Becky Cady Turner: Stay at Home Mom to successful Real Estate Agent

Tracy Hayes  0:54  
welcome back to real estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, Today's guest has positioned herself in one of the hottest markets in the country, aka nakati, Florida, but most of us here, we call it Ponte Vedra. She is a proud mom of four young men, two of which are United States Marines. I met her a couple years ago when she had taken a little side step from the real estate for a short time, but she returned over a year ago and is on fire. She Hayes from South Dakota and now resides in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a much nicer, more pleasant climate, I would say, let's welcome from the Katie team of Becky. Katie Turner, welcome to the show. Thank you, Tracy. Got all that Katie out of there.

Tracy Hayes  1:41  
I'm glad you can make it down today. You know when I started the podcast and looking for people and then learning a little bit here in our little pre show conversation about you, everyone has a unique story and and your story is even gotten even better as we've been talking along here and your ideology, I think a lot of people are going to be, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't say they're going to be shocked, but they're just to hear your philosophy on real estate, your philosophy on sales in general. Or, you know, I would just to say as a human being, for that standpoint. But Becky, tell us, where did you all get where'd you get started? Where'd you grow up? I was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I have one older sister and three younger brothers. My dad was a yearbook rep for her Jones. So he had the territory in Sioux Falls. They transferred him to northern Florida in 1986

Becky Cady  2:44  
So he moved us down here. So I have been in the area, in the whole Jacksonville area, since 1986

Becky Cady  2:35  
us kids were very, very happy.

Tracy Hayes  2:39  
No problem, dad. Was that a promotion? I would hope it was.

Tracy Hayes  2:51  
so we were talking a little so 1986 I can imagine you, because you moved, you move right to Ponte vra. Is it we moved more toward the Gainesville area. Okay, so you were on the other side of state a little bit, okay. I was gonna say, you know, how much this area has grown up just in the last little over a decade that I've been in, the area has grown up. But even to go back, you know, well, almost 30 years before that, what, what was St Johns County, 30 years ago, other than downtown St Augustine, you know, when you really think about it,

Becky Cady  3:18  
it was incredible. It was completely different the he did all the schools in Jacksonville. And shortly after that, we opened up the family business of Katie studios, the photography company. So our office was in Jacksonville, St Augustine doesn't even look the same. Yeah, Jacksonville doesn't even look the same. The pictures of us as a family, you would not even think it's the same city,

Tracy Hayes  3:44  
the Katie studios with the photography to kind of work, along with dad still doing the yearbooks.

Becky Cady  3:50  
Yes, we, we opened up my brother opened that up. Katie studios right at the office on 210 so it's very close to where nakati is right now. And they would do all the class photos. It started very small, and he would do the yearbooks, and then it grew into a very large family business studio here in the Jacksonville area, one in Austin, Texas, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and several in Georgia.

Tracy Hayes  4:16  
Wow, that's awesome. So your brother's any other family members involved in that? Or is your brother just pretty much run that now?

Becky Cady  4:22  
My brother, that? Now, my brother, and all three of my brothers are the owners of that. Oh, cool. And then a lot of their children work there.

Tracy Hayes  4:28  
Oh, that's great, that's great. That's interesting. And there's something there, yeah. So post high school, what's going on you? Where do you graduate? Where'd you graduate from? You end up graduating from,

Becky Cady  4:41  
I graduated from a private school, okay, moved around so much. We were in a private school.

Tracy Hayes  4:46  
Okay, so post high school, what's your vision? What's Becky thinking she's going to do in life?

Becky Cady  4:52  
I wanted to be a mom. My dream, my entire life, was to be a. Mom, okay? And that was my target. My goal is to be a mom. Because

Tracy Hayes  5:04  
your oldest now, if I saw correctly on your social media, is 2727 27 Okay, and then you had, you had four boys

Becky Cady  5:12  
all together. I did. So it was a great it was crazy.

Tracy Hayes  5:15  
What ages? What ages are we now? 27 to 2725

Becky Cady  5:19  
20 and 18, and the

Tracy Hayes  5:20  
18 and the 18 just went into the Marine Corps. Yes, himself.

Becky Cady  5:24  
He is in Camp Pendleton, California. Awesome. And then the 20 year old is in Okinawa, Japan. Yep, tell

Tracy Hayes  5:30  
me a little bit about that. There was a little interesting we just talked about right before we went to recording. He went over to Japan in 19, 2019 and he's pretty much more or less stuck there right now because of covid?

Becky Cady  5:43  
Yes, he went over there. He has a four year contract. So he's over there for four years. He was supposed to be able to come back for Christmas or come back when some leave time, some leave time to see his family, right? And he has not come back since November of 2019 Wow. When I asked him when I'm gonna see you again, he said, Mom, I just don't know.

Tracy Hayes  6:06  
All right, do you guys? You guys? Facebooking, not Facebooking, but FaceTiming?

Becky Cady  6:10  
Yes. I talked to him three times a week. Yesterday. He sent me a message early in the morning. Said, I love you, mom. Just makes everything okay, right? He said, Mom, you had me till you were 18. My time, he just got pinned Corporal. Awesome. Two weeks ago, great. So he's now a corporal in the United States.

