Chris Snow: Benefits Of A Real Estate Team

Tracy Hayes  1:37  
today's guest leads one of the top producing exp teams in Northeast Florida. He claims his team's consistent success comes from great coaching and mentoring that he has received from top real estate coaches around the country. The Florida coastal team ranks consistently the top of all size teams in the region today. Hopefully this leader will share some of his insights. Let's welcome the leader of the Florida coastal team of EXP Realty, Chris snow, to the show. Thank you very much, Chris. I'm glad to get you on, and I'm consistently seeing you there, and I'm watching your team grow, and as I interact, obviously, you've planted yourself in the heart of St John's County, which, you know, I've heard different numbers of how many are moving into Florida every day, but somewhere around 10% are coming to St Johns County.

Chris Snow  2:22  
Yeah. So the numbers that we look at Jacksonville, it's about 2000 people a month. St Johns County, it's about 1500 people per month. So even though it's a smaller county, smaller area, it's still getting as big a growth as almost as big growth as Jacksonville, Duval County,

Tracy Hayes  2:36  
and in the state of Florida, it's the top is, or St Johns County, the top County, as far as you know,

Chris Snow  2:44  
it's one of the premier destinations for people who are relocating out of the area. But, you know, Northeast Florida as a whole is probably one of the best places for people to come to, right? So, cost of living, you know, when you're coming from New York, New Jersey, California, Washington State, you know Illinois, when they're coming down here, they're looking going, Wow, I can get a whole lot of house for my mind. Yeah, they go to a little bit further south. Once you start getting down Vero Beach, South. Affordability, you know, they're back to where they were before. Higher taxes, higher

Tracy Hayes  3:13  
home insurance is too insurance is going up everywhere. It's even higher down there. I actually shared, put on my Instagram, nice real buy. I don't know where that real estate agent was from, but he listed the top 10 states that are declining in population, starting with his little I think it was Minnesota was number 10, up to obviously New York, New Jersey, and California being the top three states with hundreds of 1000s of people leaving those states. And the question, you know where they're going? There's a handful of states that I know they're going. Florida is obviously one of those, probably three to five states. They're moving to

Chris Snow  3:46  
Florida, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina. You know, they're looking for tax advantage first and foremost, and then, obviously, for one reason or another. You know, fill in the blank there, people decide to come down here for one reason or another. But schools are great here, taxes are low, you know, comparatively again, to some of those other

Tracy Hayes  4:03  
we'll definitely dig into it and how you're, you know, how you're guiding your team, so to speak. But let's start off a little bit. Where are

Chris Snow  4:09  
you from? So I grew up not too far from here. I grew up just outside of Gainesville, a little town called Stark city, about 12,000 people. I actually called Stark town. So I lived in a smaller area than that a little town called Graham Ford. We had 200 people, we had a stop sign, no stop light, and we had a post office, and now we did have a post office. It was only thing that made us a town, right, exactly. Yeah. So I grew up there, had an opportunity to come up here to play baseball at the University of North Florida back in 1994 took advantage of that, stayed here from 1994 to 1997 when I graduated, moved to Vermont for a couple years. Now, my first job out of college. So I've always been in sales.

Tracy Hayes  4:46  
There was a job in Vermont. There was, were you making syrup? What were you doing?

Chris Snow  4:50  
Milking cows and I can syrup? No, I took a sales job. I covered all of Vermont, all of New Hampshire. Fell in love with the people up there. Fell in love with just the. Area. So we actually have a summer home up there now and you know, so just from that standpoint, you know, 1999 ish, I think my territory consolidated, and they said, Okay, you've got an opportunity to either go to Boston or come back to Jacksonville. And I looked at the cost of living in Boston, I'm like, There's no way, you know, I cannot spend that much money and just live broke, you know, as making good money, but being broke, living in a city, so had the opportunity to come back to Jacksonville, and just took advantage, and you have been here ever since.

Tracy Hayes  5:27  
So well, I've been a little bit into New Hampshire. And obviously it tastes because I grew up on Cape Cod. Yeah, we the handful of times. My brother was a big camper. He's a little older, and he would, he'd take me up and go camping in New Hampshire. Was my little adventures there, but that is a yo. When you watch the Hallmark movies, Christmas movies, yeah, a lot of them are new, Hampshire, Vermont, amongst other states, but yeah, those, that's the setting. That's the

Chris Snow  5:53  
it's it's funny, because I pay attention to it a lot more now that, you know, my kids are a little bit older. I never, when I lived there, I didn't really pay attention to the movies that were made there. But I started digging in a little bit, because now I get these little flashes on my Google on my Google page, saying, hey, there's a there's a note that you may want to look at, or an article, and it's, you know, settings of homes in Vermont, or movies in Vermont. It's so funny, how many of our quote, unquote, supposed to take place in Vermont, but they're shot in like Canada, and they're shot in other places. But, you know, they'll use the, you know, maybe a house picture of one house in Vermont, but it's actually shot in a different state.

Tracy Hayes  6:25  
But that kind of describes, if you've never been to those states, if you, if you bet, if you picture Canada in the trees and looking, you know, in the mountains, yeah, unique, unique place, and I'm sure, a great place this summer with a little nice, little cool breeze, kind of like, kind of like the setting we have now. I always tell people like, this is like June in Cape Cod now.

Chris Snow  6:46  
So we took our kids up in September, end of September, early October, so they got to see their first fall foliage. And it was unbelievable. Yeah, so if you, if you haven't had a chance to see a New England foliage, if you've been to North Carolina, you've been to, you know, the Asheville area during peak season. It is nothing compared to what you find up in, right in New England. So, yeah, get a chance. Gotta go,

Tracy Hayes  7:09  
for sure. So you, you go to UNF, you're playing baseball. What, you know, what at that time as a young person, what was, you know, your thoughts of a career? Was it just to get into kind of a sales thing? Or do you have what was your vision?

Chris Snow  7:21  
Not at all. I was slated to teach and coach, right? So I got my degree in education. When I finished, I wanted to coach, went through, did my student teaching, and as I was getting to the end of my student teaching, I'm like, you know, I'm a competitive person, and I don't want my income to be based on my timing and not my outcomes. And so I was looking at the teachers at the I had to spend an entire semester teaching a class. I was an education major, did the same thing. Yeah, so I'm sitting around looking at the teachers, and I'm going, you know, they've got a hard job, they're they're not enjoying themselves, and my income is going to be based on the day that I start and at the person that's sitting next to me. If we started on the same day, our income is probably going to be pretty much the same 20 years from now. Not because I'm better, they're better. Our outcomes are different. It's because we start on the same day. So I'm like, you know, I want to do something a little different. And I was talking, I've worked at a golf course while I was in college, so I've always worked, always had a job, never been not without a job. So I'm working at this golf course out in Ponte feature, and one of the guys says, Hey man, he goes, You should go. You should look at going into the Air Force. He goes, he goes. I spent, you know, eight years there is best thing I got to travel. I said, like, oh, man, I'll do that. So I started going down that path, right of taking the OCS exam, going through, doing my interview, the Board interview, and they came back and they said, Hey, unless you're ROTC, we're not taking people in for officers right now, but you can enlist. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll wait. And so one of my neighbors was a sales guy, and I was just telling him. I'm like, hey man, I'm just, I'm not sure what I want to do. He's like, Oh, he's just going to sales. And so he started telling me what all the life of a salesperson was. And I'm like, competitive. So if I'm competitive in sales, I'm going to make more money and have a better opportunity if I do well, and if I don't do well, I'm probably getting a fire, right? Because, yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm like, sign me up for it. So I like it. I like I like the fact that if I hustle, if I work hard, that the opportunity if I want to pay raise, I call more people, I work a little harder, and I'll get the pay raise. I'm not waiting for someone to tell me, you're worth more. I get to earn more, and I'm worth more based on my effort. Right? So, right?

