Jennifer White: Simply a Pro

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Jennifer White  0:15  

Hey, this is Jennifer White with REMAX specialist panavira. If you're looking to level up your real estate business, you need to be listening to real estate excellent podcast with my good friend Tracy Hayes.

Podcast Intro  0:25  

Welcome to Real Estate excellence making lasting connections to the best of the best in today's industry, elite. We'll help you expand your circle of influence by introducing you to the leaders in the real estate industry, whether it's top agents who execute at a high level every day, or the many support services working behind the scenes, we'll share their stories, ideologies and the inner workings of how they run a truly successful business, and show you how to add their tools to your belt now. Please welcome the host with the most Tracy Hayes,

Tracy Hayes  0:59  

welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Your host, Tracy Hayes, best of the best. My guest today is a top producer. Her 21 year career has given her a wealth of knowledge. So listen up and take notes. She lived through the collapse of 2008 and nine. She has a story that I am sure many agents are anxious to hear, as it will be full of golden nuggets. She was number 12 in the entire state of Florida, and commissioned payouts with REMAX in 2021 up from number 18, just in 2020 so continued success, a Diamond Club status achiever. I'm sure she'll explain to us what that is. Let's welcome the February edition of the Jax real producers magazine focus story from Remax specialist in Panavia, selling with style. Jennifer White to the show. Thank you and thank you for having me. Thank you, Jennifer, congratulations on your words. I know you updated me this morning with the recent news, which I'm sure gave a little smile. You were looking at some of the I was went through and looked at the list, because you sent me the whole list. Like to tell the top 20, I think it was, and I was looking through there, and just I wanted to look at where some of those other people were, you know, obviously it was Marco Island, yeah, was in there. Sarasota is in there. There was a few from some smaller areas too, though, that made that top 20, which was kind of interesting.

Tracy Hayes  2:20  

But congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

Tracy Hayes  2:23  

So as always, I like to kick off the show. Well, actually, I tell us what the Diamond Club status is. Do you get a diamond for that, or is

Jennifer White  2:31  

that okay? I'm not exactly sure ceremony yet, but it's a tier. It's based on commissions. So I wanted to make Titan club, and I surpassed Titan, went right onto diamonds. That was excellent.

Tracy Hayes  2:45  

Now, is that because you sent me that list too? As long as that still looking at Florida, is that looking nationally? Actually?

Jennifer White  2:50  

You know, that's also a good question. I'm not sure. I think it's just nationally, because the ranking the top 12 was for Commissioner, and in Florida in general, the other one is, it's a tier. So there's like, you know, under 100 there's 100 to 250 there's, I think, 250 to 499, 500 to 757, 52 million, million plus, right? And so it's, it's tiered that way. So I think that's a national REMAX ranking.

Tracy Hayes  3:13  

Cool, cool. So, you know, just, you know, as I was putting the notes together, and obviously, as much background, you're gonna brush up your LinkedIn. Couldn't find much there, so I'm gonna find out a lot about you. But for those listening, you know, if you're a real estate agent, or anyone in business right now, you have a someone who has reached, I mean, the top levels. I mean less than 1% of the real estate agents that are out there consistently, and you're doing it year in and year out. You've been in the business a while. You're not a three year wonder. I do have a lot of those on the shows, a lot of great people who got started because they've listening to people like you with coaching or just seeing what you're doing. So let's we're going to dig in and learn a little bit about what you're doing. So let's start off a little bit.

Jennifer White  3:58  

Where are you from? Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, born and raised there until 86 when my dad got transferred. I was 13. I'm giving away my age there to actually Jacksonville, Florida, so he was with the railroad, with CSX. Oh, okay, yep. We came here briefly. We weren't here more than two months before they said, you know, pack your bags. CSX headquarters moving to Baltimore, Maryland. So that was tough. I mean, I have four brothers, seven. So okay, yeah, so we moved right on up to Baltimore and stayed there forever. And as you probably read, unfortunately, my mom had terminal cancer, diagnosed at 15. So after high school, I wanted to head back south and went back to Tennessee.

Tracy Hayes  4:40  

So grew up, finished growing up in Tennessee. Where did you go to school? Where tell just, just gives go right on to your, give us your, your whole bio there in a nutshell.

Jennifer White  4:52  

So how I ended up in Tennessee? Yeah, I was very, very social in high school. I might as well have gone for social, social being. Sorry. Yeah. Instead of school, and one of our older friends, she wanted to go to East Tennessee State University, okay, I've been there. Yeah, my friend and I were like, Oh, that's cool. So actually applied there and to University of Georgia, but I applied to Georgia a little bit too late, so I didn't get in, probably because of my grades, not late application, and ended up at East Tennessee. Loved it, absolutely loved it. Yes, great town, great school. Had a blast. But, you know, every time I would come home, my mom was getting sicker and sicker. And after my sophomore year, I came home for Christmas break, and it was just, you know, she apparently got a bed. So I was like, All right, you know, this is tough. And I had four brothers, so the boys weren't really helping. My father traveled a lot, and I made the decision to come home and transfer to university of maryland. So I went from, like, a medium sized university, you know, where I did the Greek system, I was a Kappa Delta, to University of Maryland, which is ginormous, right? Only 30 minutes from my house, but I still lived on campus. I moved into the sorority house, but it was just hard. I mean, my mom passed that summer, and I just didn't feel good. I wasn't right, and so many people knew our families. We were a big family, and my mom volunteered. My dad volunteered, and four brothers, I imagine, playing sports or whatever. Yeah, yeah, when I was a freshman in high school, I had a senior brother who was on the football team, and two sophomore brothers, they were lacrosse, football. So it's like, I went into high school knowing everybody there, right? But yes, it was hard. Everyone knew our family. And every time I was trying to have a good day, someone's like, I'm so sorry about your mom. And yeah, it was just I was sitting in physics, and I would start crying, I'm going home. And so

Tracy Hayes  6:37  

let me, let me ask you something, because this, some empathy is something that people say I lack, and I don't disagree with it. I think about just that, that everyone in the world is saying that to you about your mom, that you really are looking for normalcy again, right? And at some point, it is nice to show that you're thinking about it, but I'm a step ahead of that. And my if I want to call it that a step ahead, I'm more thinking about you as a person, and you know that, and the gesture is nice, but it does put it right back in your face again,

Jennifer White  7:14  

it does. And yeah, and even if you know not to get into my Greek life, but even if you were trying to have fun and you're at Fraternity Row at University of Maryland, someone would come up and I'm so sorry about your mom. How's this going? How's that going? They just kind of, it was tough, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  7:30  

especially that close, you know, now it's probably a little easier, but yeah,

Jennifer White  7:33  

it was, it was too soon I would call my dad, like, Hey dad, you know, I'm sorry. I've been, you know, having a drink or two. Can you come pick me up? And then I would spend the rest of the weekend at home, right? So eventually I just said, Okay, that's, that's tough. I was there a year and a half. I just didn't feel right. And I was dating one of my brother's roommates at the time, from VMI Virginia Military Institute. That's too bad. Yeah, exactly right.

Tracy Hayes  7:56  

I graduated from the city. I

Jennifer White  8:00  

had a BMI brother, and, you know, boy, did we have a lot of fun there at all their hops and stuff. But he got a job in Cary, North Carolina, and I said, you know, I'm moving. And my dad was very worried I wasn't going to finish school, right? That is not even an option. I'm going to school. I just need to figure out whether I want to go to it was Meredith College or NC State, or maybe Carolina, right? And again, my younger brother was getting a full ride for La Crosse at Carolina. So I thought, Well, I'm gonna go be close to him. Ended up at Meredith College, and was there for two years. I loved it. I mean, it was a small another small school, very small. I mean, I think there were, I don't even know, maybe 2500 students, but you had to go to class. You know, your teachers, you had their cell phone numbers. It was so different from university. Of Maryland, where you have 500 people and you are wait list number 14 on our wait list of 500 people.

