enjoy this as you kind of direct your thinking now, not just to a new year, but to a new decade. What's this really going to mean going into the 20s. And how can we equip you to be completely prepared to embrace all these and make things as easy as we can make them so that we're experiencing daily joy and abundant time and financial peace, all the elements of the listing agent lifestyle. So I think you're going to enjoy this series and I will let you enjoy it and we will go through all, I think there's four episodes in this series. So here we go.
Speaker: So now I want to talk about three more things. And one of the sessions that I want to talk about first is continuing moving down our conversation in the listing agent lifestyle elements of getting referrals. This I think is, what I always love to observe is, if we were to take one, we could create the people in this room into one super realtor. It would be an amazing thing because when we look at all the metrics, we talked about the ROI on the getting listings. If we can have Tony's and Chuck's ROI on the longterm commitment to getting listings and then get a listing multiplier index of three or 3.5 like Ron and then get a 20 plus percent return on relationship in the getting referrals, it would be an amazing thing because we've got people who've been taking a longterm approach to their return on relationship that are over 20%.
And that's a fun place to be in. So I want to talk about that with a sense of how important these relationships are going to be going into the future when things become as automated and as information available as possible. But the relationship being established ahead of time that people are still going to want to have somebody in their corner. Somebody who goes through the process with them.
And so let's start with the kind of establishing the metric that we're looking at here, which is return on relationship, meaning the number. If we take your top 150 and we divide the number of referred transactions that you get repeat referral and direct sphere business and divide that to get a percentage based on that 150 standardized model there that are gold standard. What we've seen is that 20% is an achievable number that is when you're focused on it, something that can happen. I want to say on autopilot because it takes work to do it, but I want to have a discussion around some things that people are doing in those arenas. Just as a curiosity, how many know what their return on relationship number is? Easy for you cause we just talked about it. You're at 22?
Tony: Yeah, just below 23% for last year and this year we're almost 24%.
Speaker: Perfect and Chuck?
Chuck: I had like 187 last year. [inaudible 00:05:57] this year.
Speaker: Sorry guys, can we go down here? Yeah, thanks.
Tony: Yeah, so in 2018 out of 187 people, we did 44 direct transactions. Obviously they didn't all move, but they had a friend or family member or something. And then this year we're over 50 already. So the system works. There's no doubt. And it's fun business because they already know you, they like you, they trust you. And when I get to meet with the referral, it's not, Hey, how can I sell you on using me?
Speaker: Right.
Tony: It's how can I help you?
Speaker: Right.
Tony: So it just such a better way of doing business and it's that list of people, you have to be very, very specific about who you put in it. And I know per head what I pay to run the system for each person per year. I never want to look at it as I'm only doing this... I actually like these people, and I would hang out with these people and invite them to the hockey games with me. They're people I really want to associate with. And the system is, it can be an autopilot, once you build it and follow it, it just kind of runs itself.
Speaker: Cool. Chuck, what are you guys at now? Do you...
Chuck: In our database, because we've got team members that have theirs within the bigger structure. So I'd be doing probably at least 40 this year. In the past it's been about 16-17% and I'm keeping four. So it's probably close to 12 or 13% for me now.
Speaker: On how many people?
Chuck: Let's say I've got 400 on my list...
Speaker: Right.
Chuck: It would be at least 40 transactions, probably closer to 50 if I checked. But there's people that don't. So if you measure that by, do you get a referral or a transaction? Because there's some people that are referred that just don't end up working out. So in that sense when we've looked at the raw behavior, it's been usually over 20%.
Speaker 2: We just look at the transactions that you're doing.
It's an interesting thing that when we measure that number, we were talking about this with 150 as the baseline kind of thing. The fact that you have 400 is because you're the incumbent realtor, those are clients that are...
Chuck: There's a good history now, you wake up and go, I've been in this business 17 years.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly.
Chuck: And there's an attrition, we look at that list, just keep people on because we do two mail outs a month plus client events and probably five or six emails a year plus the social media. That's our plan for that.
Speaker: Yes. Love it. Who else has their numbers? Gina [inaudible 00:09:02]. Because you're saying most of your business comes from... can you pass this down to Gina? There we go.
Gina: I would say I have 150 in my database.
Speaker: Yes.
Gina: I continually, 90 days, do something with them and I would say 28%.
Speaker: Nice.
Gina: Yeah. And then the others are all very [inaudible 00:09:24] but the 20% are the repeat.
Speaker: Yes, that's great. So when you look at this part of the thing that we're looking at is how do we orchestrate those situations? How, when you look at managing this relationship portfolio for the highest possible yield, we start to think about the different flavors of what you're focused on. You've got the opportunity that they're either going to do a transaction with you themselves, which some of it will be that.
