Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to selling the dream. This isn't an interview, and we're not journalists. But each week, we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success. Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey, everybody. Ken Jordan here. Welcome to selling the dream, our podcast that talks about sales success and motivation.
What's holding you back, and what's possible? And as always, I'm joined by my co host, Joe Iredell, coming to us from the other side of the country in California. Joe, how are you doing?
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Good, man. Doing real good.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I understand you just got back from the talent.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: I did, yeah. My daughter, my five year old, decided that she wants to sing. And I don't know where this vein of talent has come through with all my kids, but they are like the goddamn van traps all of a sudden.
It's pretty nuts.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: What did she do?
[00:01:08] Speaker C: She sung don't speak by no doubt, and she's in kindergarten. So it was pretty ambitious, considering the other acts in the show, and she nailed it. So it was cool.
[00:01:21] Speaker D: It was very.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Unknow, that song, man, I feel like she should be singing something out of my little pony.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: They have an eclectic taste in music, and it's mainly because I don't let anyone touch the radio when I'm in the car. So they listen to what I listen to. Not that I'm a big, I like.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: No doubt, no doubt fan.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Are you? Gwen Stefani came and played at Carlsbad High School back in, like, a surprise thing. It was, like, on MTV. So I don't know.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I'm going to bring in our guest here today. So we are really fortunate to have with us a real baller, John Schwartz from Remax one and team leader of the premier properties group, perennially a top ten real estate agent in the state of New Jersey. But at one time, 2017, the number one remax agent on the planet. John, is that true?
[00:02:21] Speaker D: The world, they said. So I guess that's same thing.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: Properties on Mars.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: So you could technically say in the universe.
[00:02:33] Speaker D: I mean, if we're being perpetuity throughout.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. John, thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:02:39] Speaker D: Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: So, John, let's talk, if you don't mind. Share us a little bit about your background, a little bit of your origin.
[00:02:47] Speaker D: Story, how I got into real estate stuff. Start there. Sure.
My parents own supermarkets when I grew up, and it's a shitty business. It's like carting a bunch of money back and forth in the bank, but keeping none of it. And usually being in a negative, I actually went out on my own, opened up a martial arts studio back in 1995 for a couple of years, and I went from working really hard to. That's not really work.
I mean, it's like, it's good. It's fun. It's enjoyable, but it kind of took away from some of the fun of the martial arts for me. When I was younger, I was into that and then went back and actually bought my parents store out in the city in Philly. And then I ran that, and it's worked, man. It's like seven days.
I always was into real estate. I was always into sales. I always wanted to try it. And I was from, originally, the suburbs. I grew up in Bucks county, and I moved to the city. I wanted to get back to the suburbs, but it was a lot more expensive to try to move up there. I'm talking, I'm 22, so to buy, like, a single house, yard and stuff. When I was used to growing up, South Jersey was affordable. So I came over here, and I saw how fast the real estate moved over here, and it was appreciated. I was like, well, I got to give this a try and give it a whirl. And I kind of fell in love with it right away. I went first, sold my first house, and I think my end did a commission. I started on somebody's team. My end was like, $2,000.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: I'm like, what year was this, John?
[00:04:23] Speaker D: 2001. Okay, that's 2002, right after September 11. That's when everybody kind of went and did everything they wanted to do after. So I went to real estate school right after, and then I got my license at the end of 2001. I started working in January, but I knew it didn't feel like work to me because it felt natural. I liked it. I really enjoyed it. Anything, if you like it, it doesn't feel like work, and then you can. Just to make money is easy at that point when you love it. I just fell in love with it right away. I hustled, and six months later, I went on my own, and it just felt natural to me.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: You went on your own six months after being in the business?
[00:05:03] Speaker D: Yeah. And then my first full year, I had platinum club in remax. I had over 330 in GCI, and this is in 2003.
It was tough times there, especially when you're new.
I didn't know the areas. I didn't know the neighborhoods. I had to research everything I went. I wasn't in the club because I was new. I wasn't from around here. I didn't have any connections from school or growing up. My friends didn't. Most of my. I made all new friends, made a whole new life out here. And I just had a baby at the time who was premature, had all kinds of health issues, and I was nervous wreck trying to run. That helped put my aunts to get hustling, too. So I think those couple of things, it kind of took off quick and kind of spider web. It was tough then, too. It was almost like it is now for a new agent. Because if you remember, every house had like four offers on it. Same thing. You're playing with everybody. But now I don't have these relationships. So I had to really kind of push my way through to get things done.