Tracy Hayes  8:49  

I think that, you know, it's funny, you led this, and obviously it's not even in my notes or anything. But for those out there, and I know a lot of our CO real estate, anyone listening to podcasts, these kids, your kids are getting of age to go to college and so forth. I obviously went to citadel. You mentioned VMI, two small schools. There's only 2500 cadets now. There's, you know, some VMI is roughly the same size. Meredith is probably a few 1000 people. And a few years ago, I'm fortunate enough to work a spring football game at Davidson up in North Carolina. What a beautiful, small, little campus. Oh my goodness, beautiful. And I know everyone wants to go to University of Florida in Florida State, but let me tell you what you're missing out on, the small school.

Jennifer White  9:31  

I thrived at a small school. I mean, I absolutely loved East Tennessee, state. I can't have the same feeling about University of Maryland, even though I love it fabulous campus, but I was just in a hard time in my life, so but Meredith, you were part of the family, and my grades changed dramatically. I went from like a BC students sorry to if I wasn't on the honor roll or making straight A's, I was upset, and if I went home and couldn't figure out because

Tracy Hayes  9:55  

the classes, if you had 30 students in your class, it was a big class. It was a big class.

Jennifer White  9:59  

Yeah, and. And, you know, if you couldn't get past the finance question or accounting three, I would actually call my teacher, because it was, you

Tracy Hayes  10:05  

know, a lot of them lived right on campus. Half of me, you walk over and meet them at the library in the evening or whatever.

Jennifer White  10:11  

It was really different. I learned more, I said in that two years, and I learned in all five years, because I changed my major and transferred. So I had to repeat because also, Meredith, you had to take two years of religion and British major authors versus American major authors. I had to backtrack

Tracy Hayes  10:28  

a little bit. So you're you graduate from college. What are you doing

Jennifer White  10:33  

living in Raleigh, and then I'm starting to follow my family again. My father got transferred back to Jacksonville after our mom died. Okay, so he was here with CSX. I thought, oh, you know, I'll move closer there. Well, soon as I made those plans, he got recruited to go work for Canadian National in Montreal. Okay, so it came down here anyway. Was living here about two years, and this was 97 living in San Marco. Loved it, but I thought, you know, my brothers were living in bigger cities, and, you know, I'm really competitive with my brothers, you know, I'm gonna move. So moved to Chicago because my oldest, one of my older brothers, was there, and also my dad, Canadian National railroad, had us headquarter, so I would see them all the time. I loved it. It was fun. But at this point, I was married. It was my first marriage, and my husband was a North Carolina boy. He was not digging the city life, and we lived right in the middle of it. I loved it. My brother and I had a ball, and it was great seeing my dad all the time. And I think I told you briefly before we started, I was doing creative stuff. I was working for a catalog Publishing Company, which was my background marketing and advertising, and I was doing Second City improv through their little class, and it was so fun, but it was just tough because, you know, my my spouse didn't like it. So I was like, Okay, well, if you get a job making x, doing X with the move package, I'll consider it. Didn't think it would happen. Sure enough, he did. I was like, so yeah, I protested a little bit. I stayed behind in Chicago. My brother's like, great, live with me. I'm like, okay, twist my arm. So we had a great time. And my company didn't want me to leave. I was doing, you know, great. I had the entire East Coast and Midwest here. Oh, wow, yes, I had a great job. Loved it, loved it. So I finally said, Okay, it's time for me to go home and move here. Gosh, it was the Saturday before 911 happened. So that was definitely a difficult time. I remember I only had one car, because we shared a car, living in the city, dropped my husband off at work, my then husband, and went to my cousins to work on my resume, to start looking for a job. And that morning, I was there on her, you know, using her computer, and the planes hit the tower.

Tracy Hayes  12:38  

Yeah, most of us can tell where we're at. Oh yeah, it was

Jennifer White  12:41  

terrible, because, you know, you didn't know you felt like the world was falling apart. And so not a really good time to find a job either, right? So I was just kind of doing whatever, putting my feelers out. And it was tough, because nobody wanted to really work with a catalog publishing company from Chicago. They heard the name Chicago catalog group and thought it was too expensive. So I told my company. I told my company. I was like, I'm not gonna be able to work remote. I'm gonna have to, you know, resign and start over. So a neighbor was doing part time work for a local developer who, of course, I had no idea who he was, not from here, didn't live here, and it turned out to be Fletcher land Corporation, and Paul Fletcher, and they were working on Palencia, and I didn't know it. So she's like, well, you have a marketing background, why don't you go help? You know? I was like, Okay, that sounds good. I'll do part time, just until I find a full time job. And I was doing all kinds of stuff, stuffing envelopes. I remember seeing the site map for Palencia and going to some of the meetings with the Hayes group. They would all come into Fletcher land group for meetings, and I started correcting Paul's letters. And his assistant kept saying, you know, Paul went to Yale. I'm like, Yeah, I heard that his letters are grammatically incorrect. She's like, do that if I were you. And I was like, So, I mean, that happened a few times before she leaned over my desk, like, please stop doing that. Okay? And then one day, Paul came in, and he leaned over my desk and he said, What are you doing? I was like, Well, I'm just kind of working on your letters. He said, Yeah, I've noticed you're changing them. Well, yeah, just a few. He's like, I went to Yale. I keep hearing that. What do you do? And I said, What do you mean? What I do? Said, This is not what you do for a living, because I was basically doing admin for, you know, helping part time. And I said, Well, I was in publishing, sales and advertising, is my background. And he said, Bring me your resume. So of course, I was like, okay, didn't bring him my resume the next day, you know, his assistant said, Jennifer, where's your resume. I don't really have it finished, you know, like, I'll work on it. She's like, okay, next day, where's your resume. Finally, she said, Honey, I'm gonna give you a little tip. When Paul to bring him your resume, you bring him your resume. I thought, I don't know who this Paul Fletcher is, but I'm gonna bring my resume. I love it. Brought my resume the next day, next thing I know, I was getting calls from all these people that are owned. You know. Like a PGA Tour position a developer down at Serena beach ocean grand, which Paul was, you know, partnered with. And I thought, okay, so I started, you know, going to meet with these clients and or these prospects, and Wally Devlin, who, who was partnered with Paul at Ocean grand, they they hired me on the spot. And I said, Well, I don't have a real estate license. And they said, Well, you're going to work upfront until you go get your license, and then we'll open a spot for you. I thought, oh, okay, so I registered for the seven day Crash Course, eight day state class test, nine day state test, not knowing what I was up against, I thought I did pretty well. I was like, you know, this can't be too hard. I was miserable. I mean, it was so much information. It was information overload. And, you know, kind of a perfectionist, so I wanted to do well, and went that whole week. I was stressed out and not sleeping. The night before the class test. They did the in the book test and said, If you score like an 80 or above, you're fine. I got a 67 went to bed, burst into tears, fail this test, and so I get up, drive over to Orange Park, somehow, some way, I got a 97 and Florida real estate Institute said, You did great. Go home, sleep, you know, get some rest. Take the next test the next day. And I thought, I don't know how I did that. I literally failed it the night before, right? Anyway, got up the next morning, took my state test, passed it first time, thank God, and got a job. So the rest was history.

