True Patriot Love - How Top 1% Realtors Are Really Made

00:00:00.000 Today on True Patriot Love, Under the Pillar Real Estate, we're lucky to have author Chris

00:00:17.280 Chipote. Chris, welcome. And your book, Real Top Producer, become a top 1% earner in any

00:00:28.340 real estate market. So, you know, it's a good book. I read it and I really enjoyed it. But,

00:00:35.380 you know, the thing that got me, because I've recently been going through some real estate

00:00:40.280 sales issues, finally, thank goodness, got my two properties sold. And also today, you know,

00:00:48.060 I'd like to Shara Micucci, my wife, she's joining us because she is a real estate agent. So, you know,

00:00:54.640 it was good. And we went through this challenge for a few months. It seemed like an eternity.

00:01:01.780 In the market where, you know, home sales in Canada are declining by 3.5%, right? You know,

00:01:08.000 month over month, 9.5% in the GTA where we were trying to sell. So a big decrease in home sales.

00:01:16.380 You know, the economy, quite frankly, is sharing. It's shaking. The economy is shaking real estate

00:01:20.920 right now because no one has stability given tariffs and everything going on. You know,

00:01:26.080 the prime minister is announcing these big major projects. The budget is trying to capital invest

00:01:31.800 in the country to kickstart it. Productivity is a challenge in Canada big time, which I talk about

00:01:37.500 on a number of shows. Affordability, right? So affordability is kind of one of those double-edged

00:01:42.760 swords that I think we're all going listening about. But people want affordable homes. But now the

00:01:48.260 government's created agencies that are building homes, basically challenging local developers.

00:01:54.040 So they've gotten into the build market alongside developers, which that has pros and cons, right?

00:01:59.660 So, and then regional trends, of course, you know, Calgary, we just came from Calgary,

00:02:05.000 Calgary's up, and other markets are down. So, you know, before we get into this, I just wanted to

00:02:13.100 chat with you about your background. And why real estate? Yeah, it's a great question. So I remember

00:02:20.900 driving with my, with my mom, and I was, and I looked up and I saw a bridge. And then I said,

00:02:28.040 I need to know how, like, how is that suspended? Like, why, why is that working? So I decided to study

00:02:33.800 architecture. You know, that's, that's kind of like how it all started for me. And I went to school

00:02:40.100 for architecture, graduated, went and worked in the field as an architectural, um, uh, junior

00:02:45.960 architect in, um, in a firm called URS Canada. Okay. Did that for two and a half years. And then

00:02:51.760 I was falling asleep on the computer. Okay. So I was designing and like doing one of these and

00:02:56.460 catching myself kind of falling asleep. And I said, man, um, although I know how this stuff works,

00:03:01.740 how it comes together and all that stuff, like being on a computer designing is not my gig. So I said,

00:03:06.960 okay, I'm going to try building inspections. I need to, I need to be in the field. That's what

00:03:10.020 I need to do. I need to be in the field. So I went for two and a half years and worked

00:03:13.720 in the building inspections department of a company, um, uh, and, uh, building science department

00:03:19.460 where I, I basically inspected the, the, um, the outskirts of the building. So all the seals and

00:03:26.040 everything. Anyway, I did that for two and a half years and I decided there's way too much dust

00:03:29.520 and this is dealing with way too much contractors. This is not for me. And, and I mean, I know it's

00:03:34.980 funny, but this is, this is what's happening. I'm trying to figure out like, where do I belong?

00:03:38.600 And on a drive to Myrtle beach with my family, I, uh, listened to a book called, uh, uh, from good

00:03:45.240 to great, um, by, by Jim Collins. And I, I was listening to it on the drive. Right. So my kids

00:03:51.640 are sleeping and I'm, you know, driving, driving along. And, um, he talked about the hedgehog

00:03:57.420 concept, which is, which is, you know, it's a Venn diagram. And when three certain pieces come

00:04:03.100 together, it's, it's kind of like what you're calling is and what you should go out and do.

00:04:06.820 So, um, my hedgehog concept, you know, when I looked at it all, I said, you know what, um,

00:04:13.520 real estate can drive my economic engine, meaning there's no ceiling. Like I can make as much money

00:04:18.200 as I want. Um, uh, I'm passionate about people and, and I have the technical skills to speak house.

00:04:24.180 That was, that's how it all started. I was like, well, I have technical skills to speak house,

00:04:27.980 right. I can speak house better than anybody else. So I said, I'm going to, I'm going to do it. I'm

00:04:32.760 going to, I'm going to do this thing. And then I went into it and, um, uh, I made a $28,000 and I

00:04:37.680 had to go get a job and do our, uh, real estate. Then slowly but surely I went up then 58, then just

00:04:43.540 under a hundred. And then after that, um, uh, I had better years and that that's why real estate,

00:04:49.760 um, uh, that's kind of how I got into it and why I got into it. Okay. So I'm going to ask about the title,

00:04:54.940 but I'm going to let your, uh, absolutely. Yeah. So I read your book. It's like, this is a very good

00:05:01.040 book and it's tossed my heart personally. Thank you. And, uh, tell me about what is a real top

00:05:06.380 producer. Yeah. So, um, so what, what I know is that a real top producer has mastered their BPM.

00:05:15.420 Okay. And BPM in music for the musicians. What's BPM? Beats per minute. Exactly. Well,

00:05:21.220 not in this case, in this case, we're talking about brand presence and marketing. Okay. So, um,

00:05:28.120 you can, you can get really lucky in real estate and have a good few years and things like that and

00:05:32.460 make a ton of money and then talk about it and all that stuff. Or you can build your brand,

00:05:37.060 establish a fantastic presence in the way that you show up and the way that you contribute to the

00:05:42.660 community, to your family, how you show up as a mother, as a father, all that stuff that has all,

00:05:46.820 and then your marketing, how do you market yourself? How do you get yourself out there? Cause I can

00:05:51.020 have the best pen, but if no one knows about the best pen, then good luck selling it. Right.

00:05:55.340 So I've established in order to become a real top producer, you need to be at the highest level of

00:05:59.760 BPM. Sure. If we're talking about numbers, you still need to be in the top 1% of your region.

00:06:06.100 You still need to be in the top 1%, whatever that 1% is regions change. I mean, price points change,

00:06:11.320 right? So you still need to be from a, from a numbers perspective, top 1%, but you also need to

00:06:16.460 have a BPM that stirs up business for you in a way that you are in the real estate industry and

00:06:22.940 you're living an inspirational life and inspiring others to want to live like you. So my values as

00:06:28.060 a business person is be courageous, create quality and live inspired. So, I mean, I have that written

00:06:33.520 on the back. It's, it's how I sign off on my emails. It's very important to me. Um, uh, and, and that's

00:06:38.540 another story of how I came up with that. But in short, if I had 30 seconds to tell my son,

00:06:42.860 what are three things that you need to tell me? You're about to die. You have 30 seconds. What are 0.96

00:06:46.860 the three things you have to tell me? So I live a better life. And I would say, son, be courageous

00:06:51.740 in anything that you do. Okay. Create quality, meaning anything that you do, do it to the best

00:06:56.300 of your ability and live inspired. So you inspire everybody. You walk into a room, breathe energy

00:07:01.100 into that room so that everybody can live a better life. And then I'm dead. Okay. Like 30 seconds,

00:07:06.460 I would say that. So, so that, that's what I, that's what I try to live by. That's how I challenge myself.

00:07:11.740 If I'm going through a difficult time, I say, would a courageous person show up like this?

00:07:16.620 No, then I'm not, I'm not living to my values. Um, am I doing the best that I can right now?

00:07:21.180 No, then I'm not living to my values. And so I checked myself with those values.

00:07:25.340 That's what a real top producer is. Oh, good. Yeah. You know, I, I really liked about the book

00:07:30.060 or what I, one of the things I really liked the book about the book was how your stories are real.

00:07:36.140 Yeah. So like, you know, it's funny because when you walked in today to our office,

00:07:39.900 the first thing you probably saw was a whiteboard. Yeah. And so when I'm reading your book, I'm

00:07:43.660 thinking, you know, you're saying on Sunday, I get up and in my living room is a whiteboard, right?

00:07:47.900 Big whiteboard. Is there, is there still a whiteboard?

