Russell Shaw on How His Team Sells 41x What the Average Agent Sells

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today, we have Russell Shaw, the godfather of real estate himself, and he's here to share how his team's consistently selling 41 times what the average agent sells. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trank, broker and owner of Stunning Homes Realty, cofounder of the OfferFast app, the only app you need for wholesaling. And I'm on a mission to help as many people as I can.

So please, if you got if you need any help with your business at all, please do not hesitate to private message me. I'd love to help you. And if you're excited for today's show, please give me a wave or a thumbs up. And as a reminder, I don't charge a dime for this show. I don't make any money doing this.

So here's all I ask. This is the only thing it cost you to listen to this show. If you get value from this today, please tell a friend. Either share this episode right now, tag a friend below, or tell your best takeaway from the show later on so that we can all grow together. And don't forget, this is a live show, and so it's interactive.

Please post your questions, and Russell will be very happy to answer them. Ready?

Russell Shaw: I am ready. Alright.

Steve: We're gonna go with the tough one first. What got you into real estate?

Russell: I didn't want to I I was an ex life insurance salesman, and I Oh,

Steve: I didn't know that.

Russell: Yeah. I spent, five years in the life insurance business, unsuccessful in it even though I was mildly a success, but I just was not really I wasn't happy. Yeah. And I knew I didn't wanna sell cars. And I didn't know what else to do.

To be quite candid, if if you said at the time, was this my life plan?

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Nope. I just thought, I'm not sure what else to do. Maybe I'll sell real estate. And that's that's how I got that is literally how I sort of almost stumbled into it. A lot of people I knew.

Steve: You, me, and the other 40,000 peers.

Russell: There you go. There you go.

Steve: Okay. So then what were some of your early struggles in real estate?

Russell: I didn't have the slightest idea of what I was doing. My mentors, were morons, quite literally. It's the the the level of help they gave me was so idiotic, that I I just struggled from deal to deal, and I never quite knew my first year or so what I was actually doing to get business. I I couldn't I didn't have the name for it, so I would just sort of bumble around and Yeah. Get deals.

But if you just said, was it some kind of plan, it was sort of so random that, that I it almost defies belief that I survived.

Steve: Well, I think a lot of our colleagues probably have very similar stories either before when they started, very similar stories either before when they started Mhmm. Or still today. Those are listening on right now. They're still struggling. So, Toye asked a question, what do you recommend if you're brand new out of school to be successful?

Russell: Well, hopefully, you have lived here a while. And if you look at how most agents get most of their business

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Whether they know it or not, once I actually knew the answer to this question, it's much easier. Because sometimes you have people that are doing something that works, but they don't know the right name for it. Right. And so they they can't repeat it repeatedly. They can't keep doing it because they don't really know what it was they did.

Yeah. They it just seems to them like god was happy with them that week or they got lucky, or they're living right, or some other idiotic wrong why. Mhmm. And so they attribute it to some external force that wasn't any of their own action. So if you look at what most agents get most of their business from, this isn't most top agents.

Most top agents get most of their business from geographic farming.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: But most agents get most of their business by contacting people in their previously met database even if they don't have a database.

Steve: Right.

Russell: But if they were contacting people, they sorta know. That's where they get the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak. Yeah. And that's what I was doing that was working. But I didn't know that's what I was doing that was working because I just thought I I was getting lucky when I would get the business.

Steve: Right.

Russell: But that is what the correct name is. Contact people. So if you knew but let's go back to your question specifically. You're new in the business, and you've lived here a while. Could you make a list of, say, a 100 people that would would recognize you on-site?

Yeah. Like, if they saw you, they would know it was you. Mhmm. You don't have to know them well. They would just know it was you.

So the first problem a new agent has that say, I don't have or you don't have Mhmm. We get calls almost every day, someone calling to ask for advice about some issue on real estate. Yeah. Because they know we're in real estate. They know we're in the house selling business.

And they might have a question. It might seem random or but nevertheless, they know what we're doing. Yeah. So when you're a new agent, they don't really know you somebody you I don't know you worked with for years at Honeywell or you're an ex school teacher or whatever you used to do. They still think of you as that person who worked at Honeywell or they still think of you as that person who used to be was a school teacher.

Right. And they don't think of you and go, she's a realtor. He's in real estate now. And if you look at what most if the biggest barriers they've did, they like you and trust you.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Go call on them. Tell them you're in the real estate business. They're not necessarily ready to buy something right then. That's not the point. Yeah.

But come out of nonexistence. Let them know this is what you do now.

Steve: It's like Brian Buffini says, don't stop being an undercover agent.

Russell: There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let them know you're in the real estate business.

Steve: So let's say we've been doing that now. We've been letting everyone know for it's been a year now. Uh-huh. And we're doing one every other month. Right?

Not great, but enough definitely to keep this a sustainable business.

Russell: Okay.

Steve: Now I wanna go to the next level. I wanna be a top producer.

Russell: Well, you're not gonna go from six deals a year to top producer. Let me start with that.

Steve: Okay. Let's say

Russell: That's not a real target. It really isn't.

Steve: And

Russell: that and that one thing, that idea alone is what causes most agents to invalidate themselves the most. Okay. If somebody's doing six deals a year, the first thing I would do is get them to 12, get them to 18, get them to 20, get them to 25. Getting them to a 100 is not a real target. It's it seems unimaginable to them.

Right. They somebody doing six deals a year will look at somebody. They're they're it's not a correct viewpoint, but they're still nevertheless gonna look at somebody doing a 100 deals a year is almost some different type of being. Yeah. And that's not true, but it's still the view they're gonna have.

Steve: It's gonna feel that

Russell: way. So in order to achieve any goal, the goal must seem real to the person attempting to achieve it. So if you took if somebody's doing six deals a year, the first thing you know is they're spending most of their time working on crap that doesn't need to be worked on.

Steve: Sure.

Russell: That's obvious.

Steve: Obvious. Yes.

Russell: You couldn't possibly have been working on dollar productive activities forty hours a week or even twenty hours a week Yeah. And sell six houses a year. It's not possible. No. No.

You're you're doing something that doesn't need to be done and lots of it. So that's that's the first thing I would say. They're they're they're goofing, but they they're they're doing stupid stuff that they think is sort of, well, I'm working. I'm going to the office or some other that doesn't mean a damn

Steve: thing. Right.

Russell: So dollar productive activities are all that matters.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And you'd look at what is a dollar productive activity, getting a new customer, showing a property, writing a contract, but something that you go, if I do enough of this, I'm gonna get a lot of business.

Steve: Yeah. Your money's coming in.

Russell: Yes. Eventually. Right. That's a But you get those subproducts before you get the final valuable product.

Steve: Right.

Russell: So go back to the guys help selling six houses a year. The first thing I would say you'd wanna wanna do, no matter what stage you're at, if you don't already have it, is something you could use for a database, Like, where you could keep a record of, in a computer of every person you've contacted, every email address you have, every phone number you've got, anything you remember about them, their kid's name, their dog's name, I it whatever, their birth date. But some place you could keep information not in your head and not on little notes. Some some some organized place to have it. Yeah.

Every single time you meet someone, add them to that database. And you meet somebody it it just just keep building those that that that file of people you know.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And go back to the original thing, contacting people in your previously met database. There's agents doing 50 deals a year. That's all they do is just contact people in their previously met database.

Steve: Right.

Russell: How do you do that? Doing it. You would have when you contact them, you're not calling them every time going, how about it? Do you want a house? You would if you know them, you could call you you I don't know.