But it was good. I enjoyed it, still enjoy it now very much. And that's pretty much how I got started.
Boom.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: You mentioned something. This is actually interesting.
You and Joe have something in common.
Martial arts.
[00:06:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: So you were studying martial arts growing up, and I understand recently you kind of got back into it or really started to refocus on it not long ago. Is that true?
[00:06:36] Speaker D: No, I haven't gotten back to it.
I still think about sometimes here and there. My son was in it for a little while. I went back to it. I just did some kickboxing just for the gym, just for like, not as much as I should. But I was always into it. I always followed it. But back then I was really into it. Competing and stuff. But before I had kids and family and all that stuff, that was fun. It was more of a hobby back then that I really enjoyed.
But I did learn a lot from it. I mean, you learn a lot of stuff and discipline.
The school was a lot trying to. Recruiting people, hiring help. And it gave me a good jump start on business, I should say.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Tell me about that.
So the discipline, regardless of which martial art you're in, and Joe, maybe you could speak to this, too. But what was the most important lesson you took from that, that you were able to parlay into your real estate business?
[00:07:35] Speaker D: I would say standards.
Just developing standards and setting and achieving goals or habits that it's part of the thing when you're teaching other people's children, parents come in, they have a standard place, got to be immaculately clean.
When the kids are on the mat, you teach a command. They all got to step back on the right leg. You all got to step back on the right leg. You get four of them stepping on their left because they are kids. Right. But you develop those standards for the kids and then their standards at school and things like that. And you're accountable to their parents or paying you money to send your kids there to learn that discipline and stuff. And I kind of learned it. It's funny, it's been a while since I did it, but now my son just started playing tackle football and coaches out there screaming f words at him. He's twelve. All the kids, it's crazy, isn't it? But I love it. I absolutely love it because this is the stuff. Because now we don't really, I don't know how it was like when you grew up, but you were just talking about, Joe was talking about his daughter singing in kindergarten. I was in the weeds when I was a kid. I was not out there with a microphone by any stretch. And most of my friends the same way, these kids, they got stones. They go out and do all kinds of stuff. So thinking about it, watching my son getting coached in football, I'm like, he goes to private school. He's the nicest, sweetest kid in the world, but he doesn't have that little edge. And he isn't going to get it from us because I grew up that way and I don't pass that on to my son. So he didn't live in a city. His life's been pretty good. He's never lived in a house without a swimming pool or.
It's good to see them learn that discipline. So it's so good for him. And he enjoys it, too. So that's one of the things of the standard, I would say is something I learned there that I had in real estate. And I came in and there's a lot of people that are doing really well in the business. I went into a good office. I kind of pushed my way into an office I really wasn't supposed to be at. That's another story for another day. It's a long way, but Remax, you have to pay to be in it. And it's really for top producers and stuff. And I wanted to be there because the guys across the street from the school, I had that remax office and they had jaguars, mercedes in the parking lot, and the office of the school that I was going to had ltds and stuff like that. I'm like, I'm going to go work over there. I just kind of muscle my way in there like, well, yeah, you got to pay to be like, I'll fucking, I'll pay. I don't care.
Sorry. If you have the sense of that, you're good.
No way, man.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: As long as we're not crazy, we like, just be yourself.
[00:10:11] Speaker D: I think I was around people that were all doing it, but I'm like, they got two arms, two legs like me. We're all the same thing.
We competed against each other, and it kind of lifted my motivation. You kind of rise to what's around you, I think, come a part of the culture that you're ingrained in.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Well, Joe, what do you always say if you can't be an eagle, if you're hanging around turkeys, that's it.
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Can't soar with the eagles if you hang with a bunch of turkeys.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: So, Joe, what about your experience with martial arts and how it's helped you in your entrepreneurship but business in general?
