Episode 05: Maverick Mastermind & Takeaways

This week on Top Tier Presents: Table Talk, Koby talks about his experience at Jon Cheplak's Maverick Mastermind and his takeaways.  The challenge of staying focused and avoiding the allure of "shiny objects" in the real estate industry. We explore the importance of Identifying and prioritizing truly impactful innovations for realtors and their clients, Re-emphasizing the value of proven strategies that may not be flashy but consistently deliver results and embracing discipline and consistent effort over chasing the next big thing.

Transcript

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somebody was flexing their ego on me and on some other people, and they were like, how much money do you make? Tell me about your business. Tell me about your car. Tell me about who you are. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up. And, that person literally the next day on stage struggled big time because they were trying to flex all these muscles. And guess what too. The other thing I would imagine is we're going to do this for six months. We're going to test it. We're going to yeah, we're going to see what isn't working and we're going to tweak it. Yeah. And then we'll go another six months and then we'll tweak it again. and normally what's interesting is usually veteran agents are rulers. They've been in it for a while and have bad habits. And they don't realize they're cutting corners or they're leaving money on the table. We're here for another podcast episode. I'm with Adam, I'm Koby, and today we're going to talk about Maverick. Went to a, real estate conference with John Cheplak And it's always fantastic. It's always a lot of fun and very emotional, too. know? Yeah, and and all in all categories. Not just business. It's a lot. It's all like I noticed when I've gone to those events in the past, it's a lot of like, you know, I think of that group, a lot of people in that black organization, a lot of them don't drink anymore. They live these very like intentional lives with their family, their faith, their fitness. and then the end of the yeah, the, the business just kind of comes to sell, but it's all the little things they do. Yeah. Because John talks about it's it's literally all of those things that impact and affect your business. It's like, you know, you don't get enough sleep. As you get older, you are going to perform at the level you need to be without sleep. You So I got to wear a hoop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to track your sleeping patterns. you know, no ego. Yeah. Yeah. Probably top one half percent. And I got to. at Lee. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's a lot of, you know, it's boring, repetitive. But even we sometimes need to get reminded in our, in the business dealings of like, oh yeah, we need to go back to that basic boring thing and remind our agents that as well. So it's trying to deliver that message. So it's just it's always it's always difficult because you want to come back and bring value to your team. Right. Like you're spending money on it. And when the agents are asking me, you know, what was the one thing you took away or what's something you're going to implement? It's kind of like hard to describe, but at the end of the day, every person that goes on stage or everybody that you meet there has some way that they're killing it in real estate. Right? Like and you know. you know. Downward, pressure on commission, you know. We have to. Cost up, cost to market homes goes up. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And if we don't get better at that, I think we're going to get left behind so that was were two things that really stand out. you know, Tammy, is there anything that maybe you can think of that you want to talk about on the buyer side or the seller side that stand out to you? Well, as you know, we've been talking about our our listing presentation and like the different menu of services. So because a lot of times when I go on a listing, I ask a series of questions to basically get to know their situation, how I can best help them to see if we were even a fit. And generally, I can ask so many questions that I just get to know their situation enough to where when I'm there, I don't have to go into this big presentation of why me and all this? it's again, it's focused on them and how I'm going to be able to best serve them. So I don't go with the PowerPoint. I don't I don't go with anything other than I go with a notebook. Essentially, to take notes on anything new. They tell me I to go over the game plan that we're going to have for them, and then, of course, to go over the comparables to show them this is where and why your home should be placed at this price in this market. And we have that discussion. And that way I can visually show them that, but the reason we're doing this is so our team is but again, I've been doing it for 17 years. So for me it's really easy to go through that. So but as we so as we bring on new agents, we want them to visually have this menu of services. Okay. At this commission you get all of this, at this commission you get