Tracy Hayes  6:29  
I did see that on your Facebook page, and I know you're very proud of that. You talk about that, and you have your boys all over your Facebook page. I met you a couple years Well, it's been amazing, because last year to me, just like, didn't even when I when I go by, when's the last time I saw somebody? You know, I'm like, Oh, that was like, was that pre March of 2020, or was that all the way back into 2019 I probably was back 2019 probably since the last time I saw you in social or something. But when I first met you, you had gone in done a little bit of financial advising with a Northwest mutual, right? That's correct, so, but you had been in real estate

Becky Cady  7:06  
for a little bit before that? Yes, I had been there for about a year, about a year.

Tracy Hayes  7:10  
What made you think about jumping or tasting, what financial advising was like? What was your thoughts

Becky Cady  7:16  
there? Real Estate is very, very broad, and it's, I mean, there's so many agents real estate is what? What is real estate really? Is it just buying and selling and grabbing a quick commission, making great money? There were so many real estate agents. I took a pause, and I went into financial advising, and I realized what it really means when someone buys and sells a house, what it does to their portfolio, and it's really a big deal. It gave me a lot more insight to correctly help somebody there. It's not a car that they are going to be able to trade in, for the most part, it's anywhere from a quarter of a million to 1 million, $2 million it's a lot of money, right? And you need to treat it like that there. This is a really big deal for them.

Tracy Hayes  8:09  
That's interesting. You say it that way when I also added, because we talked about the human part of it and caring and so forth, the part where, even if it's $100,000 home, that's the home where, for most people are bringing their family up, right? There's memories there. They have other family and friends visit them there, or know they live there. That is, that is them. Their house is, is part of them. Their

Becky Cady  8:38  
home is their identity. It's a big deal, right? It has a lot of memories. So whether I'm helping someone buy their first home or buy a home, there's a reason. There's a story behind it. Either they've had a family member pass away, they have their kids move out like mine, there's a lot of emotion. Whether they're downsizing, buying a new one or selling, there's a lot of emotion involved, no doubt. And my oldest son, he's 27 he's a contractor in Gainesville. He also has his real estate license. And so when he first started, he called me, and he was like, Mom, what do I do? How do I get into this? How do I how do I get some sales. And I told him, I said, you can't act like you care. He said, What are you talking about? And I said, you can't act like you care. You have to truly, truly care, people know. And I said, you have to be able to walk into a room and be able to read the body language and listen, because if you listen to the story of why they want to buy or downsize or why they want to sell, you can correctly help them. Don't ever, ever calculate your commission until you get to the closing table. There's a chance you might not get to the closing table. People right? Something may happen. It may be a tragedy. They may change their mind. You can't be upset. They can feel that it is about someone other than yourself.

Tracy Hayes  10:13  
Well, I mean, yeah, obviously you want to express your care, but you're right. I mean, when I see and you know, dealing from the loan side, obviously we generally learn, they generally tell us a little more personal. Well, I guess what would be considered personal for their financials and so forth, and we learn about their pains in life and whether or not they're gonna be a good borrower, you know, from that standpoint. So there is a lot of emotions in there, and there's a lot of people that want to protect the they ask. Why? Why are you guys asking for all these documents? Well, one, because compliance and investors want to know these little things about you, so they really feel they are exposing themselves. And you do, you have to expose yourself to a certain level. And then from the emotional side, there's nothing people get emotional buying a car, correct? I mean, as back many, many years ago, when I sold cars, that was the thing, yeah, if you get them to get in there and smell the leather seats, they're going to want the leather seats. They may only be able to afford the cost seats. So don't go show them the car with the leather seats, because they're going to emotionally get physically attached to that. And when they're starting that process the home, they find out, Oh, this is the one I want. And if financially, it doesn't fall through, or maybe an inspection is done, and it's like, ooh, this might be a money pit, and there's a lot of heartbreak. And I now some of the agents I've been talking to, and I'm sure you've dealt with this right now, these customers that are making offers right now that are where there's 20 offers on the table, and they might not be. They're not the Well, we hope your buyer is a cash buyer. That makes it easy. But unfortunately, not all of them are cash buyer. Maybe they're a veteran or active duty. Maybe they're doing 100% with a VA and they're competing against cash buyers right now. How are you helping them emotionally like, deal with a couple punches? Because they don't get their first two or three offers accepted,

Becky Cady  12:03  
correct? I'm glad you brought that up, because it's a it's a time right now where there's a lot of emotions, and you see a lot of people, they're devastated because I met with somebody yesterday and she said, I actually don't think I'm going to get a house, and you feel that pain for them. And it shouldn't be that way, right? But you can correctly help them. A lot of times, I will go to the listing agent themselves, and I like to work with the other agent, and I will call him or her and say, Listen, this is their story. This is why they really want a house. A lot of times we win the bid if you can make a connection. It's all about making a connection and being real. You don't just send an offer in and hope for the

Tracy Hayes  12:51  
best. Expand on for me a little bit, we talked and I learned a little bit more about you in the pre interview, as I try to investigate. But you were under the radar for many years because you were home raising your boys. Yes, I was so how you know, raising four gentlemen that you have? How does that experience just go on with you here into the into the real estate world and dealing with these families coming in. Oh,

Becky Cady  13:16  
when you bring up my kids, how long do I have on your everyone that knows me knows that my kids used to be my pals and my kids, and now they're my people. They're they are the reason why I go to bed with a prayer and a smile and wake up with a smile. They're everything I live for. I wanted to be a mom since I was young, so 18 I was I was a mom. I there when they were 862, and one. It was crazy life. Yeah, I never knew what they were going to do. I never knew what was going to happen. It was all the sports, it was the swimming, it was the injuries. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. Thankfully, I was able to stay home with them, and I had an amazing time with them. Hit teenage years, and I just never knew what hit me, but when I became a mom, I signed a life sentence, yes, and it was full of tears and joy and the greatest blessing that would ever be bestowed upon anyone is to be a mother, and today I have them by my side. They're my people. They're my best friends. But it was very busy, right? But every day I would tell them to have core values, and once they got older, it's hard to argue with somebody who's six foot five and taps you on the head and says, Okay, mom. But one thing they cannot argue with me is I tell them, I said, if you want a decent future, right, you need to be a decent human. And they'll it's hard. Hard. I told my mom, it's hard to raise boys in a world where everything's okay and nothing's wrong.