[00:10:53] Speaker C: I kind of come from the reverse of it. So I was really good at fighting and not really good at technique, and then I got into jiu jitsu, and it's humbling because if you don't have standards, if you don't do the techniques, if you don't have the discipline, then you could be the toughest dude on the planet and you're going to get whooped. And so it's just I train a couple of hours a day, probably more than that, every single day, and I'm never not humbled. But one of the things that helped me with my business, my career, and the businesses I start is that if you can kind of embrace the fact that it sucks while you're going through it, and you just add that up over time, it sucks a little bit less, but you're used to those uncomfortable situations. So then when it comes to anything that you have to do that work wise or if making an uncomfortable phone call, or I have to figure out this contract, or I have to negotiate something like that, when you put it in perspective of I have to go fight a guy who's 20 pounds heavier than me in a black belt, that could probably break my arms by looking at me. Those other aspects of what you view as difficult isn't difficult anymore, and it's actually kind of pushing into perspective, but really it's just one of the just taking a little building block every single day and getting better and know that it sucks in the moment, but when you add those little wins up over time, you get pretty strong.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: We talk about building muscles around what it is you're trying to do.
I love your analogy of being a kid who maybe grew up where fighting was kind of in the culture. And I know that in our generation, I think it was more prevalent than it is today. I could be wrong, but I think all of us are in the same boat. I think all of our kids are growing up. John, me and you and Joe are growing up in a different world, a different neighborhood, a different.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: They're soft. These kids today are soft.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: But go back to being a kid when you were in those situations where you were in a fight and you had zero technical skills, you just kind of had instincts. And I think that in sales, I think there's so many salespeople that are out there operating on instincts alone, and it's enough to get by. But when you can apply technique and skill sets behind those instincts, I think that salespeople in general, the right ones, I think that's where the exponential growth comes from. And it was true for me for sure. So, John, do you have real estate agents that work under you?
[00:13:59] Speaker D: Yeah, there's six of us now. So talk about that.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Is that kind of how you experience it too?
Do you see these agents without the technical skills where you can come in and say, okay, I'm going to take your talent, I want to apply some technical skills behind it. What are some of the things you're working with your agents on?
[00:14:18] Speaker D: Usually what the sales thing is?
It's a sales job, right? Real estate is like a sales job, considered a sales job. But most people think, and most people are trained, like language and talking. You go into a house, here's the kitchen, here's the living room.
You walk into a house, and I think an intelligible person that walks by a room with cabinets and appliances thinks it's a fucking kitchen.
Probably, right? That's not sales at all. That's actually being an idiot. They walk in, they know they want it, right? They know they want the place. Right. They do everything great. They wore their $800 shoes, do all this shit. Then what happens? They come out, they get the offer, they try to present it to the agent. So it doesn't matter what you told your buyers, how excited they are, how happy they are. If they give me an offer with a shitty pre approval from a lender that I don't know, they're down here and they don't use the lender in their office. They don't use anyone from the area, but it's from up North Jersey, right outside of New York, where some oiler room of b money gets a loan. I'm like, why did they go there? And then you can't even tell me. So that's where your sales is selling to the office because they're getting that to the table. Selling the lender, that you're going to put the deal together clean in a way that's going to work. And talk to the lender, and you have reasonable expectations of how the transaction is going to go. Having relationships with the other agents, selling them, that your offer is better than the other 20 that are in line with it, having a good reputation, working on development, that's where you're really selling, because you're not. And brightening it up, right, looking at it right, presenting it right. I can't tell you how many times as a listing agent I'd get an offer and it's like half ass written together, thrown together. You call the agent and there's no address on it. I'm like, oh, are they selling a house? Oh, no, they sold their house contingent. Okay? It's not on a paper. What's their address? I've got to do a contract. Oh, let me get that for you. Let me get that for you. You're in the real estate business. You don't know where they live. You don't know what they're doing with their other house. You didn't know. That tells me this guy's like, bet if I take that guy's offer, that means I have nothing else on the table. And those people probably pay way too much for that house.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: I think a lot of people forget about that.
[00:16:34] Speaker D: John.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: When you think about the sales or the selling skills that you need as an agent, it's not just your value proposition to your borrower or your value proposition to your seller, but it's the interrelationship selling that's done between agent to agent, right. And conveying that value proposition. That's a good point you make. And I think it's one that a lot of people forget about.
Take me through. You got a brand new agent sitting in front of you right now. Brand new, okay. And it's just like somebody who maybe started in 2007.
What's the biggest piece of advice you're giving that agent right now?
[00:17:16] Speaker D: Know who you're selling to. You got to know the motivation of the parties on the other side.
Whatever. You're the seller and I'm your listing agent.
How are you going to get through me, through the seller? Where are you going to put me in a position as an agent to try to have my seller accept your offer? Figure those things out. Try to find out what the motivation is of the seller. Put the offer around their.
