Humanize the Real Estate Experience with Matt Farnham
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Matt Farnham [00:00:00]:
This conversation today was going to be humanizing, an increasingly automated experience. So the idea what that is is our industry is rapidly changing. It’s adopting AI at an extremely fast pace, understandably so it’s kind of rocking every industry right now, and ours is not going to be exempt. I’m going to get to that kind of more in a few minutes. But I think it’s a very important conversation mission to have is how are we adapting to this? What are we doing to change what we do, but also enhance the areas of our business that AI can’t take over, which is that human component. And we’ll get to that in a minute. Before I do, I want to share something with you guys that really was helpful for me yesterday. And this might encourage just one person on the call, and if it does, it’s worth me saying it.
Matt Farnham [00:00:49]:
But if I’m really honest, the last couple of weeks, especially the last week, I’ve just really been kind of frustrated, just feeling discouraged. And I think it’s part of it. Yes, this office move that we’re in the middle of with our team right now, but it’s just this idea of like, I don’t feel like I’m moving the needle in any area that I want to. There’s so many different buckets that I want to put attention into, and it’s almost like this paralysis from analysis because I don’t feel like any effort I’m going to make in any one bucket is going to make a difference. Can anybody relate to that? Anybody just kind of walking through a difficult season right now, and I think this market is just kind of fueling the fire. Let’s just be transparent together. Has this year been tough?
Matt Farnham [00:01:29]:
Obviously.
Matt Farnham [00:01:30]:
Rates are now 8%. Most of our businesses are off from last year. It’s been a tough year, guys. And I was having kind of a pity party yesterday afternoon. I work with another coach outside of Tom Ferry. It’s actually called strategic coach. If anybody’s ever interested, it’s Dan Sullivan, who wrote the books, who not. How the gap in the Game.
Matt Farnham [00:01:50]:
Ten X is easier than two X. Incredible coach of entrepreneurs. But I had my kind of tune up call, if you will, that we do every 45 days. And the program advisor was asked. I was kind of venting to her about all this type of stuff, and then she said to me a question that was really interesting. She goes, Well, Matt, what if the market had never know it was like on cruise control the last couple years until the end of last year? Where would I be today if the market never changed? And it was interesting because I hadn’t really stopped to appreciate what’s come out of this very difficult season. And for me, if I can just share with you guys, there’s been some three significant changes that I would have never done if it wasn’t for a really difficult market that kind of gave me a chance to slow down and reflect. And those for me is some of you know that on Mondays we kicked off a huddle called Rooted.
Matt Farnham [00:02:45]:
It’s something I’m very passionate about personally that’s been something on my heart for probably 18 months. But I never had time to even think about doing something with this idea, this thing I was excited about. So that just launched that’s off the ground. My new office. I have been unhappy with my office location for twelve years because of the commute. It’s just not ideal for a lot of our clientele. But again, too busy to deal with it, not a big enough pain point to really change. And then the one I’m most excited about is you guys.
Matt Farnham [00:03:18]:
I would not be at Fiv Realty right now helping grow this incredible company and building these new relationships and new collaborations if this market wasn’t difficult. So I just was really grateful yesterday being forced to slow down, and it’s like, man, if the market didn’t get tough, I wouldn’t be doing three things I am super excited about that are going to change my know in a lot of you know, not to get personal, but I’m looking at Rob on the screen right now. Like, Rob’s my boy. He’s going to be probably one of my best buds for years and years to come. There’s no way I’d have that relationship if it wasn’t for the market getting tough because I would have never given Nazar the time of day to actually consider Five Realty. So I hope that encourages somebody that even though we’re in difficult seasons, this is the chance to grow, this is where we stretch ourselves or we have the time to take chances, get outside the box, do something that we’ve been putting off for quite a while. And before we move on, I’m just curious, could anybody else relate? Is there anything that you’ve done in the last six or eight months or this year that you really wouldn’t have done if the market wasn’t difficult? Somebody’s got to have an example.
Kristina Kendig [00:04:28]:
I’m going to jump in just because I’m going through our CRM. And when the market was crazy, it was something that was put off and we’re finding a lot of good and a lot of gold in it that this time last year I didn’t have the time, even the beginning of the year, there was just no time to do it. So I’m thankful. I think I’ve said probably 15 times today. Matt, we’re slowing down to speed up. So that’s like our new unofficial motto here in the office that I’m reflecting on it and it’s giving me a lot of time that there was a lot of things that were just even though we had SOPs it was just moving too fast that I couldn’t even catch up with it. And so I look at it as a time to slow down get prepared and get ready for next year.
Matt Farnham [00:05:14]:
I love it. Right.
Matt Farnham [00:05:15]:
Tom Ferry says it’s either time to panic or prepare.
Matt Farnham [00:05:17]:
Right.
Matt Farnham [00:05:18]:
Preparation right now.