Tracy Hayes  15:07  
I have to ask my wife had this concern, because our first born was a son, and fortunately, we were fortunate to have a daughter too, so she was a little worried about raising a boy. Did you have that kind of concern.

Becky Cady  15:21  
Initially, I had that concern because boys are they're wild. I have three brothers, and you never know, but I told them, I said, there's a reason you don't qualify for certain jobs. If you look a certain way, act a certain way, talk a certain way, drive a certain way life does matter, just ethically. If you want a decent future, you need to be a decent human. And I took that into my life as a mother, my life as a Christian woman, and into my business. If I want good outcomes, I got to be a

Tracy Hayes  15:59  
good person, because I know your sons, hopefully will, if they're not watching the Facebook Live, will listen to the podcast when it comes out in a few weeks. The audio version you've mentioned you've talked about three of your sons, your oldest, okay? And then the 18 and 20 year old, what's Where's number two? Where's number 225?

Becky Cady  16:18  
Year old? Yes, he has had the same jobs since he was 15 years old. Wow. He is in a management position of an industrial warehouse that is nationwide. He works 50 hours a week, and he is in also medical school. Oh, great. I've heard the teaser and the rumors nurses, but he's not going to anything. So he is, he's, he's my pal. He has been there with me through thick and thin. He has he calls, and he's the one that calls at 10 at night. Are you doing okay? Is everything okay? Mom,

Tracy Hayes  16:56  
right. So I know these boys at some time, not intentionally, have brought you to tears. Yeah, something you said. So when you get up now every day, I mean, they're finding it sounds like they're financially supporting themselves. You're, you're still mom, but now, now it's, it's you, and you've got to get up because you're still very young, and you're going out every day to tackle the real estate world, which is not easy. It is not some may think it's easy right now, but if you're you know, we talked about listings earlier. My goodness, if you're a listing agent right now, you're on double overtime with the calls coming in which bids are offers, or are the best one to present to your client, or at least educate your client on, hey, this is the good and bad and the ugly of this offer type situation. What is it that the Jew that you take from raising you know four, four men to give you that strength every day.

Becky Cady  18:01  
Today, I can actually back it up to when we first moved here to Florida, and when we started Katie studios, our hashtag was art from the heart, and we have taken that into the brokerage now, where my sister is the broker, where we live here, it has to be from the heart. Our my dad and my father would put that into us as young kids. Hopefully, I have relayed that to my children. If it's not from the heart, it's from a place that is not healthy and it will not sustain I take my personality from raising the boys and the experiences and the extreme patients. Where I care. We're part of the Tom Ferry coaching team. My sister and I and our team with Katie Realty, and we went down to one of his seminars last week. And you know when he's on the table and he zooms in on you. Oh, here we go. And so he jumped off the table, and he pointed at me, and he said, What's the most important thing about the transaction? And I thought for a minute, and he said, not you. He said, It is the client. They are the most important person in the entire contract.

Tracy Hayes  19:25  
I think there's no doubt people lose track of that, especially in the monotony, like I mentioned on my show many times. The first 12 years I was in the business, was in a call center, and you're saying the same thing over and over again. You can and especially because you're not face to face with somebody, you're on the phone with somebody with a headset on, you lose the personality part of it. They can't see you smile. They can't, you know, they can't see that. And you could get into your little bubble that it is only you and you start focusing just on you. Where I wanted to simplify things. I think probably one thing that came to my end in the call center and just getting burnt out was I'm like, Okay, it's another, I'll just say, just get this routine. How I'm going to say this, you know, they got their scripts. You read the scripts and, you know, hopefully, and you just become this machine of reading scripts, because that's exactly what those call center people are coached on. They're listened to alternatives. It just burns you out, because what happens is you're focusing on you and what you're saying, You're not listening to what they're saying,

Becky Cady  20:32  
and you can't correctly help them. You're not listening. With my listing presentations, it was the funniest thing. I went into one last week, and she said, Where's your package? And I said, I don't have a listing package. And she said, Well, okay. And I said, I want to hear you called me. And I said, I want to hear why you're selling what you would like to sell it for what you need, and I want to hear your story. And so I gave her information, left my business card, and I said, I want you to call me if you want to use me. Because I said, we want, I want to be able to work with somebody that we can work well together. And she called me three days later, and she said, You only got the listing because I felt something

Tracy Hayes  21:25  
that that's what it's all about.

Becky Cady  21:27  
That's the only thing I care about. I you can have the fanciest package. You can have the fanciest logo, right? You can have the

Tracy Hayes  21:36  
it is a nice i like that logo, though. Katie.