all this in and at this commission you get all this, you know, whether it's from staging to our new, program that we have with Zillow, the showcase listing, which I think is an incredible opportunity that we have within our brokerage. and just, you know, whether we're going to help freshen up the mulch, or the landscaping, which especially going into spring, that's a big thing that really helps present the home lineup. Cleaning. we're kind of like geeks in a way, too. So that's where the whole idea is that we're trying to make this a really streamlined process. And we have for a long time, but now we're putting it visually in front of them versus just talking about it. And then that way they know like, oh, wow. By listening what these guys, they really do take care of everything. Yes, it comes at a cost. But it's it's the whole idea is to take the whole stress second guessing for them, the client out of it too. no, I don't work with a lot of buyers. I really, I rarely do, obviously our team does too, so I am excited to see what all comes up with that. But that's just going to come with practice. It was funny. I was, Alex or Hermosa posted something and has something like, you know, do something so much and so often to where it just becomes boring, right? And that is so in line with what, like, we kind of talk about, you know, Malcolm Gladwell in the book outliers talks about the 10,000 hour rule where, you know, that's kind of that's the amount of hours you got to put into something before you become like an expert, a really, like, professional level. And, you know, then it does it just becomes boring. But you're doing most of these successful people we know, which I'm always impressed with. They have some of the most basic schedules and they and from eight till noon, that's when they put in their work. And then the rest of their day they're done, you know, and then that gives them freedom to work on buyer presentation, listing, presentation, all these things to have. So Or spend time with their family yeah. Yeah. Good balance. Yeah, they're chasing shiny objects. secretly. Yeah. Subconsciously. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But but also to get that skills by putting it into practice and failing over and over again. And then you learn from those mistakes and then, I mean, like we've always talked about with our agents. The skills a lot of times will come. It's most of the time it's just actually doing the activity. But back to you going to this conference, like there's all these things that gets thrown at you right. So again, being able to identify okay, here's the two things that we're going to focus on. This is what our team is going to focus on because this is a need in our marketplace. And it was perfect timing because then our lawsuit just came out. And so we are assuming what's going to happen down the road. We want to make sure we really have that presentation locked in. So buyers see the value and listing agents can provide and show that value to those sellers. So same that's those are the things that we're going to focus on too. And guess what too. The other thing I would imagine is we're going to do this for six months. We're going to test it. We're going to yeah, we're going to see what isn't working and we're going to tweak it. Yeah. And then we'll go another six months and then we'll tweak it again. so we're can't see. we're very fluid with it. I feel like, I mean, we're very fluid team as far as, like we have our base core things of the direction we're going, but we definitely will. Yeah, we're we're zigzagging for sure. We're like off roading if you will. It's like I don't know, most people are confused by it. I mean, I just finished interviews with, you know, bringing on new admin, and that was like a constant question was, how do you feel about change? And you got to go deeper and deeper because if you just ask a generic question like, how do you feel about change? I love change, you know, I want to tell you about you have a way that you drive to work and there's construction. How do you not freak out, lose your mind. And you are you open to learning new pathways to get to work? Right. Like that's a better way to ask because people hate construction, right? And they get really upset. So really it's like, are you okay with construction driving to and from work, does that drive you crazy? And it's a simple question. People are like, no, I hate construction, but the people that are like, actually, it gives me an opportunity to find a different route. Those are the people you want to work with. Problem solvers, not problem bringers. There's a lot of people in life that bring you problems and haven't done a dang thing to figure out what it is. You're like, hey, you know, your systems are all messed up, okay, what have you done about. Well, nothing. I just bring it to your attention. Yeah. Well, you got like, you got like 100 plus solid applicants. In less than a week. