Top 5 Ways to Grow Your Real Estate Business with Randall Martin

So Randall, share a little bit about how you came to be Agent Randall. Agent Randall. Aside from me having to hunt down that domain name for about a year and a half and then finally the guy in California who had it, who was a state farm agent, he finally didn't renew his GoDaddy one year or something, man. And I snatched it. And that was back in like 2009 or eight or something. And I just I believed in one. I wanted to coin something early on. And and and that was it. I don't know how how it came to my head or whatever. But but anyways, man, before that, I was working in the restaurant industry for nine and a half years. And it's and I learned a lot. And that was a that was a good nine and a half years.

And I think it really set the foundation for for customer service and going into this thing. But, you know, it's funny the way that happened. We actually had a regular at the restaurant who would come in all the time. And and she was a Realtor and in the area. And I was always interested, but I was scared to make that transition. And really what happened was I had a back injury and I herniated a disc and I had to have surgery. And I was out for a month at 26 years old and being out of pocket of that industry for 30 days and then going back and trying to get back to that six day work week on your feet, running through the restaurant. You know, the restaurant was 10,800 square feet. So, I mean, you it was a lot of walking and I just couldn't mentally get back into it.

And I think that was in a lot of ways, my body telling me something, God telling me something. It was the it created the perfect storm to transition to something new. It's time to make a change. It was. So I went cold turkey, gave them two months notice, formally resigned as management. Asked them if I could stay on part time. And I got to give a lot of shout out to gringos because they did they did work with me very well and let me stay on and help. So because we all know it takes a little while to make some money in this real estate business. Yes, it does. So, but the rest is history from there. You know, I did two jobs for about a year and a half before I finally went. I want to save full time soon. Awesome.

And since then, you've been a perennial top producer everywhere you are. And so we wanted to kind of talk about what are some of the best practices that you have in your business that help you achieve those things. Because in addition to being a Realtor, you're a dad. Right. Oh, yeah. You have a lot of stuff going on in your life. You are, you know, avid golfer. You do all these different things. It's really kind of fitting a lot of stuff into a day. Right. Absolutely. And so, you know, let's talk a little bit about some of the things that really help you. Well, we're going to steal the title of bullet point number one here on the list.

The things that help you organize the chaos. Right? Yeah. When we were doing our prep, the first thing on the list was organizing the chaos. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes really good sense because it's a lot of chaos sometimes. It is, man. Life can be chaotic, but, you know, a lot of it's perspective. One thing that I'm working on in my life right now is getting away, transitioning away from the word busy. The word busy just creates anxiety. And it's become this thing where instead of it's almost like, hey, how's the weather? That's the most common, you know, it's hot outside today, cool outside today. Well, the next thing is, how's life? Oh, I'm busy. Well, if everybody's busy, then what's really going on? So what it really is, it's a big, it's chaos, but we can create, we can organize it.

I believe there is a way to organize it. And will it ever be perfect? No. There's no such thing. I don't necessarily, I don't, it's hard for me to say that there's a perfect work-life balance. It's always going to be more like a boat. Sometimes it's going to rock. Sometimes it's going to be calm, but, but I'm ultra, ultra freaking crazy protective of my time. And, and it starts with that. I realized years ago that the, you know, money is the most renewable resource out there, but time you cannot renew. We only have a small amount of it. And guess what? We're getting poorer every day because it's getting taken away every day. So, you know, I realized that, and also with, you know, having, having four kids and, and activities and, and people wanting your time with work and wanting this and that, that if you don't have some kind of structure, it's just not going to work.

And so, you know, I, you know, I don't know that in the beginning, I set out with this perfect ideal schedule. I know there's, there's such things as the perfect week and all that kind of stuff. But, but what I really, what I really decided to do differently was put walls or barriers around certain times of the week. Yep. And, and, and I'll start with the most fun of them all, which is golf. I, I, I, I have a day that I carve out during the week to play golf and, and it's not for anything other than one, I, you know, that's, that's my hobby. But two, if I don't recharge these batteries, I'm not the best person that I can be. So I want to, I want to stop for a second.

I want you to tell everybody what day you play golf, because I think that most people say, well, if a Realtor is going to take a day off, if they're going to go play golf on Monday or Tuesday, what day do you play golf? Friday. Friday is golf day. It's non-negotiable, right? What's that? It's non-negotiable, right? It's non-negotiable unless I want to change it. Gotcha. You know, it's, it's, it's someone doesn't take it. It's if I need to change it for something else that I want to replace it with that obviously it's equally valuable. Yep. So, you know, it's funny that, that we're talking about this this morning, because literally last night, my daughter is having to write a paper on a leadership quality. And she has to tie that paper or that leadership quality to something in pop culture.