Matt Farnham [00:05:19]:
Rob, what you got?
Robert Mack [00:05:22]:
So one thing I’ve had on my to do list for a few years is to begin a recruiting campaign and grow my team. And about six months ago, I was working with my coach, and we were looking at, like you said, it’s a more challenging market this year. Sales are slightly more inconsistent and far and few between. And I was like, well, my overhead isn’t going away, so we’ve got to find a way to create that top line revenue that we need to continue thriving. And the only way to do it is to add maybe four to six new agents getting out there and selling one or two homes, and that could potentially solve that gap. And that was what inspired our recruiting campaign that we’re going through. I reached out to Christina, Got, humanize his information, put the deal together, and now we’re three weeks in on a six month recruiting campaign, and I’ve got four people I’m talking to. We’re putting an in house boot camp together that we’re going to teach these new agents.
Robert Mack [00:06:17]:
And now I’m just getting pumped up and excited about having the opportunity to groom the next generation of real estate agents. And all that came because we need to find more ways to sell more homes.
Matt Farnham [00:06:28]:
Right.
Matt Farnham [00:06:29]:
And for you guys, just knowing a little bit of your business, would you guys ever have slown down to start door knocking million dollar neighborhoods and soliciting some of these opportunities that you and Ryan and the team have? Drummed know, you just have more time to get creative and hit the pavement, right? Yeah. Anybody else?
Matt Farnham [00:06:46]:
Maybe one more? No? All right, cool. We’ll move on.
Matt Farnham [00:06:54]:
Anyways, I just wanted to share that with you guys because it was really kind of a light bulb for me that the frustrating things of this year has actually led to maybe what could be amazing over the next five to ten or 20 years. So let’s start getting into the purpose of meeting today. And do you know who Peter Diamondis is? Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Peter Diamondes. Peter Diamondes. He wrote the book bold. He wrote the book Abundance. He’s got another one coming out about exponential growth. He’s kind of like one of the leading voices when it comes to abundance.
Matt Farnham [00:07:28]:
360 is a company of his. Actually, Dan Sullivan, who I coach with, the Strategic Coach is involved with that with Tony Robbins, but it’s about health and life, longevity, as well as just tech and AI and how all this works into that space. He was at the recent team leader, that retreat that I was at with Tom Ferry. A couple other people on here might have been there. I know Nazar was there with us, but let me just share some just crazy facts that he shared with us about how fast AI is moving and that’ll kind of tee up the rest of our time together. So here’s some recent AI headlines.
Matt Farnham [00:08:00]:
Listen to these.
Matt Farnham [00:08:01]:
Chat GPT passes the USMILE Medical Licensing exam. Number two chat GPT passes the bar exam. Number three chat GPT passes the Wharton MBA final exam. The Masters of Business final exam for Wharton. Number four, Microsoft invests $10 billion into OpenAI. Number five, Google unveils Bard and commits billions of dollars to that new product, which is their AI. Chat GPT four, gets 100% on all MIT exams. MIT exams, 100% score.
Matt Farnham [00:08:42]:
And then number seven, 2023, estimated AI investment is now $154,000,000,000 of money being poured into AI.
Matt Farnham [00:08:50]:
Right, now that’s nuts.
Matt Farnham [00:08:52]:
And listen to this one. This one was, like, the most mind boggling for me. There’s a tumor diagnosis study they did in China to diagnose tumors for patients in China. AI correctly diagnoses 85% of cases in 18 minutes. The neurologists achieved 64% accuracy in 50 minutes. 85% to 64%. 18 minutes to 50 minutes. Guys, this is changing, like, every industry at a very rapid pace, and we know what’s going to happen to us.
Matt Farnham [00:09:27]:
And Peter said the next ten years will see as much change as the prior century. In the last 100 years, the amount of change we saw, we’re going to see that much in the next ten years with AI. So here’s basically the takeaway. He said in the end of this decade. So by the year 2030, there’ll be two types of companies at the end of this decade. Number one, those that fully utilize AI, and number two, those who are out of business. I think we all recognize that. And what he encouraged everybody is to not come from a position of fear and scarcity.
Matt Farnham [00:09:57]:
And I think, if I’m honest, that’s how I naturally default to AI when I start thinking about it. It is it’s kind of overwhelming to get our heads around, and what does this mean for my job and my team? And how do I have to change and how much work is that going to be on me? And that type of stuff. But he said, don’t come from fear and scarcity because it puts you on your heels. It’s like we’re playing defense instead of getting on our toes and playing offense and initiating the contact.
Matt Farnham [00:10:22]:
Right?
