Hello and welcome to the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast. My name Dean Jackson and today I want to share a very exciting episode I recorded with my good friend Tony Kalsi from Toronto.
Below is a copy of the infographic that goes with this episode.
What you're looking at is the results of a four year case study that we did with Tony Kalsi from September of 2013 to September of 2017 running a program we call Getting Listings.
It shows the expense, the capital investment of spending and sending the postcards and the newsletters to a very specific group of people. The outcome… $50,000 invested, $543,000 out the other end, an 11 times return on investment.
We're going to talk about it, we're going to dissect it, we're going to talk about the future of it and I think that you are really going to enjoy this premiere episode of the Listing Agent Lifestyle.
What’s even more exciting in now, almost 4 1/2 years later, Tony’s keeps having success with the program.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep131
Dean: Tony Kalsi.
Tony: Dean Jackson.
Dean: Wow. I'm so excited Tony.
Tony: Yeah, I know it's four years in the making.
Dean: I know. I'll tell you what to have this as, yeah, this is now going to be episode one of the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast. I am very excited to kind of tip this off by kind of dissecting this case study. It's kind of cool, because the first three guests I'm going to have are you. We did this, we'll talk about this for a year, case study here. Then, I'm having Chuck Charlton, so we'll talk about what that's like 10 years or more, 12 years, that's coming in now. Ron Reed, which will be the example of one year of doing it. I was sharing with Diane today, it's kind of like the perfect alignment. You right now, your kind of in the middle of this because you are where Chuck Charlton was five years ago. Kind of, Ron Reed is where you were four years ago. It's just this perfect progression right? To see on that path, where things go.
Tony: Yeah, no it's amazing. Thanks for having me first of all. It's a privilege to be on this first speaker.
Dean: I think it's great. Well, you know what, my favorite thing about getting to know you over these years here, is your willingness to document and to follow a system, and to be a disciplined executor. I just love what you've been able to build now. Let's take it back to the beginning here, because I know you're a different person four years later than when we first started. I know you have a lot more support around you too in that. Let's start at the beginning here. How did we first meet? I forget again. How did we first come into connection here?
Tony: Yeah. I heard of you through a person I was masterminding with from a coaching program back, I think 2013, in the summer.
Dean: Okay, right at the beginning. Yeah, now I remember, because it was the Tony Robbins DVD right?
Tony: Yeah it was the Tony Robbins DVD, he lent it to me, so I go, "You know, why don't I take a look at this?" He was going to a lot of the seminars and he got the DVD set he ended up getting two sets of them. I think they're like $1,000 for it, so I go, "Sure, I'll take it." He was just giving it to me, so I watched a few of them, and there was one that had a real estate, which interested me most out of all of them. You were starring on it. That's how I got to know you was from those DVDs, then I dug deeper and ordered a few things. I think it was online. I think it actually was The 10 Best Real Estate Ideas.
Dean: Right.
Tony: When I followed you on Facebook and then on the back cover it talked about finding buyers, getting listings. I think I went to your getting listings site and registered, and I think we then connected in Toronto-
Dean: At the Mastermind.
Tony: It was the Mastermind, and that was in I believe it was October 2013.
Dean: Right.
Tony: Two months after.
Dean: Yeah, it would've been right around that September time.
Tony: September, that's right.
Dean: The Ten Money Getting Ideas, that was a book and audio program that I did based on spending the year before with Julie Matthews running all of the before unit and after unit programs for her. We were able to more than double her business in that time. It was really interesting because I've learned a lot over these four years too. I was doing it as a way of documenting the things that we actually do work. I wanted to have like really frontline documentation that running the getting listing program, and for her we did it on Lake Front Homes. We did the finding buyers program, looking for Lake Front buyers. We ran the World's most interesting post card with her for her after unit. We were able to take her from 13 repeat and referral transactions to 33. All of those things documented carefully documented and outlined exactly what we did. That became the basis for that audio program and that book. Then, I decided that what I would do is take a group, a small Mastermind group in Toronto. We had 12 are 14 of us for a year to go through and show everything that we did with the idea that everybody would implement the things that we were talking about.
The biggest lesson that I got from that, was that very few people actually implement anything. Even when you show them exactly what you did and what to do. You were the shining light of that, in that you really embraced this idea. Because even then we were talking about lifestyle. We were talking about setting up a business that supports you. I didn't have those words Listing Agent Lifestyle, but we were certainly talking about the idea of being supported and not being a self-milking cow, trying to do everything all yourself.
