Welcome to The Millionaire Loan Officer podcast with your host, Scott Hudspeth sharing tools, tips and strategies so that you can go from a mortgage loan officer to a millionaire loan officer. It's your host, Scott Hudspeth.
Scotty: Hey everybody. This is Scott Hudspeth, welcome, welcome, welcome to Agent Mastermind. So excited to have everybody here. Hope everybody's having a great day, great week. Welcome to October. What's going on Douggie?
Doug: Got my beer.
Scotty: All right.
Doug: But the summers are too short. The summers are too short and.
Scotty: The summers are too short, yeah. I’m still.
Doug: I step out and its springtime that I stepped back outside and it's raining and drizzly. So yeah.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Such is life in Michigan.
Scotty: Well, I put my sweatshirt on today. I was a little chilly outside, so definitely you guys can know it's October, but Hey guys, we have a great class, a dear friend of mine, business partner, Doug Gatorade. We've been, men spent a long time and spending an amazing, it was amazing day, the day we met. And you brought so much value to my business. And I know you're one of the coaches that coach a lot of people across the U.S so I'm forever grateful for what you do for myself and what you've done for agents, loan officers, insurance agent, like you name it. You have an amazing foundation that you want to talk about today, and I'm excited to have you here brother. [01:22.4]
Doug: Thank you for that man, I appreciate that compliment.
Scotty: Yeah. So, what is this a triangle thing you got going on here, man? Like, I mean, I can never hear this enough because you hear it and then you're like, all right, how does that look again? Cause it's every level has a whole different level of pain of pain to it.
Doug: Right, right, right
Scotty: So, which we don't have time to talk about the pains of each level. But if anybody wants to talk about that, I guess just, you know, reach out to one of us. But so, what do you got here man?
Doug: So, I've struggled with this for years and I've been in the business going on 25 years and I've always found it amazing that we have in our industry, in real estate, the ability to make an income that is comparable, if not more than people that are highly, highly, highly educated. I went to college and many people who are listening may have gone to college, but all of us who are sitting here in real estate, we didn't go to college for real estate. Like that was not our passion when we grew up, we weren't dreaming about how someday we might have to become a realtor. We were just dreaming about having a great career and a great path and make some great money. And because of that, we kind of get into this business and we don't really have a plan. Like we don't have a mindset. You and I have talked about this for decades, brother. [02:32.1]
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: We'd struggle with what's in between our ears. And so, I was fortunate enough to kind of have this brainstorm where I sat down and I, I kind of looked at our business in stages. And what I've got on the screen today is really an example in my mind, my personal evolution in my career and how I got to where I'm at today. And for many of us, if you ask any realtor or anybody who's thinking about becoming an agent or somebody who's a seasoned agent, it's probably something that they can all relate to, but no one's ever put it out in a design that, that I think simplifies it and just kind of helps you understand where you're at. So, what I've found is a lot of us who get into this business are usually getting into business because of some, there’s an outside motivation, whether it's more money, more freedom or more of something, even more of something that we don't have. But we get into this business and we've kind of got this survival mindset. And the challenging part is that when you operate out of survival, Scotty, what does your day look like? [03:27.7]
Scotty: Scarcity. Freaking out.
Doug: Oh my God, you're running around with your head come off, right?
Scotty: Yeah, yeah.
Doug: You have no plan. You wake up and you're, feverously moving really, really fast. The analogy that I love to use is that if you and I were flying in an airplane and we're flying from here to California and it's a four-seater airplane, the pilot turns around and says, Hey, Scott, Doug, I got some good news or I got some bad news. And I'm like, well, I'll listen to the bad news first. He goes, well, we have no gauges. We have no altimeter. We have no gas gauge. We have no compass. I think we're totally lost.
Scotty: Hmm.
Doug: And as you and I kind of let that digest, we look at each other and you ask the pilots, so what's the good news? I feel like we're making great time, he says. I think a lot of times our businesses are run by emotion, and they're not run by facts and figures. And I'm really big on full transparency. I think I suffered from ADD, like I'm scattered to the nth degree. So, this has really kind of helped me dial in my business and become a lot more productive when I have to be. So maybe it'll help change some of the businesses that you know, for the people that are listening to this class today. [04:28.7]
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: But it starts with understanding that you have survival. The next stage that we get into is having some stability, right. We get into a place where we've got some deals coming in the door. We've got some conversations that we're having. We have a potential listing. We have some buyers that we're working with, and we start to feel a little bit more comfortable in our skin. Now the difference between survival and stability is all mindset. Like I've found it common in any industry but going from survival to stability really starts with what's in between your ears and making the commitment that you're truly going to make a go at this. Not second guessing yourself, not hoping you're going to do it, but really waking up and saying, okay, this is what I want to put all of my eggs in. Like this is the basket I'm full, all my eggs in. [05:28.8]
Scotty: Hey and real quick, Doug, for all the listeners like everybody's on this class today, we're actually recording this as a podcast. So, if you're listening to this, there'll be a link somewhere in the podcast link that will allow you to actually see this graph that Doug’s talking about and see the whole recording if you want to, for that matter, cause we're actually have our cameras up. We're actually looking at each other and we're sharing a screen so, sharing the screen. So just for everybody that is on this webinar right now, thank you for being here. But two, you're going to be also able to hear it on a podcast as well. So just want to make that clear for.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: If you're listening to this as a podcast.
Doug: This is really one of those things that you're going to want to see visually.