Tracy Hayes  9:33  
100% so they bring you back to Jacksonville. Choose to come back to Jacksonville. And then you mentioned earlier, because I was teasing you about your your LinkedIn not having a lot of information on there, yes, yeah, it sounds like you, you're you do that for another three or four years, yeah. So 2004

Chris Snow  9:49  
actually is around 2002 I got my mortgage broker's license, and so I got my mortgage broker's license while I was selling medical equipment. And I did that both for about. A year, year and a half, and I just said, I'm just going to go in full time with doing loans. So you were a part time? Agent, yes, well, I was part time. Loan Officer, Oh, okay. Loan Officer, okay, all right. So I had the opportunity with a business partner at the time, we actually opened a mortgage company, until what I found was I was, I was generating some opportunities and passing those off like friends, family and stuff like that. I was passing them off to real estate agents, and I was looking for that referral back. Hey, you know, it never happened. So I said, the best way to actually have a consistent referral base just go get my real estate license, and I will sell the house and have an opportunity to finance on certain transactions, other transactions, I'd have to refer it within the brokerage. But other than that, I mean, it was, it was a great opportunity. And I finally just said, I just enjoy being on the real estate sales side of it more than the finance side of it.

Tracy Hayes  10:53  
So well. So you, you, you enter into real estate at a unique time in Florida, which I well, really the country, you know, Florida at that time. I mean, the pricing of prices of homes were, were starting to pick up pace, you know, which I think I know, I was down in the Naples area in 2006 where they kind of hit their peak and started to come down. That's what we saw early in spring of 2006 so you've got a couple years where you're actually getting some really good at bats, right? I mean, people wanting to buy homes, prices going up. There's a scramble for them. Talk about that, that first, you know, the first 12 months that you're actually out there, 100% as a real estate agent, trying to, you know, what are some of the things that you're doing and to relate as, you know, I want to relate to what you're teaching your people now, because, you know, although some things are different markets different, there are some things that are, are, you know, standard.

Chris Snow  11:45  
It's interesting. In 2004 I got my very first website, and I was one of the first agents in the area to do pay per click advertising. Now, there were some, there were some companies out there that you could buy leads from. They did the Pay Per Click advertising. They drove leads to you and you called but they were on their website. I was one of the first agents to go, you know, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my own website up here, and I'm gonna figure out how to write PPC ads. So back then, it was overture. Now, if they moved to Yahoo, then it was now being but you could buy keywords, right? You know, move to Jacksonville, moved, you know, homes for sale in, you know, st, Augustine, whatever keyword, right? I felt like I could, I would, would resonate with people. I bought those keywords, and so I started doing my first pay per click advertising. You know what? The biggest source of leads that we do today is pay per click? It hasn't changed, right? Because my mentality is, is that I was not the guy that wanted to cold call everyone. I wanted people to at least raise their hand to say I have a mild interest in real estate, right? And then just being able to build a relationship with them and get them on the phone and just get them talking, and just say, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're a year, five years, 10 years away, you have some interest in real estate. Let's, let's just chat about it, and just developing that relationship over time. Because one of the things that I found in my sales career before real estate was that most people, most sales people, don't show up. They don't show

Tracy Hayes  13:03  
up, right? Yeah? Like, say that number one thing, they don't answer the phone.

Chris Snow  13:07  
They don't answer the phone, or they just, they just don't show up. They don't do what they say they're going to do, right? And if they give one opportunity, if someone says, Hey, I'm thinking about, you know, I was selling widgets, right? I'm thinking about buying a widget. Okay, I'm engaged. They don't buy the widget today. That's okay. Now I'm off to the next person. Well, for me, my mentality was, well, no, you, you had an interest. Let's, let's stay with you till you buy or die, right? So it's that, that constant nurture, right? And so what I found with with online leads, is that most people try one time, maybe two times, and then they let it go by the wayside. And those are the people that we're picking up day in and day out, right? And we're just nurturing them, loving on them over time, and then when the time is right, we built enough value into them a higher percentage of people than the average are going to come back and work with them.

Tracy Hayes  13:54  
Yes. So let me, let me dig in there a little bit, because you're, you're about, what about 30 years old at this time, give or take somewhere on there, calculating when you graduated late 20s, this pay per click positioning, especially you're, you're not, you know, obviously, you know, Zillow today got a lot of money. They got, you know, that kind of thing. You're just stuff like, hey, I want to just start my own website. Where does this? Where does this idea just come from? Just from because obviously we don't. We're not watching YouTube or Instagram videos where people are saying, Hey, you want to do you want to get pay per click. Let me show you how to do it. Click here for a course. Yeah, right. How? Where does this vision come to you that this is

Chris Snow  14:31  
so one of the first thing I did, and I you read it in my bio, is, I've always been in coaching. I had a I had a coach in baseball. Why would I not have a coach went to coach me and stuff that I don't know. And so a lot of the coaches at that time, they really weren't doing digital advertising. They were doing newspaper advertising. I'm cheap. I'm sorry. I'm cheap. It was expensive in early 2000s to advertise, you know, three by three or still doing Yellow Pages, something like that. Classified, yeah. And I'm like, I need I'm not an instant gratification guy, but I am. If I'm spending money, I want to see that return very quickly. So when I started looking at the online platforms, I'm like, wait a second. I can see that. I can see that people are going and searching for a term, and I can see when they're clicking on my ad, and I can see, ultimately, that they fill out a form, and now I have a lead that, to me, was a better trait of my money, was to have advertising that I could see that way. I could not afford to do image advertising put my name on a billboard, because I just couldn't. I couldn't monetize like and try. Were they calling me because they saw the billboard? Were they calling where's the return? And so as a small business, I had to hold every single dollar accountable to making sure that it's making me money, right? And so the best way to do that for me was all on advertising. It was dirt cheap. You know? I mean, you're paying like, seven cents a click, like, oh, seven cents, and somebody can connect with me. And on average, back then, I was probably paying like, $1 a lead, maybe $1.20 a lead. Right now we're probably paying close to 10, $11 a lead, which is not bad. So yeah, that was me. I just I wanted people who were raising their hand.

Tracy Hayes  16:10  
Well, you said coach, yes. So you, when you go in, it full time, you get a coach right away, which gave you some insight on this avenue.

Chris Snow  16:19  
It filled. Well, what it did was brought instead of me having to go and figure out marketing advertising, they helped me understand what marketing. Advertising was. Their medium back then, was radio, it was newspaper, it was and I'm like, well, all those same things that hold true, I can do online, and I just have a bigger audience at a lower clip. It's like, okay, this is a no brainer for me. Now, what I didn't get was the image advertising that those guys would get by by having a branded advertising. But that's okay, you know, I the very first ego check that I took to the bank, it bounced, and I said, You know what I am, I will not worry about my name on a billboard or a sign or anything. That's why a lot of times when you see our advertising, we advertise our team. I don't advertise myself because there's no value. I want to build that brand around our team. And so everything that we do is the Florida coastal team. It's the Florida coastal team. And there are certain things that have to have a name that rides along with it, and then that's when you'll see my name in advertising. But for the

Tracy Hayes  17:19  
most we're on that subject, you know, how have you know, things have you know, changed? I mean, I'm, I'm probably six or seven years older than you, and can remember back in, you know, my parents were looking for houses in the late 70s when we did move to Cape Cod, and then we, we moved again locally, there in the real estate agents in the little town that we had. And I think the brand of, you know, the century 21 the yellow code, or, you remember, re Max, you could, you immediately picture the balloon, right? But today, you know, as you're instructing these agents, how important is it for them, yeah, to blend in with the Florida coastal team. But the they everyone really needs to be creating the brand. Because our customers, I don't think, are looking at the or at least from choosing a real estate agent, they may as a lender, because there's money, and you want that trust factor that you think you're possibly are getting from a logo, right? But from the from the real estate agent dealing with the human element, they really need the brand themselves. They need to put themselves out there. And how important that is.