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. By and with that though too is like what's happening with us too. Yeah I know we've talked about this before but it it raised then by default it just raises the whole team, performing because then the, the, the agents that were brought on on like say the older standards expectations, they see that and they're like, oh yeah, we should probably do that right. Or jump into that. So because we're digressing a little bit. But back to the buyer consultation. Do you have like because again, in my mind, when I hear that, like I don't necessarily think of like, okay, we got this exact presentation, we're going to work on a lot of it. I do believe it's going to be, you know, breaking down like, okay, here's what we do. Right? And I even when I would work with a lot of buyers, especially when like Zillow and Realtor were all coming out, I was like, guys like my value isn't really finding you a house now in a Covid low, low inventory market, there is a value for us. And that is the advantage of being at Berkshire Hathaway's because we do a massive number of office exclusive no shows. Basically they're they're just, available to our Berkshire Hathaway agents. So there's a lot of those private sales. And I think when Vince last looked at it, it was like, I mean, we had like 500 million in sales in that, which would have made just our office exclusive sales, like the fifth largest brokerage in Omaha. so there's definitely an advantage to that. But in a normal market, when inventory's healthy, like, our advantage isn't like we're not necessarily going to find your home, we're going to keep an eye out for you. But there's so many awesome resources out there today, and every listing gets fed to all these services within seconds, basically like they're going to most likely find the house. So that's not necessarily our value. It's to navigate them through. the experience. It's explaining the contract. It's explaining you know how well does an appraisal work. How does termite work. How does getting insurance work? I mean insurance is pretty simple, but again, it's connecting the dots. It's being a solution finder. If they again they walk into a house, maybe they've lived in an apartment before. They don't understand that they're going to have to be responsible for fixing the air conditioner, or they're going to be responsible for the yard, or they're going to be responsible for painting the house. It's not like when you move into an apartment, you say, well, here's some changes I want to make, and somebody does it. Yeah. Yep. home Yeah. Yep. Yeah. and again, starting in July, we'll be forced to, have them sign an exclusive contract. So we better make darn sure we're really good at presenting that. It's probably going to be some role playing to every agent loves it. Airplanes. role plays going that. But it's again, it's part of it. What do you want to practice? Do you want to practice in front of the client or practice in front of somebody that you know? Yeah. Right. Like that's. I, I would actually rather practice on the client personally and then fail in front of them than someone I know. That's me. But, yeah, yours is a more logical and rational approach, for sure. again too because these people maybe this is their first time going out and asking for a signature, Yeah. And saying like, hey, here's what I'm worth, because again, there's there's 4000 realtors in Omaha alone and there's not 4000 homes for sale. Yeah. You know, the other thing too, I would love to explore on that whole buyer consultation, especially with first time homebuyers, is bringing mom and dad into the mix right away. And the reason why is because, we just sold one of our flips, and, buyer bought it. Love the house. And then fast forward literally six hours, I get a text from the agent saying, well, Mom and Dad just drove by the. And it's in like, field club area. You know, it's a it's a great little area. Like I would have my kids live there all day long. No problem. But, teach their own, mom and dad drives by. They're like, no, we don't we don't feel safe. We don't feel good about our kids living in this area. And I don't know the buyers. I don't know the, I don't even really know the agent that well, and I so I certainly don't know the, the parents. And so, you know, I could have been a little bit of a jerk and held them to the fire, but I not I don't operate that way. Like, hey, just send over the release. No big deal. Meaning parents got involved. They didn't go to the house. They just drove by like, nope, we don't like it. So almost it's like, how do you get Mom and Dad involved right away on especially first time homebuyers to handle any objections? Like, hey, Mom and dad are going to have an influence on first time homebuyers decisions. They just they are. It's the reality of it. Like there's a lot of memes out there between agents and how Mom and Dad's come in. It can kill the the the deal. But, but that's also goes back to us making sure we're offering those solutions to that. on it's maybe what? Maybe the realtors knew and they didn't ask the right questions, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because we are up to what Janelle's saying. Up to 400,000, maybe more like she's still seeing, like a large number of multiple offers is dealing when, you know, when she's