Scotty: Yes.
Doug: I think it really cements the mindset that I think a lot of us are lacking.
Scotty: I know.
Doug: So yeah. Check out that slideshow, check out the presentation. Be sure to look at it visually and take notes because I think it really, it was an eye opener for me, and I know it'll change somebody's business here that's watching it today so. So, once you've established that you've started to make some really good money. Like you're starting to see consistent paychecks, you're starting to see consistent business, what we find is the different from stability to success comes in the form of not mindset, but processes. Like actually having a plan, like really working an actual plan, I call it, or we call it the daily success plan. It's getting up and doing a certain set of activities every day repeatedly because that produces a certain result. [06:29.3]
And then the next is what we call significance. Significance for me is when you've decided that your life and your business have reached the point where it's time to give back. And you've reached the point where either you're recruiting for a team, your building a, another business, or you're creating something where you're able to step out of the day-to-day activities of real estate and really give your life a new meaning. So, the problem is that when we run into this, most people that have survival, just have a job. And these next several runs here that we're going to describe really kind of related to how many agents do, you know, Scotty and that I know, and anybody that's listening that wake up every day and you can tell, they just have a job. Like you can tell they just wake up and they just, they do it part-Time, they're not completely sure that this is what they're going to do forever. You know, the ones that have a job in maybe many of us have seen them on the other side of the transaction, right?
Scotty: Yeah, for sure. Like, and it's not just, it's every business in the world. [07:26.4]
Doug: It’s every business.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I don’t care if you're your financial planner. I don't care if you're an insurance agent. I don't care if you're working. I mean, you can tell the people that embody and embrace what they do and it doesn't matter if you're a greeter at Walmart. I know people who love.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Greeting people at stores.
Scotty: Amen.
Doug: They don't have a job. This is their passion.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Like they wake up, they're presentable. They actually love what they do, but we all know and can relate to people that have just a job in this business.
Scotty: Absolutely.
Doug: The ones that have stability have a career like they've made the commitment. Like I said before, they're in it to win it. They wake up every day with the passion and the mindset that I'm going to make a success. I'm going to make this real estate business a success for me, whatever that is, whether it's closing three loans a month or three deals, six deals, 10 deals. Funny thing is though Scotty is that we've done some research on this and you guys can Google this. The average realtor in the country made $41,150 in 2020. [08:24.7]
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: That was the average income that they made. The real estate values went from the average sales price went from like 350, 360ish to over 408.
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: Based on a rough guesstimate that's anywhere between four to six real estate deals a year is what the average realtor in the United States closes as units.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: So, if you were looking at this chart, where do you think most real estate agents’ kind of have their head wired in? Do they have a career in this business or do most of them have a job?
Scotty: It's 50-50, I think some, because it changes your demeanor, it changes your frequency. It's hard to, because of the lack of mentorship, lack of coaching, lack of all this stuff to go from a job to a career.
Doug: Hmm.
Scotty: Just for some small, simple tweaks, I'd say it's somewhere in between.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: They want to have a career.
Doug: Yup.
Scotty: But a lot of them are stuck in the job phase cause they're not sure how to actually get up that next step. [09:15.0]
Doug: Right. And the leadership is lacking wherever they're at.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Most people don't have a mentor. Like I said, none of us went to college so, we don't come into this industry with a education of how we want to do this. So that's why I think this class that we're teaching it and the AMM that you produce, it really is helping people change their, not only their mindset, but giving them the tools and the strategies and the tips to kind of take it to the next level.
Scotty: Absolutely man, absolutely.
Doug: Then you have this business. Once you've established that you're in the business and you've decided to create some processes and systems and some predictability, that's where you've really elevated yourself. Maybe you've hired your first ISA. Maybe you've hired your first buyer's agent. Maybe you've hired a team around you. And this is where we find that very few real estate professionals ever get. 80% end up in the job area, 30% end up in the career area. And then you have about 10% that finally reached that business more success level. And that's kind of been the norm, for as many realtors as I've coached and worked with in my career, I have found that most agents strive to get to this business level, but they get caught up in all the busy-ness and that's what this tracking class is going to be about today. It's not the only tool that you have to have in your business, but it's one of the most important tools to help you go from having your career in real estate to having a business in real estate. [10:34.2]
Going from job and career I challenge anybody that's sitting there right now, listening to this class that has a desire to do more, make the commitment. Real estate is an amazing industry that you can make a great and even an amazing life with which you got to commit. You got to go all in. You've got to take all of your chips and you're going to be like, I've got to go all in on this. Every agent that makes the commitment of saying I'm all in on this and has a desire to actually have more, whether it's even time or money or freedom, make this a career. It is a great and a beautiful place to live and an industry that has been great to me, great to you Scotty and great to some many other people.
Scotty: Absolutely.
Doug: But once you have that commitment, implementing tools and strategies and tips will be a lot easier because your mind will, you know, will allow you to do that. And so, this is where the tracking form really comes in. The tracking for me has made all the difference in the world. I mean, it literally was a light switch that went off in the moment that it happened. It changed everything with my business. And there's many times as I've shared this with, not only just realtors, but lenders, I've done it with insurance agents, I've done it with financial planners. It really kind of helps you wake up every day going I have one singular purpose of my business today, and that is to produce a result that leads to me, adding more revenue, more people, more conversations to my business. And Scotty, how many times have we talked to anybody, and their number one challenge is, they don't have enough conversations. [12:00.7]
Scotty: Right. Absolutely. That's it, that's the number one thing. And here's the thing, Doug keeps talking about a tracker. What we're doing is we're kind of like going, where are you at right now in your business? Are you at a job, career? And how can we help you get there? And one of the things that we found is the call. How many calls do you have in per day? That's really what it boils down to. And then are you tracking where those calls are coming from? And are they a good use of your time? And that's what this tracker really allows you to do. So, we'll make sure that everybody gets a copy of this. I'll put a, I'll actually, and Doug, what I'll do is I'll just upload it, if you're cool with that, to give it to everybody on this class.