Chris Snow  18:23  
You know, it's one of the best stats that I saw. Unfortunately, I saw it very early on in my career, and it was through a coaching program, right? Because you had people from all walks of life, from different brands, different brokerages. And one of the things that the coaching program at the time was, is that you're building your own brand, and if you don't own your own brokers, that's okay. You're building your brand underneath there. But the stat that they showed us, it just floored me, and I'm glad I saw it very early on in my career, is that 3% of people serve and this is a year in and year up. It doesn't matter, you know, go over the last 20 years I've been in this industry, 3% of the people surveyed said that they choose their agent based on brand affiliation. 97% it's something else, and more times than not, it's the personal relationship or a referral from someone that they know I can trust. Yep, that is correct. Yeah. And so if that's the case, then it's not about it's not about the brand that I've felt that I have affiliated myself with, because the brand is not going to do the business for me. It's still me, right? Because I worked, started my career at REMAX, and there's some great agents at REMAX, and then there are also some agents that you look and go, how are they still in business, right? And not, but it's, it's not just every it's at every brokerage across the board, 100% there are people that Excel and there are people that really shouldn't be in sales, right? The brand is not going to make them better. It's it's the individual who decides, you know what, I need to get up and go to work today, because now I'm not going to make my mortgage. I've got no other plan B. And so when I look at it and I talk to my team. Is that my I cannot. I cannot tell my team, you have to do this. I put together a platform. I put together lead sources and lead generation and systems and tools that when they choose to be productive and they plug into that, they will be successful. But I can't make them successful. They have to, I can meet down 50 our line. Just say, Look, when you're ready to go, it's all here waiting for you. I just need you meet me halfway.

Tracy Hayes  20:27  
Well, we are jumping a little deep into my thing, but I would, since you are on the subject, yes, I think this is a very important subject for anyone listening. If you're whether you're a new agent or you're an agent out there in I've mentioned many times, you know, they're at a certain brokerage. And sometimes you run course there, there's no, you're not, you're not gaining any value. And that could be for several different things. The brokerage is not staying in front of you, right? Leadership changed, or, you know, just the atmosphere, you know, changes. And people do move brokerages. There's only a handful. I think I was doing some clips of Kim Knapp, you know, she's been with Cole Baker for, you know, 20 years, right, right, you know, and very successful there, because she put it upon herself as one thing. When I'm going back and listening to that podcast and actually clipping out, she put it upon herself to be that cutting edge person, she realized that it was like 2008 that she needed to be educated more. So she started getting involved nationally. And the important being a team lead you obviously, you're with exp, so you're not considered the broker, but you take, you do fill in a lot of those things from the sense of leadership. You're putting forth training programs you're putting forth, you know, whether it's a little bit of technology or guiding them to the technology that you think is, you know the best, and that's why they're following you, because you're staying out in front. And, you know, over, you know, 20 years, I'm sure you've seen a lot of brokers come and go. You're seeing some brokerages that were probably really good, and now the same person's in the lead, and they're not so good, not so popular. They got to kind of stay

Chris Snow  21:59  
up, right? Yeah, right. Think you're absolutely right with that, is that if I wait for the broker to make me successful, I'm going to be waiting a long time. That's not That's not what the brokerage is responsibility is for. They're there to provide, you know, legal source for us. If I have legal questions, they're making sure that I'm compliant with the things that I need to stay compliant with. But at the end of the day, it's about me getting up and deciding that I want to work today and I want to work tomorrow, and I want to work a year from now and five years from now and 10 years from now, and I have to go out and figure out what makes sense for me as a business, because as a brokerage, the brokerage can say this is how our top agents have done business. Well, I can try to mold myself into that, but if I'm trying to put that, you know, square peg in a round hole, I cannot sustain that, right? So, what can I can what can I sustain that daily gets me up and it's, it's, and I'll tell this to my team all the time, is, it's about prospecting. What Every day I have to be prospecting some way, some shape, some form. Well, what is prospecting? Well, for some brokerages, oh, well, this is prospecting. Well, no, that is a form of prospecting. There are 10 different ways that you can get business, and I don't, for our team, I don't care which way it is, you know, we'll provide the tools and resources for you to go in. I just need you to be consistent with it, right? Choose a lane, choose a path. Go deep, don't go wide.

Tracy Hayes  23:25  
Well, good. To go wide. That's, that's an excellent Do you try? You know, as a team lead, you know, obviously you're recruiting, it's part of EXP model. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But you're, are you looking at every possible agent, or you know what you're providing in in trying to recruit that agent that's going to, you know, that is their, their niche of way of prospecting. Because, like you said, you can't every possible prospecting thing. You could spend the entire day creating everything from flyers to postcards to cold calling or knocking on doors. I mean, you just can't do it all. You got to find what works right for you and what you obviously what you like doing, right? That's what you want to, want to find. So as a team leader, and when you're out, you know, recruiting and looking at these people, knowing what you're delivering correct, knowing the personalities of your already successful agents, are you trying to find more like kind

Chris Snow  24:15  
Yeah, we're very transparent as people are going through the process, as we're explaining what we do and why we do it. It's one thing to say, this is our what we do, but don't really explain the backside of it. What? What is the benefit to the agent of why we do that? So we we're very upfront and transparent. This is how we do this is you can do business however you want. This is how our most successful agents. This is what their looks like. These are the lead sources that we work with. There are other ways that you can do that we don't necessarily spend a lot of time doing, but it's up to you whether or not you want to participate in that. I'm not going to go and chase something that I haven't vetted out and I try to recreate a wheel that is correct. Yeah, yep, yeah. Because what it does is it takes us away from our core competency and what. We know that it's consistent and works and stuff and again, going back to online leads, that's what I loved about it, is that every morning, every day, throughout the day, we have people who are opting in, opting in, opting in. It's it's that consistent source of I don't have to worry about where the next lead is coming from. It's already taken care of. My job is to go make connection to find out, are they business today? Are they business tomorrow? Six months from now, a year from now? Are they Mickey Mouse and just kicking tires? Right? Everybody's got a motivation. That's why they end up on our site.

Tracy Hayes  25:32  
Let's go back, because I had mentors and coaches on my on my list here, Angie Bell, which I know you, you're you're connected on LinkedIn. I know that she, when she was on one of my first episodes, she came from corporate America, she immediately hired a coach. Sounds like you did that same thing? Absolutely how? And even someone who's been in the business three or four years, you know, I had one of the top real estate agents again in the area on a couple months ago, and that was, that was what she was doing, was she was ready to hire a coach. She actually, she just naturally, whatever it was, was very successful doing whatever shit. But she felt she reached the lid, right? Little John Maxwell there, reached a lid and felt, hey, I need to find a coach to see if I can break through this. You immediately jumped into that. Yeah. How do you think that changed your trajectory? Because I think, you know, this time period start, 2004 six, we get we're getting the reps, yep. So coaching and actually interacting and having the experience, all of a sudden, six comes around. As we go into seven, and all of a sudden it's a ghost town, right, right?