So a song, a, you know, in today's world, a tick tock video, which I don't know anything about or a movie or something like that. And so I had her watch the Carpe Diem scene from Dead Poets Society. Right. So I pulled that up, showed it to her last night, and then we pulled out the old greatest salesman in the world, Ogmandino, and started reading the, I will act now and I will live this life as, I will live this day as if it is my last scrolls. And she, because at first she didn't understand how that was a leadership quality. And I was like, it's like seizing opportunity, like managing your time and living, you know, living that day as though it's your last.

Like those are absolute leadership qualities because, you know, you're not letting, leaders don't let other people take advantage of their day, like, and control their day. They control their day. And so it's, it's interesting that you talk about this. It's also interesting because I was looking at this, this list that you sent me and the next kind of talking point you had as part of organizing this chaos was your morning routine. Right. So I want to talk about that for a second, but it's interesting because three of the last four weeks that we've recorded this podcast, everybody has talked about morning routine and how super important that is to their ability to control their day, control their mindset, things like that. So tell us what your morning routine looks like.

Yeah. So, um, it's, it's not complicated at all, but, um, I do in order for me to take a Friday to do something like golf, I have to start the same way. So I, I get up and my phone is still on do not disturb in the morning. Um, I, I, I get up way before my phone do not disturb changes. Uh, so I'm up and I, I start my day with quiet time, um, call it me time, prayer time, quiet time, time with me and God. Um, I, and I make my coffee, um, use the restroom of course, and then slide into my office, open up the window. Um, I usually turn some kind of meditation music on, um, or reggae music.

If I'm in the mood for that, that day or something like that, just something kind of calm. And, and, and I like to sit in the quietness, um, and, and every day, um, I, I have my coffee. I read a little devotional and, um, I, I asked God what, you know, thank you for opening doors that I didn't even know existed. Who do you want me to be today? How can I advance your kingdom today? Um, and having that, that quiet. Takes me out of firefighting mode because before I would get up and have anxiety about how many emails look at my phone and it immediately start going into reactive mode of, oh, I need to answer this person right now. I need to do this right now. Oh, this person's texting me now.

Oh my gosh. Why? I'm so guilty of being that, that way. So this is. I think we all are. I mean, I think that's the nature of Realtors, right? I mean, I think, I think it's the nature of anybody that's in the service industry. Yeah. And we just feel that way. So let me ask you this, because I've asked this of, again, three of our last four, four guests who we've talked about this time management element. Since you started putting walls up. Since you started saying this time is my time. This time is, you know, non-negotiable, or I'm going to be doing this with my kids in the evening or whatever that is. How many clients have you lost? None. Exactly. None.

I think, you know, that's one of the points that I've tried to get across in these episodes is, if you set the expectation, people will say, yeah, that makes sense. You are a normal human being and you should be able to spend an evening with your kids and not have to return my phone call. Yeah. So, you know, you can do anything you want because you can set the time. Who created, who are they? Who said that we have to do this? How come, because I'm a Realtor, I'm busy on the weekends? I'm not, Chance. I, I, I, just because I play golf on Friday doesn't mean I don't return any calls or emails on Fridays. I mean, but I do go play golf and I do watch over stuff and I don't really work much on the weekends. I don't, I don't take many appointments unless it's just absolutely necessary because I'm incredibly intentional with my time.

I've set office hours for myself because I primarily office out of home. And so, and if I don't have some kind of hours, then I'm always on. So Monday through Thursday, my office hours are nine to three. Does that mean I work? I never work past three. Come on. Of course I do. But in my mind, my clients between nine and three, I'm available. I'm calling, I'm doing this. You're going to hear from me and that kind of stuff. So, but I don't usually step into my office until nine to work. And then my goal is to be done with my busy work by three. And if I need appointments afterwards, that's fine. But, but it's that, is it, what is it, Chance? Is it Pareto's principle or something? Or time will expand to the time. If you're going to tell yourself that I'm going to be available seven days a week, guess what?

You're going to work seven days a week, but I can probably do more work than you in three or four days. If I'm just intentional with my time, then the person who's doing a little bit every day. Right. Yep. Exactly. All right. So next up on our list, bullet point number two, you had avoiding rejection from objections. Walk us through that. You know, everything is an objection. And that's just, and an objection really is just an object that is in the way of where you're trying to go. So in this business, we get dealt a lot of objections, objections from sellers challenging us or having questions and objections from buyers, other clients, things.

But a lot of times, people think that questions, they're not a problem if a client's asking questions. It's an opportunity to share your knowledge with them is really what it is. So, and when I started in this business, I was terrified in my listing appointments. I'd literally be shaking when I'd walk in because I'd be so scared that they were going to ask me a question and I would stutter. And I wouldn't be able to talk or I wouldn't have the right answer or I'd have to tell them I don't know. And I just, I literally chanced, I was terrified at appointments. And, you know, my first two listings were family members and neither one of them sold. I didn't get either one of them sold after a few months on the market.

