How to Win in the 2023 Real Estate Hunger Games
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[00:00:00] Matt Farnham: So I haven’t met many of you guys. Just a quick introduction. My name is Matt Farnam. I’m here in Las Vegas Henderson, Nevada. So our team, team, Farnam Real Estate is super excited. We actually just partnered with, with Five Realty a few weeks ago. We just launched Five Realty for Nevada. So I’m the corporate broker for Nevada.
But super excited to, to connect with you all and help this company. Just, you know, make a splash nationwide. So excited for the ride and, and to be a part of this new family. So tell you a little bit about us. Our mission in Vegas is loving Las Vegas through real estate. So just explain what that means to us.
You get a little bit of context of kind of our mission as a team, but we really believe we do that in two ways. First of all, we truly believe we’re the best at what we do. So when we’re serving families at the highest level here in Vegas by protecting ’em, getting the best outcome possible, and ultimately just giving ’em the best experience they could possibly enjoy in real estate and what might be.
[00:01:00] Matt Farnham: The biggest, most stressful purchase or sale of their lives. We really believe we’re loving our city by guiding families through those transitions. And second to that, we have a city engagement partner. We’re very passionate about called the Hub Las Vegas. They’re serving the most vulnerable population in our city, doing some amazing things in our city through foster care.
Human trafficking, homelessness, homelessness and poverty, and some other lanes as well. So we actually contribute the first portion of everything we earn as a team to the hub Las Vegas before I get paid or agents or the staff get paid here. So truly the more families we help, the bigger impact we have in the city, we’re loving Las Vegas through real estate.
So that’s just a little bit behind the curtain of. It’s kind of a heartbeat of our business. We’re a high referral business, so about 80% of our business now, we do farming. We have, you know, Google Local and some other things that we do business in, of course. But our bread and butter is, is referral business.
About 80% will be task clients in sphere or agent to agent Referral business is a growing pillar of ours but we really believe on loving the people who love you. I think that’s the biggest return on investment is return on relationship. So that’s what we focus on a lot here, is people who already know us, like us, trust us.
We want to just squeeze everything we can outta those opportunities. And if you think about the lifetime value of a client, guys really sit down and think about that. It is substantial. If you can help a family for the third, fourth, fifth time over a period of whatever, 20 plus years, plus their friends and family and referrals there’s no better return on investment in your business.
[00:02:27] Matt Farnham: So focus on return on relationship, and. On a sidebar, this is a whole nother conversation, but you’ve probably heard me say this before, if you followed any of the stuff I, I talked about. But you know, I feel like we’re in a race to the bottom. In our industry, we’re all working harder for less money, right?
We have margin compression. In Vegas here, we’re ground zero. We have a lot of the. Somebody needs to mute in the background, or I think I hear an echo. But we have, you know, we have the radio ads and the billboards and the flyers in the builder’s office you go into where everybody’s working harder for less money.
And I believe that we have the longest runway on our business. Where we have a more profitable business, where we’re not paying referral fees off the top. We’re not paying Zillow or realtor, whoever reload companies, 45% of our commissions. We’re not paying referral fees on s o i business and referral business.
And if it is agent, agent business, I’d rather pay you 25% all day long than pay Zillow or somebody else. 30, 35, 40%. So that’s just kind of a, a quick re overview of kind of who we are and the focus we have right now is what we’re on mission to do is how can we bring more value to a client? Then just selling you a home every five to seven years.
[00:03:30] Matt Farnham: We know that if I sell you a home today, you’re gonna probably sell it five or seven years from now. But how can we be a financial advocate for you and your family where we can have more conversations more frequently? But how can we help you talk about your investment portfolio? Maybe you wanna buy a resort property in a different city that one of my partners can help you with.
Maybe it’s introducing you to a financial advisor, an estate planning attorney, a C P A, but how can we be that financial advocate for your family where we’re having a lot more conversations? Delivering a lot more value to you than just selling you a home every five or seven years. That’s what we’re talking about right now.
So let me give you some Vegas stats. I know most of you aren’t in Vegas and you don’t care, but I think you’re gonna relate to this and where I’m going with this. But in Vegas right now, we have 20,300 licensed realtors in this little bowl of a city. So Mike, not know, not know if you knew that number, but it’s, it’s crazy how fast it’s grown.
20,300 agents. Year to date, we’re seven months through the year, guys, and we’ve only done 13,500 single family closings in Las Vegas, so that’s 27,000 sides obviously. Now I know that’s only single family, but if we’re being honest, the condo sales in Vegas are probably not paying your bills very well. So the single family closings are what I’m paying attention to.
If you do the math at 20,300 agents, that’s 1.3 closings per agent. Through seven months of the year, which means it’s probably gonna be on track for two closings per agent. And that’s not counting team farm and real estate and other teams and agents in town that hog way more than 1.3 of ’em. So those numbers are really, really down.
Obviously they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re concerning and I don’t like the focus on the down numbers because I heard a coach say a long time ago, Sanders, you’ll recognize this, is, you know, if you have a mentor talking to a mentee and he says, Hey, what’s your number? I need three this month. I need three closings.
Well, there was 2000 last month. Go get your three. Who cares if if sales are down, just go get your three. So I don’t wanna focus on the bad news, but I do want to make sure that we understand some opportunities here. Guys, we haven’t seen this few transactions Tom Ferry shared recently since 2012 that we saw this few transactions in the country.
But in 2012, there were 30% less realtors than there are today. We’re working for 30% less opportunity than 2012. And we haven’t, most of you on this call probably haven’t even been in the business that long to even know how few opportunities are out there right now. But here’s the good news with that.
[00:05:55] Matt Farnham: This is an opportunity market guys. There’s gonna be a lot of agents. I saw stat recently, I think [00:06:00] 60,000 agents have exited the business nationwide in the last. Few months, and obviously that number’s gonna keep growing. So there’s gonna be market share that’s gonna be up for grabs. There’s gonna be a land grab for that.
