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. Welcome to Selling the Dream, a podcast where we sit around, talk about selling, talk about leading, talk about building businesses, and we have a very, very. We have a great guest for you today. But before we get to our guest, let me start by introducing Joe, as always, our co host there in California. Not from California. How's life in California, Joe?
[00:00:51] Speaker C: It's good, man. Things are going really well out here.
Yeah. So, yeah, actually, this is really cool, dude. I got a, I'll be doing a speaking event in a couple weeks with a guy, Dan Fleischman, who's, he's a really, he was the very first or the youngest person to ever take a company public. And he does these events with, like, Gary V. And like, all the, like, Kevin o' Leary and so forth. So I'm fortunate enough I got invited to, to speak on that platform. So I'll be doing that in a couple weeks. And I'm really looking forward to it because, you know, you want to fly with the Eagles, you can hang with turkeys. And so these guys are some serious Eagles. And I'm really, really fortunate enough to get invited into the doing that.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: That's really cool, man. I, I, I've seen a lot of his stuff on, like, he's, he's huge on Instagram.
Dan Fleischman, big following, lot of, a lot of flash, a lot of pizzazz, bro.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: We're out here in, you know, California, baby. It's the, it's the, it's the dream. So there's a lot of imagery that goes behind all of the stuff that, that's attracts attention. And I think that a lot of the style and things that, that permeate throughout the rest of the country kind of originate here in, like, Southern California, where it's the, that, you know, they paint the dream of that lifestyle. And it is sort of like that, but it's not kind of necessarily all that, all that you see. So.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Hey, but the taxes you guys pay, man, you can keep it. When's the event?
[00:02:30] Speaker C: It's in middle of May. Like, I think it's like May 12th.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Or something like that.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: All right. Yeah, keep me posted on that. That's pretty cool stuff. Yeah, we have an awesome guest today.
I actually, I don't know, I think I told Mike this once. I cold Called, I prospected Mike's office 20 years ago, maybe 18 years ago, back when, you know, when I was going door to door looking for real estate agents to connect with.
And, and he's been on my radar ever since. And recently we've been reconnected through Ed Fordyce and super excited. As soon as Ed told me that you guys were hanging out and talking to each other, I'm like, all right, you know what? I got him lined up for a podcast and here we are close to like six or seven months later. We finally were able to, to get our schedules aligned. So, Mike Shroka from Home Experts at exp, thank you very much for joining us today.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Thank you guys for having me on. I appreciate it.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So, so as a real estate business owner, I mean, we've had other real estate agents and real estate business owners on before. I always like to kind of begin with the backstory, like tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, your upbringing and, and, and how, you know, kind of how you transitioned into, into where you are today.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So born and raised here in the burbs of Philadelphia.
So this is my home territory.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Conshohocken no less though.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Yes. The one and only universe.
It's become quite popular over the last decade or so. Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Hot, hot place to live right now.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: It really is. The development, the, the things that are going on within the vicinity are really, really cool. I mean, just complete from when I was growing up, a complete 180. So I'm, it's kind of exciting them a part of it. Right. So that's, that's kind of cool.
But yeah, so basically, you know, know, grown, growing up here, went to Temple University and took real estate as one of my courses. So I was fortunate enough that when I graduated I didn't have to take real estate school. All my credits went and I was able to sit for the test and I was like, oh, is that something I want to do? Yeah, you know, I saw people make a lot of money. My dad had an investment property here and there, so I kind of understood a little bit about real estate.
But in between graduating and taking my test, I wanted to do some accounting work.
Right. So I got hired by this company, I'm not going to name it, but they manufacture baby clothes. Okay.
They set me in this office and it was me, one guy and like 60 middle aged women and three weeks they're like, we'd like to offer you the job permanently. And I'm like, you know what, I don't Think this is for me?
Like, I'll be honest.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: My first year at Penn State, I was an engineering major. And I looked around, I felt the same way for different reasons. Like, yeah, I don't think this is for me.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: You don't even. You weren't even going to get to drive a train.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: I know, Tell me about it.
[00:05:47] Speaker C: Right?
[00:05:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, so that's. That was an interesting experience because I'm like, oh, counting. You know, I did some of that in, in college. And I'm like, yeah, me staring wall numbers all day and not be in front of people was just not, not going to work for me.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: It's interesting because it's like, you know, personality profiling suggests that, you know, you probably made the right move. Right? Like, like, yes, you can be good at numbers, but accountants tend to be more, you know, introverted, more pro. Like, but, but, you know, seller selling and accounting are two different worlds.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: You came 100 different, you know, you heard the one.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: What is. What does an accountant use for birth control?
Their personality.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Hopefully my accountant's not listening.
Very. All very good points. That's absolutely true. So, you know, at the end of the day, getting into real estate, there was a guy here locally in my town that everybody knew because this was pre. This is when MLS was on dos.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Remember those days, right? You type run, right? And we had an MLS book in our office.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, hot sheets.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah, hot sheets. And if you wanted to show a property, you had to call the office. I would answer the phone and I would say, which property do you want to show? Oh, hold on. I will put you on hold. Call the owner and try to schedule the appointment. Right. Then get back to the agent. Well, that doesn't work. And this was go on and on. And that was one of my first office gigs in real estate, was learning the back scene, how all that stuff worked. So when you say, you know, when you say learning from the ground up, that was pretty much learning from the ground up.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Other ladies in my office that were successful gave me a disposable camera. And they said, could you please take these pictures of a new listing for me?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: And I like, what is that something I really want to do? And my boss was like, just do it.
It'll pay off in the long run. Right.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: So wait, back then you were probably like, wow, what's a disposable camera have.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: You just take pictures, throw it away.
New edge technology.