Tracy Hayes  16:26  

So you know where doors open, and what was so funny about it is this Paul asked for your resume. And, I mean, it's like, I don't know if you're a woman of faith or not. I didn't get that deep into your your thing, and obviously you don't broadcast a lot on the social media, so, but somebody was telling Paul to keep knocking on the door for you, or hold the door open. Let's say he's hold the door open, because she needs to get through it and hold it open long enough. And he did whatever those three days, or whatever it was in amazing and obviously the connections he had, just by endorsing you, they were already hiring you. Yeah, obviously your resume was impressive. But just by him saying, hey, you need to talk to her, already endorsed you as a person,

Jennifer White  17:12  

I think he was impressed that I was working this admin position for. I mean, it was like a couple dollars. I already know what it was. I didn't care. I didn't, you know that wasn't the point. It was to get out of my house and do something right. Something. And when he found out actually had a background and had, you know, a very successful career in the city before, and you know, he was like, I'm impressed you're doing this. So here, bring me your resume. We'll find you something. Because it was hard after 911 nobody was hiring.

Tracy Hayes  17:37  

Yeah, it's funny, I got a Post this morning on my school in the city alumni page. But this piece, we'll see. He was born a couple years before I graduated from college, 30 something, young, 30 and he was like, hey, you know, I've been looking for three months, and I, you know, he actually posted his resume on the page for all the other alumni to look at. And you know, you know he was, he was a veteran. He served for five or six years and and he's got security background, he's some cyber degree. And I'm like, hold on, something is missing here. Why is it not not happening? And you said something that I think is so valuable here, you just did something to get out of the house, and sometimes it is just taking that job, and even though you were far more qualified for it, you did it. And what did you do? You were correcting the CEO's grammar mistakes. Such a brat. Yale Harvard, he was obviously not radically correct. And I don't know, did he ever say anything about the grammar? Because I will bet, if he's like me, he appreciated the fact that you made him even look better.

Jennifer White  18:45  

And I have to tell you, looking back, I thought I really, really could have shot myself in the foot on that one, because I had no idea that his family was responsible for, you know, you know, bringing the tour from Chicago, when they were headquartered in Chicago, to Ponte Vedra Beach in the 70s. He sold in the land to make his developments more more valuable for $1 now, that dollar used to hang in his office, and now it's at the main it's at the clubhouse at TPC, but that dollar was hanging on the wall in his office forever. And yeah, I really could have ruined that opportunity, for sure, but yeah, made the most of it.

Tracy Hayes  19:20  

Would probably actually was better. You didn't know, had no idea, because you would have then started to think about it, yeah, and been like, Ooh, Oh, I can't say that to him. Oh, I can't, I can't talk, you know, I don't want, you want to be in the office, you know, people put too much thought in it. You came in and you were you, and you sat down there, and it's kind of like, I don't know, there's a lot of things that we learned from dating and so forth. You know, guys, if we we ignore the ladies, right? The more more they want to, they want to, you know, figure out what's you were being you, and the fact that you didn't have this, like, oh my god, here's this, you know, very important person, or very influential person. And, and you're bowing down to him, the fact that you you probably had conversations like you would with anybody else. He actually appreciated that, I think

Jennifer White  20:07  

he did. And, you know, and his family was in and his brother was still working there at the time, but, you know, Paul actually became my biggest cheerleader. So for me, I once, once I understood the opportunity I was given. I was like, you know, game on. I'm not going to mess this up, right? And I was very fortunate. I was on site in a difficult time. Now, keep in mind, condos were not popular back. I mean, this is 2001 and it was South Ponte Vedra. I mean, we were having a really tough time selling those, because it wasn't St Augustine, but it certainly wasn't Ponte Vedra Beach, and that's where that most of their clientele, they were trying to pull from, right? And we were also selling, you know, at the time, what they thought was kind of a box. I mean, these people were all coming out of custom homes. They were all coming from, you know, dear What? Country Club, Marsh, Marsh Landing. Country Club, saw grass.

Tracy Hayes  20:56  

They're marketing to an older clientele. It's kind of, they were downsizing, downsizing, we'll take care of everything, atmosphere,

Jennifer White  21:02  

that's right. Condo, maintenance, free living. Well, you know, we had to overcome a lot of hurdles because of the location number one, Serena Beach Club was new, so it wasn't, didn't have the allure that saw grass Beach Club. Did you know The lodge? The inning club? We were way down there, right? You know that you lost cell service during driving through Guana. It was, we didn't have a Publix yet. We kept public we're promising that Publix. There was nothing. We had the gate station. It was a gate station back then, right? So if you didn't bring your lunch, you were basically eating a hot dog from the gate station or something, whatever you could find there. But so we had to make the most of that, because these people were coming from custom homes, and they're, you know, like, oh, I don't want a one car garage. I'm coming from a three or four car garage, and, you know, I don't want my place to look like everybody else's. They were used to their custom homes, right? We were selling three floor plans. So it was interesting. It was a lot of fun. How do you

Tracy Hayes  21:52  

relate that? A little bit. And I wonder if there is a relationship, maybe there isn't. But we're like, right now, we've got this influx of people coming because I think a good source of it was because of covid. From the Chicago to the New York's in the all in between, they've lived in their homes that are probably if they weren't the most of them weren't the original owners or older homes, because there's older communities, but they're custom homes, and now they're coming here, and we're putting them in for the most part, these, you know, the Naka team, the beach walk, beacon lakes, these track homes. How do you you know when you're working with a client like that? If you could share with the listeners, you know some of the things that you did to get those people from their custom homes into these little condos.

Jennifer White  22:40  

Well, I learned to keep my mouth shut and listen first, because I learned that the hard way. Yeah, for I just became an expert on my product. To me, when you're in sales, whether it was advertising, publishing or real estate, whatever, you need to be an expert. Have all your tools in your your toolbox. And so I went to all the design meetings like, keep in mind we were, we were selling out of a trailer we had that was our sales office. There were no buildings. It was dirt.

Tracy Hayes  23:05  

Give you an idea, how many units did you think you sold prior to even them, even starting to pour the foundation?

Jennifer White  23:10  

Oh, we sold. I'm trying to remember how many buildings were in that first phase. I think we did four or six buildings, and we had to be, I think it was 70 or 75% sold to break to break ground. So we were hustling. Yeah, we were definitely hustling. It was a strange economy with nine living happening. It was South Ponte Vedra, it was condos, and they just weren't popular back then. So we had to basically show people how they could customize, or how easy, you know, lock and leave was it was? It was definitely painting a picture of that lifestyle. It's like, Hey, we're going to build an underground tunnel. Let me take you to the Serenata. Let me walk you. Let me show you what your lifestyle is going to be like, right? And that's what we did, is

Tracy Hayes  23:51  

that where you got that slogan that you set it across your, on your at least on your Facebook, some of your Facebook posts the selling style,

Jennifer White  23:58  

selling lifestyle, selling lifestyles. Yeah, because so I started ocean grind at Serenata beach. And again, it was lifestyle selling, like, let me show you the club. Let me show you what your life can look like. Well, then WCI, based out of Naples, came calling, and at first, you know, I did, unfortunately, the same thing. I did a pause or blowing them off, because I thought, Who wants to live in Palm Coast? Sorry, I take that. I trust me, I eat those words, but I just didn't want to go down there. I thought that's too far. And finally, one of their executives said you were highly recommended. Please come at least see what we have. And I went down there. I mean, absolutely beautiful. We had eight, nine oceanfront tower sites. We had this site across the ocean that was going to be what we called carriage homes, three story homes with two car garages, golf views, lake views, very pretty. It ended up down there, even though I fought that. I you know, WCI, based out of Naples, was very formal. And I'm not a very formal person. I mean, their agents were all wearing Rolexes and St John's knit suits and high heels. And I felt, well, I'm not wearing that. And so I. Only guy, when I was interviewing, I said, I'm pretty casual, and I'm kind of gypsy. I need to be comfortable to settle you. I gotta be me.