Becky Cady  21:40  
Katie studios, yeah, you can have the prettiest photo, you have the best sign, but if they don't feel something, you are just another transactional agent, right? I don't want to be that, right? I don't want to speak from a commission of I really, really want your business. I got to get my numbers up. I don't care about my numbers right at the end of the day. It cannot be about you. It has to be about them.

Tracy Hayes  22:08  
That just hits me there. I was just thinking of something here. We were talking in the office, I don't know, weeks ago, a month ago, whatever. And some get, some of the guys were putting together these brochures and stuff. And the brochures, hey, jet home loans is great. This, you know, that sort of thing. But it's like, what is it that they're really going to get off that? Because really the bottom line is, are they going to call you or not? The lending side, most agents don't know, at least initially, maybe after they've done some transactions, they know how good the lender actually is, but it's that first phone call. Are you going to pick up? I call you at eight o'clock in the evening, because I really need in this hot market. Need a pre qualification right now so I can put it into this offer, because it has to go in right now, because if it doesn't, it's going to be thrown to the side. Are you going to answer the phone? You know, that sort of and that's really selling yourself, like you're just just said, that is really what it's all about. You could print all the brochures you want. You can sit down with people and fancy them with all that stuff. To me, it's a waste of time, and you're killing trees. But do you really care? Exactly

Becky Cady  23:17  
the same, the same listing, when I came, she had broken her leg. She was an older woman. It was healing. And so when we were going to do the photos the next day, and so I came to check nothing had been done, right? Like nothing to the point of get up and clean the house like she want to had been done. It's a 4000 square foot home. Her husband was ill, and so I told her, I'll come back and help you tomorrow. I called my sister, thankfully, she's broke her I said, photos are next week. She said, why? I said, trust me, they're next week. Yeah. And so I showed up the next day in a ponytail, no man, shorts and a T shirt, and her sister answered the door, and she said, Lois, Someone's here to see you. And so I walked in Lois said, That's my agent. And I said, I don't look like but I am. You have to care, right? You have to care. It's like the person you said calls you at eight at night. Do you actually care that they're getting their loan or not, right? That's the bottom to stop yourself and say, This is a person who's sitting here today. They're

Tracy Hayes  24:21  
not calling you eight o'clock in the evening to shoot the ball. Yeah, yeah.

Becky Cady  24:25  
They don't know whether they're qualified or not, right?

Tracy Hayes  24:27  
Stop, and they want that house that they've emotionally got attached to.

Becky Cady  24:30  
Well, they have a pit in their stomach, yeah? Do you care about the pit? Right? Or they just a number you'll get to in the morning when you feel like it, and give them a denial because you're just so busy you

Tracy Hayes  24:41  
are preaching to the choir, Sister s or you have to feel well as you notice my sign of you read that there, how much you know, how much you care exactly

Becky Cady  24:50  
I had probably one of the greatest, I would say, blessing, for lack of better word, my, well, my oldest son is a general contractor. A second son's the manager of the. Warehouse that's going into medical school. Third is the active duty Marine. My second, my fourth. So many of them. Why did I have so many used to ask myself, What in the world you didn't

Tracy Hayes  25:15  
shoot for a basketball team? You said four.

Becky Cady  25:19  
So he's going into the reserve because he wants to come back to the Jacksonville area, where he's stationed his duty station and work right? So he called me two nights, two weeks ago, late on a Friday night because he's in California. Has no idea the time change. He was like, Hey, mom, hey, when I come back to Florida in July, I want to get my real estate license. He said, Can you help me? And I said, Yeah, of course I can. And he said, What would be the first thing I would do? I dialed right back to what I told his brother, right? And I said, Chad, you can't act like you care. Oh, what are you talking about? I said, No, listen to me. You can't act like you care. I said, you have to be able to walk into a room and read what's happening. They have to like you. You have to earn it. I don't care what you look like and what package you bring and what you put in their yard. If you connect with them, they will use you because they trust you. But I thought, you know, we I hung up the phone there's about 11 o'clock on a Friday night. I went back to my house. Of course, I wasn't doing anything but waiting for his phone call. But I thought, I don't care how pretty my package is, right, and how pretty my uniform is, that my six foot 418, year old United States Marine. Son calls me and wants to pattern his life after his mother. I just had a moment I felt like I'd arrived,

Tracy Hayes  26:50  
right? Does it get any better than that? Yeah. I mean,

Becky Cady  26:54  
does it get any better than that? Here, he's a United States Marine he wants to pattern his life after his mom, who's 46 I just had kind of a moment of arrival. Yeah, I had to. It was very humbling. Yes, for sure, was the most. It was the most arrival and the most humbling feeling in the entire world.

Tracy Hayes  27:15  
I like the fact you knew your sons. You didn't, you didn't mention college and well, the one, the one, the second one, you mentioned college, but these, the two younger ones, went right into into the Marine Corps, right out of high school, and their maturity level is going to dial up real quick. From that, I think a lot of young people tell me, you've you saw what they were just months and, you know, that's third one years, a couple years ago, where they were at maturity wise, when they come home that first time, what did you

Becky Cady  27:50  
Well, the story I will tell, they were defensive end football players. I was senior Chair of the football team at nice absolutely loved them. Those guys were my guys. I loved my football guys, but they're football boys. I mean, they're they're very high strung. I mean, they're ego, ego. They're successful, and they're 18, and they are going to go win the world and so my third one, Charles, who's the corporal, he had very good grades in in nice and he was going to UNF and I was actually setting up his dorm room, three of his friends. And he came home, he was still 17, and he came home, he's graduating in August, and he said, Hey, Mom, I'm not going to college. I was like, Okay. Anyways,