talking to the agents to. Them sometimes 6 to 8. Yeah. She. Yeah. The one she was telling me about on Friday was had seven offers on it, you know, and it was like a three. Hi three's house in Omaha. it's still super competitive. It's just a matter of like again if you have an experienced realtor again it'd be like an attorney. Right. It's I this is the easiest way to think about it is if I had an attorney that was maybe more experienced or had had necessarily the knowledge they might be able to make an argument right in court on my behalf that maybe somebody who was inexperienced would miss out on. Yeah, therefore Yeah, yeah. Well, there are definitely things within a contract that you can do to increase your chances of getting it by not necessarily just increasing the price. So I know Janelle's made many tweaks with some of our newer agents, and it's what got them the deal done. Well because again. It's. Yeah it's a term thing. Yeah exactly. It's a term thing. It's like what's your biggest pain point. And let's just say they're like we really want again small. Mine was when I moved out, I wanted the offer to have my washing machine and my dryer not included. It was literally that simple. Again, not that expensive. But the offer that came through that I accepted was the washer and dryer I could take with everybody else's offer. Wanted to take. It seems small, seems stupid, yeah, paying a lot to do. It at the time. You like your washer and dryer? Yeah. Get you all fired. Up. You Yeah. I was You're, you're talking like from and, doing that with your agents or just like your clients or anyone and everyone. Yeah. it's like at the end of the day, if your heart is there to help humans and society move forward, you're going to do right in life, right? And how many times have we heard that if you think that, you know, a lot of the times that if you're cut throat or you're mean, or if you're only focused on the numbers of the business, you they're being miserable in life, right? Like, how many people have you met, Adam, that have all the money in the world and they're miserable no lot? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%. yeah, Yeah. That is a good point. That stuff is something I can work on for sure. Yeah. and I know we've talked about this before, but that was something I wanted to bring up from Maverick. So there's a few things I think about when it comes to like John, like he focuses on your mind, your spiritual, your health and your body. Like, how can you be the best yourself impact other people, right? That's his main point. And then the second thing I thought about was buyers and sellers consultations. If we do a better job as a team and we can elevate ourselves from where we are to a higher end experience, we're going to do better for our realtors, our clients and our community. And then the third thing that I took away from that maverick experiences don't be anybody else, be yourself. So go there with open arms and know that everyone's going to be giving you something. And then the last thing is, if you identify something small with somebody, give them the recognition they deserve. That moment and they'll work harder when you're not around. So those are the main points that stuck out to me. Yeah. So I mean but you can really the the last call me made, which I'm looking to see if it's on the notes anywhere but what did you say last something like, I mean, because a lot of this stuff, it's, it's it applies to the leadership team within the team. It applies to your agents. And then it definitely applies to your clients to, like, take these principles, just like how your job is to recruit and bring in more agents. Right. Well, a lot of times quotes compare what you do to what the agents do. Right. Like, guys, you're you're essentially doing what Kobe's doing. You're just you're recruiting and more good clients to your pipeline to. But it takes doing these activities. It's the boring activities. So I like the I like the identifying where they're at in that moment. and again, really doing that to a client who goes a long ways, it's just just like when a client gives me a referral, I don't give him anything crazy. I get those little treat boxes. We do, you know that, you know, I'm going on a on a listing tomorrow night, and it was referred by, a kind of a past client, not even really a past client or just a, an acquaintance. Really. But he's he's actually sent me a number of referrals, and it's just rewarding that behavior, too. And just saying, hey, thank you for this. Again, nothing crazy. Seems like think of like Starbucks cake pops. You know, you seen him? and they're delicious. And, might get diabetes from a bunch of, But it's, So I put an order in to get one of those made. I'll be dropping off into this week. Just, say, hey, thanks for that. But, Yeah, no, I, I get that. Well, and what's unique about real estate is it's not like a normal job. What's cool about it is. Right. I can tell you. I worked at AT&T, right? I worked at Verizon, I worked at Best Buy. So when I sold somebody a cell phone, if you think of the number of times a day someone uses a cell phone and like, you FaceTime