Tony: Yeah, that's right.
Dean: We kind of, our secret code language for the group was our happy cow club to surround yourself with a farm operation that could do all of the farm work while we get to do the milk work, which is talking to people about selling their house, and negotiating contracts, which are really the two things that have the highest value there. Do you remember what your thought process was or you're coming into it with the getting listings. I know you did throw your hat over the fence. You committed to doing it. Was it the fact that we had done this and you had seen what Chuck had done, because in that first five years, Chuck had done over a million dollars in commissions from running the Getting Listing program and hearing about Julie. What was your thought process coming into it? What you were committing to?
Tony: Yeah, so the thought process was basically looking at it as how can I basically quick start my listing inventory. What was the quickest path to that. It just all made sense from learning direct response before I'd met you. Just honing in, I call it more advanced. Meeting you was lot more than strategies on getting to the quickest path to that. Being in the program is predominantly direct response, so I just always didn't have a good way of getting listings from branded marketing, and other mediums I've tried. That was my mindset going into it. Is saying, "This makes sense, a lot of people have been having success with direct response, but how can I do it in a way that it's organized." Which your program really delivered that to me. It was very organized clear cut and like you always mentioned the word you coined, the scale ready algorithm.
Dean: Yeah the scale ready algorithm. It's like plug it in and set it up and here you go.
Tony: Exactly. That was kind of the mindset going into it, just saying, "Hey look this is packaged for you, ready to go." It's not something where I got to put a 100 pieces together. The pieces are there, now I just got to implement.
Dean: Yeah, all of the creative work was done, it really became about the execution and then what we talked about was the fact that really everything about the execution could be completely delegated or outsourced, because I had already optimized the process of it.
Tony: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, so it was more from going to what to how after that. That was the main thing, so what was the getting listings, so that was there and how, you helped me along the way to figure that out as well with people and support staff.
Dean: Yeah, and then ultimately to have the who of it. Who can do this? You don't have to actually do any of the work. I'm looking at the infographic right now. The case study and for anybody listening, if you want to download it, you can download it at listingagentlifestyle.com under this episode one. Now, the thing that is very interesting to me is if you look at the September to February period, you mailed for five months before you closed your first transaction.
Tony: Yeah.
Dean: I'm interested in what was going on in your mind in that process. How many homes did you start out mailing to?
Tony: Yeah, I mean I started with, I think it was 7,500 homes.
Dean: Okay, so you already made that, because you knew, you'd seen what Chuck had done. You'd seen that it is a sure thing, that you're going to multiply the money over a patient period of time, but 7,500 is a big chunk to pull off initially. Were you starting to at any point get worried or wondering what's happening here, because that first five months, you mail it again, and again, and there's a little bit of money involved in mailing 7,500 post cards every month.
Tony: Yeah, it was. I guess seeing the success first from Chuck, that was helpful. Also, what you've showed me before as far as how a lead works. Most of the business, 85% of the business is going to be in the long game.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tony: Yeah, analytics, success stories, and also knowing the fact that these leads will cultivate to something eventually…
Dean: Yeah, knowing that you were mailing and you were generating leads every month.
Tony: Exactly.
Dean: You weren't like mailing and nothing is happening, like often happened with personal promotion things, like getting your name out there. You can mail branded stuff to get your name out there month, after month, after month, with nothing. No response to show for it, hoping that it's building that top of mind awareness, but you were mailing a direct response piece that every month was generating new leads. You could see this asset of people who are potential sellers raising their hand and now you knew who they were and could continue to follow up with them.
Tony: Correct, yeah, so seeing the abundance of leads coming in was really keeping it going too. Yeah, exactly, you hit it right on the head there. That was the big shift, I've never generated this many seller leads from-
Dean: Anything, right.
Tony: Any kind of campaign before yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Tony: That's what kept me going.
Dean: That's encouraging and what's amazing to me as I'm looking at the infographic here is you look at the red dots along the bottom as the cumulative amount of money that you're spending, which is growing every month, because it was costing you the money to send those 7,500 every month. Then the moment you did your first transaction, you ended up being well into the profit zone, and it never went below that line for the rest of the four years. It's gone on now to be that 11 times ROI sustained over this four year period here.
Tony: That was the exciting part, that was a confidence builder for me for sure. I kept it going.
