Motivational Monday 12/18/2023

Good morning. Welcome to another motivational Monday. Happy to be here with you this week. If you were just joining in, I think I saw in the chat earlier said, hey, we're we're brand new.

So, my name is Matt Hodge, executive vice president here at LPT Realty, and I'm joined every Monday, with Robert Palmer founder in CEO of LPT Realty. So we appreciate you joining with us today. And if you're already with us, a current subscriber, I guess you could day. Welcome back.

A seasoned LPT agent. We're right back. Yeah. Yes, sir. So how are you, man? I'm good.

Yeah. I'm good, man. I I cannot believe twenty twenty three is coming to a close. It is.

Now, this will be our last motivation Monday on Monday, for the year. We're going to hold a special Tuesday, motivation Monday next week for Christmas.

Do you have that graphic day? I think we have one with the the holiday schedule on it.

We'll go ahead and get that. Yeah. So, next week, we will be Tuesday, twelve twenty six. We want everyone to enjoy, you know, Christmas and their holidays.

The twenty will be here live normal time. And then Monday, January first, we will absolutely have our normal motivation Monday. I think that is one of the most important days of the year, especially in our business. Kinda get your mind right and and get set for the year and take advantage of all those New Year's resolutions for people that are finally gonna buy or sell.

And so we'll be here with you I'll be from Montana, so I'll be up early. Yes. I'll be on I'll be I'll be riding the the West Coast program with our agents That's what seventy AM. Right?

Out that way. Yeah. It's it's gonna be a nice eight AM. Eight AM. Two hours back.

Yeah. Oh, that's already a year's back. That's just good. Yeah. So that's good. So, yeah.

So again, next next week, update your calendar will be Tuesday. A motivation Tuesday, and then, we will be regular time on, January first to celebrate twenty twenty four in style together. That's right. Yeah, man.

It's crazy that, you know, LPT is almost two years old. You know, we'll we'll turn two in March.

At Grand Prix. That's right. And then, you know, the launch was August. So that's not, you know, we got another little bit more time for the two years there, but it's it is insane how fast we've grown and how much we've accomplished.

And, again, big thanks to each and every one of you for being a part of this amazing journey with us and and helping us build this this great brokerage. Thought you were gonna say that, January first was the most important day because it's my birthday, bro. And it is your birthday. Yeah.

Yeah. Sometimes I forget that, and then you have to remind me.

Alright. Cool. And that way we can yeah. Maybe I wear a little birthday hat for you.

Oh, man. So they take down the studio. Where are you gonna be? I'll I'll be in Montana.

Where are you gonna be? I will be in Georgia.

Yep. The double remote motivation Monday on the first day of the year. I like it. Yep.

It was gonna be cool. Alright, man. Well, let's go ahead and jump in. I know that you've got some organizational slides and structured gonna us talk us through, talk us through kind of the market update.

We've seen some recent lows on interest rates and then talking us through the concept of your perspective versus positioning. So Yeah. Let's let's kick in real quick on interest rates, then we'll jump into kind of update on state openings where we are. We're gonna officially outline all of the regions.

You know, I kinda went through those those hires we've made recently. Gonna kinda show you exactly how the new regions stack up and and who all the regional leaders are. Because not all of them are are new. So not all of them were mentioned when we did it before.

We go through that. Just so everybody understands like, Hey, this is my state. This is the region I'm in. This is how LPT is shaping up structurally.

But, yeah, interest rates, it's been interesting. You know, so obviously we had this massive rally. Rates really came down a lot. And then the Fed, it seems like, to me, has been trying to back battle.

You know, like, like these fed speakers are like, we didn't say what you think we said. Like, we've had two or three fed fed board members come out and say that. But the market is ignoring it, which that's good for us. Rates are staying low.

My hope is we keep it there. I mean, we are one one economic report in the other way. You know, that could really take things in the wrong direction. But as we sit today, massive rally in rates, it's it's good, man.