00:07:50.460 Legit. Really? A big whiteboard. Um, uh, it's the size of this backdrop.

00:07:56.140 Oh, wow. It's, I got it from, from Bell Canada headquarters.

00:07:59.660 Oh, okay. Like it's bigger than anything in the house.

00:08:02.620 Oh yeah. And, and you sit and plan your week and come up with creative ideas.

00:08:06.620 The kids do work behind me and I have the two leafs that open up and it's like, it's,

00:08:11.740 it's like the iron man house, except on a whiteboard. Like I have all types of arrows and stuff. And my

00:08:18.620 mind is like on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wake up at 4 45 and I am on some sort of thing that happens at

00:08:25.420 that time or my brain is going nonstop. So yeah, I do have a whiteboard. It's true.

00:08:28.620 Wow. I like that because all of our businesses, we have whiteboard. We don't sit there and go

00:08:35.100 through computer. I don't like computers to think I can't think on a computer. I can. In fact, I say

00:08:40.300 this often when I'm working with my executive assistant, I say, I'm going to, I'm going to,

00:08:43.980 I'm going to put it on paper, which is the whiteboard. And then I need you to help me digitize it.

00:08:48.060 So, so I, I do it, but you know, my eyes roll behind my head. I start doing this crazy thing.

00:08:52.940 And then I take a picture, I send it to her and then she starts to put it together and she sends me

00:08:57.420 back it digitize and then I share it with my team. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's how I think.

00:09:01.980 I don't know. I'm weird that way. No, no, it is great. Cause it does, you know, and a lot of this

00:09:07.420 book. So, you know, before I get into the, the, the, uh, kind of the educational elements of the

00:09:11.900 book, I want to really talk about sort of, you know, you spend time, which I loved about the book

00:09:16.780 is you spend time at the beginning talking about sacrifice, courage, some of the key elements that in

00:09:22.060 order to be successful as, as a top agent, you really have to be, you know, prepared to do. And,

00:09:27.740 and, you know, it's interesting because sacrifice, which, and, you know, being an entrepreneur,

00:09:31.820 sacrifice is key because you have to sacrifice a lot of things. So, you know, your sacrifice list,

00:09:37.820 right? Um, I will offer up all my TV shows. I will only watch sports, but no full games,

00:09:43.980 10 minute highlights. I will offer up Saturday night with the boys or only attend events with my wife and

00:09:49.900 kids that, uh, that when they can be with me, I will not, uh, clean my car anymore. This is,

00:09:56.300 I will teach my son how to clean my car and show him how to do a great job. Then I'll pay him.

00:10:02.140 I will sacrifice late nights and sleep in. And this is where I will wake up at 4 45 and go to bed at

00:10:08.140 nine o'clock, a strict regime regime that allows me to stay at my highest level of energy and productivity.

00:10:15.100 And I, which is true, right? You know, as an entrepreneur, you have to forego

00:10:19.660 so many things to be successful. And I don't think people, um, sure. And I've, you know,

00:10:25.980 when we met sort of, you know, it was, we were both entrepreneurs. So the good thing was we were

00:10:31.820 coming from backgrounds where we both ran our own businesses. So it was easy for us to kind of

00:10:37.100 understand each other, but then, you know, with a son, you have to figure out how to balance that

00:10:42.220 because you have, you have two entrepreneurs that are going full steam and you also have this

00:10:47.260 little family life. Yeah. Yeah. You have to balance. So, and I think in real estate, um,

00:10:53.180 you know, and I noticed it more and more with new real estate agents coming into the market.

00:10:57.420 And I think, you know, for those of you, you know, you hear lots of numbers, but before I came into the

00:11:02.140 show, there's 34,000 real estate agents in Canada right now, as of like October, 2025,

00:11:09.260 that was my AI search. Right. So that's what it gives.

00:11:11.580 There's more, is there more than that? Yeah. So, so, you know, AI is wrong, but you know,

00:11:17.340 yeah.

00:11:17.500 So a lot is what you're trying to say. There's a lot.

00:11:19.980 There's a lot of resources. So you're, you're competitive.

00:11:22.220 1.5 million in the U S.

00:11:24.140 Wow.

00:11:24.700 Wow.

00:11:25.100 Just to say, just to throw that out there you go. So, so your competitive landscape is pretty

00:11:29.580 aggressive. So you have to be good to survive, right? You have to really be aggressive. So

00:11:34.220 part of that is you have to make those sacrifices to get the rewards.

00:11:37.580 Yeah. So I like that. And then courage, of course, right? Cause courage in business,

00:11:42.620 you're not always going to be successful. So, and I'm sure you went through more examples of

00:11:49.660 courage than you can imagine, but you know, you talk about in it here about the fact that

00:11:56.300 when you were starting out, you had three jobs. I did. Right. And did that help you be more

00:12:02.140 courageous when you got into real estate?

00:12:04.220 Right. Um, you know what I'll, I'll tell you about the jobs, right? You, you get jobs to,

00:12:09.340 uh, keep the lights on. Right. And, um, one of the jobs was, uh, valet parking.

00:12:15.580 Okay. One of the jobs is valet parking.

00:12:17.020 I did that.

00:12:18.060 And, um, uh, and, and I had, I would, I would be freezing my face off. Okay. As I'm waiting upstairs

00:12:24.540 for those cars to come and whatever. And in my hand, I had a pieces of paper where I will write down

00:12:29.740 my goals and then, so I, it was a piece of paper that I would fold and I had my goals and inside

00:12:35.660 I was, I, I would have my budget for the month and I would, and I would just kind of, you know,

00:12:40.300 open it. So as I'm waiting for the cars to come up, I'm looking at it and stuff. And I'm just

00:12:43.580 waiting for the cars and I'm just reviewing my goals. Okay. What I want. And, and, and sometimes,

00:12:47.740 oh, the budgets would change. So I would, I would be working on my budget as I'm waiting to get a $2

00:12:53.020 tip to drive someone's car down. So, um, you know, I I'm, I'm telling that story to tell you,

00:12:59.020 I wasn't doing it because, ah, you know, I want more money. I was just doing it to keep the lights

00:13:02.780 on, but that wasn't, that was just, that was just a means to, to, to, to, you know, I just,

00:13:06.700 I just need something to bridge me over. Yeah. But, um, but I knew I wouldn't be doing that for long.

00:13:12.460 Um, uh, and I would do it and I would freeze and I would say, enjoy it because it's not gonna last.

00:13:16.540 Enjoy it because it's not gonna last. And, and, and I would just keep telling myself that. And I tell

00:13:20.860 agents that I coach right now, I'm going through a hard time. I'm like, enjoy this.

00:13:24.460 It's not gonna last. Enjoy this moment. You know, you're gonna wish that you were this calm

00:13:29.420 because what's coming is gonna be great for you. And, you know, just to inspire and motivate them.

00:13:33.420 Right. So, um, yeah, that I had to have that courage to, to get up. I had two kids at the time.

00:13:39.260 So I had to babies. I had to have babies. I'd be working overnight, coming home at four o'clock in

00:13:44.060 the morning and then back to research and property, sending stuff and just knowing that I had what it took

00:13:49.740 to, to get there. But yeah, it was, it was three jobs. That's true.