So the question is who’s gonna get it? Who’s gonna be top of mind and who’s gonna be that night Shining armor that’s gonna be positioned in the client’s mind to, to come in and save the day when the cousin’s monkey’s uncle gets out of the business that’s doing one or two transactions this year. So Tom Ferry called it a Real Estate Hunger Games, and I thought that was perfect.
That’s kind of what we’re experiencing right now. Hunger games out there. So the good news is there’s opportunity plus here’s more opportunity. Tom Ferry, we, we punted this call a week. ’cause last week Tom was talking about how buyer agents get paid. We know that’s changing in Vegas, guys. We’re ground zero for all this stuff.
We’re already seeing it. We see 0% co-ops in the market. 1% co-ops, 1.5% co-ops on the buy side. We’ve been having this conversation for months on our team. But, but imagine being a buyer’s agent who doesn’t know what they’re doing or they’re scared about the conversation and they take a buyer out to show homes and they’re showing ’em homes for 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks.
They got tons of miles and gas money and time into this, and then all of a sudden the home their client falls in love with is a 1% co-op. What are they gonna do now all of a sudden have a conversation with their client that they gotta pay ’em another one and a half percent? This doesn’t work that way.
So an agent like that, what do you think they’re gonna do? They’re gonna leave the business if that goes on more than once. They can’t survive Again, more opportunity guys. There’s gonna be some attrition. So what are we doing to make sure we’re top of mind? Is staying positioned to capitalize on that and that whole buyer commission conversation.
I’m sure n agrees that’s a whole nother masterclass we should probably be doing of what are we doing to, to have those conversations and educate the client on those, on this changing market. And I’ll tell you something I’m gonna mention in a little bit, but even on that conversation, guys, let me just give you something so simple, but, but it’s such a mind shift when it comes to lead follow up when it comes to talking to your friends and family, your neighbors, for example, or even having these conversations with buyers about how we get paid.
Most agents are scared of these conversations because you’re making it about you. Guys, it’s not about you, it’s about the client. Think about these poor buyers in our market, the, the, the timidity, the hesitation, the fear in this market right now, because affordability is squeezed so tight right now, guys, they’re scared to death and they’re gonna get hurt if they don’t have better guidance.
It’s not about you. It’s about making sure that they get the best guidance and education help that they can get. And if you believe that’s you, then you have a moral obligation to get in front of ’em and let them know what you can do for them. Right? In, in addition to that too wow. You know, I’m gonna come back to the whole, it’s not about you thing, but, well, in the buyer compensation, think about that too.
Agents are scared to have this conversation ’cause you think it’s about you getting paid. No, it’s about your client’s experience. Because if they, you let them fall in love with the home, that’s not compensating you and you have to bait and switch ’em on a conversation two months down the road, that is a horrible experience for the client.
If you really care about them and their experience, we should educate ’em upfront and make sure they know, hey, anytime that we might end up, you, you show interest in a home that, where that’s gonna be an applicable situation, I promise to bring it to your attention before I show you that property. Right?
So just shift your mind guys. It’s about the client. It’s service first. Come from a place of contribution instead of making it about you and, and what you’re getting paid or not getting paid and things like that. I think it really will let the chains break off on some of these conversations you guys are having.
So going back to the Hunger Games, every transaction counts right now. Not to be captain obvious, but every transaction counts. Tom Ferry recently said something I thought was so on point, and he said, you know, I’m looking at a couple faces here, so I’m gonna pick on I’ll pick on Nazar and, and, and Tessa here, but you know, neither of these guys are in my market.
But let’s act like, act like they’re in Las Vegas. I’m not competing with Nazar or Tessa. Like they’re rock stars. They’re gonna get theirs. I’m gonna get mine. We have our spheres, we have our networks. The transactions I can’t lose is the cousin’s, sister’s aunt who’s done one or two or three transactions a year, who’s probably costing that seller 10, 15, $30,000 in proceeds.
[00:10:06] Matt Farnham: They probably are not. Protecting them very well. Maybe they even lose the transaction and now the family doesn’t move on time to start the new job. Or imagine the stress and anxiety that these families are going through because they don’t have the best representation they can. Those are the transactions we can’t lose.
So what we’re gonna talk about is how do we position ourselves, of course now in this hunger game environment to to do business, but also position ourselves for the future. So we are the knight and shining armor. We’re positioned to capitalize on this market share. So let’s jump into that. So, first of all, let me simplify real estate for you real quick.
I think we complicate everything, and I know me, my team’s probably laughing in the other room. I overthink everything. My poor staff has to deal with me on this. But guys, real estate is this simple. I’m gonna lay it out for you. People just need to know what you do for a living and you’re good at it.
That’s it. That’s our business and I’m gonna talk more about that. But they just need to know what you do for a living and you’re good at it. And we’ll talk about how do they know you’re good at it. But let’s jump in and I’m gonna give you an exercise to emphasize this. My team has seen this, so no spoilers on my team except maybe Nick, you haven’t seen this.
And then Sanders, I saw your name. Don’t, don’t spoil this, but I’m gonna share my screen. So I need everybody to just tell me if you can read this. Okay. So gimme a couple. Right now I can see tire. Amber, Mike, can you guys read that sentence? Okay. Okay, cool. Alright, I’m gonna scroll my screen up. And I’m gonna let everybody read this sentence for just a moment and then I’m gonna move it and I’m going somewhere with this.
Okay? Read this sentence.
Okay. Gimme a couple thumbs up if you read it. Okay. Cool. Mike, you’re my Guinea pig. And amber, ’cause you’re on my screen. I have my, my screen shared. All right. Now I’m gonna do it again and I want you guys to count the F’s, the letter F when I showed this sentence. Okay.
Alright, I’m gonna stop sharing my screen for just a moment. Now I can see a lot more of you. Show me some fingers. How many F’s did you read, Christina? Two. Amber. Five. Lisa? Five. Christina? Three. Now, who else tested two? Mic three. Okay, cool. All right, I’m gonna do it one more time. Okay. We’re gonna share the screen again.