You know, we're, you know, depending on discount points and loan amount, like, you know, builders doing buy downs. I mean, we're we're seeing some low sixes. I've even heard of some, like, some high fives with, like, with, with a good buy down or whatever, or, like, on some of the VA and FHA streamline stuff. So, it's it's really good.

I mean, I think it's gonna, I think it is going to set us up for a massive Q one. Yep. You know, we've talked a lot about all the work that you've been doing. And so, so think about that, just to kinda, to backtrack.

Right? You know, you're out there and you're saying, you know, rates are terrible.

And, you know, people are not really moving right now. I'm not getting a lot of traction on my efforts. But if you kept putting out those door hangers or you kept passing out those nine critical questions or the seven home buyer strategies. You kept holding your open houses.

All of those people that you met during that window of time you now get to reach out with the great news of, hey, it is an amazing time. Like, you're about to catch this window where rates came down, so payments are now more affordable. You're buying hour just went up, but the rest of the industry or the rest of the market hasn't flooded in yet because it takes time to get that message out. You know, the news will start talking about it, but there is this lag window right now where there's a big opportunity where the competition has not shown up.

Because, like, once Once the news starts beating the drum, and they usually lag two to three weeks. And I I feel like with the holidays, maybe we're gonna see that lag be a little longer, because what will happen is, you know, next week, you know, Fannie and Freddie will put out their rate survey, which will have a full week of low rates, because what they do is they average out the daily rates, they publish it later. And so next week, they're gonna release that. And they're gonna say, oh, interest rates hit up, I don't know, eight month low or the lowest since they, you know, whatever.

They're gonna some headline that gets people all excited. And then that headline will disseminate from Fannie and Freddie, and the news sources will start to pick it up and pick it up and evening news will start to talk about it and all the news channels and the print publications will all start to talk about it. And so then you will see consumers start to get more interested and will see activity and traffic really pick up. And I think that is going to line up perfectly with kind of that first week of January, which is already a time for people to get excited and kind of be clear in their head.

Coming out of the holidays making goals for twenty twenty four. We ran a study once back in the day on RP funding when we were still doing purchase you know, mortgages back in like seventeen and eighteen.

And the customers who called us in January, like those first couple weeks of January, our phones would absolutely explode. And we would see a higher call volume than any other weeks during the year around purchases. RefI calls is much more driven by haywire rates or the up or the down. The purchase calls would always spike those first couple of weeks in January.

People wanted to get pre approved, and then we would watch those pre approvals turn into deals all the way through the year. And so literally, like, that that person that that saw the TV commercial in, like, November, December, and then called us in January and got their pre approval would end up being like an August buyer, an October buyer. You know, and so you really do position your business for that long tail because if you weren't in position to capture those folks during that window of time, you can't go back and get them. And not to say you can't have a successful year without it, but it was just shocking to me It it was the the the biggest window at time where people would then stick with the process throughout the almost entire year.

And it's just something psychological around, like, New year's resolutions and like new year fresh start. And you gotta think there's a lot of people hurting right now because they're they're stuck in a home. There's all these people who, you know, there was an article recently, and I talked about this couple weeks ago. People have gotten divorced and they're still living together because they can't sell the house because they have a two six two five rate or, you know, whatever the case is.

And so I think for a lot of those folks, it's like, you know what? In twenty twenty four, I'm gonna get I'm gonna go get my own house. Like, you know, I stuck through it through ten months of being divorced and living with my, you know, ex husband ex wife. And because it made sense financially, but twenty twenty four, I'm getting out of here.

You know, and I'm gonna go buy my own house. Or we're gonna sell that house or whatever it is. And so I think a lot of people looking for that fresh start, new year, reset the deck, that force that encourages them or or helps them take action during those first couple weeks of January, and you wanna be in position to take advantage of that, and then stay in touch with them through the rest of the year. Because their goal is normally the goal isn't like, Hey, I'm gonna buy a house the second week of January.