But something changed one day and I started realizing that, you know, these people just keep asking the same questions. So, why don't I take more time in a study of these objections? Because the people may change, but the questions typically don't. Right. So, and you get turned down enough, you start realizing maybe I need to change my approach. So, I tailored my appointments to going over and answering the objections before the client even thinks to ask them. And then lots of times I get to the end of an appointment and I say, well, do you have any questions or anything that I haven't gone over? And they'll look at me and say, well, Randall, you went over a lot. Are there any questions I should be asking that I didn't? And that's when I'm like, yes. No, I mean, there's two things that we have a Facebook group inside the brokerage where lots of people ask questions.

And when, especially when new agents ask questions and there's two things that Randall puts in there on a fairly regular basis that I love. And the first one is when it's a conversation about discounting commissions and you're like, you know, I show them how they can't afford not to use me. Like, I'll build so much value in the things that I do and my ability to get them more money than the market that they can't afford not to use me. But then the second thing is exactly what you were just saying is, can you get an appointment to the point where you've answered all the questions before they ask? And really, to me, that's just paying attention and taking notes and then going back and putting those things together. And I don't know about you, but I mean, this could be something that's a frequently asked questions section on a Facebook.

It could be on a Facebook post. It could be something on your website or a blog. It could be something you put in a pre-listing package. I mean, it doesn't have to be. I'm just going to answer them in the appointment, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you can give information. I like leading people with stuff. Some people, and I don't think there's any right or wrong way. There's a lot of people that believe, send them information first. That way, when you walk in, you're just there to talk. I'm kind of the opposite. I'm there to get commonalities. I want to get to know you. I'm going to shake your hand and become your friend. And then once I've realized that, okay, I'm good with working with this person because I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me. Hey, I'm good with working with this person. They're good with me. Hey, guess what? I know I went over a lot of information today. I've got some takeaways that I'm going to email you to have a lot of these questions.

It reiterates a lot of this stuff. But also, I think a lot of people think if you've been in the business for a long time, you don't have to study. And that's not true. I mean, I'm going to point behind me real quick because this is super important. I know you can't read it, but this is a list of 10 questions from Dave Ramsey's website of questions that he recommends clients to ask Realtors. And it's the answers. The answers that – I say it's the answers. It's suggested answers that we could give as agents. This is an agent side of it. And it sits right there because it's right behind me. I refer to this all the time before I go to appointments just because I need to refresh my memory because these are at least 10 things that I know my client that I'm going to meet today is probably going to ask.

Or at least be thinking. They might be afraid to ask. Yes. And we have to pick up on that too. Yeah, because there's an element of – if you look at the statistics, right, of listing appointments, somewhere around 72% of the time, if you walk in the front door and you can put together a complete sentence and they don't think you're a serial killer, you're going to win that business. And a lot of it is because people are just uncomfortable interviewing Realtors. They don't know how. They don't do it very often. It's not a practiced skill. And so they ask a couple of questions. They seem to like you. They say, well, because so-and-so over here trusts this person, I'm going to trust this person, right? And so if we can get them feeling more free to ask questions, I think that's a huge deal.

And I think that's just an expectation setting up front, right? Yep. You know, I walk in. You know, I'm kind of weird. This is another thing on my desk. It's my messy yellow pad, man. And this was a listing appointment that I went to yesterday. And there's no pre-typed information on this. I literally, but I have one for every home. And it's because when I'm there, I tell them, hey, I'm not bringing all this paper. I'm walking in. And as they're talking, I'm taking notes lots of times. And they're visually seeing that I'm computing what they're saying. And I'm remembering that. And at the end of the day, I say, hey, I just want to go over a couple things. You know, this is what we're excluding. This is the things that you want. And this is where you want to move to. And this is right. Does that all sound good? Great. And, but part of this helps me overcome objections if they do come up and remember that certain questions that they asked three weeks from now, I need to remember that those were important things to them in the beginning.

And I need to constantly reassure them as we're going through the process. That's the key to getting referrals at the end of the day, too. Randall and I joke that we're of the generation where we carry both an iPad and a yellow pad. That's that bridge between Gen X and Gen Y is the yellow pad, right? Yes, the yellow pad. I mean, I wouldn't get a big chief, man, but the ink runs in the big chief sometimes. So I'll tell you what, I have switched over to the Remarkable. Oh, okay. If I checked it out, it's worth checking out. Yeah, I'm scared, man. That's like, I don't know, it's like jumping off the cliff. It has essentially replaced my yellow pad, which is hard for me to say, but it's a pretty awesome product. There you go. Anyway.