Here we go. Read that sentence again. How many yess?
[00:12:42] Matt Farnham: All Tessa. What you got now? Tessa, unmute yourself. I have, I think I have four. Okay. How confident are you? You’ve, you’ve read the sentence three times now. How confident are you? There’s, there’s four. I have really bad a,
[00:12:54] Tessa Wilkerson: d, d and it’s so hard for me to pay attention.
[00:12:57] Matt Farnham: Kristina, how many did you see? I’m not that confident.
[00:13:01] Kristina Kendig: I said three, and I’m going with three because Mike also said
[00:13:04] Matt Farnham: three,
[00:13:06] Mike Schumm: and I’m, I’m, I’m still on three. I I don’t wanna pick that one up from Tessa, but I couldn’t find
[00:13:10] Matt Farnham: it. Okay. Usually if Mike said three, I’d go blind. Faith if Mike Hum said three. Yeah. I’m like, I thought three, but then Mike confirmed it, so I’m sticking with my three.
[00:13:18] Matt Farnham: All right. So Tessa, how, how confident are you in what you saw? Maybe, maybe we’ll bet your next commission on it. What do you think? Oh, yeah, that’s okay.
[00:13:25] Tessa Wilkerson: But yeah, I’m gonna, I’ll say what? Like, I’ll go with whatever Mike said
[00:13:28] Matt Farnham: because I
[00:13:29] Mike Schumm: Right.
[00:13:31] Matt Farnham: Alright guys, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do it one more time. All right.
[00:13:33] Matt Farnham: Here we go.
[00:13:34] Nazar Kalayji: Just to confirm, it’s the, just the sentence, right? Correct. Not the stuff on
[00:13:46] Matt Farnham: top. Just the sentence. Yeah. All right. So Mike, Tessa, Christina. We got three still. We feel pretty good. Yeah, I still got three. All right. Mike, you’re in my city and I love you. Would you bet lunch on, on three? How confident are you?
[00:14:00] Matt Farnham: You’ve read the sentence four times now. Of course. I Four times I got it right. Okay. You’re confident. All right, we’ll bet lunch on it. All right, so let’s do this together. I’m gonna share my screen.
[00:14:13] Matt Farnham: All right. One. Two,
[00:14:20] Nazar Kalayji: three. I missed that one. Four. Oh, I missed that too.
[00:14:25] Matt Farnham: Five, six.
[00:14:31] Matt Farnham: You got it. So what’s the lesson in this, guys? I know it’s a cheesy exercise, but I really think there’s some really good takeaways here. We’re all expert readers and because we’ve, we’ve become expert readers, we’ve trained our mind to think the word of is not an important word. We just skimm over it.
This is just like our real estate business guys. We overcomplicate it. We overthink it, and real estate is this simple. They need to know what we do for a living and we’re good at it. I think there’s two primary takeaways from this exercise I wanna unpack for you. Number one is, first of all, we overlook what’s not what we think is not important, right?
Real estate is a contact sport. We wanna add all these cute tools to our business, all these hacks that we think is a shortcut to close some leads and all this, but at the end of the day, we just have to talk to more people. Real estate is that simple. So first of all, we overlook what we don’t think is important, and number two, where are the missing Fs?
I think that’s a, a good life lesson. You know, where are we missing the Fs in our business, our relationships, our, you know, our financial planning and all those types of things. And then where’s the opportunity when it comes to that? So the first thing, first what do we think is not important? So, real estate’s a contact support.
We have to talk to more people. And I, I heard this said years ago, I’m actually gonna give a shout out to Steve Harney from Keeping Current Matters. Some of you guys might have been in the room at an elite conference years ago, but I’ll never forget he stood on stage. And keep in mind, this is a room of, of great agents across the country, all paying probably 1500 bucks a month for coaching.
So they’re committed to their business. He said, I’m gonna do this with you guys right now. I want you to raise your hand if you truly believe you’re the best agent in your marketplace for an agent to hire. Raise your hand if you think you’re the best agent they could hire. Come on guys. We need more confidence in ourselves.
Emily, Shauna, Amber. I’m not saying you might have the most experience or done the most transactions, but the way that you’re gonna protect ’em, guide ’em, educate ’em, care about them for their, their family, and their best interest. Are we the best person they could hire? I passionately believe that I am the best person in Las Vegas.
Somebody could hire. So what Steve Harney said, if you really believe that, then again, it’s a mind shift. It’s not about you, it’s about them. If we really think we’re the best of what we do, we have a moral obligation to tell more people about what we do and help more families through these transactions.
Right? Because we don’t want them to lose 30,000 in proceeds. We don’t want them to, you know, miss the target dates that they need to move to a new city or whatever. But as far as what do we think is not important, let’s talk about neighbors, family, friends, like your sphere. Again, we wanna buy these leads on Zillow or realtor, all these other hacks, when at the end of the day, just get out and nurture those relationships.
And don’t be afraid of the real estate conversation ’cause they need to know how good you are at your job. So they don’t hire the cousin’s uncle or whoever who’s gonna do two transactions this year. I don’t think we can discount that enough. It, it’s so mission critical in the bread and butter of our business.
I. Furthermore, think about your stage of life. I think we, we try and complicate this business, but guys maximize the stage of life that like God already has you in. You’re already a stage of life where you are either before kids, you have kids you’re raising, maybe they’re little maybe they’re in daycare, maybe they’re, you’re at a ball club or a dance recital or soccer game every single night of your life.
Maybe your post kids or whatever, whatever stage of life you’re ly in, just think about that and, and where are the FSS maximize. You don’t have to go create three new clubs you’re a part of, just steward and squeeze everything out of where you already are. You’re just gonna add more stress to yourself if you try and pile more on.
But having that said, like think about the missing Fs, it’s, it is the people sitting [00:18:00] in the bleachers at the ballgame. There’s. Probably 10 sets of parents right there who already probably know you and like you. And all they need to know is how good at you are at your, your job. And when we just have more real estate contact sport conversations, Hey, what do you do for work?
