Good morning.
Alright. I don't have any music prepared for now. I gotta I gotta have a whole playlist ready.
But we'll get started in just about three or four minutes. We'll give it a little past eleven just to give everyone an opportunity to join.
I see Amanda is very prepared. See, she has her title right on her name, LPT regional director. That's fantastic. Mine says LPT studio.
Just saved.
Oh, it it David has a good okay. Alright. So it's just Yes.
We all have to upgrade here.
Yeah. Save their stuff. Awesome. Awesome. Okay.
Well, while we're waiting, let me see if I can find a quick They did, of our session yesterday with Kathy's name.
So we had we had two Kathy Trevenas.
I see him.
That's funny.
That is funny.
Alright.
Let's see here.
Okay. Well, we've got just a few minutes. So we're gonna get started promptly at eleven o three just to give everyone an opportunity to join.
In the intro, I'm gonna DJ our way through this thing. So let's get some music going here.
What do we got? What do we got for music?
Alright. So what do you like to do this morning, Hodges, and talk on the beat of the song?
Right. Yeah.
Oh, we have a music suggestion I Will Survive. Let me see if I can find that real quick for us.
Alright, guys. We're gonna give it just another minute or two. We'll get started right at eleven o three.
Today's topic is gonna be road map for your current customers. So how do we take them from where they are to understanding how things are changing. If you're already working with them and touring with them, we're we're gonna talk through some of that process today. So, we're gonna get started right at eleven o three.
Oh, we got two Kathy Trevino links again. Shay, he changed it. There it is.
Oh, here goes our special request that we had.
I will survive.
Alright. It is eleven o three. So we are gonna go ahead and get started.
Let me turn off this magician sound to Create that echo. Okay. We're gonna go ahead and get started. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty.
I'm joined by a host of other, executives on our team. We've got Kathy Trevino who is out of Texas. Hi, Kathy. How are you?
We got Amanda Hannon who has so appropriately put her title right on her her name. That makes it easy for all of us. We've got Good morning.
I know she would love to put her full title on there, but it is long. So she is VP of partnership. I have to actually read it all the time. Partnership and national and real estate opportunities.
We have David Lewis, who is a founding executive and owner of TLG Atlanta, and then Lewis Furman, our co VP, and then Shay, one of our amazing, brokers out of the state of Texas. So, excited to be with all of you today. Today's topic is gonna be, road map for our current customers. And so, you know, as as we've started this marathon, we've asked and pulled how many people are currently working with someone, meaning touring with home touring homes and have an active IDX feed that does not currently have a BBA signed. You know, maybe you started working with them several months ago and it wasn't required yet and that wasn't part of your business practice at that time. And now you're having transition into this period where it is required and it's gonna have to have a conversation.
So that is what we're gonna be talking through today. I had a success story yesterday evening. I had someone reach out to me and say, hey. I went through so we kinda put it in order.
Let me let me take one step back. We put it in order and say, who should we be speaking with first? We're gonna talk with the people who you're already working with, and there's gonna be a change in the relationship new agreement. Then we're gonna worry about the people who meet you in the future and how to explain it to them, but we're gonna start with the people we're working with today.
So one of, our agents text me last night and said that they were so excited. They had successfully got all the BBA signed from everyone they were actively touring with. So that was the first bucket they started with, and they had most of them signed at three percent. And I just thought that was a great story, and just shows you what's possible when you take off, you know, our self limiting beliefs and start thinking like, oh, people aren't gonna wanna pay people.
That that's it's not true. So I was happy to see that, and I'm excited to see more success stories as we continue to go through it. So with that being said, I'm gonna turn it over to Christina Griffin to lead us through today. And, as we talk through, you know, our current success road map.
Alright. Hey, everybody.
Great seeing you through webinar.
Alright. First and foremost, the first step that everybody, needs to write down is identifying who on their pipeline needs needs a conversation.
If you do not have a pipeline and you don't look at your pipeline each and every day, it's important that you create that. And what that is is people that have committed, they're ready, willing, and able, that will transact with you either today or it could be three, six, nine, or twelve months from now. We need to know who those are, and, knowing who those are, is going to also allow you to see what your perspective revenue and your focus prospecting activities each and every day. I'm gonna give one more, and then open it up for the group.
The the next thing is once we identify who is in our pipeline, then we need to to educate our clients early.