Matt Farnham [00:10:22]:
If you’ve heard me talk about the way we communicate with our clients, the same thing, like, we got to be on the offense. But he says come from a position of curiosity and abundance when you’re thinking about AI. And for me, that was just really encouraging to hear. But here’s what I think. It begs the question, and it demands the conversation of us reevaluating our value proposition. How much of our value proposition is not going to be relevant three years from now or five years from now because of AI? And it’s probably quite a bit for most of know. Is my value proposition today still relevant.
Matt Farnham [00:10:58]:
A few years from now?
Matt Farnham [00:10:59]:
Tom Ferry had a call with some of us yesterday and I want to share with you what he talked about because I think it fits perfectly with this. But he said you really need to think about what your unique factors are to your business, to the service or product or whatever you offer to the client. Like, what are our unique factors? And he challenged everybody to think about two things. Specifically, what can you say? My team, my company, myself as an independent realtor, I’m the first to offer this. I’m the first one to do like, is there anything in our business that you can say? I’m the first one. And he said, even better, is there anything you can say? We’re the only ones who blank. We’re the only brokerage who we’re the only team in Newport who do we have any claims like that that we can make? So I’m just going to stop right there. What’s on your mind? What’s a unique factor that you would feel you have in your business? This is a safe place.
Matt Farnham [00:11:55]:
Like, everybody just be vulnerable here. What’s a unique factor you feel like you bring to the table that your competition doesn’t?
Jessica Forrester [00:12:04]:
I’ll go if nobody else wants to go. So if you can hear me, in our market, we operate as single agents. We’re in Florida, where 90% of the market operates as a transaction broker, which is really more like a referee and we’re more like a coach where we can advise legally. But in doing that, it allows us to provide a cash flow analysis for our short term rental investment clients. And nobody else does that.
Matt Farnham [00:12:37]:
That’s huge. That’s cool.
Matt Farnham [00:12:40]:
So here’s what I think Tom would have challenged us on that is with AI. Jessica, that seems like something that AI could probably easily do in six months or 18 months from now.
Matt Farnham [00:12:53]:
Is that yes.
Jessica Forrester [00:12:54]:
And I think that’s going to help us. The reason why the other people, the 90% that represent as a transaction broker, they can’t do that. They can’t give that cash flow analysis because they can’t legally advise, they can’t pick sides.
Matt Farnham [00:13:14]:
So AI will make you just more efficient, faster, better with that right. To free you up to do something?
Jessica Forrester [00:13:20]:
Absolutely.
Kristina Kendig [00:13:21]:
Absolutely.
Matt Farnham [00:13:21]:
So somebody else can anybody here say we’re the only, like, Jessica, we’re the only team or the only agent or the only brokers that can do this? And Kristina, I think for all of us, the Fiv that are with the like, this is something we need to be thinking. Like what what is that unique factor that’s undisruptible with AI also that somebody else can’t easily adopt in the near future? So if there’s nobody else that wants to share there, let’s go to the next big idea that Peter said, and this really rocked me when he said this this was my biggest takeaway from his talk. He said that our mission as any business right now, but specifically he knew he was talking to team leaders in the room for real estate companies. He said, systemize the routine, automate the routine so you can humanize the exceptional. Systemize the routine so you can humanize the exceptional. So of know that begs the question, what is exceptional? Like what is the exceptional that we need to pour all of our effort into humanizing? So like even with Jessica doing that amazing cash flow analysis, it’s going to now take less of their team’s time in the months to come so they can pour more of that effort into humanizing the exceptional. And again this goes back to redefining our value creation because so much of what we do can easily be automated in the near future. But what can’t be? And that’s going to be what really separates us from, I think, our peers.
Matt Farnham [00:14:45]:
To the extent that I was joking with the people at our table in the room, I said, I guess we need to change our mantra for the team or our slogan for the clients to we laugh with you and cry with you because like a robot can’t laugh with you or cry with you. But that seems to be at its surface the most obvious difference that we can do. But I think it’s just an example of just it’s the emotion, it’s the raw relational type stuff that we need to focus on so we can automate and systemize transactions, cash flow analysis, emails, marketing reports showing data, offer analytics. Like soon we’re going to be getting offers and we’re just going to let the computer statistically tell our clients which one is the most likely to close that nets them the most money with the least amount of risk. Based on all these data points, like that’s going to be coming. I think some people would say even showing homes would be something to humanize. I don’t know if that’s true. Pretty soon I think it’s going to be door codes with voiceovers and I think even that’s going to be easily done with technology.
Matt Farnham [00:15:47]:
So this is more of kind of a mastermind guys than a master class. But we need to talk about this. What is the exceptional that we need to really start thinking about how to humanize at a high level to separate us from our peers? So what’s on your mind?