You see some newspaper article that makes you think of them. You see something in a magazine. You know about some concert coming to town. You know they like that artist.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Call them. Tell them about something where you would have a reason. And if once they know you're in real estate, because what you're looking is you wanna have the more people like you and trust you. There's a there's a young lady that I've been helping, and she's making this she's been in real estate for a while, but she hasn't actually really been in real estate for you. She's been doing other crap.

Steve: Okay.

Russell: Doing other crap. Focused. So one of the things that you get all the way in the business see, if you said, like, my first twelve, thirteen years, I lived from deal to deal. Just literally living from closing to closing, hoping to God I could get it closed in time to pay my rent. That kind of stuff.

It was fantastic. But now what changed? What I did is I actually was working at the time on a career in stand up comedy.

Steve: And Surprising because you don't have a great society.

Russell: I know. This is gonna shock people. But what was amazing to me is the number of things that I was making that transition and started playing in good clubs and stuff like that.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: I would have all these things that I wasn't going to do because I didn't need to pay $480, that was the real number, for refrigerator magnets at the time. Mhmm. If I was gonna be on tour as a comedian in a year, why would I wanna waste my money on crap like that? The number of things I decided not to bother with because it had if you do this in real estate, it's only gonna help you in the future in real estate. Mhmm.

And I kept eliminating things that there was no reason for me to do. And I finally realized if I keep eliminating these, I'm going to be routing myself right out of the real estate business

Steve: Right.

Russell: Whether I ever placed do anything else. And I decided just as an experiment for ninety days to pretend this is really the truth. This is when my life changed. Yeah. To pretend that this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my working life.

This is it. There isn't some big fantastic thing coming later.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And I all my career had been if you'd asked me when I got in the business, five years in the business, is this what you're gonna do rest of your life? No. No. No. What are you gonna do?

I don't know, but it's something fantastic. And it's gonna be coming later. What is it? I don't know. I don't know what it is.

I'd I wished I knew. And when I finally decided to knock that crap off Yeah. And this was it. Now what would I do? How would I behave if I knew this is what I was gonna be doing the rest of my working life?

What would be my attitude then? Mhmm. It took about two months before I thought, oh my god. I have zero interest in doing stand up, traveling around, living out of a suitcase, playing to smoke filled clubs with drunks. I thought, no.

I don't this is nice. I love this business now. Yeah. And, that's when I became a lister and decided I I I wasn't gonna work buyers and got rid of them quite literally. And and so you you can decide how you want it, but it's sort of a thing of, like, when a new person comes in, most people get in the business fail and they fail actually relatively soon.

And if you look, this is an interesting stat. If you say, what company what company has the best, without a doubt, level of knowledge level of knowledge, wisdom is it's not only the best. There's no close second.

Steve: Okay.

Russell: If Rheology had any of that data, it would be a trade secret. They wouldn't be sharing any of it. Yeah. Gary Keller shares

Steve: all

Russell: of it. Right. And now if you look, what's the average production of a Keller Williams agent? Six deals a year. Mhmm.

So, apparently, having the wisdom, which they do They do. Does not necessarily translate into success for each agent. Right. So there's a there there there's a mental issue there. So the ones that the agents that wind up working with Gary or being coached by Gary, there's no question.

Yeah. Those people blossom into monsters with almost without exception. Yeah. He's magical. But there's there it's it's a mind shift.

I'll give you an example. One time when after the millionaire real estate agent came out and Gary and Dave Jenks were in town doing something, and I went up to I went to it just to see see them and say hi. And I walked up to the stage after they were it was like in a break or they were done. I can't remember. And Gary asked me, how are you doing?

And I said, good. And he said, how much did you do last year? And I said, 53,000,000 or whatever. Then it was some number in the low fifties. Mhmm.

And he said, that's great. I would expect nothing less from you. You you should be actually doing twice that much.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: That's Gary. And that was fantastic. And I did, by the way. I bumped it up, because well, now he's right. I'm not gonna argue with him about that.

But to do that when you've already done 50,000,000 is a very different thing than your six deals a year. Yeah. So when you're at six deals a year, you have to start seeing yourself doing twenty, twenty five deals a year. But really see yourself doing it. Just decide that's what you do.

Steve: Well, there's so there's two things here Yeah. That I heard. So the first thing was there is you were all in mentally.

Russell: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? So there is a a kind of a burning of the ships. More or less. Like

Russell: That is exactly right. That is exactly right.

Steve: That's the first thing. The second thing is I don't know if you remember saying this to me, but there's many, many years ago you said this to me. Alright, Steve. Close your eyes, and you're doing 300 transactions a year. Mhmm.

Russell: I don't remember the number, but that's how I would have said something

Steve: to me. Yeah. What does it look like? How many buyer agents do you have? How many listing agents do you have?

What does your admin look like? What does the transaction look like? And that was a powerful message to me because I made a big difference in how I looked at my business moving forward. Yeah. Yeah.

Dustin Hollander asks a great question. What drives you? What keeps you going?

Russell: Well, I I'm not hungry like I was. Like, I don't have that desperate, I have to get a deal. I don't have to get a deal.

Steve: You don't, but your numbers are look like you do.

Russell: Yeah. But it's different now. Once you, we're we're about to ramp up again, Wendy and I. Up. So

Steve: Did you slow down?

Russell: Well, it's we've been coasting. Yeah. We've been coasting. It there hasn't been any heavy lifting for a while. Yeah.

So it it what it's more of the fun, and we want the money. Mhmm. Like, there's a certain point. See, somebody says, well, if you're a millionaire, you're rich. I don't know anyone, and I've never known anyone who has a million dollars and thinks they're rich.

Just for me to start with that. Yeah. It it seems fantastic when you're looking up at it. Once you're at that level, it's not that fantastic. You don't go, oh my god.

I'm so amazing. No. You're not. No. You're not.

So, you know, to achieve a goal, you have to look across or down. You can't be looking up. Like, if the goal seems way up

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: It's too big. You you have to you have to make yourself bigger than that goal to do it. Sure. So I know that sounds funny, those words, but the English language just there there isn't better language that I know of to describe that. I I don't know that I have a certain like, when you people talk about goals, you have to have a big why.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: I think that's nonsense. I think that's a complete crock of excreta. I don't know who dreamt it up. It sounds fant well, you need a big reason why.

Steve: It sounds wonderful. I haven't figured in my mind yet.

Russell: Well, it's it's nonsense. Let's say a guy decided I'm not making a joke here. Yeah. He wanted a red Corvette so he could get laid a lot. Is that a big y?

That's a y. What but but my re my point is people think this big y has to have some altruistic for the children, for the family, for the I don't think any of that's true. Could you have a goal that I just want a lot of money? Sure. Yeah.

Could you say, I want 2,000,000 cash in the bank. Could could that be your goal? Of course, it could. Mhmm. And you could go, what's the big why?

I want it. I want it. That's the that's it. Yeah. When you want something, see part of a goal, the the sequence for getting any goal, achieving any goal would be name, want, get.

Correct technology only smooths out the get part.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: If you can name it exactly and want it unconditionally, you can get it. But it's the issue of the want being confused or dispersed. Like most people, if you ask them their exact goal, they can't name it. Well, there's a problem right there. How could you want it if you can't name it?

Steve: You can't hit it. No. No. Target. You don't you don't see.

Russell: They they they they they have this, well, I wanna be rich. What the hell's that even mean? What would that mean?

Steve: In what capacity?

Russell: Say, What what what but just understand, it's not a goal. You could go because no matter how much you have, you won't feel that rich.

Steve: Right.

Russell: And you could go, I wanna be successful. Again, what does that mean? Yeah. It would have to be to have a goal and by the definition of said of of what it means, it would have to be something that you could check off as a done. Red Corvette qualifies.

