Austin Preik: Be the "Light" to Your Clients

Tracy Hayes  1:58  
Well, now I'll never forget. All right. Great stuff. Awesome. Really glad to have you on the show, because I know you're doing, you know you're out there. I want to hear I know you'll, you'll probably tell the stories I've because I've heard you tell them before, but the audience members that haven't heard them, you know, like you're, you're the video you're doing in, in beach wall, not beach beacon lakes, your community videos. And what's that doing for you, as far as you know, being top of mind to people, because our areas is very transient. First of all, people are moving out, especially for jobs and so forth. And then, I mean, I'm sure you've experienced especially in these new communities, one person moves in from Michigan, and they're telling all their friends from Michigan, you need to move down here and move into this community. And you staying top of mind, and obviously giving them the perception that you are the expert of the community,

Austin Preik  2:45  
I am the expert exactly

Austin Preik  2:48  
well, and it's, it's what you pay attention to. And I, actually, I spend a lot of time. I did take some notes, and 30% of my business this year was from my farm, which would be considered a beacon lake. And there's nothing better than that, because when you got to go put a lock box on a house or put a sign in the yard, it's around the corner like you can't get better than that. Plus, you know the neighborhood stats and what's happening, you know what's going on. So it's not as much research. Every time, if you give me a listing up in Nassau, I don't know what's going on up there, I'd have to spend a lot of time researching things. Well, I was listening yesterday to the podcast from the EXP agent out in Utah, massive agent podcast. It's called Dustin Brome, and I was listening to him yesterday, and he he was talking to one of his someone that signed up under him and his team. He this particular gentleman, a young guy, lived in Dallas, and he was doing the social media that was kind of the pretense of the show, and talking how he's was, he was doing a lot of reels and so forth right away, because, you know, he's learning, but he's like, What can I do? And he just started shooting video, and he and he got leads from it, and what they, what they were talking about in that show, was how, when you do get someone that calls in off of that where you're doing that regular I assume you're putting YouTube, you're putting out that video every month about the community. When someone calls you, they have really already created a relationship with you. They've seen you probably several times already. They're going with you because you're the guy they're not. You're not coming in for an interview. You're actually the guy who's going to represent them. Yeah, that's, that's super I remember a couple years ago, I was in Dunkin Donuts and knockoutee, just standing in line, and I felt some eyes on the back of my head. I'm just kind of, you know, you look over your shoulder a bit, and he's like, Yeah, someone there staring at me. So turn around. I'm like, Hey, how you doing? And he's like, Is your name, Austin? I'm like, it is. And he's like, Hey, we're just here from Long Island, and we're coming down here looking at houses and been watching your videos and blah, blah, blah, right? Anyways, I will say that guy had already had an appointment set with somebody else and with Dwight, who's amazing out there, Dwight and Sharon, I don't know if you know them, and so it was great conversation, but it does show you.

Austin Preik  5:00  
The recognition factor you get just walking around the neighborhood. I like to tell this story. My wife rolls her eyes pretty, pretty hard on this one. But we were going around the neighborhood just for a walk in Beacon Lake, and someone came out, came across the street and like, hey, Austin, so good to see you out here. I don't know how you have so much time to go out for with a walk for your family. You know you're selling so many houses, you doing all this much stuff. And two more times on that walk, we got stopped by people I didn't that person I knew, but other people I didn't know, right? And her eyes would when I tell her, like, hey, look, you're with like a celebrity walking around. Her eyes couldn't roll any further back up into her head. But the the the benefit of that is, I'll be sitting around on a Sunday afternoon and someone will hit me on Facebook Messenger. Yeah, hey, Austin, but think about listing. Can we talk to you about prices? Can we talk to you about listing the house type of deal and like, what is better than incoming business from people that already know, like and trust you? Right?

Tracy Hayes  5:55  
100% I mean, I think you're just like, I enjoy doing the podcast, and when someone reaches out that you aren't really talking to but you don't know they're watching you, and you're building a relationship with them in one way, shape, form or another, and then out of the blue, you're like, they contact you and like, wow, that my heartfelt work is something I enjoy doing. I have fun doing is actually paying paying me back a little bit.

Austin Preik  6:22  
Yeah, yeah. Well, if you can do, if you can get business from what you're doing in your life, anyways, so whether it be an interest group, so, you know, I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, if I happen to meet people in that sphere, I know a lot of people go to like, orange fairy fitness, or to the like, to the gym, and you meet people, and you get to know people and build relationships. There, and get to do business there. But if it's just where you're living and what you're doing and pursuing your passions, and you can find ways to get business from that, gosh, like your life is so much better. Yeah, when, well,

Tracy Hayes  6:55  
I was well, I was just, we were at the event last night. I was talking to Katie camp Mr. Katie campmeyer, and she was just talking about, you know, how she's reached that point in her career. She's no longer, she's no longer chasing the dollar. You know, we were talking about, she told me about this book. But you know, when the first part of your life you're always like, you know, I'm trying to chase my career. Am I there or but now you've built a business, and you're out there, you know, like we're doing a podcast today. You got a showing this afternoon or appointment that you mentioned earlier, and you're, you're making an income, and you're, you're doing all things that you enjoy doing. I'm sure you cut time off to go spend time with your wife or go for a walk. But when you reach that point, what does that you know? What is it? What do you How does that feel? You know? And it just, it just motivates you in a different way every morning. All right, but let's get back to where I normally start off. Where are you from? Originally?

Austin Preik  7:45  
I'm from Ontario, Canada. So if I say out and about, then sell you a house, then it's not, it's just, it's a house, not a not a hoose. What was it?

Tracy Hayes  7:57  
Was? Was back in the 80s, you think about Mickey blue eyes, the No, the two guys with the beer,

Austin Preik  8:02  
Oh, Bob and Doug, Mackenzie, yes, take off. A, you Hoser, go down and get a two, four and put a mouse in the bottle. A, yeah, exactly, yes.

Tracy Hayes  8:13  
There's our national treasures. So Tulsa, you grew up in George's. Were born there?

Austin Preik  8:18  
Yeah, no. So I was yeah, no, both. I was born. I was born in Canada, and I grew up there, and I lived there through college, until 1998 I moved to the States. Okay, we were in to where my wife here in the United States of America, and we lived in Botswana, Africa for a couple years in between, and we've been back in here in Florida for 10 years now. So where's Carleton University? I've heard that name before. Where's that? At Carleton is in Ottawa, Ontario. Okay, it's where the K stands for quality, and we put the A in excellence psychology. Well, no, because I always, I always go back. I've said a million times in my life I should have been a psychology major, because I do enjoy watching people and trying to figure out why they do what they do. What was it that brought you towards psychology? I you know, part of it, honestly, was I didn't have a lot of great direction back then. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and it just sounded Yeah, just sounded interesting, something that sounded kind of cool. And it was kind of cool. It is kind of cool just to understand people's behavior and why we do the things that we do. So that's what drew me into it, for sure.

Tracy Hayes  9:22  
Well, I think there's no doubt, when it comes to sales having, you know, there is a psychology part of it, and I was, you know, that's why, as I said, if I should have been a psychology major, because even going into sales, you had to understand, you know, those things that they try to teach us in all these classes, piece people's personalities and so forth. Do you revert back to some of your teaching sometimes? Son, well,

Austin Preik  9:43  
there's a, there's a great book that it's, it's an old one, but it's been re released recently, called influence, and it's basically a bunch of psychology experiments that people have done and geared all towards the sales field. So like social proof. Friend, this is like seven basic fears, I guess, or seven, seven basic concepts that it goes through that you can really import into your into your marketing, into your sales.

Tracy Hayes  10:09  
Do you find your do you kind of break down some of the client, maybe some of these people you don't know, using the psychology and break it down how you might

Austin Preik  10:16  
present to them, I guess, you know they're so just maybe on a very, on a very basic level, just kind of looking at like a DISC profile type of thing. You recognize someone's very direct, and they just want the answers. I tend to be a high i And so I'll just talk and talk and talk, as you probably already noticed, and a lot of people don't want that. And so I got to remember I'm not being rude when I'm talking to someone that's a very high D. They just like to communicate that way, and they just want the facts, and so it makes really short phone calls. And I, again, I have to fight like I'm being so rude to this person right now. But they don't see it that way. They probably think it's rude, if I like, why are you taking up all my time? Why don't you shut up?

Tracy Hayes  10:54  
So your psychology major, it was, it was direct that time as you move, you come to the States after you graduate. Yes, okay. I mean, what was your aspiration as a career at that time? I mean, or did you have one? I mean, would you

Austin Preik  11:07  
so I was working in, I was working in a lab for a company that made wood finishes over the summers, and then I came down with that company and worked in the lab there just for maybe eight, nine months before launching off into sales, moved up to Ohio, covered a tail territory, basically Ohio and Kentucky. And then with that company, moved into distribution sales up in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, before finally moving back down to where I started the journey, in North Carolina. And there I started doing sales training for our distributors. So they would bring, we'd bring on a new distributor, and they would have, this is really boring, isn't it, 18 sales people, and I'd show them, we'd watch paint dry together and go through to go through how to doing a lot of traveling. It was internationally. They came to you, yeah, it was industrial sales. It was a lot of travel. They'd come to us, or I'd go out to if they had a bunch of reps out in Portland, Oregon, or something like that. I'd go out there and do a few day sales training with them out there.

Tracy Hayes  12:04  
I'd like to always, even though it's, yeah, today, it's not exciting at that point. It might have been exciting to you at your, you know, your age, and where you were at your career, but to build up to where you're at now, and why so you do some of the things you do today, because I, you know, obviously believe everyone, you know, they're learning from they do things or don't do things because of things they did or didn't do, on the bad and what, what builds you up to your your personality, but being, being a trainer and training everyone, your social media, your personality, you know, your talk, that kind of fits. Okay, yeah, I see I want to just get up in front of room and talk. It's because you've done corporate training before, and that, you know, makes you comfortable in that there. So you were with them for almost 10 years, if I saw on your LinkedIn correctly, yeah.

Austin Preik  12:51  
So I moved down to 98 and then the company sold in 2007 Okay, so, yeah, I stayed with and I stayed with the new company for a year with axo Nobel,

Tracy Hayes  13:00  
okay, all right, then you go back and get a master's degree in divinity. Yes, What? What? Yeah.