Chris Snow  26:32  
Yeah. So my philosophy is always, if you're going to spend money, spend money on something that's going to accelerate your business. Spend money to go fast. If you can't accelerate your business, don't spend money. So leads, leads, I need to be in business, so spend money on leads that accelerate your business. Coaching. Some people would go boy, saying, that's that's an expense. How are you speeding up? What I did was I sped up my learning curve. So now it didn't take me 10 years to figure out with coaching what I could get a year and every coaching program that you're in, you kind of have a cycle. It's a year to two years with a coach. Now, some stay with their coach forever, and there are some coaches that really good, but the coaching programs that I've kind of gone through is that after about a year or two, you really get the sense of what they're all about, and you pulled about as much as you can now you're looking for, okay, I've implemented, I've adopted. Now I can just pay them to be my friend, or I can. I can look and go, Okay, what's the next rock that I need to do in my business? And who does that at a high level, right? And so that's how I've looked at coaching. Which favorite sport, football, football. Okay, who's your favorite team?

Tracy Hayes  27:41  
I'm actually a Giants fan with I have started falling to Jags since I do refer either practices.

Chris Snow  27:47  
So who would who would you say is Grace football player of our generation,

Tracy Hayes  27:51  
of our generation, 56 is the number I always wear. I'm Lawrence Taylor, fan from Michael Strahan would be right behind there. I think he's, he had a great career as well.

Chris Snow  28:04  
Okay, so if you look at the goat, you know you look is Tom Brady, who's the best basketball player, LeBron James Michael Jordan, argument, it doesn't matter, right?

Tracy Hayes  28:14  
Who's greatest golfer, Tiger Woods. Since you brought up, Michael Jordan, you have to go

Chris Snow  28:17  
see airfield. We almost went. Saw it the other day. Yeah, we almost saw that the other day. It's just the all the front seats were the only ones available. So we're gonna go back and see it. But well, I

Tracy Hayes  28:26  
from a sales standpoint, yep, Matt Damon plays kind of the sales guy in that it actually has more and, I mean, the story is obviously factual and true, but for when you break it down to, what am I learning from this yes thing? Yeah, there's a really good sales lesson there. But go ahead.

Chris Snow  28:42  
So Tiger Woods, probably great, yeah, obviously, arguably the greatest call. Yeah. Look at all the grades. What do they have in common? Y'all have a coach. Even at the top of their profession, they have their primary coach, 100% then they have their own private coach, yep, every single one of them. So the greatest people in their profession find it necessary to still have a coach on top of their coach. That might be something I should I should learn from 100% so what I look for in a coach is someone who is going to look at my Where are my blind spots? I don't I don't need to tell I don't need them to tell me where I'm doing good. It's good to understand, Okay, why are you successful? Keep doing that. Where are the gaps in your business? And that's where, you know, having other people look at your business from the outside, going, you know what? I think there's an opportunity here, or here's a way that you can become more efficient. And so for me, it's all about, are we getting better, even if it's, you know, just that 1% better every day, right? Are we getting better? Are we learning something new each day? Are we passing and learning something new to pass to our customers every single so?

Tracy Hayes  29:54  
Well, you know, I'm thinking just to what you were, you were talking about it in for. From a coaching standpoint, because there's some people, well, there's always a financial commitment, right? That's the easy thing to say. Well, I don't want to, I don't know if I'm gonna get the return on investment. I want to spend the money, which I think everyone who's had a coach, I haven't found someone that said that was a total waste of money, right? But obviously they do point out some of those things where, you know we are kind of, we know we're there and but we keep refusing. But we need that third party insight to say, hey, yeah, you're really doing well over here, but you keep stepping over this little piece over here, correct? And you're like, Yeah, you're right. And then having that accountability and bring you up, because sometimes you know we need to be all I think, whether it's a professional athlete or a salesperson, right? You know, we're fearing something. There's fear is generally that, I think, is the reason why we step over that for whatever that fear is, and have someone talk us through and actually having that third party credibility come in and say, hey, you know, I coach other people, they've had the same fear in the slowly step into it, or give you other ways to step into it, because you may know any one way and you don't like that door, but maybe if you came around the side and attacked it a different way, like, Okay, this isn't too bad.

Chris Snow  31:15  
Yeah. And I think, I think from a coaching perspective, when if you only have people in your life telling you how good you are, then you're going to hit a plateau, yeah, because you're gonna go, Well, I've arrived. I mean, I go into rooms now, in coaching rooms and Masterminds, where I'm the smallest fish. Everyone else is doing two times, three times, five times what we do, and we do a very good book of business. And I'd rather put myself in those rooms where I can absorb and I can learn. And there's some things that you know we do that I think we do really well, that bigger teams and bigger organizations could find helpful. So I feel like I can contribute, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna put myself in positions where I'm learning from people who've done it, who've done it at a bigger scale, who've made the same mistakes that that either I've made or they're gonna help me not make that mistake, because they're gonna impart that wisdom to me.

Tracy Hayes  32:16  
Let's, let's take that down to a micro level. Okay, you, you've been with exp for how long? Now, almost five years. Five years you're, you're on the radar screen as a leader because of your your production, you know, so for you to enter in this, and there's some, obviously, some huge, great people, as they are, all the big, you know, named brokerages out there, but exp, obviously, and so you're you, you can ask to be in that circle, so to speak. If I'm a new agent working in now, I may be able to listen in, but maybe to get into that mastermind or something. You might feel uncomfortable because you don't know what you don't know they know. You've got 20 years now behind you. You've shown success. Let's break it down to the micro level. You got that fairly new agent, maybe, maybe in their first year, or maybe three or four years in, and they just been kind of trudging along, and they're listening to this saying, I need to, I need to enter a room where I am the fifth person in the room. And I'm around these people, I can really draw where, where can they go? What would you suggest that person to

Chris Snow  33:20  
do, I would, I would say, if you're a newer agent, or you're an agent that's been in the business 234, years, and you're struggling, there's not that consistency in in your business, and you're looking at it going all right, I've looked at myself, and I'm working and I'm grinding at this daily, I'd say, join a team, And I know it's self serving, because I run a team, but the best thing that you can do is get into a smaller group of people on a team where I've got team members that are going to sell five or six houses next year. Not huge production, but it's it's production that they feel comfortable with, and that's okay. I've got agents that will sell 40 to 50 houses next year. There's a lot of collective just within that little team to get someone who's a four to five year four to five deal a year person to show them that, hey, within a team environment, with the tools and resources you can go to 1020, 3040, and my ultimate goal when somebody comes onto my team is not to say, I'm just going to use you for the amount of time that you're here, and then, you know, when you're gone, you're gone. No, my goal is to say, look, I want you to be on the team as long as you you feel like this team is providing you value. But if I'm not helping you grow as an agent so you can go stand on your own, then I'm I'm not doing a good job as a team leader, right, right? So because, ultimately, it's, it's if I provide enough value to my team where they feel like they're getting fed on a daily basis, and they're growing as an agent, and they're not plateauing, they're going to stay with me as long as they feel comfortable. And if they feel like, hey, I want to go start something on my own, I'm there to help them step out and do that.

Tracy Hayes  34:59  
Well, it's. It's a joint venture, right? And that person's coming on, you're willing. You've already taken and have and have shown that you're willing to pour into them, and there's value to that. You may not be pouring dollars over to them personally, out of your own personal pocket, right? But your knowledge and 20 years experience, what's that value of that pouring into them, and the fact that you are staying in front, you're the one you are going to those high end masterminds and meeting some of the best or the best type of thing, again, coming back and sharing that that is correct information. And you spend whatever amount of money to go to that event, right, or whatever it is.