00:13:52.300 Yeah. And I think that, you know, the courage part, and I tell people all the time, uh, very

00:13:57.820 similar background, you know, worked multiple jobs before I started, uh, becoming a, an accountant

00:14:04.220 and then left that kind of on a whim to start my own stuff. You know, you have to have the courage,

00:14:09.820 but those experiences that you go get before you actually get to where you're going are the most

00:14:15.580 important ones because they're the building blocks that create the courage and the, you know,

00:14:19.260 it's having that crappy job. You know, uh, I think I've told you before, I worked at a meatpacking

00:14:25.340 plant to get myself through university. And that was probably one of the crappiest jobs,

00:14:30.140 right? But it paid well, quite frankly. So it paid the bills and it, and it was a good experience for

00:14:35.100 me in the end because the building blocks and the people I met along the way and that and how I managed

00:14:40.060 them and got to learn about them gave me the building blocks to do what I do now. So if I can

00:14:46.220 add, I think, I think a lot of times as we're getting to where we want to get to, um, uh, I think

00:14:52.620 we have to realize that at times you have to go through the motions, but, but, but in the back of

00:14:57.660 your mind, your brain needs to be crafting the, the real life that you want. So you have to go through

00:15:04.860 the motions, but in the back of your mind, you're thinking, okay, I know, I know what I'm building,

00:15:09.500 but you know, you're going to go through the motions. You're going to see the money coming

00:15:11.740 to the account. Okay, good. That's a, you know, so you, you go through the motions that happens

00:15:15.340 sometimes even raising a family, right? You go through the motions of fatherhood, motherhood,

00:15:19.820 fatherhood, and, and you're like, okay, I have to get through this. But in the back of your mind,

00:15:24.060 you're crafting other things. And some people say you're not living in the moment. And that may be

00:15:28.460 true. That may be true, but you know, you, you, I think you should live in the moments of the moments

00:15:33.420 that you want to live in some moments. The reality behind life is that some moments,

00:15:39.340 you don't want to live in the moment. You know, you just have to get through that moment so that

00:15:43.340 you can get to the moment that you want to live in the moment for, right? So, so, you know, you have

00:15:47.820 to realize, okay, this is not a moment I want to live in. I need to live in the moment back here,

00:15:52.140 but I need to go through the motions of the courage and the sacrifice, right? If I can kind of piece it

00:15:57.260 all together. Well, that's real estate, you know, quite frankly, a lot of real estate is kind of

00:16:00.940 trudging through finding those leads, finding those, you know, make no sales, getting the right people

00:16:05.580 connected together, you know, cause you're dealing with human dynamics all day long.

00:16:10.620 So it's not, you know, uh, the guy building the house, I'm not saying he has it easy because I do

00:16:16.620 both. Right. And it's difficult, but I know where I have to be at the end of the day. And it's,

00:16:23.420 it's up to me to get there and I can, I can push as fast as I can or go as slow as I want.

00:16:29.260 That's up to me. But I know the outcome is how I'm doing, but with human dynamics,

00:16:33.660 you're dealing with people and trying to get them to make decisions and move in a direction

00:16:38.620 way harder. And we've been through that, right? Yeah. Yeah. We know how hard people can be when

00:16:43.420 you kind of move them along. Yeah. So, so planning. So chapter two, and I love, I love the basic, uh,

00:16:50.780 you start every chapter with a saying. So one hour of planning can, uh, uh, can save you 10 hours of

00:16:58.540 doing that's Dale Carnegie, right? And you have a bunch of these things in the book and I, and I like them.

00:17:03.260 And then you tie them in, you know, and the building your plan, uh, in five, three and one

00:17:11.980 year increments. So the five, three, one framework, um, and why that's important. So, and I do believe

00:17:18.380 in this, you know, when I, I, I use a program called live plan when I start a new business and

00:17:23.580 it's basically a, it's a, it's a business plan building program and it asks you a bunch of questions

00:17:30.220 and it sort of, and it starts prompting you and you start writing and then it's, it's a little bit

00:17:35.340 painful because it's question after question, and they're a little bit the same. So you have to really

00:17:40.220 spend a lot of time and figure them out. Yeah. My friend Blair from, uh, St. John's gave it to me and

00:17:46.460 Blair's like this, uh, 40 year old super planner. And, uh, he, uh, he said, you gotta start using this. So I started using it. It's great. And at the end of it, I get a,

00:17:56.620 a five year plan and it tells me where I need to be. So it gives me like a 40 page document and I print

00:18:03.340 it out and then I put it in a binder and I put it on my desk when the business starts and that's kind of

00:18:10.620 how we move along. And, you know, I try to map against it, but so, you know, you talk about that

00:18:15.260 in, in real estate, you know, figuring that out. So what components in real estate go into that plan?

00:18:22.220 So if you're a top producer, what are you putting in that five, three and one year plan?

00:18:26.780 Yeah. Um, okay. Uh, in, in the five, three, one there's, there's all the components. I think,

00:18:34.460 I think in this moment, what we really focus on in the five, three, one is, um, from, from business

00:18:40.140 to spiritual, to, to, to health, to family, it's more of a, it's more of a statement of what you want

00:18:47.420 your life to be in five years. And then, and then you work your way down to three,

00:18:52.860 which is a statement of what you need to do in order for you to be on track to accomplish your

00:18:57.900 five year vision. And then the one year plan. Now we're getting into the nitty gritty where it's like,

00:19:02.940 here's all the things that need to happen this year in order for me to be on track for the three

00:19:06.780 year plan. And in order for me to accomplish the five year vision. And it has a lot to do with everything.

00:19:11.740 It's all tied in. If I, if I don't, um, take into consideration, um, my personal health as I'm

00:19:18.540 planning for my business, then, uh, we're going to have a problem here because if all I'm eating

00:19:23.100 is cold cuts and, and Coke, uh, uh, you know, and, and, you know, Coca-Cola and cold cuts and bread,

00:19:28.300 and that's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you're not going to make it to your five year plan.

00:19:31.900 We're going to have a problem here, right? So there's a lot of things that when, when we're looking

00:19:35.660 at the five year plan, we're looking at various different components of someone's life, including

00:19:40.620 the business, um, to the point of, you know, what are you driving? Like, what do you, what do you,

00:19:45.740 you know, are you coming home to a two car garage? Are you, how many children do you have? We have to

00:19:50.140 take that into consideration because if we don't consider that in the five year plan, how, how do

00:19:55.740 you, how do you work backwards? Right? I'm a big fan of, uh, start with the end in mind. And that's

00:20:00.940 where that came from. Um, uh, it's one of the, uh, seven habits of highly effective people start with the

00:20:06.140 end in mind. So I, we start with the end in mind and then we, we plan backwards. And then once we

00:20:11.260 have that one year plan, we build that out into a GPS goals, priorities, and strategies, and then

00:20:17.180 we execute. Yeah. You know, and it's interesting if you don't do it. So this is, you know, that's what

00:20:21.980 I like when you, when you write down, you have no direction, no inspiration and no reason. Yeah.

00:20:27.580 Right. And the good things, if you do do it, you have clarity, connection, direction, and inspiration.

00:20:31.740 Yeah. It really is. It does make sense. Right. And I I've lived it. I've been in both cases. I've,

00:20:37.260 you know, when I got starting, uh, my own companies and, uh, you know, I grew up,

00:20:41.740 I grew up with a serial entrepreneur. So I was lucky enough to, uh, a new immigrant to Canada 0.77

00:20:47.420 who really wanted to have his own businesses. And so quite frankly, you know, along the way he would

00:20:52.140 start different businesses and I'd see, I'd see the good, the bad, and the ugly of kind of his planning.

00:20:57.900 And, and, you know, the more he knew about the businesses he started, the better he did,

00:21:03.260 the more he didn't, the worse he did because he didn't have those planning steps. Right. So,

00:21:07.340 so I did see someone go through it. Um, master your time. So, uh,

00:21:14.300 things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not

00:21:20.060 been defined. David Allen. Right. So really good quote. And you, you talk about in this chapter,

00:21:25.820 time blocking, which you're, you know, I've, I've met you a few years ago and the one thing's my

00:21:31.340 observation right away was you're a really good time blocker. I am. Yeah. You're really good. Like

00:21:36.140 you really figure it out. You think about it and you allocate times. Like when I talk to you,

00:21:40.700 I can see it because you talk to me sometimes about time, which very few people do. Like you'll

00:21:46.700 say to me, you know, my time is I'm going to, I'm going away with my family. I'm here for this.

00:21:51.100 I think you're very focused on, I'm a planner. Yeah. If you take a year, you know, you you've

00:21:55.580 tried to figure out that year, that month where you're going to be. Yeah. Yeah. How did you get,

00:21:59.820 like, I know you're saying that we, you built it, but when did you come, I guess,

00:22:03.900 let's talk about this man in your life. When did you come to the realization that time and time

00:22:08.700 blocking time management was so important? Like how, because not many people do, right? Most people,

00:22:14.780 most people get up every morning, they put their clothes on, they get out of bed, they hustle the work,

00:22:19.500 they go day after day, you know, every once in a while, their wife says, we got to go on vacation.

00:22:25.740 Yeah. So, you know, right away they get on and they try to find the cheapest trip they can get.