I

Steve: Mhmm. I

Russell: don't think I'm trying to sell Corvettes here. My my point is if you wanted a red Corvette, you would know when you got one.

Steve: Right.

Russell: You would know it was done, and you could take it off the list. Yeah. You could make any goal that you could check off as a done could be a goal. But if you couldn't check it off as a done and go, I did it, it's not a goal. It's just some gibberish thought.

Steve: So going back to the original question Uh-huh. So it's not money, but you're having fun.

Russell: Yes.

Steve: So is that what's driving you? Is that you're just enjoying what you're doing?

Russell: Oh, that's definitely part of it. I I actually love what I'm doing. I actually love what I'm doing. It it's it's an interesting thing I learned years ago from he was a REMAX agent named Bob Wolf. He's out of Laguna Niguel, California.

And, this is what Bob was doing. He was out of, Fort Collins, Colorado at the time. He was doing about 400 deals a year, and he seemed like a god to me. I was doing maybe 20 deals

Steve: a year.

Russell: And he said was it was on what could be delegated. And he made a list of he took everything he didn't personally like to do. It's unfortunate. He couldn't stick with his own list and wound up going back and and taking some of those things back. But it's interesting.

He the things that I would have never thought of that he thought you can delegate this. You can delegate that. So I took every single thing I looked at that I had a disagreement with doing personally and thought I'm not gonna do it. Mhmm.

Steve: So

Russell: what's left is the stuff I actually don't know. I like doing those things. Right. And so that's what I do.

Steve: Okay. Yeah. So I never actually, I I think, took the opportunity to share this with you. I've shared this with other people even on the show. Uh-huh.

But I don't know if you remember 2011, 2012. I was doing REO business and short sale business. And REO business is easy. Right? You just gotta go meet a bunch of bankers, get them drunk, you get listings.

Short sale listings are also pretty easy. Right? They don't care how much they're getting for. Can you sell my house? Yes.

Uh-huh. Listing signed.

Russell: There you go.

Steve: Right? But I went through a transition where I was like, man, I'm gonna have to get good at traditional listings. What do I do? So I went out. I I reached out to you, called your office Mhmm.

And I got through to you, which I was shocked by.

Russell: Mhmm.

Steve: Right? And I asked you and we had we had, lunch at a cafe. I don't remember the name of the diner, but I asked you, I'm looking at these things. I don't know what to do. Mhmm.

But the market is changing. Yes. What do I need to do? And I asked you, I'm looking at Mike Ferry. I'm looking at Brian Buffini.

I'm looking at Craig Proctor, and I'm open to any of the suggestions. And you sat down with me, I think, for, like, an hour, hour and a half. Mhmm. And you coached me through this, and I wouldn't be doing any of this if you weren't so kind

Russell: Well, thank you.

Steve: To take my phone call and sit down with me. Yeah. And I still remember you walking through the door. I was like, wow. You're actually here.

And he sounds just like he does in the radio. So I just wanted to share that with you because I shared that with other people, but Thank you. I haven't told you that.

Russell: I didn't know that. I I actually had forgotten it. So thank you.

Steve: Yeah. So one question. This goes back to Toy. How much do you spend in advertising every month? If you feel comfortable sharing.

If you don't want an answer, you don't have to.

Russell: I don't know the monthly number. Number. It's about 800,000 a year. Okay. I don't know on the it's not even every month because there's certain times of the year we spend more.

In certain times of the year, we spend a lot less. Like like, for example, in December, we don't spend a lot of money on anything for it's not a great month to advertise, in my opinion.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: What most of our advertising is based on getting future business. I think one of those things that's sort of an idiotic thing when I see people promoting the concept that you must have a call to action. I go, really? So the consumer is so stupid that they won't know as long as they see your phone number, you're going, if you like what you see here, there's how to get a hold of me.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Instead of a call now, buy now. This is the one time this week. It sounds like some idiot. I mean, people buy and sell houses for either for market reasons or for personal reasons.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: Most of my business is based on personal reasons. They're they're selling their house because they wanna move or their kid, they wanna they wanna buy a different house, but they're not selling it because of some condition in the marketplace. Mhmm. So personal reasons means that I'm not going to even remotely influence when they sell. Yeah.

Like, we're not telling them, you have to do this now. They don't have to do it now. If they wanna wait until November to sell, they can wait until it's their house. It's their booth. Yeah.

So most of the business, most of the ads are not saying you must call today. In in actual fact, what if you look at what you're doing with geographic farming when it's done successfully, is you're becoming the trusted adviser that you're the one that knows about market conditions

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: In that area. And that's the number one thing the public, aside from honesty and trustworthiness, that the public wants from an agent is market knowledge.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: So when you're doing that, you're tell you're letting them know whenever you're ready, give me a call because I'm the guy, I'm the gal that knows this stuff. That's actually effective marketing. And it doesn't have to have the call to action. You have they have to know how to get a hold of you. They have to know what would they need to do if they wanted to contact you.

Steve: Right.

Russell: But it's got a timelessness to it because people that do geographic farming, you might farm an area, and five years later, somebody who's been getting those little mailing pieces or whatever, now they're ready to sell. We're gonna call Freddie. He's the one who knows all about this.

Steve: Yeah. We've seen his mail for five years.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's he he must be the expert.

Steve: Alright.

Russell: So that's the idea, not telling them every time you must call me today. So I that's just a difference. So we we promote when we believe the market will be most receptive to the promotions. Like, I don't know that sending Christmas cards is gonna do anything but get lost in the shuffle. Yeah.

So that kind of stuff. So in December, we don't after the first couple ten days, two weeks of December, we cut off all advertising.

Steve: And we

Russell: cut off

Steve: all advertising. So we're radio and farming.

Russell: Every all of it. We cut it all off. There's no there's no reason in my opinion

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: To do it. And then January, we start again. So those would be examples. Think. I have five, six admin.

Mhmm. And then I have four, five I think six commission salespeople. Maybe five. I can't remember right now.

Steve: Okay.

Russell: But five or six outside salespeople.

Steve: And so these outside sales, they go to they work with buyers and sellers or they have the product?

Russell: Only does listings and two of them do buyers It's an interesting thing. At one time, I I believed that having the listings and buyer agents completely separate Mhmm. Was the best way to go. I've learned since then that one of the we've had we have I have, like, JC's been with me twenty one or twenty two years.

Steve: He's pretty loyal. He's pretty loyal.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah. He's this this is starting to work out for us. And he all he does is listings. That's been true from day one.

But my other two listeners, Eva and, Elaine, I was Eva's been with me ten years, and Elaine's been with me about four years now. And I was amazed at how competent Eva became so quickly, and I was stunned at how competent, Elaine became so quickly. And I mentioned to Wendy, my my business partner. And she said, well, it's because they're buyer agents. I said, what do you mean?

She says, well, they're out in the marketplace every day. So if they need to go price a house that's $2.75, they've been looking at houses and showing other people houses that are $2.75. They have a pretty damn good idea of what $2.75 buys. And it's correct. Their ability to price a home Yeah.

Was so astounding to me, so competent, so quickly, well, it's because they also work buyers.

Steve: Right.

Russell: So, we then we've made a decision. Now we won't have anyone just dedicated as a lister. We would convert buyer agents. But, see, by to to become a lister on my team, it has to be someone who has their group hat on thoroughly as well as competent at being a buyer agent. So I want someone who's competent.

See, a buyer agent doesn't have the ability to ruin the organization by bringing in crap because it stopped at the lender if they have a crap buyer.

Steve: Oh, I see.

Russell: A lister who could take a listing that never should have been taken

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Does have the ability, if they're only self serving. Like, well, I'm here anyway. I'll just take this when, in fact, the direct thing to do would be to get up and walk out.