Chris Snow  35:36  
And when I look at, you know, dollars, and I look at advertising costs, one of my biggest line item expenses is coaching. Think about that. I spend as much money on coaching as I do on certain lead sources. Why? Because there's a return back on it. It's either learning something new to put into the business, learning about a tool or a resource that I didn't know about, right? Or just being able to dig deeper and get better at the craft that we're doing, learning how to scale, learning how to grow. I mean, those things are invaluable.

Tracy Hayes  36:08  
I mean, how many times we heard, if you aren't growing, you're dying, right? Yeah, yeah.

Chris Snow  36:11  
I mean, it's one of our core values, is ingenuity, right? Because we want people to feel like, you know, Hey, I am growing. I need to go and I need to learn every single day. And because this business is constantly changing, you know, not only the law part of it, but just customer interaction and how to how to convert leads, how to have conversations with people, how to get deals. One, how to win listings, how to all these different things. It's, you know, it's the same things that we have problems with in 2000 the early 2000s it's just packaged in a little bit different way. It's, it's, what message do I need deliver to the to the customer, to get them to to nudge them in the direction that I need them to go?

Tracy Hayes  36:52  
Right? Well, I, you know, you led into it. I'm sure you're going to agree with this. I don't know how you probably coach your your team on, you know, block timing, time blocks, and you know you're doing this at this hour, doing that at that hour, but to time block in the educational piece, whether it's a course at ne far, at St John's board, or some vendor, a lender, home inspector, whatever, is putting on something to go, not only for the education, What, whatever little, little bit you you may, you know, pull out of there might be a 45 minute presentation and five minutes of it's worth pulling out, but that's probably on average, you know, something new that you might take away. But how important also is it to when you're going to those events, for those agents to actually interact and start to build relationships with other agents that are not on their team?

Chris Snow  37:41  
Yeah, I think anytime that you're putting yourself with your peers, it's a good thing, right? Not to compare each other against you know what my productions is, your production is, but it really is to I never know who the cross agent is going to be on the next team. So if I am a jerk to someone up front, and then three weeks later, I'm now presenting them an offer for their listing that they're going to take to their seller. Have I done my buyer a service by being a jerk? No. So develop those relationships. Prove yourself that you're competent, you know, and and have a good reputation in this in this industry.

Tracy Hayes  38:20  
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 backend 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 streamlined media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to real estate excellence. Well, I mean, the power of just even taking five minutes, 10 minutes before after, during a break, and one of those trainings or a social and actually, you know, speaking to someone now they're like, you know, everyone. We could say a lot about people we don't actually seen or shook hands with. We could say, You talk all sorts of stuff, right, right? But when we actually shook hands with them and just exchanged conversation and whatever, all of a sudden it's a different attitude. They're not as willing to not that, you know, we shouldn't talk stuff about other people. But when you're multiple offer deals, we still have those going on, correct? And your offer is coming in, and you're like, Hey, man, my lender is great because they talk to you, versus the other three people might be putting offers they don't even know, right? Never even heard their name before, right? But they know you. They're there's a totally different attitude towards that offer.

Chris Snow  39:51  
It is, yeah, because what you're looking for is, what's the which offer is the greatest likelihood that we're going to get to the closing table? What? One is going to help my sellers. It's not always about netting the most. It's the certainty that it's going to close. Right? Cash offer may come in less than a finance offer. Why are they taking the lower offer? More certainty? Right? Two financed offers come in. Both of them have great pre qual letters. Both lenders may have called in now, all of a sudden, it's like, okay, which agent do I trust the most that's either going to I feel comfortable that they're competent, or, on the flip side, is which one is going to make my life easier to get to the closing table? Yeah, and I hate to say that, but you know, again, if I'm presenting multiple offers to a seller, I'm going to give them the good, the bad, the ugly about each of these. I'm going to let them make the decision on their own. I try not to be biased one way or another, but just say, I know this agent. I've worked with them. I've done lots of cross transactions with them. I trust it very where they're at, right? Yeah, this one, I don't know the agent. I, you know, if I can, I can look up production. They don't ask for a lot of repairs to be done, exactly. So, yeah. So, yeah, it's that experience. You know, it's there's no sense in winning an individual battle when we have these continual things. It's like, why would I, why would I jeopardize a relationship that I have with a cross agent on one transaction, when I may do 10 more cross transactions with that agent in the future, right? And we can't control the situation that we're in. You know, we've got buyers and we've got sellers. They have their own issues, one way or another. For us, it's like, okay, how do we manage that? And how do we keep a professional relationship going? Okay, I know what they're telling me over here, but help me out here, right? Yeah, you can

Tracy Hayes  41:32  
have a more frank conversation saying, hey, yes, yeah, this. I know this guy's being difficult. He's asking for everything, and you gotta be repaired. Let's help me out. Let's come to some sort of compromise and tell, you know, finish this deal up. What are you've got a mix of agents. I know you've got some, you've got some green agents. Yes, brand new agents. Yep, I'm sure you're recruiting some experienced but what do you think right now, especially the, obviously, the green ones, even some of the ones coming over, they're, they're obviously coming over to see value in what you're correct giving. So they're coming over. What are three things right now in this current market space, spring of 23 that that every agent kind of like should be a staple or cornerstone to what they're doing right now?

Chris Snow  42:15  
Well, and you, you hit the nail on the head, is your time blocking, right first and foremost, it always starts with prospecting. Is that if you break down real estate, you break down sales in general, is, how many conversations with people am I having about whatever it is that I do? I sell widgets, I sell houses, I do listings. Doesn't matter. I do loans. How many people am I having conversations with that do that need that business, that need that service, right? And if I'm not having enough conversations, how do I have more? Okay, I mean, that's if you break it down, that's all you need to do. We have agents that come to us because they don't have a sphere of influence. You have a database of names that we can work off of. That's great, awesome. Yes, let's do it. But just me, having the database of names does not help you, unless you're willing to have conversations with people about real estate, and it doesn't matter what form it could be online leads. It could be for sale by owners. It could be expired. It could be door knocking. It could be, you know, there's only so many ways that you have business coming in. You can tap your sphere of influence, you know, your friends, your family, but more times than not, that's the last thing that agents go towards. And I'll be honest with you, I probably don't do as great a job with my sphere of influence, just because we lean so hard on new leads coming in. But to me, it's first and primary. It starts with, am I prospecting every single day? Am I time blocking my Am I protecting my time from from all the other distractions? Second thing is, you look at, what are your dollar producing activities? What are the things that I do that make me money and do those? Everything else is a distraction. Some of it, you have to,

Tracy Hayes  43:52  
let's expand on that one there, because I really feel, you know, outside people look at real estate agents say, Oh, they go and do whatever. But if a truly effective real estate agent, I haven't talked to over 130 of some of the top people here, I Well, Bobby Brennan from hover girls, pops in my head. How she has the her brother calls it the church. Church goodbyes, right? She uses her, you know, after church, she spends some time, quality time, talking to people and so forth. She might not even be talking about real estate, but obviously, a lot of times, I'm sure it comes up because they know that's what she does. Yeah, but she's constantly staying top of mind and that. But I think they're from the differentiator from those people outside looking in, or those who just entered, they don't understand that even during that time, that is part of your relationship that is part of your talking

Chris Snow  44:43  
to people, yep. So the reason why I find that people don't talk to people is they don't feel comfortable they are knowledgeable about everything about real estate, right? If I waited to have a conversation till I knew everything about real estate, I'd still be waiting to have my first one. There are parts of Jacksonville I have no. Idea about but I have no fear of somebody says, I want to go see a house there. Let's go. I could become an expert once I need to become an expert, I know how to do it. What I look for. I can take a brand new agent and we do something for our team every single morning, when I get up, as part of my routine, get into the office about 645, seven o'clock. I pull about 10 pieces of data updated every single day. It's like, okay, we need to tell a story every single day about what one piece or two pieces of this data, how does it relate to that person in their situation? If you have five or six pieces of data that you always keep, and you look at on a daily basis, and you're up to date with what the trend is, it doesn't matter where you go when you're It's one reason I don't do a lot of socializing, because I start my morning at seven at the office. I usually leave between six and seven at night, and I'm I'm I'm almost out of production, meaning that I'm not as much with the customers anymore as much as our team, but I am doing stuff all throughout the day to make it easier for our team to transact and to do deals. But when you go to a party, when you go with friends, it's funny. We are in an industry. Everybody likes to talk about real estate. So when I get home,

Tracy Hayes  46:12  
commonality, it is, it is, yeah, we all have, we all have a house, or want a house, or Yeah.