Whoa. Like on the street, shuttle is very, very ground up for sure. Yeah, it was, it was interesting to see how business was done then to fast forward it today, man, it's just like night and day difference.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: What? So. So you're in the office. I mean, obviously now you're surrounded by real estate. Obviously, your dad had some investment property, you said.
But do you remember the moment you're like, you know what? Like, a lot of times and. And joking attest to this. A lot of times, real estate talk, or most jobs are like, dude, I can do that. Like, it's not like you have an aspiration necessarily to do it. It's like you have a revelation that, like, wait a second, I see what they're doing. They're making good money, and maybe that's the influence, but I can do that. Is that how it was for you?
[00:08:44] Speaker A: So I. I think I was in it for almost a year, right? And I'm like, is this something I really want to do? I mean, you know, I said, gary was my first broker. He passed away. Rest in peace. One of my great mentors. Just an amazing guy. I said, gary, what. What should. Who should I call? And he turned around, threw a phone book on my desk. He goes, there's plenty of numbers in there. And I'm like, wow, okay, this is how it's going to be.
Needless to say, I didn't have a lot. I wasn't engaged like I should have been.
I mean, go figure out. I was 20, 20 years old.
So, you know, the work ethic might not have been there because I'm like, well, how much? How Dedication. How much dedication do I need? What's this?
You know, I didn't have a. I didn't have a COI at that age. And the people in my COI were not buying or selling real estate. So I had a little bit of a rude awakening. And I told my boss after maybe like, nine months, I'm gonna go sell cars.
Right? Probably the best decision I made, because when I went there for six months, I realized there's no freaking way I'm doing that shit. The pressure, sales. And they'd be like, why? Monday meetings will be like, going through my list of customers that came in, and they would grill me. Why the fuck did this guy leave the lot without buying? Why this guy leave the lot? I mean, it was just completely different. And I learned different sales techniques. I went back to my boss, and I'm like, I'm ready to go back again. And he's like, I knew you were going to come back.
He goes, now that you're serious about this, I'm going to have you shadow me. And we're going to start to do some really fun stuff. So my very first listing appointment, he goes, this guy named Bones is going to call and he's got a commercial property and next to it is a residential rental. So I'm like, all right.
The guy, I call him actually, and I go, is this Mr. Bones? He's like, yeah, who the fuck is this? And I'm like, okay, this is Mike. I work for Gary, blah, blah.
I said, I'm gonna prepare this paperwork for you and I want to meet you in person to sign it because there's no docusign.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: And he goes, you know what a strip club is down on Hector Street? And I'm like, yeah. He goes, well, meet me there at 5:30.
And I'm like, okay. So I knock on my boss's door, I'm like, garrett, good news. I got an appointment with Mr. Bones.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Bad news is I need a bunch of ones.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And then he goes, what's the bad news? I'm like, I'm going to a strip club. And he goes, what's the bad news?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: So I show up, remember those briefcases?
[00:11:19] Speaker A: We sit down and you hit the things, they pop up.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Was there a combination locker? Oh, yeah.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Did you have hand.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: At the. At the gentleman's club, pop open my briefcase trying to do paperwork.
And it was, needless to say, very interesting. However, glad.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: I'm actually glad that the bad news wasn't the type of.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: No.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: What we were going to.
The bad news is there's no girls at this strip club.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
No distractions. Everything was very. There was no alcohol or distractions involved that you shouldn't be doing as a duly licensed agent, because I'm like, I'm sure. Pretty sure to keep the alcohol involved. Anyway, long. Long story short, that was my very first opportunity and it kind of went from there. And it was pretty cool experience. I can go back and laugh at it now. But, you know, when you're in the environment where small town sort of speak back then and everybody knew everybody, there wasn't the formalities of having to dress in a suit and do all this other stuff. It was a lot of handshake stuff. And I learned the relationship side of the business, which is probably one of the most important things during that time.
Because, you know, you do what you say you're going to do, you treat everybody the same way. I don't have to worry about saying what I say to this person, what I say to that person. Everyone's treated the same and you just have good work and good work ethic and you know, it's got me to where I am today, which is very fortunate.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So going back to those early years, right. Especially you come back, you're like, all right, I'm serious about this.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: I'm assuming that you never had any troubles, you never had any issues. You just started making a million dollars.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: What were some of the, what were some of the struggles that you faced early on?
You know, that kind of, that, that gave you the, the experience, the worst guards.
What were some of the things that you went through that, that almost everyone in the business has to go through? But, but what were some of your experiences, some of your, your challenges early on?
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Sure. I mean youth, I mean there. Why would somebody trust a 20 year old that no experience.
Right. When is all these other agents that have, you know, 10, 15 years experience. Right. So I realized I wasn't smarter than everybody, but I was sure as going to outwork everybody. You weren't going to say I was lazy or not do what I needed to do to get your property sold. Right. And I would parlate and say, listen, look at all these other agents. They have all this business, they're not going to have time for you.
I don't have a lot of business yet, but I'm going to do everything I can to get business and I'm going to dedicate my time to help you sell your property. Right. And then I would leverage the listings on the, on our company.
Right. Because it wasn't just my name, it was leveraging that. And as I got all more appointments and started to understand things, I was able to overcome these objections. But I think the experience, the inexperience and the youth were definitely against me early on in this because it was all relationships back then. You know, there was no Internet. Well, there was Internet, just start now. There was no social media. So you knew people because you knew people from school, from work, whatever it was. And that was your, that was your group.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: It's funny, you can't, you can't change how old you are. Right. Me and Joe, remember one of our early. I've known Joe for 28 years now.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: 30 years.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: One of our first jobs out of college was selling ads in a phone book.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Or not. And door to door and you know, same thing.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: That was high pressure. I had those Monday morning meetings like for sure.
Why don't you sell this? Where are you at?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Where's your call log?