So you know what is next likely for those people is one thing. But there's also going to be people that you haven't done business with, but they're on that list as a sphere, person who you know, that does a direct piece of business with you or they refer somebody to you. And I always found it interesting to make the distinction between the passive referrals and reactive referrals and orchestrated referrals. Because at the main events, I would do for the last three years that we did main events, I would have 10 people stand up and tell me the story of the last referral that they got. And primarily what I would hear are the passive referral stories. So it would be that Dale told me that he'd say, well Ashley called me up and said he was a friend of my client Michaels and could I help him sell his house?
And that's 70 or 80% of what we saw. But then the other 20% was, Daniel would say, I got a call from my client Michael, who said, I was just talking with my friend Ashley, who's going to be selling his house. You should give him a call. And that's a reactive referral, meaning now you've got to do something to get connected to Ashley. But what I never heard was somebody telling me an orchestrated referral story where Daniel would say to me, I was showing townhouses in River Run. And I looked at my map to see that I had a client who actually lived in River Run and I emailed him and said, Hey Michael, I'm showing townhouses this weekend in River Run there's only a couple for sale. Have you heard anybody talking about selling? And he emailed back and said, my neighbor Ashley is going to be selling his house.
I never heard anybody talk about orchestrating those situations. And I think that is where the big opportunities lie. No matter what you're doing, the reason that we do the world's most interesting postcard is because it presences the things that are going to make those referral moments happen more often. When we break it down all referrals happen as a result of conversation. And in those conversations, three things have to take place. They have to notice that the conversation's about real estate, they have to think about you and then they have to introduce you to the person that they were having the conversation with. That's how it all happens. Now for every one time that it does happen in a passive or reactive kind of way, there are probably five times more where it didn't connect all those dots where they didn't even notice that the conversation was about real estate or they did and they thought about you, but they didn't bring you up or they thought about you and they mentioned you and said, you should call Daniel.
And then they didn't go any further. And then you run into them at the grocery store and they say, Hey Daniel, did you ever hear from my friend Ashley? Yeah, he was going to be selling his townhouse. I know he's gone now I guess, I tell people about you all the time. I mean that's really what happens, but you realize I haven't gotten any referrals. You got to tell me when you're telling people it's far more valuable. So once I understood both the psychology of why people refer, which is because it makes them feel good, not because they're doing you a favor, then I could understand the mechanics of how the referrals happen. Meaning, in those moments when people are listening and hearing the conversation about real estate, how can I get to that point where they will now think about me and introduce me into the conversation or more importantly to the person that they have that conversation with.
And so the way that we've been doing that is giving you an opportunity to feel and look good. So we say the things like just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about selling their house this month, now it's the final push before the end of the year. And a lot of people want to get their house sold before the end of the year. If you hear someone talking about putting their house on the market, give me a call or text me and I'll get you a copy of our 'how to sell your house for top dollar fast' book to give them. That is the thing that now you're giving them the opportunity to be the hero because they get to give the gift to somebody rather than just telling people to tell people about you. It's a subtle difference, but it's a powerful one because when you start to think about how those commands' kind of work, if you are every month saying, just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this, and this is another variation of somebody thinking about buying or selling.
If you are somebody talking about buying their first home or buying a move up home or buying a house for kids that are going to college or buying an investment property or a vacation home or a cottage, any of that is very high probability that people are going to be having those conversations. So we want to think that through as editorial stuff. Now the secret about why the world's most interesting postcard is because it's harmless. I mean in that it's all interesting stuff. It's really very interesting. But on the secret subtle level, what it's amplifying or what it's fueling people up for is to be interesting conversationalists.
Now, do you remember Cheers? Remember Cliff would always win. Cliff Clavin would say, a little known fact about the whatever the yellow bellied sapsucker or whatever. Always had these weird and interesting tidbits to share. But when you think about what we're equipping people, if you hear something on the world's most interesting postcard, one of the interesting facts, where are you going to use that if you ever get it? So if you're in a conversation and somebody has a watermark on their wooden antique table and you saw on the world's most interesting postcard that if you put mayonnaise on it, that it'll bring out the oils in the wood and remove the watermark. Now that's going to be something that you're going to want to... You're adding value to people or you're an interesting conversationalist and you know that everybody loves to be acknowledged and be the center of the thing.
If that's, wow, I didn't know that. Yes. And you become this treasure trove of knowledge. And they know that every month this new supply of interesting things is coming and it makes so much sense that you're just presencing people on a really subtle level to be on the lookout or be aware of conversations that are going on. On the other side of the postcard with just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about this, give me a call or text me and I'll give you this to give to them. That pattern is embedding into people's minds that now they're linking their friend's needs with you as a source for making them look good. And pretty soon it ends up being like the empire flooring thing, where do you get same day carpeting, waiting to be triggered. That's exactly what's happening. So I look at that as no matter what you're doing, whether it's with you doing nothing or whether you're doing a newsletter and events and whatever it is, when you layer this on top of that, it's an amazing outcome that you're going to get. Because you're programming people that way.