Chris Snow  46:16  
So it's funny, because I'll go, I'll come home, I'm I'm tired. I've just, I've been talking with people agents, about real estate all day long, right? And my wife's like, oh, let's go to the club. Let's go grab some dinner. Okay, we'll go up there. We go up there. And guess what? Everybody wants to talk about, Yeah, real estate. It's like, I haven't even left work, right? But I take that as an opportunity that I don't have to market to my sphere of influence, because they're going to ask me, What's going on with the market. Well, inventory is up. Interest rates are flat. Interest rates are up. It doesn't matter. I have my five or six talking points, because I look at them every single day. Well, I heard the inventories like skyrocketing. Well, you know, you went from, you know, a half a month supply to two months supply. Yeah, that skyrocketed. But we're still four months supply, right? Low, right? So being able to just be able to acknowledge and give them the real data, and all of a sudden, I don't care if you're a brand new agent, people want to know that you understand what you're talking about. Yeah, you don't. I don't need to be a know everything about home inspections to go you know, needed roof right? I don't need to be a roof inspector, but I just need to know the data. I need to know that I partnered myself with people who can give me the answers. And a lot of times, the answer doesn't have to be me. We all. We look at it as be the connector of information, not the source of information. Well, Chris, you said that property values were going to go up. I said, No. I said that supply was low, demand was high. And anytime you have an imbalance like that, tends to lead to increases in prices, right? I'm just getting the stats from MLS. And do with what you want, Chris, you say, well, if so, I want to be that connector of information.

Tracy Hayes  47:54  
I mean, that is so valuable. I was at a small team's office the other day, and we were talking about it. And I asked him, What, what, you know, besides talking about loan depot and and some mortgage products, but what is it? Is there something they want to know? A lot of them were fairly, I would say, less than three years, or less than three months, probably some of them, you know, experience, and that was like, try to how to get people off the fence, like, hey, even though we don't have a lot of inventory to begin with, but Right, yo, to get some of these buyers instead of going, Oh, I'm gonna wait till rates go down and all. You know that whole thing, I'm sure you're hearing and you know what you're talking about. And if anyone those are just listen to what Chris was just talking about. You're giving that information. So when that person's in front of you and says, you know, maybe they, maybe they, they tried to buy a house and they got beat out, right? And I think you're probably seeing a lot of people, they try one, they got beat out, and then all sudden they go, and they go missing an action for a while, or, you know, they're they get discouraged, or, like, someone punched them in the face, so they, you wait for the black guy to heal, or something, I don't know, right? But the reality is, for you to be have that, that those five things that you're talking about, those five every day, and say, Well, you know, I have seen this over the last 30 days. Yeah, this is what's happened, and this is what and you when you because you have the confidence, because you have been reading that data, right? And as I recommend this team, I said you you, what you need to do is you need to bring them into this nice office. You need to set them down and actually have a heart to heart conversation of their goals, and then explain to them the situation, because they're getting that sound bite that all inventories just exploded when, when it just went from a half. You know, the

Chris Snow  49:28  
number one thing that I see, that mistake that I think agents made right is they're trying to tell the customer, they're trying to convince them, they're trying to sell them people's sales skepticism is always super high, so my goal is to just take it down. Tracy, I know you're probably not gonna buy a house for another 12 to 18 just by saying that you go, he's not gonna try to sell me now we're having an open conversation. So for that person who says, and this is part of what we do on our team on a daily basis, is. Do we script those objections? Same objections only. There's only so many objections of why you're not doing something right. So to address the one that you just gave us, like, you know? Well, I'm just going to sit back. I'm going to wait for rates to come down, I'm going to wait for inventory to go up, I'm going to wait for pricing to go down. Completely understand what? Help me understand what that is. So I let them talk. Okay, well, I hear this? Okay, you know what concerns me? Tracy about that. So now, now I'm just waiting. I'm I've

Tracy Hayes  50:27  
heard dill right? You know what? Now the ears piercing. What is it that

Chris Snow  50:31  
I'm not I'm not telling them that they're wrong. What concerns me is that you're only getting part of the story right. Yes, prices fell 3.3% last month. Whatever, yeah, whatever that doing. We're up almost 50% over the last two years. So prices are still up 47% from where they were two years ago. So what concerns me is I've got on our team, and we use this as an example. Every one of our team members has 234, buyers at any given time that are ready to do something. The buyers that we have that have that same fear that you have, that they're going to wait, let's say we've got 50 of them on our team. There are 10,000 agents in Northeast Florida, if every one of them have two buyers that are all thinking the same thing. Now we've got 20, 20,000 buyers, right? And what are they waiting? They're all waiting for the same thing, exactly. And if they all see the same thing happen, guess what? You're going to be you're going to be competing worse than you were in 2021, when you were getting beat out by 12 offers. Now there's going to be 20. So we can't control what rates are going to do. We can't control what pricing is going to do. What we can control is, is there something out there right now, when there are fewer there's still a lot of people in the marketplace. A lot of people, you know, people say, oh, there's no inventory. Yes, there's plenty of inventory. 3030 100 homes went over on the market the last 30 days. So there's new inventory coming every single day. It's just not staying for very long. For very long. So I would just say right now we have 5200, homes for sale. A year and a half ago, we had 1200 so there's a lot more inventory, a lot more choices than you have right now and before everybody, if everybody's waiting for those interest rates, you know can buy now. Your interest rate doesn't have to be forever. And if rates never change or they stay, that's okay. You know, you're in your price. You've locked in your price of your house. You can only buy your house at the price one time and for and I'll just give him a story. I'm like, you know, I had a counterpart. He sold his house in 2020 he held off on buying. He bought the same house that he was looking at 18 months later, he paid $100,000 more. You know, it doesn't matter what his interest rate was at the beginning or the end, he will never be able to go back and buy that house for $100,000 less. Yeah, if you look at historically where prices have been, yeah, they go on up average 4%

Tracy Hayes  52:58  
a year. Well, and then, well, obviously, the one thing I added on, you also have an inflationary factor in correct so the number you're seeing is now not the number that it was two years ago, right? You know, part of that 100,000 was, is inflationary factors, you know, coming into the situation, do you feel that it's hard to get a grasp around? You know, obviously, I think a majority of our buyers that we are coming from out of state, right? You know, the internal moves are not as many, because I think people were jumping around when interest rates were 3% Well, you know, we're tired of this neighborhood after two or three years. Let's go buy that one over there, because, because money was so cheap, yeah, now it goes to 6% and now that that kind of thing kind of slowed down because they have a 3% rate. They're like, I can live over here, yeah, for half the interest. So, but from the out of state buyers, the demand that we have. Because we could talk about the numbers, you know, as we started off the show, talking about, how many are moving into Florida, right? How many moving in? You know, St John's County is easily the top two or three counties in the state, as far as demand is concerned, but to actually, you know, touch, feel and smell that you don't, actually you don't. I don't think many people really understand what's going you know that this migration that we're seeing, right? Yeah, so we're in the overall housing shortage, right?