Right. The goal is I'm gonna buy a house or sell my house in twenty twenty four But then they take that action during the first couple they take that first action of making contact during the first couple weeks of of the year. So really exciting coming so rates are gonna play perfectly into that as long as we stay where we are. And the funny thing is even if rates go back up, by the time the news figures it out, we'll have still had that, like, goldilocks window.

So just buckle up. I I'm predicting massive, massive volume of interest and calls and showing requests and, you know, open house traffic, and and people responding to. Again, collateral you put out Like, don't be surprised when that door hanger you put out three months ago gets text messages the first week of January. And they're gonna be like, man, like, I I put I was in that neighborhood three months ago, and they're just now, you know, texting or calling off of the door hanger and like, yeah, that's that's how this stuff works.

That's the stickiness of print. Because now all of a sudden, the consumer finds themself in the position of wanting to take action and whoever is door hanger is sitting in their drawer where they put their important items, or whoever is, you know, seven home buyer strategies is sitting on their coffee table is who is going to get those phone calls. And it, it kicks in this other psychological phenomenon called frequency illusion. Which is when we, as consumers, or as humans, start to think about something, we start to quote unquote see it everywhere.

So it's like you buy a red red car and all of a sudden, you see red cars everywhere. This is one of the reasons why I think why I do think there is some, you know, more stocking of ads than we think part of it is frequency illusion. Because you're more likely to notice the ad for something you recently talked about. And so, like, if you and I are talking about something, I may have already had ads for it in my news feed, but I don't notice them because the frequency illusion has not kicked in yet.

And then because we have a conversation about it, now frequency illusion kicks in, and I start to notice those ads, and I say, wow, that's weird. I was just talking about that or thinking about that, and now I'm seeing it in my in my news feed and ads or whatever. And while some of that is based on on them tracking you around the internet, a bigger piece of it is your internal notice because had you not talked about it, you would have just scrolled right past that. Like, we are very good at blinding out ads.

When we don't have any interest in the product. And so the frequency illusion kicks in because when the person says, you know, I'm going to take this action, I'm going to buy a house or I'm going to sell my house, in twenty twenty four, now all of a sudden, they're noticing the billboards. They're noticing the door hangers. They're grabbing that magazine out of their mailbox or they're grabbing that postcard out of their mailbox.

And so all of that works together to to drive success. Again, this is this is me talking from twenty years of experience of having to utilize these these types of things to grow my business and you know, build, build the massive thing that I built, and and we're here to share it with you guys. So be in position and be ready to win because it is going to be a big twenty twenty four. Yeah.

It really is, man. Know, you always talk about this. You say, Hey, prepare for the boom and the bust and prepare for the bust and the boom. And so when you think about this last period, we'll consider that a bust.

It is gonna go the other direction. And some of those things start with these type of signals, you know, with interest rates, maybe just holding steady for a little while, then news line's being a little positive and that's starting to spur activity, you know, the people who stayed the course and who continue to, you know, I guess, be vigilant in their marketing efforts will beat out the people who are like, oh, things are just slow and they give in to that. And so you always preach about that. You always talk about that.

And again, it's built off of twenty years of success. Of you doing that in different ways through radio, TV, and all these other ways you've been able to test kind of the consumer result. But I think that's, I think we you're right. I think we are gonna see a change in the market.

I think you're gonna start to see some inventory unlocked, which should hopefully, you know, increase in my transactions that we're gonna be doing here at LPT. Yeah. It's exciting. Awesome.

We we are sitting in a great position.

Alright. So let's let's jump into, our, our state, and region Dave, if you wanna pull up those slides, that Matthew Levy prepared for us.

So here are our five regions and our five wonderful regional brokers.

Powerhouse. Those regions. Yeah. We we have put together quite the powerhouse team here.

So we, you know, we creatively named them region one two, three, four, and five.