Dale: And it's so inexpensive too.
Speaker: And it's so inexpensive. I think that's really the thing. I'd love some. Thank you.
Who's sending the world's most interesting postcard right now to your group? Okay, so just three so far. Okay. Four.
Dale: Fully attentive.
Speaker: Yeah, of course. And that's the thing. It's one of those things that's so easy to set it and forget it. What's been the outcome? How many are you mailing Dale?
Dale: I think it started last September if I remember correctly. And that was the very first thing I did, I think you were pushing hard to do the getting listings right away. And I in my head for some reason I was stuck on this, will people trust me, might as well get this out, the cheapest possible thing I could do. Now most [inaudible 00:21:21] during lunches. I don't know because I do some Facebook marketing, so I can't differentiate how much of an impact, but I know it's not hurting me, and I have several people, one in particular, which is kind of the right word is maybe cute. There's like a 70 year old man that literally takes a picture of it and sends it to me as a text message every time he gets it.
And he just loves it. He actually told me once or he'd send me a picture and it was smudged on one side and he asked me for another one...
Speaker: Can I get a new one? I can't read this, I can't read number 4.
Dale:I find it so very impactful. The other joke I have is, I have several friends from either church or, just sphere of influence. I've told me, we keep it by our toilet. And I'm like, that's a win.
Speaker: Yeah of course.
Dale: If I'm reading material by the toilet, then I have one. So I can't imagine a more productive piece out of your entire thing if you're a referral person not implementing it like that is just foolish.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean it's one of those things where it's almost, you can't measure, because it's so inexpensive for 150 people and we're talking about under 1500 for the entire year to do that for everybody. When you look at it like that one referral extra is a pretty amazing outcome. But it's meant to be the baseline as a platform that you can now build on top of. It's not just that, but it certainly is. If somebody's not doing anything, that's certainly going to, to make a difference.
Dale: I don't know how Chuck and Tony have it set up, but I have Diane take care of it for me and it's one email. I upload it, I keep my current list in GoGoAgent. And you tag it as 150. She just asked me, is the list current and are there any changes you would like? And I say, yep, Nope. And that's it. It's done.
Speaker: I'll tell you what, that's kind of the thing where I go to set up now, that's the Kylie Jenner mode, is really thinking about the things that anybody else can do for you, that you don't have to spend any amount of time thinking about. It's a really fascinating thing. Chuck, what's your take so far? You've been doing it almost from the very beginning.
Chuck: Yeah. My wife decided in an effort to cut costs to go to one mail out a month. We saw the effect.
I remember you talked about how Julie Matthews went from doing nothing to just doing this and got an extra 12 transactions.
Speaker: It really was, it went from 13 to 31 or 32.
Chuck: So more than 12, 17 I'd say. And I felt that we lost those that one year.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I remember we had the conversation about it.
Chuck: Yeah. From illuminating the world's most interesting postcard. There's a tendency with these things that are so simple to do that you don't always notice the immediate effect. But if you looked at the numbers for referrals that year, and sometimes when you have a database, it's like everyone's happy but no one's moving or they didn't know anyone. But I felt like the combination of those two low and we got rid of it.
I said, we've got to bring it back. You were like that. I was bugging her. The thing when you work with your wife, when Dean says it, she listens, but when I say it, it's like, well... [inaudible 00:25:16] That's what I told her. I said, you can't same your way to different.
Tony: But you said something else too. You said you can't cut your way to the top. You can't argue with the return on investment.
Chuck: Right.
Tony: More than just our a database. So there's about seven or 800 people across all the agents on the team, for what it costs them, what the potential benefit is to put 12 referral messages in front of them, make them laugh, entertain them, make them look like a superstar for a completely useless fact. There's so many ways that that can come back to you.
Chuck: Absolutely.
Tony: And it's designed that way.
Chuck: And there's never, sorry?
Speaker 6: Send to everybody in your database
Tony: So to past clients relationships like the after unit, if you define the before, during and after. It's our after unit. We wouldn't send it to people who are getting Milton Daily Homes or the Condo Reports.
Speaker: Who should be on that list are the clients that are living in the house that you helped them buy, the people that if you saw them at the grocery store, you'd recognize them by name and you'd stop and have a conversation with them.
Speaker: Personal friends?