Dean: Right, now it's self-sustaining right? I look at it that your real cash on cash kind of investment here was the initial capital that it took to get you through to February, where you did that first transaction, and you got all of your money back and some.
Tony: Some yeah.
Dean: Yeah, which now then is creating this self-sustaining system there. What's really fascinating that came out of looking at the data in this info graph format is that even though it took until February to do that first transaction, if you just look at the leads that you generated between February and September. Those first five months there were 14 transactions that you actually did with people who ultimately responded in those first four months over the next four years. The longest of which is somebody who replied in October of 2013 and did transaction in January or February of this year. Three and a half years later, they're still converting into transactions, which is phenomenal.
Tony: Yeah, and it goes back to what you said, it's creating that asset. You have this book of leads. It's really, you see it more and more with this graph that spending the money now is going to come to fruition at some point, but it's just building that list.
Dean: Yeah, and we've been using this idea of that's one of the pillars of the mindsets here that we have of looking at these types of things as a capital investment, rather than and expense based approach. A lot of times, what I see in the real estate world, not just in the real estate world, in any business world, people are, they look at it that they're spending money on postcards and looking at that as an expense and they're looking to get a return on that right away. Well I mailed postcards last month and I didn't do any transactions. Postcards don't work right?
Tony: Yeah.
Dean: I mean that's really the way that people have this. That's my hope for the mindset shift that's possible when you see something like this in an infographic format, which is just pure data that is irrefutable you know. I mean it's exactly what happened. You absolutely see that the value of the bundle or the portfolio of leads that you generated in year one coming to fruition in year two, year three, year four, it's phenomenal, and we'll hear Chuck talk about, he's still doing five or ten transactions a year from people that they mailed five, eight, ten years ago, which is phenomenal. I'm excited to see that.
Tony: Yeah, looking forward to that for sure.
Dean: Well, you're on that path, that's what is exciting is to see this path. That's why I was excited to start with you, and then see what it looks like fast forward five more years and let's look back and see what the path that Ron Reed is going to be on, staying with the course on that. That's pretty exciting. Now, four years later here, September of '17. I imagine you've done other transactions even since then that would make this chart extend here. We'll keep the chart going because I still want to see it year after year here, but the actual mechanics of executing this for you right now, what's your involvement in this?
Tony: Yeah, my involvement is basically making sure it goes out week after week the postcards. Making sure the-
Dean: Lets role play that. Hey, Candace, did you mail out the postcards? That's your involvement right?
Tony: Yeah, or just even looking at the emails for someone to pick them up. She drops them, but I see the emails going to the printer to fold. As long as I see those emails, I know they're going out and they'll be delivered to the post office. That's pretty much my involvement. The monthly mailers of course, it's all streamlined as well. It's a set it and forget it now that I've built. Probably more in the first year, I did a little bit of course on my own. Then, I added support staff to do the rest.
Dean: Now, you go out and talk to them about listing, and negotiate the contracts.
Tony: That's pretty much it at this point, yeah. A little bit of follow-up here and there.
Dean: Yeah.
Tony: Responding to emails, but that's generally it. Another thing was the accumulative, you know the infographic, the cumulative graph, that really kept me going too. I mean, knowing, you know, spending money for a lot of real estate agent it is tough on marketing pieces, especially any kind of marketing if you're not getting a return like yesterday. Seeing the info graph, knowing that every dollar's going to come to $11 or $8 or $10, it's a nice feeling.
Dean: Maybe even more, because when we look at it now, the couple of other things that I kind of talk about, but going forward now. We've been for the last year, talking about your listing multiplier index and knowing that now taking listings into a system that's going to turn that listing into not one transaction but three or more transactions. It amplifies the ROI that you actually get from it.
Tony: Oh yeah, there's a ton of spinoff business from that, that's for sure. Looking at that was another big aha, just seeing that one transaction, you're missing a lot of opportunities each and every time. Really honing in on that, I think my multiplier index, it's close to three at this point.
Dean: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting because I've been doing this ... Team up with that language for the listing multiplier index, just about almost 18 months ago now or so I guess.
Tony: Around there yeah.