You may have heard different variations of this, NAR and your MLS is gonna have usually there's a lot of guides and other simple things that you can share. I'm gonna personally recommend that you create a simple guide with your branding to educate your clients. Develop a simple, easy to read guide explaining the NARS settlement and its impact on buyer brokers, and you need to set a time that you are going to have the guide done, put a SMART goal around it, and then you need to schedule a time that you're gonna reach out to everyone in your pipeline, and you need to also set a time goal around that. I'm gonna reckon, I'm gonna personally recommend in the next two weeks, you have conversations with everybody. It's gonna give you an opportunity to reengage.
Does anyone have any thoughts on those points?
I think, generally speaking, we've all treated a, buyer consultations pretty loosely over the past several years. Right? Like, we get so busy, trying to get someone into a house to show it so we can write a contract. Like, people get referred to us. We meet them in an open house. Like, there's all these things that we've done in the past where we've treated the consultation.
We skipped it. Right? Now that's not the case with all of our clients, but, I mean, I know I'm guilty of it personally. I know my agents are guilty of it.
I would imagine that if you guys tell me you have a consultation a hundred percent of the time, you're probably lying to me. So but it no more. Right? Like, the consultation, the scheduling of the time to sit down and speak as, like, Christina was mentioning, is nonnegotiable anymore.
It's imperative. Like, you need to have that opportunity, number one, to sit down and address changes in the market, whether it be from a interest rate perspective or with the NAR settlement changes. But also, too, now that you have to have new agreements signed, you need the opportunity to, in a formal setting, to be able to articulate your value in a way to justify the amount of money you're gonna be asking for. But that's where the win is, guys.
Like, that's where you're gonna start cooking. There's no reason that you can't get, a ten percent commission if you articulate value the right way. Right? Otherwise, we're just out there settling.
RP said something last night, which I thought at the the on the ten PM, which I thought was pretty powerful.
We are gonna have the opportunity to sign showing agreements. We are gonna have the opportunity to, in most states, to be able to sign an agreement that says nonexclusive is just for this house.
That's gonna be the crutch for the weak agent. That's gonna be the crutch for the person who doesn't take advantage of this market. The faster you can get people into official viral consultations that are value based and you've articulated your value, that's how you're gonna win. So, one thousand percent.
And I like to add I mean, I love the fact that you were saying establish your pipeline and go back in to make sure you're identifying who are those buyers that you really need to get out and actually have the you know, create those those appointments to go over your value and and create those. It's gonna be so very important. I mean, this this date is right around the corner, and we all need to start preparing today, so that we can start utilizing the forms that are that are there available for us in our each individual state and be prepared for it. And the you know, it's just like anything.
I mean, the more you practice, the better you'll get at it and the easier it'll become. So, I really like the fact that, you know, you put that in there and and making sure that everyone understand that they gotta go back through their pipeline and and research who who are these people that we're we're I'm about to start showing or that I'm closer to getting to showing appointments and things like that.
Awesome. One thing I wanna highlight and and, David, you talk about this all the time, which is having a plan. And so, you know, if you think about, maybe people that you're working with right now, maybe they're first time homebuyers and part of your strategy to help them purchase is going to be like, hey. I I'm gonna need seller concessions to help them with down payment.
That's already part of the plan. And then now you're gonna have to say, hey. Well, we gotta go in there, and we got to have this future conversation, you know, around compensation. That could be something that concerns them.
Right? Because they're immediately like, hey. I already have to ask for x dollars to help me get in it. Now I have to ask, you know even though it's really the same mechanics, they could just perceive it differently.
And so, again, I think that getting ahead of those conversations, talking with that group of people right now, the more and more you have the conversation, the easier it is to explain. I know when we first started talking about this a couple months ago, the very first weekend that it came out, Louis, Robert, and I, and the executive team, we all read the settlement pretty much back to back. And we started talking about it at that point. There was still a lot of murkiness.
There wasn't a lot of clarity at that time. But even just the way that we were discussing it was not as smooth. It was not as succinct. It was not as linear in thought as it is now because I've said it so many times.
I've continued to talk about it. I understand it at a deeper level, and that just takes repetition and time. The people who can get there faster will look differently than the people who are going, let's say, through the normal curve. Maybe with the normal course of conversation that you're gonna have right now, it takes three months for you to really say it smoothly in fifteen seconds.
Or, you know, you're gonna keep refining and refining and refining it. But the people who are practicing it and they can say that in fifteen seconds today, they are going to have an advantage over the other people who are just kind of floating through it. And so this is where we say this is where opportunity is created by change because you have this opportunity right now to be better at this change than anyone else, and that does help you make take market share. It does help you take on more clients.