Speaker: Especially personal friends. Especially people that you wouldn't possibly think about. And I'm using air quotes marketing to that people would think, that they can't, but just doing something like the world's most interesting postcard is a very like light thing. And the worst case scenario is I look at it as repeat business insurance that they're never more than 30 days away from having your phone number and your contact information right there in their hand. Whenever somebody, you look at it year after year after year in the NAR surveys people, 80 plus percent of people on exit surveys at closing are happy with the real estate agent and would definitely use them again. But only 22% actually do. And that gap is that they, what happened? We lost contact. I mean that's really what ends up happening. And so being in front of that, being in front of them, only good things can happen from that.
Speaker: One of the things that I wonder about is how to almost create a sense of loyalty with them as well for you. So for them to remember you and everything is already more than what most people can say their clients can do. But like I would say, some service providers that I have in my life, I have loyalty to them. So the question of me not remembering them doesn't even come up in a lot of that is actually tied to my experience with them.
I literally after moving here for about five years would wait until I go back to England to get my hair cut from the same person because that's just that loyalty that I had. And I've sent so many people through and the same would like some other service providers. But it's not because there's not other people, it's just because I wouldn't be distracted easily. So when we talk about how the landscape is going to change as more and more disruptors enter the market space, that's one of the things I think about. How can I create that sense of loyalty with people? Where does that begin? Maybe that begins like from my first conversation with them in the entire experience. And then of course everything afterwards as well.
Speaker: Of course, through the during unit that we are at the stage where everything about your during unit is where you're creating that experience and the fact that you're just kind of transitioning people from that amazing experience that they had with you into now your after unit where you're actually continuing the relationship with them and having that kind of experience. Let's talk the, talk for a second about the, what happens from the time the transaction's over. How do you transition? What does it look like if I'm one of your top jobs?
Tony: Do you want me to just pull up the plan and just tell you it. Okay. So first of all, we send the closing gift when it goes firm, not when it closes because they'll never be more excited than date.
Speaker: Absolutely, we got it, Yeah.
Tony: And we asked for the Google testimonial, the day after they get the gift, then they go into, again, none of this is revolutionary. It's very basic stuff, but it's a system.
Speaker: proven plan.
Tony: So every month they'll get a video where it's just me talking about the stats happening in Toronto. It's two three minutes straight to the point, fun, they don't do too much editing on it this time. The story report, yes, we've done that consistently. I think the consistency is the big thing. Done that every month for almost three and a half years now. It's just me talking to the camera about what's going on in the market.
Speaker: Last name.
Tony: Tell them my last name story. Yeah. [inaudible 00:30:56] Weekly Instagram things, answering questions, Q and A stuff. Then the annual home anniversary gift and when it's their birthday we send them a BombBomb and I literally through Gmail, I pre-schedule emails because lots of things can change but their birthday is not going to and I'll just fill a bunch at the beginning of the month and they auto send out. And then the year plan is January, they either get a trades and services guide, which is all the people I trust or they get the tax assessment letter because it depends on the year, but the tax assessments usually way below what it's actually worth and sometimes they get freaked out. So you want to reassure them. Home show tickets in February, which it only costs me if they go, it's a buck if they don't go. CMA letter and BombBomb where I'm actually on my screen in March saying, Hey, here's a few homes that have sold in your area.
They can see me in the corner and it's just the system and I'm not telling them what their home's worth. I'm saying, here's what sold. The whole point of everything online is to take the conversation offline and then basically just to get through quickly micro, then Instagram contest, our big client event, the BombBomb again before the fall market for the CMAs, we do a pumpkin giveaway when it snows, we go drop salt on our client's doorsteps with a thing that says from your friendly neighborhood realtor. Just again, nothing's revolutionary. It's just we followed this exact system and by the way, I didn't make this up. This has been taken from other people. I just put my twist on it and it works and it keeps me top of mind and I know it's my fault if they move and didn't think about me, it's not their fault.
So that's from up till forever.
Chuck: Yeah.
Tony: They're going to get that every single year. Every single month they're going to get something.
Speaker: Love it. Congratulations. Because that's a lot, it's awesome, but you can't argue with the results of that. Right. That's really the thing is your constant and frequently being in touch with people. Now imagine we'd layer on top of that an orchestrated referral process where the world's most interesting postcard plus a market maker layer. Yeah. It's just like that. That's such a opportunity.
Dale: What I would add, and we talked about this at lunch, was I use a service called client giant. I'm pretty sure they work here in Canada. clientgiant.com and they're relatively new. If you look up seven star service in a five star world, I forget the guy's name, you'll get his little video. If you struggle with what to send or implementing, they have a top of mind. They also have a transaction client gifting service as well. So from contract to home inspection, appraisal, closing after closing type thing, but particularly for repeat gifting. For 100 bucks a year, they will give a quarterly gift to your client from you. They've sent out the art of tidying up, a candle, beach towels, several gifts that come from you. Just saying, Hey, we're entering into beach season. I know I'm always short a beach towel.