All right. So, you know, if you go back to a lot of like traditional sales training, when they talk about objections, they talk about objections as this is a buying signal. If somebody didn't want to buy it from you, they just say no and roll out. But the fact that they ask a question or they put up an objection means that they're interested. They just want to hear what you have to say. And so you point to this piece of paper behind you on your board and you talk about practice. And I think that it's something that, especially as we get more and more experience and we kind of think that we've heard it all or seen it all, we don't spend as much time in the practice of overcoming objections or answering those questions because we just feel like we can take it off the cuff.

And then every now and then you get like, oh, I don't know. What do I do? Another thing on that topic is, yeah, I tell our new agents all the time. It is perfectly OK to say, I don't know. Oh, yeah. So, Chance, one of my biggest things is, and you know this about me, it's about being real. I am who I am and I'm not going to, I'm wearing this hat because I actually like to wear this hat, you know, it's not because, oh, I just want to pretend or something like that, you know, but I'm going to be me. I'm not going to show up in a suit and tie to the appointment. I mean, I'll dress professional, but that's not me.

But when, if I don't know the answer to something, I will look them in the eye and say, you know what, that is a fantastic question and I'd be lying if I told you that I know the answer to that right now, but guess what, I'm going to go figure it out and get right back with you. Or, or that's a great question and this is why I rely with trusted partners in the industry that can answer that mortgage question for you because I can tell you a little bit about these loan types, but they're going to be the ones that are going to tell you the nitty gritty. So, let me get you in touch with such and such. Exactly. Sometimes that's all they want. They don't care if I know the answer or not. Right. I got a guy or a girl or a person, you know. I think there's actually more value in not trying to bullshit your way through some sort of answer, but actually say, you know what, I don't know, but this is my partner in this and let me give them a call and ask them.

Absolutely. And that's an answer. And, you know, it's kind of like, yes is an answer. No is an answer. The worst thing you can do is put on a fake hat and fake it. You know, I understand there's some fake it till you make it type thing, but I'm telling you, if you wake up every day and put a fake face on, sometimes at some point it's going to wear off. Yep. And it's going to show its true colors. And I'm talking, that's where I think clients get pissed. If something goes wrong, like, well, this person started out great and then I never heard from them again or the air this happened. Or, you know, when, when, when, when something went south in the transaction, I couldn't get a hold of them anymore. That's a fake hat.

Yes. You know, if something goes wrong, be a freaking rock, stand in the middle of it and figure out a solution together. Don't run away and hide. Yep. And, you know, we'll go down a bit of a rabbit hole, but if something goes wrong, to me, it is imperative that it's not the first time the client hears that that could go wrong. Yeah. Right. And I think, you know, we talk about expectation setting from that very first meeting, whether it's listing appointment or buyer consultation. It's let's walk through the process of buying or selling a home and let's talk about what we need to be doing, what's going to happen next, what I'm going to be doing in the background, because that helps build value in me.

But, you know, the first time that a, an appraisal comes in low, that's not the first time that the client should know that that's a possibility. Oh yeah. Right. Because then you have just created this huge surprise that they weren't expecting. They've got a house full of boxes, half packed, and now they may not be able to sell their home. So to me, that's a, you've got to set that expectation early. You've got to reinforce it often. And you've got to set the stage for this could go wrong, but here's what I'm doing. And if it does go wrong, here's what I'm going to do. So how are you doing, Chance? Thank you for having me in your house today. You know, my goal is to get to know me, for you to get to know me, me to get to know you. But also at the end of this today, I want to make sure there's no, oh, by the ways during the transaction, oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that the appraisal has to happen.

Oh, I forgot to tell you this. Oh, I forgot. Oh, by the way, we try to avoid, oh, by the ways. Love it. I love that. And that's the exact phrase that I will say all the time. And people always smirk when I say it, but they'll appreciate it. All right. Next up on our list is faster than expected. And you've said this before also, if you can't be good, be fast. If you're not the best, yeah. If you're not the best in your area, be the fastest. So let's walk through why it's best to be fast. So early on in some of my real estate training back in like 2007, 8-ish, there was, I can't remember the guy's name. I used to watch videos, but he always said something along the lines of it's not, it's not important to be great.

It's more important to be there, something like that. Be there when the client needs you. You don't have to be the best, but be there. And so, and I kind of transitioned that into if you're not the best in your area, be the fastest. Man, let's just be honest. There's always going to be people that are killing it. You know, people posting, I just sold a hundred homes in the middle of the year. I got, I got people in my market that have been selling for 40 years and they're crushing it. And if you're constantly comparing yourself to those numbers, you're going to fall short. You're going to constantly be beating yourself up. But what, but what's, so you have to look at what is your unfair competitive advantage? Right. And, and I think if you can identify your unfair competitive advantage that you have over someone else, you can maximize on that because I can't be that person all the way. I can't do everything. And why would I want to be exactly like that person?