[00:14:50] Speaker C: I loved it though. I love that pressure. I thrived on that, I think we thrived on it.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: I think that to a degree. And like you said, Mike, at the, being at the, the car dealership, I mean, it taught you two things, right? Obviously it taught you don't want to sell cars, and I love that lesson.
But you also had to take something away from that high pressure situation where results do matter, right? Like, like walking around making a bunch of friends is fine, but like, if you're not results oriented, if you're not looking with the end in mind, then you can waste a lot of energy without any direction, right? And then the car business, the yellow peach business, they kind of really distill every movement down to intention towards the close. You don't put your hand in your pocket unless you're doing it for a reason. Because you got to get this thing closed, right? Do you feel like you learned a lot in the. What did you learn from the car business other than they didn't want to be in the car business?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: The question asking, you know what I mean, why are you here, right? Asking the right questions and selling is not telling. I'm not going to sit there and basically tell every model that we have. I'm like, you know, what's, what's your motivation for being here? What kind of vehicle do you need? What do you think is going to meet your needs? Right? And listening to them and just listening to what they want to do because they'll tell you your clues when you're asking the right questions, where you need to go with it. And, you know, you learn the objections just like in real estate, right? There's only so many objections.
And then when you learn how to say them and how to, you know, deal with them, it becomes a lot, a lot better. And I realized that with that high pressure, I had to have a really good reason if these people left, right? So I knew I couldn't make up, you know, and it held me accountable, so it held me accountable and it taught me how to listen.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: One of the things that you said that kind of resonated a lot with me is that is you talk to people the same way regardless, and that that helps and I find that. And I don't know if that's just because that's where we're from or whatever, but like, I found that when I'm negotiating, I'm dealing with, you know, someone from all walks of life, even at the highest level, that there's a fake people who, who aren't successful or aren't getting things done. There's like almost Like a fake professionalism that they try to put off. And. And it screws everything up. And if you're just like, to the point, you just talk like we're talking right now, like you could be dealing with a billionaire and doing, you know, multi million dollar deals. And they have, like, they're not trying to be professional. They're probably the most unprofessional people I've ever dealt with in my life in terms of how we communicate. And I think that that's a huge, huge thing that people miss when they get into the corporate world or like, that they just try to be so polished and it's forced and it becomes off as unauthentic. And, you know, so that's a really. That's a great piece that you shared because, you know, it's really. These are just. It's people. It's people talking to people, solving solutions. And, you know, if you can just be your normal self, then it removes a lot of roadblocks. And getting back to what. What Kenny was saying about when we started with Yellow Book and, dude, we had no business in the world telling these business owners for 30 years how they should spend their money. And we have all this stuff and, like, looking back, it was so ridiculous. But I think that what helped us was we were so raw, we were so unprofessional.
These guys just say, well, I know they're not smart enough to be lying to me. So, you know, here we go. So.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Did you play sports growing up?
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Yeah, baseball was my. Was my jam.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: How high did you. How high did you go? High school.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: High school? Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Did you have aspirations? Oh, here we go. Here we go. See, I forgot. Joe, you were supposed to remind me every time.
Every time. All right, before we go any further.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: In front of you, just stick to it.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: I know, I know, I know.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: I don't know why.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: I just. I get so excited.
All right, all right.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: 2.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Give me three facts. One of them is true. Excuse me?
Two of them are true. One of them's a lie. All right, what do you got?
[00:19:03] Speaker A: So I was a professional doorman at a nightclub down in Manayunk for a long time, through college and after college because I got health benefits.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Second one is I worked at a car dealership during high school, part time, became a.
And worked in a body shop, started detailing, and worked my way up to be a professional painter doing custom paint jobs.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: And the last one is in my country club. They have a big swim team and a lot of people that have gone scholarships. So I was, I started with them and I got a scholarship for Division 1 swim team.
Okay.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Scholarship for Division 1 swim team.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: All right.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: It's a good parlay. It's a good parlay to what I was going to talk about anyway.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: That's pretty good.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: All right, so we'll figure out by the time we're done, we'll try and figure out which one's the lie. Okay, so, so back to what Joe was talking about. I think you see it as an athlete, as a teammate, and they call it fake hustle, right? Like, fake hustle is that that kid on the team that, you know, doesn't really have a passion for it, but, like, it's just like, you know, acting like he's hustling.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Know what I mean? It's hard to, like, describe, but you know it when you see it. You know what I mean? And I think it's the same thing in sales. Like, if you are, if you're not authentic, and I wrote that word down from earlier, is that, you know, you know, you relied on your authenticity. If you're not authentic, man, people absolutely spot it. No matter how good of an actor you think you are, like, they just spot it. And I think that, you know, those, those, those defense walls absolutely start to come up and, and, and they prevent you from being able to hear, and they also prevent the person that you're talking to from being able to hear you. So you're like, oh, oh, I hear this objection. Oh, I have the answer to this. And then you reply, but your reply is just falling on deaf ear because they've already stopped listening to you because they don't trust you and you're not authentic and you're not being yourself. And it shows, you know, so I think that, that. And, and, and yes, in yellow pink sales and car sales, you know, especially when you have the reputation that car sales has that yellow page, that door to door salesmen have, you know, we already walk in the door with a strike against us, you know, so you start working, you start, you start acting like a, like, like a tool. That, that's, that's strike two and three, right?
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah. You, they already have a vision of what you're going to do because of your profession. Oh, used car salesman that are going to try to scam me out of the real estate. They're going to try to force me to do something, make me buy, sign some paperwork and blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's a stigmatism that everybody has usually because that's what they know or they heard or whatever the situation is. So the authenticity, like you said, makes that that's the difference maker. Right. And if you treat everybody the same way, you don't ever have to worry about what you said to somebody because you say the same thing all the time.