The one I really liked this last year was they sent out two leather travel bags for your back or travel tags for your travel bags and a dirty clothes sack that says the best of the adventures are made with the dirtiest of clothes and then it has a handwritten card made from you. So if you struggle with the implementation, it's a really cheap and easy way to plug in their info, pay the hundred bucks and they take care of the rest of it for you. So I think like Dean's always talking about like if I could just get those darn realtors to do the thing, all you got to do is literally plug it in and pay the hundred bucks and it's done.
Speaker: When you start to think about the return on the relationship, when you start to look at what the opportunity is, I'm amazed that more people are not doing the market maker things that we talk about. Meaning, I think that the most valuable thing I was thinking about setting up a text reminder service where I could just do a little video for people on Mondays and say, Hey, it's market maker Monday and imagine if every Monday took you know 10 minutes to just pause and think, look at your calendar and say who am I showing houses to this week? Who do I have that is going to be going into homes this week? Not who am I following up with to see if they're interested. I'm talking about people who are actually going to be looking at homes, you're booking appointments for them and who are you going to see this week about selling their house where you've actually got the appointment and then just layering, looking at your market maker layers of saying, Who do I know if I'm showing houses?
Looking at your top 150, does everybody have a layer where you export the data from your GoGoAgent and put it into a Google map where it drops a pin on where your top 150 live? Now that's a very valuable thing because you can create an online, Google map layer and that way when you're showing homes in River Run and you see where you're going to look and then you can see, that's where John and Nancy live, right in River Run. Or you've got two neighbors that live in a particular area or a particular condo building or whatever it is. To be able to now send that quick email to them that I'm showing houses this week or I'm going to see somebody about listing a house. All of that stuff is so valuable, it's crazy.
Just think about the impact of doing that 50 times a year thinking that way or sending 50 of those market maker type of emails. It's something, we're just starting a case study with a big office in Indianapolis that we're going to have a core group of people that we're going to Institute the world's most interesting postcard and market maker activities there and just see the impact of this on it.
But you imagine with a team or a company where you're collectively doing that, that everybody doing the same thing and they're checking who am I showing this week? Who am I going to see this week? And you're able to now look at your map layer and maybe Daniel's showing in River Run but he doesn't have a client that lives there. But Tom does and Tom can send that email and say, Hey, I just was talking to one of the colleagues in my office. He's showing houses in River Run and was saying there's only a couple on the market. Have you heard anybody talking about selling? May be able to match them up with this couple that now gives you an opportunity to be a market maker when it wasn't even your situation.
It's an amazing thing that can happen culturally, you think about that. And Chuck, I was thinking about with your team or anybody who's running teams of having each of the people on the team with their top 150 or their top 100, getting the world's most interesting postcard and each of them measuring their own return on relationship and having kind of a leaderboard or having that measurement and reward is kind of an interesting thing, people being competitive for a new Cadillac first prize, a new Cadillac. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize. You're fired.
Tony: I was curious to hear at my, at my brokerage the cultures is on the phones. So the idea of calling your database all the time, we're instructed like four times a year to make these basically random calls. But I don't know, [crosstalk 00:40:39] They teach us FORD, the family ,occupation, recreation, dreams and do a FORD sandwich and try to work it in there. Is that be incorporated within your own database?
Speaker: I think about what would have to happen? Who does the best jobs of keeping in touch with me or without, who evidences things like that for you. I don't know we had an insurance guy who used to just call and check in, but it felt like that. You know what I mean? Like not really any purpose to it, but when you're doing fun things like as a friend to invite people to come, Hey, we're going to get pedicures. You know we're having a pedicure party. Or Hey, we're rented out the movie theater or, I did a [inaudible 00:41:45] had a bowling party that I had for my birthday. And Chuck brought the eighties' soundtrack. And it was a fun thing.
Dale: That's why you do client parties, to invite, it's an excuse.
Speaker: That's exactly right. That's the thing rather than just checking in, if you're going to call.
Dale: That was going to be what I said as well as what's the purpose. If it's just checking in, then what value are you adding? So you can FORD all day long, family, occupation. [inaudible 00:42:25] And this is where even with Buffini where he has the, I'm never too busy for your hurdles [inaudible 00:42:33]. Of course, but when you call and every time you have value, Hey, I have buyers that are actively looking in your area. It's kind of like every time Michael calls me on the phone, he has something he either has a buyer or he's inviting me to the client event. This guy's the man.
Speaker: Yeah. I think that all counts. What I'm very interested in seeing is how, if we're talking about the future of things, the future of our relationship with our clients, with the people that we've gotten into the home. I've been kind of focused on this idea of managed home ownership as an opportunity to level up the relationship that you have with people to provide more value, to provide services or more opportunity for them. I think that we're now in a position where it could be a pretty easy thing to manage. Even though when you look at things like in the States, we have home advisor, what does it appear that would be the equivalent where you can get contractors and palm stars. That's the one. They run commercials in the States where the two neighbors come down to the mailbox and the one saying, do you know anybody that does roofing it? Yeah, I might. And then one guy says, Oh perfect, would you get me three estimates and do background checks and set me up an appointment for next week?