Kristina Kendig [00:16:04]:
This isn’t even high level, this should just be like a basic business practice. And I don’t see Mike Babakanyan on here, but his ops manager, Sivak, he was sharing this with us that they were having their grand opening and they were talking with agents and he was talking about their attributes and these wonderful things. And he goes, notice that I didn’t say they’re great at negotiating, they’re great at showing a property. He goes that’s the bare minimum of what you should be doing. And I think now when you see the memes on broke agent and stuff, of all of the things the listing agent is telling him, do not contact me, do not ask this, do not ask that. It’s just humanizing. Even the interaction with other agents, having common courtesy, answering the call and those sort of things that, yes, we have so many things that are automated and we could put all of this information in, but we are losing that human connection even within our own face to face call to call with agents, and it’s hurting our relationships with our clients. I know we had an agent in here that a deal was falling apart and for a month he’s trying to get a hold of this agent to talk to them and to communicate.
Kristina Kendig [00:17:15]:
And so now the buyer and the seller have both lost out on a deal because there wasn’t that humanized interaction between the two of them. You can text, you can call, but you can text and email. There’s a lot that’s lost in translations in that.
Matt Farnham [00:17:30]:
Yeah, not for sure. Who else? What’s on your mind? Rob’s rubbing his beard.
Matt Farnham [00:17:40]:
He’s thinking about something.
Matt Farnham [00:17:42]:
Matt Diehl. What are you thinking?
Matt Diehl [00:17:44]:
I was going to say Deep thoughts by love the I love the topic for today, and I was actually just meeting with one of my attorneys, so just jumping in here. Now. The part of what we were chatting about was we had a deal fall apart. We didn’t even know why, and we really didn’t get any communication from the.
Matt Diehl [00:18:09]:
Other side of the deal.
Matt Diehl [00:18:11]:
I’ll spare you the details.
Matt Diehl [00:18:12]:
We’ve all heard stories, right? But yeah, what it came down to was communication.
Matt Diehl [00:18:18]:
And so while it was frustrating, it.
Matt Diehl [00:18:22]:
Was at least an opportunity for me to get some more FaceTime with this.
Matt Diehl [00:18:25]:
Client, figure out part of what some.
Matt Diehl [00:18:28]:
Of their concerns were.
Matt Diehl [00:18:30]:
And by doing so, I went from what I thought was us losing a deal at like a $200,000 price point, just a little investment condo to now. We’ve tripled our price point to 600 to 700 by meeting with the client, talking with them, getting his brother involved now too, and talking about, hey, what.
Matt Diehl [00:18:51]:
Is the vision, right?
Matt Diehl [00:18:52]:
What are you trying to do?
Matt Diehl [00:18:53]:
Well, we really want to build wealth.
Matt Diehl [00:18:55]:
Okay, well, maybe this little building that we’re doing is not the right thing. Maybe a bigger thing is. So now, again, just from communication, we’ve gone from losing a tiny little deal to now a nicer deal size and hopefully a bigger vision for the future with two people on board instead of just one person.
Matt Farnham [00:19:14]:
Nice.
Matt Diehl [00:19:15]:
So that’s kind of cool.
Matt Farnham [00:19:17]:
That’s cool.
Matt Farnham [00:19:18]:
So just kind of brainstorm here together, guys. What’s exceptional? So communication is definitely one thing, right? That’s the exceptional. Can we communicate at a much higher level and connect relationally and emotionally, human to human, belly to belly than AI can. But what else about a buyer seller’s experience is the exceptional that really is where we should put our emphasis. Anybody else have any ideas? Go ahead, Robin. You got to figure this out as a collective group or we’re going to be irrelevant I think is what it comes down to.
Robert Mack [00:19:52]:
Well, I think it’s asking more questions too, right? So at least I know from my perspective I make a lot of assumptions around what people want because I generalize, like I’ve helped, let’s say 500 people buy a home, I kind of got this figured out. But not everybody wants the same thing. So one of the things that we do on an intake questionnaire with our clients is how do you want to communicate? Like do you prefer email? Do you prefer phone? Do you prefer text? Is it one person over the other? Is it a group text? Do you want every update? Are you ahead case or do you just want the major milestones and trust that we’ve got your back? Those are the things because we used to talk to people, we would over communicate with people that didn’t want to be communicated with and then under communicate with people that really wanted a lot more updates. So I think the best way to give exceptional service is to ask the person you’re working with what they think exceptional service is and then give them what they want.
Matt Farnham [00:20:48]:
Yeah, I think that’s huge.
Matt Farnham [00:20:50]:
And one thing that I’ve gotten back to this last couple of weeks is bomb. Bomb video email or some type of video one to one communication with DMs or whatever. But even just solidifying or confirming a listing know sending a quick video email that says, hey so excited to want to give you a face with the name. Thanks for the know today Brent, and I’ll see you tomorrow at 04:00. But just even the reaction that it’s something personal, I’m looking at their eyes into the camera and it’s me with personality and with energy because the communication is going to get better and quicker and more frequent with AI and automation. But I think that video opportunity when you communicate is going to be that differentiating factor to humanize it. So I think that’s huge. On the communication point, I want to challenge you guys.