Chris Snow  54:17  
Nationally, correct, correct. And, you know, interest rates just kind of revealed the demand that was already there, because people were wanting to move right. And all of a sudden, when rates got really cheap, it just it exposed what was already happening. People were still going to move at a 4% rate versus two. It just made it a lot easier and a little bit a little bit less expensive. They were able to spend a little bit more. They could push that budget a little bit further, which is great. But for us here locally, I look at what's the one thing that will or what factors are going to lead to prices, pulling back everything really boils down to supply and demand. Do I have enough supply for the demand that is there? If you talk to the average person, they go, Oh, yeah. Wait. Way more supply than there is demand. Really? Where'd you get that information? Well, I see it on Well, would you happen to you know, we have 5000 homes for sale. We're selling on average, 3020 500 a month. We have a two month supply of inventory. Where do you think that ranks? Is that a lot? It's like, yeah, the real it's not. It's Yeah, six months supply. In my history, since 2004 on average, we have anywhere from 9000 to 12,000 homes for sale at the peak of the market, you know, the peak of where we had inventory was 2009 1011, I think we exceeded 24,000 homes. We had like 18 months supply. We should have about a six month supply of inventory at any given time. We have a two month supply rate. So what's gonna what's gonna lead to prices pulling back interest rates didn't do it. Slowed it down a little bit, slowed the rate of increase, and pull back prices just a little bit, but not much. The only thing that will trigger prices to come down is an influx of inventory. Where's the inventory? Inventory going to come from? Yeah, builders can't build them fast enough. Builders can't build them fast enough. They got smart in 2008 in 2021 they got really smart. And they go, we're going to sell these things for more. So let's just hold back, and then let's put everybody on a waiting list, and then what we'll release three at a time. We'll compete against each other, and we'll sell them for a lot more, right? So they have no incentive to overbuild.

Tracy Hayes  56:28  
Nor do, nor do. I think they could build more. I don't think they could. I don't think there's enough crews out there potentially actually put the house together completely in the period of time.

Chris Snow  56:37  
Okay, so it's not coming from builder inventory. Is it gonna from foreclosures? Foreclosure filings have tripled in the last 12 months. Last 18 months, it went from almost none to like three, right? Yeah, exactly. So you don't have this huge influx of coming foreclosure inventory, because people have more options today than they had in 2008 2009 2008 2009 they're like, I'm $80,000 $100,000 upside down. I'll just let it go to foreclosure. Well, now people are like, I got $300,000 in equity. I'm not gonna let the bank take that. So they're gonna put the house on the market and they're gonna sell it. So you're not, yeah, and they're not gonna have this huge influx of adjustable rate mortgages. Okay, when's the last time you wrote an arm?

Tracy Hayes  57:23  
Yeah, the pricing doesn't even make any sense.

Chris Snow  57:27  
So typically, when people start getting priced out of their house, it's because they have either an adjustable rate mortgage. More times than not, their payments are going up. They lost a job, something like that, but more times the payments going up. How many Adjustable Rate Mortgages are coming new in the next 12 months, there aren't any, right? So it's not coming from there. You said it earlier. If you got a 2% or 3% interest rate, you're probably not going to go much bigger, right? So those are the four ways that inventory could come to them. It's not coming, it's not there. So we're stuck with people continuing to move in and think about, you know, I wasn't in, you know, in the business way back then, right? I was barely born. But in the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s, interest rates were 1314, 15, 16% were there zero sales in real estate.

Tracy Hayes  58:12  
Well, the houses were a lot less, but

Chris Snow  58:16  
comparatively to their to their paycheck, yeah, back then it still, it was like they still bought houses, right? Why? Because life events happen. People die, they divorce. He have kids, he downsize, they retire and they move away. Those things don't change.

Tracy Hayes  58:34  
It's the whole economic you know? It goes down to the bottom line. As everyone calls us, supply and demand, you can't offer a price if there aren't people willing to pay that price that can afford it. But there is that we do have an influx of people, and obviously it's a little bit of a challenge. Now, I'm having been on the affordable housing Advisory Committee for about four years. I let my term expire back in November. But you know, our challenge with affordable housing in the area, because there are so many people willing to pay 567, $100,000 for these homes. So the builders, obviously, they're going to build that home that that lifestyle, to go and build a bunch of town homes that don't have any amenities or anything like that. It's not in their interest. They're not getting top dollar for those.

Chris Snow  59:19  
Yeah, and you know, when you you're paying so much for land, you have to maximize every single sale to do it right. And when cost of construction is, is what 18 building 1800 square foot townhouse, or building 1800 square foot single family home costs the same amount more people are going to be what that single family home, they're going to pay more for it. So it's like, okay, well, if it's the same cost to me, I'll just, I'll build up. So, yeah, so, yeah. So I just don't see the demand is always going to be there. Yeah, we have people coming into the county that's not going to slow down. At least I'm not the next five to seven years. I don't see that as slowing down here in St

Tracy Hayes  59:57  
John's good and so just. Kind of conclude what I was, you know, because I had kind of brought that up as I was talking to this team. I said, as a new agent, you generally, you don't let all the verbal ammunition that you just spilled out there, because obviously, you've been doing it a long time. You know where to stick it now, and you're studying it all the time, every morning, that those agents need to rely on you, or rely on that senior person office to bring those customers in to keep them engaged. If you're trying to, you're trying to sell them within a reasonable time when you find the right house. If you don't want them to go missing an act, bring them in and actually sit down and have this that conversation like we just kind of role played there, you know, to to really bring versus just, okay, we'll wait to the next one. No, actually have a heart to heart conversation, because now you're gonna start to build a relationship with them. This is the other thing was talking about trying to remember, maybe was at least a sweat who had had on last week with Florida homes. Take the time Lisa Pruitt, who I had on a Monday, take the time right now to actually build that relationship, because that hopefully make that that one customer now in front of you right as you slow your game down. Right now, you're still looking, but you're trying to find that home, and, you know, the inventory. So to build the relationship, because that might be four or five referrals over the next five years, because you spent the time with them and actually built a

Chris Snow  1:01:10  
relationship where the average agent fails is they try to sell, they try to convince them to do something that they don't want to do, and it's a turn off. And why are they convincing that person to do something they don't want to do because they're not prospecting, and they don't have enough other people in their pipeline. They have to have that person buy it, right? They don't make their mortgage, they don't whatever. They have to have that sale. I got really, really good in sales when I stopped trying to sell, and now my goal is to educate the person on what the real data is. Take all the drama out of it. Now, I do a weekly video that I send out to my database, and it's, you know, it's just the news, not the noise. Let's plot all the noise. So look at the data, and I'm going to assume that people are smart enough for themselves to look at data and make a decision that they feel like is best for them and their family, and if they're still afraid after knowing the data, that's okay. I'm going to love them and nurture them, and I'm going to help them for later on down the road. Because of that, when I started doing that, and that became my sales approach, I started selling more houses to people that I've never sold homes to, but I sold it to friends and family of them, just like you said, because they referred me to someone like you know, some of my best refers I haven't done business with Why? Because their best situation was to stay where they were. They weren't going to improve their situation by working right. I could only make it worse,

Tracy Hayes  1:02:39  
but they've kept in touch with you. You're sending them that video. How long do you spend on that video?

Chris Snow  1:02:44  
Five minutes. So I take the day, pretty

Tracy Hayes  1:02:47  
much, what you're gathering every day, seven days prior, you're putting that together, and just summarize it in five minutes.