Tracy Hayes  25:07  

How important is this is. I mean, not to interrupt your story too much, but since you're on this and a lot of things, podcasts and so forth, that I listen to and more and more of these successful people, is basically, you've got to be yourself. You got to be you. I know there's a lot of guys in my business. I was just thinking about this morning because of the event this evening. You know, I was trying to care what, you know, what do I want to wear? But, you know, I also want to be comfortable. I'm the bigger guy. I put, I put tie on. Yeah, I don't want to. I got it. We're going to set up for the podcast there and it's hot. And, you know, luckily, tonight it's supposed to not even be 80 degrees, so it should be nice. But how important is that in your presentation? You know, in Naples was amazing. Thing I love about Naples is, you know, the northerners will go down there and they want to wear ties. It's like, Dude, you don't wear ties here.

Jennifer White  25:59  

It was so casual. And just to backtrack to ocean grand, same and we dressed up, but it was a construction site, so, you know, we weren't really supposed to be going up in the in the buildings. There were only three stories at the time, but when the developer wasn't there, and on weekends, you better bet your butt, we were up in those and we were climbing ladders and showing this is what your view could look like. I mean, we had to, that's how we painted the picture. And to go back to two points, because you

Tracy Hayes  26:22  

didn't have the video going on and everything else where you could just, yeah, like, this was

Jennifer White  26:25  

2001 we had a topo table. They have all virtual tours. Yeah, they didn't have to pull tables anymore. I don't know what anyone uses them, but I don't even know what that is. It's a table with a big glass, and it has, like a model of, oh, okay, yeah. It's like a little model, but then they went to virtual, you know, models, and everybody's got a big screen TV. We didn't have that. We were in a double wide trailer down in Guana, no cell service.

Jennifer White  26:51  

It was like with the gate station for food in the thermal packs machine. I bet too. I think we did.

Jennifer White  27:00  

But anyway, so just to backtrack on two things. Number one, Paul being my biggest cheerleader, I did work hard down there, and I became one of their top producers, if not their top producer, Paul Fletcher, always sent me handwritten notes, like, I'm so proud of you. If you'd see my name in the paper, he'd cut the clipping and send me a note and say, I'm so proud of you. I knew you could do it, and that meant the world to me. Always want to make him proud. But back to ocean. Grand Oh, God, just forgot my point we were talking about, well,

Tracy Hayes  27:26  

well, because think about that for a second. If I can make a statement some someone said, there's that phrase out there, money doesn't make you happy. And I think Paul gave you more than money. Yeah, he gave you, he, well, he taught you how to fish, basically, or actually led you to the pond where there was a lot of fish, and that that was his way of giving, and that makes him the fact that you took that and you've gone well beyond what he probably even originally thought you would do. I mean, there's nothing more rewarding. I mean, you talk about value, and then so to take that card which and handwrite is busy, as I'm sure he is, is an added touch to it. But I mean, you actually return the impact by taking the lead he gave you, or the opportunity he pointed you to.

Jennifer White  28:14  

And I was very thankful, because coming into it again, I didn't I had no idea I'd move from Chicago, big city, you know, I wasn't used to that small town vibe, so when I realized I'd been given such an amazing opportunity, I was not going to mess it up. So I definitely strive to be the best salesperson I could. I paid attention every meeting. I followed all my notes. I called people, I did my due diligence. I sent handwritten email or Well, emails were still premature, not premature. They were so early. We did email. We did but we sent handwritten notes to people walk ins. I always came in on my day off, which was huge. A lot of agents would get tired and they just didn't want to come back in. There were three of us on site. I came in, I dropped everything and went in.

Tracy Hayes  28:55  

If you had somebody that you had been working with said, I need to come in today. Yep, and

Jennifer White  28:59  

that's the only day they could come in, or the only day they could come back, I was there even though, I mean, it was 30 minute drive through, you know, through, wanna no service, you know, you just, you do what you want to do. But I also it made me feel good. But I wonder what my point was to other agents too, is I learned to keep my mouth shut, and I'll tell you an example why. So, talking about Northern fires we had, you know, people were coming from Atlanta or new upstate, New York, New Jersey, all these places where their homes were, like, 100 years old, right at the time, the trend was white cab or not white cabinets. We couldn't sell anything with white cabinets. It was all maple. That's when maple and cherry were first starting to cycle

Tracy Hayes  29:35  

down, because the northerners coming down wanting the darker wood. Oh, well, no, they had it all.

Jennifer White  29:39  

So locally it was, it was the maple, and we had this one spec that was built had black granite and white cabinets. We could not sell it. So I'm doing my tour and I'm talking to people. I was like, Oh, well, we do have this blunt.

Tracy Hayes  29:52  

I know, I know someone who likes white and black, though, don't we? Daniel, she probably buy that.

Jennifer White  29:57  

Yeah, we've cycled back this 22 years ago. 21 years ago, but so I opened my mouth in the sales center, and I was like, oh, like, Well, why isn't that one sold? I'm like, Oh, it has white cabinets. And nobody wants white cabinets like we do. We've had dark, you know, cabinets our entire life. Really great. And I thought that day, I'm never gonna, like, put my foot in my mouth again. I went, what's important to you. And I started asking that, because I also knew, and I carried this with me to WCI too, with ocean fighters, when you're building a tower and there's nothing to look at, I had to understand what was important. Like, what's view to you? View is very subjective, and I use that to this day. I call them my hot buttons. And to this very day, when I'm talking to someone, I'm like, they're like, oh, I want a view. I'm like, Well, what does view mean to you? Because some people want you know, preserved views. Some people want you know, Golf Course View. Some people who want a golf course view, they don't want to be on a cart path or they don't want to be near the tee boxes, but they want golf view. Other people want Lake View. Other people are like, I don't want to live anywhere near alligator, Snake infested lake, you know, right, right? It's very subjective

Tracy Hayes  31:01  

because of your experiences. And like you said, view is not the view to everyone, and that is because a lot of these people have grown up in neighborhoods where, literally, they looked out the back window in whatever space there was between them and the house behind them, which, you know, the back of houses generally aren't decorated. And look, you know, don't look good, but that's the view they've been looking at for their entire life. So when you go and show them, oh, well, you know, here's a preserve, and you've got a little bit of yard, and then the preserve that might be like, there's no house,

Jennifer White  31:35  

it's, it's just, so it's crazy, what different people want. And if you don't ask the question you don't understand, and what Jackson will be in, you know, the largest city square footage in the US? You have to find out. I always ask out of tenors square sorry, think about probably footage. I'm thinking about home square footage. You're right. Square miles. Thank you. But you know, it's you're working with people. And I say, What do you like to do in your spare time? Because you know, if you're not a beach person, there's no need to pay the beach premium, right? You know, if you're a golfer, most golfers want to live near a golf course community. If you don't golf at all, you could care less. So same. Why pay the premium? If you love to shop, you might want to be close. I mean, you just don't know. I ask people, What do you like to do in your spare time? Where do you work? What type of commute Do you want? Because everybody's that's usually big, a different commute. Like, what's a commute to us? Like, I mean, I live in at the beach, so I don't go over the ditch. Well, you know, there are people who ride a train for two hours to get to work, yes, hour. So, or, you know, are used to commuting in a car 45 minutes. 30 minutes is nothing to them. So if you don't ask the questions, you don't know, and then once you have an idea of what their hot buttons are, I can almost pinpoint, like whether it's a neighborhood or a certain area. I can almost pinpoint where to where to look.