You know, initially, we were very focused on making them like really geographically relevant. And in some cases, you know, that's the case. But, you know, overall, we found that as a cloud brokerage, that, you know, it's okay if if a region maybe is not all states that touch Alright. So if we'll go to that next slide day, we're gonna walk you guys through these regions. So region one, which is led by Natalie Cox And Natalie has been with me for a long time. Natalie has been with us kinda since the early, early days of the idea to become LPT realty.

And she runs region one, which is Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

She's, again, been a great member of team as we put this together, was recently recently promoted to that, that regional leadership role. And if you haven't had a chance to talk to Natalie, she's amazing. So she is, state broker for, one of the state brokers for Florida, state broker for Alabama, and then also, the regional leader for region one. So Natalie's fantastic. Really glad to have her on the team. And so if you are in region one, if you're in one of those four great states, there is your region, and that is your regional leader. As we now start to again build out the framework that's gonna take LPT to that next level of success.

Moving on to region two. We have the amazing Jen McDonald, for those of you who don't know, Jen was probably our first real powerhouse hire. You know, we we went out and got Jen. Oh god, I think it's been six months now.

I feel like I've known Jen forever. Like, I feel like she's just been part of my life, but Jen has only been around for about six months, made an amazing impact on the company in that six month period of time. She was the broker of the year at her former former cloud brokerage, before she came and, and joined us here. At LPT Realty.

And again, massive impact. She's leading, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho and Nevada.

Nivana is our fastest growing state right now. It actually percentage wise, it's passed both Texas which is amazing. Jim's doing a great job out there. And then we have a lot of exciting growth coming on in, Iowa and Idaho.

And so, you know, Iowa and Idaho were two of the new states we added that I announced as a part of this end of year state blitz, and I have constantly mixed them up as we talk about it. But I believe at this point, Idaho is open and Iowa will be open by the end of this week. I think right now, Jen is targeting Wednesday to officially open Iowa, but we're waiting on a few, you know, a few last minute things in dot loop. I think a few of the MLS member ships, but we expect Iowa, to be open, Wednesday, but absolutely by the end of this week.

And so again, you know, really excited to have Jen on the team. Amazing impact in the short amount of time she's been here, and, and, I'm expecting really great things out of region two. So if you're a region two agent, let's keep that growth going and let's keep keep crushing it out there. Let's go.

Alright.

On to our next region, region three. We have Christina Valero, who I mentioned, last week or the week before, one of our, our newest additions.

You know, a lot of state experience And again, all of these, all of these regionals are actual state brokers, in at least one of the states or in most cases multiple states, of their region. I think Christina was licensed in like seven or eight states. Had a lot of state licenses, came from Better, you know, publicly traded recently. He went public via a spec. Better mortgage, which owned, Better Homes, I think, was their real estate group. She was a regional director there, led a lot of stays for them and has brought all of that expertise over to us. So her region, is DC, Maryland, Texas, and Virginia.

I talked to Christina this morning before we went live, and she expects to start onboarding Pennsylvania agents at the end of the day today. Alright. To a officially go basically go live in Pennsylvania tomorrow.

So Pennsylvania is one of the other states that we had not fully opened yet. Iowa, again, by the end of the week in Pennsylvania tomorrow, with, again, people being begin onboarding at the end of the day today, with Christina. Again, her and I were messaging before we came on motivation Monday.

So really exciting. So, you know, Christine is a great leader, newly organization, really excited about which she's gonna build there for us in in region three. And again, you can see this is one of those regions that is not necessarily geographically cohesive.

You know, she's got that Northeast group up there, and then obviously Texas, which is one of our largest states. And Christina actually lives in Texas. So she is, She's a a Texan. A Texan.

A Texan. Alright. We've got a lot we have a lot of talent in Texas, you know, between Christina, and Kathy Trevino and the rest of the amazing group out there. It's, you know, and we're growing fast.