your kids or you FaceTime Stacey, right? Or whatever it may be. Like it. It's cool that what I sold impacted their life, but again, I don't see them again. The difference with your job and the company we're in is we're impacting these people's lives because you're creating memories, but you're also able to get to know them on a personal level. Like a lot of the clients, you know, you either personal friends with, you've had dinner with, you've gone on vacations with, like, you know them on a deeper level. That's what's cool about real estate is you get to know people on a deeper level. And it's not just, oh, he's my cell phone guy, he's my insurance agent. Like your real estate agent. Typically, you can be one of your closest friends or one of your closest allies that you reach out to. right. Because you're reaching out to a realtor during the time of need, divorce, death, marriage, kids, maybe maybe their kids are going off to college, right? Like in know normally reaching out during a huge life event. And that's not like a cell phone. Like, again, no one's going to be like, oh, I got the iPhone 15 because I had a third child and now I need to switch from the iPhone 14. Right. Like it's just kind of interesting to see how much impact we have. But what John does a really good job of it. We just we just did AA1 on one coming here last week. And John always does such a great job of talking to us. And it's never related to real estate. Yeah Yeah. up Yeah. But it goes back to like, we all get busy and go a hundred miles an hour because the things that you and I are doing, we are looking at new, higher level things like what are the big shiny objects now? Does that mean we we I mean, we still do our best to stay focused in doing the small things that move the numbers. Right. so we got to make sure we always focus on that. But we do allocate time to do those certain things. but it it's a lot of just, it's that it's being reminded of those little things that we know and already know. Deep down it's just sometimes we do get sidetracked too. So, I mean, again, to go back to the buyer presentation, the listing presentation, there's a few new things that we are doing on the listing side. I don't, I can't imagine we're going to add anything crazy on the buyer side. It's just really breaking down how the NAS stuff changes the industry. Explaining that to the client and what that means for them and what it means to really represent them and all the things that go into. And we have really good marketing material on that already, but we're going to really make sure that we're role playing that, putting that into practice again, I don't see there's going to be anything crazy new on the buyer side. It's just it's really just going through and like working through from start to finish what it means to work with us versus maybe someone else and or, maybe not having any representation in at all and going and doing it on their own. Yeah. I mean, most people use an agent anyway. So and again and then on the listing side is, is making sure that we are like, is there we always try to keep our eye on like, is there anything new that we should be looking at? Like we were looking@homes.com, for example. And you know, that's going to be they're spending massive amounts of money. And so it's definitely something we're keeping our eye on. We're not jumping on the bandwagon yet just because we don't we don't necessarily see the value in it. Not yet. Doesn't mean that won't change in six months or six years, but that is definitely something that we're always trying to keep an eye out to. But again, we're it's still it's still the we're sticking to the core things. It's just working on the presentation and practicing that over and over again to, to you're really good at it too. And it's boring. It's it's super boring. Well it's like I've done a ton of buyers presentation I've done it a listing presentation. Right. So even and normally what's interesting is usually veteran agents are rulers. They've been in it for a while and have bad habits. And they don't realize they're cutting corners or they're leaving money on the table. Right. Like and and we have, a lot of different things that are required on the contract. And sometimes were rushing through the contractor. An example that I thought of was when a real estate agent shows up at their house and then says, hey, we can get it live for you on Friday, Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I got a text this morning from a, a seller that I believe she's going to list with me. I don't have a commitment yet, but I feel good about it. But, she upstairs, her house needs repainted, and it needs new carpet and she did say, like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to put the basement's that finished, essentially. So she's like, I'm going to finish off, I'm going to it was finished, but there was carpet that had to be ripped out because there was some flooding. And but the carpet upstairs, 20 years old, I mean, it definitely needs to be replaced. And she was like, I'm going to put carpet in downstairs and in that basement bedroom. So I called her up and I'm