Doug: For sure.
Scotty: If you can send that to me, to make sure I can get it to everybody, that's cool.
Doug: For sure. So post-it notes are probably the most ingenious invention ever created. It was a mistake, I think somebody at 3M just accidentally created this sticky stuff that you could peel and stick, peel and stick, peel, and stick. And they had this idea to put it on a post-it note and those little pieces of paper. I will tell you that that is probably the biggest curse our industry has, access to post-it notes. How many times has anybody who's listening to this class, wrote down a name and a phone number and a potential opportunity on the back of a piece of mail, out of scratch loose-leaf pad of paper on a chewing gum wrapper or, or, or on a poster. And I'm not joking when I say this. It is amazing, the creative ways that we will come up with when we're scrambling around to try to find a place to put down a name and number for, what would technically be a 5 to $8,000 commission? [13:28.9]
Scotty: Right.
Doug: We treat it as if it's incidental, when it is the only thing that our business needs, which is the opportunity to talk to somebody who needs our advice in real estate.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: But time and time and time again, brother, I'm amazed at how little, the agents that I talk to have any idea who they talked to last Monday. You know, last Monday was seven days ago.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I promise you that they don't have an exact list of the people that they've spoken to let alone a follow up campaign. Like a genuine organized follow-up campaign. And there are CRMs and there are data mining programs other, all of this stuff is great. I'm a more the old school. Like I want just a windshield to my business. I want to be able to look through it and know I'm going in the right direction. And the analogy that I use all the time with people is remember that movie Talladega Nights.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: One of the funniest movies ever. Well, there's a scene where Ricky Bobby, his dad is in the car and he puts him behind the wheel and blindfolds them and says, you gotta learn how to drive by feel. What ends up happening?
Scotty: Crashing? [14:40.4]
Doug: Yeah, he ends up going down the street, hitting car after car left, right until he's swerves left and drives right into somebody's house. And then they all quickly jumped out of the car and run away, cause they don't want to get caught.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: But I feel like a lot of times that's how we treat our businesses. We wake up every day with the best intentions we blindfold ourselves. And then we run aimlessly into our world and business opportunities, and we don't really know where we're going and we usually end up bruising and bumping into so many things that it ends up being extremely unsuccessful.
Scotty: Unsuccessful, yeah.
Doug: For the definition of what we want, right. [15:12.7]
Scotty: And I think that one of the big differences, and this is the hardest part for me, I'm talking about myself, and you know, and a lot of good salespeople are not detail oriented.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: So, it's a curse for somebody that's amazing at sales, amazing video marketing, amazing all this other stuff, when it comes to taking notes and keeping track of who I've talked to, I'm the worst.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Oh, you know, so it's almost worth, it would benefit you to have somebody just part time keeping track of, hey, how did that conversation go and taking notes for you and putting them into this tracker.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: And hey, maybe if you have appointments on your calendar, having somebody just part time to put those people in your tracker, this tracker you're going to share with us and then say, Hey, how'd it go? And like beat you up until they, you get the answers, you know, no show, okay. That's okay.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Reschedule like whatever. But I very rarely I've seen somebody really good at sales, that's really good at tracking and keeping track of that.
Doug: Right, right.
Scotty: So, it's a double-edged sword. It's like, how do you win that game? And this, this would help, but I'm telling you, you have to have somebody that's watching over you. It should be the smallest expense you have, but the biggest reward or biggest success that you have when it comes to having somebody help you with something. [16:18.5]
Doug: We talked about putting a dollar into a machine and getting a hundred-dollar bill back out, right. If somebody puts a dollar into a machine, how many dollars, if you had them, how many dollars would you put into a machine that for everyone you got a hundred back, right? I'd be putting every dollar bill I ever had into that machine, right?
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Well, it's kind of the same thing here. I mean, so I've got clients that will actually sit down with groups of realtors, and they will mentor them around this tracking form. If you guys have a lender that you work with, I'd almost tell you that this would be a great tool for you and your lender to partner with, to use together. That would be the perfect relationship builder for both of you guys. But for those that actually want accountability, Scotty's right. For hiring somebody part-time for 15 bucks an hour, I don't know what the minimum wage is.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: But for somebody just to simply track the phone calls that you're making track, the conversations that you're having and track what we're going to talk about here a little bit is the number of at-bats and conversion rate. It is priceless. I mean, if we think about one real estate transaction, one real estate transaction could produce upwards of near five to eight grand or more.
Scotty: Uff.
Doug: Simply by doing the right things. [17:23.9]
Scotty: Yeah. And here's the thing, here's the best part I like about this check, not to cut you off.
Doug: Oh, that’s okay.
Scotty: But the best part I love about this tracker is it might not be the person that you put in the tracker. If you do this, right, it might not be the person that you put it in the tracker that you actually do business with.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Friends, family, coworkers, we've got a whole another level of, you know, and I don't consider one person on a tracker, one person, I consider them 20-25. Doug, you taught me this is Zig Ziggler said, how many people typically come to a wedding or a funeral?