We, we expect Texas to hit a thousand agents by the end of the year. Last I looked, you know, because in in track, they don't show the brokers. Track only shows the sales associates. We have we have a handful of brokers, like, Mary Minor and some others And so they don't show up in the track numbers.

And so I think last I looked behind the scenes, we were like nine seventy ish, nine eighty ish or whatever. So I think we're gonna be a thousand in Texas by the end of the year, which is crazy. Because, you know, that's one year from we launched Texas. And so that growth is pretty spectacular.

Yeah. You know, not quite Florida, but again, really close and doing great. So Again, if you're in region three, if you're in one of those great states, if you're coming on board at the end of the day today for Pennsylvania, you know, welcome. And, really excited to see Christina and all of our amazing agents in region three continue to build that out.

Alright. Moving on, region four. We have Amanda Hannon. Amanda is up, up in she lives up in the northeast.

But again, has, has a region that is fairly spread out there. You know, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, and Rhode Island. We decided to give her any state that started with m, you know?

You know, the the she has the most, you know, the the most confusing in states, in her region. I mean, Amanda's great. I'd say, we were not necessarily looking Road Island, you know, where Amanda is actually based. It wasn't really on the road map, but as we got to know Amanda and saw her talent, we were excited to bring her on to the team. And so Rhode Island is where her her brokerage was. And so, you know, we made the decision to to add Rhode Island into into our path early, because of her. And really excited, you know, again, not hasn't been with the company very long, but really, really impressive early on.

Great organizational skills, great teaching skills, and I'm really excited to the impact she can have, as our region four director.

So again, we've got a great set of states there. We've got Kansas and Missouri sitting together. You know, and then you've obviously got her home of of Rhode Island. And, then you got Michigan up there.

It's, it's exciting. We're excited to see that region grow. And, we're probably gonna be adding a couple more states in there. You know, probably around q two.

Our next round of expansion will be exciting because we have all of these regions to kinda spread things over. So if you really go back and think when we first launched, it was all kinda run here out of Florida. And so, you know, the first seven states we launched, we're really kinda we carry the torch here in Florida. And now that we have, you know, five regional leaders who can now each grow the idea of adding five states at once, you know, one per region is way less daunting.

And, you know, again, this is how we were methodical in our growth plan. We waited find the right amazing talented leaders.

And this was, you know, again, we we started hiring for these roles six months ago. Starting with Jen and then looking for those right folks. We were patient. We didn't rush it.

We weren't just in a hurry to open states just for the sake of opening states. I wanted to make sure that we had the right leadership in place. We had the the right plan to go into the right places. I'm really excited about that.

So region four, you've got a great leader in Amanda. And we're excited to see that region continue to grow and build out. Mo mostly new states there. You know, none of the states in Amanda's region are more than a couple of months old.

So really just getting going. Where if you think about region one, obviously, with Florida, you know, been here the whole time, region two, Nevada's been about six months now. I've seen a lot of growth there. Colorado was in our earlier state.

Region three has Texas, so a full year there. All of Amanda States are brand new. So she's gonna be very focused on on getting those states, you know, going and getting growth happening. But again, we're we're excited to see that.

And then finally, region five.

The great Patty Sanders, who's representing North Carolina and South Carolina.

You know, we've we've seen massive growth in South Carolina, with the addition of Jeff Cook real estate. And also, the coast and main team. Sean and his group both coming over two fantastic teams kicking off South Carolina Forest Patty initially came on to be the South Carolina broker, and then we moved her into regional leadership to take over both North Carolina and South Carolina. I'm doing a great job there.

North Carolina is a tricky one because of the, the provisional brokers and those requirements. And so we've been having making a lot of plans with Patty on how we're going to kinda really get in position to scale North Carolina in the right way, putting the right type of mentorship in place, we're looking at resurrecting or not resurrecting, but just, you know, using the agent power up program that we started, you know, maybe a year ago. As a way to cover, the the necessities around the, the provisional brokers in North Carolina. But, you know, it's gonna be interesting.