Austin Preik  13:09  
Well, okay, so my faith has always been super important to me, to our family. I've already had an interest in in those things and getting deeper into theology. And so when this company was selling, I house, gosh, I was trying to make a choice on what to do next. And we had had some we didn't have stock. We'd share appreciation rights. When it sold, there was a good chunk of income coming for some of us out of that. And so I was going to make a choice. I was either going to buy one of my distributors, I had started working that out, or I was gonna go and do this master divinity MDiv thing and go and do a ministry, and I couldn't figure out what to do. And I remember talking to my little brother, and he was like, well, if money wasn't an option or money wasn't an issue, you didn't it didn't make any difference. Either way, what would you do? I'm like, I would do the theology thing. Like that sounds that sounds like a great fit, and kind of nerd out on nerding out on that a little bit. So that's when we jumped into that. And I took some of the share appreciation money, and unfortunately it was 2007 2008 so I believe the Dow was at 14,000 when I invested most of my money. And I think it might have hit 6000 or so, 4000 right? But anyways, it did come back up, but I went and got my that degree, and out of that, gosh, it just felt like a trap. Trap door opened, and we ended up in Botswana doing some ministry related work over there.

Tracy Hayes  14:32  
What kind of stuff were you, I mean, building houses or just teaching or what were you? What kind of

Austin Preik  14:38  
So, the foundation we went over with had done a project to build a baby rescue center, and was supposed to be $280,000 if I remember correctly, and ended up being like 450 and the next project was a $4 million project. They didn't want to become a so I went over to say no to things, but, I mean, I done a joke about that. Really, there was already a there's already architect. Was already project managers involved, so I was over there on behalf of the Foundation. But you know, my baby, or my baby, my wife, she is my baby, but my wife was an occupational therapist, and so she worked in the baby rescue center some and did some training with some of the staff there, and worked with the babies. And I did some teaching at a Bible college there, I did some teaching in a high school, a little bit. And so just under there, straight two years, pretty much, pretty much, yeah, it was Yeah, straight two years. I came back, I guess it was in September of 2012 to look at homes. I had that weekend look in nakati. At the time, I'm like, What is this nakaty place everyone's talking about? So in September 2012 went under contract on a house in Green Leaf Village, and had no idea what I was doing. And I remember we had, like, a $250,000 budget, and we went up to because the first house, you know, wasn't gonna be ready on time. And then we looked at one in Walden Chase, and it was under contract now. And so this one in Greenleaf village was a $264,000 for 2500 square feet, and I'm like, we are blowing our budget. We could have had preserved for like 8000 more. No, I'm not spending $8,000 more on Preserve. Oh, man, yeah. So anyways, that I didn't really know what I was doing, but hey, we got another great time.

Tracy Hayes  16:17  
And is there any other industry where we Hindsight is so 20s, what

Austin Preik  16:24  
would you have done three years ago if you knew today it was gonna look like today? Yes, one of what am I gonna look back five years from now at today and wish I was doing today? So that's, that's how I'm trying to think.

Tracy Hayes  16:35  
You know, I did a little short. Yeah, I was doing some shorts yesterday, and I've got to put it out. No, I don't think I put that one out yet. Just say you've got to get it you got to get into the inflation is only going to cause housing values to go up now. Hopefully inflation flattens out, but the values aren't, you know, if they do go down, they're going to take one step down, to go two steps forward. So you got to get it all and rents so high. Anyway, you've got to start working in in obviously, I know a lot there was, you probably saw people started really jumping on the marry the house, date the rate, right thing. And like, No, we're not telling people to buy houses they can't afford. That's not what we're talking now, I would recommend some young people, you may want to go over onto the over into Clay County or Putnam, where you can buy a house, but you got to get in the game. You got to get down the game of home ownership, because that's where a lot of wealth is built from the equity there. And then, who knows, in three years, you could turn around, and now you have a down payment. Now your job maybe is paying you more. And now you can move to Naka T and that sort of thing, but you got to get engaged. But yeah, the 2020 thing. So you're doing that, you so I want you to, I want you to, kind of finish up on your ministry, and then, because you enter real estate, what in 2017

Austin Preik  17:50  
Yeah, it was 2016 I think I got licensed, and actually, like started doing real estate work in January of 2017 numbers a little fuzzy.

Tracy Hayes  18:00  
So what led you, yours, because you're back here, 2012 ish, and what, what goes on and then, kind of like, who entices you with real estate?

Austin Preik  18:09  
So I got back here, I did work with a with a church for a little bit. I won't spend a lot of time in that. It just didn't go awesome at the end. Not just, I just don't want to go all the personalities involved into the but I got out of that and started another business where I was doing events. So I had a I had, like, a game truck and a head laser tag, and we do all this mobile stuff. And it was awesome, and it was fun. Now, you know what? Because I think I remember, and I remember seeing that on your LinkedIn, and I believe I remember seeing you probably in my neighborhood, did you see that? Did you originally see that franchise? Because it

Tracy Hayes  18:45  
was a franchise. There was a franchise. Mine wasn't a franchise. Yours wasn't a franchise, but when I originally saw it was on Shark Tank. Okay? Some, some couple came in and they were promoting that they wanted to franchise, that type of franchise, that type of thing, where you you had all the games you could put out on the field, but then they also had the, you know, the trailer or the truck, where the kids could go in, and you had multiple screens and play video games and stuff to come over birthday parties and things like that. But I almost immediately, after seeing that on Shark Tank, all of a sudden, I saw one in the neighborhood. So I don't know if

Austin Preik  19:17  
that was ridiculous activator or whatever. You know that it comes top of mind. Yeah, so I did that. It was, it was cool. But, you know, equipment breaks down, and the things you don't see, like, all these consoles have to be updated all the time, right? And imagine if you've got like, eight of them now, and you got to go to your house and drag the the Ethernet cable out and just update that one and update that game, and update that game over and over. And cleaning things and stuff gets tears, and your driver hits a curb, and all your stuff ends up on the floor, and you get out by new stuff. It's, it just wasn't. It wasn't a lot of weekend work, a lot of weekend and evenings. And, yeah, exactly. So that was, I sold the equipment for that business. And a lot of people had said, Hey, should try real estate. You should try real estate. You try real estate. So I'm like, Fine, I'll try real. State and Well, lo and behold, it's been a pretty good fit.

Tracy Hayes  20:03  
So who'd you? Who was your like, the first person you like really met at that time that you kind of pulled you through, or you just, you just went blindly and went and got a license without even

Austin Preik  20:13  
talking to him. So my friend, my friend, a blocker. He he was one. He had been working, he'd worked in real estate before. And so he was, you know, not really guiding me along, but at that time in my life, he was, you know, one of the voices that was like, hey, yeah, you should definitely give this a try. And then so I got into, I did my license. Gosh, I took my time. I did it online. I did it over a course of, I think you just had John Brooks on. He, think he said he did his in a week. Yeah, I was like the opposite I did mine. And over, like, from June till, I know, I finally got licensed in November.

Tracy Hayes  20:47  
I've had some people openly admit they failed the test several times, right? Took them that long as well. So in you initially, initially, go to Keller Williams, yes, yeah. What was your attraction there initially? Because I really feel, especially with with new agents, or, like I said, agents that are maybe just joined a brokerage and don't even know, really know why they joined that particular brokerage, maybe their friend was there, or something, that it's so, so important to really interview, you know, interviewing the broker, obviously talking to some agents that already do work there, and how things work, because not every every broker is the same, and not saying that one's better than another, it's just some people fit here and some people fit better over there. So what kind of led you to Keller Williams, yeah,

Austin Preik  21:34  
so, and I will say that when you're a brand, brand new baby agent just starting out, you kind of feel like, like you're interviewing, like you hope the broker accepts you. Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm gonna take you for the moment.

Tracy Hayes  21:47  
Chances are somebody will, but no one's gonna offer you a salary. So don't worry about

Austin Preik  21:53  
That's right. So I ended up at Keller because there was a particular team there that I decided to join, and that was, again, it was just a friend and said, Yeah, I heard about this team. You should go talk to her. And I didn't. I didn't do any research, really. I was like, oh, good enough for you. Good enough for me. I'll go give it a shot. Exactly. My wife says I'm impulsive. I say I'm spontaneous, but we'll just have to agree to disagree on the particular language we use. But I tend to, like, make a decision and go for it. So ready, ready, shoot, aim, ready, fire, aim. And so I joined a team, and actually it was with Alyssa Ricks was on the team at the time together. So that was cool. I think she was, she was there a little bit before me, but team culture was kind of cool. But I just realized really quickly that in that particular case, all teams are different. I was building that team's database and not my own. So at the end of the year, I plan to spend a year at a team. I was like, shoot, I'm not gonna have anything for myself. So I was like, not quite right for me. But, you know, moved away from that. But the good

Tracy Hayes  22:51  
thing is, you get some, bet, you got bats. Got some, got you got a couple at bats.

Austin Preik  22:55  
I was only there, I think maybe eight weeks. Oh, okay, all right. I did get some at bats, though, and got some great habits. I learned, you know, how to, how to circle prospect, how to call how to, how to do a lot of great, great things. I have no regrets at all whatsoever joining that team. It was, I got a lot of value from it. So the and being at Keller was cool, because they've got just some really great training like you're a brand new agent. I had an office I could go to and attend these trainings and learn from other agents. And I remember, like, this agent be up there teaching, and they'd kind of show the behind the scenes in their in their database, and you're like, oh, they have like, seven transactions going. This is mind blowing and amazing. And you know now you're like, okay, yeah, that's, that's that's the way it's supposed to be. You should have transactions going and whatnot. But that was, that was a, it was a cool experience. Well, I think you would agree that,

Tracy Hayes  23:47  
you know, now you've been around long enough, you know, all these people that I'll mention, obviously, when you think of teams in Northeast Florida, or at least I do in my exposure, you know, there, and there's great teams with a lot of different brokers, but I can name three right off top of head, and they're in their Keller Williams team. You know, Christina Welch and Cece and Sarah Rocco. And each of those ladies run their team differently. So if Keller Williams is where you want to go because of like you said, but you want to join a team, you may want to sit down, and there's other teams in other is you want to match. How is that team actually run? It's not, they're not they're during due off Keller Williams's book. But it's Sarah's vision of that. It's CeCe vision of that. It's Christina's vision of that on how they actually are building it through Keller Williams's plan. So they're not the same. And obviously all three of those ladies are totally

Austin Preik  24:42  
different person well, and I'm sure they've all modified and made changes over over the years in time too. So like I was at Keller when I met Josh Rogers and linked arms, locked arms with him, and joined his team at the time, Select Property Partners. And then, and then Freck said we couldn't use property or partners in our name. Right? So, and we had heard that you're gonna have to have a name, so we switched to Josh Rogers team, and we're kind of in sort of slowly switching to f3 homeless.