Then the thing is, you can't expect your neighbors to do everything, but that's why home advisor does all of that stuff. But I think there's an opportunity to even to manage that level of... Even just the convenience of not even having to make that phone call. There's one phone call. I said to Chuck that I had a guy come to one of my breakthrough blueprint events that is, offering going into that managed home ownership service. He's already got like a HVAC and plumbing and electrical services. But the articulation that I said to him, was I've been thinking about this forever, is that I want to live in my house like I'm a guest in your house.
That's what I said to him. I want to have somebody else own the home and be completely responsible for it and I just get to live and enjoy it without needing to worry about cleaning the gutters at the right time or exercising the gaskets or checking the things or washing them windows, all the things that a responsible adult would do if they own the home. I think there's a big opportunity for that to level up the relationship. I think Chuck, you got that opportunity with the condos here now too.
Chuck: What do you mean by that?
Speaker: Well that the condos are a great thing where, imagine now with all the people that are in there that there could be a great opportunity to have that. The Charlton advantage, condo concierge, you know that people live, we live in your condo like a guest in ours where they don't have to worry about anything, you get your carpets cleaned, we'll organize all of that. Or when you start to think about all the things that book the one to one future talked about 25 years ago that are now completely possible. If you reread that book now with an eye of what's available in the cloud, it's crazy.
Chuck: I'm starting to see the value in maybe having a yearly or twice a year survey to people where it's, are you expecting your roof to be fixed? And even something like the home checkups. The CMA, I think you mentioned that? It's that it's like, do you want one? I think it's valuable to have the five question sequence is like you're planning on any work because I could go to a roofer and say, I've got 50 people on this sheet of paper.
Speaker: That's right.
Chuck: What are you going to do? Like in a bulk where you become a bulk buyer of services and I want you to guarantee your work.
Speaker: Yes.
Chuck: That kind of thing. I think.
Speaker: I look at something like there are lots of opportunities where, a company like mosquito authority that I do work with would give your clients a free mosquito treatment that you could give to them, that would be completely a gift from you, not a coupon or a percentage off or a buy one get one. It's just a free mosquito treatment that they would be happy to do that. There's a lot of that kind of opportunity. We had these things for a while, we did what we call a gift giver postcards and it was that little card that had certificates for stuff that people would do, like giving because you get lots of business or would give free stuff for members.
We had cafe latte, we did that this month, I'm taking you out for coffee. And it was introducing them to cafe latte to their friend. Julie knew the owners but to introduce cafe latte and give everybody a free coffee at a cafe latte. So cafe latte gets introduced to people who could be longterm clients and they get a free coffee, we had this month I'm taking you to the cleaners and or this month I'm going to whip you into shape or this month I'm cleaning your carpet. So it was all these things we're introducing different business owners but adding value outside of the selling your house. But embracing the new role as home owners. Because you have the longest and best chance to be in a relationship with someone when you're focused on the longer term being a home owner,
Dale: You'd mentioned like Berkshire Hathaway potentially.
Speaker: Yes. I think that's foreshadowing what's happening here that Warren Buffet sees that no matter what happens with the brokerage business, it's the relationship that is going to be the key. Having the home owners. And that was the thing, their fastest growing brokerage, but it was Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, it doesn't say real estate anywhere in the title, which gives them a platform to go any way. And even when people think our downward pressure on commissions, the consumer is indicating that there's upward desire for convenience. Yeah. That they're willing to pay more and they'll think about it as paying because it doesn't feel like they're paying more. They're willing to accept less for their house.
They're willing that net less dollars to have that convenience. But if you think about it as just reframing that as what they're willing to pay, if market value is $100,000 just for interest's sake, If we'd said maximum market value with if you found a retail buyer for your house would be $100,000. Now an eye buyer is not going to offer that dollar, first of all, they're going to offer something less than that. So let's say they offer 95% of that, but then off of that, they're taking the 6% right off the top plus the 3 to 5% so the net dollars on what they really could get could be 15 or 18% less than what they could get on the thing but that's what the availability is now, that's your opportunity to be a market maker to find if you've got the categories of buyers that you can fill in those gaps, there's so much opportunity there. It's crazy, I'd love to see that.
What else with referrals? You know, if I say like the gold standard, what's the most important, two most important things that I can imagine doing to increase the outcome of your return on relationship number going up? It would be the world's most interesting postcard to your top 150 and the market maker Mondays just getting in the habit of thinking every Monday, what are we going to do here? Then if you layer on top of it all the things that are going to be relationship building and the home show and the pedicure parties and the movie parties, all of those things, it's an amazing thing. What do you budget Tom per person for your?