What do you do for work? It comes up so naturally. If anybody’s, if you tell anybody you’re in real estate, what’s the first thing they’re gonna ask you? Anybody, Rob, what’s the first thing somebody’s gonna ask you? Say you’re in real estate. How’s the market? How’s the market? Hey, what’s going on with interest rates?
Or what do you think’s gonna happen in, you know at the election or whatever? Like, guys, I’m telling you, the way you answer that question will solidify in the client’s mind. If you’re good at your job and everybody in Vegas knows five realtors, probably your city too. The joke here is if you don’t know a couple realtors, you don’t have any friends in Las Vegas.
Mike Shum just moved to Las Vegas and he probably knows 20 realtors here already. So, so it’s just, who’s the top of mind? Who’s the best one? And it’s how you answer that question, guys. It’s gonna set you apart. And when the cousin gets out of the business, ’cause they don’t know how to have a buyer’s agent conversation and how we get paid and you’re second in line because they know you’re the, you know, you’re maybe not family, but you’re the best at what you do.
You’re the one who’s coming in and getting that deal. So. Be the knowledge broker, be the most active. Yes. Social media is a huge hack on this. That’s where you have a chance to constantly show your activity, your knowledge, your client testimonials, sharing their stories, showing those wins. So you’re constantly, top of mind is showing that client that you’re active and you’re the knowledge broker.
So that’s kind of obvious. But know your stuff. How you handle those questions matter. What you say matters. We all know that. So let’s move on to number two. Where’s the opportunity? Tom Ferry. I’m keep quoting Tom, but he’s great. Recently he said, go where the fish are. Right. It, what you’ve been doing for the last, you know, five years, 10 years, 20 years may not be what we can do right now.
Because a lot of people are not listing their homes. We know that right now. Right? If, if you got a 3% interest rate, I got a client I’m talking to right now. They have a 1.99% rate. They are wanting to upsize their home and have to trade that in for a 7% rate, give or take. Like, that’s a very, very difficult decision to make if you’re staying in the same city.
Right? So first of all, you know, where’s the opportunity go, where the fish are. I don’t want to pass this again ’cause I think it’s the most important one. Is the opportunities across the sidelines at the soccer field, they’re at the dancer recital. They’re in the bleachers at the ball field. They’re in your book club, they’re in your church group.
They’re in all these. Just maximize those relationships, guys, and don’t be afraid of these conversations and make it about them. Not about you, Matt, but let’s go past that. ’cause I already hit that nazar. Go ahead. I, I
[00:20:31] Nazar Kalayji: just like, I prefer to go a little bit deeper in, in that, because for me, I suck at that.
[00:20:36] Nazar Kalayji: I suck being the person that doesn’t want to feel salesy. I hate when people do that to me. So like, being at the ball field or at the hockey, wherever I’m, I’m at in a social setting and if someone comes up to me and starts trying to pitch me on anything, it just turns me off. I’m like, dude, I don’t wanna talk to this guy.
[00:20:53] Nazar Kalayji: And so how do you get past that, the, the mindset in your own head, and then what are the conversations you have? When you’re not used to it, to be able to spark that conversation.
[00:21:02] Matt Farnham: I think it all starts with, Hey Nazar, what do you, what do you do for work? That conversation, especially as a, I don’t know about women, but for men, this is how we start conversations.
It’s actually kind of sad in our world ’cause we make that our identity, which we probably shouldn’t, but we all do it naturally. So what do you do for work? You’re in real estate. Oh, that’s great. How’s the market? What’s going on with interest rates? First of all, how you answer that question is showing you’re the knowledge broker.
But from there, I simply say, Hey, here’s what’s going on in the market. And look, I, hey, if you ever have questions, I’m easy to get ahold of, but tell you what, we do a weekly newsletter. I’d love to just throw you into that drip so you can keep your pulse on the market. What’s your email? I’ll make sure I add you to that.
Now, every week I’m dripping on you, your top of mind. I tag you on social. We’re connecting that way. Now every week I see you at the ball field. You know what I do for a living and you know I’m good at it. I don’t have to do anything else now. I just have to be in relationship with you. But if I don’t, at least break the ice and make sure you know what I do for work and that I’m really good at my job.
You know what I mean? Right. So how many times have you hired, I didn’t know so-and-so cut hair or so-and-so was a C P A or so-and-so like people need to know what we do so they can hire us. If, if they need help, right. I think we would, would,
[00:22:08] Nazar Kalayji: would you get a shirt that said like, I’m a realtor, or, how’s the
[00:22:11] Mike Schumm: market ask me?
[00:22:12] Mike Schumm: Or, you know, something like that? No,
[00:22:13] Matt Farnham: dude, I haven’t worn a name badge in 20 years and I never will. You know, it’s like I got realtors that show up at church that wrap their car in like their, it’s like, that is so obnoxious. Like, no, thank you. Just be in relationship and don’t be shy about what you do for a living.
[00:22:28] Matt Farnham: It’s like 80% of where you spend your time in your life, like it’s part of who you are. And this goes into a whole nother conversation with, I think I’m giving a, a, a webinar next week on, on work-life balance. And I really believe guys that we try and compartmentalize our lives and to work and to family and, and to, to community and all this stuff.
We have one life and it’s about building a bigger life and a bigger story. So when you talk to me about what I do for a living, like our mission to serve the city in Las Vegas, it’s our family. It’s my heartbeat, it’s our community, it’s my business. It all is literally intertwined. There’s no way it doesn’t all come up together.
So that’s a, a way bigger conversation around maybe that holistic way to, to approach your business and comes up in conversation. But I, I just think we over complicate it guys. Just, Hey, we have a weekly newsletter. We’d love to put you on the drip. You can keep your pulse on the market. I do a quick two minute video every week, just kind of tell you what’s going on, and you can always reach out if you have more questions.
We’re here to help.