00:22:30.300 They, you know, book it, they go to that island, they sit in that, by that hotel pool. And, you know,

00:22:37.180 that's kind of an average guy's life, right? Yeah. I, I don't know that that's an average person's

00:22:43.500 life. To be honest with you. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I, um, I can't, I would not be able to live like

00:22:49.180 that. I'd, I'd go crazy. So, um, planning, um, look, I'm a creative person. Okay. And, you know,

00:22:59.580 start with the end in mind. I do plan my whole year out and I believe that plans can change,

00:23:05.020 but I do believe that you need to have something on the canvas. You can't wake up every morning. I

00:23:10.380 just stare at a blank canvas because, uh, creative minds on a blank canvas, our minds can go

00:23:15.580 everywhere. Like we just boom all over the place. So, um, I need, I need a path. I need,

00:23:20.940 I need to, here's what's going to happen. Here's what I'm going to do. My calendar. I mean, I am

00:23:25.260 planned from 4 45 in the morning, even my travel time, I gave myself an hour of travel time to get

00:23:31.340 here. Yeah. Although it took me 28 minutes. I had, I had that, that gave me time to go take my hat off,

00:23:36.380 do my hair, all the stuff that, you know, so I am a big time planner.

00:23:40.060 And I just think it's more efficient. I honestly think that we do more by being in control of our

00:23:45.340 time. Um, if you look at my calendar, it's like color coordinated and it's like, it's that. Yeah.

00:23:50.060 I mean, I was raised by women, so I write neatly and I'm super organized that that's, that's, you

00:23:55.820 know, that's, that's why then I know how to clean toilets. Well, cause I iron, I did it all, 0.73

00:24:01.020 you know? So, I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm a, I'm a planner and it just feels better to know

00:24:07.100 where my day is going. Um, uh, even right now, like, I mean,

00:24:11.420 there's a certain circumstance right now we started it. We don't need to get into it, but

00:24:15.420 you know, my life right now is a little bit of a volcanic eruption of people calling me and things

00:24:20.540 like that. And, um, uh, and, and, and all I did when I was driving here is I pulled up my phone and

00:24:26.380 I'm like, yep, good. That's the focus. Everybody else can talk to me when I have time, you know,

00:24:31.660 and that, that, that gives me peace and that gives me focus. And, um, uh, I asked you before,

00:24:37.180 before the show, how do you handle, you know, HR volcanic eruptions, human resources, volcanic

00:24:42.460 eruptions. And you're like, well, you gotta go back to just, you know, getting organized and casting

00:24:47.660 the vision and helping people navigate through it. And I know I, anyway, I think you have to have the

00:24:53.420 right, the right mission and the right reason for what you're doing. And then people will see that

00:24:59.020 in you. And then things will, things will settle. You know, things will settle. I wasn't a good

00:25:03.260 planner until I met Paul. You weren't or you were? Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. I would have thought

00:25:08.780 that you were like the order person. No, no, no. She's an artist by trade. Business wise. I, and then

00:25:15.740 I would like you, I have everything on my calendar. Absolutely. It has to be there. Yeah. Good job. Good job.

00:25:21.580 Way to go. Well, I can see also in real estate, you know, the more, the young, uh, the younger real

00:25:28.460 estate agents that we came across in the last year or two, a lot of them, quite frankly, struggle with

00:25:33.420 time management. You could see it to the point where, you know, at some points in time, we were

00:25:38.620 actually, um, we were, because we were busy in our own business. We were having them help us with some of

00:25:43.980 the sales of the house and we were actually taking all the showings. We were helping them. So we were doing

00:25:49.500 most of the showings because quite frankly, they couldn't even time allocate the showings. And so

00:25:53.660 we'd be like, are we doing a showing this weekend? They'd be like, yeah. And then, then we get this

00:25:57.260 email, like, can you do the showing today or can you show up or can you be involved? And we're like,

00:26:03.100 you know, okay, that's kind of weird. You know, I'm, I'm double booked or I don't have enough staff

00:26:07.260 or, and I'm like, okay, well then maybe your time management skills weren't great because you

00:26:11.820 didn't figure all that out. And you're the one who has to be there to follow up the leads. Because, you know,

00:26:16.700 in real estate, I can be there and as the owner, I can teach someone about a house. Like I can go

00:26:22.540 through the house because I built it right. I can say, this is this, that's that. But when they leave,

00:26:28.460 it's the most important part is, yeah, sure. They got a good seminar from me about what the house was

00:26:33.340 and how it was built, but I'm not the one who follows up with them. I'm not the one who deals

00:26:37.340 with the trauma of finding financing and figuring out, you know, all the family issues and whether or not

00:26:43.820 they have a cat, a dog, where they go to the bathroom, that's the real estate agent, right?

00:26:47.500 That's the human dynamic that a real estate agent has. So time management, you know, real,

00:26:53.340 really key. And I can see why you're saying it is branding. So this is an interesting part,

00:26:58.220 start your own business, right? And the best companies in the world don't sell, they brand.

00:27:05.180 For example, Apple never tried to convert you into buying an iPhone. Instead,

00:27:10.940 they painted a picture of the iPhone experience. They focus on branding. I do the same, right? It's

00:27:18.060 a great quote, right? And I think, you know, it really speaks to the fact that you as your own real

00:27:27.660 estate top producer, whatever company you're with have to work on what that brand is. Sure. Yeah. And

00:27:34.140 how did you do it? Like, so you, you created like, you know, brand presentation, the way you come off,

00:27:39.180 like, how, how did you kind of, you know, your background, your, your family didn't teach you

00:27:44.540 that? No. Right. So you didn't learn that. You might have learned it from someone. A few things,

00:27:48.860 a few things. Yeah. Um, so when, uh, I, I, I definitely used, okay. So we, we are standing on

00:27:56.780 a mountain of value. We just can't see it. Okay. Let me explain this further. Um, so there's a lot of

00:28:03.260 experiences that every person that's in the real estate game, like, like, you know, in the real

00:28:08.220 estate industry, as salespeople, there's a lot of stuff that we bring to the table, but because

00:28:12.380 we're standing on top of that mountain of value, we, we don't look down to, to say, oh, I can offer

00:28:17.660 all of this. Instead, we're looking at somebody else's mountain and we, we, we find that, oh, but

00:28:21.980 that guy has this and that guy has this. So the very important thing in branding is to understand,

00:28:27.260 first of all, what you bring to the table. Okay. So for me, um, I brought to the table. I, in fact,

00:28:33.180 I said this at the beginning, I said, I speak house better than anyone else because of my schooling.

00:28:37.100 So I was like, okay, you want to work with me because I speak house. I actually verbatim,

00:28:41.260 I would say I speak house better than anyone else. Um, I'm also, uh, creative and detail oriented. So

00:28:47.020 when I would build my presentations for sellers and buyers, um, it would be creatively displayed on a

00:28:53.340 PowerPoint presentation. I would take the time to do it myself. It would be, you know,

00:28:56.940 when they come and I'm doing the presentation, it would say, welcome, John and Lucy. Um, I can't

00:29:01.900 work, wait to work with you. And they would come in and sit down and that's what they would see on

00:29:05.260 the screen. These are things that I was doing nine years ago. Um, uh, and people are still not doing

00:29:10.140 it right now. And I'm like, guys, that, that is the brand. That's the value that you bring. Right.

00:29:14.620 Um, for me, it was very important to have a business card, the folder, a bottle of water,

00:29:19.180 like, you know, can I offer you some coffee and just build that experience. Right. And I thought that that

00:29:23.980 was very important to my success. It was very important. It's kind of like building the

00:29:27.820 experience through the brand to, to, to tell people, Hey, it's different with, with me, you

00:29:32.540 know, it's not, it's not typical with me. So, um, that's kind of how, how I did it in my time and how

00:29:38.060 I do it right now, actually, even with my coaching and stuff like that, like, I do want to create that.

00:29:42.460 I still do it. Actually. I had a one-on-one, um, um, uh, meeting with one of my one-on-one clients.