Dean: This idea is that, just for people listening to calculate really quickly. To look back at the last 10 listings that they've taken, and give a score for those 10 listing on how many times you got each of these five things. Meaning the listing got sold, that's one point. You found the buyer for the listing, that's another point. You found a buyer that bought another house, that's another point. You got another listing because of this one, another one in the neighborhood or one of the buyers that inquired about this, that you ended up getting the listing. You get a referral from the seller. Now, if all five of those opportunities every time you take a listing, but what I found was that when I would do this, and I still do it every time I sit down and talk with a new group of realtors, or a new realtor. I have them do the math on that, and universally the responses end up somewhere between 8 and 15 points out of 50 possible points on the last 10 listing. Of course when we divide that number by 10, we get an index. If they got 15 points out of 50, we divide that by 10, and it's 1.5.
That means that their current system, every time they take a new listing is worth 1.5 transactions because of it. When we're just focusing on it and implementing some of the simple strategies that we've talked about, the people that I've been working closest with like you, and like our GoGoAgents, are able to get that number up close or over three for every transaction. That's pretty amazing, because it really changes the dynamics. It changes the economics of how much you can afford to get a new listing, you know?
Tony: Yeah, I mean, there's so many times before I'd just take a listing and want to get it sold on MLS. That was my only goal. That was my only focus was one transaction.
Dean: That's how everybody measures it right? Because they built this culture of all my listings sell. I just price them right and they all sell in less than 30 days for 98% of their list price or whatever it is. That's how they're measuring success. A lot of times people take that with pride and tell me, "I don't have to use info bucks flyers, or I don't have to send just listed cards, or do any ads for these listings, because all my listings sell. Our market's hot." When I show people that they're actually losing that amount of money, it's such a game changer, a wakeup call.
Tony: It's a big wakeup call and it's also another great benefit to the client. Now, you're not only MLSing the home, you're doing everything possible for that client to get the highest demand on the home, so they can get the highest possible price. It's really a win win situation.
Dean: Yeah, and even this, I've really come to, even in the last 12 months, this whole listing centric approach to a lifestyle based business here is really having that listing focus gives us the opportunity that even finding buyers is in support of getting listings. We've been focused on finding what I call category buyers, instead of waiting ... That's what most agents do, most agents wait to get a listing so that they can advertise the listing, so that they can find some buyers. Where we're taking this approach, what I talked about with the work we did with Julie is finding people who are looking for Lake Front homes at the same time as we're doing the getting listings program to find people who are going to be selling their lake front house and being that market maker. That's really where the greatest opportunity is. That's the greatest accessory you can bring to your listing presentation is a buyer who already wants the home. I mean, that's really the thing, or at least a plan. Preferably a pool of buyers who are looking for lake front homes, or whatever the category is, you know. That makes what you're doing almost competition proof.
Because everybody else is going in and in the listing presentation they're talking about when we take your listing, we'll do this and this and this and this. Instead of coming into the listing presentation with this mindset that, listen we started looking for the buyer for your house a 180 ago. We run these ads to find lake front buyers and we've got this list of all these people who are looking for lake front homes. That gives you such an advantage you know?
Tony: A big advantage. That's like you say, it trumps every marketing campaign having the buyer.
Dean: I always joke with people that if you have a buyer it trumps your mother. I mean, honestly if they're interviewing agents and their mom is a real estate agent. Listing their house with her, if a buyer shows up on their doorstep with the money ready to buy, they're not going to list the house with their mom even.
Tony: They're not going to list with their mom, right.
Dean: Because they ultimately get what they want, which is the buyer.
Tony: Yeah.
Dean: It's really fascinating you know. That's where really looking at the core of this is about at the very essence of it what we do as real estate professionals is match one buyer with one seller. That's the reality of what the business is. I don't know whether you saw on the blog Tony, I was doing some research to prepare for the very, we'll say episode zero of this Listing Agent Lifestyle Podcast. That in the 25 years plus since 1990 on the PGA tour, the golf tour, the driving distance has increased by I think 57 yards. People are driving the ball 57 yards further than in 1990, but the scoring average, the actual scores have improved by less than 1/4 of one stroke. It's gone from 69.10 to 68.85 or something like that. Just some insignificant difference in scoring. I liken that to all the technology and all the things that have come in advances here in real estate marketing. I mean, visual, virtual tours, and virtual reality, and drone videos, and all these things that are going around, but fundamentally has the days on market and the price that people get for homes, actually changed in the 25 years? You know, because it still comes down to, you've got to find one buyer, you've got one house.
Tony: Yeah that hasn't changed.
Dean: It really hasn't and that's what, it's not going to change for the next 25 years, but certainly embracing all the technology and realizing that harnessing it to really reach the end goal, which is getting in relationship with more individuals who are going to buy ourselves.