Matt Farnham [00:21:38]:
If you haven’t read this book, raise your hand.
Matt Farnham [00:21:40]:
If you’ve read this book, you see it power of moments.
Matt Farnham [00:21:44]:
Raise your hand.
Matt Farnham [00:21:45]:
Anybody? Okay.
Matt Farnham [00:21:47]:
I would encourage you to order this book before the day’s over. It’s by Chip and Dan Heath. The power of moments. This book has highly influenced, it says why certain experiences have an extraordinary impact. This book has highly influenced how our team does business. Brandon, I see you’re on the call down there. You and Heather absolutely need to read that book. But the idea is if you take certain moments of people’s lives, moments of elevation, well, I would submit to you that somebody getting keys to a home is a moment of elevation.
Matt Farnham [00:22:17]:
That’s a moment in their life they might not ever forget. How we capitalize on that moment or that experience for the client can truly mark them for life. So what are moments of elevation? Moments of transition? People moving from across the country know, southern California or to Las Vegas or like that’s a moment of transition. That’s a very memorable, emotional, scary, exciting all those emotions in one season. If you can capitalize on those moments, we can mark them. Moments of insight, like the moments that people have that realization on something big in their lives. So read this book and what we’ve done is we started to kind of really dissect the client experience through a real estate transaction and what are certain moments that we can capitalize on? And I know we’re already short on time here so we won’t do it today. But just to give you an idea to start thinking about what this could look like and this could be celebrating certain moments like giving somebody keys.
Matt Farnham [00:23:15]:
It could be the way you communicate certain parts of the process to just make it very unique, very relational, again humanize those touch points. It could be gifting, maybe gifting certain moments of a transaction or even not the transaction as much as the relationship when you find out it’s their wedding anniversary or their birthday or they have a new baby or somebody in the family dies or a pet dies or something like that. A robot is not going to show love and care and condolences for somebody’s pet of 15 years dying. But we can do that. So what are we doing with our businesses to bring those things to attention and putting effort behind celebrating or acknowledging those moments in people’s lives? And that might not even be transactional, but it does solidify that relationship and a client for life.
Matt Farnham [00:24:05]:
I would tell you.
Matt Farnham [00:24:09]:
With this book we celebrate moments and we can go through this in other master class but we’ll do stuff when the client hires us or when we are at the home inspection. The home inspection is like a scary part of the process. So why not make that a better experience where we can bring a tape measure to measure furniture or we can bring like a checklist of stuff to walk through the home and almost turn it into more of like a new home orientation, like new construction than a scary resale home inspection. What are you doing at the clear to close your past appraisals and inspections? How do we make that a special moment for a client? Or maybe it’s the signing experience or it’s the time you give them keys. Are they walking down a red carpet? Like something memorable where they just feel celebrated and special? We do surprise them to the light. We’re looking for opportunities for their 20th wedding anniversary or again, maybe it’s a Christmas tree ornament of their pet that passed away that they can put up every year. Or just seeing these moments, like saying, hey, I see you, we love you, we care for you, we’re grateful for you and your relationship and just capitalizing on those moments. You can really mark people.
Matt Farnham [00:25:18]:
So I’ll stop there because I could ramble on about this stuff all day on the client experience stuff. Well, let me just rapid fire so you could do contract signing. The day they hire you, the day they’re pre approved, they’re clear to close. Home inspection signing day, closing day, maybe 30 days later after closing. So they say, hey, I got my commission and we still love you. We didn’t forget about you. What are we doing to say we’re still here to serve you a year later? Happy home anniversary. Every year after they buy the home, what about the way we present multiple offers? A robot can put together a spreadsheet, but what are some creative ways that we can say, we just had a client that had six offers on a home and ended up in a bidding war.
Matt Farnham [00:25:58]:
I should have slowed down to speed up. I should have slowed down and created like a cool presentation about that to create an experience and excitement. As they’re looking at these numbers go up and up and up, not knowing where it’s going to end. Could you imagine that experience for the client? Those are the types of things we need to start putting humanizing to make those exceptional experiences for clients. The way we present feedback on their home, summary of homes they’ve looked at after you’ve been out showing homes again. AI is going to do all this stuff. So how do we do it different? How do we humanize that and make it way more of an experience for the client? Personalizing videos, of course. Utilize gifting.
Matt Farnham [00:26:36]:
Here’s an example. It doesn’t have to be the transaction. And I’m going to pat Nick on the back on our team here. Nick just had a buyer consultation. You guys have all been to Las Vegas, right? You know what the Stratosphere is. So this is how you humanize the exceptional. You have a buyer coming into town and Nick says, Tell you what, for our buyer consultation, why don’t we meet at The Stratosphere? The Strat Hotel. The Strat is the highest it’s the highest hotel by far in Las Vegas.