You know, both North Carolina and tech us have those extra requirements for a higher level of mentorship and hand holding and kind of leadership and oversight for newer agents. And so, you know, we're looking at at building out a whole new kind of system around that using agent power up. So Patty will be involved in that. Christina, obviously, over in Texas.

Amanda with her educational background. So, again, having this really talented leadership team across these regions who can can all help bring the things we need now continue grow to grow and win, here at LPC Realty. So that is all of our states. And again, all will be open, by, Wednesday or Thursday.

Again, so the last two to open our Pennsylvania, which is starting onboarding this afternoon, and then moving into, you know, Iowa by or sorry. Yeah. Iowa by Wednesday. Or Wednesday or Thursday is what Jen McDonald is projecting there.

So this is the current state map. We've got a couple other things in the works.

You know, that was the bulk of our big expansion. You know, we added we added thirteen of those states just in the last couple of months, which again, we could not have done without this amazing amazing, regional leadership team. Initially, you know, Jim McDonald kind of stretched all the way over to to South Carolina to help patty get that state launched. You know, we really we've had a lot of folks working really hard to support this level of expansion and state growth that we've had while still providing amazing service for you guys.

So, again, we're we're gonna be in all fifty eventually. We're we're we've got a few other things in the works. Probably, you know, I'd say probably first of the year, we may may announce a few more. There's there's a lot of moving pieces, and it's very important to me that we get this right.

You know, again, we're not gonna rush this. We're not gonna open states just for the sake of opening states.

You know, there's a few few other things in the works. Nothing we're ready to announce today. But, yeah, guys, it's, it's exciting. So, be proud of your region.

Connect with those regional directors. We're gonna bring all of them down for Grand Prix. If you are at the Grand Pre event, which we're gonna talk about, kind of at the end of the show here, all of the regional leadership will be at Grand Pre a great time to, to meet them and get to know them. And just again, really excited about this this amazing brokerage level leadership team we're putting in place here at LPT Realty to continue to fulfill this vision of building what we already are, the fastest growing real estate brokerage in history, and and on our our goal to becoming the largest and most valuable real estate company in the world.

So, happy to have all of you on the ride with us and happy to have that amazing leadership team, across our our regional brokers to help us with them. Yeah, man. It's so funny. Like we're always, doing things on key dates.

So it's twelve twenty three twenty three. Our launch was eight eight. Like we always have repeated numbers on our our big milestone. So that's cool.

Alright, man. Awesome. I'm excited to see that. Again, the the infrastructure, we're excited to see that continue to build out.

I love how thoughtful it was.

Again, utilizing the correct resources and time frame, finding the right people, which is ultimately resulting in the in the major results that this company is doing. So we hope that you guys see that and can utilize those key key concepts also in your business as you watch us continue to grow alongside you.

Our So I wanna switch over real quick to you sent me something that I thought was incredibly powerful in terms of positioning.

And perspective.

And it's something that can relate to all of us. And so it's one of those things that it's like, it's just true regardless of whether you're Fortunate five hundred, if you're an individual, like, everyone can follow this principle and I think make a a meaningful difference in the way they kinda see the world and and the way that they position themselves. So Can you walk me through kind of what got you to this moment of positioning versus perspective and then kind of walk me through the concept of that? Yeah.

So it started with, I actually got a I got a text from one of our, our pretty big team leaders. And he said, you know, man, he's like, I remember He's like, I remember before I I met you, all these people were talking trash about you to me. He's like, and now I have all these people talking trash about me, to people that I'm trying to recruit. He's like, and it it reminded me of of kinda your journey.

And, like, can, you know, like, how did you deal with it, what it looked like? And so that really got me thinking about it. And I guess what it helped me realize is that, you know, while it is something I dealt with at a very public high level by being in everyone's TV, you know, everyone's living room via TV. And again, being in an industry where I was disrupting things and angering the competitors by not charging fees and paying closing costs and all these things.