So I learned early on that, you know, I adapted technology pretty well and that kind of stuff. Yes. I, you know, all this, whatever, but I learned that in the restaurant industry, we had to be incredibly fast. So something I took from there was let's just be fast. When someone calls, call them right back. If you can't answer, you need to get something done. Do it now. Sometimes when clients call me, they're like, Hey, Randall, you think we can have you come out to our house? Maybe sometime. I know you're busy. Maybe next week. I said, well, are you available at three o'clock today? Or I can be there tomorrow at blah, blah, blah, or whatever. You know, just be fast with what you do. People, if they're calling you, they need something. And if you don't get back with them, they're, they're going to go to the next person. Right. I learned that. And that's, that was my leg. Again, that was, so, you know, every year in our brokerage, I ask every agent to pick a scroll from Og Bandino's greatest salesman in the world.

And mine last year, and it was probably the best thing that I could do because I constantly reinforce it. My coach constantly reinforced it with me. Mine was the scroll Mark nine, which is I will act now. And it just, you know, I think a lot of Realtors, I'm not alone in this. So we're procrastinators. We wait till the last second. We know this, you know, from how people register for conferences and events. They register right at the deadline, you know, all these different things. And, you know, I know it from the brokerage standpoint, because it's when our agents start uploading their docs is right before closing into our backend system. I'm like, Hey, we do that differently. But if we just do the thing that needs to be done, when it needs to be done, like right then, man, I, in the last 12 months, not only have I gotten more accomplished because of that, but I feel like the quality of what I have done has been far better.

And like you said, you know, it's almost like a, a, a under promise over deliver kind of, of scene where they weren't expecting me to get back to them that quickly. And boom, I did. Yeah. You know, um, and, and some of the, part of the reason why I chose being faster than expected as one of my UCAs, uh, unfair competitive advantage, um, was not just to try to be good, but it was actually kind of out of necessity. Because when you, when you become intentional with your time, going back to the first part of organizing the chaos, if I know in my mind that I'm not going to take any appointments on a Friday, because not only is that golf day, it's also a margarita night with, with the family, you know, go, you know, we go eat to dinner on Friday night now.

So, so there's no appointments on Friday. So if I know that's blocked off, if I don't like working weekends as much as, you know, and then, so that means I have to be really intentional. Then if I don't do it now, there's a good chance that it won't get done. And then I'll have to take bricks out of the walls that I built around my schedule. And I don't want to do that. So, um, you know, get things done when it's asked. That's a great metaphor. Yeah. Well, you know, standpoint, but also Yes, yes, yes. Another brick in the wall. But, but the other thing is it kind of goes back into your night routine too. If you, if you don't do stuff now, it stays in your head and you're, you only have the capacity to have so many things rumbling around in your head.

So if I don't get something done for whatever reason, it goes on the notepad at night. That way I know what I have to address in the morning and it's out of my mind. If, uh, if you just have this long laundry list of things in your head, then you don't have space for things that matter. Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. All right. Let's nerd out. Shall we? All right. Well, at point number four, if you track it, it will come. Oh, it's one of my favorite things. I will, I will openly admit that I, I, and I don't think that I'm alone, certainly in our industry, many Realtors don't have the attention span, the discipline, the whatever you want to call it to sit down and really track the hell out of things. But we know that if you do, it gets better, right?

It does. So talk about numbers, talk about the things that you track. Um, and you know, one of the things that I love about Randall is he tracks stuff, but it's really pretty simple, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. It looks complicated. It looks complicated and it looks like a lot of work goes into it, but really once you have the system in place, um, you know, two minutes every year, two minutes there to input some data, but, but what I, I'm not talking about just tracking sales because a lot of people want to track their numbers and their commissions and that kind of stuff. That's important to me, but I wanted to dig deeper to, and, and create some extra things to know, like what's my average commission take as I go through the year, because, you know, if I want to start putting more money in my pocket somehow, it's not about just how many sales I have, how much am I retaining from each sale?

How many times am I having to give something back? I need to know these numbers. What's my average price point. Um, but the other thing really, the reason I think I arrived at that, um, one was because clients find it impressive when you can quote numbers. For instance, when I can go in the living room and say, uh, you know, when, when my clients agree with me on pricing, I, my average, uh, list price to sell price ratio is 99 to 103%. And so I've done two things there. One, I've told them that I know my numbers, but I also said when subliminally, when my clients agree with me on pricing, I can achieve at least the price sometimes more. So, you know, that's a line that I'll always throw out, but that's a true stat.