Doug: Hmm…hmm.
Scotty: I think you said 250 to 300.
Doug: Right, right.
Scotty: So, each person has the ability, if you track and follow up and remind people who you are and what you do for living to give you endless amounts of referrals, you know, it's like, it's insane. [18:04.8]
Doug: Right. This form is, it's almost too simple. It's almost too easy. And sometimes it comes across as being how can something this simple, or this easy be so effective. And I can promise you that I have tried a number of different ways to get the same results.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: But time and time again, I come back to this and because it, what it does for me, it helps me stay focused on what it is that I need to be doing, right. No back to that whole career in a business. If you're going to try to have a career in real estate and really make a solid door at this, you got to figure out what's producing the results. You gotta figure out who's producing your results. You gotta figure out where your results are coming from.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: This tracking forum was really simply designed to simply tell you how many people are there are you speaking to, what was the result of that conversation? And, and this was a by-product that I didn't really think it was going to change, but it did. It created an amazing follow up campaign. It's got a minutes, right? Every day we wake up and we're always chasing that next conversation. We're always looking for that extra, that we're always looking for that instant gratification of that next deal.
Scotty: Yup. [19:12.6]
Doug: But what you find is when you start tracking that over 60% of the conversations that you have per month, per week, don't result in an immediate action, it usually requires a little bit of nurturing, a little bit of follow up and follow through. And once you invest that time and energy with that client, the success rate of those conversations goes through the roof.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Think about the competition. If we're all sitting here talking about tracking the agents that aren't going to do tracking, they're the ones that most of the time are using a post-it note. They're using a piece of a letter, they're using a bubblegum rep or something where they track on it, but that conversation might be great, but it's the follow-up call that matters, right?
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: It's the most transactions don't really manifest itself in the revenue until call number eight, right? Between 8 and 12 was when most calls, most successful sales calls happen.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: So, imagine how many of the calls have you made in the month of September? Let's just put that out there. You guys are talking to people about real estate every single month, but how many of you call back the person that maybe you spoke to in the first week of September? Have you spoken to anybody more than once or twice in the month of September because you actively picked up the phone and said, hi, Scotty it’s Doug, I know you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago, but I just circling back around to see how things were going? I know you had some decisions and choices to make, but I wanted to make sure you knew that I wanted to stay in front of you to help you educate you and give you the best advice possible. [20:39.7]
Scotty: Right. You know, it's funny as what you're talking about here, and what you just said is you and I both coach people all across the U.S and what we find out when we talk with them that 99% of the time, everybody knows enough people to double or triple their business without being that significance of chase. I think we all love the chase. You know, like, I mean, I used to do marketing campaigns. I get the phone ring, but I'm like, I don't really want to answer it. That was fun though, cause that fed my ego maybe, or that like, man, I made it work, but I got to answer the phone now, you know?
Doug: Right.
Scotty: So, it's kind of crazy when you start tracking and knowing some of these things that we're talking about of where the business is coming from, how many conversations are you having or not having that's relative to your success or lack of success or job career or success, right?
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Like it's all relative. How many conversations? So. [21:25.9]
Doug: It is. I had to write this down because I think it really fits most of us who don't track speak to more people, fewer, you're right. We don't lack the opportunity.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Like if we, for somebody who says that they don't have the opportunities that our businesses and where they want it to be, it most of the time isn't going to come down to lack of conversations. It does sometimes, but people are talking to people all day long. It's either, you're not asking for the business or you're not following up with the opportunities that you've been given. And so instead of talking to more people, fewer, I think we need to talk to fewer people more.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I find that I can take somebody who's had thirty conversations about real estate in a month and I can cut that number of conversations down by half and actually double their real estate production. So, imagine talking to fewer people, but doubling your production simply because we're dialed into who you're talking to, how many times you're talking to them and then making sure that you're providing the right advice and helping them get what they want. And it is it's been really rewarding to see the transition of having people not operate out of scarcity, but rather operating out of abundance. And Scotty again, man, you taught me this. I mean, you, you, you come from a place where you give, and you give, and you give, and you ask for nothing in return. So, when I use the word advice, it's very specific. You got to figure out that how many people do I have to speak to every month to give real estate advice, to. [22:52.3]
Scotty: Right on.
Doug: To be able to meet my goals and my economic reality. And you'd be shocked.
Scotty: Shocked.
Doug: That the more that you talk to people about helping them, the more it comes back, but it only comes back in the level we needed to when you have proper tracking, and you know who you're talking to, and you're dialed into providing them with that support.
Scotty: Can I take that a step further and put a dollar value to it? Cause I think this is so important.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: For everybody on the call, whether you're on this webinar or listen to this podcast. Every no has a value attached to it, if you continue to get, I call it chasing the NO, right. I love this story. When my son first started, I said, Greg, don't even worry about the YES’s, just go for NO’s. How many of those can you get today? And it's funny he kept doing it. Kept. No, no, no, no. And then he calls me, he goes, dad, dad, dad. I got a, yes. I didn't know what to say. So, I told him, I’ll call him back. We didn't talk about that part, but here's the value part. So, you talk to 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, 40, whatever number is right. Let's just say you got to talk to 40 people to get one deal. Okay. [23:49.1]
Doug: Yeah, Let's say the average real estate transaction is worth. Let's just say 6.