Because usually when you're saying so, a newer agent usually starts out as a buyer agent, right? And I always tell them when your job as a buyer agent is to go out there and sell yourself to them to let them know that you're going to bust your butt to get them the nicest house that they want and the terms that they want, price that they want.
So the main thing is just knowing who you got to please to get that offer done. Because there's so many different pieces, right? There's two realtors, a buyer, a seller, what's going to be the perfect marriage? And try to plan out in your head and see where you can do to get there. What are these people looking for? Are they looking for a later closing? Because it doesn't matter if your price is great, but they need like four months or something.
Make sure that your buyers are going to be willing to, their offer is going to fall in line with what the seller wants. Because it doesn't matter if you spin your wheels and run around circles if it's not what they want. It's a lot of times I've seen agents argue with a price on a house and didn't even take in consideration that what the buyer really wanted, because my wife wants the house and I want to pay 10,000 over. And then the agent consults me back and says, yeah, you can't pay that. The comps are this, the comps are that. And then I go in and I don't get the house. I got to live with my wife for the next 20 years, who thinks I'm cheap because I didn't want to pay the extra ten grand. And that's not actually what I asked for. I just give me the right deal. I've seen that happen often where the agent gets involved in their own head and says, well, you can't pay this because for whatever reason, their opinion gets involved. And it's not always price. Sometimes what an offer, sometimes the terms, it's what they want.
If I pay 10% over everything my wife wants and make her happy, and I'm going to do that.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Let me.
[00:19:28] Speaker C: Ask you this, because I'm not in the real estate world, so if I'm a prospective client, I have a house buying or selling, it's somewhat my understanding that the agent that I choose, when you get an offer or give an offer, the agent on the other end of it is going to. If they're boys, it's going to get accepted. Right? In your case, you get three offers. You know two of the agents very well, you've done business with them over the years. And then there's a third guy who might have a slightly better offer, but you've never done business with them. The two guys, you know, are probably going to get more attention. Is that right?
[00:20:11] Speaker D: If I know that they care about the reputation like I do, because that's what we all want. Is it to go smooth and clean and get referrals out of it next time? And seller what they want, so you get good reviews. The buyer what they want so you get good reviews. Everybody's happy and moves on. Yes. So taking another one from somebody else is taking, you know, where you're at with this one. You know, they don't lie. They've been around a while. They care. The one you don't know is the one you don't know. But sometimes that one is so much better than the other ones. And then you have to go back and you just have to do more homework. And then you got to explain that to your client. Like, look, I know these people. I work them for. I don't think there's any, but this one's blowing them out of the water.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: So is that something that you communicate, that's a good thing to communicate to your clients that says, hey, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. And we know that this deal will get done because these guys have it buttoned up. This is a little bit more, but it's kind of, we don't know. Is that a conversation that you typically have or is that something you keep close to your chest?
[00:21:18] Speaker D: No. You give them all the information. You give them all the information. You let them know the risks of not having the relationships as tight as you do with this one here, because it falls on you, too. So if you tell your seller, hey, I worked with this guy a bunch of times, and everything's been good and smooth. I really think it's good. I know this lender, and then something goes wrong, then they know, like, hey, well, you push this one on me now, it's on you. No matter what you do, it's going to be on you. But if you tell them the new guy, you don't know him and everything else, and then that way, if that one does have a problem also, you also disclose that up front and you still build a little more trust. So I think if you give all the information and then with the one you don't know, you just do a little more homework, like, all right, who's the lender? Do I know them? Call the lender. The lender will tell you the things that you need know. And I think it's important. I think a lot of agents and I think this is by design in some companies that I know all the mortgage products of the people I'm dealing with, my mortgage companies, I know it in and out. I know how it gets underwritten. I know pretty much how everything operates.
I'm not on the same level as a lender, but I do know how that process works inside and out. So I can tell when somebody's bsing me and saying something and it's not accurate. So I think if you call up the lender and you ask certain questions, are they self employed? How long have they been at their current job? And the things that I just had a deal fall apart where a lender tells me the day before closing, this guy lied on his application about his alimony and he didn't include his full alimony and child support, whatever decree or whatever. And I'm like, well, it's a red flag. There's a divorce, there's always going to be something. Alimony, child support is always going to be an issue.
You didn't take a look at it.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Why the day before closing? Right?
[00:23:06] Speaker D: Right, exactly.