[00:22:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that fake, I like that fake hustle, because we all know those. Yeah, we've all been on teams with kids that, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna run the fastest when the coach is watching. Yeah, everything's watching. But, you know, they're slacking off.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: They run like this, like, who's, who's watching me.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: But I, I found that people like, in, in business, it's the difference between looking busy and being busy. So if you, a lot of times, some, like, I guess it's maybe like a, a comfort or coping mechanism, especially if you're an entrepreneur that, like, you fill your day with these activities and you get done the day like, oh, I work so hard today. But if there's no intent to the direction of the activities that you're doing, you get nowhere. And so I know, I've seen it, you know, and maybe this with realtors and so forth, where, you know, you can go networking meetings because they're easy, you know, chamber of commerce or whatever, and you go there and get hammered, not talk to anybody and be like, oh, I did all these networking. And like, if you're not there with the intent to what am I going to do? And have an end goal, then you've just wasted that entire time. But in your mind you're like, I'm busy. So there's definitely. When you set out and you have a. Especially if you're doing something on your own and you don't have Monday meetings that are holding you accountable, it's really difficult to not fall into that trap of looking busy as opposed to being busy.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Well, just figure people get into real estate because they don't want a boss. They want to make their own hours. They want to do what they want to do. But then you can't make any money if you do that.
So. Right. There's the catch 22. Well, I don't want to work for somebody because I want to do this, I want to do that. But then they don't make any money. And you realize at the end of the day, you still need that accountability.
Right. You still need somebody to teach you and mentor you. Right. And that's so important. And you can't, you got to be open to it. Right. You can't resist it and think that you know better and that's not going to work. And, you know, not having an ego and just listening because you're going to learn something different every day. Every situation is a learning experience. But I, I agreed. If you don't embrace that, like you said, and be authentic and don't be a fake hustle, right. Work half the time, right? Because you got to pay your dues. Like, people think that they're going to come in real estate and they're going to make $10 million the first year. Doesn't work that way. You got to pay your dues now, later, it doesn't matter. You gotta pay to Piper.
[00:24:41] Speaker C: So I love that.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Younger.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: I want to be my own boss. I'm like, I can have a boss, whatever. And like, you very quickly realize that when you go out on your own, you don't just have one. Everyone becomes your boss. I have, like, every client of mine is my boss. Like, they will. They can fire me tomorrow if I'm not doing my job and so forth. And every vendor is my boss because they don't have to work with me. And so it's. It's you. There's so much accountability. And again, it like, just goes back like, dude, like, I have to communicate, right? I have to be authentic. I have to make sure that everything is. So, yeah, it's not for the faint of heart, but the rewards, the payoffs are so great. If you can kind of keep that all in mind when you're doing it.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Mike, you had met. So. So one of the things I always tell the loan officers that I work with, or even the agents, some of the newer agents that I work with, that effort, productivity doesn't leave a residue.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Where, you know, effort leaves a residue. Like, you can work really, really hard. How do you know you worked hard? Well, you can tell by how you feel. If you worked hard. You tell if you were out lifting weights or if you're out working in the yard or you were out, you know, cleaning out your. Your garage, at the end of the day, you feel like, like tired. You feel like you put in the work and that's all fine and good, but when you get to the end of the week, if you haven't tracked your activities, and to Joe's point, the. The activities that matter. I can't remember which one of you guys said intention. The activities that matter. If you're not tracking those things, you get to the end of the week, you're relying on two things to determine.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: If it was a good week or.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: A bad week, right? A, how you feel, right? And B, your memory, right? Did you have a good week?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Who'd you talk to?
[00:26:20] Speaker B: How many people did you talk to? How good were those conversations? How many were in, in our language, you know, how many, how many appointments did you set? How many applications or contracts were signed? Like, if you're not tracking the right things at the end of the week, you might be tired, but you might be tired from doing all of the wrong things. The busy work that is so enticing because it's right there. I could just go do that instead of go do the hard thing. What do you do and how do you teach and work with your agents when it comes to tracking productivity or productive activities versus things that you could do but aren't doing, aren't moving the needle for you.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Income producing activity, I love that.
That should be your focus. And the way I've learned over the years, I've been trained by Mike Ferry, which is one of the top real estate coaches in the country. You know, I've been on panels, I've been, you name it.
And you know, one thing I've learned is if you're going to move the needle forward with income producing activities, you got a time block for those things to be very, very, very important, right? So if you do that and you get the hardest thing out of the way early because everyone's got a prospect you got to follow up. When you're in sales, you start every day at zero, right?
So at the end of the day, if you're time blocking it and you know, hey, I got, in order to make this goal, I have to do this many calls on this many appointments and do this much and you reverse engineer it and you always have to have that lead generation time built in there because that's what's going to move the needle forward. I can't tell you how many times, oh, I got two deals on a contract and then they, they just take off. I'm like, okay, well when these two deals close, then what?
You got to start all over again. You're going to be behind eight ball. So celebrate the wins, but keep moving, moving into the Ford and then keep doing the things that are going to show you success. And the more people you talk to in our business, the more, the more deals you're going to get. And I don't care if you're the smartest or the most skilled, if you're willing to put the work in, I'll teach you the rest if you show up and you want to learn, I'll teach you everything else you need to know.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Kind of like what Gary did. Like, Gary didn't show you anything until you came back the second time.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Exactly. You know, he's old enough to know. He's a young kid. Thinks he's got.
He knew, right. And he let me do it, go through the motions. And then he's like, all right, now, now I know you're ready.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: And I was like, so. And it's true. And it's. I wasn't prepared. I didn't want to be held accountable.