It doesn't just keep you steady with where you are today, but you actually go faster. And so I always like to just interject that thought process because this is a moment for you to do more, not the same. Let's figure out how to be great at this. And then obviously, that translates into a a better consumer experience.
Yeah.
Can I throw something in on that?
I think it's, I think it was really great what you said about those repetitions.
There's and and the thing that I think about those repetitions that's so important is there's there's really no substitute for it. You can't sidestep going through those conversations over and over and over. You you've gotta embrace that, and and you can either embrace that in in the public with your consumers, or you can embrace those repetitions, you know, in the privacy of your own home or with with a partner, with somebody you can role play those conversations with. But I think, you know, having those those repetitions and upfront, you just you just can't get around it any other way.
Yeah. Look at it this way, guys. Like, the industry has just unlocked a forum to give us as buyer's agents the ability to articulate our value. You know?
Maybe, historically, we felt like that forum never existed. You know? Maybe we were scrambling to go to that first showing and and, you know, conduct showings and tours because no one else, you know, was doing this, you know, type of articulation. Well, now the playing field has been equalized.
Right? Like, you now have the ability to really go out there and set yourself apart from the competition by our your value accordingly. And then we can even take it one step further, you know, for current clients who are in your pipeline that maybe you did at one time articulate your value or you are articulating your value. Now you have a forum for you to continuously articulate your value.
And that's one of the suggestions that I would recommend on this call here as we are, you know, transitioning our clients and exposing them into this new type of concept. You know, you now have an easy talking point for you guys to go out there and have new conversations with your customers. You know, oftentimes, one of the hardest things to do as we're juggling a database is, like, what do I bring up to my customers? Like, what do I say?
Like, what are the themes that I bring up? Well, you have a theme now. You have a conversation starter. You know, if you're running your book of business and you're handling your hot clients, why not treat it like a doctor's office or a consultation office where you have these appointments that are set, where you're checking in with your clients, you're understanding what missions they are looking to accomplish at any given time, where before maybe we were trying to figure those things out at the time of writing a contract, Right?
We go on tours where, you know, having conversations on how to structure our criterias to look for houses. And then finally, when it's time to write an offer, now we're talking about the financing points. Now we're talking about these other points. Like, why not interject a consultation periodically as you have these hot clients in your orbit, in your ecosystem?
And again, the industry has now created this new forum for you guys to do it from the very start, but also to have these conversations as you are continuously building your relationship with your customer.
Lou Louis, that segues into our next item on our road map.
It's the regular updates and regular transparency with our clients.
Those of us that are listing agents, we should weekly be updating our seller on showing activity, feedback, what marketing activities we have done. We need an administrative block at the beginning of the week when we're updating our sellers, we're also updating our buyers on the activity that we're doing to help them find a home. So many of us have not took that practice into play, but with those regular conversations like Lewis referenced and them committing and sign signing a buyer broker agreement with us, we need to get into a habit that that pipeline, we are updating them on the activity we did. We took a power pack and and went to x neighborhood that you're interested in buying, and that's gonna help us also strengthen those relationships, in my opinion.
Can I, can I put a different spin on that?
Absolutely.
Because a lot of times, like, when we say, like, hey.
I'm gonna check-in with you to let you know what I've been doing or, like like, if we set the stage for that conversation because we know that communication is the number one complaint around all realtors. Right? Like, awful communication.
So if part of our value wall in the beginning, when I first sit down in my consultation, I go, can I tell you something that makes TLG ATO a little bit different? Right? The average agent doesn't check-in with their client at all, and we know that if you've ever sold a house in the past, you probably can back that up that you didn't love the communication style. Well, at TLG ATL, every Thursday between ten and eleven, you're gonna hear from me.
The specific nature of that conversation, we're gonna talk thousands of other times during the week. We're always gonna be talking, but the specific context of our conversation between ten and eleven on Thursdays is for me to check-in, see how you're feeling, and ask you one question. How am I doing? Because I wanna know specifically, like, what job I'm doing, what can I do more, what can I do less of?
Right? So what you've done is you've taken what Christina said and you've got an organized time block slot where you're gonna check-in with your clients, and you've put it into a cadence that shows that you care about them all wrapped up into a differentiation statement that says why TLG ATL is better than any other realtor out there. Right?
Like How are you communicating?
Are you texting? Are you calling? Are you emailing them? What method are are you communicating with the buyers?