Tracy Hayes  25:09  
I saw that. Tell us f, what does that represent? Faith, family and freedom? Oh, okay, okay, family freedom.

Austin Preik  25:15  
Yeah, there's a lot that goes into each of those as well. But yeah, you know it's, it's kind of a slow, a slow rollout on that. But so, but again, so that was a whole other, whole other team. I think Christina CC us. I think we were 123, at that Keller office at the time. And so, again, another completely different team. And even even f3 Josh Rogers team slash Select Property Partners from the time I've joined to right now we look like completely, completely different.

Tracy Hayes  25:44  
Yeah, so obviously, I wanted to expand on, on that part actually, let's, let's hold off, because I want, I really want to dig in, in from your eyes. I know, obviously agents are bouncing around, moving around right now and then, you know, trying to figure out what fit is and what the fit is for them. And we'll dig. I want to dig explicitly about exp, but you as an agent, so you're initially, you initially, your couple months at this first team, you end up going over to Josh's team. What are some of the challenges that you were seeing in that first six months? And you know, did Josh help you get out of it? Were there other coaches? What are some things, some changes that you had to make, or maybe a mindset, or those challenges as you initially got started?

Austin Preik  26:27  
Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm a big believer in finding a good team to start with, and the primary reason is even just to get, I think, do you say at bats or the teeth experiences? So I was on my own for a little bit, and kind of a funny story, at least funny to me. My wife had known Josh at Trinity fitness. He was a trainer there that was one of his, one of his, what you're doing in life anyways, right? He was, you know, but it was a great referral source, yeah. So Josh was working there as a trainer, and knew my wife, and he knew I was in real estate, and I think he was building this team, and I think his wife was like, You need to get a couple dudes on your team. And I think that's my qualification. Why he reached out to me is because, because I was a dude, he reached out to me and he's like, Hey, Austin, do you want to have a cup of coffee? Talk about being on a team? And I was like, Absolutely not. I don't really want to do the team thing, because I just I had been on one, and it just wasn't a good fit, right? And I just like, I don't want to do the team thing. But I started thinking about, man, why? Why am I so opposed to the team? And it wasn't really about, you know, Team stuff so much as myself. I want the show like, I'm Austin. I can do this. I can, you know, build this myself, and I'm going to be I'm going to be awesome. The ego was getting in there for sure, right? And so I remember as a Friday we had that conversation. I called him back Monday and was like, You know what, let's sit down and talk. Let's have a cup of coffee. And of course, I don't know if anyone out there knows Josh, his response wasn't, yeah, let's do it. It was like, Well, what changed? Why do you want to meet now that coaching, I thought about it. I thought about it and and it was my ego, for sure, so and I'm so glad I had that cup of coffee, because was able to lock arms with some really great people with Henny. Can't remember who else was there at the time on the sales side, but we, we dove in, and immediately I was getting good habits put in place. I was getting good training and coaching, and I was getting I was getting reps, so we were doing a ton of new construction. We would still do a ton of new construction, but back then, Josh was like the guy on YouTube at that time, and some other people have have definitely come into that space. And it's awesome, because all ships are rising with the tide. But man, we had so much YouTube business, so much new construction that I think I went my one of my first months there, I had like, five or six contracts. It was just, it was just crazy. It was like baptism by fire put into it, and getting, just getting a lot of reps, a lot of experience, and just happy building.

Tracy Hayes  28:57  
Are you buying? Is he buying leads at this time or no, do we just

Austin Preik  29:01  
we've never really been we've dabbled here and there with, you know, buying some stuff here and there. So really, a lot of organic YouTube at the time, interesting.

Tracy Hayes  29:12  
So explain in here. Here's why I'm asking this question. Obviously, we talked about, I finally got my YouTube channel up here a month ago, and I've gone around and I seen some other agents. There are some agents that have YouTube channels, and if you go on them, they might have a half a dozen videos, and they were all done two years ago. You know where they they did it. They did a handful of them.

Unknown Speaker  29:36  
And then you've been looking at my channel, haven't you? No, I not

Tracy Hayes  29:39  
looked at your channel. I did not like I I asked some others envision in there, but I think you would agree, because anyone wants you, because I want you to kind of explain to everyone what the how, what is a YouTube lead in your definition? But we have so many of our people coming into the area that. Are coming from out of state, and when you can put stuff on video walking around the community, I mean, I know Josh does a lot of that, where he's walking around the house, or he's walking around, you know, wherever he's at and people can see where they're buying it, because people come into a neighborhood, they see a house, they maybe they come back and see the second time, and then they're they're buying it, and they haven't spent any time here. So if you're up in Michigan or Connecticut or whatever, and you're looking to buy here, and you can actually see videos of people walking around and hey, this is what downtown St Augustine looks like, and that sort of thing. Even though you've been there, you now have an ability to look at it video wise, because maybe you didn't take all the pictures when you were there at the time, or whatever it is, but the they're searching. And YouTube is a huge search engine. Obviously, if you go into Google and search a particular agent, or obviously, if you have the keywords, which I'm sure you have, beacon lakes, and you're someone church, beacon lakes, you're going to pop up in there and your videos. So explain how Josh was tipping into this a little bit earlier, and obviously getting you guys lead, these people were literally getting his information by watching a YouTube video. Is that? Yeah, 100% so just like we talked about before, people recognize you, right? You're the excellent in real estate podcast guy, right? And so it's the same

Austin Preik  31:22  
thing with video. I mean, we do a whole video one on one that we've done trainings with, for people, for agents. And video is amazing. Video is evergreen. It's working for you 24/7 and people will get to see you so they know in you, liking you and trusting you by the time you talk to them on the phone. I know what happens to Josh all the time. It happened to me once with Margaret, if you're out there, they're in California, and she's like, Dan, come to the phone. I'm talking to Austin. It's him, you know, like, because they've just watched all my, all my content on on Beacon lake. So that's, that's pretty cool. So it's, it's being consistent, and it's putting video out there. And I guess what you want to do is put yourself just in the shoes, or, I guess the put yourself in the bed of a buyer. That sounds wrong, but when you're just imagine your buyers laying in bed and they're up at night worrying about something, what are they worried about? And start making videos based on those right? So things we just take for granted. People are worried about alligators. People are worried about hurricanes and storms and so just starting to think, like to take yourself out of all the stuff that you're used to, and don't assume anything, just get really basic, really simple, and start putting stuff together on on, you know, if I was moving to Florida from California, what are the questions that people are going to have? And start making videos about that stuff, right? And then the other side of it is to borrow a page from Gary V. Can I mention your

Speaker 1  32:45  
competition on here? Gary V? Now, I wish Gary V was my competition. It's it's

Austin Preik  32:51  
document don't create. So someone calls you and you're like, why do I need a pre approval before I go look at homes? That's a great question. You're going to answer it, and then you're going to get your phone out and you're going to out and you're going to shoot a video on your phone and and post that thing. Because if someone asked you that, other people are going to want to ask that. So just, you don't have to come up with content and be super creative. Just document your day. And whenever stuff happens, just, you know, make it, make a little video

Tracy Hayes  33:17  
about it, right? And even, even if you answered the question, send them. Send them that you could send them that link to that video. Maybe you did that same video last week. You send them the video to back up what you just said, and now they're tapping into your other videos. Love it, and now they're creating a relationship with you by all the other information that they didn't realize you already have out there, and in the realization of the the YouTube world, or your social media world, particularly YouTube's great because it's like, this podcast, it's out there forever. Apple is far you can go on. People did podcast, three podcasts back in 2015 those three podcasts are still out there. They don't go in and, like, clean them out, so they're they're still in there. That YouTube video is there forever. I mean, how many times you've gone on YouTube to search about anything and you're looking, hey, I'm watching a video that was made three years ago that now has multi million dollar million hits on it, and because it's giving out good information, and like you said, why you need a pre approval? I mean, that hasn't changed since I've been in the business 17 years. The same reasoning, same answer is going to be given. So to put that stuff out there and show, obviously, again, the perception. But also, like I said, I think I said, with Al Nicoletti, you are becoming the expert. I haven't told this story in a while when I, when I was starting a podcast in the spring of 21 I started really purging on on different podcast platforms, and I came up with the massive agent podcast. I came across a Dustin's show, and he was interviewing a gentleman from Montana. And in Montana, they have a lot of people from California wanting to move there, and those people from LA think they want to live out like away from everybody. But what they don't realize is there's. Cell phone service. It snows, so you need a plow and all this other stuff, right? So he had just dealt with talking to a couple California showing them this house 20 miles outside of town, so literally, like there's nothing there. They thought that's what they wanted, you know, coming up from LA and so he just said, You know what? I'm just gonna shoot a video. And that's what he did. He stopped on this stopped on the side of the road. And if you watch this video, he's got the mountains in the background, it's just the road that goes on, and then it just disappears, right? And he shoots this video from his phone, and it goes viral hundreds of hundreds. He's probably, I think he was actually 1.7 million views. I think actually at the time, when I by the time I heard and saw it, and now he is known, and after he's even added a book since then, he was telling his whole story. He is, you know, now, that perceived expert of Montana. And he has these videos you want to move to Montana. This is what Montana looks like, and this is what you in these and he had pictures of bears and stuff. Like, you're gonna, you know, we talked about alligators up there, they're talking about bears and other things. But his, his video went viral, and that's the whole point of it. And it's out there. And anyone moving to Montana, the information hasn't changed, because he did it two years ago. It's still the same, still, still dealing with bears and living in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service, and,

Austin Preik  36:21  
yeah, and I love, I love the point that he shot that on a cell phone. How many people out there raise your hand if you're like me and you like the new gadgets, and you like to, you know, play with tech and all of that. But there's this conception. I see it all the time with new agents that are like, well, I shoot videos, but I need to get a gimbal right, make everything steady shot. I need a drone. I need, like, nice microphone. I need all this. I need all this stuff. All that is, is procrastination. You need your phone. And arguably, the fewer steps you have between shooting something and posting it is much makes it much closer to actually getting done. I don't know, yes, how many videos I have on a little SD card right now that I shot him on my SLR, I shot him on my drone. I shot something cool. And because I actually had to take that chip out and put it into the computer, it just never got done. Shot it into another video to make right? And then you're then you're like, Well, that was six months ago. That's not a good video anymore. I'm on to this thing now shoot it on your phone and post it from your phone. Just, just do it. Just get it done. I figure the enemy have done right?