And that's. It shows. And that's exactly what happened. Do you use this.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Just a one off question. Do you use some sort of an activity tracker? Do you write down things that you do. You have. So you have something you check at the end of the week are here. The activities that I, That I tracked.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So for, for us now we have our own scorecard, what we call call. Right.
And what they're doing is. And they're reporting their numbers. So Matt and I, my business partner can track it. Right.
And we use that when we do our one on ones quarterly to say, okay, what do you guys need help with? Where you going? Well, I'm having a hard time doing this. Well, let me pull up your scorecard. Well, how come you weren't in the office for two weeks? You only made one phone call here. This is direct correlation to what's going on.
Right. So the numbers don't lie. I mean, it. You could tell you. I could tell what you're doing by what results are happening. Right. I'm smart enough to know that. So, you know, at the end of the day, making sure that the agents have a good schedule.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Right. And they're. They have the most important things in their schedule first. All the other stuff will come.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And scorecard helps you not lie to yourself too.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: You know, you'd be like, oh, yeah, I had a great busted my butt this week. But now we call our scorecard the mirror.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Just look in the mirror, right? They'll tell you whether or not you did or you didn't.
I think it's. I think that's interesting. It's funny you brought up the, the one sale. It's like, oh, I got a sale this week. I gotta say, had a guy reach out to me yesterday. He said, ken, I got this thing I got. She's gonna go with me. And I'm like, oh, that's great. But I knew in the Back of my head. I know this guy. My fear is that he's gonna remember Chris Heilbach. Joe, do you remember that? I don't know. If you don't admire the punch, and it was a great, great advice to us as young sales people. It's like the second you throw that punch, like, man, that was a really good punch. That's when you're going to get knocked out. You can't lose focus. You have to stay on offense. You can't just sit back and think, oh, that was awesome. I really did a great job there getting that sale. And I'm just going to bask in the glory of that sale. Do that for too long and you're, you're, you're, you're on your ass. So, So I thought that was a. That stayed with me for, for 25 years. Don't it by the punch. The other one, the other one, that. Chris Heilbach. This is our yellow page guy. He told a story about how he used to ride motorcycles. Motocross. And he was a. He raced motorcycles. And. And there was a guy that always beat him. Like, just couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't beat this guy.
And, and when he, when he finally was like, dude, I can't figure this out, why I. Why I can't. Why I can't beat you. You know, I don't know what it is. And the guy had a very simple answer. You're not driving fast enough.
And like, the simplicity in that answer is unreal because it's like, you look at these sales people, like, I don't know why I'm not hitting my numbers. It's very simple. Because you're not making enough calls. You're not driving fast enough. And until you get that out of your head that you're driving that, you know, if you're doing enough to win, if you're doing enough to win, you would win. Right.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: So.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Chris.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: And you know what? I. I talked to talk because, you know, my old real estate partner, when we first started, our team didn't have teams. Everybody didn't know what a team was. They didn't understand.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you guys were early on that concept.
Yeah.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Like, I'm hiring you. Like, who's this person? Who's that person? And I'm like, well, they're the people that do this particular job all day, every day. You don't want me doing this because this is what this person does. Right. But the reason why I'm saying this is because we first started out, we did 100 transactions without a website or an online lead, just by picking up the phone and making phone calls and tracking our time. And I knew this is cool. I knew we were dialed in so much with the appointment tracker from Mike Ferris coaching team.
I knew how many contacts I had to make to get an appointment, how many appointments I had to go on to get it listing signed. Right. And how many dials.
So we had it down. There was signs that every time I picked the phone up and I dialed a phone number, I made $5. Whether the person told me to go F myself, didn't answer, hung up on me.
Every single dial was $5 that I made because that's how dialed in. We were knowing our numbers and what we had to do. And it's. It's rare. Not everybody can get to that point, but we didn't have a lot of distractions because we were early on and we just like, put our heads down and we worked. But.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: But the. The key there, though is it's not that everybody can't get to that. Everyone's at that point, not everybody understands or discovers what that number is, but that number exists for everybody. And so it's like what they say, if what's not measured cannot be improved. So I think that the failure of a lot of businesses and a lot of people doing anything is they don't have a. They don't have a system like that, and they just kind of let. Throw caution to the wind and, you know, if the.
Eventually they'll uncover gold or not or whatever. But that's. But that's. That's huge. Like, it's there for everyone. It's underneath. You just have to incorporate it.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: And you got to measure. A lot of people, a lot of sales people shy away from scorecards or accountability trackers because, like, I don't want to be micromanaged.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Well, yeah.
All right.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Produce results or produce a scorecard, bro. One of the other.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Or you're going to be doing something else for a job.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: So let's. Let's move over to building the business. You know, obviously very successful as a real estate agent.
You know, dials converting energy into, you know, into paychecks.
As you started building your business. Talk me through how you built it. What was your first hire and why and. And what does the business structure look like today for, let's say, an agent that wants to build a team?
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, great. Great question.
Like I said, we first started out, teams aren't really prevalent in real estate because it was you hired that person and that was it. And if somebody else was dealing with that client, they didn't understand what was going on because they hired you, they wanted you to do everything.
So we got early on, we understood that if we wanted to scale and do a certain amount of business, we had to hire help, right? Because there's only so many hours in a day. And I think the numbers back then where you could do an agent before docusign and could do about 20 deals effectively.
So once we hit that number, we're like, we got to hire an administrator. We had no idea what the hell we were doing, didn't know. We just took resumes, posted something. I took resumes, went through four, right? We're like, okay, this person didn't know how to hire. But eventually that fourth person that we had was a total game changer. She took so much shit off our plate that was non income producing activities that allowed me and my business partner to focus on closing the deals and not chasing down a deposit check. And why, why is the salary disclosure not signed and this isn't right in the MLS and all the other things that are important but not income producing, right? So once we got that first hire, we're like, okay, here she could put stuff in the mls, right? She could schedule these appointments, she could do us. And we started putting her through the Mike Ferry executive assistant training program back then, which she would get on a call, right, and would tell her how to do, how to set appointments, what to do for, for the real estate agent and this, that stuff. So that was my very first hire. And then, then the second one was a transaction manager because once the deal was under contract, right? The hard work, I mean, it's all hard work, right? But the hard work of me getting the deal closed was one thing. Then the contract to close is a whole nother ball game, right? So I found somebody that's still with me today.