00:29:48.620 And, uh, and as he came into the room, it said, you know, I'm a welcome, Eric, get ready to blast

00:29:54.300 off this year as we were planning for, and he walked in and he's like, wow, that's me. And I'm

00:29:57.820 like, yeah, that's you. And, and it's like, I'm giving even just, it's my standard. It's a,

00:30:03.340 if I start another business, I'm going to do the same thing because it's in me to give the best of

00:30:08.220 me. Right. So I think that's part of my brand. Right. Right. Yeah. No, no. And it's funny in your

00:30:14.300 takeaways, cause each of the chapters, and I'm not gonna, I didn't go through the takeaways

00:30:18.140 because quite frankly, I want people to read the book. So, cause I think the takeaways are the

00:30:24.460 most valuable part because those are the things that if, if I was wanting, wanting to be, well,

00:30:29.340 anyway, I I'm actually reminding me of a few things in our own business that I'm going to use. And in

00:30:35.100 this business that I want to go back and use. So it, you know, you could, you can take those

00:30:39.180 learnings and take them to other businesses. But if I was a, wanted to be a top producer,

00:30:43.820 I definitely would go through and I actually pin those, uh, takeaways. So I made sure I was

00:30:49.420 following them. So build your brand when the world sleeps, not in lead gen time. So I love this one

00:30:56.700 because when I saw it, you know, this is one that I try to explain to my own team, uh, in my other

00:31:01.420 businesses. And I say to them, you know, it's great to be on a computer. It's great to do all those

00:31:07.900 things. Right. But you know, today's daylight, right. And in daylight, you know, just like when

00:31:15.100 you're a builder, when the weather's good, you better be working 18 hours a day. Absolutely.

00:31:19.980 When you live in Canada, you know, yeah, cold fingers don't work well. Yeah. Yeah. And so quite

00:31:25.100 frankly, you better be building and you better be building fast, uh, you know, in, in good weather.

00:31:29.980 So here, you know, don't use up your lead generation time, what to brand brand at night,

00:31:37.500 brand on off weekends, brand when you can, you know, your social media, your, your media packages,

00:31:42.780 you're creating those kind of, and again, which leads back to your initial kind of value setting

00:31:48.940 of sacrifice. Oh my God. You took the words out of my mind. I'm like, I'm going to wait until you

00:31:52.620 finish the speaking. And then I'm going to tell him and then you're like, bam. And I'm like, oh,

00:31:55.660 you took my, my, my, my key point. No, no, no. But you're absolutely right. Yes. Yes. That's the

00:32:01.260 connection. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. You have to. And that, and you know, so many times

00:32:05.340 people, you know, they sit around and they're during the day, they're trying to create, what

00:32:09.100 are you doing while I'm branding something or I'm creating, I'm on social, you know, I'm doing my,

00:32:14.060 you know, let's be serious. Whether you're doing something on Canva or whether you're doing a post or

00:32:20.620 putting it on plannable or whatever, those are things you can do at night. You can do at the

00:32:24.940 end of your day. Those are things like, like, you know, but quite frankly, when people are

00:32:28.940 up and breathing and moving and talking and working, talking to them. Yeah, exactly. You

00:32:32.780 better be selling. Absolutely. That's when you got to be selling, which, you know, we, we kind of

00:32:37.260 created it and I, you know, spend a little time on it. It's funny. Cause I reintroduced it into my teams,

00:32:46.140 the word selling. So selling became a dirty word for a little while. So there became a time when people

00:32:51.820 like, you know, don't sell me, it has to be organic. Right. And I, I reintroduced them again.

00:32:56.940 I said, no, I said, we are selling. I said, we, we don't have to tell people we're selling them,

00:33:02.540 but when we talk internally, this is now sales function. So, you know, because what was happening,

00:33:09.580 you know, people were spending a lot of time in our own building thinking that they were working.

00:33:16.380 And I kept saying to him, but our potential customers are out there.

00:33:20.700 Right. They're not here, you know, so we can, we can figure all this out. But at some point,

00:33:26.700 if we never leave this building, we're only going to hit the people we have.

00:33:31.180 Yeah. Yeah. And the business will naturally die at some point. Right. Like it just, you know,

00:33:36.540 that that's the fulfillment piece, but there's also always a selling and education piece that comes

00:33:41.180 prior to the fulfillment and operations part without selling and without education to the client and

00:33:46.700 acquiring more clients, your business is going to have slight, die a slow death. You know, like,

00:33:51.180 it's just, you know, the revenues are going to, you know,

00:33:53.500 Which then, Craig Frank, so when chapter five, when you talk about presence and professionalism,

00:33:58.860 the reason is because, you know, and this is what we had to work on, Craig Frank, which was very

00:34:04.300 interesting because, and I'm not knocking, you know, I, I, I love different generations younger

00:34:09.260 than me, so I won't be hard on them, but your professionalism and presence you have to work on.

00:34:15.340 That's not a, it doesn't just happen overnight, right? Your look, your feel, how you approach,

00:34:22.460 what your, how you, like your presentations you're talking about. So, and you talk about it in chapter

00:34:29.180 five, right? And, and you, you, your professionalism, you're, it's interesting. You talked about it here.

00:34:35.660 You're conscious of your punctuality. Absolutely. Well, your, your perception of me

00:34:41.980 is dependent on how I show up, right? And perception is reality, right? You could really like me,

00:34:47.420 but if all of a sudden you perceive me to be always like late and, you know, I show up like a slob

00:34:53.740 every time, then how, how likely are you to want to do anything with me? You know, if all things are

00:34:59.660 equal and someone shows up on time and, and well-dressed and, and well-prepared and someone,

00:35:06.380 and another person, same thing, you know, you know, them both the same, they're both family members, 0.87

00:35:09.980 whatever, but they show up late looking like a slob. You know, you ask them a question, they're 1.00

00:35:14.940 spaced out. They don't know what's going on. They look like they just woke up. They have sleep in their eye,

00:35:18.540 you know, and, and like, who are you going to want to be spending more time with? Like, let's get

00:35:23.340 serious. Right. And people want to say, Oh, well, no, you know, you're reading a book by its cover.

00:35:27.580 Give me a break, man. This is business. Okay. This is business. So on a personal note, you know what?

00:35:33.580 Yeah, I can, I can wear no shirt in a short in shorts and, and at the beach is a different story.

00:35:39.100 When we're talking about business, we need to get serious and people are perceiving us how we show up.

00:35:44.300 Right. So that's why I say presence is very important. It's how you show up.

00:35:48.060 People are going to perceive you and just depends. You want a successful business or do you want a

00:35:51.500 business that people are like, I'll go with this person because they just look better and I feel

00:35:55.100 more confident in them. That's, well, I'm going to tell you an interesting story. So one of the,

00:35:59.820 one of the agents we had along the, the pathway, you know, and it didn't work out.

00:36:04.220 So she's not listening. Don't worry. No, that's all right. We're not mentioning any names.

00:36:09.260 So the, the, the thing came to an end, you know, and, and we said, okay, we, we're not being

00:36:13.980 successful at this, at this point. So let's just continue. I said, your signs are here.

00:36:20.460 Right. So I took the signs and, and signs are not inexpensive. No. Right. So, and I went and

00:36:28.060 took them out of the ground, took them to my other business. Right. Said, you know, come by, grab some

00:36:32.380 lunch and, you know, we'll do a wrap up and then you pick up your signs. Yeah. Signs are still there.

00:36:36.860 After a few months, it's still there. She never showed up when she said she should want, would

00:36:42.620 show up. It's not about the signs though. It's not about the signs. No, I don't get it. Yeah.

00:36:46.940 It's up to her side. She doesn't want to pay. She doesn't want to, she wants, she has so much money. 1.00

00:36:51.180 She's not worried about the signs. It's just the fact that I would do a followup. So if it doesn't

00:36:56.140 work out to the, you know, in business, you know, we were talking about it before on another, there was a

00:37:00.140 gentleman who was in here before and he told a story about a real bad experience during COVID where his

00:37:05.260 businesses crashed. He had to start over again. It was one of those stories you hear once in a

00:37:09.500 while. And it was a good story because he's resurrected and he's doing well. So it's a nice

00:37:14.060 story, but you know, you hear about those things and you think to yourself, it's, it's not about whether

00:37:21.980 you picked up the signs or not. It's about the fact that if you didn't do well, you should come

00:37:26.140 and follow up and say, what could I have done better? And how did you perceive what I did?

00:37:30.620 Absolutely. Therefore I have a learning experience and I can say, okay, how do I get better?