And I know because I track it. Right. You're the second person in recent shows that has brought up the, the tracking net commission income. Oh yeah. Yeah. The, the industry issues awards and they focus and they do all of this based on gross commission income. And the truth of the matter is who gives a crap. Yeah. Not bringing the money home. Who cares? I know a lot of team leaders who, you know, they may win awards and they may get all these production numbers and blah, blah, blah, but they don't have a pot to piss in because they don't understand cost of goods sold. They don't know what they're doing when it comes to how much, I mean, there's money in the checking account, so we must be all right. Yeah. I mean, and one thing I'd also do at the end of the year and I don't just wait till the end of the year to review stuff, but I'm just saying at the end of every year, I do a full business evaluation of, of my lead sources from the, the, the, my client sources from the, from the year.

And I try to eliminate the bottom 20%. So if I have a, like a referral source that's really didn't fruit anything, but I went back and looked at, Hey, I got this much time was spent with this and it fruited zero. It's time to cut ties with that. There's no sense dragging it. You know, it's like someone carrying a bag, walking down the street. If I got things that are heavy in there that I'm not using, I need to get rid of those things. So you're tracking things like business stats when it comes to sales price versus list, you're tracking things when it comes to net commission and gross commission days on market, things like that. When it comes to, I can spot this out, but from an internal side, you're also tracking where all your leads are coming from. Right. I feel like that is just an essential.

You have to have that in your business. You have to know, you have to know where your, where your market is, where is your market? You know, where is it, what's it coming from? And, and, and also like, I can tell you about our business is 82% past client referral. Um, you know, spear, we'll just say 82% spear and, and, and past client, you know? So, um, but I know that number because we, every transaction that we do gets labeled something. Did it come from HAR.com? Did it, did they call on my sign? Did they, did they come, did it come from an open house? And, and, and here's how you can translate. It's one thing to have the data, but how do you use it? Why one, it gives me clarity of what I'm doing, right. And what I'm doing, what I can improve on. Um, but also when a client says, Hey, Randall, do you know, Hey, I don't, I don't know that that sign, uh, this, you know, can you, we need a larger sign or this sign, whatever I'm, you know, I'll say, well, you know, I only got one lead last year from a yard sign, um, or, or from a flyer call.

Actually, I eliminated a flyer call system a couple of years ago. Actually, I just formally cut ties with them this year because there was no need for the flyers anymore. It just wasn't, wasn't a thing for me, but I wouldn't have known that I would have just kept paying for it because, Oh, it impresses the seller. But now I can say, well, you know, I don't do paper flyers in front of my listings anymore because one, they get wet and become soggy newspaper. But two, um, I, I tracked it and I realized that, uh, the only people picking them up were neighbors and we weren't getting any calls on them. So we stopped that process. That's something that from tracking we learned. Absolutely. All right. So last but not least, and you hinted to it a minute ago when you said that 82% of your business is, is referral, uh, is working by referral. So I, one of the things in this industry that annoys me the most, and people look at me cross-eyed when I say this, I hate it when agents say, well, I work almost entirely by referral.

So my default answer to that is, well, you, then you must not be trying very hard, like go talk to strangers. Right. But that doesn't mean that I don't think it should be 100% of your business. I think that where you, what you're talking about 75 to 85% of businesses is pretty good. But I also think there's an element where you have to go talk to strangers, but let's talk about we're working by referral and what that means to you. Absolutely. So I do believe in having a pillar system, um, and setting, uh, you don't want to be everything to everybody. I do believe in finding three to four pillars that you want to build your business on. I know the, the rule has always been for, but, um, and referral would be one of them, you know, Fizbo, you know, things like that.

But, but I came from the restaurant industry back when we started in this talk earlier, I came from an industry where, especially their last restaurant that I was at, where we had a huge following of regulars and they would come in and they knew what to expect. We knew what to expect. They knew how we worked. We knew how they were. We were able to talk with them and it actually made work fun. Um, I enjoyed when these people would come in. So I wanted to create the same type of thing in my real estate business. One, cause I didn't have anything guys. I went cold Turkey. I didn't come in and join a team. I didn't get handed a bunch of leads. I, you know, I didn't, I just came in and my first few sales were people that I knew from the restaurant. And so I just started realizing that working with, with that made me feel good.

It made it fun. And I felt like I was providing good service. So I always wanted to be that way. And, um, and I do agree with you 100% that you have to talk to strangers. I treat real estate like it's a game. It's like a video game. Okay. I have a certain amount of health every day that health is deteriorating, but if I can go find a new client that day, I get a little bit more health. I get to keep playing this game. I don't look at it so black and white and so scary. It's just a video game guys up, up, down, down, up, right, up, right, left, right. So select these, all that stuff. You know, you don't get unlimited lives. Only there was a cheat code. I know. But, but, but to me it is. And what I, I know early on, what I did was I carried a pad with me and I made it a point to meet someone new every day. Um, meet, meet some type of thing every single day and don't stop working until you meet someone new.