This many years, almost 15 years.
Danielle. Her name is Danielle.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: You want to give it out? You want to give out the last.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: She is. I put her up against anybody in the whole entire industry.
But that was a great win because that even freed more time up for us to be able to do stuff, you know. And you know, people were like, we're not going to settlement.
I represent the seller. Why would I go to settlement? Well, everyone goes to settlement. Watch three hours of me sitting across the table for people I don't know doing nothing and wasting half a day, right? I'm like, they're not really my friends. They don't want to see me. Right. They hired me to do a job. Like, people think that every client has to be a friend of yours, you know, it's not always the case. You don't become friends with your doc. You don't hang out with your doctor or your lawyers usually. Right. So you hired me to do a job, and that was how I did it. So the mentality was different, but it allowed me to leverage and do more business because I knew that once it got under contract, the person handling the file was so competent that nothing was going to happen. And then it snowballed from there. Then we started hiring some buyer's agents, you know, to run with buyers. And then we're like, okay, where's most of our time being spent? We got somebody to fill that hole. Right. Or somebody to take care of this. So it was. It was more out of necessity because it really wasn't a roadmap back then. It was just learning what you needed help with. And we got very fortunate that we had a good group of people and a good network that we could rely on to help us with those things.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Hit me with.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: I have a question real quick, because this is. This is interesting.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I found something you said interesting as well.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: Out here in California, there's no such thing as, like, where you go and you sit at the closing and they sign. Like, it seems like it's very ceremonious. But here, like, I bought properties out here, and I'm like, oh, when's closing? We're going to. They're like, no, like, what are you talking about? We just, like, just get a notary and it's done.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: So.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: So people.
Why. What is the benefit of doing it in person like that versus just doing it?
[00:38:48] Speaker A: I was brought up that way. Right. You went to every closing, buyer or seller, you sat there, you made sure all the paperwork was done correctly.
[00:38:55] Speaker C: You.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: You got your check handed to you, which I think probably half the reason why people went is because they collected.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: You gotta get that check.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: That thing closed. I'm not leaving until I get that check or you have it. You'd have an issue, a walkthrough issue with settlement. And you have to renegotiate something because the seller didn't clean out the paint cans. And then I don't want to settle. And they want 500 credit. And if you're not at the. At the table, then how do you solve that problem? Right.
And it stayed that way, I swear to God, up until Covid. And it forced the title companies where we live to do deep packages. Now we have 99.9% of our sellers never, ever go to settlement.
What are they going to sit there for three hours for and take a day off and just sit there and stare at the people signing their mortgage paperwork? Yeah, it's different in parts of the country, but that was so customary here. And then some agents would take that opportunity and be like, oh, let me try to ask for more business and stuff like that. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's just. It didn't make sense. And now people don't do it because it didn't make sense. Now if you represent a buyer, it's there, you're showing support and things like that. I get it. But at the end of the day, it's so much more streamlined. You don't really have to do that stuff anymore. So the point of that story was I cut out the things that were unnecessary.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: That didn't benefit anybody.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: And that. And like, the cool part about that too, of what you did is like, that's against. That's against the norm. You go against the grain. But like, there's some in business, there's some traditions, I guess, in businesses that really don't make sense and people just blindly go along, well, this is how we're supposed to do it. And until you become a disruptor and you're like, well, this doesn't make sense. And like, you know, I laugh at the. The whole closing because I bought and sold places in Pennsylvania and it's awkward.
I just beat the hell out of these people.
I care about your kids. They' like, oh, don't go in that room. I didn't tell you this, but tell you a couple of things like, like, here's the key.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Now I can tell you the real truth. Yeah, exactly.
[00:40:57] Speaker C: It's so weird.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: I think it's a conspiracy by the loan officers to make sure all the agents are in a room so we could sell to them. Right.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: I believe it.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Dude, it's so.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Oh, man.
I remember because for some reason I don't. I still don't understand why. But everyone had settlements on a Friday, right. For whatever reason. Just the way it was last.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Last day of the month. Last day of the month was always a big one too, I guess.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: I guess it was because your interest, you paid. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I mean, it's minimal, but whatever.
So we would go out on our networking night was Thursdays, and it was sometimes got a little out of hand and it would be many times I would be so hungover at the settlement table. It'd be like a 9 o' clock settlement. I would have my clothes home from the night before.
I'm 22 years old. Right. I just learning.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: It was a different time, Mike. It was a different time. That too.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: It was, it was. I mean, it's just crazy, you know.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: You know, back in the 80s, they were just doing coke right on the table.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Loan officers. Oh, man, during the boom and everything. I mean, people were printing money. It was, it was a different world. It was a different world. But, you know, you learned, you learned that I could do those things because I was 22 years old and I, you know, my hangover would last three hours. Yeah, I'd be back again. Now it's the dream that, whatever.