Tracy Hayes  37:24  
I agree 100% with you. I was talking to someone who was a videographer, actually, last night, and we were talking, everyone's doing the class like, Hey, you got to do video. Got to do video. You know, I did that class on October 21 you know, after my 100th episode. You know, CeCe was there talking about creating content, because she's big into that. And I had Aaron Salem from Round Table, really, and where I know we had a room full of agents, we're telling them, go, Hey, content, you gave me some accolades before you know the consistency. You gotta just keep doing it. Keep doing it. And I realized that a lot of agents, they want to do it. But like you said that, that was a very great advice. Post production, minimize, try to make it all fancy, and take all this time. Because if you do it does take a lot of time. You won't do it a lot, right? But you can shoot the phone. Shoot it with your phone, put it on a little stand, or, I mean, you can that. You can prop up the phone if you wanted to. Or, you know, there's people that are really good at just holding it out there.

Austin Preik  38:25  
Most of my videos is like, you see it flip around and I talk, and then I flip it back around again.

Tracy Hayes  38:30  
And, yeah, I would recommend this to a lot of people. Get a little lavalier mic. Those are very inexpensive, just because you sound good in that and talking to media people, especially in the podcast world, you want your sound to sound good, otherwise, people you know won't. So that would probably be the only little additional accessory beyond that. You don't, you don't like you said. You don't need that fancy gimbal. I mean, I don't know this. Does Josh use a well, because he does do a lot of walking and talking and that, I imagine he's probably stepped up to that. So he's, he's five years, six years into his video career well. So a,

Austin Preik  39:04  
he's earned the right B, he still shoots a lot on his phone. We shoot video all the time on the phone. So the best camera is the camera you have with you. And then he's also to the point now where he doesn't have to do his own editing. So you know, you if you're doing your own editing. So here's the problem with making a really pretty, really pretty perfect video. Is the next video you shoot. If it doesn't look as good, you're not going to want to post it. So I don't know if you've run into that before, where you make something, you find some new tool, it's like, oh, my next one has to look as good as that one, and that one has to look better and better. And soon, yeah, like you said, you're doing one video a week, where you should be doing 15, because, like, 15 videos that are actually existing out there are going to perform a lot better than one video that looks maybe pretty great, but it's just one video.

Tracy Hayes  39:47  
Would you one, one piece of and actually, I want, I oftentimes want, to reach out to a lot of agents when I see their videos on Facebook, either showing a house that they're they just listed, or whatever. It is to actually be in the video at some point, not necessarily the whole thing, but be in the video at some point. I love that.

Austin Preik  40:07  
That's great advice. And so this is, this is also one of the biggest pieces of advice that Josh gave me early I remember shooting a video in front of the beacon light monument there. I don't know why I just adopted that neighborhood way early on. They were just putting it up. And I remember kind of squinting at the sun a little bit, and I've got my camera. I've got my camera out, and I'm like, Yeah, everybody and, and I'm trying to think of stats, and my face is like, this, the whole time I'm shooting this video, and I'm giving all this stats, and I'm frowning the whole time at the camera, and Sun's in your eyes, yeah? So even if you do want light in front, but, but just the idea of just stop and smile right now. Just, let's just smile. I like smile. Like smile.

Speaker 1  40:46  
Yes, you're on the camera. I bet you.

Speaker 2  40:51  
I bet you. 50% of the people watching is just smart. They just

Tracy Hayes  40:54  
smiled and laughed. Yes. Well, I really believe if you want to make an impact on someone, is especially in in a lot of short term video, wheels are the thing. Now, right? What gets people to watch it over and over again is to get an emotion out of them. And if it's laughing, that is the number one thing you want, you know, to get them, you get someone to laugh. They're going to watch it two or three times. They're going to laugh, and then they're going to show they're going to forward it to their friend say, Hey, you got to see this video. It's really funny. That's but people do those things on those reels, the not the informational reels that you and I do, but the crazy reels that that people go viral on, are creating an emotion. And I think, I think it's that endorphin that you get when you smile and you laugh. And by getting that reaction. People remember it and then want to see it two or three times and obviously share it with friends. So my point with the real estate agents is they want to see your face. They want to know you're human. They your they read your caption at the bottom says, Hey, this is a great you know, listing it whatever has this many bedrooms and blah, blah, blah, but they want to hear you that would Carl Sona with streamline media, who I wear their shirt and they do my thing. He said there was a study Harvard, MIT, or whatever did this study, and the sound of your voice is is important. So having real audio on there versus, you know, you know, just music playing or something that actually you talking people are it sets off things in the from the psychology standpoint, well, you

Austin Preik  42:25  
bring that up and you talk to agents, why aren't you doing video? We talked about all the equipment, all the gear, we talked about creating or documenting versus creating, because coming up with content is one of the reasons people aren't doing video. But another one is I don't like the way I don't like the way I sound and how you sound on video is how you sound anyways, to us all the time, and it sounds different to you. But just get just get over that fact that decides that's how you sound when you're talking in the world. So you're not making any changes there. Then how you look. Don't worry about it like you look. Right? Who you are. You're a beautiful person. You Lord, put you on this earth, if I can do it, yeah? If. Tracy, yeah, exactly No. Man like, and go, like, spend some time looking through some of the big YouTubers. Like, are they super attractive people? Not necessarily. There's, you know, there's all there's all kinds out there. I have, I have, well, one of my sales partners I'm gonna not pick on but I'm just gonna talk about how amazing Henny is. And I saw today, she just posted a stats video for St Johns County. And I know in the past, one of her, one of her pushbacks on video was she has an accent. She's from Hungary and Josh and I would be, oh my gosh, that's so amazing that you're from Hungary and you have this accent. It makes you stand out. You're super memorable. And is it's works for you, but you just have to get through that. And thankfully, she's she's there, she's shooting video and having great success with it. But someone might say, Oh, I have an accent, or oh, I have I wear glasses. I don't wear glasses. I do this. I don't do that. It doesn't matter. Just put content out there and just be you. Just for Melissa, I'll say, You be you, boo. And just just produce. Just put it out there. Be consistent. Yeah, we mentioned earlier the Canadian a and, you know, that sort of thing, and her having a Hungarian accent, and I literally posted a reel this morning on my YouTube Sure, I think I actually might have put in a Facebook reels as well. Jocelyn Reyes purdell With now united real estate gallery. She really grew up in Puerto

Tracy Hayes  44:24  
Rico for so she only knew Spanish when she came to the States, and she had to learn English, and she becomes a real estate agent. She was struggling to learn the language, while also being Rookie of the Year at that exit real estate gallery. Love it, and she had found that she was building relationships because of her social media presence with other people around the country that obviously were had Hispanic could speak, were bilingual, so someone speaking Hungarian and having that accent, you don't know who you're creating relationships with, because, oh, you know, my grandmother was from Hungarian. And she sounded just like you. You don't know who's out there in bonds with that. And obviously, I think a lot of you know we're all as Americans. We're attracted to the you know that the James Bond and the British accent, or the Australian accent, is just our two that that we seem to be attracted to. And you'll always remember. You don't forget, but you don't know, because they're hearing your voice, and then when they see you in person and hear your voice, how that brings

Austin Preik  45:29  
it all together, exactly, yeah? And you get to stand out, you know, just in the Yeah, you're not all camouflaged, yeah, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  45:37  
You don't know who you're creating that relationship. I don't know what to do with my hands here. I just they say, in this shorts, like, make sure the person's hands are up there too. What do you do before we get when we're gonna go into exp What do you do personally, obviously, with your master's degree in divinity, reading was probably, you know, a big part of that part of your life. But what are you what are you doing today to stay sharp, whether it's just for for enjoyment, but obviously, you know, staying on top of things. Are you a podcast listener? You you book reader, industry journals. What do you like to dig into to keep sharp?

Austin Preik  46:12  
So, yeah, I do. I read a lot of read a lot of books, and I tend to switch, you know, I'll read a couple business books, and then maybe do something more theological. Still, is still into that side of things as well. Do some podcasts. I'll be like, really gung ho. Listen to a podcast for binge for a while. For binge for a little bit, yeah. And then it just kind of falls off, and I'll dive over to something else. And that's where I love, love Audible. I love 1.3 times speed, you know. And you can get through things a lot more quickly. And then, you know, in the Kindle or whatever, just reading in paper, still, I saw the book, if something I want to highlight a lot, then I like having the paper copy of it. And if it's really, really good, then you can listen to it and read it at the same time and just really soak it all in.

Tracy Hayes  46:55  
You know, I've never done that. Are they actually reading verbatim out of the book? Because a lot of times the author is doing their own

Austin Preik  47:01  
narration, yeah. So it's verbatim, except for in this book, they might say in this audiobook, but they'll do with the Kindle, you can actually have it like it highlights the words as it's going on, this on the same cue audio. Okay, so it's like you can learn so much quick, more quickly, maybe, I don't know,

Tracy Hayes  47:17  
since that's being triggered to remember it. Okay. Hey, folks, this episode was produced by streamline media, the number one media company for helping brands generate content that converts I knew I wanted to start a podcast to reach more people and bring value to the world, but I did not have the time or the knowledge. Streamline media became my secret weapon to building my show. They handle all my back end work, production and strategies to keep my show going strong. If you're in the real estate business and looking to make content that generates more leads and brings in more revenue, check out the streamline media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to real estate excellence. All right, so you're at Keller Williams with Josh. I imagine Josh was initially someone approached him. First, I would imagine, I don't know, tell us a story how you end up at exp, right?