[00:23:24] Nazar Kalayji: Like, so if you’re at the grocery store and you hear someone talk about real estate, are you the agent that goes up to ’em and says, Hey, or do you just say, I don’t know them, so I’m gonna keep, you know, to myself and move on?
[00:23:34] Matt Farnham: Rarely would I be the agent that goes up to the grocery store.
And number one, I probably don’t have time ’cause I’m in and out like a hundred miles an hour. But but yeah, I mean, yes, I’m pretty bold and I’m, I’m not shy. So there are times I probably have been that guy unless he’s rolling her eyes at me because, you know, I’m the guy that talks to the clerk at the checkout to try and make him laugh.
’cause I think they’re just having a miserable day and she thinks I’m annoying them. Right? So but no, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about maximizing relationships. This is a [00:24:00] relationship business. If you’re not gonna randomly run into somebody at the grocery store, that’s probably gonna hire you to list their house.
If we’re being honest right now, maybe something comes up, Hey, I sent a newsletter out. If you’re interested in the market, I could send it to you. Now slowly you can start to build a relationship, you know, and that relationship, once it’s st strong enough and there’s a bridge there, well now you can, you know, start to throw in the call to action or whatever, right?
So all right, let me keep rolling here. So other, you know, where are the fish right now? So who is selling their home right now? The only people to me that seem to be selling are people that are death divorced, military relocation, or a job relocation out of town. People in Las Vegas who are not selling their home in Las Vegas to move to another Las Vegas home to trade in their interest rate, unless there’s a really big change of life situation.
Like they literally have too many kids now they’re busting at the seams, but that’s not a whole lot of families in that situation. So we have, you know, retirement communities, obviously probate, estate planning attorneys, divorce attorneys. We talked about this Rob yesterday. You know, some of these types of attorneys.
But military contacts for p c s relocations, but I think the biggest one is agent to agent referrals. One thing that I’m still thankful for is we’ve put a lot of effort in the last few years on our team to start building this agent to agent referral business with, with great relationships. Again, return on relationship with so many of you guys across the country.
But think about it, you know, a lot of times the buyers that we’ve helped this year are agent referrals that are coming in because they just sold their home in, in Texas or, or Nebraska, and they’re moving to Vegas. So that agent knows about it before anybody in Las Vegas. And then we get that opportunity.
Or maybe they already have a, a, a family that’s in Vegas who’s been thinking of moving to New York for the last year doing their research, talking to realtors. Now they’re way down the rabbit hole. New York agent says, Hey, we got a client moving here. They just went under contract. They have a home to sell in Las Vegas.
So we have thankfully done really well this year. I think year to date. Zelle is around, but I think we’ve had year to date around 60 inbound, just inbound agent to agent referrals since January 1st. So huge opportunity guys. If you’re not maximizing those national agent relationships, go deeper on that.
I think Rob a couple weeks ago talked about the idea of going deep versus wide. I think that’s something to go deep on, guys, is agent relationships. And yes, you pay referral fees, but you pay a whole lot less than any other lead platform or referral source. So I think that’s a huge opportunity there.
And then also as transaction volumes down, get on the offense and really get proactive on communicating with your clients. ’cause maybe you can get a 25% referral fee for their move outta state. Like, don’t discount that. Like that’s a, that’s just free money basically that we can by just connecting.
Then with another good professional. Alright, so let’s move on from that. But hopefully that f exercise, I know it’s a little cheesy, but I think it stumped most of you. It’s just a really good reset on, hey, we overcomplicate this stuff. Where are the missing fss? And don’t look over what’s the most important thing in our business, which is just relationships and going deeper with those.
All right? So I wanna help you with something. I wanna talk about lead follow up and just talking to more people. And I kind of talked about this a little bit ago. But at the end of the day a shocking reality is it’s not about you, it’s about them. And I want you to think about the home buyer right now, specifically.
We have buyers right now who they talk about buying a house, they look at homes, they just can’t pull the trigger. Like it’s just, it’s scary. It’s. There’s so much fear, timidity and hesitation in the market because the payment sucks. It is just the rates are so much higher than what they, they were last year when they wanted to buy and couldn’t beat out the California buyer, at least in our market.
So it’s just very difficult. But when you make it, when you’re doing the lead follow-up or you’re talking to these people knowing you’re the best person to help them and you make it about them, it just takes a lot of the pressure off of you to make that third phone call attempt or the fifth phone call attempt that lead follow-up.
So again, it’s not about you. And the other thing I want to challenge you to think about is be the clarity that somebody needs in such an uncertain time. Be the clarity or the certainty that they need in an uncertain time with all this fear and uncertainty going on in the market and the volatility with rates and all this type of stuff be that rock that they need right now.
I’ll give you an example. Shout out to Tim on our team who’s in the other room here. We had a buyer who bought a new construction home. We just closed a couple days ago, but this sweet young family got to the finish line and they literally said, Hey, we’re gonna walk away from our $10,000 earnest money.
We’re not gonna move forward. They, they blended on something related to a slight change in a payment, but we knew that wasn’t the real answer, the truth. They were just scared. Like it’s a big payment, it’s a big jump, and they literally were gonna walk away from $10,000. So Tim comes in, we kind of, you know, we talk shop, we, we brainstorm some solutions and he maps out a, a, you know, a long hour and a half worth of effort to really just help this client understand why closing on this home is in their best interest.
Not about Tim’s commission, but it really is the best thing for their family to buy that home and not keep renting. So be the certainty. But he was calm, he was certain, he was confident. That’s what they needed to be able to move forward. Right? So be the certainty that people need right now which leads into something that’s a really, I think, the most critical thing that most agents don’t think about.
And in this example, I think Tim is a good example what I just said. But here’s a big question for you. What do you think a timid and uncertain buyer is buying from you right now? Certainty. Certainty, okay. Absolutely. It’s kind of one thing we just talked about, Tessa. What do you think they’re buying from you right now?
[00:29:28] Tessa Wilkerson: My knowledge on the market, how to guide
[00:29:30] Matt Farnham: them. Okay. Absolutely. Nazar. What do you think they’re buying from us right now?