Tracy Hayes  32:48  

Now, obviously, the last year, you know, has been this anomaly. I don't you know in your 21 career, yes, but for the previous 20 you know, you have to go through the sales process. And you know the importance of your success in, you know, here one of the top agents at REMAX in the real in the country. I'm sure you rank there too, in the top 1% your top in Florida, yeah. And the go through that sales process and sit them down and answer in because, because we do have so many lifestyles. I was on my CDD board for 11 years, so I have a seminar I teach on cdds The Community Development districts, and I explained to the agents, because a lot of them have a negative feeling about it, because it is a fee. It does affect the overall cost of things, but it's a lifestyle. And one of the great things here in Florida, unlike most places in the country, I can't say we're the only place like this, but we have so many different lifestyles. Do you want to be on the golf course? You want to be on the water? Do you want to preserve Do you know,

Jennifer White  33:51  

are you a boater Fisher? What privacy Do you want your you know, RV in your yard? Or, you know, there's a huge difference in the state of Florida, in my opinion, of like, gated versus non gated Hoa, non HOA. And, you know, like, for instance, when I met my second husband, he would have never bought in a community with an HOA that was, like his thing. Well, I was opposite. I wanted an HOA because I didn't want someone's trailer or, you know, fifth car or right boat. You know, it's, you know, even though,

Tracy Hayes  34:18  

especially when you're living in such close proximity, you know, it's one thing. If everyone's got space, and there's trees and everything else, and you kind of, they could be over there, and you don't really know what they're doing. But when you're living in these, some of these houses are only a few feet apart, and they're working on their car, they got their boat in there, and it just, you know, just looks doesn't look good, yeah.

Jennifer White  34:40  

And it's funny. So just, you know, back with WCI building towers, we had, you know, I call them towers here. Their towers are 1212, stories. But again, they took two years to build, and we would have to pre sell them. So going back to the hot buttons, I just still believe that is what trained me to do a better job. In general, real estate is okay. Wow. Um, what's your time frame? What type of, you know, floor plan you like? What do you want? Because again, when you get on the ocean, when you get above certain levels, you don't see sand and surf. You don't see ocean. You walk in and you see horizon. So like, when they would say, What do you mean? I'm like, Well, when you sit down, do you want to see horizon, or do you want to see water? And so, I mean, I could literally tell someone where to go on a tower. What is you're not gonna have anything for two years. And these are million people.

Tracy Hayes  35:24  

You've got to keep them engaged for two years. Some of these guys were, well, you know, working with a major builder here, it has been a year and a half, you know, on some of these situations, and you got to keep them engaged. And the amount of money they're, they're willing to spend there and so forth that they you got to keep so kind of actually brings up an interesting questions. You make the sale now they got to wait 1218, 24, months before they might hopefully be able to move into their unit. How do you keep them somewhat excited? Do you? Did you do certain things to kind of

Jennifer White  36:00  

just, I mean, I think depending on what you're building, there's different levels of engagement. But they had their design meetings, you know, they always wanted to bring friends back. And to me, some agents didn't want to take that time to go back to the models because, you know, again, we were in a sales center, and we had to drive to the towers. And I know that's similar in a big community, here you have a model, model row, and then you have that was important to me to take that time, take myself off the sales floor, knowing that I might miss a rotation, to take them to show their friend or their, you know, family that was in town. So always did that they want to show people what they're buying.

Tracy Hayes  36:38  

How many, how many of those led into other sales? So for you.

Jennifer White  36:41  

I mean, I was their top producer by far. I mean, yeah. I mean, I would sell 25, 50 million a year.

Tracy Hayes  36:47  

I think the, I don't know if I don't want to use the word average, but I think a lot of agents would have said, Oh, I'm not going to give up my floor time to go take care of your friend who is probably not going to buy in here. They're just, you're just want to show them and brag about what you just invested in, and not realize, as we do today right now, how many times are people moving into the neighborhoods now and their friends are moving in from Chicago and Ohio whenever to also live in the same neighborhood?

Jennifer White  37:16  

That's a really, really good point. So I, most agents lived for their floor rotation. I was probably 85 90% appointment only, so I didn't take and they would take us off the floor for a full hour before our appointment time. So if I had a 10 o'clock and a one o'clock or whatever, they would take us off the floor by nine so that we were not caught up in because you had an appointment. You know. Well, it took time to walk them through the models. It took time. I mean, they were, these were multi million dollar places at the time, and so it wasn't just a half hour, hour showing. So I would lose rotations. But, yeah, I worked 85 90% repeat referral business.

Tracy Hayes  37:53  

So which, to me, you kind of, you kind of shed a lot of tire kickers, not saying that some of those people walking in off the street weren't buyers, but bread and butter slowly became because you were willing to spend the time. And I think one of the words we're going to talk about here in a little bit relationship, you know, we talked about the loan officer, the loan officer in the realtor relationship, and the title company knows relationships, but you were building strong relationships with every one of your buyers?

Jennifer White  38:21  

Well, you have to, because it's, you know, real estate is, is typically people's largest asset. It's personal. It's your home. It's where you're going to live. So you're gonna make your memories where your kids are, you know, going to be raised or come back home to depending on what stage of life you're in. So it's important that you take that time to spend with them, whether it's during the sales process or all the way through. It's, it's contract to close. It's you don't get them under contract, churn and burn and like, leave them and you know, it's important.

Tracy Hayes  38:49  

What would you say to that that fairly, you know, even just a young realtor right now, who you know doesn't even lot of you know, I've had many of great agents on there. They're young, and they don't even have their own families yet. To slow down for a moment and spend an extra couple of minutes with each and every one of those clients,

Jennifer White  39:11  

I 100% agree. I would say, first and foremost, slow down, listen. Don't talk. Let them talk. Even though I talk a lot, I actually am a good listener too, but treat them all the same, because I don't know that they do this anymore on site. But we had price points, you know, because the front desk admin was trying to help determine which community within the community or which agent was on rotation. And we had a plethora of price ranges from four to 606 to 8 million plus, 2 million plus. And some of my colleagues would take under 600 we didn't have anything under 600 at the time. And they would look at the car and like and walk out like, hi, we don't have anything, sorry. And I never did that. I literally took every opportunity to I called it, you know, fine tuning my skills. I gave a. Every single person the exact same presentation and treated them the same and that same people. Person who marked under 600 well, they might have been buying a second or third home. I can't tell you many people that checked under my price point spent eight or 900 or million, 1.5 Yeah, all, all the time. I mean, it was like it was a second third home. Or people don't always want you sizing them up, right? So even if you're not in that kind of a community, that that level, no one wants to be sized up. So whether it's 200 300 500 600 millions, I don't care what the price point is, it really doesn't matter. Treat everybody the same and treat every opportunity as if, maybe, if they're not in right for you, maybe they're going to refer their friend or their cousin, you don't know who, if somebody knows, treat them all the same.

Tracy Hayes  40:45  

You know, one of the things I've learned, and I'll be 52 here in a couple months, and I will tell the young people, and I think you're saying it right now. You're hearing these things over and over again. People are telling you, surround yourself, build relationships, take a little more time in your presentation to strengthen those things. And here you just basically told them something they guarantee heard in their original real estate class or any any sales, do not do that person oftentimes, you know, in the mortgage, you know, they're asking me the interest rate because they don't know what else to ask when, really, for the most part, just want to know what's going to know what's going to cost them each month. This is what they want. How much is it going to cost me each month? Because I know how much I make. The interest rate is irrelevant. And in your case, the price point at home, they're coming in and in their mind, they have $600,000 who knows? We can try to dig and find out why that number is in their head, but you took a little bit of time and found out they could actually afford a $1.5 million house, and now that, because I was such a good salesman, they're buying a 1.5

Jennifer White  41:51  

they'll go sell something else, because I like that. But if I would have walked out and said, We don't have anything for under six, sorry. Or, you know, another big thing, what am I? I'm embarrassed to admit this, one of my colleagues would like judge people's cars they would drive in by. And guess what? We're in Florida, people fly in. It doesn't matter. And you know, it does not matter. New agents. Agent, if you're on site, you're in general, give everybody the same chances, give everybody the same presentation and really dig deep. To me, if you're just surface scratching and you're just trying to, you know, get the sale real quick, you're never gonna get to the bottom of what that person really wants. And a lot of times, you know, maybe someone comes in and they say, Okay, I really want a pool, you know, why is the pool important to you? You know, find out why. And then, you know, well, because I've never had one before. It might not be because I'm a swim instructor, like, if you never had one or more, okay, we might be able to find you something. Okay. So is it room for a pool? An option? Or do you have to have a pool? Because some people do have must haves, and they really are must haves. Other people will say they have a must have, and you can work around it, right? But you're never going to find out if you'll take they might say they want a pool, and then

Tracy Hayes  42:56  

when you say, Okay, well, you realize that's going to cost you X amount of dollars in maintenance every month. They're like, I'll go to the community pool.