Now, in this case, I didn't ask those questions up front to them because the lender said they were good. They were good, they were strong. Credit was good, income was good, it was clean.
The house would appraise with no issue, all this stuff. And then last minute, nothing you could do about it. But listen, when you take the responsibility of working for your client, it falls on you a little bit.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Let me shift gears a little bit.
You work with your wife. You guys are a team.
[00:23:37] Speaker D: Yeah, she's my partner and we're a team full time.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: What's it like working with your wife?
[00:23:43] Speaker D: I love it. I think it's great. People always ask me like, and you're in the same side, really? So what's it like working with your wife? Well, when we have a shitty day, it's called things fall apart. We know we had a shitty day, so we'll just relax, go out to dinner or something. Cool. We're all on the same page.
Sometimes people don't understand this business.
I have a friend who, he's in the mortgage business, actually does well, but sometimes he has a shitty day. I have one too, because we're both on the same.
But he, you know, we're going to go home. We want to just relax. And the wife wants to book a trip to Polynesian and Disney, like, same night she wants to talk about it. He's like, well, we're going to do it, but just let's talk about tomorrow. Well, we got to line it up. We got to do this. I don't have any of that. We're house on the same page, so it's pretty smooth. And we understand each other, we help each other out, we work together. And she can actually finish my sentences. I'm on the phone talking to somebody about a problem. She's listening on the other across from me and fixing it.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: I think you just said, it's exactly right. You're creating problems. And she's at the other side of the room fixing.
[00:24:52] Speaker D: Yeah, she's fixing.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Joe, you work with your do I do.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: I work for my wife, Kenny. That's how that works. But yeah, no, same situation. And it's neat because we get to be good cop, bad cop. She's usually the good cop, or actually, I should say responsible cop, irresponsible cop. So I go out and I do all the sizzle and she's all the steak. So I make all the promises and she delivers on them.
That's cool. But it's constantly evolving. It's like our businesses. I'm in multiple different businesses, so they all present their own different sets of challenges. So on some of my companies, she's right forefront, and I'm kind of take a backseat and vice versa. So it's cool.
I trust her implicitly. And in business, I would never recommend having a business partner, ever. But if you have to have one, it's good to make it your life partner. And that way, if I'm going down.
[00:26:06] Speaker D: We'Re all going down on the same page.
[00:26:10] Speaker C: Yeah, we have the same goals with the business, and it all feeds to the same. Fills the same buckets. So that's kind of where I think it's.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: I think it's a good thing me and my wife don't work together, because if we work closely together, it wouldn't take her long to realize I don't.
[00:26:28] Speaker D: Know what I'm doing.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: I think it's healthy for us to have our separate worlds, but I do enjoy people who are making it work. I love seeing that one of my operations people is married to one of our loan officers.
You just get so immersed in the world, and there's got to be some challenges to it.
[00:26:53] Speaker D: That's got to be tough, though, if you got like that. I don't know that I could do. Yeah, I'm going to her for underwriting, and she's like, nah, I can't let this slide.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's document looks.
No, she beats his ass sometimes.
He'll turn a file in, and she'll be like, what is. There's nothing in the file.
She's tough on him, but he's now a better loan officer because of her. And she's an ex marine. Well, he's an ex marine, too, so they got that both going. But tell me a challenge, John. What's tough about working with your spouse?
[00:27:32] Speaker D: When there's something that she sees one way and I see something different, she'll tell me to calm down. I'm always thinking kind of like, ahead a little bit. Like somebody will say something, I'll know they're full of shit. And she doesn't think that. I'm like, let me fall on my face down. You could kick my ass afterwards. But I know that.
I know I'm right here. Sometimes you hear stuff like, oh, yeah.
It's just something like, oh, well, they need more time for this because this happened. And I'm like, wait a minute. That don't add up because this and this. And I'm like, I don't want to explain it all to you now, why? I know that's bullshit, but it definitely is. That didn't happen.
Something like another business or something where it's not showing up. They're self employed. Well, they didn't say that before.
They can bring that into the deal now. They supposed to tell me that up front? We have one now that's like, I'm dealing with where it was one of the first time home buyer grant deals. Yeah, they didn't put that in in the beginning, and there's always a delay with those at the end, so we didn't know. And if he told me in the beginning, I respect the agent a little bit because he probably held that back in the beginning for purpose, to try to get his offer accepted for somebody else, which I can respect that. Look, he's a fighter. Good. Got the place for your client. But at the end, now that we know, like, all right, well, now we got to get our shit together and make sure it closes on time. We'll extend it a couple of days here. But he's like, oh, no, I told you it was. I'm like, no, you didn't. That's fine, whatever.