Tom: It's just under $200 per year, per person.
Speaker: Yeah. And you look at the ROI on that. It's just...
Tom: I spend 180 something on each person and from last year's numbers because I have the full year, each one was worth about $2,600 in business that was closed and collected.
Speaker: Amazing. These are great ways to think about that. And you think about again, if you're not doing those things, if it's the logistics that are stopping you from doing it, you start to think, well what is that logistics? What is it costing me? How much are you losing by not doing these things?
Dale: I think it's important to think of it that way.
Speaker: Yeah. I like the framing of that, when you start looking at so much of framing, like looking at that buyers are only willing to pay less commissions. But that's true. Unless you look at it in the context of what they're willing to accept as net dollars on the real thing. We were talking about in LA they've built a private terminal in Los Angeles where you can drive right up to the terminal valet.
They bring you in, you've got a private suite, you go through security and customs and everything. They take you in a car right to the plane, you climb up the stairs and get in the plane. You've completely bypassed the airports, but it costs $2,700 per time that you do it. So you think about that, that sounds like a lot. And so a friend and I were talking about that and he was saying how we reframed it. When you compare that to flying private, which would be why people fly private, is to have that experience that you don't have to go to the airport. You go, you get right on the plane, you fly being on the plane and being in the air and all that stuff is not the issue. It's all the stuff in between getting from the curb to your seat.
And so when you frame that, if you're flying from LA to Dallas, that'd be a $20,000 private flight to have that experience. Now, the 3,700 framed against 20,000 is a difference. Yes. It's a big savings over that. And it's true, but it's a funny way to think about it. When you're framing something, you need to know what you're framing it against. I think when you look at what it might cost to have somebody be your after unit ambassador, or what would it cost to actually have a concierge service that you run within. What if that was really the advantage of the Charlton advantage? The Charlton advantage is everything to do with your home, we've got you. [inaudible 00:57:06] It's not that much. When you start to think about what that opportunity could be.
Chuck: There's an agent I know, transactionally doing I think four or 500 deals a year, but she has a handyman full time on staff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Chuck: And do you remember what you said to me one time about when people try to hire their first assistant, they're worried that, Oh, I'm not going to, they're not going to be busy and use the example of your car. He said, are you driving your car right now? Exactly what you're paying for it.
Speaker: That was the conversation sitting at a cafe outside of my office but had two cars, there was having this conversation with my ex wife. We were talking about an assistant that she felt like she had to have her day, the assistant all mapped out so that every bit, every minute was kind of spent. And I said, when you look at this, we've got $150,000 for the cars sitting right here, right now. And we don't feel compelled to drive them every minute of the day. Yet if we ever want to go somewhere, it's right there. And we get in and we go. And I said, Courtney's got a cell phone. She's never more than a few minutes away. If you don't have something for every minute of the day, it's okay to have when she's there, she's available, if you need to do stuff. It was just an interesting reframe, but she costs less than both of the cars to have for the whole month. And just framing it like that, I think the benefit, what you get for the expense for the investment is a good way to think about it.
Chuck: But even her, if you figure you can hire it, cause that's the thing, the handyman may only have how many workable hours every week that they use. And then their big problem is finding clients. So if their regular rate was $50 an hour, could you hire them for 30 but guarantee them 40 hours a week kind of thing. And that was her logic. It's like if none of my clients need help and she'll just give him projects around her house.
Speaker: That's exactly right. Yes.
Chuck: She's like, but that's the thing. It's a fixed cost to her, It's like she will use that handyman's skills as much as she needs.
Speaker: Yes.
Dale: Imagine if that handyman was calling past clients and saying, Hey, this is Brian from Chuck's handyman team. It's-
Speaker: Have you exercised your gaskets this month.
Dale: Chuck's already paid for $100 worth of labor, what can I take care of for you?
Chuck: I remember that from that Seinfeld episode.
Dale: The handyman comes to the house and you tell him what to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Chuck: That's something worth remarking about. My agent sent a handyman over today, that's going to be more than what you said..
Dale: His goal was during the day, just start knocking off.
Speaker: Did you start to think about that? What could be an amazing experience for people? What is the ultimate home ownership experience that you could create for somebody?
I mean, it's pretty amazing, If you think about what would it be like to get them a card, like this golden ticket that this is your thing. You don't have to do anything. Anything happens, we've got somebody on the team. The concierge can make that happen and it doesn't even [inaudible 01:01:15] have to get a handyman to do the regular things, but you're not saying we're going to do electrical work or we're going to do plumbing or we're going to do construction projects for you. But we can certainly point you in the right direction of those or organize those in emergencies for you that if anything happens, you think about it.