Steve: Just walk out.

Russell: And don't take it. So I've seen that from both sides. So I want, a lister someone who has their group hat on on as well as their post hat on so that they they feel like, well, I'm not gonna do that to the organization. It doesn't benefit the group. Mhmm.

So that's a difference.

Steve: When's the last time you went to a listing appointment?

Russell: That would have been 2001.

Steve: K. Okay. So you probably wouldn't be very good at the table today.

Russell: I don't think that's true. I actually what I'm doing, though, it's interesting. I think I would be excellent at the table. I'm just not bothering to go. I don't need to.

What I do spend the bulk of my time in the office doing is conversions. People that call in that wanna talk to find out how much do you charge, this, that, and the other. Mhmm. And what's interesting is that's what I shine at. And so I actually am doing the equivalent of a listing presentation.

Steve: Well and I think so this is a really key point because a lot of the guys right now, they're they're so adamant about hiring inside sales agents, outside sales agents. Right? Compartmentalizing all this and that. And we were in a meeting when you announced that you're back on the phones, and your conversion rates tripled. Yeah.

Was it was it tripled? What was

Russell: I can't remember. What I know is the person I had doing it was god awful. And I hadn't confronted that and we had been losing a tremendous amount of business Mhmm. Because it wasn't me or Wendy doing that part. And now it's only me or Wendy that does that.

Steve: You're the only two calling?

Russell: Just her or me. Period. Okay. And now it's different if someone calls in and, let's say, Cassandra or Jean answered the phone and somebody says, we're hoping to get an appointment for 04:00 tomorrow. Well, now that can they just go right ahead and book it and go, I'll have Russell call you when he comes in just to answer any questions you have.

That's fine if they just want an appointment. But someone who needs to be chatted with, I do it or Wendy does it. Absolutely.

Steve: That's awesome. Because it shows that you're not too big to handle any of the tasks. No. And and one of the things that we talk a lot about Craig Proctor is that the ISA is the hardest job to hire. And clearly right?

I mean, having Russell do it, that's it's gonna be better than having

Russell: There's there's some stuff. Here's here's what I can tell you. Yeah. So can almost anything be delegated? Yes.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Almost.

Steve: Yeah. We're actually gonna go. That was

Russell: the next question right here. Almost. But there's two things that I found you cannot correctly successfully delegate for long. One would be quality control. Any organization that misses the qual division is one headed for a future crash.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: If the quality of service, if the care factor for the client, the care factor for how things are done isn't being monitored and it the organization and the product will soon turn to crap. That's just a fact. If you look at companies that are screamingly successful, let's say Apple.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: One of the things is not just their technology, it's their service. If you have a problem with an Apple product, just I'm just using that as an example. It's not an issue of is it under warranty. Is is it any this or that? You can contact Apple.

And if there's something wrong, they're going to work on it and they're going and they keep working on it until it's fixed. They don't have the, well, you just got a bad one. That's not part of the equation. Yeah. Same with BMW.

They just yeah. I use that. Have I ever had problems? Yes. Were they fixed?

Yes. They were.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And the factory gets involved and go to but but the point is quality control. So don't you don't try to delegate that. The other one that I have, to me and I know there I know there'll be people listening to this that disagree, and I don't care. I think they're wrong. Don't delegate lead generation.

When people are recruiting someone for a team so that they can get somebody else to lead generate

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: I think if they can successfully lead generate, what in God's name do they need you for? Right. Like, if if they if they can successfully lead generate

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Lead generation is one of the skills that an agent must have to be successful, Yeah. If they're awful at lead generation, it won't matter how good they are at everything else. They're going to fail. Yeah. And notice that I'm saying lead conversion that's is a companion skill.

That's not the same thing. Mhmm. But I believe that if the lead conversion stuff is fairly simple, like buyer buyer deals, I'm not interested in personally working on converting buyer leads

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Ever. Not this lifetime. I haven't been in twenty years, and I'm not going to be, because I believe my buyer agents do it every bit as good, if not better than me.

Steve: Right.

Russell: But when it comes to converting listing leads, I honestly, I don't know of someone who does it better than me. Mhmm. And I'm not saying that out of some idiotic ego statement. I just this is what I do.

Steve: Right.

Russell: So if I get a chance to talk to them, I realize now because I used to delegate it completely. For years, I didn't do it. I that was a horror horrible mistake. I was giving away huge amounts of money on a sort of in an invisible way because if I had talked to him, there were deals we'd have gotten. Right.

Opportunity costs.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Lost opportunities.

Russell: Yeah. There you go.

Steve: So what is the biggest lesson you've learned in your career?

Russell: God, it's so simple. It would be care, the care factor. If you said, like, if you looked back in your life when you were in school Mhmm. You might have had one, maybe two teachers that were that was the best teacher. She was the best.

He was the best. And if you look at what made them the best, it wouldn't be they were the smartest of all the teachers or the most knowledgeable of all the teachers. It was that they cared the most about the student actually learning.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: So if you look, what makes a great agent truly is I've I've met people. I would call her, she's really good. She's really, really good. Is she brilliant? No.

She's really nice. Yeah. But she cares about her client. She cares about the outcome. So if you look what makes a good mom, somebody who cares.

I mean, it's the same thing. Yeah. It's exactly the same thing. So that care factor and you can get stuff so automated and so, I'm not going to touch this kind of thing or I'm not going to do that. You get away from the care, and you, by the way, get away from quality control at the same time.

But I think caring. And, like, when a person stops caring about the outcome of things in their own business or in their own life, they're on a toboggan ride down. Right. So I think if I had to pick one thing, it's caring. But you could come back to if you say what's the most important thing in in for anybody I'm just listening to this.

Because if you say what's the most important thing in any business? Getting and keeping customers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Any business. Yeah. Any business. Well, what then what how does care go into that? Totally.

Do you care how good you are at getting and keeping customers?

Steve: Especially in today's Yeah. Day and age. Yeah. Right? With all the online reviews and so on.

So, what are your top three or five leads lead sources?

Russell: Like, top three or five or

Steve: Lead sources.

Russell: Well, probably for us, it's television, number one. Radio's number two. But we spend more on TV. We spend about 400,000 just on television.

Steve: Oh, really?

Russell: Yeah. Just just for TV and about 200 on radio and another 200 on the, mailings, the the farm areas. And the farm's probably number three. You know, we probably do 40 to 50 repeat and referral deals a year. Mhmm.

So that those would be the pecking order.

Steve: Okay. Simple enough. And then Jared Jones in Florida wants to know, are there you already mentioned, like, the time of years that you won't you won't advertise. Are the days of the week you avoid being on radio or TV, or is there, like, a a minimum or maximum frequency

Russell: Well that

Steve: you try to hit?

Russell: Yeah. You don't want if you're buying radio or television ads, you do not want to be on the air more than ever more than once in the same hour

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Because you're getting the same audience. Yeah. And, and you hit diminishing returns. I've never found it productive to advertise on holidays, to pay if they if the stations say we're gonna give you some free spots, live it up. But in terms of pay paid spots

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: If you're advertising yourself as a service company on radio or television, run these spots strictly on news. Do not put it on regular entertainment shows. In this day and age, like, TiVo now has a button I can push to eliminate all the commercials in any TV spot. Yeah. But hardly anyone records the news to watch later.

No you understand? Nope. Nobody's recording the news to watch it later. And with, radio, it's the same thing. I have found that, stations that appeal to older people, tend to work okay on music.

I specifically, like soft rock. No. Not soft rock. Classic rock.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Classic rock type stuff. Oddly enough, works just fine. Interesting.

Steve: Okay. If you were to start all over again, would you do anything differently?