Tracy Hayes  28:39  
he walked down the street from nice where that Marine Corps recorded recruiting offices,

Becky Cady  28:46  
and he said, I'm not conveniently located. And I said, What are you talking about? He said, Mom, I'm going to join the Marine Corps. And I said, Why? Why? Yeah. I said, I want the recruiting officer to come over here. And so we came over and I said, Sir, I want to thank you for your service. But I said, you're, you're talking to my son. He's got 47 family members. Here's a paid off Mustang in the driveway, right? He's going to college, right? What's going to happen to him? He signed. He said, I wanted, I want to do this, mom. So we signed so I celebrated his 18th birthday, his graduation party and his going away party in the same week, and we sent him away to Paris Island. When I we picked him up in Paris Island, that was not my child. We picked him up and we went to a restaurant, and I will never forget for the rest of my living life,

Tracy Hayes  29:45  
good. This is good

Becky Cady  29:46  
stuff. He turned and he looked at me, and he said, Mom, how do you want to die? All 30 of us were silent.

Tracy Hayes  29:56  
Oh, you had everybody there. Everybody

Becky Cady  29:59  
to die. I said, Honey, what are you talking about? He said, Well, you're halfway there.

Tracy Hayes  30:05  
I would have probably reached across the table, slapped in the back of the head, but he

Becky Cady  30:11  
wasn't even looking at me, and he said, everyone's on their way to death when they're born. You said the day we're born, we have our exit date, right? And he said, You'll either die from natural causes, an accident, a sickness, he said, on my tombstone, and he wasn't even looking at me. He was looking off. And he's, he's 18 years old, right? And he said on my tombstone, I want it to read, Charles Turner died saving this many people. He said, I will die with honor. How will you die? And I thought he has the heart, no no military in my family, right? It came out of it's changed his life.

Tracy Hayes  30:58  
It definitely changes the trajectory of where I often, you know, people debate. Has debated the years. They all the millennials are just, you know, and we mentioned yours talk with someone, I think, you see, I talked to someone every day talks about, actually, was one of my teammates. She was in here earlier, and she was telling me about her son and going into the army, and she didn't want to sign in because he was only 17 at the time. But now how she told just a similar story, not like two hours ago, to me, as he came out of the boot camp army. And it just changes their whole maturity in projection and like now, he may still go off to school and still do but he'll probably do better. Now, we don't know that. It's gonna be hindsight to say, but he'll have a different focus. And obviously, coming

Becky Cady  31:46  
back to your focus, and it's it goes all the way back to what my father told us when we were young kids, that serve an attitude, yeah, you have to do for others, except nothing in return. Yes, you don't do something, to receive something,

Tracy Hayes  32:02  
I think, in our industry, because there you can make a very good living in the real estate industry in all aspects there, yeah, the money on all aspects of everyone involved in the real estate industry, there's, there's money to be made, and could live a good lifestyle. I think there's, I see at my age, I'll be 51 next week, and I see some of these really young individuals come in who haven't experienced a 2008 collapse, recession or anything like that, and they're just going about their day boom, you know, like this is just no problem and not understanding, Yeah, you are making good money and you really aren't working that hard. Because I've worked $6 an hour jobs with a college degree. Years ago, when the minimum wage was at they would probably pay me $12 today, maybe. But we've worked those jobs and put in the hours hoping to get promoted, hopefully be recognized, because that was what was available at the time. And of course, now you know networking what I know now I'm going to teach my son a little differently than you know, from the standpoint of networking and getting out and meeting those people, but doing the things like your sons have done now they've now can look back and they can walk into any room, and they are a United States Marine, and they, they demand initial respect. They're going to earn the rest of it. That'll get them in the door. But they've, I'm sure they've been taught as well. Yeah, they'll open the door for you. But how you come in the door Are you still represent? Because there's going to be another Marine in there, and he's going to look you up and down. The other people in the room are just going to

Becky Cady  33:40  
feel it. I think it's all about how you treat people and how you make people feel you have to make people feel like they're important. It's not you. It's not how great you are and how great my numbers are and oh, how successful I am. At the end of the day, when I walk in a room, how do I make people feel? Mom, I want people to miss me when I'm gone, and love it when they see me coming.

Tracy Hayes  34:02  
I remember where we first met, we were. It was a social, I cannot fear was Sir nefar, whatever it was. It was a social. Is where we where we met. And I've had people say, oh, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to go there. There's no one there gonna, you know that I'm gonna fit me benefit you. Yeah, exactly. That's what it was, basically what they said. And it's like, you don't know who's under the next rock. When you go out to Ponte Vedra, you can go into any one of those restaurants, and there's gonna be people walk in that look like they just rolled off the beach. You don't know whether they have a couple quarters in their pocket or they got a couple million in their bank account. You don't know. You don't know and you don't know who they know. And that's even more to me, is the biggest thing. They may not have all the money in the world, but you don't know who they know. Who listens to them and when they say, hey, they may know that millionaire that owns a house on the beach, and they. Say this dude's a straight shooter, or this lady's, you know, she's wonderful. I really spoke to her. I would talk to her about listing my house for $2.5 million or something. You just don't know.