Yeah. So so Thursday is all about me picking up the phone.
Right? I'm gonna call you. You can choose to answer or not. Right? But I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna get that feedback.
Right? So I might follow-up with a text, but I'm gonna call you every Thursday because that's my commitment. Because we believe at TLG Atlanta that communication with our clients and making sure you never have to wait for any sort of to ask a question. You always have the opportunity to be to get the most honest and accurate information so you can make an educated decision.
Like, that's our premise. That's who we are. So every Thursday, I'm calling. You can choose to answer or not.
Is it you or a staff member?
It's me.
Okay.
Well, it's not it it's it's it's not me because I I don't it's the agent.
It's the agent. Okay.
If I'm the agent, it's me.
Okay. One thing I have to say, everybody, if you're gonna commit to a time block and you're gonna tell that client, you you've got to do the time block. Because how many of us say that we're gonna do something at x time and and that client as soon as we don't call them during that time block. So I love that, David, but until you guys get in the habit of the practice, please don't tell your client a time.
Right. Right. And I like to add also, and during your consultation, just like you do in a listing presentation, you know, you ask them what's their best way of communication. So this is an opportunity for you to find out more a little bit more about how your client would like to be communicated.
Some people want a phone call. Some people are prefer text. Some people prefer email. So this is an opportunity for you to also, you know, get get to know your client better and find out how do they wanna, be communicate you know, what kind of type of communication they would like to have, and then make sure you you you move forward with your your plan, whatever that may be.
And and put those notes in your CRM, so you always have those because that's a big thing a lot of us. We need to take those detailed notes because, Kathy, great point. If they said, prefer a text message, I'm working, and you call them, it it's gonna show that we're not listening to their needs.
To hop on that, previously, when I was in production and, for my agents, we would have buyer loyalty agreements.
So in addition to I I have always been a proponent of buyer agency agreements. It wasn't required in my area, but I've always really pushed them. I think they have been very beneficial. So in addition to the agreement we created a buyer loyalty agreement that outlines what the agent's duties are, what basically our promise was to the client, and then also what we wanted in return from the client. So for example, just looking up my sample right now.
You know, give us the search criteria. Let us schedule the showings. So this prevents you know, I'm sure everybody has had the situation happen where the client calls the listing agent directly and goes and sees the house, submits an offer, and then you find out after the fact.
So it really outlines our promise to the client and then their promise to us, and then we always had a cancellation guarantee at the bottom. So if for any reason either the the agent decided that it just wasn't a good fit with the client or the client decided, you know what, the agent isn't, you know, following following through with this promise, then with a seventy two hour notice or forty forty eight hour, whatever you wanna do, you can get out of the contract.
So, that is one way in which we kind of added, another level of, kind of reassure to reassure our our clients because we were competing against buyer agents that we're not requiring a buyer agency agreement.
So I'm happy to also share the sample agreement that I had previously used too. If anyone is interested, I can put it in the chat.
Awesome.
What I love that you said around the agreement in in that buyer loyalty agreement, it goes into the next point. It's personalizing the experience and how the buyer broker agreement can impact that specific client.
A lot of times we were more black and white on this is what you need to sign, but every client's needs is different. So when we fully understand what they're looking for and we develop a a those tailored options, which we'll get to, I I think it's important. So that was a really good point in my opinion.
K.
Now Yeah.
To to that point, you know, you guys create the experience for your customer. I mean, customers rarely have a benchmark. You know, they're not buying and selling houses every single day. Like, so you are gonna create what that experience feels like and what those expectations are.
You know, if you wanna put a client on a weekly cadence where they're gonna hop on a Zoom call with you just as a touch base point, they're not gonna know any better. Like, again, they're not doing this. And and you're gonna create an experience for them that they're gonna feel like it's an organized approach. You're advocating for their interests.
You're, you know, sending them down the path that's ultimately going to accomplish those goals and visions.
So by taking that much more purposeful approach, you will unlock a what I would call a healthier dynamic with your customer. And now if another agent is trying to come in and and trying to intercept this transaction as we usually oftentimes saw on the buyer side of the equation, you know, you are now in position to prevent that from happening. And, you know, to that point, you know, we shared this yesterday, but one thing, you know, be mindful of this, guys. I know we're talking buyer broker agreements, etcetera.