Scotty: 9,000, 9,000, which is like a $300,000 average loan size. You know, you do the number, times 3%, 9,000, right?
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: So, 9,000 divided by 40 it's $225 per NO.
Doug: Hmm…hmm.
Scotty: You're putting into your bank account.
Doug Right.
Scotty: That's the way I look at it. I just changed my mindset to, and this is a game like how many NO’s can I get? Because I know each NO has a value to it. And the better you get, you said go deeper. Like you said, dude, that is an amazing quote, fewer people more when you work the fewer people more and build true relationships with them that know like and trust you and brilliant by creating a referrable experience, the care model.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: Which is a whole another class, they will refer their friends, family coworkers, two 50 to 300 people down the line. You know, so each person is so valuable, you know so if you'd make it a number, make it a dollar value. [24:42.1]
Doug: I think you're selling, the NO value, a little too short, I don't think I've ever met anybody who's had 40 NOs to get to one, I think it's a lot less than that.
Scotty: Of course. Yeah.
Doug: I'd venture to say that for every 10 NOs, you get a transaction.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: And so that takes that dollar amount per NO, but again, it goes back to, if you look at September, we're all sitting here going October, November and December, we're running into fourth quarter, we've got 10 weeks, right? You got Thanksgiving, you got Christmas and new year's in there by all accounts we have 10 weeks to end the year on a high note. And most of us have had amazing year so far. I mean, in real estate, we've had, we've been blessed.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: The problem is, is that as we roll into next year, what are you going to do to become even more efficient, even better? How do you have even more time? And I think that's why this tracker is so relevant right now is because if you ask most people, is it more money that they want Scotty, right? They want more time.
Scotty: More time.
Doug: And what's a better way to figure out where your time's being lost in is how many times a day are you following up with fewer people and getting them to convert to actual transactions and actual clients and raving fans? [25:44.7]
Scotty: I love it, man. I can talk about this all day. You know, and I do talk about it all day with every single person.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: Cause I think we're all looking for the magic bullet, the magic wand, like there's no such thing. It's just, if I'm in the first question is, Hey, how many conversations do you had last month in September?
Doug: Right?
Scotty: I don't know.
Doug: So, I've got this one particular client up in Northern Michigan. He's a loan officer, he's coaching a handful of realtors and he took it upon himself. He goes, I'm going to try this, cause I want to see if this tracking actually works. So, he got five realtors to commit to a 90 day plan.
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: Five realtors committed to a 90-day plan of just tracking. He meets with them once every other week and after 90 days, he sat back and goes, the results were profound.
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: He goes out of the five agents, one quit, he quit 30 days into it. And he's like, tso what, that's 20%.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I'm totally good with him going away.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: The other four, two of them hired their first ISA’s
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: Because they bought into the idea that they needed to spend more time talking to more people and hiring out some additional services. Well, it helped their businesses out tremendously. The other two actually doubled their production. [26:48.5]
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: And the result was.
Scotty: Just by the tracker?
Doug: The tracker actually produced, it produced something different to them. It helped them follow up and follow through.
Scotty: Wow.
Doug: Better than they ever had. So, none of them are lacking the conversations. They were getting enough attraction, but they weren't doing enough converting. Like none of us has an attraction issue, that's why we're in sales.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: What we have though is a conversion issue because there's a disconnect between being told that you can help them to actually getting them to commit to using it. And so, the tracking form is kind of that bridge that helps you take the attraction and turn it into conversion. [27:25.4]
Scotty: Let me ask who on this call has a some sort of tracker CRM that tracks every conversation. Red light green light. Yeah. I love your red light green light yellow. You're going to share this with but who on this call has one. Okay, cool. All right. All right. So, some people do well, man, I'll make sure everybody gets a copy of this because I think it's powerful. And man, you know, like I love the fact that one of your clients gathered people together and said, Hey, let me help you with this. I think that's amazing.
Doug: Right. Right.
Scotty: Just to kind of pinpoint where like, Hey, how many people are you talking to? So brilliant.
Doug: There’s so many shiny whistles out there. We could spend thousands and tens of thousands of dollars annually on our business. And most of it will be either too complicated. It won't produce a result soon enough and it'll just become a waste, right. It just ends up getting put on the shelf with everything else that we decided to pay for. This sheet and I wouldn't be here. So passionately advocating for this. If you give yourself 90 days, if you give yourself 90 days, here's what you're going to find almost guaranteed if you commit to doing it. And by commit, that means at the beginning of the day, you look at it, you use it throughout the day, and you fill it out when you have an opportunity. And at the end of the day, you look at it. And if you commit to just those bookends, you know, this document, being your bookend for your business, here are the results that you're going to find. You're going to find where your business is successful at. You're going to find out who you are successful with. And you're going to find who the vampires are in your business. [28:47.7]
Scotty: Hmm...hmm.
Doug: And we can either help you, or it will be pretty obvious how to remove those obstacles by avoiding those types of conversations and it'll pinpoint exactly the weakness in your business that we need to strengthen around for you to grow past where you're at. I wish it was more complicated. I wish it was.
Scotty: I know.