Now, back then I was, I was in my twenties. I was a single dude. So I was going to shoot pool. I was hanging out in the, in that scene. So I was constantly around a bunch of strangers or just people, you know? So I would just go, I was like, Hey, if I'm going to go shoot pool tonight, I'm going to at least try to find somebody that I can, you know, let me take that, that night and turn it into a potential lead. But anyways, I'm rambling now, but no, it's all good. But when, when, when you intentionally work by referral, when your database reaches out to you, you're there, you answer, you call, you go see them, you go that extra step, you bring them something special. You do, you make them feel special and you continually make them feel special. And then when they refer their sister, the listing appointment that I went on yesterday is the sister of one of my A plus clients.

And, um, and not only have I worked with this sister before, but I reiterated when I was there and I, you know, I just was like, you know, one thing I always appreciate about you and I'm not going to say names, but you and such and such is I, I just love how organized and how respectful y'all are in this. And I'm just, you know, because that's the kind of clients that I, that I want to, to work with. They, I find that they respect my time and in return, I'm more willing to give my time. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that when you talk about, you know, the, the old sales mantra is people, you know, like, and trust. Right. Um, but the truth of the matter is that, you know, birds of a feather tend to flock together. And so if you're somebody who respects my time and I respect you because that, and you're somebody that I want to work with, chances are your referrals are going to be somebody I want to work with too.

Yeah. Right. If you've cultivated that sphere of people who you really enjoy and you respect and you have, you care about, I mean, ultimately you care about a lot of cases, you know, we're making friends with people. Um, what you end up getting is people who are just like that when they refer. Yep. So healthy for your business and you're, and you're just, you know, mental state. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so a lot of people think that working by referral means that you just, that you just sit around and wait for them to call. Um, and that's not what I mean at all. I just, I'm going to, I want to use 2020 as just a short example. Um, I'll try to be short because obviously when the market shut down, um, for a little while, we didn't know what was going to happen that March, April, May.

I mean, literally we didn't know what was next, but all of a sudden we're scared to go out. Nobody wants to see anybody and this and that. Um, I, I, in my mind, I freaked out a little bit, but, but that's okay. I recognized that there was a situation, but I took that time to go all in on my CRM. I actually changed my CRM during that. I don't think I ever even told you that. So I switched to a different platform last year during the pandemic. I went all in on it and told myself I'm going in. And I spent the time really categorizing people in there and, and setting things up and then just talking with them and sending emails and making calls to check in and see what was going on. And, and it almost was like this fertilizing the lawn because going back to that basic just started, these people started coming out.

Hey, I want to move. We're tired of this, how we're going to move to this and that. So if you don't have the systems in place to keep up with people, right. You know, I, you know, happy grasshopper, you know, things like that. My sphere is getting touched throughout the entire year. And lots of times, even though I, they, they, you know, send those emails out. Lots of times they know that it's not me sending it. They know that I'm going in and typing it and it's going out to my database. They're not dumb. I mean, come on, it's 2021. People know that they're on drip campaigns and stuff like that. But at least what I find is that when they need me, they know where to go back and pull one of those up. And I always see that they reply to one of those emails. And one of the favorite ones that I send out whenever we close somebody is, Hey, you rock, help us roll. And I tell people, thank you.

Enjoyed working with you. It's awesome. But did you know, 82% of our business comes from past client and referrals. You can help us keep rolling by letting us know if somebody else is looking, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. It always shocks me. You know, when we look at statistics and we look at things in the industry, how it's seemingly hesitant people are to ask for a referral. You know, here you've, somebody has entrusted you with the largest financial decision and the largest, largest financial transaction that they'll probably ever make or have made up to that point. You've done an awesome job. They're excited. They're happy. They're loving their new home or they're happy that they sold their home for what it sold for or whatever that is. And then it's like, let me collect my check and peace out. I'll never talk to you again.

And the stats all play to that. And I'm like, man, you've got this ready source of people who just, you've just pleased like ask them to tell other people about it. Yeah. We just don't make systems out of that. And it's sad. I tell people when I'm working with them, as we get to the closing table, and sometimes I bring this up in the beginning, I primarily work with listings. So in the listing appointment, I always mention this, but I always reiterated at closing, hey, man, you know, I just want you to know that I don't go away at the end. I work my southeast side of town primarily. I live in the area that I work. So chances are we're going to run into each other at HEB. And I don't want you to throw an orange at me. You know, I want you to come up and shake my hand and give me a hug. You know, so I become friends with my clients.