Russell: Yes. I would have become a lister sooner. I would have, just, launched started instead of waiting thirteen years to go, this is what I'm gonna do the rest of my life, and I'm gonna be a lister. Because if you look at, is it possible to do a huge number of buyer deals and be successful? Yeah.

There's three or four people, maybe maybe a dozen people in the country doing that. But is it as stable as a listing based business? No. Because, usually, the people who are doing a ton of buyer deals like that. There there there's a guy out of Melbourne, Florida, who does it through Internet leads.

Brilliant guy. Mitch? Mitch. Mitch Rebeck. Yeah.

Very bright guy. Nice guy. Very sharp guy. So Mitch is he he's doing, last I knew, about 330 deals a year. Mhmm.

But he he's in a resort community. So it doesn't it's not quite the same as, like, for Phoenix Market.

Steve: Second homes.

Russell: Yes. Exactly. There's a a bright guy here in town doing, Jason Mitchell, and and he's doing tons of buyer deals. He's number one in armless for buyer deals.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: But the problem there, in my opinion, this is not some snipe snipe at him because I don't I have nothing but respect. I wish I was doing that well when I was that young.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: It's a single source. And anytime you have a single source that's not under your direct control, you don't Like, when I had one source, when I first started doing radio ads, I was being given the ads for free in exchange for writing and producing comedy, and that was at KSLX. So the sales manager and the general manager could jerk me around any damn time they wanted.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Once I was paying for the ads at KTAR, I had this my first of all, my business skyrocketed. But second, by the time I went by the time I had two stations, if one of them wanted to try to screw me on the rates, I go, good. I'm not buying any. I'll buy from them. Yeah.

So I was no longer had this single source. But when I first started, I did have a single source and that was KSLX. That's a tenuous position. It's no different than an REO agent

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Who had this one bank that was funneling, oh, I don't know, 200 deals a year. And all of a sudden, they go, we're not using you now. The loss mitigator didn't like your attitude last month. Well, it's how it had

Steve: That is exactly how it happened.

Russell: Yeah. And all of a sudden, somebody who was doing 90,000,000 a year is now back to 5,000,000 a year. Mhmm. So if you have a single source for your business that's not under your direct controls, different if it's a geographic farm. You say my farm's how I get my business.

That's different Yeah. Because you can do something about it.

Steve: Well, that's listings again.

Russell: Yes. Exactly. So buyers see hardly any customer is actually ever shopping for an agent. This is an interesting point, and it's usually missed. Sellers do actually interview agents Mhmm.

Because they're the ones paying for agents. But buyers are seldom interviewing agents. There may be some reload company or something. But if you looked at 95% of the buyers, and everything's probably 99%. I don't know the right number, but it's almost all.

They're not looking for a certain agent. They're not looking for someone to love.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: They that no one's it's not like, I hope we know we're gonna go buy a new car. I hope we meet a really nifty car salesman today. They don't give a crap. They're just looking for a house, and they're willing to tolerate the agent to get to see the house. Yeah.

It's at that point that the good agent converts them into actually liking them and trusting them and that person then becomes the agent. If you look at Zillow, if you look at all the online lead sources, sources, have they so caused one single house to sell that wouldn't have sold anyway? No. No. But they changed who sold it.

They changed who wrote the contract dramatically by by getting the leads and they've answered search. And and then the agents who were gonna sell this lead to you for $43, I'll take it. And the guy sells a house. He goes, I got a good deal. I'm gonna keep buying more.

Steve: Right.

Russell: But they changed who wrote the offer. But the consumer is not better or worse for it. No. It's it doesn't didn't change anything. So I hope that answers.

Steve: Yeah. I know whether it was Joe or Bill or Sally, they got the house.

Russell: Mhmm.

Steve: Okay. How has or, actually, you know, I wanna talk about another topic. You've talked how to be a great listing agent.

Russell: Yes.

Steve: So, Russell, I wanna become a great listing agent. What do I have to do?

Russell: Go on a lot of appointments. It's the most important thing of all. It's stage time. It's the equivalent of a comedian getting stage time.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: You can practice in your living room forever. You can do, drills with your fellow agents of handling objections all you want to. But until you actually go into the house for someone that wants to actually sell a house and practice on them, you will not have any real experience. Yeah. All problems in getting listings are either at the table or in getting to the table.

All. There are no other type of issue.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: If you have been on less than 50 appointments, that's my number. If you've been on less than 50 appointments, you have an incredibly crappy listing presentation no matter what you think.

Steve: Okay.

Russell: If I've insulted you, too bad. You need to practice more. Yeah. You don't become world class because you took five listings in a year. You actually are sloppy at it.

You don't know what you're doing.

Steve: Mhmm. You don't know what you're not doing right.

Russell: Correct. And people who say they list 98% or nine out of 10, they're either working such an incredibly fantastic sphere of influence Mhmm. And only go on the appointment once it's nailed down that they're gonna list. But it's a stupid thing to say to people. It's a cretinous thing to say for a couple of reasons.

One, the people listening will never be able to match that number. And part of the reason they'll never be able to match that number is it's a complete lie. It's

Steve: like the cosmopolitan model.

Russell: Yeah. It's just complete crap. Let let me give you some real numbers. In the fifteen years running up to the run up in prices, my ratios at the table ran consecutively, just consistently, qualifies for an appointment. It's almost what considerably on what qualifies for an appointment.

It's almost what time's good for you folks. Not quite, but pretty close. Mhmm. We are running just a little bit under 44%. And why do I say that?

So we're running between 4344% year to date on interviews to listings taken. Because listings when listings get more scarce, this is always true, they're easier to sell.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: When listings are more abundant, they're harder to sell. Right. So right now, with listings in the point the price points that people really wanna buy, their listings are actually fairly scarce. Mhmm. Translate, we've loosened up considerably on what qualifies for an appointment.

They're interested in talking about selling. Good. What time? We'll come over.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Absolutely. So are we and and people claim to bat a thousand. I go, they're just idiots. I mean, when someone says this and it's an ego based type statement because they have this they wanna they're sort of proud at their fantastic ratios, but they're nonsense. If a new agent say, let's pretend you've only listed one or two houses.

Are you going to hit 44% if you're talking to strangers? Probably not. Probably not. No. And you didn't fail.

Like, if you got one in five, good. Go. Keep going to appointments.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Because the secret coming back to the specific question, Steve, how do you get really good? By doing it a lot. I I I equate it to learning to ride a bicycle. You would never learn correctly, competently to ride a bike by reading books on bike riding Mhmm. Or listening to someone explain it.

You have to get on the bike. Yeah. You have to get on the bike, and you're going to fall. It's just the deal. Right.

And until you're willing to do that, you can't learn to do it.

Steve: Right.

Russell: And I I have seen over the years, I have personally talked to, and I know this sounds outrageous, but thousands of agents who say things like, I don't really like listings. I like buyers better. That's a failure viewpoint, number one. But what makes it wrong is they can't stand rejection. They're a people pleaser personality.

Steve: That makes sense.

Russell: They can't stand rejection, and they find that buyers since look. You go to a buyer and you go, I'm going to help you find a good lender that's trustworthy. I'm going to, search for you and do everything you need on your schedule, by the way, folks, and, find you a house and walk you through all kinds of things. And if there's any questions that I don't know the answer to, I'll find someone who doesn't get back to you. Oh, and I won't cost you a dime.

Would you like to work with me? What's for them not to like? I mean, seriously, from the consumer point of view

Steve: As long as you're presentable.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Don't smell bad. Have a lockbox key and have a what what's not to like from the consumer point of view? Mhmm.