The original thing that got me thinking about that was my water heater broke and it was water all on the floor leading into my office. And you realized in that moment that, when you're thinking, there's water here, then you realize, I own the house. Who am I going to call? I can't call the landlord because I'm the landlord. But if you were renting, you'd say, Hey dude, your water heater broke. I got to go to work. Good luck with that. I'll leave the door open or whatever. But if you had something like that where, it's always going to be bad news somebody's going to be faced with some kind of bad news that there's a leak or something's gone wrong and it happens at the worst possible time and then your there to say we got it. It's pretty amazing what could come out of that. They're going to rave about that. These are the things where you start to look at how high is high in this referral world.
What the actual opportunity, We talk about 20% as the thing, but that's where my observation of it is that the 20% is coming on the back of people being nice to people more than it's coming on the back of orchestrating referrals. And I think if you owe a layer on top of that you're nice but then you layer on top of it that you're orchestrating referrals that you're starting to think like each individual person thinking about them. And saying if they were to refer, what would be the likely scenario that this would be, where do they work? Who do they hang out with? What do they do recreationally? What kinds of people are they around? What kind of recreation that they do? Is there anything to look at that and create opportunities for them to refer people?
Tony: One thing that we've been doing recently is we've made it very clear to our main database that we don't just service Toronto. We've connected with the top people in every market across Canada because I can't think of how many times I've had a client whose brother moved to Edmonton, but why would they ever call me?
Speaker: Right.
Tony: I'm trying to make it clear now, so we just call it like story team Canada wide. We've just connected with about 50 agents and we actually reach out to them once a quarter with a video of what's going on in Toronto and things like that from all the big markets. I bet you could generate an additional $200,000 a year just based on outbound referrals.
Speaker 2: I bet you're right.
Tony: Like in your newsletter that goes out, highlight a different agent in different areas being like, Hey, this is Kelly from Calgary, and a little interview with them about what's going on in the Calgary market and how you're well connected with them. I did a super service directory with alerts, service providers that people can request and I think there's something for a super agent directory, which I'm going to work on is like request a copy of the super agent directory for all the major metropolitan areas across Canada. It's not hard to do. If one of your team members asks who's an electrician, you'd answer. But I'd also tell you who I like in Kingston or who I like in Montreal, we all know it's just a matter of saving a few hours to put it down.
Speaker: These are awesome things. Yes
Gina: One thing that happened. On one occasion the seller liked what the stager had done and asked if we could send her in their new place, to help her set up her furniture.
Speaker: I'd like to live in a staged house when I get in there. That's a great thing. Yeah, it's funny. We don't think about that, but that's awesome. That design consultation, that there are those things too. That people, when people are moving in, you've got the opportunity to be the welcome wagon, introduce people to the other businesses that are in this home ownership category. Just like that having your team of the other businesses that all of you together collectively are supporting each other. Because they're all thinking the same things. How do I get more fencing business? Or how do I get more decks? Or whatever the thing is, but if you're in a little syndicate of house home-related surfaces, fantastic. You're amplifying your directory like that with the relationships with the people that are in it to refer back and forth. Pretty cool. I like that. Okay. Any other questions about getting referrals or thoughts or clarity that we need for think the main things, go Andrew.
Andrew: It's like the idea of the conversation piece that's worked for us, which obviously sort of like agents but like friends. I did it with Nick Kuzmitch, is I sent him something that I wanted him to always have displayed because it's a conversation starter but I didn't want to put my logo on it. So I got him like a bottle of scotch that said the Nicholas Kuzma tradition. Ah, but now every time someone's at his house they ask him about it and then he talks about me.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Andrew: And I did that for like a broker of record and it costs 20 bucks to get a bottle laser engraved. So it's $20 plus the cost of the bottle. And I stood out for a broker in Mississauga and I've had four of his agents call me now because they're sitting in his office talking to him.
Speaker: Right.
Andrew: Being the Nelson Goulart edition scotch. How'd you get that? And then he tells the story about me.
Speaker : Yeah.
Andrew: So that's why we like to put their name on it because they'll never throw it out and they always display it and it starts conversations about us fairly regularly.
Speaker: I like that. That's smart. That's the same thing about conversation. This is when everything that we're doing is about getting people in conversation with you on top of their mind. That's really what we're looking for. I like that. That's a good idea.
Dean: And there we have it. Another great episode. And if you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to listingagentlifestyle.com you can download a copy of the listing agent lifestyle book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here. And you can be a guest on the show if you'd like to talk about how we can build a listing agent lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the 'be a guest' link @listingagentlifestyle.com and if you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all the things we talk about in the listing agent lifestyle, come on over to gogoagent.com that's where we've got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads, and to find buyers. And you can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com so come on over and I will see you there.