And that's stuff. When she deals with something, I tells me, like, oh, yeah, well, the grant was like, well, it wasn't a grant loan. Yeah, they always knew from beginning it wasn't. No, it wasn't, I would have remembered that. I went back and looked and of course it wasn't that kind of stuff.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: I had a friend of mine, I think that's common.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: The selective memory, I call it.
[00:29:30] Speaker D: You know why I always bullshit? Because they called you, not me.
No.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: It's a pretty big detail.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: I'm pretty sure that would have piqued my ears had I heard that originally.
[00:29:42] Speaker D: Yeah, let's call the girl the sweet voice and give her this news. Not the guy.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: I had a budy who was just got, he was telling me the other day he was in an argument with his wife and there was a discrepancy as to. Well, then you said this and then you said that. So he pulled up the ring doorbell as proof because he was walking out the door. And I said, really?
You thought that was a good idea to bring up the ring door, throw.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: The red flag.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: As right as you may have been? That was a bad move. That was a bad move.
[00:30:18] Speaker D: Yeah. They're the battles you don't want to win because the collateral damage is way worse. Yes.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Empiric victory.
John, let me ask you about 2017. Was it your goal to be the number one remax agent, or did it just happen?
[00:30:34] Speaker D: No, actually, what's funny is, so they have a convention in Vegas every year, and the old owner of our company would take the top five agents from each office to Vegas, fully paid for everything, would go to convention. We would have a blast down there. It was awesome. They stopped doing it the year before because it was the same five guys every year. It wasn't the plan that he thought was going to happen, where everybody would fight to get in there. People just kind of either get there. So it was the same five guys from each office every year. So he shut it down. I don't blame him. It was expensive, but. So at 17, I got a call from corporate.
They're like, oh, and then they have your local awards here to the local. Because remax at the time was broken up in different regions. Most of them were states. So they had the national awards out there, which were basically the same awards you got here. They just had a ceremony there. So we never really went or cared. And they're like, oh, they called me like, are you coming out this year? I'm like, no, why?
We had an award we wanted to give you out here. I'm like, well, I get it here. Anyway, it's like, no big deal. Said, no, we don't do these on the state level.
What is it?
I can't tell you. I have to surprise you at the conference on stage, I'm like, well, I'm not coming out. I'm not going to spend all that money. What is this kind of bait and switch to get me out there for three grand or something?
She's like, well, you got an award for units. I said, okay, I get that here, too.
I'm like, what is it, national? So we do one for national, do one for worldwide, too. So I was like, wow, okay. All right, thanks, but I'm still not going out there. But anyway, they announced it there at the convention. They don't tell people before then. They want everybody there.
No, I never went for it, actually. They sent the president for the national recruiter out here and he threw a party for me here. My wife organized that and they came out here to throw a nice big party. It was awesome. And then I got in the nation the year after that.
We did a lot of reo sales back then and that was like when it was a lot of back inventory from 2012 13 that was sitting for a while. That came out. So we did like 430 units that year myself with one admin. And my wife was actually adding was more of our accounting back then.
And then after 2020, the REO was dead because they stopped everything. So that's starting to pick up now. There's going to be a lot more of that next year.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: You think so?
[00:33:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I spent a lot of time with some of the groups I belong to analyzing that stuff. And I was on a certification last three days that trained for a big hedge fund that's taking on a lot of that kind of stuff. And they're talking about the next quarter boarding on like 4000 assets. So we'll be selling that stuff soon again.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: So you weren't even striving to be the number one agent at remax and units. You just were out there grinding every day and one day you look up and you're like, wow, here I am. This is the award that I'm getting.
[00:33:51] Speaker D: Yeah, this is pretty cool. All right. That's how it happened. I really wasn't paying attention. Well, then once you get it, you want to go back for it again. Yeah, I actually did more units in 2018. I did 17, but I got to nationwide because I guess other people did as well. Somebody else took over the other spot.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: This is a tough one.
Have you ever failed?
[00:34:28] Speaker D: Yeah, all the time.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: All right.
[00:34:31] Speaker D: Universal today. Yeah.