Now let's be, I don't know, an agent on a $300,000 home. And just for the sake of conversation, you go in and go, hi. I'm gonna put a sign in your yard, a lockbox on your house, and I want you to write me a check for $18,000. How about it, folks?

Steve: Ready?

Russell: Yeah. See. But get the difference. Well, now that customer, consumer, client, whatever, we're gonna see what else other people can do for us.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Because now they've got some because they're the ones paying.

Steve: They got skin in the game.

Russell: Yes. So it's a very different equation.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: So does it take more competence to be a listing agent? Yes. Does that make it harder? Not if you know what you're doing. But if you don't know what you're doing, it's almost impossible.

Yeah. And the biggest single barrier to becoming a competent listing agent is factually thinking you already are one. Factually thinking you already are one. Yeah. Nothing to learn.

Yeah. So Is the

Steve: the the the day you figured it out is the day you start slowing down. So one of the thing that's come up a lot, in fact, Kenny and I Kenny Klaus and I talked about this last week, was technology and how it's impacting everything. Uh-huh. And I know that you've talked about all these every time the market's good, we got these 100% clowns coming in and then or not 100% discount.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Clowns come in. And then once the tide pulls out, they pull out too.

Russell: Pull out too.

Steve: So I wanna see, has technology this time impacted your business at all?

Russell: Well, I don't think technology is the right term. I I think that technology, I I first of all, technology in any form Mhmm. In this day and age levels the playing field more so than gives anyone an advantage because there isn't much in the way of technology nincompoop agent can't get. I mean, you could take the poorest. You could take the brokerage firm that has the least agents, the least money, and does the least business.

There's almost nothing in the way of technology that they don't have just like the big giants. Yeah. I mean, so there's not some, my god, this proprietary software or this something that becomes a game changer like that. Like, there was a time, and I know it sounds funny to say it now, there was a time the fax machine changed the game. I'm serious.

It was a game changer. Prior to that

Steve: It was a game changer.

Russell: That that it was. It factually was. And then email came along and went, oh, my god. So the the Internet didn't exist when I started. Fax machines didn't exist when I started.

It it so there's some technology. But once everyone had a fax machine, it was no longer there was a point. There was a time people would promote they have a fax machine. That sounds insane and stupid today. But the idea you can fax it to us at this number was, my god, that company's they they have a fact.

But all of them didn't. That's what yet

Steve: They're on the forefront of technology.

Russell: They're on the forefront of technology. Now I don't think there is some technology. If you say, let's take Keller Williams or Coldwell Banker. What the hell can they get in the way of technology that some agent from West USA or HomeSmart can't and go, I'm gonna get one too. Yeah.

It I don't think there is something. So I don't really think it's the technology's the issue. What happens and it's always happened. It it was happening when I got in the business in 1978. It was happening.

When you have a hyperextended seller market, this is what causes it. Mhmm. A hyperextended seller market, it always brings out the we do nothing for less crowd. We're gonna charge less That's a great name. It is.

It's much better than discount, by the way, for positioning. The we do nothing for less crowd. They sprout. They just simply sprout. When someone brings that up to me, here's what I tell them.

Whatever those companies are charging, and I don't care. Why pay that much? Why pay the price Purple Bricks is offering? You can go to Congress Realty, and they'll list it for $500 for you. Or less.

Or less. Is it less now?

Steve: I think it's $2.99.

Russell: Well, I just I'm still using the number 500.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: So I'm wild I'm out of date. But but understand, they don't care if if you let's say, $300, they'll put it in MLS. Mhmm. And you can cancel any time because they don't care. I'm not picking on them.

Steve: Right.

Russell: If you look at historically, when did that company do well? In a market where everything was selling anyway. Mhmm. So it's not something to fear. It's not something to be spooked by.

The they always sprout. I'll give you a specific example that to me is fantastic. In 2006, I did a 104,000,000, and I think it was 406 deals. Now the reason I'm telling you this, I'm gonna do a juxtaposition with my office, me, and Help You Sell.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Help You Sell at that time had 17 offices here in the Valley. Oh. That's just here's here's what I want you to get. I had an office that was approximately 900 square feet. Help You Sell had 17 branch locations, franchise locations here in the Valley.

And I'm not picking on Help You Sell. By the 2008, my business had been cut in half, and it was right around 52,000,051 and some change. I was doing more business out of my office than all 17 help you sell offices combined. Wow. I just want this just let that sink in because this is not to go get a load of me.

It's to go get a load of when the buyer when the when the market's so good that the perception is agents are a commodity. If I can get someone to list it for less, I'm going there.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: That goes away almost instantly as soon as it shifts to a buyer market. Mhmm. It goes away instantly. What's gonna happen here in town? If they wanna sue me for this, I want them to be my guest.

Purple bricks will will go broke here advertising. And their margins, they will go broke here advertising. Purple Bricks and Homey have each done about ten or twelve million year to date. That's very good. Total.

On the margins they're working on, how long does that last? And that's

Steve: now. In a good market.

Russell: Yes. In a seller market. Yeah. Once the market changes, they're all gone.

Steve: Right.

Russell: They're all gone. Just like Congress Realty went from I don't remember. It was some 100 and something million down to, like, 4,000,000. I don't remember the exact numbers,

Steve: but

Russell: but point is it goes away because then the consumer's not simply looking for who can do it the cheapest, but who can do it at all.

Steve: Who can do it right?

Russell: Yeah. Exactly. So do I think this is something like oh my God so and so is here now. I don't care it won't matter. Yeah.

Who those companies if you say who does open door. Actually disrupt and put out a business to some degree. It's not agents. No. It's not agents at all.

It might spook them. Mhmm. But in make on a mechanical level, someone like Doug Hopkins. Because when he buys a house, he actually needs to make a real profit. Yeah.

So he's a good guy. Listen. I'm not picking on him. He's he's he's a good guy. My point is

Steve: It's his business model.

Russell: Is his business model. He actually has to buy it cheap enough. He can't pay what they're paying.

Steve: No. He can't.

Russell: And he's not going to. So he just has to pull out of the market until they're they're not doing that.

Steve: Right. So Interesting. Who coaches Russell?

Russell: I don't know that anyone coaches me per se. I've never had a coach in that sense. I've had people that have helped me immensely. My friend, Dean Selvey. Dean and I have been having lunch, about once a month for, oh, I would say a little over thirty years now.

It's starting to work out. And so he and I have sort of mentored each other.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: It's been a two way street, and I know I've helped Dean, but Dean's helped me Yeah. At least as much over the years. Super sharp guy. Yeah. So it's stuff like that.

Wendy, my partner, because one it's it's harder. I mean, I look at Dean sometimes because he doesn't have someone he can rely on. See, if I have a well, let's say if Wendy has a crappy day or a crappy week or something happens, I can talk to her and fix it. Yeah. If I do, some if I'm upset about something.

Five, ten minutes with her, and I'm like, oh, thank thank you. And so it it it when you have someone that you can explain it to and then you know they just heard you or they can tell you, well, why would you wanna work on that? Oh, yeah. Good point.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: It makes it easier. But a mentor, not really. I've been more, I I've had to figure out so many things on my own because the mentors that I had were idiots, truly.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: I I think that it became a benefit to other people that some stuff I had to figure out because I we'll take pricing. I, honest to god, assumed that it was something I just hadn't grasped until I realized that most of the technology taught to agents on how to price a home was complete crap. The idea, well, let's take price per square foot.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: If that's all you had to know seriously, if that's all you had to know was price per square foot and people talk about it endlessly like they know what they're talking about.

Steve: Yeah. Unfortunately.

Russell: Yeah. If that were actually a correct way to just use that number to price a home, just just get this one point, then Zillow would almost always be correct. Mhmm.