00:37:34.140 Right. Let me, let me tell you something that I did. I didn't win every listing. Not, not every

00:37:39.980 buyer wanted to work with me. Sometimes you connect or sometimes you don't. But when I did lose a

00:37:44.620 listing, let's say that they went with somebody else. Absolutely. It was, Hey, John, you know,

00:37:51.660 I like to do market research all the time. I'm happy that you made a decision that was comfortable with

00:37:55.900 you. And just, just so that I can improve myself, what can I have done better to earn your business? And

00:38:00.540 that was a standard. In fact, I love doing it. I, I, I love reaching out to people for feedback

00:38:06.620 because feedback is the breakfast of champions and I'm a very competitive guy. So I always,

00:38:11.100 you know, reach out and say, tell me how I can be better. I need to know how. And, and back to the

00:38:16.780 sign situation is not about the sign. It's about the values of that individual as an individual,

00:38:22.540 her, her morals are off. Right? Like, I mean, you know, she provided a service. You weren't necessarily 1.00

00:38:27.260 happy because she has to go pick up the signs. You know what? Like show up with pride, man,

00:38:31.260 go pick up your signs and say, I'm here. Like I'm here. It didn't work out, but, um, uh, how about,

00:38:36.300 you know, what else is going around in your life? I mean, there's anyone, do you think I can help?

00:38:39.660 What could I have done better to like, there's so much opportunity that she missed out so much

00:38:44.700 opportunity. Give her my number. I love to coach her. Okay. 0.97

00:38:47.420 No, no, you know, I agree. So, you know, chapter six, marketing and messaging, uh, which a great

00:38:55.420 chapter and the goal of marketing is to create a customer who is a loyal, who is so loyal,

00:39:01.500 they will never consider buying from anyone else. Walt Disney. So yeah, great, great, uh, phrase. Um,

00:39:09.420 and then you get into something, which is interesting. I highlighted it because quite frankly,

00:39:13.420 as an entrepreneur, this is the hardest one. I think it is one of the hardest things to have

00:39:20.620 courage and keep faith to do marketing number one. And you, you pointed out the seven 11 for,

00:39:29.100 uh, four rule, which is something I I've heard in my life many times, right? Uh, seven hours of content

00:39:35.820 consume four platforms, uh, and 11 touches. Yeah. So, so, you know, um,

00:39:43.180 or, you know, the way it goes, but, uh, you know, it's interesting because you can get in the middle

00:39:49.020 of this and you can give up because you're losing faith because you're not getting the results you

00:39:53.740 want. So you stop and you say to yourself, you know, I gotta shoot seven hours of content and that

00:40:00.780 is grueling. And I gotta put, you know, scripting together. I gotta get a video shoot. I gotta write

00:40:06.060 an article. I gotta do like, I gotta do, I gotta do, I gotta do, and I gotta do,

00:40:11.100 I have platforms. I'm putting it on, which social today is hard as heck, you know, it's even,

00:40:17.500 yeah, it's even harder. And a lot of them are bots. So you're doing that. And quite frankly,

00:40:23.580 so your platform's hard to figure out costly at times. And then how do I know I got the 11 touches,

00:40:31.740 right? So, so here's the thing. It's, it's seven hours of content consumed by your

00:40:39.740 potential client, which means that you gotta shoot probably 47 hours of content and they have

00:40:45.660 to consume that amount, right? The seven. So the idea behind this is that in order for them to

00:40:51.820 actually want to do business with you, they have to consume seven hours of content. So what you need to

00:40:57.580 do nowadays is you have to lean into, into, into YouTube and, and create long form content.

00:41:03.340 That's big right now from long form content. You can then chop it up and create short form content.

00:41:09.820 You need to do webinars so that they see your authority. And then they're like, wow, that's,

00:41:13.980 that's amazing. Like this, this lady, this guy, like they know what they're talking about. This is,

00:41:17.740 this is good. So you're building trust, building trust, building trust, and four different platforms,

00:41:22.300 because they need to feel like, wow, this, this, this person is omnipresent. It's like,

00:41:27.420 no matter where I look, they're, they're, they're coming up. So, I mean, many people trust them.

00:41:31.980 Their, their voice is being heard. You know what? I'm going to trust them too. I'm going to do some

00:41:36.860 business with them too. And that's the idea around that is that we need to, you know, be cognizant of

00:41:41.660 the fact that people need to see you a lot more often than we think before they say yes to you.

00:41:47.980 That's, that's ultimately, and that's why people like the Sam McDaddy's of the world, the Frank Leo's

00:41:55.660 of the world, right? They are everywhere. So you may, you are actually consuming them as you're driving,

00:42:01.260 you're consuming them on the radio, you're consuming them everywhere before,

00:42:06.140 by the time that you're ready, everybody, you know, people usually move within seven to 10 years.

00:42:11.100 So within that period of time, seven to 10 years, you've consumed more of the agents that are out

00:42:16.780 there marketing themselves. And therefore, who are you going to call? Not Ghostbusters. You're going

00:42:21.020 to call, you're going to, you're going to call Sam McDaddy. You're going to call Frank Leo, because

00:42:25.020 they have every sign billboard. They're on the radio. Sam McDaddy is wearing his, his shirts at the

00:42:31.260 Raptors game. You see him, he's front and center. He's like, here I am. He's, he's forced

00:42:36.060 you to consume him. And at that point, now you're like, man, I got it. Obviously, obviously,

00:42:40.940 I'm going to go with the guy that's everywhere. Right? So it's consumption of content. And in this

00:42:45.420 case, marketing and branding and getting yourself out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree.

00:42:49.980 Chapter seven systems and processes. People fail, but systems win. And Shara, you know,

00:42:55.500 when I read this chapter, I thought about Shara and her previous business,

00:42:59.180 you know, creating the processes to with, to make this successful business is really important.

00:43:04.780 Even to operate a business is important, right? Because you got to get those and our other

00:43:09.180 business is all process driven, right? It's very like, you know, from A to B to C. And, you know,

00:43:16.140 I think in our marketing lives, we had to kind of create those processes in order to even do that,

00:43:23.100 because, you know, it's so busy not to meet, not to miss those steps. So, and I think, you know,

00:43:30.140 Shara has the systems background, which helped us quite a bit, right? To, you know, from social to

00:43:36.460 everything else. Yeah. You have to balance everything, right? You have to go after that

00:43:41.180 platform you created. It's not just creating the platform. You have to go at it and look at it. If

00:43:46.380 it's getting any likes and people are viewing it or not, like the website, you have to go and see

00:43:54.540 if anybody is looking at your website. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And this is AI generation.

00:43:59.420 It's so easy to figure out if somebody is looking at it or not. And where it's coming from. Yeah.

00:44:04.140 Yeah. Yeah. And then put more effort into that and split testing, all that stuff. Again,

00:44:08.060 there's processes, there's systems around it. Yeah. Yeah. If you put a hundred percent into something and

00:44:12.300 it's not working, you have to shift and you have to go to, if website is not working, we have to go

00:44:17.740 to the paper base. Yeah. Like that's how we created a newspaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

00:44:23.340 Meadowvale, Meadowvale Pauls. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. We have in Mississauga and Scarborough.

00:44:30.060 Yeah. Yeah. We had to, to get that process to drive. We, again, we, we took the learnings of all our

00:44:36.220 businesses and we tried to make them as process driven as we can. And what we're trying to do now with

00:44:41.740 podcasting is do the same. So we're trying to get, it's a little more difficult. So we're

00:44:46.300 figuring it out, but quite frankly, you know, to keep, create that process. So it drives on its own,

00:44:52.140 you know, show schedule shows, get written, people go up. Like it has to have that process. And in real

00:44:58.460 estate, that system and process is even more important, right? Because the competitiveness of it,

00:45:05.020 and quite frankly, the number of targets you're going to be trying to hit.