[00:29:37] Matt Farnham: They’re buying from us. I mean,
[00:29:39] Nazar Kalayji: people only move when there’s a life event that happens. Before we had all the people that move because of, you know, opportunity and, and, you know, buying homes and, and, and holding onto as investments. Now that’s not as much.
Right.
[00:29:49] Matt Farnham: So why are they, why do they hire you instead of hiring Mike or Tessa?
[00:29:53] Matt Farnham: My knowledge. Your knowledge. Okay. Negotiating skills. I think those are all right answers, but I think they could be summed up under one umbrella and [00:30:00] at the end of the day, I think they buy your confidence. I think they’re buying our confidence. And one thing that I don’t think agents think about when it comes to selling is, guys, we have to give our confidence away.
That’s what we’re selling. That’s what we have to give them. Especially in a season like this where there’s so much fear and timidity in the market. Give your confidence away and show them a process of guidance, of education, communication that they can find, rest in, they can find that certainty. They realize your knowledge through these conversations.
And there’s just a great quick analogy I’ll give you, I want to think about, like, this is terrible to use this example, but, but I want you to imagine your spouse or a loved one. Maybe it’s a, it’s a mom or dad or spouse or maybe one of your kids. It’s got a serious heart issue and you know that they need heart surgery.
Okay? You’re doing your research. You’re on Yelp. You’re on Google, you’re reading reviews, you’re asking people, you’re interviewing doctors, you interview a few doctors. But imagine going into that one doctor, and I don’t care if the office is a wreck and there’s a half eaten apple on the wall and it looks like the guy hasn’t changed his shirt in three days.
But you know what I’m talking about when I talk about bedside manner. Imagine that doctor looking you in the eyes. I’m gonna pick on Mike again. I love you, Mike. I keep picking on you. But, but, and this is Lisa, right? But they look at you now and say, listen, Lisa’s going to be okay. This is exactly what we’re gonna do.
We’re gonna go through this process. We’re gonna do this paperwork, we’re gonna prep this situation. We’re gonna schedule this date, we’re gonna do this. I’m gonna come in, we’re gonna do this process. She’s going to be okay. And you walk outta that room, just like literally feeling like the world’s off your shoulders.
’cause this guy has got Lisa, right? I. Guys, that’s what we gotta do in real estate. We gotta give our confidence away and know that we’re gonna get them to the finish line of where they they want to go. Alright? The other thing that I think a whole nother conversation that’s not here, this is a whole nother talk, but how do you protect your confidence?
How do you stay encouraged? If that’s what we’re selling? What are you doing in your daily and weekly routine that’s making sure that you’re protecting your confidence so you can be there for your, your family, your team, your, your clients. You can’t give it away if you don’t have it. So what are you doing to protect your confidence and stay encouraged?
Whole nother talking conversation, but something to really just spend some time thinking about. All right. And then one thing Nazar, it’s already 1103, bro. I got so much more. How much I can cut it off whenever You can go
[00:32:13] Nazar Kalayji: for, you know, another 15 minutes and then we can, we
[00:32:16] Matt Farnham: can end it. Okay. I think I knock it out.
[00:32:19] Mike Schumm: Matt, if you let me, I’d like to add like five minutes into a couple things came to mind that, to pick back what you’re saying ’cause you’re not really sharing why you’re so great. I will tell you because Matt is right, there’s over 20,000 real estate agents in Vegas. I’ve coached a bunch of them. I’m friends with he 20 plus of them.
But I tell you, I will never, ever buy a house from anyone in Vegas except the Matt Farnham team. And here’s the reason why. Do you know why Matt? Something that you’re doing, and this is on the call. I realize this fairly recently. Tessa, your clients will anoint you. Their client for life will work with you forever and ever when you make them feel like they are more important than the work that you do for them.
Can I give you two examples guys? So I dunno, you guys know me a little bit, but we had this really sick dog. The dog had separation anxiety. So my wife Lisa, had the dog glu through her hip for seven years, literally 24 hours, seven days a week. She loved that dog. She lived with that dog. She had to put the dog down in April.
We didn’t tell many people. Somehow Matt Farnham found out about it. I think we were having lunch when we had to put the dog down, if I remember. So all of a sudden I get a call about two weeks later from Matt Farnham and he says, Hey, how’s Lisa doing? Is it okay if I stop by? I’m like, yeah, stop by. No big deal.
He stops by. Why did Matt wanna stop by? Because Matt went to my wife’s Facebook page to find a picture of that dog she loves so much, went to Michael’s, whatever, and memorialized the dog. She loves so much. Does Lisa think Matt cares more about her or the commission he may have made from selling us to townhouse?
That’s one. Let me give you a much bigger one guys. If you guys know, I was coaching and doing really well and my son got extremely sick. About a year and a half ago, I had 48 teams, big teams. This guy again called 47 other clients and raised over $10,000 in a couple hours and delivered a pile of books, puzzles, and cards to my house.
So my wife wouldn’t have to worry about cooking. My son could have some activities ’cause he couldn’t leave the house ’cause he was so sick. Once again, do I feel like Matt Farnham caress more about me and my family or selling me my next house? That’s the tipping point. What are you doing today to tell your client?
Make them feel you care more about them as a person, as a family, than working with them on their next transaction. If you’re able to do that like Matt is, to me, all your clients will work with you forever and never even think about working with someone else. One more thing for a. So Nazar, I’m just like you.
I hate talking about myself. I’m wildly uncomfortable, especially out in the public. But what I did learn why I’m successful in sales is all top salespeople, one of their number one traits is
[00:34:58] Nazar Kalayji: curiosity.
[00:35:00] Mike Schumm: So when I meet people, Nazar, I just ask ’em a lot of questions about them. Open-ended questions, I will use the Ford acronym.