Becky Cady  35:10  
You don't know. You don't know who you're going to come into contact with. I told my sister, when I started with her, I was initially with Keller Williams, and then she offered me a place in the company with her. And I told her, I said, the one thing I'm requesting, and the one thing that she lives by is, I said, my $100,000 buyer and my 2 million I want the same package. I want the same sign. I want the same painted wooden sign with the light, as long

Tracy Hayes  35:37  
as the neighborhood allows it

Becky Cady  35:40  
different colors. I want the same presentation as a listing package, same $1,000 photo shoot. Yeah, they have to feel like because $100,000 is more than most cars, a lot of money, right? That's all they have. We

Tracy Hayes  35:56  
know you and I know you know I'm a little bit older than you, but you and I know what our parents paid for houses and as inflation and sold it. Yeah, these kids roll out of here. I'm gonna say these guys, I want to use a general term, but I think in your son's probably fall in this category. Not saying they're, they're in it, but they, they walk out of here that they're used all the houses are all four and $500,000 No, they all weren't. My parents bought their first house in 1970 and when, actually, I think it was their second house. I mean, there was like $25,000 and you, I mean, you can't even fathom that. I mean, you came into a bathroom for $25,000 right now? Yeah, correct.

Becky Cady  36:35  
Yeah. That's what I told my kids, I told them. I said, you know, life isn't handed to you. And I said, just because you live here in Ponte Vedra, you're not going to get life handed to you either. I had to climb the ladder and fall down and I had to climb back up. So did my dad. We all had to you're going to get your jobs and you're going to work and you're going to learn respect. You have to earn it.

Tracy Hayes  36:54  
We've lived an entry where we've looked at our bank account and that was our net worth, whatever. How many couple of dollars were in there.

Becky Cady  37:02  
But you know, you're just as happy, right? Because money doesn't make you happy. I told the boys, it's a lot of green paper, or it's a little bit of green paper.

Tracy Hayes  37:10  
Just having that like you're saying, whether it's the $100,000 house or the million dollar house, you're going at it in giving them the same respect, in the same attention to them. Now I will say some buyers are need a lot more handling, as you have experienced some like, yeah, boom, boom, boom, and we're at closing. It's over like, wow.

Becky Cady  37:32  
My nightmares, my team said they want to put a webcam on me. I've had incredible experiences of just crazies. But how I get through that is I try to pretend that they have a reason. They did not. They were not born that way. Something happened, right? Something happened to frustrate them to the point where they're lashing out. It's not me. They just met me, right? I have nothing to do with this scenario. Once again, what Tom Ferry said, it's not about you. Your numbers don't matter, your outfit doesn't matter. You don't matter. It's them and their story. Find out what it is, see

Tracy Hayes  38:14  
well that when we talk, go back to the transaction as an emotional time, but usually buying and selling a home, they didn't just wake up one morning go, hey, I want to buy someone. Something's going on in life. It may be just happened. It may be just a casual your normal thing, like, Hey, we got married, or, you know, the job transfer. You know, maybe they're getting a promotion and we're going, Hey, great, you just got a promotion. They're moving you to Florida. They're paying for your move. That doesn't mean it's not stressful for them.

Becky Cady  38:41  
Well, they're they're leaving family members, right? They're leaving people. There was emotion involved. You say, Oh, they're downsizing. They must have a lot of money. Maybe their kids moved out. They're devastated, like I was right. They moved out successfully, happy. My house went from crazy to silent, right? That's not an easy transition, right? It's just not you have had a glass of wine with me. I was probably crying, right?

Tracy Hayes  39:05  
You're used to coming home, I'm gonna make dinner for them or whatever. Yeah, exactly. There's

Becky Cady  39:11  
no mess. You realize if you I always think they're not ugly against me, they're not mad at me. That's why I told my kids, if you're going to go into real estate, do not calculate your commission. You might not get to the closing table.

Tracy Hayes  39:29  
I'm laughing because you made me picture this podcast that I was just listening to yesterday, and they were talking about because everyone thinks it's all glamorous, right? We see these pictures of these glamorous homes. And we're, we're like, oh yeah, let's be a real estate agent. We're going to always go into the marble floored bathrooms and so forth. And it ain't like that. And you walk into someone in this particular house, they were, it was actually give, they were given a key, and it was in a college town, and, you know, the students. We're still using the facility without the water on. And, oh, it's just the way they painted and they dropped the key. And, yeah, so I you could picture whatever you want to picture there. Yeah, it's not all. You know. Ponte, VRA, million dollar homes, marble flooring, you know, five car garages you are going to sometimes selling homes. I was just walking into home in my neighborhood that I didn't realize somehow it's been sitting there for two years. It's under contract right now, been in a foreclosure process. I walk in there and the entire pool is full of tadpoles, and I, you know, the grass is growing up in the crap. I mean, it's like, you walk in here like, Oh, now someone has the vision, because that house is worth five, $600,000 but they're gonna have to go in here, put some elbow grease, obviously, probably spend some money renovate. They see the lighter because the house is next door, perfect. This one's just been sitting there and needs some TLC, and it'll be up there. But so it just everything isn't, all roses all the time in the real estate

Becky Cady  41:02  
industry. And truly, do you want that? Do you want that personality where everything is perfect, that's not real life is not perfect. Nothing is perfect. If people say they have a perfect life, they just don't. There's always something that comes up. I think it gives you character and caring. When you can see outside the box, you're going to help people. You're forgetting. You're helping them sell their house.