Matt Farnham [00:27:01]:
There’s a restaurant up there. There’s some activities to do up there. So he takes a buyer to the top of the Stratosphere and has a buyer consultation at the top of the Stratosphere, where you literally can walk 360 degrees and say, hey, this is summerlin.
Matt Farnham [00:27:13]:
Over here.
Matt Farnham [00:27:14]:
You see that building? That’s where the Golden Ice practice. Or you see this? This is where such and such happens. And then he’s pointing out Red Rock and where Lake Mead is and where Henderson is. AI can’t do that, guys, that’s humanizing. The exceptional is a perfect example there. And there’s so many that can just make your mind open up of what could you do in your market, in your context. So let’s just throw some ideas out. What are you guys thinking right now? This has got to be more interactive.
Robert Mack [00:27:41]:
One cool thing, especially if you’re working with buyers, one of the cool things is texting them and saying, hey, I’m on my way to the property. See you in like 20 minutes. Can I grab you a coffee? Or something like that, right? Like just that little thing. Or if you’re showing property on a hot day, maybe you have an ice chest in your trunk with some cold waters or something like that. Or maybe juices for the kids to kind of keep them happy and hydrated while you’re showing them properties because people get parched after five or six homes. Little things like that go a long way.
Matt Farnham [00:28:14]:
So let’s level that up too. You do an intake form, Rob, to get to know your buyer. They’re never going to remember that they told you their favorite drink is the peppermint Mocha. They’re not going to remember they filled that out three weeks ago. But when you show over the Peppermint Mocha at the first showing, like, come on, AI can’t do that. You know what I mean? I think that’s the type of stuff that if we’re really in a customer service business, we need to start really thinking about how to level up customer service. But also in a way that’s scalable and repeatable too. That’s one thing just transparent for us that we’ve struggled with is we’ve done some amazing things on the client experience side of things, but it’s constantly changing because it’s difficult to scale some of these things and to really deliver it.
Matt Diehl [00:28:56]:
Start I was just going to say.
Matt Diehl [00:28:57]:
Rob, I’ll take it one step further.
Matt Diehl [00:28:59]:
Put a juicer in your trunk and create fresh juice on the are you do you are you even in real estate?
Matt Diehl [00:29:07]:
Are you in juice? What do you do?
Matt Farnham [00:29:09]:
That’s awesome.
Matt Farnham [00:29:10]:
I love that.
Matt Farnham [00:29:12]:
And last thing, I’ll leave you with it’s already after eleven. So we’ll start wrapping up here. But I want to challenge you about this too, because as you start really thinking about leveling up that customer experience, the humanizing, the exceptional, right? I think this is something we all need to spend a lot of time just really thinking about for our businesses. But what Tom Ferry also says and has said for years that’s always struggled I’ve struggled with is he says, don’t wait to the dining room table to tell your client what you do. And I’m going to give you an example. This is going to sound like we’re bragging on ourselves, but then we’re going to completely be like dogging ourselves. Too many of you guys know who Coach Mike Schum is. Mike was actually on one of our master classes a while back.
Matt Farnham [00:29:56]:
He’s got a coaching company he’s launching. He’s an incredible guy, incredible human. We had the privilege of helping them with some real estate stuff here in Vegas. And when he’s done at the time, he was actually coaching me. And when it was over, I said, all right, Mike, lay it on me. I need the feedback. I know you’ve been taking notes. And he said, I’ve been thinking about this conversation.
Matt Farnham [00:30:17]:
He goes, Matt, listen. He goes, I knew you guys were good at your job. He goes, no joke. You’re so much better at your job than you have ever let on as far as, like, the communication, the celebrating certain moments, and just we’re really good at our job. He goes, but here’s the feedback. You suck at telling the world about it. So we do all this stuff for the client that’s better than ten times better than any of our competition, but we’re not good at packaging it and somehow delivering that expectation to the client in, like, a marketable type of way, where it’s even worse for us. It’s not even at the dining room table.
Matt Farnham [00:30:55]:
It’s like you don’t even realize it until you’ve gotten all the way through the closing experience. So I think as we think about Humanizing, the exceptional, how do we make it marketable, and what channels are we getting that message out on? And that’s something that we need to figure out here in Vegas for our company. But I challenge everybody to think about that, because it’s one thing to do all this great stuff, but these are all things the client doesn’t really know until they’ve already decided to hire you.
Matt Farnham [00:31:19]:
But what made them hire you, right?
Matt Farnham [00:31:22]:
So any final thoughts or questions before? I think these are supposed to go, like, 30 minutes, right? Christina? I’ve never really asked that question.