[00:35:06] Mike Schumm: Most of the time. Ask about your family. How’s your job doing? What are you doing for fun? A lot of times from someone I know, I stalk all the people who I import my life
[00:35:14] Nazar Kalayji: on social. So I’ll bring it up. Hey Nazar, I saw you wakeboarding. I saw you in Mount Zion. Right? And that creates a conversation.
[00:35:21] Mike Schumm: Like Matt said, eventually they’ll start asking about me, the market and the stuff.
[00:35:25] Mike Schumm: So
[00:35:25] Nazar Kalayji: anyway, I don’t wanna hijack your call, but I have to share those. That’s the tipping point
[00:35:28] Matt Farnham: of what you’re doing. Matt. Thanks Mike. You made me tear up a little bit. I love you, dude. It’s all. So a couple of things when it comes to the just real quick, you’ve heard that the term fortune is in follow up.
I know that’s an old school sales term. But I want you to think about that at the end of the day, because people aren’t making decisions as fast right now. So follow up is critical, guys. Like you gotta be willing to, we have a philosophy here, we talk about, we wanna walk with walkers, jog with joggers, and run with runners.
But so often we try and make a walker run. They’re not ready to run guys. They’re, [00:36:00] they’re scared, they’re timid. They need to get educated. So we need to have the patience and again, make it about them. Just meet them where they are and be the consistent voice of value that walks them down that funnel.
And just remember they’re gonna work with their first competent agent they speak with. The day they wake up ready, the day they wake up, ready and serious, they’re gonna work with the first competent agent. They, I didn’t say the first agent, I also didn’t say the best agent. But if you’re not the most recent conversation they had, you’re not gonna be the one that’s probably got the transaction unless you’ve been just substantially over the top more valuable to them.
And on another note with listing follow up, a lot of sellers are having a really hard time making decisions ’cause they don’t want to trade in that interest rate. So that’s a much longer runway of follow-up as well. And something I think that most agents get wrong is if you have a listing consultation today and you say you know, Hey Tessa, I think we’re looking around five 50 today for your home.
Let’s say this drags out for 2, 4, 5, you know, months before they list their home. Maybe I’ve even followed up with Tessa to see how she’s doing. But if the market improves and she sees on Zillow, her home goes up to 5 75, 600, 6 25. In her mind, Matt is the five 50 guy. ’cause I told her five 50 if I’m not on the offense, saying, Hey Tessa, good news, two more closings in your neighborhood.
These really help us. I think we’re looking at like five 80 now. I’m the five 50 guy until I tell her I’m not the five 50 guy. Does that make sense? We gotta go on the offense and make sure we we’re, we are the ones providing the information and the communication because some other agent’s gonna come in and, oh, well Matt’s the five 50 guy, but I really think my home’s 600 now and they’re gonna call Tessa and list their home with Tessa.
So we gotta get on the offense guys, on the follow up. Last thing, just kind of high level idea. I’ll share with you one thing that we’re talking about a lot on the team right now, and this is a shout out to, to coach Andy if he’s on the call. But we are talking a lot about slow down to speed up, slow down to speed up kind of a, you know, obvious, you know, statement on what that means in our business.
But just to give you an idea. So everything from a preparation, from a listing appointment, like who are we meeting with? Are we meeting with somebody who’s a single mom of five kids? Like what are her pain points gonna be? What’s gonna be stressing her out? What do we need to have prepared or think through?
Just like Phil Jones says, the worst time to think about what to say is in the moment of that critical conversation. Like you need to be prepared. See the questions come in slow. Right? I love this analogy, guy. I’m a big sports guy. If you’ve seen the movie 42 with Jackie Robinson, anybody seen it? Raise your hand.
No. Nazar doesn’t watch movies. I love that movie. ’cause at the beginning he talks about how, hey, when you, when you’re hitting the ball really well, you see that pitch coming in slow and he’s like, these reporters, you need to see these questions coming in slow too. I think a lot of Phil Jones coaching that a lot of us has had, that’s how I think about that.
Like if, if you see this stuff coming in slow man, you can really be ready to knock it outta the park when these questions come in. So slow down to speed up. So more effective and proactive buyer consultations. That’s our biggest project we’re working on as a team right now, is having a way more effective buyer consultation where we get that client.
I know they’re excited. I know they’re anxious to get out there, but we have to slow down. So that way we can speed up and have a way better experience for you moving forward. But we gotta have the, how we get paid conversation, we have to go through the R p A and the disclosures and and rules of engagement.
If they’re a, a no down payment buyer that needs concessions at, you know, 350,000, we gotta talk about rules of engagement. I can’t just go show you every home that hits the market ’cause you’re not gonna win. You know, if we’re competing with 10 offers. So slow it down to speed up how we get paid conversations how we communicate with our current escrows, our active listings.
You know, think about the, the things that you can do to operationalize, to be more efficient and smoother and a better experience for your client. I. Role play and practice, right? Know what to say when it’s time to say it, that’s where that practice comes in and get those reps in. Knowing the inventory, jumping into the new home community, getting familiar with inventory that’s slowing down.
But that way when you’re in the field and your client says, Hey, what about so-and-so? You already know the answer. Versus now trying to fit into a busy day that you don’t have time to go get the answers. You gotta just calendar this stuff guys and slow down so you can speed up. And the last thing I put was carving out time to make content.
So obviously, Proud of our team recently that we’ve leveled up, leveled up in this area. But you gotta time block the time to, to get the, do the batch recording. A lot of the reels that I put out, I might record 40 at a time, block out a whole day, and then we just boom. Now we can speed up and, and Zel can just execute those things out for the next couple months.
So reels, escrow listing videos video library for your onboarding, for onboarding both clients and agents to your team. So many things that you can do to, to buy yourself time on the back end. So guys, that’s a lot. I think I talked as fast as I possibly could to get through most of this, so I apologize.
I’m not in a hurry to go if anybody’s got questions or anything, but I realize many of you probably gotta jump, but Nazar, do you have anything you wanna touch on or elaborate
[00:40:47] Nazar Kalayji: on? No, I, I, I mean, I, I’ve, I’ve made a video about this that I haven’t posted, but I think it’s interesting that when you think about.