Doug: I wish this tool was more flashy, but it's not. And maybe that's why we don't get. Maybe that's why people don't stick with it after 90 days is because it doesn't have that wow factor to it, right? It's a granular, very non flashy system in your business that if implemented and I've used mine since 1999, I, without question, it has been a flawless tool on my business since 1999, I've kept all the data. It actually gives you clarity more than any other tool that I've ever found. Now it's not meant to be a database manager. It's not meant to be a CRM. It's not meant to be a PNL, a balance sheet, it's simply meant to just be the windshield, not the engine, not the steering wheel. It's just meant to be the windshield of your business that you looked through every day to make sure that you're having enough of the right conversations with the right people. [29:57.1]
Scotty: Awesome. And again, if you're listening to this on a podcast.
Dough: Right.
Scott: Link to the actual, the job, the success, all that stuff. And then the link to this actual tracker is going to be a link inside the podcast. So, you can grab it there and download it.
Doug: So…
Scotty: Doug is this I know the answer, but I just want to ask, is this something you keep in the clouds on your computer? What's the best place?
Doug: I keep it in the cloud.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: I use it on Google drive.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: My entire team has access to it.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: So, every time we get a referral and every one of my team members on my team can open it up and be able to hold me accountable.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: To hold my wife, who's my partner accountable because we hold our team accountable for their responsibilities, but they know that our job is to fill that tracking form up. So, we share with everyone on our team. [30:38.1]
Scotty: So, Google drive, so it's free google.com/drive. It's your part of your Gmail account, if you don't have the Google works, all the stuff that they have.
Doug: Yup.
Scotty: It's unbelievable. So, it's just a free platform that you can actually share your documents with. So, I should probably do a class on Google drive just because there's so many things you can do with it, but.
Doug: Right, right. So here you go. It took me all of about less than 15 seconds to fill this out.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: And let me explain why I have certain things here. So, if you scroll down to the bottom, so what we have here is my kind of like the results tracker. So, what you have is the sources of business come from current client referrals down here, the bottom, right. Current cloud referrals, past client referrals, past clients, personal friend, and family, affiliated relationships like attorneys, insurance agents, and so forth. Marketing ads, mailer ads, social media, open house, leads group chambers, BNIs, LBNs and that kind of thing. So, when you go up to the top and you actually fill out the source, I listed it as an open house. When you scroll down to the categories down here, you'll see open house has produced.
Scotty: Oh cool. [31:38.4]
Doug: One referral, okay. And a total number of referrals is one for the month. Now, the reason that something else hasn't adjusted is because I only have it as a meeting set. A meeting set to me is they have not agreed, they have not signed a contract, they have not committed to working with you and or they're not under contract. And so, for me, a yellow is somebody that I need to follow up with. These are the ones that they make up, the 60% of the business that we're missing. You know, there's something that needs to be done. There's something else that we have to follow through up and follow up with. And the yellows are for me, are the greatest opportunity to take your business where you're at today and elevate it to that next level, because these are the ones that we got to talk to more and follow up with more. But the moment that you turn this into a under contract and we turn it to green, you can scroll down. And then now it's become under contract is one and my closing percentage is a 100%.
Scotty: Nice.
Doug: So, one for one and obviously changes every single time you add it, so the closing percentage is what I track with my clients. I love that you have a 100 referrals on a tracker. I love that you have 50 referrals on the tracker. The challenge then is now that you're good at adding the names and keeping it straight, what's the conversion rate?
Scotty: Right.
Doug: And Scotty. I think that most real estate agents have a conversion rate, that's probably if they really track the conversations, not just the people that say yes.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Everybody always says all I've got the best conversion rate. I'm like 80%. The truth be told is that's what your mind tells you. But if you start tracking the actual numbers of conversations with somebody at the grocery store, somebody at the gas station, somebody at a party, and you just make sure you get the basic information, cause that's the game we play with ourselves. Right. I want to add as many names to this tracker, as I possibly can to tell me where my business is at. Do I talk to enough people? And if so, are they the right people?
Scotty: Hmm. [33:30.6]
Doug: And so, once you start tracking the names and numbers, then it's a matter of, okay, well let's really figure this out. And what I found is that most agents have a conversion rate between 20 and 25%.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: That's about right.
Scotty: Okay. Does this leads and stuff like that
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: Okay.
Doug: And so is the moment you start tracking; we've seen that number double.
Scotty: Cause you know where the business is coming from.
Doug: Well, because you know where it's coming from. And then you start spending more time in those areas where, you know, the business is actually coming from.
Scotty: Right.
Doug: Like how many of us actually have a plan today? It's Monday. Do you know when September where you got your biggest opportunities from.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: And if so is that the same in August? Was it the same in July? And if you know the data, your brain starts to create these efficiencies, right? Your brain starts to solve problems consciously and you automatically start finding creative ways to generate more time and more ways to be in those environments.
Scotty: You’re a day behind and it's Tuesday, but that's okay, brother I got you Tuesday.
Doug: It’s not Tuesday.
Scotty: It’s Tuesday. Yes. Tuesday, Tuesday agent mastermind, bro. I don't know where you went on Monday, but yeah, you missed it. You missed it. I know you're going golfing, but man, like think you're already there, so.
Doug: Thank you. Thank you for that. I get lost. [34:39.6]
Scotty: All right, no worries.
Doug: So, what we're dealing with is the challenges, the agents that are all listening to this today is really about if you want to change your business and take it to another step up. I'm not saying you're going from a job to business tomorrow, but if you want to start from having a job to having your career, you want to go from a career to having a business or even from having a business, to having significance, it starts with tracking the business upfront. Whether you have other agents on your team, whether you're still producing or you're just getting started, this is the number one tool that you can use to ask for help with, this is the number one tool to help you become more. I don't want to say it's probably the one tool that if you, for what you put into it, you get out of it in return.