Kristina Kendig [00:31:29]:
Yeah, you’re fine. If people want to jump off, they can jump off, okay? People hang. They’re tied to it. I do have to say that Mike was our coach during that transaction. Matt and he talked about it every step of the way, so he was noticing you guys. If you’re on here and you don’t get emails from Matt I’ve been receiving emails about the client experience from Matt for, oh, I don’t know, five years, maybe. I don’t know, for a long, long time before I even had ever met him in person. And I know that we implemented some of them into our processes, but during COVID we kind of stopped, and we need to definitely get back into it.
Kristina Kendig [00:32:09]:
And that it’s the preparation that they’re doing this, and they know that they’re going to do this before they even have ever taken the phone call or gotten the email that they have that listing appointment. They already know what they’re going to do prior to. So being prepared and not, like, spur the moment. I need to do XYZ, and I’m making it up on the spot. But I think that that’s key is that you’ve already thought about it and you’ve already put the thought into the process and then you guys are fine tuning it to the specific client and that’s what really sets it apart and blows them out of the water. But how do you let the world know that you’re doing those things without bragging or being like, oh, we do this because then it’s not genuine.
Matt Farnham [00:32:47]:
Right.
Matt Farnham [00:32:47]:
And I think that the answer is slowing down and getting the testimonials on video from other clients of them telling the stories. And here’s the like, you know, if I went to Mike and Lisa and said, hey, can we video this? They would do it in a heartbeat. So why have we done that or not done that yet? I don’t have a good answer for.
Kristina Kendig [00:33:04]:
That because you’re too humble. You would never brag. So the rest of the world, we need to do it for you.
Matt Farnham [00:33:10]:
But slow down to speed up. And guys, that’s good marketing, I guess, because there’s no way christina’s been getting emails from me for five years. But it feels that way because it’s.
Jessica Forrester [00:33:18]:
Been I don’t know.
Kristina Kendig [00:33:18]:
I know it’s been forever, right?
Matt Farnham [00:33:21]:
That’s like mailing a neighborhood. I see you everywhere. It’s like, no, it’s just this many know whatever. But it feels that way for sure.
Kristina Kendig [00:33:28]:
I’m checking my gmail because I even have a folder for you, Matt.
Matt Farnham [00:33:33]:
Hey, that’s one of the best compliments that we get when we get I love that. Jessica, what are you thinking?
Matt Farnham [00:33:43]:
You’re muted.
Jessica Forrester [00:33:45]:
I was saying, hold on, I got to unmute. I was telling you I had to unmute. But I was muted. I think it’s funny and I’m laughing over here because I feel the same way as Christina that I get mats and I put them in a Matte barnum group folder. But yeah, everything that you are saying is hitting us hard. I’ve got other agents listening as well and one of them keeps sticking her head over here going, oh, my gosh, that’s so good.
Matt Farnham [00:34:14]:
Cool.
Matt Farnham [00:34:15]:
But what’s unique is that all of our contexts are different. Our cities are different, opportunities are different. Maybe we take just a certain component of the experience where it starts with that buyer consultation. I realize it’s not super convenient to every buyer consultation at the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, but what could be maybe a little bit more scalable and repeatable that we could do to really just mark that client that stands out differently for the closing experience, whatever listing presentation. I don’t have answers to most of this stuff because I think we need to reinvent a lot of what we do now, just that scalable. And I think also with AI, I think we all know that the long game is five or ten years from now it’s going to be probably doing a lot more transactions for less money. It’ll be more of a volume game as technology continues to grow, which means a lot of this stuff isn’t going to be doable. Like if we’re doing five times the transactions, ten times the transactions to make.
Matt Farnham [00:35:11]:
The same amount of money.
Jessica Forrester [00:35:13]:
I think Nazar just put in the chat. Something I was just going to say is now I can’t see the chat.
Kristina Kendig [00:35:18]:
But backing up, it was me just doing the buyer’s consultation.
Jessica Forrester [00:35:22]:
Backing up and doing the buyer’s consultation, that’s the hugest slowdown to speed up, in my opinion, and that’s human. That’s not going to be replaced. Yes, you can get a list of what somebody wants, but that buyer’s consultation is everything.
Matt Farnham [00:35:40]:
Yeah, I think that’s probably a future masterclass too, Christina. Just on that, that’s one thing we’re talking about. We actually use that language with our client, like, hey, Jessica, what we’ve learned to be true over doing this for so many years is slowing down with you will help us speed up and go so much faster and give you and ensure such a better experience for you by slowing down to have a formal consultation to really make sure you understand everything there is about buying a home in Las Vegas and the rules of engagement, how we get paid. I mean, you don’t want to find that out six weeks later that you got to write me a check. If you fall in love with a home that’s only a 1% co op or something like that, that’s not a.
Matt Farnham [00:36:20]:
Good experience for you.
Matt Farnham [00:36:21]:
So I totally agree with you. There’s so many things like that that we can set ourselves apart on.