But it's funny how that that came. So I had to condition myself to be able to do that because I had to be in settlement regardless. But, you know, there's some funny stories that came out of that, but it just shows you how you evolve as an agent and the industry has evolved from where you were to what, what, what you do today.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Here's what I heard, Mike, that, that, that, that I. If you listen to 99% of the real estate agents out there, I think what you just said is not consistent with what a lot of them say. And that is the friend thing. You know, they hired you to do a job. You're not their friend. That doesn't mean you can't be friendly, and it doesn't mean you can't gain the respect and, you know, and all that stuff. But I do think that the, the friend approach to real estate is what holds a lot of agents back from being able to do more business because they a. First of all, it takes time to build that friendship. And, and not to say that people you work with might become friends, but if you're putting in extra effort to make a friend, are you really capable of growing? And I think that that's interesting. I'm not falling on one side or the other of that equation yet. But, but it's not something I've heard from other people. And the way you're explaining it, it makes sense if you're.
[00:43:41] Speaker C: Because for me, that's such a, that's such a turn off when, when someone who's supposed to negotiate on my best interest and their selling point is like, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be friends with all my, like, I want a prick, dude. I think, I don't want to be friends with this guy. I want Everyone to hate him. And I want him to get the absolute, like, best deal done in the shortest amount of time. And I have plenty of friends. I don't buy friends. I don't need friends.
I want an expert that can do this efficiently and then be on their way.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: So.
[00:44:11] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good point. And I understand the other side of it because some people need a little bit feel good and whatever, but at the end of the day, we're talking about transactional business here.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: And. Yeah.
[00:44:24] Speaker C: And you remove the emotions. It's like, all right, I'm gonna get.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: But it's a relationship business though, right? So how do you reconcile that? You know, the, like, you are building relationships, are you not?
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Business relationships.
[00:44:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: Right. You can call me up. If they wanted me to review one of their assets or consult for them. I'm always available for that kind of stuff. If they want to take me out to dinner and drinks, that's great. But I'm not going to think to myself, okay, I have to go to all their birthday parties. I have to do this. When I go to listing appointment, I got to stay there for three hours. And like all. That's the old mentality. I remember I teach this pre listing class and you're like known for your, your listing presentations. Yeah, I mean, NRT filmed me doing it when they, you know, we're one of the biggest companies in the country and they use it as a training module for like five years. But I got so good at it. But, you know, people would be like, well, why don't you show up at every showing? And I'm like, what? What? Like, I call my seller every day. I'm like, they don't want to hear from you. Like, why do you think that they want to hear from you every day?
Like, that's your, that's your mind thinking. Right. They have their own lives. They want to get their house sold and move on. Like, they want to be friendly. Absolutely. But they don't want you up their ass. Like, that's not, that's not necessarily being.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: I think that's an ego thing too. I think that that's, that's people trying to be like self import. Like, oh, they want to hear from me. Like all. Like, maybe some people do, but I got news.
I just need my stuff sold, man. I want the most you got.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Well, that's the difference between, you know, I do a lot of expired listings and number one thing was the agent didn't communicate. Right. So communication and being overly aggressive are completely different. You'd hear from me every week whether I had good news or bad news. But I didn't call them every day.
Right. So that's, that was a difference. I think people respected that. And I sent the expectations.
Most important thing is on the listing appointment. I set all the expectations up front.
[00:46:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: So there was no surprises. I went through, everything works. Do you have any questions? Sign this. This is how it's going to go. So there was no surprises.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: It's, it's, it's the, the expectation management is so critical, you know, even if you're better off saying like, like you know, just to, for sake of time. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm here to get your house sold. Here's what I'm gonna do. And when I do it, the buyer's gonna be like, wow, he said what he was gonna do, he did what he was gonna do and he did it either quicker or better than he said he was going to do it. That's a huge win over, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna be your friend. I'm gonna come to your party, I'm gonna be at your, I'm. Throw a housewarming party. And then you don't do that because you're setting unrealistic goals and realistic expectations.
The, the, an otherwise great transaction still kind of doesn't feel right. It still doesn't feel like a great transaction. Even though it has all the hallmarks of a great transaction. If you mismanage expectations even a little bit, you really set a stage for, for a dissatisfied buyer or seller.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: There's a reason why we have over 200 five star reviews right on our Google page. Because we do the same thing all the time. We've duplicated it and be very, very effective at it. So the systems and processes have been refined and polished and the expectations and the paperwork. Right. It's like a well oiled machine. So I don't care who you talk to on my team, you're going to get the same information that you get from anybody else.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: It's good stuff.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: Yeah, amazing.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: You're currently reading the book Traction.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: How do you like it?
[00:47:59] Speaker A: It's been a game changer. I'm not gonna lie. I, I thought we had good systems in place. EOS has been a game changer for us.
You know, entrepreneur, operating systems.
Buy back your time. Right. Traction. They're basically one in the same how to be effective with leveraging, you know, division. Are all the. There you go. See right there? That should be the bible for, for entrepreneurs and that are in sales.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: I'm just, I just finished it the other day.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: It's cool, right?
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Good book?
[00:48:31] Speaker A: Very good. Yeah.
A lot of like, aha moments.
Right. But at the end of the day, you know, is the right person in the right seat. You might have somebody that is awesome on your team, but they're not doing the right job.
Right. So you're doing, making sure that you're, you're level 10 meetings where you're not sitting there. This was a big one for me because we go to office meetings and it'd be a bitch session.
You believe this deal? Like, that's not a productive meeting. Right. Just bitching and complaining and, and being negative and all that kind of stuff. So this teaches you how to be run a very effective level 10 meeting. And you have your scorecard metrics. How many deals do we close? How many listings over 30 days are on the market? How many contracts do we sign? Like, you're going through these metrics and you're pushing needle forward and most important things, everybody's on the same page going towards the same goal.
Right. So the fact that we do that and how we run our meetings and how effective it's become has been an absolute game changer. And it just, it's an awesome, awesome thing. And you know, we have an EOS implementer that comes in where we take a whole day off site and we just go through.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Oh, you guys are diving deep into this.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: It's cool, man. It's, it's. It's so important to have everybody on the same page. You didn't know even everyone is. Wants to do the same thing. Their thought process is different. So it gets people thinking and working in the same direction. So if anybody's listening out there, that's thinking about it, I highly recommend it. It's one of the best things we've done as a company.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: So. Yeah. So business owner as a, as a, you know, building a team even.
