Happy Sunday Everyone-
Have we talked about market conditions being hard? I thought I heard someone say something about that. Definitely the primary topic of conversation with “most” Realtors/Lenders.
I had the honor and privilege to speak at the team meeting for the #1 Realtor in San Francisco on Wednesday (units sold). We’ve known of each other through coaching for years, but we’ve been talking a bit more after being introduced by two of my all-time favorite business partners in the east bay. She asked if I could come in and do a little coaching/advising around time management, staying accountable, messaging, and anything else I thought worthy of sharing. I “think” I provided some value (as did Erica), but my own take away’s from meeting with her and her team probably served us more than anything else. If a market is down 40-50%, and she’s only down 10%, how do you explain that? It’s worth diving into for all of us. I have two words for her, humble, and confident. Those happen to be my two favorite words of all time. It’s the two words I’d love to be described as, and as I reflected back on our meeting together, all I could think about is, she’s humble and confident, as was her team.
I like to study successful people. Here are my observations from spending time with her.
- Desire to learn. From what I can see, she’s always learning. She’s always searching for information. She comes off as smart, but she’s asking questions the whole way through. She’s consistently strategizing how to make deals work. She sounds professional and well informed on the overall market because she studies it and asks a ton of questions. Clients want to deal with pros. You can’t be a pro without the desire to learn.
- Authentic-I asked one of her team members why she joined the team. She said she saw the team leader on a panel of top producers describing why they were successful. All the answers were similar and slightly canned, then it came to the team lead, who said “You all watch too much f-ing TV, while you’re watching shows, I’m studying/working”. Team member thinking “that’s someone I want to be a part of”. She has the confidence to be authentic and stand out.
- Attractive-I don’t mean physically here-She attracts. Similar to the statement above, her team members are amazing. Positive, optimistic, learners, inquisitive, and team oriented. You attract what you are. I see so many people look at their teams and blame them, your team is a reflection of you, for better, and for worse. You attract what you represent. All of her team members fall into the category of confident and humble (I’ll add fun too).
- Efficient and effective -She doesn’t mess around. She is clear, concise, and direct. She is unapologetic for moving along. She’s not a bulldozer but you better come prepared. She doesn’t waste time.
- All in-decisive- She believes in a marketing effort (I’m not at liberty to say what it is) but will spend low six figures to determine if it works. I believe it will work, but if it doesn’t there will be no question of the effort or commitment to growing her business.
- Excuseless-Highest honor I can give someone as it’s the same word I used to describe my dad. When you choose not to have excuses, you never put a governor on your success. You never allocate time for negativity. She is a repellent to negativity, she’s not having it, so don’t bring it to her. I think she’d literally say “f off, get away from me w/ that sh3$” if you brought it to her.
Good self-evaluation exercise-How do you stack up against the words above?
We ended up spending 2.5 hours together. 1.5 hours in her office and then lunch. I came away feeling elevated and motivated to be better. As I sit here and write this out, I realize I’ve been intentional about hanging out with big people as of late. I’ve always loved my network of friends and colleagues, but I recognize right now that my mindset today is more growth oriented than it’s been in a long time and I believe it is a reflection of the people I’m choosing to surround myself with, including her. She is now my friend, as are her team members. We genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. I’m hopeful we work together in the future but if it stopped with our meeting it would be worth it.
Side note-Wednesday was a reminder that there is no substitute for “in person” and “breaking bread” together. I could have spent 2 years trying to cultivate by email/text/phone what we created in 2.5 hours together, in person. Humans require human to human interaction.
Have a great Sunday.
Hunter