Tracy Hayes  41:27  
You're paid for, and you've paid fairly well, actually, to do it. That's what I think for, what you're well, I mean, you're paying them. I was saying that that's what you should go, Oh, I'm going to get paid very well. So I'll just you. You have to realize you're dealing with life. And actually, the end of the day, when the end of the transaction is over, we're actually compensated. I think some people moan and groan about some of these, oh, that's a nasty you know that's, yeah, it's, it's a nasty house. But in reality, that's what you do. You find someone who wants a nasty house and fix it up, build some equity for themselves and change their trajectory in life, or somebody's gonna somebody loves

Becky Cady  42:02  
that house. Well, yeah, the thing is, is it was someone's home?

Tracy Hayes  42:06  
Yes, that too. You may be representing the buyer, the seller. Yes,

Becky Cady  42:10  
you might be representing them where something terrible happened, yes, or even a house. It's all being able to read a room. You go in there and they want you to sell their house for an X amount. What do you tell them, get rid of the clutter. Do this. No, you don't. You listen to them and you guide them on what the market will support, what you're willing to do, so that there's no stress. And you will help. You will help. Tell

Tracy Hayes  42:39  
me about the Katie team. Tell me how you guys are structured. Do you do you do just listings, or you do both? Does everyone do both? How do you how do you guys structure? Everyone does both?

Becky Cady  42:49  
We are, we're a very tiny team because we're a family team. My sister's a broker. I'm her listing and buying agent, and there is three other girls in the office, two admin. We're we're very, very tight team. We all have coffee together. We collaborate on all transactions together. We have a team chat every Monday and every Friday we get on the call. It's all about humble servants. My sister got on the call yesterday, and she's the broker, and she said, Hey, I have something I want to collaborate with everybody. This happened today. What is everybody's take on it? If you can't work as a team, to come with a problem, a question, a win, we have a chat that says wins. So every time somebody gets a win, we all congratulate each other. Issues, somebody's having something. We're a team. Yep, we're a tight team, and we care. It's all about serving and

Tracy Hayes  43:47  
helping. And that flows over to your clients, because you don't you know you were mentioning me earlier. Sometimes you need your sister to cover for you, correct?

Becky Cady  43:57  
I'm out of town. She needs to be the same as me. I need to be the same as her. She has called me before and said, I'm in an emergency meeting. I'm transferring this call to you. I just roll with it. Hey, I'm Becky, Missy sister. How can I help, right? I answer every phone call, any lead I get. We don't do a lot of leads, but any lead I get, anything, that's how I answer my call. Hey, it's Becky with the Katie team.

Tracy Hayes  44:21  
How can I help that is so important? Because I think, you know, there's some of those people that get the turnover, or you're out of town, you're just, Oh, I gotta, I gotta go handle my sister's deal. I don't know what they're doing. You guys don't have that attitude. Everyone knows what you're doing. Everybody knows it. They can step in at any moment, at any moment, and sort of pick it up and go.

Becky Cady  44:41  
I've shown houses for the girls, they've shown houses for me. We have a our team is structured with a board that we have an app for where every one of us see every transaction, where it is at what point. So if I called one of the girls on my team and said I got an appraisal, she knows exactly. Exactly where it is. They have an appraisal package for me, and she'll go represent me.

Tracy Hayes  45:05  
All right, here's your here's your challenging question of the day. I

Becky Cady  45:09  
knew one was coming. It was way too easy.

Tracy Hayes  45:11  
Got drum roll from Daniel over there. Thank you. You're invited to speak some to aspiring agents, okay, and I actually, I want to, I'm actually narrow the crowd down to, I want you to talk, say something that you're invited to talk all these stay at home moms that are going to be soon, empty nesters like like you, you've become. What tips would you give them? What would you say to them

Becky Cady  45:45  
if they were to try

Tracy Hayes  45:47  
they're aspiring to be in the real estate agent or even financial ranges, getting out there and going to work in after like, how many years you were, you had your first very young

Becky Cady  45:56  
I was a stay at home mom from 18 to 42

Tracy Hayes  45:59  
right? So 42 you've now got to get out and present yourself on a on a daily basis and show up to work. Right? What would what would you say to these aspiring stay at home moms that are now at that point of saying, hey, you know, it's time for me to go do

Becky Cady  46:15  
something all my friends on the housewives of nakati. It's not an easy feeling. It's very intimidating, actually, because you are home with a ponytail, right t shirt, making brownies, changing diapers, doing football stuff, football mom your entire life, and now you have to present yourself what? What society will tell you is that you have to present yourself in a suit and a tie. And I have arrived. I'm here. This is about me. This is my qualifications. This is what I can do. This is what I've done. This is what I'm going to do. And this is people want you to be real, right? Lot of times I will show up with my football t shirt on. They know me as football mom, marine mom, and an agent who I know the contracts. I do know the contracts, and I do know how to sell

Tracy Hayes  47:11  
read it upside down. No, I can't.

Becky Cady  47:15  
I have tried it. My numbers prove that I know what I'm doing, but people want to see the real me. They want to see the selfie. They want to see the lady in the ponytail and the lady in the suit. I would tell them, be your true self.