Tony: Yeah, whatever system you use. Like you said, it's just going to come down to one thing, finding that buyer, so there's really no old technology or new technology that's going to do that. Offline online, is just as good.
Dean: That's exactly right yeah. It really comes down to just how do you meet? Right. I mean just because online dating is around that doesn't mean that people don't meet at a party or meet in person at the park or meet at work, or meet somewhere in person. It's still all these things, it all happens. I want to talk a little bit about the listing next door too. Because you've been running that program in parallel with the getting listings. How long has that been going on now? I know we've been keeping charts on that, but we should be coming up on four years for that as well right?
Tony: I think April will be four years yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Tony: Three years, yeah.
Dean: Three years sorry. What's been happening there? Do you know just off the top of your head, do you know any of the numbers from that?
Tony: I think the multiplier, I did check last month, I believe that is up at around 15X.
Dean: 15 to 1.
Tony: 15 to 1.
Dean: On the ... Okay. Maybe explain how the listing next door system operates, because I think you've really done a brilliant job of doing something that requires actual manual labor, yet you're not involved in any of it.
Tony: Yeah. It started out, I think it was April of 2015, or '14, '15. Yeah, it was really, I saw that program before of yours, I guess I just never went full force with it. It came about one finding listing, and working with some of the buyers I had to find listing for them as well. I was getting a lot, it was low inventory, couldn't have any ... You know, houses were selling in like three, four days, or hours, three, four hours even. It was a big issue with my buyers. There's nothing. Multiple offers, every home we go to, ten offers. Then, it came about, I said, "You know what, I'm just going to do this and not only try to generate listings, but also do a unique service to my buyers." We started in April, and we've been doing it since.
Dean: Just the short version of the listing next door is a program that we developed to help market around any sold listing. It doesn't have to be your sold listing, but any sold listing to market to the 20 or 50 homes right around that listing. It involves delivering something to each of those homes, which a lot of times, it's a great program for people starting out, who've got time and less money. It did something that you can actually do yourself, deliver the postcards to those homes, but the fact that just because it requires people didn't stop you from doing it. Even though you're not out delivering them yourself, can you talk a little bit about your runner? The person who actually does the deliveries in the system.
Tony: Yeah, so we have a runner part-time doing walk boxes, signs, so we added a new task for the runner, not only to do those tasks, and also they were doing directionals and what not, but open house signs, but to actually deliver these flyers for me. We would set it up for the runner to do the, like we'd give them the homes we wanted in our particular farm area.
Dean: Each day you look and see which homes have sold.
Tony: Yeah.
Dean: You say, "I want this one, this one, this one." How many homes do you pick?
Tony: Usually we're pretty particular on price range and area, so I would say generally we would pick anywhere from I would say 10 to 15 homes a week.
Dean: Okay, so two or three a day.
Tony: Yeah. Now, the runner would get an email notification and the flyers would be ready to pick up from our office, and then they would go do them daily as the listing was sold.
Dean: I love the system that you set up to track that being done, can you describe the app?
Tony: Yeah, we were just making sure that these flyers were actually being delivered or not.
Dean: Yeah.
Tony: I was trying to figure out a system, and we found an app called MapMyWalk by Under Armor, a free app, which can track your steps, elevations, pretty detailed, but ultimately what we got from it was we can enable to track if they did the job or not. They would send that report right-
Dean: I just love that innovation. Yeah, you see this is what they did, and that's your signal that they actually walked the 50 homes around each of these listings, because you could see the footsteps for it.
Tony: You can see the footsteps, you can see ... Yeah, and it's all tracked and it is emailed to Candace who then logs it in our system, so they can get paid.
Dean: I love it, it's so great. Now, the great thing about that because I think what really prompted that for you was that we had been having conversation about systemic thinking. You know, looking at everything that you do as a living, kind of moving system. Our gold standard, or the inspiration that we use for these things is that show on the Discovery channel, How It's Made. Where they narrate all of the manufacturing processes, what struck me was that all of these processes even though they seem so automated with technology and robots, when it comes to a part that can't be done by a robot, the way they narrate it, they say, "A worker does this." Right? Whatever the thing is, it's kind of like a worker is kind of the way of indicating that it's still automated but it's a human automation. That kind of led me to expand my thinking about automation and make my definition of automation anything that I'm not doing. As long as I'm not doing it, that's automated. Human automation counts. That's kind of where we started having that conversation about that opportunity. I was thrilled when you went through the process there.