Steve: That's true.

Russell: They would almost always be correct, and yet they're almost always incorrect. And I'm not picking on Zillow. My point is is that there's more involved than just robotically taking price per square foot. You can't make any juxtaposition between two story and single story. Mhmm.

If there's more than a 20% difference in size, it must be tossed out. You can't even use it at all. If you're crossing busy streets like Zillow uses a radius search going out a quarter of a mile, you've just entered you you may as well just make up a number by throwing darts. Yeah. You'd get just about the same result.

Now this doesn't mean it can't be done. So if you made a statement, if the list price sales price ratio in MLS and armless is almost always around 97 and a half percent, this says that all the agents that are selling houses, almost all of them, including the ones where you have these jumbo they listed it for 2 and a half million. It was really only worth 1 and a half million. That ratio still cumulative is at about 97 and a half percent. Mhmm.

And knowing that if you know that, then you could clearly see most agents do know how to correctly price a home. Yeah. Now that that said, that was observable to me. The part I couldn't figure out is how the hell are they doing it. Because when I first became a lister, I thought, I don't get it.

You can't do that. It doesn't equate. Here's what I know. They don't know what they know. If they did, they could teach it.

Yeah. If they knew what they knew, they could teach it. But when you ask some experienced listing agent, well, how do you know that's the right number? Well, I just sort of know it. Okay.

How do you sort of know it? What data exactly are you looking at to know that? Well, you use the price per square foot. No. You didn't.

You fig you looked at that after you figured out the price. Mhmm. You seem to understand. Mhmm. And that is what I actually figured out.

Here's how it's done, and I'm not gonna try to take the time right now. But if somebody goes on my, agent blog, if you wanna know it, it's at number one, that's number,numeralone,homeagent.com. Number1homeagent.com, and look for the seminar on how to price a home. It's about a two hour seminar, but it's all there. Everything you need to know.

Steve: How is it? I didn't know that. Oh, that's great.

Russell: Yeah. It gets free. Take it. Use it. It's but it's it's honestly it's it's gets away from the price per square foot because that is not what when I actually was pricing homes myself, it it was interesting.

I could tell the difference between $202.00 5, and $2.10 and be right. And I was right, correct, endlessly right up until about 2005. Late two thousand four, I started getting stupid. And I continued to be stupid. And I you understand because I had never, at that time, taken in to consideration supply demand

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: Because it was flat. Mhmm. I just Or your majority of your career

Steve: It was flat. It was predictable.

Russell: Yep. So now what we what I look at first is supply and demand. And there's no better reference than the book Shift by Gary Keller Mhmm. Where it talks about six months is a balanced supply. Four months would be a quote unquote normal supply.

Three months shows visible

Steve: upward price pressure. Two months is a hot

Russell: seller market. One month or upward price pressure. Two months is a hot seller market. One month or less is an insane seller market. And eight months shows downward pressure on prices.

Yep. That's all in the seminar if they wanna hear it. So

Steve: Okay. Where do you see your business in three to five years?

Russell: At least double, if not triple, what I'm doing now.

Steve: And what causes you to say that?

Russell: We want to.

Steve: Goes back to seeing the goal Yeah. Yeah. Wanting the goal. Yeah. You know, let's go back to that, the seeing, wanting, and getting.

Mhmm. Because there are a lot of people that want something, but they don't have the motivation or

Russell: Well, they don't totally want it. So that's the they have

Steve: an additional

Russell: So when you go to that when you go to that website, number1agenthome.com, there's a couple other posts. One, there's a there's a seminar on goals. It's actually it might be called find out why, but that's a seminar on goals.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And the other thing I would recommend is in the search box in the upper right hand corner, put in these two words, enemy, line. That's e enemy and then the word line, l I n e. And there'll be two blog posts that'll come up. One's called enemy line. One's called ninja ninja genius and the enemy.

But anyway, read those two posts and do the exercise. Mhmm. Because when a person says, I want x. I don't know. I want a red Corvette.

Let's just use that. I want a red Corvette. And they can't get it, and they can't move confidently forward toward getting that red Corvette. Doesn't matter whether it's a red Corvette, 20 closed deals a year, a 150 closed deals a year, or a new shiny home, or whatever it is. Doesn't matter.

But I'm just gonna use red Corvette. When the person can't move toward the red Corvette, they have a conflicting goal or a conflicting thought in their own head. People that drive Corvettes are pricks. People who are in a Corvette, people don't like them.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Those cars just attract attention of the wrong kind or whatever thought. I'm just using this just

Steve: Head trash.

Russell: It's just crap. Yeah. And they're carting the crap with them. So every time they think of the goal that they claim they want, they're also mulling over this stuff that's just poise, just toxic.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: It doesn't really matter how it got in their head. It's in there now. The answer, how it got there, usually when they were tired or hungry. You know, if you've had children, you know that 95% of the time when the kid's squawking about something, you can fix it by feeding them and putting them to bed.

Steve: I didn't know that. Yeah. I just scream at them.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah. I gotta exactly. You seem like a screamer. No.

I'm joking. So you look and go I've seen agents literally brag that they haven't eaten breakfast or lunch. They've only had coffee all day and it's three in the afternoon. I've actually heard them sort of like, aren't I Superhuman? Yeah.

Just amazing what I'm doing by making sure my blood sugar is low, by making sure I'll be easily provoked by the slightest little screwball thing. Yeah. So, actually, there'd be something to be said for and and this came out in Gary Keller's book, The One Thing, when he talked about, which I couldn't over recommend that book.

Steve: Oh, it's an unbelievable book.

Russell: Just amazing for all the correct technology and miss busting on gold. But the part where he talked about, prisoners up for parole, The ones who were least likely to get paroled was the people that came before the parole board just before lunch or just before closing time when the when the when the parole people parole board would be at their lowest blood sugar level. The people most likely to be paroled were the ones that came in first right after those people had had breakfast.

Steve: Or lunch.

Russell: Or lunch. Yeah. And so you have this and you go, did it have much to do with the, goodness or badness of the prisoner? Nope. So you you there's a lesson there.

If you have if you're rested and fed, you're going to do better on anything. Then then you get into finding those toxic thoughts and those those those two blog posts on enemy lying or how to isolate the thoughts that you have in your head that are specific to your exact goal. So if you take your goal and you make it an affirmation that you already have it, I have a red Corvette, then you take down and write down every thought that you have and make a list. Mhmm. And I've had people ask me, well, what do you do with that list?

You burn it? No. Why would you wanna keep a list of negative ideas? Well, how about this? You're making a list of ideas you've had in your own head that will keep you from achieving your goal.

How about that? It's a list of stuff you found that has effectively been working to stop you from achieving the goals you're telling me you want. Yeah. So you'd want that list in case those thoughts come back. And guess when they're gonna come back?

When you're tired or hungry.

Steve: Interesting. What would happen to your business if the market took a dip?

Russell: The market's always taking a dip in or a surge in one direction or another. One of the main things I learned from reading Shift is it was a wake up to me to see that the market could shift this way and then it could shift that way. What I've realized since then, thanks to, the the blessing that came to Phoenix named Michael Orr Mhmm. What I've learned since then

Steve: not here anymore.

Russell: Well, but he still does the problem. He's he's still his presence is here. He's back in England. But I think he he's so wonderful, and his data is so spot on. And it's so so well thought out.

Steve: I wish I listened to it when the market was going up, when he predicted a 20%. I wish I listened.

Russell: Yeah. Yeah. It would just it's it's your high my hindsight's perfect too. I want you to know that. I it what I've learned is that the market is constantly shifting.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: It never stops shifting. It's always dipping or some part of it. So you could have had a few short years ago, Arcadia was booming, and then you have these areas around. There's something always happening, and it's always in one direction or another, and that never stops. There's the appearance that you could go, well, this is very stable now.