But it really does apply to your businesses as well because, you know, the way that that you are perceived you know, and the way that people see and think about you is I think the important thing you have to understand is while it is about you, right? Like who you are matters, Unfortunately, what matters more is their perspective because that's what drives their perception. Okay? So what I want you to think about, and I'm gonna kinda talk about this in the frame of me, and then we'll we'll take it back to how you can think about it in your business.

But I think it's a really important topic to understand because it's something that took me a while to figure out. Because early on, I would be very focused on, like, well, what am I doing wrong, or what should I do differently, or, you know, what's driving this finally had the breakthrough to say, you know what, this is, this is their skewed perspective that's then skewing their perception. It's not necessarily that I'm doing anything wrong. And so in my case, you know, you have all of these people judging me based on a thirty second TV commercial.

You know, I spent a hundred and fifty million dollars putting out a thirty second TV commercial, you know, and radio spots and all these things. And there's only so much you can communicate in that, that window of time. And, you know, and and it was a bold claim. You know, my company was offering something unique, and it really upset a lot of our competitors.

And you know, there's a lot of mortgage folks out there who, you know, really hate me, and most of them have never met me. And and we have this this constant theme in my life where, like, I would meet people like, man, I really thought I was gonna or I thought you were gonna be this or I thought you're gonna be that. And I like you. Like, what what, like, this is so skewed.

And and the other piece that really helped me was because I did my radio show, And so what I what I realized is that the people who would listen to my radio show, because we would spend an hour together talking more realistically, you know, talking transparently and openly than what I can put through in a thirty second commercial, they would have a much different perception of me because they had a different perspective into our relationship than people who only saw me from the TV commercials.

And then people who saw me in the TV commercials, who were my competitors, had a much different perspective of me than people who saw me in the TV commercials who were not my competitors, you know, who were consumers, who could benefit from the product. And so, The point of this is as you're looking at building out your business, because we all, to a certain extent, are public figures. That is part of being a real estate agent, a trusted, you know, real estate advisor. In your neighborhood, to your sphere of influence, to your past clients, you know, you are you are a person of influence.

You are a celebrity. You are someone that they they look up to and they hold in the higher regard. It is just a a part of our industry. Now, there are people on the other side who have a very negative perspective of our entire industry We've seen a lot of that coming out.

That's right. You know, recently, you know, people, you know, making memes about how our industry is worthless and overpaid in all this garbage. That is driven by perspective.

Someone who's never bought or sold a home has a much different perspective around us than someone who has been through that and understands how important it was to have. A professional there to hold their hand and get them through the ups and downs and market their home properly or help them negotiate a great deal on the buy side, you know, whatever it is. And so the lesson there is to just always consider the perspective and the perception of the person before you start to question yourself. And so as you think about this in your own business, you know, if you're if you're a team leader, like the the one that I had the conversation with about this, you know, he's trying to recruit more agents and grow his business.

And so he has to think about what is the perception and the perspective of potential agents who may wanna join his team. In addition to what is the perspective and perception of the consumers who are going to do business with this team. Alright? As a solo agent, it's more about what is the perspective and perception of those consumers who wanna hire you.

And so, you know, little things like, Hey, when you're sitting, let's say you're sitting in line to drop your kids off school. I do this every morning. Right? So I I take Reagan to school.

We spend time together, drop her off. You know, how am I perceived in the pickup line? You know, like, how do my child's, you know, friends view me? Like, if I'm in a hat and a hoodie and I'm on shave, like they're probably not thinking, that guy probably runs a really big business.

You know, like, right? They're like, like, you know, Reagan's dad, you know, was probably homeless. Like, we we may need to help her. Like, you know, because some days, I just don't put it all together.