00:45:08.460 Yeah. And the number of people you're a target for. So, um, there's all types of technology

00:45:14.700 companies that are going to be like, Oh, try this, try that. This is going to make you more

00:45:18.380 productive. This is going to, so, you know, more than ever, um, it is important to have a process

00:45:23.260 of how you get your results and stick to it. Um, you know, I see a lot of agents taking a lot of

00:45:29.500 calls for, Oh, I want to know, like they're in consumption mode where they, they want to consume

00:45:35.020 information, but it's like, okay, like instead of making the phone calls that you're supposed to

00:45:39.420 make, you're taking a call with, um, blue, blue ribbon, um, tech because they claim that they can

00:45:46.780 do all the AI conversations for you. And dude, just call people and talk to them and do the

00:45:51.660 conversations and send a stinking WhatsApp message and send a video and say, Hey, I'm thinking about

00:45:55.740 you. Happy birthday. Like that. Like it's not that difficult. You know what I'm saying? You don't

00:45:59.500 need technology. The, the, the way that it's been, it's been portrayed out there. It's kind of like,

00:46:05.100 Oh, you could just let AI run your business and just go drink mojitos on, you know, in Mexico and

00:46:09.740 Cancun. No, that's not it, man. There's still work to be done, you know? So, um, uh, yeah, yeah. You

00:46:16.380 build your processes and then stick to it and protect it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, chapter eight, tracking

00:46:22.060 activities and numbers. So motivation is like bathing. You have to do it every day or else you stink.

00:46:27.020 This is Zig Ziglar. I don't know if, have you ever, have you had an opportunity to listen to his stuff?

00:46:32.380 It's listening. His voice is like, you know, when you listen to his voice, it's like, there's only one.

00:46:36.460 Absolutely. And for those of you who haven't, Zig is the best. Yeah. Zig is legendary. I don't know.

00:46:42.460 Yeah. He's more in your, in your time. Like, yeah, he's older than me. Yeah. He's older than me.

00:46:46.620 But yeah, I think, and if he's still kicking great, but, uh, you know, his stuff was amazing and his

00:46:53.740 motivational speaking and his humor, the way he presented it, it was, it was really well put

00:46:57.900 together, but it was very direct in the end, right? Yeah. A guy, Southern draw from the U S born in a

00:47:03.820 very poor, uh, city and, uh, basically with a family that was lower income. So he tells the story of how

00:47:11.820 he struggled through the depression and all that good stuff, but a very, very tough times, but,

00:47:17.180 you know, tracking. So, you know, supercharging your hot list is kind of what, when I read this chapter,

00:47:22.620 I got out of it, I say, you know what, uh, with everyone, you know, is figuring out the way to,

00:47:28.380 to successfully parse through all the data that you have and what I call the low lying fruit,

00:47:35.580 figuring out the low lying fruit. So you can actually pick it. Yep. And that's no matter

00:47:39.980 which business you're in real estate, you know, any business, even this, quite frankly, even

00:47:44.700 podcasting, it's, you know, parsing through the number of shows that you could possibly do to find

00:47:50.060 ones that are of interest. People want to watch and, uh, quite frankly, talk about,

00:47:55.100 and that's how it, so real estate, that's gotta be your challenge, right? Cause your field,

00:48:00.380 like how many homes list, you know, well, now there's a zillion homes listed. They don't,

00:48:06.140 they're not selling as fast, right? Yeah. But you must kind of, you know, uh, to be successful,

00:48:11.980 you have to pick the winners because you can pick, you can pick homes that are overvalued and won't sell

00:48:17.100 in the marketplace. Right. So you, you know, and that's great. So you, you know, when people look

00:48:21.980 at your listing thing and say, wow, you know, Chris has a zillion listings, right? But selling any,

00:48:28.380 yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay. Uh, there's, there's two, two pieces to that. One, one piece is, I think as,

00:48:36.700 um, as a community, as a real estate sales person community, I think we're doing a really bad job in,

00:48:44.460 in having candid, honest, and not the funnest conversation with our clients. So a lot of

00:48:50.060 times we come to the table and we want to please, we don't want to, we don't want to tell them the

00:48:54.380 truth. And, and that is why there's so many listings that are not selling because if they came with facts

00:49:00.620 and they stopped trying to live in the world of Narnia and walk through the closet and be like,

00:49:04.940 ah, yeah, whatever I think can come true, because some things just are not going to, you're like,

00:49:10.060 we're really not that special guys. Seriously. If, if the market says that that property is not worth

00:49:15.580 it, you know, like good luck. Okay. You're going to have to actually have a lose win situation where

00:49:21.980 you are blindsiding another client and they're going to purchase a property at a, at a much higher value.

00:49:28.940 It's not, it's not what the market is, is, is, is asking for the property. So that what's happening

00:49:34.620 is we're not having the right conversations and we're not having honest conversations with our clients.

00:49:39.660 So every time that I see a listing that is sitting for a very long period of time is because honestly,

00:49:45.500 just the same way that I say, when you see a kid that's misbehaved, the chances are it's not the

00:49:49.820 kid's fault. It's the parent's fault. So here we go. When you see a house that's sitting for a long

00:49:53.660 period of time, it's not the seller's fault. It's the agent's fault because we have to have those really

00:49:59.500 hard conversations and say, guys, hold on a second. Maybe I need to explain it from another angle.

00:50:04.780 Maybe we need to look at it from here. Maybe I need to get someone else to say it,

00:50:07.980 but I'm going to make you understand that is not, we're going to, what we're going to be able to get

00:50:11.740 for your property at this time. If that's not what you want, we have to wait. And if you don't want

00:50:16.620 to wait, we have to sell at this price point. So it's expectation. So that's one side of it.

00:50:20.700 Yeah. Um, uh, and I totally forgot the other side. There was two sides that, that when you, when you

00:50:25.260 mentioned, what did you mention there? Tracking. Tracking and a super hot list. It's reducing,

00:50:31.100 you're getting your hot list narrowed down so you can make as a real estate agent, you know,

00:50:35.660 you have to make commission. So you got to hit. So there's no point in having a whole,

00:50:39.740 a whole portfolio of overpriced homes. That doesn't make sense at all. Yeah.

00:50:44.380 That's not good for your clients. That's not good for you. Yeah. Right. Sorry. Low hanging fruit and

00:50:48.300 all that. Um, uh, yes, but, but in tough times, we need to have tough conversations and we have been

00:50:54.620 trained to, to come and say, yeah, absolutely. I'll do this. Uh, yeah, yeah, sure. I'll put it for whatever.

00:50:59.820 And then we go and we go with a price change with a PC and we say, oh, now we have to drop the price.

00:51:04.300 So, so it's this thing that we think it's okay to tell the client. Sure. Yeah. The house is worth

00:51:09.340 a million. I'll list it for 2.5. Yeah. Whatever you want. And then we come back two weeks later.

00:51:13.020 And we're like, remember, I told you it wasn't going to sell, but why did you even list it?

00:51:16.140 Like it's a waste of time for the client. It's a waste of time for you. The problem here is

00:51:20.140 communication. So yes, we can get to the low hanging fruit because we're not having

00:51:24.700 clear enough communication. I think we're not, we're not explaining things. We're not educating

00:51:29.740 things enough as a community. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's interesting because,

00:51:34.540 you know, I was, um, reading through, uh, the next chapter, chapter nine,

00:51:39.500 and this is productivity and growth. So, and the one that really got me here is

00:51:45.340 time or money. And I'm gonna, I'm just gonna read this. Cause I, I love this, this paragraph,

00:51:50.620 uh, it was terrific. And, and when, I guess when you were writing it, I understood totally what you're

00:51:56.460 going through. Improving productivity means doing more in less time. It also means doing

00:52:01.740 the same thing better so that you attract more business instead of having to hunt for it.

00:52:07.420 But another way of thinking to think of productivity is to do what you're doing,

00:52:12.860 but gradually do less and less of it so that your business can support the life you want to live.

00:52:18.380 So, you know, and that's, that is so true, you know, and in a country it's interesting. So I think

00:52:28.620 we've, uh, in Canada, not in the U S cause the U S is productivity is so much higher than ours all

00:52:34.860 around. Right. And we're, uh, you know, the, the finance minister, finance minister Freeland,

00:52:40.860 you know, in the last government, you know, she warned us about this. She said, listen,

00:52:44.780 our productivity is just dropping off the, you know, the shelf dropping off the cliff.

00:52:50.140 Um, and people are like, well, I don't want to work harder, but it's not working harder.