Jennifer White  43:02  

Community pool. Yeah, yeah, it is, and it's, it's just an interesting process, and it's fabulous. It's very rewarding. Like, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from helping people and find something.

Tracy Hayes  43:14  

So I guarantee you the refer, you know. So you know, one tip, would you agree at man, I can just only assume one of your great paths, or reasons why you've been successful in your 21 years and you're still pushing and growing is because you're taking the time, you're listening, and you're actually presenting with an with an intelligent based on what they've told you, you've dug a little deeper to clarify, and you're not wasting their time? No? Because I had Lisa Barton on here the other day, and she said yes, and she's the one thing she said with these, especially with these more affluent buyers, buying in the luxury price point, is time, and if you aren't pre screening them and knowing so you're not running all over northeast Florida looking at homes or up and down the beach that they aren't even really interested in, because you took an extra 1520, minutes, maybe an hour, of having a conversation in a comfortable setting, and they're not stressed driving through traffic because they can want to look at 12 homes. You showed them three homes, and because you listened and put them on it

Jennifer White  44:19  

well, and also listening. I had a client without getting to different areas. They were moving from a city that had benefited from huge like gains over the years. They old industrial parts of the city that were turned into, like, multi million dollar properties, you know, five years later, and that was their driving force. They were a young family. Had young kids, and they couldn't let go of what they had happen, where they what they didn't they didn't buy during that time. They just knew it happened. So they wanted to bring that here. So we were looking in different parts of town, and I'm thinking, why are you so set on this part? Like, why are you so set? And it was for the end game. They wanted to make that whatever a couple $100,000 turn into. 2 million in three to five years. I'm like, we're a different city. And then they started asking questions about, why are there security cameras everywhere? I'm like, Well, you know, be careful. I'm licensed, right? Yeah, yeah. And so then I started asking. I started digging deeper. Why are you so set on this? Why? Because the wife was fighting it tooth and nail, and the husband's like, no, no, and kept saying, we can do what was done in X. Like, I don't want to mention any city names, but this is going to be the next and I'm sitting here thinking I lived in Jacksonville for over 20 something years, actually, two years before I moved so almost 25 now. And I said, I don't see that happening here. Like, this is a very different dynamic. This is a beach town too. It's a naval town. It's a hospital, healthcare, insurance like it's not the same kind of kind of environment in urban setting you came from. I think we should redirect here. And they are so thrilled. They're so thrilled now, because where they wanted to go was just to make that investment turn into something that it most likely was never going to turn into, and then their quality of life wouldn't

Tracy Hayes  46:04  

have been the same. We ensure you run in this all the time, especially some of these very young buyers, like says, you're like, right now, they're looking for that. Hey, yeah, I want to do a renovation loans and buy this house. Let me stop you right now. I'm gonna tell you right now, there's enough cash, though, in Northeast Florida that house has potential to be renovated without issues and resold, and someone's going to make $30,000 off of it, it would already be sold, I know,

Jennifer White  46:29  

and I'm sure I'm brutally honest and, yeah, I'm always thankful for that. I came from a very strong, strong, solid family. I've talked to myself out of listings, because especially in the past two years, when you are meeting with somebody, and they have this fabulous house, and, you know, you kind of know what they paid for. You kind of, you know, pretty much know what their mortgage is, loosely based. And I'm talking to them, I'm like, Why do you want to sell? Like, well, we'll sell out. We'll bank this money, we'll we'll go rent. And I'm like, Well, what are you going to rent? Well, we haven't looked yet. And, I mean, I don't make money unless I sell, right? Some of these are really, I mean, I live in Ponte, Vedra Beach. I sell everywhere. But I Yes, I'm very centrally located there. And, you know, I'm like, Look, I would love to have your $2 million Listing. I'll sell it all day long. I'll get multiple offers. You have two big dogs, why don't you go find a rental first that allows you to bring your two big dogs. Then you tell me, once you've found a rent, how much

Tracy Hayes  47:21  

you're paying, how much you're paying in the house. Is a sign. Is the size you want, in the location you want, because they want all that too.

Jennifer White  47:25  

So this one, I was like, go, go. Look. I said, I guarantee you're gonna pay more in rent than you're paying now. Like, well, we'll just ride the wave. And I'm like, no, no, this isn't a wave. This is different from 2007 2008 This is different. And you know, everybody's not doing interest only loans. They're buying homes they can't afford. They're not putting zero down. They're not having balloon, you know, payments in three to five years they can't afford. And I was like, You go rent that place. All of my investors that have rental properties, they're selling them. They're all selling them. They're cashing out. So you might be hopping from rental to rental with your two big dogs, which is gonna be hard, and you're gonna pay more than you're paying for your your house. You're not gonna be able to afford to buy this lifestyle back, right? So I'm shooting myself in the foot. Yeah, at the same time they're they still thank me. That was two years ago. Yeah, every time I see Well,

Tracy Hayes  48:13  

because when they went and did what you said, go look at what's gonna cost you rent. Oh, but you live in a $2 million house now, and what kind of house are you gonna rent? Yeah, it's 2 million houses. Well, I'm sure we can find a $2 million house that's up for rent, but that payment is a lot more than the mortgage and half. And we're on the beach and the Airbnb, I'm for a lot, for 10s of 1000s of dollars a week. And yeah,

Jennifer White  48:34  

and it's really any price point. I mean, a lot of times people, because it is awfully attractive to think about, everybody's house is worth a lot of money right now,

Tracy Hayes  48:41  

let's take to get lost to the I was watching Grant Cardone little clip on him, and he was talking about, oh, I don't, I don't, I don't, I rent my house. No, he rents it from himself. Yeah, his company owns the house, and he rents it from himself. That's what he does. It's not that he doesn't own it. He owns it. He just rents it from himself. He puts the house in his company's hand for what you know, tax whatever you know that that is not he is not literally renting from someone else. He's not paying someone else's

Jennifer White  49:08  

he adjusts his own rent. Yes, you just don't. I don't want to see anybody in a situation where they're trying to capitalize on something now that's going to hurt them down the road and and, frankly, it happens all the time. I mean, my wife and I,

Tracy Hayes  49:21  

you know, are we live in St John's golf we have a larger home. And if we went to try to, you know, buy a knock at tea, or, you know, go out to the beach, we'd have to spend in the millions to do it. Yeah. So from the house sector, a part of inside the walls, we're not really going to improve. Now, if I wanted to be closer to the beach or, you know, that was an atmosphere thing, or would be some reason to move, but we're like, you know, we're going to the top element Elementary School for the kids, you know. So why are we, you know, rushing? Because we're really going to step down. Let's buy a smaller home, really.

Jennifer White  49:58  

And you feel bad for buyers right now. I mean, and I tell sellers like, all right, you sell high, you're gonna buy high too. So, you know, it happens almost daily. And so whether you talk yourself out of it, it, you know, at least I can sleep at night. Yes, yes, I can sleep very soundly at night.