Yeah. It can seem that way, but there are still areas that are having shifts Mhmm. In one way or another. There's some parts of the valley being developed. Some other parts are being neglected.

It's just it's not even. Yeah. There's no national market. There's no like, what's happening in Ames, Iowa isn't what's happening here. I I I mean, I have people I know people there.

They're, But I don't need to study it. Just here.

Steve: Yeah. That's the one that matters. What is your superpower?

Russell: My superpower?

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: Probably Besides the sense of humor. Yeah. It it's besides my sense of humor. It's the recognition that when I don't know something, being aware that I don't know, that actually helps me a lot because there's some stuff that I'm extremely knowledgeable about and, about and, very certain of my data. And there's other stuff that might seem to some casual observer, well, that's not the same as that.

No. No. And I don't know a damn thing about it.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: In fact, I have very little information that I've evaluated, and I don't know. I don't know. And so I find myself, the more I do know, realizing more what I don't know. It's it's not a fatter of being stupid, but there are areas. I don't care how smart someone is that you go, I don't know.

And that's the answer.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: And I think that, this was hard for me to learn on prices because at one time, I thought, well, I know the price of a house right up until the point where it was hitting me in the face. Like, I don't know the price of the house. It looked to me like it was worth 2 and a quarter, but we just sold it for $2.75 cash. That was 2,005.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: And I thought it seemed too high at 2 and a quarter to even be listed. And yet $2.75, and it was done all cash. And I thought, this is unbelievable. And I just took that attribute of what's unbelievable. I don't have to believe it.

But, eventually, I'm going, this is happening. Anecdotal data anymore. So when I see some trend happening, when we see some market moving in a certain direction, like our saving grace in 2006 was we had our listings on big big boards in the office. And when our contract when when our listings ballooned Mhmm. In early two thousand six, probably around April, our boards were full.

We had to keep adding new listing boards because we had so many listings. Our contract board wasn't booming proportionately. And that told us at once we're bringing crap in the door. Mhmm. They're overpriced.

We need to tighten up on prices. And this was when listed in late price. It's fine. No. It's not.

They're not selling. They're not selling. The market's slowing, and we're we're doing a lot of business. But it was by looking just at those two two things, we could clearly see we're overpricing listings. We have to tighten up right now

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: Which is why we had such a good year by being able to see that.

Steve: Yeah. No. That's that's amazing. I would definitely say that is a very valuable superpower. So I haven't seen you promote your seminars as much, and I wanna take this opportunity here.

Are you still doing them?

Russell: I am not doing them.

Steve: Oh, you're

Russell: not? I stopped doing them because I was on a course, a Scientology course that was taking so much of my time. And after I wrapped that up, I had some physical problems, which I'm now are all completely behind me. Okay. Surgery and I was but I was in the hospital a couple of times.

And so I just never got back to it. And what I'm now looking at doing, is I just because I haven't had time to to to physically do them because I've just been so busy. What I'm going to do, is something this is going out that Facebook Live, I presume.

Steve: Oh, yeah. We're live right now.

Russell: Yeah. So do it. It's on Facebook. Mhmm. Yeah.

And I'm gonna start doing something like that.

Steve: Yeah.

Russell: I don't know even mechanically how to do it, but I thought it won't take me that long to learn. Right. And so I'm gonna start doing some kind of the seminars Mhmm. Via Facebook Live. I just not ready to start doing be that'd be great.

But my point is I it's gonna be easier for me to do that Mhmm. Than to, what we've moved the office. And I used to have the, be be upstairs at John Hall in Realty ONE, and we had that Kiefer room, which we had pretty much full run of whenever we needed it.

Steve: Oh, it's nice. It's like a courtroom. It was really Beautiful. Yeah. Very beautiful.

Russell: So the office, Realty ONE, is now downstairs, and so am I. I have my own private office as a separate thing. I'm a branch manager now. I want

Steve: Oh, congratulations.

Russell: Thank you. It's a big deal for me. It's like my name's right on the door. But we don't really have a great space unless I were to go over to, Old Republic Title, which is like three buildings over. And I thought, oh, that's gonna be a pain in the ass in the summer walking over there.

And so I just it just came to me about ten days ago that that this thing to do would be to do the seminars online via Facebook.

Steve: And

Russell: that way, people from all over the country could come to them anyway, and they get to ask live while we do them Yep. Just like you're going getting that now, which was always part of the the success of those seminars that I when I gave them live because, otherwise, there'd be no I could just I have video. They're all I have them all on my my that blog, no has, number1agent.com. But sometimes people would hear something, and they just didn't quite get it. Mhmm.

They just they they almost had it, and it was the advantage of them being able to go, wait wait a minute. Can you help me understand blah blah blah? Like, I remember one time, I was given a talk. It was on the conditions, and it's a wonderful talk. And and there was a guy there.

He's a very big agent, and this was his third time at that seminar. And he said there was something I said, and I don't remember what it was. But he said, well, I know what you're saying is correct because you're saying it. And, I he said, but I don't I don't quite get it. And he wasn't making a joke Mhmm.

And and he was sincere. And I said, no. You don't know it's correct because I'm saying it. What you know is that I said it. And you might know that I said it emphatically.

You might know that I said it with complete conviction. But that doesn't make it correct. There are a lot of information people are blathering that they're quite convinced of, the, the validity of it. And it's complete crap. Mhmm.

So you don't know it. So you you know it's true when you can observe it to be true. Then you know it. And so one of the things I really liked about those talks is I could actually see the people. I could understand the question and I could sort of anticipate, well, you're trying to grasp x.

Yes. Okay. Well, good.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Then then I could explain it because I wasn't talking about something I didn't understand. I was talking about something they didn't understand. It might be a talk that I've given fifty, sixty, 70 times, but this is their first exposure to it. And so I realized probably the simplest thing is to do a Facebook Live type of situation, and people can then get it. I mean and and I can disseminate it more widely.

So that's probably what I'm gonna do next.

Steve: Okay.

Russell: Yeah. So thanks for asking.

Steve: Yeah. Because that it was helpful for me. You know, I went to them, many, many years ago. So, what would be the best way for listeners to get a hold of you besides, you know, calling you and your commercials?

Russell: Well, don't please don't all call me because I won't be able to I don't know how many people are listening right now Yeah. If there's 300 or 200 or 500.

Steve: By the end of this, we have somewhere in the hundreds or thousand plus. Plus.

Russell: Yeah. So if a thousand people called me, I won't be able to mechanically, respond to a thousand phone calls.

Steve: Mhmm.

Russell: But but I am going to be doing that online thing, and and starting certainly in the next sixty days. Yeah. And so, that's something I absolutely am going to do. And, it but if you have a specific question, if you can save it for that, because I promise I'll answer any if it's an answerable question. I mean, sometimes the answer has to be, I don't know.

Steve: Right.

Russell: Yeah. That is the only answer I have. I I don't know.

Steve: Okay. So, save the questions and Russell's gonna be doing seminars on Facebook Live, which

Russell: is awesome. Absolutely.

Steve: I'm excited for that. And again, guys, if you like the show, please share this episode right now. And don't forget, we are doing the meetup tomorrow night at McPhate Brewing by Scottsdale McDowell, where mister TTP Brent Daniels will be speaking. 05:00, don't be late, or you'll be standing either standing in the room or standing outside the room. And next week, we do have Josiah Grimes with Keeley.

So do come back for that, and thank you, Russell.

Russell: It's a pleasure. It's really a pleasure, Steve. Thank you.