00:52:54.940 It's working to get to a place where your growth and your productivity is at such a great level

00:53:02.540 that you can do less now. And I think people didn't equate that. I think, I think people sometimes

00:53:07.420 when, you know, we say, well, we need to grow and we need more productivity. They, well, that's hard work,

00:53:12.780 but that hard work leads you to a place where, you know, where if you're, you know, some of the

00:53:17.420 gentlemen you mentioned as real estate agents, you know, if you've done that work, put that out there,

00:53:21.820 done that time, then you can kind of, you know, not coast, but you can kind of say, okay, now I can

00:53:27.500 sit back a little and reap the gains of the work I've done to increase my productivity and let the

00:53:33.580 process drive my sales. Right. And in real estate, uh, my observation is so many people talk about

00:53:41.900 the teams they build and the things they do, but they don't mention the product productivity of

00:53:48.220 their teams. So, and that's kind of, because I, I've had, we've had agents and they, you know,

00:53:55.580 they say, well, I have a team and we're like, great. You have a team, right? The only person

00:53:59.980 we ever see is that agent again. Right. We never see the team. And I think to myself,

00:54:05.020 that's kind of odd because if I had a, a team, like I have teams, right, that work in my businesses,

00:54:11.020 quite frankly, people see me, but they see the teams more than they see me because the processes and the

00:54:16.620 productivity levels and the growth scenarios are all spelled out enough that they know when I leave

00:54:21.980 the room where they go next. Right. So when, when, when agents talk about, well, let's, let's just,

00:54:28.780 um, uh, peel the curtain back a little bit. So a team is, is, is any, anything more than one.

00:54:35.820 So in theory, I mean, they can have their husband and wife working for them and all of a sudden they're

00:54:41.420 a team, right? Yeah. A team is also 99 people or 150. So, um, uh, a lot of times, you know,

00:54:47.900 people are using the word teams and you don't really know like, okay, that's, that's nice.

00:54:51.500 But like, how do you make my life easier? Nobody really cares whether you have a team or not. You

00:54:56.460 can be one person, but if you're very efficient and productive, um, uh, this is going to be fantastic,

00:55:01.740 but you can have a team of 99 people and, um, you know, you can have a mess in terms of your

00:55:08.140 processes where that 99 people makes you incredibly unproductive late. Um, uh, you're never able to

00:55:14.700 accomplish anything because you're babysitting team members, because you don't have onboarding

00:55:19.260 processes and, and you don't have off boarding processes of the people that, you know, it's

00:55:22.940 another thing you have to hire super slow and fire fast. Cause you know, people are gonna, are

00:55:27.180 gonna, they're gonna be drags in your business if you don't train them properly. So a team that is,

00:55:32.940 uh, that's kind of like, you know, super unclear. When people say I have a team, you gotta say,

00:55:38.220 okay, great. How does, what, where did your team improve your process? I think that's the next

00:55:42.220 question that should be asked. Fantastic. You have a team. How does your team make you more

00:55:46.140 productive, more efficient? Right. Um, a lot of people also talk about, uh, how much, a lot of

00:55:51.420 agents talk about how much money they've made. The question is how much money have they kept?

00:55:56.300 Um, uh, so that's another, that's another, you know, these are certain, you know, curtains that we have to

00:56:00.860 open up and talk about the reality of it, right? Like maybe you're wasting, you're making a lot of

00:56:05.340 money, but maybe you're wasting money and you're not really looking at your business. Um, financial

00:56:10.540 stress can lead to bad, bad decisions for the client. Right. So you want to make sure that, that,

00:56:16.380 you know, whoever you, the people are working with you and choosing to work with have, they have good

00:56:20.300 financial models that allow them to make sound decisions, um, uh, so that you can get the results.

00:56:25.500 Right. So teams, uh, money, I made all the money. I have a team. Like, those are all things that,

00:56:30.540 you know, top top, uh, you know, number one, and then they have the asterisks and it's like,

00:56:35.420 yeah, I'm number one, but from houses sold in 2021 from January to February, you know, like,

00:56:40.460 so, so these, these are all the things that you have to look out for, for teams and all that

00:56:45.820 productivity. I think a lot of times I'm going to segue into something that's not in the book. It's

00:56:50.700 when you're selecting people, right. I think it's very important that, that there's a, there's a

00:56:56.300 certain level of trust and you have to kind of feel that, and that is not on marketing material.

00:57:01.340 That is not on how many signs you have on the lawn. Um, a lot of things that we skip is the,

00:57:07.420 the chemistry between the client and, and, and the real estate professional. I think we have to,

00:57:12.700 that's a piece that I perhaps don't talk about there, but I think, um, it, it may or may not,

00:57:17.980 it works for some people. It doesn't work for others because they don't have a good presence to

00:57:21.260 them, but I guess I talk about it in presence, but, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, you know,

00:57:26.060 the last part and you started with this, so I'm going to kind of end with it, be courageous,

00:57:30.460 create quality and live inspired. And you use that, you know, in the, when you wrote, you know,

00:57:35.580 the jacket of this book, you actually, you, you put it in there, right? Yeah. So little background.

00:57:42.540 Yeah. So, um, uh, yeah, again, as I was going through my understanding of what it is to run a

00:57:48.780 business. Okay. Cause I wasn't born with knowledge. You have to acquire that. Um, I was asked,

00:57:55.100 you know, you got, you know, you're, you're 98 years old and you know, you got, we're keeping you

00:58:00.700 alive by a machine and you decided, I want you to turn that off, man. I don't want to be a burden to

00:58:04.780 anybody. Okay, great. What are you going to tell your children in 30 seconds or less? And, um, and it

00:58:10.380 wasn't 30 seconds that I, that I thought about that, but I was like, you know, and I, and I wrote it down

00:58:15.100 quickly and then I summarized it to that. But, um, but you know, if I may explain it, you know,

00:58:21.340 um, be courageous. I think everything starts with courage, you know, starting this podcast starts

00:58:26.540 with courage. Um, uh, it requires money. It requires incredible personnel with vision.

00:58:31.020 It requires editing. It requires costs. It requires all types of stuff, time, you know,

00:58:35.580 so that that's a courage piece. So in anything you do in life, I think you have to start with courage,

00:58:40.060 period. Okay. Um, but then after that, once you have the courage to start, you know, when I look

00:58:46.380 around, you guys have put quality into this thing, right? Like this is quality, this, this is quality,

00:58:52.220 this, you've taken the time to build this thing. This is, this is, you guys are right in alignment

00:58:55.980 with my values. That's the reason why we get along. Let me just, let me just say that. In fact,

00:58:59.980 I've told you guys before, like, I just love the way that you live your life, the way you show up.

00:59:03.980 Um, uh, so that's, that's the, the, the quality piece. And then lastly, the inspiration piece. I think

00:59:09.020 it's important that, you know, every time that I, I speak to someone, I just want to leave them or,

00:59:16.220 or somehow leave something behind that inspires them, motivates them to move forward. Um, uh,

00:59:21.900 you guys do that for me every time, every time I talk to you guys, you're, you're like, you know,

00:59:25.660 I don't want to get into that, but you're like, Hey, I think you could be this. I think we could do

00:59:29.020 this. Let's do that. So, so I mean, you know, if there's anybody here that's living those values is,

00:59:34.140 is you guys. And, um, and, and, you know, I'll close it with that. I think you guys are

00:59:38.460 courageous. I'm always leading with quality and, and very inspirational. So, um, yeah,

00:59:43.180 no, and you do. And, you know, for those of you, you know, I, I, we read it, we love the book.

00:59:48.540 So thank you, Chris and real top producer. Um, it's not only for, and I, this is an interesting

00:59:55.820 thing. And I, I wanted to leave this with the, the audience before we go. It's not only for real

01:00:01.660 estate. I think I pulled a lot out of it from my other businesses and also if you're interested

01:00:07.500 in real estate. So if you're on the other side and you're a buyer or a seller, it's an interesting

01:00:11.980 read for them too, just to sort of the qualities that they should be looking for with people they're

01:00:16.460 working with. So I think it has, it hits a lot of audiences and, uh, I really enjoyed it. Uh,

01:00:21.500 thanks, Chris. Thank you so much. Thank you.

01:00:23.500 We enjoyed this today. I know real estate's a hot topic and, you know, every day we're seeing it on

01:00:28.140 the news. Um, so stay tuned. We're having more shows coming up. We're doing, uh, starting next

01:00:33.980 month, we're doing, uh, weekly shows on the, uh, state of real estate in the different, uh, residential

01:00:41.900 commercial and the different sectors. So, uh, subscribe and we hope to see you soon.

01:00:53.500 Bye.

True Patriot Love - November 20, 2025

How Top 1% Realtors Are Really Made

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