like, hey, just a heads up. Like if you're like, what about the upstairs carpet? What about the upstairs paint? No, I'm only about to say I'm like, well, if you're going to spend money, I would rather see you from an agent's perspective to add value, focus on the area that's already finished. Get that good, because it will just present itself. Because buyers will then say, oh yeah, nice carpet downstairs. But I still now have to do the main level where it's going to be easier for you to just clean the basement, make it super easy for them to put the carpet in and then have brand new carpet upstairs. There's some psychology. But yeah, totally. Finished space And it looks nice versus an unfinished space that's kind of thrown together. well. Or you or it's finished. And then upstairs is still like, I man, I still to do carpet. I sell after you paint like I go. I promise you it will be a much better investment to focus on the upstairs level than to even touch downstairs. If you have X amount of money, focus on upstairs because it's already finished. That's where that's where buyers are going to spend their time anyway. So yeah, it's those it's those types of things too. And that goes to buyers even, where to spend their money to maximize their value as they own the home over the, over the course of their ownership. Yeah. Well, it's like again. Like again, it's you presenting this to the client versus an inexperienced realtor would be like, oh, yeah, like, whatever you think. They don't know any different, right? So again, if you don't have an expert in your corner explaining that you're not going to have good representation, Yeah. Yeah. And we just know that just because my flipping a lot of homes, you know, what buyers are really looking for. but to that the the the home equity reports and you know that's something too that I feel because a lot of buyers, if they're getting a loan and they're only put 10% down with their PMI. Right. So a common conversation I have with a lot of those previous clients are okay. What's my house worth like. Does it make sense to reach out to the bank to get that PMI off. Save them, you know, a few hundred bucks too. So just had that conversation two weeks ago. Yeah. So, and he's at a point where, yeah, it makes sense to, to start that conversation with his bank. So say, you know, save them some money. yeah. So those are the things that people don't realize realtors do, right? Like how many people get, tax tax increases. Right. The last few years. And a lot of clients will call their realtor and be like, how do I fight this? So I have to pay this, right? Like, again, I, an experienced realtor, will explain, here's what your options are. Yeah. And we did a bunch of meetings on it. Actually Yeah. Well that bad thing is the last few years. Is that what their taxes went up? And hopefully Douglas County doesn't listen to this, but their taxes went up and it was still significantly lower than what they could sell for in today's market. So a lot of them were pleasantly surprised by that. But they're also like, well, darn it. And so, you know, I told a ton of clients like guys like, I don't think this is a fight you'll win. Because as I look at the comps quickly, like you're still probably a I mean, a lot of times there's 100, 200,000 less than what their home would be worth in today's market. And so they're like, okay, we're not going to go down that path. Yeah. You know, so. well, I mean, so to wrap this up, right, with Maverick, I think the big thing is there's tons of shiny objects. Realtors love to chase shiny objects. So I think, you know, part of my job and your job and the leadership team is to sniff out, what are those shiny objects? How do we stay ahead of them? How do we keep innovating and creating things that the realtors can bring to clients that no one else is doing without them chasing it? And then we need to be reminded more. Not new material, reminded more of the stuff we've already been told. And then if we can get all of our people, not just realtors, everyone in our lives, to be okay with boring, mundane, disciplined work, we would have much better lives. We would be more disciplined. That's easier said than done. It's not easy, right? But there's that. And then the last thing is elevating our buyers and sellers consultations to make our realtor stand out and to provide a better experience in the community. Like we're here to set the bar or change the expectations of what it takes to be, with a client and realtor relationship in Nebraska and Iowa. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Most real estate conferences you go to, it's like, everyone goes out super late, they're drinking, and you come back feeling like crap. You you remember anything, and Yeah. Yeah, everyone. Everyone's in bed by nine and they're up

at like 4: 42:00

00 to do their workout. And then they go to the event. Sucks. though. Like at the gym working out at four, and it's like, what is it going on here? It's the opposite of whatever real estate conferences. Yeah. It's good. Cool. So appreciate you guys tuning and checking this out. And look forward to seeing you also. All right. My.