Very generously you've shared the ad and the whole process even for finding the runners in GoGoAgent, so that all of our members can see the exact process that you used. It's good to know that, that process including the cost of paying the runner, and paying for all the printing is yielding a 15 times ROI on what's coming up on a three year run here. Very, very systematic and profitable again. Pretty cool.
Tony: Yeah, just looking at the moving parts and saying, "Hey look, I can streamline this, whether it's human automation, or through online." Yeah, that was a big breakthrough for me, just seeing the replicating what you were saying on how it works. It's the exact same concept. Yeah.
Dean: Now, you know, looking at it four years later, it sounds like you've got much more time abundance here. It doesn't feel like you're so caught up in the total busyness of it. One of the big byproducts for you?
Tony: Huge. That's probably the biggest. Time cutting literally in half or more so I can focus on growing the business was huge for me. That was a big, big game change or mindset shift I can say. It's always in your head. I mean everybody wants that. Time management I saw as the biggest obstacle for real estate agents or any entrepreneur. Having sequences and systems in place is going to really get you that problem solved quickest.
Dean: Yeah. I mean, that's it when you're thinking about, it's not even just the technology, but even that's why we call it scale ready algorithms, and like putting together the listing next door program, the way you've done it. You know, using all the insights, the technology, the tools, meaning the flyer to actually send, but having the flyers printed, then having a human pick them up and deliver them. Having the landing page and the recorded message for people to call so that all of that can really work without you. There's nothing where you are a bottleneck in the process. It's working and on a way that will continue working as long as all the pieces just get put into place.
Tony: Put in place, executed yeah.
Dean: Then that gives you the point when people are ready to list, that now you're able to step in and you're getting credit in their mind for being the person who's kept in touch with them for all this time. Even though, you haven't physically done any of the work to make that happen. It's kind of a relaxing thing to think about.
Tony: Yeah. We only want to focus on what we're best at. I'm not good at the detailed work or putting, doing all the steps, it's just going to take me away from my performance and being the best I can be as well. Yeah, it is a lot of time saved and my performance in front of clients is enhanced as well.
Dean: The confidence. I think when you look at it, you knowing that one you list their house, you've got this whole set of listing multipliers that you're able to implement again without your involvement in it. I'm sure your systems are to set up the info box flyer, the landing page, the property PDF, the autoresponders, that happen automatically…
Tony: Yeah hotlines.
Dean: Kind of self-perpetuating you know.
Tony: Yeah, there's a whole sequence involved when we take a listing. It's nice to see that work as soon as the preceding activities launch, which is the pictures. Then everything else falls into place and I can do what I do best.
Dean: Yes, it's very exciting. I love when you kind of took to the listing multiplier game like on fire. I mean I remember when we first started measuring. We first set up the leader board and had the challenge. I mean in the beginning, some of these you ended up with like six or seven transactions from one or two of these new listings that you ended up taking.
Tony: Yeah. I remember it was one of the first ones I did and I think I did six of the points you mentioned. There was one of them I got two of them. I think I found a buyer for another home.
Dean: For two other homes yeah.
Tony: Yeah found another home.
Dean: Because you got it sold, you found the buyer, you found two other buyers, you got another listing in the neighborhood, and a referral. That's cool right/
Tony: Yeah, I didn't actually ... Yeah, yeah there was a lot of points on that one, I remember. It was a big, again a shift in the mind, that hey, you can do this. You can repeat this process.
Dean: Yeah, and so what's your ... I didn't mention but the great thing is that you've gone to now being the number one agent in your MLS.
Tony: Yeah, so I just checked, I think we're still up there as of August 2017. Yeah in our district-
Dean: You're still the reigning district champion for your MLS, which is, that's what we want right?
Tony: Yeah. That was huge for me to see that as well. I mean I didn't even notice it until I think six months in, I think my broker sent me something in my email. He said, "Look, you're one of the top guys." That was pretty cool to see that.
Dean: That's awesome. Now, and what's your vision for next year? I know your kind of ramping up. You've got your sights set on some pretty goals.
Tony: Yeah, looking forward and we're pushing. I think we went from 7,500 for the postcards to 12,000, I think two years later, and then the third year we went to like 16,000 homes. Now, this year fourth quarter, we just started doing all of the farm area, which is about almost 25,000 homes.