How many people were on this planet today versus just even 15, 20 years ago? Like when, when the market crashed in 2005, there was like 6.5 billion people on this planet, and now there’s 8.1 billion on this planet. That’s 1.6 billion people more. And people might not understand what that means, but that means if you were to divide that, you know, 1.6 billion to a family of three, That means that we would need an additional 533 million homes built in the, in our country or in our world.
And you guys, we might be building 15 million homes, like if it’s really good every single year. So there’s just not enough houses to accommodate people that are on this planet. And, and I don’t think pe people understand that. And so the demand for homes is huge. We’re just not building fast enough. And so that is what I think people need to understand is, yes, rates are high.
Values are high, prices are high, but at the end of the day, people still, they can’t live on the street, right? And so it is our responsibility to be able to find those individuals that say, Hey, I need a [00:42:00] place, or This has happened, or those life events you’ve talked about. And so like, don’t get caught up in the, oh, rates are high, right?
Like, focus on the people that actually need to make a move and then go help those people make the move.
[00:42:13] Tessa Wilkerson: Hey Matt, I havequestion. You’re the king of SOPs. So I was just curious how many past clients do you have in your database and how often, how many times a year do you reach out or touch them?
[00:42:26] Matt Farnham: That’s funny. You think I’m the king of SOPs? We’re really good at a few things, guys, but we’re a hot mess at just about everything else, just so you know. But I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head. I do know that we have two buckets of, of SOIs that we work. We have the ones that truly are local that would actually show up at like a friends and family event.
We convert that database at 15%. We have the much bigger list of a lot of s o i, but now they live in different states all over the country. We convert that whole list at 5%. So either way, I think we’re doing really well. The target is like if you can convert at 10%, which is probably a hybrid of those two lists together.
But the answer to your question is 90 touch points a year. We have 90 touch points a year. 52 of those are weekly newsletters. If you’re a homeowner, we have you in home bott, so you’re getting two updates a month through home Bott. Of course you have for a friends and family event, we have touchpoint to invite and then touchpoint as a post-event follow-up.
And then we have birthday cards. We do, we have home anniversary cards. We do, we do a pop by. We try and do a surprise and delight as often. You know, it’d be great to hit each great client once a year. That, you know, sometimes doesn’t happen. But under life circumstances, sometimes it might be twice in a year if just life happens, right?
They get their 25th wedding anniversary and. There’s a death in the family or, or something else that needs to be, you know, recognized or something. So that’s the short answer, Tessa. I have some resources we could share with you on, on what that plan is.
[00:43:48] Nazar Kalayji: Thank you
[00:43:48] Tessa Wilkerson: so much. I’m on your like weekly newsletter drip, so
[00:43:52] Matt Farnham: yeah.
[00:43:52] Matt Farnham: Awesome. Thank you. Cool. All
[00:43:54] Nazar Kalayji: right guys. Matt, thank you. Question,
[00:43:56] Matt Farnham: Matt, you said you’re doing a, a webinar next week. Do you mind sharing the information for that or can you send the link to Nazar to us? Yeah. Nazar. What would be the best way to get it to everybody who’s here today? Because it’s, it’s Thursday at one o’clock next week, Thursday, 1:00 PM Pacific time.
[00:44:12] Nazar Kalayji: If you send it to me, then, then I have everyone that’s registered for this. We consent
[00:44:16] Matt Farnham: that late to them. Okay. Actually, you know what, if anybody wants to hang out for just a second, what I will do is give, I’ll just post a link right here. Okay? If I know it. Dang it. Zella, come in here. Tell me the link.
[00:44:36] Matt Farnham: Any other questions? No, that was awesome. Thank you. Cool. Alright guys. Just hang on one second. She’s walking in here. Oh, you slacked it to me. She’s so awesome. She did that probably right as I was talking. We did. Here it is. Copy. Where’s the chat? Boom. We’d love to have you guys join. Hey
[00:45:04] Tessa Wilkerson: Mike, you should host our next
[00:45:06] Mike Schumm: masterclass.
[00:45:07] Mike Schumm: I did one not that long ago, but yeah, we can do another one. I could always reach out to Lisa. I’m always happy We can just
[00:45:13] Tessa Wilkerson: switch off. Matt and Mike, Matt and
[00:45:14] Mike Schumm: Mike.
[00:45:16] Matt Farnham: I’m always happy to anyone. Mike has way more content and value than, than I can’t do more than every couple months if I’m gonna be able to provide any value.
[00:45:24] Matt Farnham: So,
[00:45:26] Mike Schumm: yeah. We’ll stay in touch, Jess. I love you guys. So anyway, I could help is always a yes. So, Matt, yeah, thanks. Awesome. Paul today. So I’m gonna hop off, get to our day, so thanks for sharing and definitely got some good notes
[00:45:35] Nazar Kalayji: off
of
[00:45:35] Matt Farnham: that, so thank you. Thanks guys. I just put that in the chat and, and just to give you anybody who’s interested I this, I’ll just tell you what my heartbeat is on this, guys.
[00:45:42] Matt Farnham: I just, I feel like so many realtors and entrepreneurs, for that matter, I feel like so many people get in this business or they’re building a business and they think they have to choose between the career and the family, the career and the mayors, the career and the community, and I just don’t think that’s true.
[00:45:56] Matt Farnham: I think we really can have it all. It just might mean we don’t have it. All right. You gotta figure out what those choices are, where you’re willing to, to make those compromises. And it’s really just balancing tension on all those things. But I’m not saying I have it figured out, but I feel like in 20 years I’ve learned a lot of lessons.
[00:46:10] Matt Farnham: I feel like God’s taught me a lot and, and I just wanna share that with people next week. ’cause I feel like a lot of people could use that help. Excellent. Awesome.
[00:46:18] Nazar Kalayji: Thank you, Matt.
[00:46:19] Matt Farnham: Bye guys. Guys. Thanks Nazar.
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