But but again, in your business, I think about that, and and it's it's kinda I don't know. Not silly, but like, just as simple as this is, you know, having maybe a magnet on your car that tells people what you do. You know, and and and how you show up to those school events and how you carry yourself. Because again, you know, this whole concept of like thin slicing, people are constantly like, judging you and trying to figure out who you are and trying to make estimated guesses about, you know, who you are and what you're doing and and and and all these things. And so the way that you carry yourself, the way you present yourself ultimately drives their perception.

And so, because, again, it changes their perspective. And so a past client who you've sold a house for, their perspective of you is totally different than someone who maybe their only interaction is constantly seeing you in the pickup line at school every day, you know, with your kids. That's right. Or are someone whose perspective is they met you in an open house in the professional setting doing what you do versus someone who you meet, maybe at, you know, you're having coffee with friends and you meet a friend of a friend.

And so the important thing is to understand that the way you communicate with those from folks. And the way you have to earn the trust and the relationship to help them buy or sell real estate is very different based on those different perspectives. And so, so being conscious of those different perspectives and understanding how those perspectives drive the perception, and some of those perspectives may drive a perception that you later have to overcome. You know, like, in my case, like, man, I thought I was gonna hate you based on your TV commercials, but you're a nice guy.

Like, I recognize that if someone's only you know, perspective and perception of me was driven by my TV commercials and they were a competitor. They were probably not going to have a positive, you know, idea of who I was. On the flip side, if it's someone who is a past client or someone who listened to my radio show, you know, or someone who knew more about who I really was, and what I stand for, and what I believe in, then the message I can get out over a thirty second TV commercial, then they would have a different perception from a different perspective, and I could communicate with them in a different way.

And so I guess the big thing I want you to just just be conscious of this, there is no There's no magic thing here. I can't say, well, if this is the perspective act this way or if this is the perception act that way, but I think just the understanding, it took me a long time to realize, you know, because I'm like, well, all these people over here hate me and all these people over here love me. And, and I think kind of the first thing was like this You know, I guess it's just a part of being who I am. You wanna go build a big business and be on TV, people either going to love you, or people are going to hate you, and there is no in between.

But I didn't really have a good understanding of, like, what was driving people into the two different camps? And then again, just over time. And again, I I've been been on TV for fourteen years now. I mean, this is this is a part of my life.

Like, this is something I've I've I've lived the ups and the downs and the ins and the outs of building this this massive personal brand, you know, around my initials on the company and all this TV and radio advertising. And so over fourteen years, I really came to terms with this idea of, like, I've never changed who I am. I know what I am committed to, but I have to be conscious of their perspective driving their perception of who I am, and then I choose to either overcome that. Like, let me spend time with someone and let them see who I really am.

Or I say, you know what? Not I mean, I not everyone's going to love me. I definitely don't expect or want everyone too. You know, I'm very much in the, hey, I'm gonna attract my tribe.

Like, the people who care enough to understand who I am and to get a broad enough perspective to drive a more accurate perception. Like, that's the people I wanna vibe with. And and because my reach is so massive, I don't need to win everyone over. Right?

I need to win the people over who I can actually vibe with and win with.

And I think for you guys too, like your perspective of me and perception of me is driven by the fact that we spend, you know, thirty, forty minutes a week together. An hour for those of you that that come on real estate first, Friday, and motivation Monday.

But then when you go to talk to someone to maybe bring the LPT opportunity to them, another agent, their perspective may only be, oh, Robert's the mortgage guy, who my mortgage guy said is a crook, you know, or, oh, Robert's the the mortgage guy. What's he doing trying to run a state company. Like, you know, he has no business in this. And and and and that can be weird for you because you're like, wow, the, again, the the idea that that person has about someone that I feel like I know or I do know is so much different than how I feel like what drives that?

And again, it all comes down to this idea of the perspective driving the perception. And as entrepreneurs, again, entrepreneurs who have to be in the public spotlight, And again, where that public spotlight is a neighborhood. It's at open houses. It's the the social clubs you're a part of.