Austin Preik  48:11  
So, again, Keller Williams was awesome. We started feeling like we're hitting a bit of a ceiling. There it was. Didn't feel like it was offering us at the level we were at what we were looking for. And then, yeah, Josh had been approached from a couple different people at exp. And so yeah, the story of how we got to exp, for me is Josh went there. So I went there. It's, it's pretty simple, but there's a guy named Clayton gitts up in Virginia. Dude sells like 600 homes, has a mortgage company, like, he's got all this stuff. And then Matt Plummer, who is the financial, probably the best financial coach in the US right now, for real estate agents, he and Josh joined together at the same time. So it was just, it was just made a lot of sense. And, yeah, I guess I don't have, like, the big why we joined from the from that point in his mouth,

Tracy Hayes  49:01  
I think, well, a lot of Asians, obviously, probably have heard the a spiel from EXP and so forth, and but what were some of the things that you that triggered you? Were two or three things, right?

Austin Preik  49:12  
So I'll tell you. I'll tell you what I love a bit exp. And first of all, if you've heard about exp from someone not exp, you wouldn't go to the Ford dealership to learn about Ferraris, right? So anyway, I'll leave that there. But the beautiful thing about exp is there are, there's like five, six different ways to earn income while I'm out doing what I'm doing anyway, I'm out selling houses, and there's a lot of other benefits to the other ways to make money. Last year, at the end of the year, I was able to, because we get ownership, I was able to sell some stock. I bought my wife a brand new Honda Pilot, bought my daughter a used Mini Cooper, and it was all cash, and we just was able just to sell stock that I wouldn't have had if I was doing what I'm doing anyways, somewhere else that's pretty impressive, super attractive. But all of that, I don't really want to go into all the nuts and bolts of it, but because. Is there's financial alignment between agents. So I mentioned Clayton gets Dustin. He's in our organization as well at exp, and what it's done is created this financial alignment, has created this culture of sharing. And what I mean by that is if, if I wanted to get Clayton's playbook, and I was at another brokerage where we weren't really connected in any meaningful way. He didn't really have skin in the game for me to do better. He probably wouldn't take my phone call. I mean, he probably would if I was persistent.

Tracy Hayes  50:30  
He's a great guy because you're from the same or general brokerage, right, right? Yeah, same general

Austin Preik  50:35  
brokerage, someone like that. There's a lot of lot of very successful agents, a lot of awesome people that could help me with a podcasting as you just mentioned, Dustin. Dustin, yeah, doing really good remembering names. But because, because there is financial alignment, it's just created this culture of sharing where Clayton has an interest in Matt and Josh and me, and anyone I have at exp, I've got an interest in them succeeding. And it's, it's, we all want to. Most agents anyways, I think tend to be pretty giving, tend to be pretty excited to help people, right? But there can be a tendency sometime to be like, I'm going to give you this part of it, but my secret sauce, I'm going to keep this over here, right? Because I don't want to, you know, help my competition, even though you can give them everything, and probably people aren't gonna do do it anyways. It's it's simple, but it's not easy, right? But because of this, this alignment man like Clayton's excited to pour into us. He's got a training this afternoon, a planning from noon till 5pm he's got a bunch of different super successful agents on on planning for 2023, so that's available. There's so much available, so much training, so much, you know, guidance, blah, blah, blah, I could send you a video about

Tracy Hayes  51:46  
it, so it sounds like and the real, one of the big things was diversity of income, you know, because I, you know, talking to every agent, they'll all tell you that everyone's got, you know, the education and, you know, in technology, right? Education and Technology. I went over there because of education and technology. Okay, well, that's what the that's what the last agent said from the other brokerage. And, yeah, so I, you know, that's all, I guess, in what you see in your mind. But obviously not all brokerages have a diverse way of making income from that standpoint. So making that joke is, I mean, five years ago. I mean exp is pretty in an infantile stage here in this area anyway.

Austin Preik  52:29  
Think we had, I think brokerage wise, we had 4000 agents, something like that, nationally, not, not internationally, total, like in the whole the whole brokerage now, you know, we're in 20 some countries, and we're 8890 almost 90,000 agents right now, just five years, six years later.

Tracy Hayes  52:46  
So with, I mean, in Northeast Florida, though. I mean, besides you and Josh and the few people that you were initially, how many others

Austin Preik  52:53  
were, it was pretty small at that time. I think I remember it was mid 2025, I think Chris snow got in around then maybe a couple other people. But yeah, it was definitely, it was definitely tiny. Yeah, I don't have access to all the, all the records, some research on, on market share and all that. Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  53:11  
So there was a handful now, obviously it's grown exponentially at this point in a number of agents that are under exp. What are some different ways that exp, you because you had the diversity. Some some people different. Some people are like true recruiters. I've heard some stories of guys that are they're guys that have started podcasting to simply do get the word of EXP out and recruit. And they're making checks and living in Puerto Rico. I've heard stories like that. But that's not everyone's not recruiting. Some people are just exp because of the stock or whatever it is. So what are some I guess, did they really break it down? Like, Hey, these are some lanes that you can take?

Austin Preik  53:50  
Yeah, absolutely. So as far as what a brokerage has to offer, exp, of course, again, top notch training, top notch training. And it's live training, but it's in the cloud, so you don't actually have. You can keep your PJs on and check in. You can still raise your hand and ask questions and interact with people. And a lot of it's done by a very successful agents. We we have the opportunity in our

Tracy Hayes  54:12  
do they do a lot of panels, or do they actually have it's more like classes. I've been an anti panel person lately, so I'm just putting Oh, are you anti panel? Yeah. What's that you like about panels? I feel for the most part, at least recently, and not gonna say, like every one, but it's gotten overdone. Some of the marketing people at places that you and I know have suggested to stay away from panels. It's been overdone. And I think there's certain individuals that are seem to be on every panel, and I know one of them that you and I know her and I joke about it. How many panels are you on this week? And we talk, and we were on a panel together recently? Yeah, I think you've done several, probably, and feel that if there's not truly a subject matter, you know, like if you. We're going to have a panel of these are three agents that are killing it in YouTube, something, something very distinct, and we're going to spend an hour talking about it and in different ways and how to get started. And, you know, some, some real nuggets of knowledge. But I think the panels have gotten to the point where, hey, we're having a panel, and we're going to talk about the market conditions. Yeah, at that point it's just a it's now, it's just, hey, the sponsor is putting some food and drink out, and these popular agents are going to be there. So if you want to hang with the WHO to who you want to show up, but you're not really learning anything. You know what I'm saying? I've really feel it's gotten that such a because I see some of the it could be the marketing of the panel itself, where they are not actually creating an event. When you create an event and you want to push like you got to be there, or you're going to miss out, type of attitude through your marketing to drive people to that event, but those people need to leave with a nugget, or they're not going to come back to the next time.

Austin Preik  55:58  
You right? I I agree with that. Actually, I feel like panels. I was on one recently where just the questions were such that I just felt like I was talking about myself. I don't want to sit up there and talk about myself. I mean, I wanted to come and bring nuggets. So I actually there's a couple times where you hear me be like, Does anyone care what I have to say on this? But I was like, Really, Hey, are you gonna ask a question about, like, a real strategy that I give? Okay? I'm gonna steal this question, and I'm gonna just, all right, everyone get your pens paper out. This is how you do. And I went over some digital farming, like farming in your neighborhood, three activities that you can do and put that out there. Like, hey, take this. You could do this tonight. Go and do this. Here's three things to start off with to do and and put it in there. But if the panel isn't asking those questions, that it's Yeah, who cares about my opinion on what the market's going to do? I have no idea what it's going to do. Right? I can track trends and stats, but like, what if? I mean, who knows anyway? Well, I think I don't know

Tracy Hayes  56:57  
all the the it could be the sponsor's fault, from the standpoint, obviously they didn't create us real create a real subject, but because they wanted to make it so light that the panelists would just say, Oh, you want me. I'm popular. You want me on your panel. Okay, I'll be on your panel. I don't have to prepare anything. I just show up and it's me and, oh yeah, we can talk kind of like, you know, you could show up to this podcast. You'd have to prepare for it, because we're talking about you, right? So, you know, you and thing versus if you were, we were giving instruction today on on YouTube, we would have our notes out of everything we want to mention, or, Hey, these are three things that you want to do, so we're adding value. That's why, I think the panel, the invite, these, the sponsors, have gotten lowered the bar so low to try to get thinking that's what's going to get the panels to agree, versus asking the panelists actually prepare material that, you know, hey, can you tip on? You know, hey, three things that you do to do this, and I want you to talk about it. So it's the preparedness. And therefore, no one really leaves with value.

Austin Preik  58:00  
Cool, well, so we don't need to be anti panel that we can, let's improve them. Improve them. Yes, I agree that's, yeah, amazing, amazing panels, yes, yeah, absolutely.

Tracy Hayes  58:08  
And people who ask meaningful questions, I guess we'll agree that. All right, I actually, I shortened this, this question, I put all and I know I'll have to go back to it. But what is your mindset when you're leveraging, you know, we talked about pre show a lot, you know, doing the different wheels, whether it's YouTube shorts or Instagram and so forth. Where? What space do you like the most? But do you feel it's important that the people are putting their stuff across multiple plat, the multiple platforms of social?