Dean: That's amazing. That's great. I'm so excited to see how this all unfolds for you, you know.
Tony: Yeah, I'm excited as well. I can't wait to see my numbers for next year and be on another call for sure.
Dean: What's the thing that would be the thing that your kind of working on right now or the thing that we can make a focus to really help you get there?
Tony: I think what I'm really focusing on, my big takeaway just from this call alone. It's always been in the back of my head. It's the category buyers, closing the gap more on that. Really getting support and making sure that's run streamlined. That we are attracting more of the category buyers for the specific homes in my farm area. Doing that is just going to ... We're doing it now, but it's not as powerful as I'd like it to be. We are definitely going to make a lot of changes toward the end of this year. We're going into 2018 and making campaigns for all the different styles of properties in the area.
Dean: Yeah. That's what people are hungry for. I don't know if you saw this, I posted up on the GoGoAgent log, an article about these ghost restaurants.
Tony: I saw that yeah.
Dean: This to me Tony is amazing. Because that's inspiring me to think about what we're talking about here. The basic idea is and I read it in Forbes magazine about this company in New York that runs nine restaurants out of one kitchen with no dining room. They only sell exclusively on Grub Hub and Seamless, like online apps. They get to run nine different brands, or nine different food lines with only having one restaurant. That reminded me of how we've kind of got that cool opportunity there that if you look at it. If you break down, if there's town homes, and single family homes, and semi-detached, are there any condos in your area?
Tony: Yeah.
Dean: Condos, and the categories there that's, I think where we have this really cool opportunity to run nine restaurants from the same kitchen. That you've really got that same thing to be able to run nine different categories of finding buyers specifically looking for town houses or looking for semis or luxury homes.
Tony: Yeah, no it was interesting when I read that. That's where it's going to go really. The agent's going to have to be more, have some kind of systems in place to have the specific type of buyers for sure.
Dean: That's kind of the cool thing is that the great thing about it is that, that's really what I'm positioning for, is for us to be able to be the support services for the kitchens. I mean to run the nine brands kind of thing. Just like their able to do things from a decentralized kitchen. They don't have to be in a high rent, retail area, they can be off the beaten path. Just proximity located with technology now, all the things that go into supporting running all of these programs can all be done from my office. That's really where we're at, that people can be the front facing brand of this wonderful Listing Agent Lifestyle Business where we've really got it to and have proven to the point where all somebody has to do is point to an area and say this is where we want to get listings. Every other element of it can be done remotely, which is kind of a wonderful thing about being alive at this moment in time, looking forward to what the next 25 years is going to be. I always take comfort that Warren Buffet, I just saw a video with him talking about the real estate business. You think about it. The real estate brokerage business has been around literally since the early 1800s.
It's been around all that time. It's not going to go anywhere. There's still going to be people involved in all of these transaction. I think really embracing in this transition, there's such an opportunity to really build an amazing arbitrage on the ease that you can actually do it with the relatively still high fees that are paid for doing it. You know because commissions, there's been slight downward pressure on commissions over the 25 years, but not radical.
Tony: No.
Dean: The ability to do all of the actual things to support it, the cost of doing those things has come down, down, down. There's a really great arbitrage there. You're floating in it you know. You're floating in the fact that it costs you way less to have somebody run every element of getting listings, and the listing next door, to get to the point where people call you when they're ready to sell their house. You don't have to spend their time door knocking or making cold calls.
Tony: Yeah, that's not fun for sure. I've been there, so I know.
Dean: Yeah, me too. There we have it. Tony, I can't tell you how excited I am to have had you as the first guest here. I'm really looking forward to seeing what we're able to create here in terms of a movement. I'm really excited about the community that we're building and the common approach here to building that Listing Agent Lifestyle Business.
Tony: Yeah, thanks for having me Dean, it was a great call. I got a lot of insight from what you're saying. Looking forward for the next one. Let me know when I can be on again I'm more than happy to.
Dean: Awesome thank you.
Tony: Sure.
Dean: We need to talk about ... We didn't even talk about your listing multipliers, so we'll get you on and talk about that because that's-
Tony: Yeah, that'll be the next thing, because I've got to get my numbers together for you on that.
Dean: Awesome, thanks Tony.
Tony: All right, have a great day Dean, take care.
Dean: Yeah, you too, bye bye.
Tony: Bye. Bye.