Scotty: Yeah, ten times in return.
Doug: So yeah, if you add the names, if you pay attention to the names and you pay attention to the colors, it's kind of the true serum to your business.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Like you’re really, cause, cause you have to look at it every day and go, it's been entire month of September, I've had five real estate conversations and one of them turned into a contract.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Okay. So, it tells us something that we have to change going into the next month, right? [35:45.1]
Scotty: Yeah. So, there's a question coming in about the red, yellow, and green, the 60 days or longer. And then the 60 days or less, can you give me an example of what the 60 days or longer is obviously a dead deal is a deal, right? Like can't help them.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Maybe they can't get approved today. Two questions, Cause that, that brings up another question. If you have a client, like if an agent has a client that comes in, is it can't get approved today, do you mark it a dead deal? Or do you do 60 days or longer? Because maybe if they do a couple of little tweaks to their credit report, now they can get approved.
Doug: So, I always look at it as sometimes actually not sometimes there's always going to be exceptions to the rule book by and large, you will never get a zebra to change its stripes. So, if we're talking about somebody, that's got a zero chance, likelihood of getting approved for a mortgage, that's a dead deal. If it's somebody that has to fix up their home, if it's somebody that actually has to repair something on their credit report, if it's something where they've got to save up some more money who knows, or maybe it's somebody that's got your budget and champagne tastes, there's no way they're ever going to buy something that they want.
Scotty: Got it.
Doug: Or the market's just not conducive for it.
Scotty: Got it. [36:50.6]
Doug: It’s a judgment call. But again, the moment that you have an opportunity to stay in front of stay talking to somebody.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I mark them as yellow.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: I mark them as yellow, because if there's a chance and I'm not saying everyone deserves the same chance, that's for you to decide if you've tracked your yellows, there's a good chance that within 60 to 90 days of tracking, you're probably going to have 30 to 40 yellows that you're going to be following up with.
Scotty: Hmm.
Doug: And it gets to be quite a bit.
Scotty: You know, and the crazy part about that, you know, it's funny you bring this up. If you mark one as a yellow, like you said, consistent follow up. I hear this day in and day out where even a dead deal like, I mean, you know, so be really careful when you do this because even a dead deal that maybe there's six months down the road so, then they need to do a bunch of stuff, their credit, maybe they don't have a credit score or maybe they've had just went through a bankruptcy.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: But still I've had these people refer their friends, family, and coworkers.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: Like, it's insane how.
Doug: It is.
Scotty: As long as you treat them with respect, here's what you need to do to make it happen. You know so I mean, it's up to you of course, but that person is like, again, I look at it as 250 to 300 people. You don't have to spend every day calling them every week, but just out of respect, here's what you do to make it happen. Boom. Put them in there, you know, so just whatever is best for you 60 days or longer 60 days or less.
Doug: Right.
Scotty: 60-days or less, you know, looking for a home approved contract, I think. [38:06.5]
Doug: Yep. I go back 60 days or longer or somebody that's not actively in the house hunt right now.
Scotty: Got it.
Doug: Even if you have somebody that has their home listed, that's a green somebody that's, pre-approved, that's a green. It isn't just those that are under contract that I consider it to be green.
Scotty: Got it.
Doug: These are the people that if they're, if they've said yes to working with you, you need to treat them differently than the yellows, obviously, right?
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Those are the ones that are actually closer to turning into a paycheck for you.
Scotty: Yeah.
Dough: The yellows are the ones where I love hiring an ISA to mine, the yellows, like I think that's the best use of $15 an hour that you never ask for.
Scotty: Ohhh…. Say that again. Say that again cause man, you just brushed over that. I think it's this, this is massive. Massive literally is a game changer, what, what you just said. So, I don't want to just brush over this.
Doug: Yes.
Scotty: So, say that again, but like explain it. Cause like hiring someone.
Doug: So, if you track your business for 90 days, if you give yourself 90 days before you change anything in your business, just track it for 90 days. If after 90 days you have more than 20 yellows of people that are interested in working with you have sought your advice out, but can't get pre-approved or aren't ready to do something yet.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Think about hiring somebody for 10 hours a day for 10 hours a week for 15, 20 bucks an hour. All they're doing every other week is calling those yellows for you just saying, hi, my name is Doug Gatorade. Scott Hudspeth asked that I give you a call and wanted to check in to see how you were doing on whatever the process is.
Scotty: Got it.
Doug: You know, repairing the home, building the garage, doing the rope, whatever the case may be so that you can stay focused on adding more names to that month for the tracker. But you have somebody doing the proper follow-up and follow through for you.
Scotty: That person.
Doug: That's the first thing you've ever spent.
Scotty: And that person not only can follow up and check in and remind them of who you are, what you do for a living, deepen the relationship, they can also ask, Hey, who of your friends, family, coworkers are looking to buy or sell we’d love to. [39:52.9]
Doug: That’s a whole other class.
Scotty: That’s a whole other class. I know.
Doug: That's taking the tracker and putting it on steroids.
Scotty: Yeah, correct.
Doug: It's like shooting it up full of steroids. Once you have the names and the numbers and you know what the baseline of your businesses, once we know that, then we can evolve it into how do we maximize the, just ask campaign with them? How do we start deepening the relationships and getting more out of them? And that's a whole other process.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: That actually increases not only the conversion rate, but it naturally produces the… it is the serotonin and dopamine when you get.