Austin Preik  58:39  
Wow, that's, that's a really good question. And I would say, for someone starting out, first of all, to just focus. I for me, I'd see, I see agents out there, amazing agents that are killing it on Instagram. I see amazing agents out there that are killing it on Tiktok. And I dabble in there a little bit, but where I actually have good dollar producing activities, things that are building relationships, that are meaningful for me in the way I build my business, it's Facebook, it's Facebook groups, and it's even specifically Facebook, Facebook neighborhood groups or interest groups. That's just where I choose to put. Did you start liking my group or someone? Yeah, but someone else started and you and then someone else started another one, because there another one because there was a feud, and then we just blended them back together again. I'd have to post twice all the time now, but if there isn't one, I did start one about the same time, and and Mikey and I chatted. He's the guy that started it, and Mikey's Coastal Custom get your closing gifts. And it just, it just made sense for me. So I moved, I morphed mine into a business group in the neighborhood a little bit, and it's, it's all it's all good, but just be in it and be active on it. But pick, pick your, pick your niche, I guess, and get good at that first, and then. So, like, I've started doing a lot of reels lately, and I make them on Facebook, and then I'll send them over to Instagram. I I've thrown a few onto Tiktok, but I don't really know what I'm doing over there. So I've got, I've got a beacon Lake Tiktok page that got like five posts on it. It's just kind of feeling it out a little bit.

Tracy Hayes  1:00:09  
Well, the great thing about the reels at least, you know, and again, I'm getting this, and the company is putting making more reels, but I'm going back in a lot of my old content and creating reels at it. You can take that same reel, put it on Tiktok, put it on Instagram, put on Facebook reels and YouTube shorts. Same thing, yeah, and hit up because your body, you don't know where your audience is, and obviously, I think YouTube is probably, if you're searching six months from now, that short may pop up. It's no one's searching on Facebook. Yeah, it's not a search mechanism, but for that moment in time, when initially goes out, your fans will see it. But if, again, if it's a piece of information, you know, I did one about cdds Yesterday, you know, obviously that can be put on shorts, because people Google about that all the time, the information is not going to change well.

Austin Preik  1:00:57  
And I was thank you for bringing me there, because I like to get places a long way around, but yeah, so I would say focus on, like, really being good on one and then, like you just said, if you're making the reel over here anyways, why not throw it up on Instagram? Throw it up on a short throw it up on Tiktok, as long as you but again, as long as that doesn't become a distraction, and you're actually doing the the one that you've chosen to to focus on, and maybe you've chosen to focus on Facebook and Instagram in separate strategies. As long as you're doing that, just

Tracy Hayes  1:01:29  
do it. I'm sure you watch some of the YouTube videos, like, how to, you know, get more views, or, you know, the advice that they give, would you? Would you? I've come to the conclusion of you got to just do it. You could start trying to do some of the things they're recommending you to do, but stuff just changing all the time, and the different algorithms don't hold back from just doing even just that basic video, and getting started and getting again your at bats and getting better at doing better videos. Maybe you don't want anybody to see. You might have to do 100 videos. Get really good at it. Hundreds. Good at it. 100 shorts. Did you get really good at it? So start on that journey of the 100 to get the really good one.

Austin Preik  1:02:07  
Well, and, and, yeah, so I see, don't watch a lot of content on how to make your content more visible, for that reason, that it's my opinion, it's another form of procrastination. Yeah, that you know you're supposed to be making videos, but I want to make sure I get the most exposure and look at it the most, and so you just waste time watching all this stuff. I not say there's not value to it. You know, there's people A, B, test their thumbnail, you know, the picture on, you know, there's, there's something to be said for that. But you got to get

Tracy Hayes  1:02:35  
used to buddy. Sorry to buddy and to buddy on your YouTube tube. Buddy will, you know, help you with the keywords and so forth?

Austin Preik  1:02:42  
Oh, cool. Oh, tube, buddy. Yeah. Okay, I don't, I don't, but there's so many tools out there. But I would say, Go shoot. Make it. Set your goal. Go shoot your 100 videos first. Then you earn the right to try and tweak things and get more exposure. There's no if you're gonna shoot, if you're gonna spend all your time looking at how to do it, right, but you're not actually gonna do it, then you're just wasting time, like, shoot the shoot the video.

Tracy Hayes  1:03:02  
Shoot the shoot the video. It's like they have a second that that guy and post the video. Don't just shoot it, post it. It's like I was talking about that guy in my just went and shot that video in Montana, and he just rattled off a bunch of stuff that, obviously he had been experiencing talking to buyers wanting to come to Montana. As you mentioned, a buyer asks you a question. Oh, that's a new one. I didn't have it. Let me go on in, in put it out there. And I think the realization, I tell a lot of people, again, your friends and your family, and even there's people that that are out there that may hear your Hungarian accent, for example, are attracted to that. There's some people that they're just they're not looking at they're they're hearing your information, and your voice sounds good to them. It doesn't pierce their ears. You're you. But we don't know. There's gonna be people that are gonna like us and people don't like us. The people who like us don't care if we stutter. I mean, I can go if I listen to every one of my podcasts. As soon as it comes out, I listen to it, and I'm picking up on other things. And I have had people say, Oh, Tracy, you sound so so great. And I'm picking up because I can tell you right now, when I turn my head on the microphone, I can hear it when I'm listening to it, the average person doesn't pick up on it, but because I've done it so many times, now I know when I thought, or I will. I'm thinking of a statement. You know, I'm listening to my guests talk, and a question comes in, and I'm suppressing that question because I don't want to interrupt them. I want them to finish their thought, and then I want to come out with this, this great question, and my mind is spinning that I don't actually complete my sentence in conversation. Most people you know you and I just we fill in the blank. But when you're listening to it on audio, I can hear myself doing I do

Austin Preik  1:04:45  
the same thing, yeah? And earlier, like, you know that guy, and I stop, and then you start thinking, and your mind goes somewhere else, yeah, sound like Joe Biden or something,

Tracy Hayes  1:04:57  
not that bad, but you. We are critical of ourselves. Your friends and family are not that critical of you. They love you. They expect you to stutter. They expect you to mispronounce words, as I do all the time, and but they'll love you, and it's the fact that you're doing it. They love you

Austin Preik  1:05:14  
that much more. I love that. That's that's as you were talking. I was thinking of some other things to throw in there, but you took it home right there, and so, well, I have a coach Hank and he likes to point out that whenever you do anything, if it's you know, worth doing, you have 30% of people that don't care about you, maybe 33 I'm just gonna make the math work. I'm gonna say 30 30% a third are gonna love you, and a third are gonna hate you. Anyways, yeah. So when we're out there and we're doing our goofy videos, Josh always says we'd rather be cool and and broke or cheesy and rich, right? And so he's back being cheesy, having fun, doing what? Just let your own personality come out. And some people aren't gonna like you, and that's okay. You're gonna be trolls. There's trolls on the internet. Oh, news flash. Just forget them. Block them, like my block button is, so it's so quick to use you. I got a big list of people just because, like, I don't want that negativity. So if they're not your fan anyways, and they don't like you, who cares? Just don't even worry about them. Just keep doing what you're doing. And 30% of the people out there aren't going to care, and the other 30% are going to love you, and they're going to be your tribe, and they're going to know like and trust you, and they're going to come and give you the business. And do you really want to work with that? Like, if you're if say you're an upbeat, happy person on your videos, and so that put that puts someone off. Do you want to work with that person? Maybe not. Let's save that for the agent that's a little more the high D, or maybe just not into having fun.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:37  
Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt when we walk in a room, there's certain people we see right away. And we are, we are our own psychological thing creates, you know, you know that's an approachable person. That's not an approachable person. I don't your mind already does that for you. And like you said, that's that third that says that, you know, they may look at you and, you know, I had a boss one time say to me, he said, you know, you're and he was a big guy, too. And I said, you know, we walk into a room and immediately people are on a defensive position. And even though we would probably give our shirt off the back before anybody else doesn't to help anybody, we have to actually express that where you're just simply by the our mere presence, right? So our, whether we're big or we're skinny, we're fat, we're, you know, our skin color, whatever people automatically have those. Don't throw those. Don't worry about those people. Maybe they'll come on later, you know, who knows? But, yeah, there's, there's enough core group that love you.

Austin Preik  1:07:33  
Well, yeah, there's gonna be people that hate what you're saying right now, and then three years from now, they're gonna be like, Oh, shoot. I remember when Tracy was saying that. I remember when Austin was saying that, and they're right, and then they become fans, right? So everyone's moving through their own journey at their own pace, and people might come around, well, it

Tracy Hayes  1:07:49  
just, I mean, just Samir, obviously, you reach across the room, and was so we, I mentioned Missy Meyer earlier. She's down in Riverside, open office down there, and she's talking about being a liaison and for the business people to the the homeowners down there in the community. And I guess for years, she said they really there was this, not necessarily business versus the homeowners, but there just wasn't a sense of community in her mind. At least, she's gone down there and they had this event and blocked off the street, and more people came than than she even expected, and it was great. And she just found that people were not just going across the street and saying, Hi, who are you? You know, what do you do? Where are you from? Type of thing. And it's built a community as as we see in our in our case, I'm on St John's golf, you're in Beacon Lake. How it's, you know, those, those communities, they they, they bond pretty quick. They do. And if you have a knife, those people who do participate in the Facebook pages and so forth are awesome. All right, I want to finish up here with a couple key things that I get a lot, or hear a lot from the agents that I've had on how important is education and staying abreast of the market. As far as you know, whether you're going down to the board to get an education, whether you're going to an exp event, how important is it to consistently be taking in knowledge? And obviously, you guys have a lot online from your instructors.

Austin Preik  1:09:10  
Yeah, it's it's critical if you want to be able to give, then you have to have something to give. And you need to keep building that up, replenishing that storehouse, so you have things to give to people. And so, I mean, even if it's as simple as looking up the market stats for a specific neighborhood, and that's the most valuable 15 minutes a month that I do is a market stats video for beacon Lake, and you might make one for your neighborhood, for St Johns County, for whatever that is, but that's, that's a little bit of education. But there's also, like, the self improvement. How do I get better at speaking? How am I becoming a better now, sure that's

Tracy Hayes  1:09:45  
changed over time. How you even present that material, right? You sharpen yourself. Yeah, yeah.

Austin Preik  1:09:50  
100% and that's trial and error. And you try stuff and some work, some doesn't, but again, just do it. Don't, don't even worry too much. Exactly, because

Tracy Hayes  1:09:57  
you have to get out there and start doing it. Then you're going. To, then you're going to look at it. Oh, you know what? I could bring in a PowerPoint like, you know, some of these the things about YouTube now that they're saying, if you want people to stay, it's about, you know, keeping people on the channel is, you know, you start, you throw in pictures and so forth. And you get better at that stuff. You're not going to be able to do that right away, unless you already edit video, right? But you got to start doing it, create the video, and then each new video, you can add a little new little twist to it.