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: The eos, the Traction is a very good book if you. In fact, I think the first time it was referred to me, and it's probably might even be the same person, but Guillermo actually referred that book to me.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Did he refer to you now go Bunny's guys refer to me. So I got did that a couple years ago, but I reread it again. Yeah, I took notes on it and I visited every once in a while. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.
[00:50:31] Speaker C: That's Right.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: But it's a very cool book.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: All right, it's that time. It is that time. We're gonna go back and. And we're going to try and figure out which one of the three facts you gave was.
Was a lie. Joe, you're going to go first. Joe, I think you're.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: You.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Your last. Our last guest. You. You were right.
But you had a pretty.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: You had a slump.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: You had a rough. Yeah, you were going through a slump. So let's.
[00:50:56] Speaker C: Devils were in the details of a lot of them.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's see if this one kind of keeps your hitting streak alive. All right. All right, so we have professional doorman at a nightclub in.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Philly.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: A car dealership. Now, you worked at a car dealership in high school, but then you said body shop, and you became. And you became pretty good at it. And you were doing custom paint jobs in high school.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: And you also had a D1 scholarship for swimming.
D1 scholar for swing. Buried the lead on that when he said my country club, you know, because apparently he grew up at a country club.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: No, I didn't grow up that. But yeah, was that fortunate as a.
[00:51:44] Speaker C: Year those terms get thrown around because isn't there. There's a yacht club in Essington, right?
[00:51:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there is. There is.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: All right, Joe, which one of those is the lie?
[00:51:58] Speaker C: So I spent a lot of time in manioc at the bars, and he looks familiar, so I think that one's true.
Pretty sure that one's true. That actually thrown me out of a couple bars in my day, so I was probably doing something dumb, though.
Definitely touched on the car thing and his share, so I believe that to be true.
But probably the biggest thing is that went to Temple University, and I happen to know that Temple University does not have a Division 1 swim team, merely a club. So although he might be a really good swimmer at his country club, not swimming at Temple University because it does not exist.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: I agree. That's what I was going to go with. Mike, which one's the lie?
[00:52:47] Speaker A: You are absolutely correct. No D1 swimming for me. I'm 6, 3, 2, 40 me. And that wouldn't be any fast, any faster running than it would be swimming or vice versa.
[00:52:58] Speaker C: So I think at Temple, they don't even have a pool. They just open the fire.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: I'll do one up on you. I went to Temple Ambler. I didn't even go down in the city.
That's like the satellite little farm school.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Yeah, they got. They got the one in Center City now, too. They got like the. The other satellite school.
Yeah, that's really good. But. But you say. So you played baseball. You were a car. You were doing custom paint jobs in high school.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: So I worked as a detailer, and then I started working my way up and I. I got a niche for doing in a body shop, and it's kind of cool. So we started. They started teaching me how to do repair work. A lot of insurance claims would come in like, hey, we need this bumper painted. We need this painted.
And then I would start learning an apprenticeship and taking over for the painter that was there. And then he was on leave for a while, and they're like, we need you to take over. And I wasn't even. I'm still in high school, and next thing you know, I was going there on the weekends with my buddies cars, doing paint jobs on their race cars and all kind of fun stuff like that and doing paint jobs on my cars. And I got to learn the skill pretty well. And then I realized what I was making was like $13 an hour before taxes.
[00:54:10] Speaker B: But you loved it, though.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: I loved it, but I'm like, yeah, this probably isn't going to be for me.
So, you know, because I was going to do that. Actually, I did that. I took. I didn't go to school right away. I took off six months.
And that's what I did when I graduated high school. And then I like, now I'm going. I'm going back to.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: And I love the profess. Which. Which bar was it?
[00:54:31] Speaker A: The River Deck.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: The River Deck, definitely.
You definitely threw Joe out.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: I still, to this day. I'm 47 years old to this day. People come up to me all the time. Like, used to work down in Riverdeck. Didn't you used to. I cannot. My friends laugh at me all the time. They make fun of me so much. Like, that's your claim to fame.
And I was there for. I was there for a couple years, and I was great. I only worked like two nights, but I would work my way through college. But they had benefits. Like, where would you get benefits? Health insurance? I was like, I got it.
[00:55:02] Speaker C: We're all the same age. I'll be 47 in August, so. Yeah, that was right around. I used to go there. Grape Street.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I was 47 two days ago.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Ah. Happy belated welcome to the club, Joe. You. You.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: You. Didn't you work the door at the.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Rath Skeller at Penn State? Yeah, that place was. That place was. It was. I was like, the bar and roadhouse, man, that's where the counties would come in to mess up the college kids. Oh, yeah, that was a good. That was a fun job. That was a fun job.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Customer service, man.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: It's.
[00:55:35] Speaker A: You learn how to deal with people early on.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: Negotiating skills are very important with drunk people that want to fight.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: That's great. Well, Mike, thanks for joining us today, man. I really did appreciate. I really did enjoy it. And, and I appreciate. I love these conversations, especially when, like, you know, I'm asking these questions from a place of true curiosity, you know, to learn from. From people. And, you know, you've been doing the work for 20 years, you know, and you're not. Nothing you've done is by accident. You know, you operate with a lot of intention. And I think that. I hope that the people listening, especially the younger real estate agents, you know, and younger business owners, pulled something out of it. So thank you and hopefully you'll be willing to join us again.
[00:56:21] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: Tougher next time to come up with a lie, but we still have a good conversation.
Thank you very much, Mike.
[00:56:32] Speaker A: Thank you.
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