And that's my goal. And I tell them that I go, just because I'm your friend doesn't mean that you have to like start carving out time to go drink beer together or go have coffee. I go, just means that I don't disappear. And I remind people of that. But also, if people are afraid to ask for a referral, I challenge them, go to Facebook and go to any talk of Pearland, talk of Cyprus, whatever those stuff, and just scroll through there. People like to refer people. They like to pass names. You know, any question, you're just going to see a tagging, tagging, tagging of people. So if you think that people don't like referring you or don't like giving you, you know. It's in our human nature. Yeah. Reframe the way you approach that. Yeah. If you read like Seth Godin's book, Tribes, I mean, it's our human nature to help other people be successful and help them do things.

They want to refer you. You just have to give them the avenue and train them now. Yes. Right. There you go. It's so right. When you say train them, teach them how to refer somebody, you know, the best way. Because how many times have you said, have you got this message? Hey, Chance, I gave your number to my buddy. They were thinking about buying or selling. Just let, you know, they might give you a call. A bunch. And you're waiting. You never get the call. Never get the call. You don't know. It goes to spam. They didn't leave a voicemail. I mean, you know, you miss them. Right. And so here's my opportunity to jump in with that person and say, hey, you know what? I'm super grateful that you thought of me and that you gave my number. Why don't you give me their contact information and let me reach out so I can make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Right. And in the future, if you give me, if you give my information out to somebody, shoot me theirs and I'll be right on the phone with them immediately.

Yep. And I, and I, and I, I, I agree a hundred percent. And I have a little spin on that too. When someone tells me that I just, or they say, hey, I'm going to give your number to my friend or your tumor. And I say, you know what? You know what I found over the years? That, um, people think until they get to know me, I'm intimidated because I'm, uh, you know, I'm a real estate professional. They don't know what to say when they call. It's kind of like you call in a new person. You don't really know. I go, so it's awkward for them. So why don't you, why don't you see if you can get their permission for me to reach out to them? Because I'll make that an easier transition and they don't have to be nervous about contacting me. And most people can resonate with that because I get nervous when someone hands me, you know, Hey, call this new doctor to set up an appointment. I'm like, Oh, right. I got to go. What's their process going to be? What do I have to do? Or, you know, or somebody, especially let's just say I'm calling about an area that I'm not an expert in, which is a lot of things.

I don't know which questions to ask. So it's kind of an intimidating call. Let me help make that less intimidating. Yep. So I'm going to add a little bonus touch point on here because it's something that you have said multiple times that I want to kind of pull on. And it really does come back into this bullet point of working by referral, but anytime anybody said, Hey, I want to sign up for this lead source. I want to sign up for that lead source. Your response is, Hey, go sign up for it. I don't care about if I have to give a referral fee upfront for somebody, because I'm going to turn this one customer under six or seven. So if I've got to pay that referral upfront for somebody once, I don't mind it because I'm going to pull enough referrals off of that to make it worth my while. Right.

Yeah. So, I mean, are you, do you buy leads? Do you do anything like that where you're getting leads in? So I do have some sources that I'm on. I don't buy leads. Um, I don't, and for one, I don't like calling people leads. Right. Um, I, I, you know, so when I'm buying leads, it makes me feel like I'm buying somebody and that's not what we do. So I don't, I don't pay for those up front. Now I know it's the same thing. It's just a mentality. Absolutely. Yeah. People are people. They're not leads. Um, I, I do, I, for, for instance, I am an endorsed local provider, uh, with, with, if I can mention names and stuff on here, but Dave Ramsey endorsed local provider and I have been for years.

Um, and that's a platform that I do, uh, have to pay a referral if the client closes nothing. I, they have speed, whatever, but anyways, it's, it's not, I'm not paying and they're handing me a database. I actually have to compete for the, for that business with other agents. Um, and I'm on a couple of those platforms where I, I will, um, I will agree to pay out a referral if the client closes. But, um, the reason I prefer that way over buying up front is it kind of goes back to that. They're going to be my friends. I feel like there's more, it feels less dirty to me. They're on there looking and, and they're asking to be connected with the Realtor and then they're coming through that platform. So, but I definitely do not believe like that sector of my business is less than 10%.

Gotcha. It's around 7% if last time I ran that number. Gotcha. Awesome. Well, man, Randall, I think we're up on about 45 minutes here, which, you know, we went over a little bit, but, um, yeah, I also know that we could probably go on for two or three more hours if we wanted to. I want to thank you for coming on Top 5 and sharing your expertise. I think that there is a ton of stuff that somebody could take out of this episode and really put in their business. And that's the whole goal here at Top 5. So thank you very much for coming on. Uh, and thank you, if you're listening or watching for taking time out of your day to help build a better business. We will see you next week. We'll see you next week. Bye.