Matt Diehl [00:36:28]:
I’ll jump into something real. I I don’t know if we all does everybody say.
Matt Farnham [00:36:36]:
Farnham Real Estate in.
Matt Diehl [00:36:38]:
Oh, OK, so that’s different.
Matt Diehl [00:36:39]:
TF right there. Yeah.
Matt Diehl [00:36:43]:
And FF is farnham folder.
Matt Diehl [00:36:45]:
Right.
Matt Diehl [00:36:48]:
So something that I learned from Tom Ferry literally ten years ago now, I saw him in 2013 at an event out here in Chicago called Thrive at the time, and it’s super simple, but I’ve still been doing it every time I do a consult with people, and.
Matt Diehl [00:37:06]:
It’S just a three part question.
Matt Diehl [00:37:07]:
It starts off with, what are your fears and hesitations? And I let people know, hey, this is a three part question. May sound kind of silly, just go with it, right?
Matt Diehl [00:37:16]:
What are your fears and hesitations?
Matt Diehl [00:37:18]:
The next part is, what’s the most likely scenario? And I usually follow it up with, I know that may sound kind of silly because if we knew what we’re.
Matt Diehl [00:37:25]:
Going to do, we’d do it right.
Matt Diehl [00:37:26]:
But when you lay your head down.
Matt Diehl [00:37:27]:
On the pillow at night, what do.
Matt Diehl [00:37:29]:
You think is the most likely scenario?
Matt Diehl [00:37:30]:
What the place looks like, Cost, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Matt Diehl [00:37:33]:
And then the third part is, now tell me your dreams scenario. And you can kind of smile, maybe get a laugh out of them. It can be as realistic or unrealistic as you want. There could be an ocean involved, even though we’re in Chicago, and it’s super simple. And then you just listen and write. And I usually on a good consult.
Matt Diehl [00:37:54]:
I’ll have two, three, four, or five pages of just chicken scratchings, and they’re.
Matt Diehl [00:37:58]:
Seeing that you’re paying attention. And to me, that’s one of those great, like, you’re saying, slow down to speed up. I’ve definitely skipped that part of the.
Matt Diehl [00:38:07]:
Process and usually shot myself in the foot when I’ve skipped it.
Matt Diehl [00:38:10]:
When I do that, and I always do it over coffee or food, I find it almost like locks the client in with you. And a lot of times you’ll get.
Matt Diehl [00:38:19]:
A wow from them.
Matt Diehl [00:38:21]:
And that was an old Keller Williams thing I learned years ago, is get whenever you can try to get three wows from your client, whatever it is, it could just be, wow, look at.
Matt Diehl [00:38:30]:
How cheap this property is.
Matt Diehl [00:38:32]:
Whatever it is, you’re trying to get.
Matt Diehl [00:38:33]:
The client to say wow.
Matt Diehl [00:38:34]:
And even just doing that usually gets one.
Matt Diehl [00:38:37]:
They’re like, wow, that was really helpful. Thank you.
Matt Diehl [00:38:39]:
And all you did was just listen to them write a bunch of crap down.
Matt Farnham [00:38:43]:
Well, sometimes with asking great questions, you lead them down this path of self discovery where they actually get clarity in their own mind, what they actually want, what’s most important to them. And we were talking about this as a team this morning. Actually, it’s back to that idea that when the client’s walking out of your office and they’re thinking to themselves, man, I think Matt knows everything there is to know about what we want, why we want it, what’s stressing us out, what’s keeping us up at night, and I think he’s actually capable of solving those problems. Like, you’re the agent, period. But you don’t get that without peeling back the onion. And then it goes back to the Phil Jones thing, too. Like, my favorite thing from Phil Jones is the idea that, hey, Matt, because of the fact you said this, my recommendation is blank. But you can’t say that if you haven’t peeled back the onion to figure out what that real motivation is.
Matt Farnham [00:39:29]:
So good stuff. Cool.
Matt Farnham [00:39:32]:
Any other final thoughts before we hop off here?
Matt Farnham [00:39:37]:
No? Cool.
Matt Farnham [00:39:40]:
Christina, any announcements?
Kristina Kendig [00:39:45]:
Thank you so much. We absolutely need to have a separate one where we’re just talking about specifics and what we’re going to implement into our plans moving forward. So amazing. If you guys want to go back and listen to this, this will be on the website at five Realty, and you can access all of the past coaching calls as well. And we will have another one next Thursday, same time, same place. So thank you guys so much for jumping on everybody. Have a fantastic week, and we’ll see you next week.
Matt Farnham [00:40:16]:
Thank you. Bye, guys. Thanks.
Kristina Kendig [00:40:19]:
Adios.
Matt Farnham [00:40:20]:
Thank you, everyone.
Matt Farnham [00:40:21]:
Bye.
Matt Diehl [00:40:21]:
Thanks, everybody. Bye.
===
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