But in many of the states forms, the buyer broker agreement does not create an exclusivity executed with your customer, you know, it does not mean that that customer cannot go to another property with another agent and enter into a procuring cost type of scenario where now that agent is entitled to the commission of the deals. You know, an exclusivity agreement in many of the state forms that we've seen is in addition to this buyer broker agreement that's at play.
Love it.
Let's, I I think the last thing, I would say is we so many of you are hearing, we need to be able to articulate our value.
I did share just notes that I prepared on some different options, for you guys to articulate your clear value in your menu of service, I'd say that is one of the biggest things that's going to, be the, I call it the last piece when you are creating your road map. So, flexible service options create different service packages with clear pricing, clear communication, the benefits of each value, and develop service package. So ideally, every one of us are gonna do things different.
We are going to do things that set us apart from the typical agent. I, put down just a few ideas and, for you guys to review.
I will, leave you, before we open up with a group, My favorite one is always gonna be the off market piece that I'm gonna do whatever it takes to, you know, utilize our listing power packs, door knock strategies, and we're gonna be proactive to help you find a home.
How about everyone else?
Yeah. I'd love to jump in on that for just a second. I think when we when we talk about, you know, communicating our value, one of the things that I think is really important and we see this on social media a lot, right, where agents have this sort of, you know, graphic or infograph or meme or something about, you know, the hundred and eight things that an agent does.
Just like Christine was saying, I I think it's it goes so much further when you're articulating your own unique value by putting something together yourself than by trying to promote your unique value by sharing something that everybody else has already shared. There's nothing really unique about that. Every single one of your of your clients are unique. Everything is is always an experience.
And and the more that you can create that experience that was just talked about and and make it unique to you. Your your clients are working with you because they love you, they trust you, and they believe in you. And and so leverage that and make that unique to who you are. It's gonna go so much further.
Well and remember that our idea of value doesn't matter because we're not paying ourselves. Right? Like, you've got to build it around. Like, I love Christina's list.
I was looking at it. It because it's geared around value for the client. Like, you have to put on that consumer hat and go, what would I want if I were gonna pay someone three percent, ten percent, right, of a transaction? Like, you know what I mean?
Like, you've got to understand that their opinion of value matters more than yours. So if you find your list being like, well, I do this and you don't see this and all that, like, they don't care. They wanna talk about convenience. They wanna talk about convenience.
They wanna talk about money. They wanna talk about terms. Like, whatever you do. Like, that's why Christina's example of off the market properties, that's a very value driven specific win that's tangible that they can understand for them.
Love that. Alright, guys. Well, we are just about at time. I wanna thank you all for coming on today. I hope that you guys are really getting tremendous value from this. I really don't know, any other company that is is really kind of taking this approach to have the entire leadership focused on making sure that you are being successful and that you are jumping over this hurdle and hopefully going faster.
You know, Robert talks about a lot of things. Some of the the nuggets that I think that he has said that has really, I think, resonated with the group, which is one, never take a no from someone who doesn't have the decision power to say yes. Like, that to me was a total mic drop moment, when he was speaking through negotiations. I think that that's so important.
Two, when you think about how we are negotiating right now and the way that you're looking at it, you know, there's been this confidence building process that we've seen over the last couple of days that people start to figure out how they articulate their value to their agents so they can say, hey. I actually am worth two and a half percent. And then they really start to think about it because maybe it's not something that we've thought about before because you just accepted whatever it was or you've been like, oh, yes. I'm happy.
This house has three percent. You know? You never correlated that with your value. And now there's this great awakening happening to be like, you know what?
I'm actually a badass realtor. I I I should be charged four percent, you know, five percent. I'd love to see that process and that that awakening. And here at LPT, we are here to support you through that process.
If you think about how we show up differently than anybody else, how you have the opportunity to show up differently than anybody else when you walk in there with your printed collateral and your magazine, your roadmap to show them how to be successful, It is gonna resonate with the consumer. You just have to get out of your own way and trust me, you are worthy. You are worthy. So, we appreciate your time today.
I hope you guys are for my finding tremendous value in this. We will see you at, the three o'clock if you're if you're able to send three PM Eastern time. The next cost we have is opportunities post in our settlement today. And again, that's the same exact thing as how do we turn this into an opportunity for us?
How do we turn this to a growth factor for our business? Just like interest rates coming down, you have a plan on how you're gonna work with more people. Well, how are we gonna work with more people because of this change? So I appreciate you guys.
We'll see you at the three PM Eastern Standard I'm sorry. Four PM Eastern Standard Time. And, we will we'll see you at that point. Okay, guys.
Have a great day.