Scotty: Dopamine, yeah, the love drug.
Doug: When you look at your tracker and you have what we have on there is called a CCR, it's called current client referral. You know the moment you have a current client referral, but I'll tell you what you get, it just validates everything you're doing because somebody else said, you know what? Scotty, you're a great guy. I appreciate all the advice you've given me. My neighbor's getting ready to move, I'd love for you to go talk to them. I told you it might be calm. I mean, it's so easy.
Scotty: Yeah. [40:45.7]
Doug: And what you find is the conversion rate of our current client referrals is like 85%.
Scotty: Yeah. Its unbelievable.
Doug: Everybody that I talked to regarding this tracker has no idea what their conversion rate of their business is, actually!
Scotty: Yeah. Yeah, this is amazing. I just want to leave you guys with this. So, so Carl brought this up the other day and, and I'm, I'm kinda going a little bit off track, but really, it's staying with the tracker if you have yellows and greens consistently persistently having conversations with them. He went back to when we were kids and we had a birthday party and you know how you have one kid that's, it's their birthday and everybody brings gifts, but you like, hey open mine first, open mine first because we giving the gift get as much or more satisfaction than that as receiving the gift right.
Doug: Hmm…hmm.
Scotty: So, in talking about referrals, like clients that refer you, current client referral, they feel as good as if they're receiving anything. So not ask and not, you know, say, hey, whoever your friends, family, coworkers using the tracker saying, Hey, you know, 60 days or longer, 60 days or less not putting that into place, you're missing out on so much because the people you're working with are so grateful that they want to give and they're excited to do it just like.
Doug: Yeah. [41:58.1]
Scotty: You know, and still to this day, Doug, if I come to your birthday party and I bring a gift, dude, open mine first or so, like I still, at my age don't feel that way. You know, it's just crazy how crazy that story is so.
Doug: You know, what's funny you what you're talking about and we going to look at it in a dollar amount too. You know, we find that if you ask correctly, if you follow up and follow through and generate those moments of gratitude, we see a 30 to 40% increase in your business.
Scotty: Hmm.
Doug: Because of the natural asks and the results of those asks.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: Convert at such a high rate. Imagine if you closed 10 deals this past year, imagine if you closed 14 deals and at the average commission size of nine grand, I mean, what would you do with $46,000?
Scotty: $36,000, right?
Doug: Right. What would you do? Anybody on the call? Can anybody on the call not buying something to do with 36 grand?
Scotty: The government. I mean, Doug you got to pay them taxes though. Bang man.
Doug: Right. None of that might be making a lot less.
Scotty: Right. Awesome dude.
Doug: So, the point is that it's free money that we're all missing.
Scotty: Yes.
Doug: Because we're not tracking. We're simply winging it. Like we wake up every day and we just wing it. We live on hope here right.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: We all hope that our business is going to grow because we're doing a great job. We get the attaboys, we get the moments of gratitude. We don't have a real sense of who we're supposed to be talking to today. How many times we're supposed to be talking to them? And what are those conversations lead to?
Scotty: Yeah. [43:17.0]
Doug: The tracking form boiled down to its simplest form is who you talk to, where that business came from and what was the result. And then we can get you for 90 days to figure that out, I can help any real estate agent grow their business if we know those three key fundamentals.
Scotty: Love it.
Doug: It's really easy,
Scotty: Great stuff. Great stuff, Douggie. I appreciate you, man. This is unbelievable.
Doug: Appreciate you.
Scotty: Hey guys I’ve, I’ve put the link to this form, hopefully you can grab it. If not, I'll make sure that I posted on the agent mastermind group. So, if you're not part of the group, we're almost 20,000 of us 19,700 in , but it's a facebook.com/groups/agentmastermind. If you can't pull it somehow there's a little panel here of the go-to webinar. There's an attachment section. It should be in there. So go ahead and grab it there. If not, I'll make sure I'm posted on the Agent Mastermind group. So, Douggie, this is unbelievable, dude. Amazing. Thanks for being here today.
Doug: Thanks for letting me share today buddy.
Scotty: Yeah.
Doug: It’s an honor, to be a part of us. It’s an honor.
Scotty: Yeah man.
Doug: It’s an honor to be here for all of you guys have for everyone that's been here listening and or watching, it's a privilege to be able to take what I know helped my business and so many others out and share it with you as well. And it's free. I mean, the tools free. You just gotta use it. Can’t stress it any other way. [44:24.5]
Scotty: Yeah. Well, and that's a double-edged sword. I won't even go there, but that's like, it's free. If we were to charge you for it, then you would use it. But we're not. So please still use it. Please still use it.
Doug: That works, that’s debatable. That’s debatable, I have a hard time putting a dollar figure on this, but I know
Scotty: I know what it can make.
Doug: Yeah.
Scotty: I know what it can make it easy so. All right guys, thanks so much for being here Douggie as always have fun out there on the golf course, man, I know your heading out.
Doug: Thank you.
Scotty: So, have fun, appreciate you, man. Congratulations on your success and thanks guys same time, same place next week right here on Agent Mastermind everybody be safe. Have a good day and we'll see you on the web. Take care everybody.
Doug: See ya. Bye-Bye. [44:56.3]
I'm a Millionaire Loan Officer.
Thank you for tuning into the Millionaire Loan Officer podcast with your host Scott Hudspeth, don't forget to visit MLOlive.com to have your questions answered. See you next time. [45:15.8]