Tracy Hayes  50:13  

All right, we're quickly going through these courses. We're already 45 minutes into this. Yeah, no, but it's great. Now, this is some, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to be a little more fine tuned to go through some of the points we definitely want to make. What are you doing to stay on top, you know, whether it's personal development, because you're dealing with a lot of fluent clients, I asked Lisa this the other day, what are you do personally to, you know, stay out in front, mentally, physically, just, yeah, well, I think

Jennifer White  50:42  

you just have to, you know, have a regimen. You know, I have two kids and husband, dog, Crazy Dog. So, you know, we, I kind of have my schedule. I stick to it. Now it's going to change and fluctuate, but, you know, mentally, you've got to, you know, get good sleep at night. You know, exercise when you can, you know, relax and enjoy downtime. Because it's been, it's been a zoo the past two and a half years. It's really been tough, and you just have to carve out, do

Tracy Hayes  51:07  

you read? Are you podcasts? Listener? Do you just, what do you

Jennifer White  51:11  

not really. I spend a lot of time with my kids. As far as staying in form of real estate, of course, you're online every day. You're looking at what's coming, what's out there, what's selling, what's going your you know, you Retrade publications. But as far as podcasts, I don't really have a lot of time. I'm on my phone and my computer. So much during the day.

Tracy Hayes  51:28  

Does anybody ever give you a new idea? I got a new idea, actually, from an offer.

Jennifer White  51:33  

And it's funny is, you know, usually when we're listing something, we're getting multiple offers. And you know, it's kind of been there, done that, been there, done that, seen that. I had one recently. I hadn't seen I was like, I like that. They offered to not only buy cash, but to sellers. Just take whatever you want. We'll get rid of the rest. Take whatever you want out of the house, and we will literally put a dumpster and either sell

Tracy Hayes  51:54  

if it's not fastened to the walls and the floor, take it, leave. Say you don't care if they take the appliances,

Jennifer White  52:00  

take whatever you want, leave the rest. We'll clear out the house. You think that helped them when they in this case, it did the mother. It was two kids. The mother had passed last year. They moved their father, who had dementia, up to a nursing home near them, up north. And so for them, it was saving them that hassle of going through their parents entire home. So it's like, come take whatever books you want, whatever you know, furniture, memorabilia, whatever you want, out of the house, and whatever you don't want or need, or your you know, your dad can't use, you guys can't use, leave it. We're going to remodel anyway. And I thought, you know that, you know that's that was an interesting idea. That's not gonna be everyone's I, you know, choice of how to write an offer, but I kind of liked it. It was different. So, but stay on top of stuff again. Just trade publications. I interface a lot with my colleagues, like, I mean, Lisa, I mean, there's a lot of us that we call, we talk on a regular basis, and having that open communication,

Tracy Hayes  52:57  

that's one of the things that I have on my list. There's underlying themes, and every one of these great agents like yourself that I'm hearing surrounding yourself by other successful people Lisa mentioned, and there's other what I found, especially the women. I don't see the guys doing it as much, but you guys go out to lunch because I see you guys putting it, posting on Facebook or whatever, and all of you are working with different brokerages. But I'm sitting sometimes I see a picture, and it'll be four or five agents there, and some three or four of them I've already had on the show, because they're great agents. And I'm like, Well, look at the look at the success sitting at that table. And you guys, you guys do get together and

Jennifer White  53:32  

exchange, we definitely do. And we talk like a lot of us on a regular basis, like, you know, to me, it goes back to being honest again. I'm the type of agent where I'll call other agents and, you know, say, Okay, I've got something come in. I'm kind of struggling with pricing it. I think everyone, if they're being honest, struggles a little bit with listing prices this day. I mean, it's just like, crap shoot. You know, you know where you might should be, but then you're like, I don't leave any money.

Tracy Hayes  53:55  

You don't want to be too high. But you know, you're going to get some offers above and beyond the asking.

Jennifer White  53:59  

Right now, it's difficult. So a lot of us will, I mean, top producing agents, like, what do you think? And then next, you know, a day later, they're calling me, Hey, do you think you would mind going on this listing agreement with me? I know that you sold the house, you know, two doors down twice, and you know, the ins and outs. I've never been in the house. Can you go with me? I mean, to have another top call me and ask me to go on a listing appointment with her. I'm like, absolutely happy to help, or, you know, I'm calling

Tracy Hayes  54:23  

hopes that you're gonna bring in a top dollar client too. But hey, that's the way it works, right? I mean, that's the relationships you've made there. So that's one of the other things. So relationships, not only we talked about detail, about building relationships with every one of your buyers or sellers, you know, because they're like, I always start you never know what that rock one turn you may overturn a rock and you got five more deals, because those people know a lot of people loved your service, and they're telling everybody, got to go with Jennifer, right? So both the relationships with your other agents, they are not. Competition is what I'm finding, is the attitude a lot of top producers is they don't see the other agents

Jennifer White  55:05  

as competition. We're friends. I mean, before I came here, I mean, I have several top, top agents that are, like, very good friends, like we do holidays together. We, you know, we vote together, we have our families together. And this one said, All right, what do you have coming? I'm like, Well, I'm I've got this, this and this coming. Great. She's like, well, I have two, let me tell you about that. I have buyers for both. And before I left to come here, I'm like, emailing, you know, my clients, like, Hey, I've got this one coming. It's not me, it's my friend. She's listing it. Do you want to try to get in first? And we do. We definitely bounce ideas off each other. We bounce list price.

Tracy Hayes  55:36  

You know, the offers in the last two years, being creative in the offer, like you just mentioned, what you learned. I mean, that's been a very in last 1218,

Jennifer White  55:43  

well, it is, and especially if something's under contract. Like, if I'm pricing something, another agent has something under contract, I'm kind of, like, wonder how that turned out. I will call that agent say, hey, you know, not asking your price, of course, but you know, did you get a good offer? And you know, a lot of times, like, Yes, we did. Like, okay, over asking, yes, like, how many offers did you have? Like, girl had eight, you know, call. Why don't you call? You know, these agents, they're the ones that had the other offers they lost, they were disappointed. And so we do do that, I mean, and then sometimes we have egg on our face, because we will comp something. Elizabeth Hudgens, I did that twice last year. I priced something off of one of hers, and the day mine went live. Hers fell out, and I was texting her, like, what are you doing? I'm so sorry. I'm like, Girl, I priced mine based off yours, I know, and I'm really sorry. But then two weeks later, she priced one of hers off mine, and she was calling me. She's like, are you gonna close please tell me your clothes. Yes, I am. Thank you. I mean, sometimes we have to, like, you know, have that relationship, because it's hard. It's hard

Tracy Hayes  56:45  

you talked about earlier, when you initially got started. You spend a lot in the term education is very broad. Yeah, we're not talking about formal education of going to a classroom, but there are, you know, going to nefar, you said you went to the meetings, how important you think that was, and making you a top producer, when you were selling those condos out there, that you were in some of those meetings and just picked up on these little nuggets that lot of people don't think are important. That's why they don't go to the meeting. But all of a sudden you're sharing that with a buyer, and for some reason they think it's important, because I don't know what kind of range they're putting in,

Jennifer White  57:25  

acoustical caulking. Acoustical caulking go. There was such a thing, but I think it's huge. Very good point. Tracy, and especially for the on site agents, or general agents selling new product, know your developer product, because people like to buy name brands like and if you're constructing something and yours cost more than the you know competition down the road, you have to understand why, yeah, like, because if you can't explain it as a site agent, or you can explain to your buyer, then you can't justify why it's that much more. But I always say not all square footages are created equally. They are not like so I don't use price per square foot all the time.

Tracy Hayes  58:03  

When you walk in to the Porsche dealer, the Range Rover dealer, Mercedes Benz, you're likely to get a different sales person than if you're walking on the Kia lot or the lower end Chevy lot, right that in the they weren't allowed to even get out there and show you a car until they reached an education level. Probably had to pass a bunch of tests. And it's, you know, to go in there, in, you know, obviously, we were working a large builder here to go in and learn those little things. Because one, you may have to overcome objections. They might not always be a positive, yeah, you gotta be prepared so they don't hit you out of this on the side. And you're not prepared. So education in many different ways, wherever you can grab it, whether it's sitting in those meetings, whether it's at ne far, whatever it is, educate, educate, educate. When you think you have downtime you don't, you need to be educating and expanding.