But something you said earlier, which is right when you do get to a certain point of discipline over a long time and knowing like, all right, well, this is just going to show me the right path to it. I'm not going to give up. This is just going to point me in another direction to go forward and overcome that. So I think when you get, after so many years of experience, you start to appreciate the failures more.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Yeah, the minor ones.
Look, we all know that the big stepbacks are the ones where you learn sometimes a failure is just the universe's way of clearing the road. Clearing the way for you, too.
Maybe you're working on something you really shouldn't be working on. I don't know.
But share with me a time where you set out to do something, you did not accomplish it, but you learned something. Do you have anything specific?
[00:35:29] Speaker D: Um, not the top of my head. I mean, anything specific, but, like, I would say, like, in. In 2020, when that first happened, they shut everything down. We were kind of fighting back against trying to get reo again. We're slow because then when it gets more scarce, all the other agents are going at it again, too. And then I think a lot of. We like that business. We're good at it. We've done it for a long time.
So we kept fighting for it, fighting for it, fighting for it, and we ended up getting a couple of other accounts back that were starting to good. And then 2020 came and shut everything down.
And we didn't quit on it because it's expensive to be that business, too. There's a lot of certifications and memberships that you have to pay for that are a lot of money. And it was easy to be like, oh, we'll just do full time retail now. We expanded our retail.
You know, when it first happened, I was like, this is an opportunity because there's not a lot of people that are going to fight as hard through this as we are, because some place right across the bridge in Philly, they were shut down completely.
It wasn't essential over there.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Isn't that nuts how in some states deemed real estate essential and some states didn't?
[00:36:46] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, to me, it's ludicrous, but I guess makes sense to some people for some reason.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: I guess if your governor is a cabinet maker.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Who'S contributing to the campaigns. Yeah, that's how that goes.
[00:37:02] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: I'll never forget that. Our governor was a cabinet maker, and somehow or another, cabinet making was essential, but real estate wasn't.
[00:37:10] Speaker D: Yeah. Liquor stores were essential. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I partake, but it was a nicer drive there, I'll tell you that. There. Five minutes back home?
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Yeah, in and out, man. No traffic. That was pretty nuts.
Those are some wild times, man.
So we're going to wrap up here.
One of the things that we like to do is just kind of leave the people that are listening with some value around, maybe something they're struggling with or maybe something they're striving for.
I feel in this conversation you're a unique perspective. I think that people who accomplish what you accomplish do so with a very thought out plan of goals and objectives and measuring and getting there. And it sounds like really it's just a matter of hard work will pay off eventually, right? Is that safe to say?
If your son or daughter was getting ready to get into the real estate business, what would you tell them?
[00:38:35] Speaker D: Have conversations with yourself when you come up with challenges, ask yourself questions.
What's awesome in this? Because there's always something like every time you hear of a major setback in anything, somebody's always doing well. In that scenario, somebody's always going to suffer. Somebody's always going to do well. It's the people that pivot and change.
I think this business is going to be totally different in a couple of years. I think you have to learn and forget. Forget some of the things that aren't going to work. Things change, move on. If it's a big difference in the way you're used to doing it, take that uncomfort and find some comfort in it. That all right, this is probably going to be good. I got the experience. Some of the people that this happened to have ten years less experience with me. I'm going to have an edge on them because I'm going to adjust and move in a different direction and do whatever we got to do. And just the main thing is just not give up. It's an easy way to say it, but not give up. Not give up on what you really want.
Know what you really want. Ask yourself questions, talk to do I love doing this? Do I want to keep doing this? Am I doing it for the money? Am I doing it because I like it? Am I doing it because I have to? And then just pivot and make the changes you need to make adjustments, but always come out of the other side. Don't give up. Don't quit. Anything that you start. Anything you start, take it to the end.
Finish.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: Awesome.
That is awesome. Well, I appreciate you joining us today.
I really kind of got a lot out of this conversation and I hope our listeners do, too. I think that we strive to reach out to and connect with the people that are at the top. And John, you should be. I'm sure you are. You're a humble person. I could tell. But definitely proud of all the things you've accomplished. And I feel pretty fortunate that you were willing to spend some time with us today.
[00:40:22] Speaker D: Me too, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks again.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: You bet. Catch up soon.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to selling the dream. We know you don't want to miss a single episode, so go subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts, and then make sure to share the show with your friends and leave us a review.
Bye.