Tracy Hayes  47:32  
Yeah, it's so refreshing that you say that, because obviously I dress the way I want to dress. I think the typical person would walk in here, think I'd be, should be wearing his jacket and tie. I think I've actually allowed this office to slowly start the mold towards me. Because I come in, I'm in Florida. People move to Florida for a reason. I wear nice shorts. I wear a nice shirt. It's it's presentable. This is me. I'm comfortable, I can work all day, and I we're putting 1011, 12 hours sometimes, but we step outside and it's 9500 degrees in humidity and so forth. If I'm worried, I'm just stop. That's not me, but I find it interesting. And Daniel sitting in on all of our shows, obviously doing this, and those in the Facebook world or in my podcast, we're starting to hear this as a theme of successful agents saying just, just what you just said. And we've heard that before, and I'm going to start tracking this now in my interviews coming because I didn't bring that out. You just said that. I didn't ask you about that. You just brought that up. But how you got to be you, and they've got to see you, whether you're the football mom or the or the are representing them, selling the home. It's you. It's not two different people. You

Becky Cady  48:45  
can't change you. You have to be if you were the mom in 20 Mile that was known for all the baking, take that into your career and try to do that. You show up with the baked goods, yes, I know.

Tracy Hayes  48:58  
Or make sure your open house smells like cookies baking all the time, right?

Becky Cady  49:02  
Never changed, right? They they want to see you as that person that they've always known. It gives them comfort. Yes, gives them comfort. She didn't change. Now she's doing real estate. She's doing well. That gives me comfort. Yes, you can't change and be a different person. Because, who are we kidding? We cannot be two people. It's the people used to say, I'm one way at work. I'm one way at home. No, you're not.

Tracy Hayes  49:29  
Yeah, no, I

Becky Cady  49:30  
travels both ways. That bridge travels both

Tracy Hayes  49:33  
ways. Yes. All right, so we're going to start to wrap things up. I mean, go to my two minute warning as a football official, I call it my Two Minute Warnings. Kind of speed round. These are just random questions. Random questions, okay, we got our okay. Is it more important who you know or what you know?

Becky Cady  49:51  
I would say who you know and how you make them feel right? Have to add that.

Tracy Hayes  49:57  
Well, you know, we didn't really, you know what when you went. You were, you were at home and, well, I guess, how long has your sister been in real estate?

Becky Cady  50:05  
She's been in real estate almost 10 years. So

Tracy Hayes  50:07  
she that was kind of like, well, let me go check out what she's doing. Was that kind of your initial introduction. I mean, you knew what she was

Becky Cady  50:14  
doing. I knew what she was doing, and I knew her team, and I knew the marketing, marketing. I mean, marketing's big in real estate, lot of most of the listings I go into their Katie studios, pictures are hanging there. And I was like, Oh, my family does those? It gives them a sense of maybe they know me a little bit more. I don't need to give them a business card, right? I asked my sister, I said, Could I do could I join your team? Because I love the marketing. I love the feeling I get for having a family business. And everybody knows me because I'm football mom, right? They trust me because I've sat at their homes, I've hauled their kids around. How much influence has your sister had on your career? She's had a lot of influence on my career. She's a really good person, and she really, really cares.

Tracy Hayes  51:03  
She got that on Facebook. We got it taped, missy, she

Becky Cady  51:07  
cares. And you can't act like you care. You have to

Tracy Hayes  51:10  
really, would you rather if you had a choice today, you could do one or the other for the rest of your real estate career list? Or buyer? Agent,

Becky Cady  51:17  
I would be a listing agent. I love the challenge of having someone get exactly what they want and then transition to something else.

Tracy Hayes  51:33  
You're going out. You're a sports mom. Would you go to the nice high school, Ponte Vedra high school football game, jumbo shrimp or the Jaguars.

Becky Cady  51:45  
Nice PV game.

Tracy Hayes  51:50  
Oh, last one. Becky, what's on your travel bucket list?

Becky Cady  51:55  
I would like, I would like to go to Japan. My sister just called me last week and she said, why don't we fly you to Japan, even if you only get two days with him? So I called his corporal, and I said, if I can get over there, can he see me for two days? So they're going to work on that. I'd like to go back to Europe.

Tracy Hayes  52:14  
Have you checked the travel restrictions? I know there's different countries have totally different it's

Becky Cady  52:18  
very restricted, especially once I get close to the Marine Base. Yeah, and he just told me, Mom, I don't want you going 27 hours and I can't see

Tracy Hayes  52:26  
you right, because it'd be great if you just met him in Hawaii or something exactly, just come home. Yeah, ideal. So hopefully we've had some some possible clients buying, listing clients, my hopefully your sister and the team at the Katie Yeah, Katie Realty, yeah, I want to carry Katie Turner Realty, but it's not Katie the Katie team.

Tracy Hayes  52:59  
But how would someone reach out say we got someone wants to buy a home right now they're listening to show said, My son's a marine I want to call you because you're a marine mom. How would they what's the best way to get

Becky Cady  53:08  
a hold of you? My cell phone. It's always asleep with my phone

Tracy Hayes  53:12  
and Daniel, did we put that up? It will be in the show notes of the do we have that up on the screen? Give us your phone number. There. 904-420-8548, okay, and that will be in the show notes, when, the when, the when this broadcast goes out to the podcast. We're on Facebook live right now, obviously. So everyone seeing it live, it's on there. This will go out in a couple weeks, actually, out to Spotify Apple and Google podcast and your show notes, all your all your social media connections and so forth, with a picture of you and everything in there. So people can actually, if they hear the show go, who's Let me listen more about Becky, and that information will be there. But I appreciate you coming by today. Excellent. It was a great interview that was awesome. All right, you have a super day.