Jennifer White  58:57  

I mean, I read the Florida realtor magazine that comes out. I actually love my real producers magazine. I know great articles, great information. Sometimes lenders send you stuff. Sometimes title companies, if there's a change with the contract, or if there's a change, what's anything you just have. Have those resources you can go to, I call the owner of a title company all the time, like, Hey, I haven't heard about this. Like, can you tell me what this is about? Or, you know, hey, maybe come to our meeting and explain it to our agents. Like, with insurance changing constantly, you know, gosh, all the home warranties were drastically changing during covid, with them not able to get parts and pieces. And more and more home warranties were being exercised because there were, you know, four or five people home, everybody's working from home and locked down. People's toilets were breaking more their appliances. More. Their appliances were breaking more. Everything was breaking more. It was getting used more, right? So, yeah, I think education is huge, and if you can attend to those design meetings, construction meetings, the more tools you have in your toolbox, the more successful.

Tracy Hayes  59:55  

So there's four things I have listed that are common. We've talked about three. The one that we actually haven't talked about yet, but I think it's underlying consistency. Whatever you do marketing, whatever, what would you say in your 21 years that you are consistent with and has proven because you've consistently have done it beared fruit on the

Jennifer White  1:00:16  

I've always treated everybody the same. I've always given everybody the same time. I've always done follow up, whether it's phone calls, letters, emails and little thank you, cards, thank you, yes. Or, you know, even if someone's, you know, closed a while ago, it's calling, hey, how do you love your new home? Or, you know, Oh, how's this working for you? I mean, just be yourself. Be true. Follow up, you know, just whatever you can do to be consistent. I pretty much do the same stuff.

Tracy Hayes  1:00:46  

Because what I read out of the article the real producers was you were, you did you started that early. That wasn't something you reached a certain level. She's always started following up with my past clients. You were doing it right from the get go, and it's just rolled you for 21 years.

Jennifer White  1:00:59  

Yeah, how your kids, like in their school, you know, oh, I know it's a hard transition. You know, age for your daughter, how's it going? And, you know, they're, they're probably not buying another house right now. And I don't do it for you to buy a house for me down the road. I do it because I care. So I think, I think that's a huge thing.

Tracy Hayes  1:01:13  

Well, you got to be, I think that the other thing, you have to be genuine, genuine. Yeah. I mean, when you, if you're, if you're in this business, or any sales business, and you want to build relationships. You you really want to hear someone's story. And like you asked me before the thing what, you know, we were talking about the podcast in general. I said, You know what, I've gotten hooked on it, because, you know what the stories I'm hearing from everyone are just so amazing. I just like, I mean, if I could, if, I mean, I literally could get paid to listen to everyone's story. I would do it 24/7 because it's so amazing, the path that you've taken and reached into the success. So we're right at an hour here. So I'm going to wrap up because we definitely could probably go two hours. We may, as I tell everyone, always want to leave the door open. Bring you back on at some other time we can continue to talk about because there's so many nuggets that, whether it's real estate or any other sort of business, that the path you've taken, the things that you've done, you've said some those Cornerstone things. And again, we hear a lot in these personal development books, are you doing them? That's the question. And here's someone that's doing them and is bearing fruit because you've stayed consistent. Two Minute Warning questions, is it more important who you know or what you know?

Jennifer White  1:02:24  

I think both equally. So I think you know who you know. Sometimes can open a door, but it's, it's what you know that gets you through the door. And you know, sometimes people are given opportunities, but they don't take advantage of them, or they don't try their hardest to strive to the highest achievable level. So I think it's

Tracy Hayes  1:02:42  

well, I think, well, your story with Paul was exactly that, well, one you went and took a job that was more or less below your skill level, more or less, and you were just strolling through and having a good time with it to see what else happened, and something else happened, and you didn't even expect it to happen. He opened the door. You step through it, you immediately saw the opportunity. So what, you know, went into high gear. It did, yeah. It did, yeah. What's on your travel bucket list?

Jennifer White  1:03:09  

Oh, gosh, I would love to just travel again since covid lockdown. But, you know, we have my youngest son just turned six, and my oldest just turned 15, so we're kind of waiting till they get a little bit older to do. I mean, I would love to go to Egypt. I'd love to go to England. I'd love to do some other islands I haven't been to before. Yeah, I actually really love to do a lot of the United States I haven't seen, like, run an RV, yeah, and there's, there's parts like the Midwest, all right, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:03:34  

I've mentioned this once before. No one I was, I'm really debating to really, like, get with a couple of people and actually buy a nice one, because I want to do the same thing. My My kids are, my daughter be nine, and my son's 12, nine next month, and, yeah, I mean, we need to go and just go. And it's so many amazing places. I mean, so many places around the world. But we could literally just, you know, get up. We don't have to, you know, get our passports and things like that, and just go, because there are so many

Jennifer White  1:04:00  

beautiful I love city, Grand Tetons, the redwoods. I mean, there's so many places I haven't been our own country.

Tracy Hayes  1:04:05  

Have you ever watched that show mystery in the museum? No, it's the guy goes around the country, finds all these little museums in these smallest towns in the country, and there's something in that museum that has a story behind it, and that's what we all miss, because we don't stop in those little small towns and walk in those little museums. There's the story behind everyone, just like there's a story behind every great real estate agent, how I brought that around. All right, finalize this. I'm a loan officer. I do loans. I still write them. Somebody asked me that the other day, I wish I did podcast all day. Got paid for, but I don't get paid for the podcast. I'm sure you know, with your affluent clients, you have, you know lenders, that obviously your results, what is the most important part of your as a as an agent to the loan officer, what is the most important thing you think in that relationship?

Jennifer White  1:04:57  

Oh, gosh, communication, for sure. And customer service, like, I'm handing over my client who, you know, I work so, so carefully with, handle them with kick gloves. You know, you treat them the way I would treat them. But please follow up. Don't drop the ball like, let's open communication all the way through to the end of closing. So it's a smooth process.

Tracy Hayes  1:05:17  

You know, you said that it triggered an idea, because it's something I'm doing here, and that's communication has been number one on that question in in rightly so. The other thing is, the agents have to realize some of the loan officers are getting as successful as they are, and they're writing a lot of loans that they have to bring in other people, like you, bring transaction coordinators and so forth. And it's important that they are taught that communication. Because I imagine sometimes you call in, but you probably have, you know, some loan officers, which I'm sure are great producers, because they're hanging out with you, and you call their assistant because you know that assistant is going to have the answer that assistants actually in the loan every day, the loan officers out doing podcasts and

Jennifer White  1:05:58  

coffees, right? As long as we get the answers, as

Tracy Hayes  1:06:01  

long as you get the answer, it doesn't actually point. It doesn't matter if it's loan officer or not. No. Jennifer, I appreciate you coming on the show today. People don't want to listen to podcasts for two hours, hours. Good, but we'll definitely have you back on, because I think as I make I swing around in my second year, you know, we start to really dig in. Because today was a little more your personal story about nuts and bolts, how to be a great real estate agent and keep digging

Jennifer White  1:06:23  

into that. Happy to help, happy to help. So thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

Podcast Intro  1:06:32  

This may be it for today's episode of Real Estate excellence, but we both know your pursuit of excellence doesn't stop here, to connect with the best of the best and really take your skills to the next level. Join our community by visiting Tracy Hayes podcast.com where you'll meet more like minded individuals looking to expand their inner circle and their personal experience that's available at Tracy Hayes podcast.com you

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