Austin Preik  1:10:25  
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so, so, but that's a good point too. Like educating yourself on how YouTube works, how how to make a video, how to do basic editing, if that's what you've earned the right to do because you made video, of course, being better negotiator, better at contracts, things like that. But my, my that's that's helpful for our clients 100% but my advice to new agents, any agent, really, is get better at finding customers. Yeah, you could be, you can be the best agent in the world at the contract, the best negotiator to the best all of that. But if you don't know how to meet people and have real estate conversations with people, then you're not going to help anyone anyways, because you're going to be go broke doing it. If you you could be a terrible agent. I don't recommend this, but you're really good, like having conversations with people and meeting people and getting business. And you're going to, you're going to thrive, at least financially for for a time anyways.

Tracy Hayes  1:11:17  
So Well, either as you reach a level, as I'm sure you know, Josh, you guys have reached a level where you have those people who are really good at having those appointments. And you found there are really people that are good behind closed doors in the cube and can do all that other stuff for you type of thing. But you said you have prospecting, obviously number one, what? What is something? And I know you do your market thing each month for beacon lakes. But give us another nugget of what's something you do consistently in your business that you feel moves the needle.

Austin Preik  1:11:47  
All right? So, yeah, well, the digital farm. So that would be beacon lake. I also have what I call social media hit list, and it's a it's an activity that I do every day in either my beacon like group or just on my Facebook page. And it's basically, it's so many likes, so many comments, so many messages, so many friend requests and a post, and I set a stopwatch when I do it, and so I know when. And I've asked Josh, I'm like, Hey, give me accountability on this every day. I'm going to send you three numbers. One is follow up with my VIPs. We'll talk about that. One is social media hit list. And that second number I wrote, it'll say like 1310, 13 minutes, 10 seconds. I've done it in under seven before, and I screen shared it just to show it could be done. And then follow up is another thing that I do. So following up on your stuff that you have floating in your database, people may be forgotten about, or, you know, letting things fall through the cracks. Or maybe someone came to an open house and you entered their contact but you haven't reached back out to them.

Tracy Hayes  1:12:50  
So you like, maybe, like, Hey, I'm gonna call 10 people a day, or 20 people a day. Do you have a number like that? Because obviously that number can be fluid.

Austin Preik  1:12:58  
So for follow up, that's, that's, that's a timer for me. I'm like, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes doing follow up. And it seems like a crazy low number.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:07  
So if the first person picks up and you talk to him for 10 minutes, that's good. You're good.

Austin Preik  1:13:11  
I can be Yeah. I mean, I've accomplished what I want to do. I know my math, math is the path, and I know that if I do then I'm getting my goals. So yes, I can, but typically that rolls over into more time, right? Because as you're doing things, I don't just spend 10 minutes a day doing that, but if I only spend 10 minutes a day today doing that, and then I have to go do showings, I have to go to other things, I still win the day because I did what I have to do, the big rock. And then for me, the conversations is more following up with with my VIP.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:43  
So VIP, yeah, define that, right? So I'm

Austin Preik  1:13:46  
really, really, really, really big on, well, first of all awareness, so knowing who are the people that you're in your life, in your sphere, and your past clients in your database, that your person base, who are the people that know, I can trust you or, you know, give you business. And so some of my time is spent figuring, and then awareness around what are the activities I'm doing that actually are producing dollars for me, right? And then, so the big thing is subtraction. I I gotten really good at and helped a lot of agents get good at removing things from their business and from their daily activities that they don't really need to do. We do a lot of agents out there were like, We want to tell our spouse, man, I was really busy today. I got a lot done, and really it was nothing that's actually going to produce money. So it's not really that helpful. But we want to feel like that we're being busy so identifying what actually makes us money, and doing that first, and doing that well, and streamlining that, and getting rid of the chaff when it comes to activities. But a lot of that, like, a lot of people want, like, you just keep growing your database bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I did that for a while, and you get, like, 3000 people. I know people have 30,050 1000 names in their database, whatever, the more people I had in my database, the more. More stress I would just feel in the background. Couldn't quite explain it, but it was always like, I've heard you talk about this before, yeah, okay, there's always like, like, a weight pressing down on you, like, I haven't followed up enough. I haven't contacted people. I got 3000 people I need to keep up with. The moment that I subtracted and I got myself down to 300 people in my database, like, my life. Well, well, maybe some of your drip campaigns might dot, dot, dot. Yeah, maybe, maybe not. But I'm all about quality of life too, and the fact that I can just enjoy dealing with the people that I like dealing with, and knowing, knowing the people having relationship with, with people I'm doing business with. It's it's more fulfilling. And I know exactly like, Man, I get to, I get to spend this month. I'm writing a lot of handwritten notes. And so who am I writing those to? Well, I know who I'm writing those to. I have categorized people as, you know, VIPs or A's or ones or whatever you want to call them. They're just people that have referred your business or will do business with you, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:16:00  
And I think, would you just thinking about your your vision, there, your mindset on that, that the other 301, plus, you know, those people who aren't you, haven't referred your business, aren't hot to trot, aren't in a position. You know that that again, maybe you talked to three years ago and you've been emailing them and you haven't talked to them, or maybe they've never responded to it. You never responded to an email. Yeah, and that sort of they're going to see on so they hopefully, if they're, if they're still interests, or whatever you're doing, enough social media that they might capture some sure for you to focus yourself on. That is taking you away of really spending the quality time of touching those true rocks that may have treasures on them. Yeah, 100% Yeah. How important, because I know when we mentioned Melissa earlier, you guys were in the same Group at Keller Williams for a little bit. How important is it to surround yourself with successful people. If you're going into exp that you go and hang out or talk to or get on the webinars that are being produced by the top people, and put those people. They don't necessarily have to be physically near you, but they're near your ears however they get there.

Austin Preik  1:17:18  
Yeah. So what is it? Jim Rohn says you're the average of the five people

Tracy Hayes  1:17:22  
you hang out with, yes, cornerstone of personal development, right, right?

Austin Preik  1:17:25  
Yeah, and so, and you can talk about that in a lot of different spheres of life. So if I want to be a better husband and father, then the people I want to hang out with are going to be people that I respect and look up to as husbands and fathers, right? If I want to be a better real estate investor, I need to hang out with more people that are investing in real estate, right? And if I want to be a successful agent, I want to hang out with other people that are doing it and that are successful agents. And that's why I love that the team that I'm with is we've surrounded ourselves with, well coached, really good, really good people. But then, like you said at exp as well, we've got just this, this expanded umbrella, but even within there, it's, it's important to really choose to hang out with, because you can have people that are tending towards the negative. What we see with our kids, right? You know, our kids the friends group, the friend group they hang out with, if they're hanging out with people that are little, you know, luscious, terrible or mischief, right? That's where they're gonna go. You look at, look at, look at the friend group, and you can kind of predict probably pretty accurately where that kid's gonna go. Yes, right? And it's the same with us. So Josh and I have always talked whenever we talk to new agent, but agents in general is we're like, Don't ask what Don't Don't worry about the splits. Don't worry about the, you know, the office. Don't worry about where they can make copies, or, you know, that kind of stuff. All you need to care about, especially as a newer agent, is training and mentorship. And so someone that some people are going to come alongside you, teach you how to fish and hold you accountable. Because the teaching, even, like most of us, we don't need more information. We need to use what we already know works and actually do it. And so that's where you know, a coaching relationship is super important. A mentorship relationship is super important. And like you said, that doesn't have to be in person, like we're doing this here, right now, right? We're on. We're on. I don't know. We're live on Facebook and YouTube and recording it. We have zoom, and we have WhatsApp, and we have all these ways to talk to each other in our pajamas if we want. We're actually not wearing pants right now. We just it was pajama day today. So you said it was pajama day, then that's the most important thing is, yeah, the people that you're the people that you're hanging out with, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:19:38  
What do you love most about real estate? I love the so

Austin Preik  1:19:42  
it's not showing pretty houses that's that's cool and all. I just like, I just like being able to build relationships with people. And I like the I like the wins. I like the trust me, I like the easy wins. I like it when a transaction goes smooth,

Tracy Hayes  1:19:58  
their first house, they make an offer. Make an action,

Austin Preik  1:20:01  
it's done, and, oh no, it's not cash, and they have a great lender, and everything goes smooth, and, you know, and so on and so forth. But there is something satisfying, like when you're in the trenches and and there's tough negotiations and problems come up, and you're able to, like, Slay those dragons and take care of it. At the end, we're all bloody and tired and we've been mad at each other, but now we're all friends and we have camaraderie, and was like this deal together. Yeah, that's That's amazing, too. So I love that aspect of it, of having the challenges and being able to push through them.

Tracy Hayes  1:20:37  
If you were talking to someone who's thinking about going into real estate, or maybe your child or someone close to you, thinking about going into real estate as a career. And you look back, what would be one thing you would tell them, I always put it as the biggest mistake, or just something like you did, like I did that. I don't recommend that you do that.

Austin Preik  1:21:00  
I mean, on some level, I wouldn't recommend most people try to go solo immediately, although there's something to be said for going solo, feeling that pain and then joining a team. People that just go and join a team right away, they haven't experienced that pain out there. And anyway, so that's going to be different for different people. But I think, I think it's, it's really about self belief that you could get your real estate license today and this afternoon you could go talk to somebody, if you present yourself in a confident way, they're gonna fully trust that you could help them with the real estate deal, even though you've never even done one like filled a contract out before, right? So it's just that self belief and be in that whole say yes, yes, yes. And then, and then work hard and figure it out, and get and align yourself with people that are going to help you write that contract. So then it's not even a big deal, right? If I know I'm talking to you and and I don't really know squad about contracts at this point, and I they decided to go look at houses with me. And I don't know how to work the lock box, but I've got people that will show me how to do it and walk me through it, right again, that that training and mentorship, right? That's, that's what I would say.

Tracy Hayes  1:22:07  
So the biggest, the biggest mistake in your eyes that an agent can make, if I can translate what you because you spend it to a positive, is to avoid the noise don't get don't allow yourself to get down. And if you are do feel yourself getting negative, like, I can't do it, that you need to call out to someone like yourself, or someone like Josh and, and, you know, someone that's on your your coach and, yeah, it's a patch on the back. Kick you in the butt and put you back out on the street and keep, keep moving forward.

Austin Preik  1:22:37  
Yeah. So right there, ask for help and, I say that with a little bit of like, little bit of vinegar there, because it's so frustrating to watch people struggle. And you offer them a life rope, and you're like, hey, look, let's have a call. Let's talk. I have another agenda here. I just want to we'll come up with a plan. We'll give you some things to do, and you go, take that and do it. And you know you can help them, but they just don't, for whatever reason, want to take you up, on, on, then I'm not saying I or us, or we have the answers for everyone, but

Tracy Hayes  1:23:07  
this is an ego you think that holds them back a little bit.

Austin Preik  1:23:11  
I think people are afraid you have a different agenda. Like, why is this person gonna help me? Where, competition, where? And it's not, it's, it's, maybe it's like that for some of you, it's not like that over here, or Yeah, like, No, I can figure that. And I, like, I admitted to that earlier in this interview, like, that's why I didn't want to even have a coffee with Josh. Initially, it's because I wanted to build this myself. I don't need anybody, and I want to show I can do this. Well, nobody can do it by themselves. So ask for help. Reach out to just, yep, well, reach out. Reach out to me. Reach out to somebody in your in your organization, in your sphere, your broker just always be asking for help.

Tracy Hayes  1:23:47  
Well, I mean, just simply by asking, you know, if I was starting in the business and to reach out to someone like yourself or Josh has been doing it a while. You've had your at bats, you've you've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and that sort of thing. And especially some of these agents who, you know, right now as we have a kind of a, you know, I wouldn't say, I'm not using the word downturn, but a slowing of what's going on is everyone kind of like, what's going to happen with the economy and all this kind of stuff. Those agents that were here in 2008 and nine to talk to them and how they persevered through that time period. And obviously the smart ones, a lot of them, one that I've had on the show that, like, jumped into foreclosures and short sales, like, right away. Like, well, that's just what we got to do. And they went in and learned how to do it. And now, now you're got to learn some of those other things. Maybe it's like, well, last couple years I haven't had to do any social media. I just got business. Well, now it's slowing down. Maybe I need to do my social media, because when the doors open up again, as they will, because we have such a demand here in Florida, I don't see it dying anytime soon. You're You're guns are loaded again, you're refreshed, you're energized. Now's the time maybe you take that vacation, or take that trip, because when it's feast or famine, when it's feasting, to. Time again, you're gonna be like, Oh, I can't leave town because I might miss a deal. Well, now's the time to recharge those batteries, get your social media in line, get your CRM and actually start going back to those 300 people, because you probably neglected them in the last few years with the way businesses but to spin it, to deposit, because it will come around. Agents will leave. It's naturally going to happen. We tell everyone to do social media. We know only a small percentage will, but we'll, we're, we're still going to keep, you know,

Austin Preik  1:25:29  
charging the hill. We talked about this earlier, before, before we went live. We talked about, you know, we do this stuff because we like it, and we're doing it. And it's a, there's a book, chocolate, carry water, but it's, it's just about enjoying the journey, enjoying doing it. And we don't always see the results right away. Like, you've shot over 100 podcasts, podcasts, and you know, where, where's the tipping point, where's the where's the tipping point where it's like, you're the number one guy in Jacksonville, you know, because of because of this, or, you know, you're giving, giving, giving. You're making reels, or you're making all these videos on YouTube. Josh shot videos on YouTube for a full year plus before he got one lead out of it. So what if he was three months in and he was like, this doesn't

Tracy Hayes  1:26:15  
work, three videos. And a lot of people go three videos. I mean, the podcasts are, I initially had that attitude when I kind of started in, when I saw other people in town, like trying to start a podcast, but what I realized is they have different ideas how they do their videos, or what they want to put on their videos. Is different than you you're going to attract different people. You know different people than I do. We have two different circles. We have some overlapping circles, but there's other, lot of other people that you know you, but don't know me, and vice versa, and you're there's plenty of business out there. But I did have that initial like, oh, I can't believe he's starting Pia, but you know what? I have personal development. And I said, You know what? And I called another podcaster in town, Al Nicoletti. He's a probate lawyer. I'm learning from him, I'm gonna go into his studio and how he does it. He's talking about, we have a lot of overlapping people. Obviously, he's a lawyer, I'm a loan officer, so, you know, we're two different services that we provide. But to go out and reach out to other podcasters and learn how they're doing it and getting it doing it better. There's plenty of people to listen and they do it differently. They're going to talk differently. People are going to be attracted them for different reasons. I like learning. I get a high off, you know, I think it's a personal development book. Every time I have a an agent like yourself on here, I'm learning your story. I'm inspired by it. I get new ideas. Are going through my I feel refreshed, you know? And that that's my eye out of it. They're going to get a different high because they're a different person, right? So, you know, help them out, exchange ideas. He sees, meets other people. So I go on forever for that, but, but you're right, don't they're not other agents or collaborators. There's gonna be people that select you as an agent because you're wearing this nice sweater, Tommy Bahama

Unknown Speaker  1:27:55  
shirt. So I can, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:27:59  
you got your, you know, facial hair. You know, I officiate football, and this kind of joke in the college levels, we're talking about is the salty hair. When the coaches see the guys with salty hair, they figure, you got experience, right? Okay, it's the same thing. When you know that person looking for it, they might be looking for that young lady who's 25 years old, okay, if that's what floats their boat, but they may be looking for the more mature guy with the salty hair to lead them through

Unknown Speaker  1:28:25  
more mature nicely put, yes,

Tracy Hayes  1:28:29  
you're not as old as I am. All right, two minute warning questions. Last two questions, what is your favorite thing to do in Northeast Florida? What do you do when you're not doing real estate like just specifically to Northeast Florida? Yeah, because I like to sell lifestyle, kind of like beacon lakes and the cdds. I talk about lifestyles and those things. That's why you choose the different communities. What's the north of East Florida lifestyle that that you enjoy?

Austin Preik  1:28:50  
Well, I was good. I was gonna go for the go for doing Jiu Jitsu. But, well, hey, we do have a great community around here for that. But as far as I mean, Northeast Florida, man, it's all about being outside. And so we've got the beaches. We've got my wife and I. We love hiking. Now, I will say she's from upstate New York. I'm Canadian. We don't love the heat. So we do love this time of year, although it does make me a little angry in December, when it hits 80s. But, you know, we made the choice we're going here, but yeah, just the ability to go out and and hike, and there's so many trails and so much nature, so many and you're not gonna get chased by alligators everywhere.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:30  
Get all really within, I mean, less than an hour, there's a endless amount of things,

Austin Preik  1:29:35  
endless springs. Yeah, it's so much you could do here, yeah, but if you're, if you're an outdoors enthusiast, All

Tracy Hayes  1:29:40  
right, last, last, final question I asked on every podcast, almost every one of them, is it more important who you know or what you know? And why?

Austin Preik  1:29:49  
Well, who you know? Because they can, I guess they can teach you the what and you know, well, I mean, just the proof is in the pudding. You see it all the time. Where. Ask people how they got such and such a job or went to such such a career. And a lot of times it was they knew somebody that gave them a shot, and then, you know, they learned it as a as they went. But I'm a big who, you know person. I'm a connector. I'm a big believer in I actually time block every week for people I'm in like, a preferred business partnership with, like, businesses that are referring me business. I actually have time blocked every week where I'm trying to think of ways to bring them value and bring them business. And as soon as anyone's like, Hey, do you know? Do you need someone for XYZ? It automatically just wired in me to be like, Yes, I need to connect you with this guy. And you guys should know each other and just connect. Connect. Yeah, I have a lot of group texts on my phone,

Tracy Hayes  1:30:42  
Cole, Cole slate. Put it really well. I actually use it as a real you know, be that, be the resource, be the I use the term concierge because other agents have used it. I summarize it with the concierge, be the I got a guy person, be that resource, especially as a real estate agent. You know, these new people are coming in. They don't know where to go for this or that or that or the other thing. Hey, you need a painter or whatever you've got, you got the I got a guy,

Austin Preik  1:31:05  
Cole does that so well, if he, if he says that, then I'm on board.

Tracy Hayes  1:31:09  
We talked about YouTube so much. Give it to tell everyone your your your channels. Where can they find your material?

Austin Preik  1:31:15  
Mostly find me on Facebook. And it's not even it's just my personal page, Austin, price and then p, r, e, i k, e, i k. Like the song called McDonald e, i e, I O, and there's only 1e but it rhymes with bike. And then the YouTube as well as slash Austin prake.

Tracy Hayes  1:31:32  
And I think it's important. And I want to end with this. Go on Austin. Obviously, I want you to go and subscribe to the real estate excellence podcast. Click the bell, which I'm very proud we are evolving video, you know, podcasts, YouTube, you want to go back and look at some of his oldest stuff. Look at some of my oldest stuff, the videos. You just got to get out there and do it. And if you're watching this episode today, you're like, Oh, wow. This is really polished. Go back and watch my first episode. Go back and watch the first video,

Tracy Hayes  1:32:02  
whatever. Go back and watch the first video.

Tracy Hayes  1:32:05  
I'm frowning, but hopefully that will give you motivation. So whether it's Austin's, you know, his at YouTube, or YouTube at awesome, just go friend me on Facebook. Just Google it. Just Google it. Your YouTube page, I'm sure comes up, but just do it. But on that, on that note,

Austin Preik  1:32:21  
it's just really quick to, just to cap that off, you're gonna suck right now, but nobody's watching you anyways. So right now, while you're practicing suck, and you'll get a little bit better, and you'll suck a little less, and then you'll get, like, decent and people aren't, people aren't seeing your first stuff anyways, unless they go back and re watch episode one, your mom may see it. That's right, Your mom may see it, and then once you're starting to feel comfortable and proficient, that's when you have an audience anyway, so don't even worry about it. Just shoot it, post it, shoot it, post it, shoot it, post it, shoot it, post it, just do it.

Tracy Hayes  1:32:51  
Austin, appreciate you coming on today. Hey.