Chris Snow  1:02:53  
That's great. I just look at it talking to the camera, just like if I were sitting down with someone, they said, what's going on with the market? Here's what's

Tracy Hayes  1:03:01  
going on with the market. That's a brilliant one. We talk about, you know, there's some agents that are doing really well as far as, like, owning a subdivision, right? You know, and doing the Market Report on that, sure, but that weekly take five minutes, throw a camera up there, be as informal as possible. You don't have to have a fancy studio or anything like that. Just put the camera say, Hey guys, I've been studying the material. Studying the material this week. This is what's going on. Inventory inched up a little bit. You know, probably a lot doesn't happen in seven days, but like this week, we have the news that's out there now obviously, you know, as far as mortgages are concerned, those who are putting 20% down and have 740 credit, yeah, you're actually going to be paying an eighth more in your interest rate. So that's where they come up with that $40 you're pretty much, you know, pricing from Fannie Mae is going to be the most people that like goes over your head, but because you've built this relationship, you're in front of every week, and you gumpify it, right? Simplify it down. Yep, that this is, this is what's happening the federal government's getting, you know, putting your hands in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which they have since 2007 and eight, you know, and and controlling, because that's where this administration feels. They that what they need to do. I don't think it's going to change anything. It's not going to move the needle that anyone's ever, ever going to be able to measure here, because it's just, we're just so short on housing nationally. What do you think are three? Three characteristics, three, three things, or even what, just what they're doing. You think of maybe just a few agents on your team yourself that really make the top agents three, three things that you know you're walking in, they're doing some form of it, one way, shape or form, whether that might be social media or they're they're consistently every day they're calling 50 people or whatever, right? That might be the, I

Chris Snow  1:04:43  
think if you boil it down to, it's really focus, I'm going to focus, and I'm going to do one thing, and I'm going to do it really, really well. If it's social media. Do social media if it's, if it's YouTube, do YouTube if it's, you know, all one of these, only if it's for sale by owners and expire. Do it you. Don't try to do everything. Get really, really good at one thing. So their focus is there, their commitment to say, This is what my process is, and marry yourself to the process and detach yourself from the outcome. When I say that is that I can control what time I get up every morning. I can control whether I go work out or I don't go work out. I control what time I start my day in the office. I control how many what time I'm going to get on the phone to start making phone calls. I can control how many people I'm going to load up in my dialer to make phone calls too outside of that. I can't control anything else. I can't control how many people are going to pick up. I can't control whether they're going to hang up on me or not. I can't control whether I'm going to have a good conversation. I can affect it a little bit, but if the person is not wanting to talk, I can't force them to talk. But if I do it and say, This is the process, and I just keep doing it over and over and over again, I know that there will be a result on the backside that, given enough time, I'm going to get the number of conversations that I need to have each day with people about real estate. So the people who can focus, they time block, and they say, I'm going to focus on the process. And just say, it's all about this process. It's about going I just going to make my phone calls. I'm just going to have conversations. And if I have enough conversations, it's going to lead to people saying, I think I want to buy, I think I want to sell. Then that's going to lead to the appointments, which leads to the so we always look at the closing. The closing is the lagging indicator. The leading indicator is, what are all the activities that you did to get there? And the people who do best in this understand that there's only a couple of different ways that I make money in this business, and I need to be doing those things on a daily basis. So for us, we identified there's four things that you do on a daily basis that make you money. You prospect, you write contracts, you go on listing appointments, and you list houses, and you negotiate contracts, and that's it. Notice one thing I didn't say in there.

Tracy Hayes  1:07:06  
I just noticed that the other three don't happen unless you do number one. That's what I was thinking.

Chris Snow  1:07:12  
Yeah, one thing, showing houses, think about that. I have to do it. I don't make any money showing houses because I can't affect the outcome. If I go in and I show someone a house, either like or they don't, if I try to sell it to them, they're gonna, they're I'm gonna turn them off. So it's a necessary evil of something that I have to do, and it's probably the biggest time drain for an agent, especially most agents work buyers, not listings. There's not leverage. There's not as much leverage in working with buyers, because you're driving from house to house to house, and have 10 of them, and you're taking up half your day. That's why it's so important that no matter what you have, you have to prospect some every single day to make sure you have enough people in the pipeline. When that person stalls, which they inevitably do, they go, I'm just not finding what I'm looking for. I decided not to buy. I'm going to move to Georgia. That's going to happen. You just have to have enough people in there. But prospect, do those four things that make you money, the things that don't make you money that you have to do, if you can outsource it and you can pay to have someone else do it, pay and have somebody else do it. Because I know for us and our team, a good agent, when they're when they're prospecting, they're making $700 an hour, $500 an hour. When they're showing houses, they're making like, 1520, bucks an hour.

Tracy Hayes  1:08:31  
Yeah, I think the average agent would look at that and say, well, that's, that's, you know, I'm selling the house. But really, you know, yeah, you actually have done the pre work by actually telling them, by saying, Hey, I think these houses are, I know these neighborhoods based on what you're telling me. This is where I would direct you to go. The actual physical time of actually going out there and showing them is not the you're not

Chris Snow  1:08:55  
going to impact it, yeah, they're either going to like it or they don't. Yeah, yeah. They could love the house and hate the neighborhood. You do everything that you were supposed to do. Found in the perfect house. Got the pool, it's got this. Got three car garage. They drive into the neighborhood and they go, Yes, isn't our cup of tea, right? Yeah, you cannot affect the outcome on that piece of it. What you can about the act affect the outcome on are they going to work with you or not? Are you going to get that buyer's brokerage agreement signed? Are you going to go on the listing appointment, right? Get that listing agreement signed, and then once they finally find the house that they want. Now I'm making money by negotiating the contract. That's where I elevate my expertise with with the buyer going, Okay, now you found what you wanted. Now I'm really going to kick into gear and show you why I get compensated for doing what I'm going to do. And I'm going to present this offer. We're going to come up with some different options and put your offer as in as good a light as we possibly can, to get that seller to accept it. And once they accept it, then our team's going to take over and we're just going to make you feel like this was the easiest transaction. Make it stress rate.

Tracy Hayes  1:09:53  
Let's let's transition here just for time period says if we could spend maybe this last 10 minutes, let's talk about the. You know, the team and some of the things have, you know, I think a lot of people like to throw great words out there, like culture and so forth, but you know, someone listening right now, learning about you, why they would want to come to the Florida coastal team, what would, what's, what would be their expectation? Or, if I was a prospective agent sitting down with you right now, how would you describe, you know, that culture, I know you got, you guys have an office in World Golf Village, even though exp is considered a virtual cloud based thing. But we talked earlier about the importance of being around and interacting with other agents Correct. You know, hearing, you know, our little area, St Johns County, is not that big, and you know what's going on over in this neighborhood is probably, you know, as far as an offer being accepted, it's probably something you want to think about when you're making the offer over in that neighborhood too. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so tell us about about how your team structured, support staff, you know, you We haven't talked anything about assistance or transaction coordinators that are giving up. To tell us a little

Chris Snow  1:11:00  
about the team, yeah. So the way our team is set up, I'm Team Lead. I'll do a handful of transactions a year. Normally it's closer friends, family members, stuff like that. Everything else goes to the team, right? So I don't want to be in there competing with the agents for leads and opportunities that are coming into the database. So, you know, I'm a non competing team leader, and I should write, I should be providing those tools and resources to make it easier for them to convert leads. So we look at it as i My job is to make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for people to plug into and work them when they feel like, Hey, I'm I want to be productive. I want to sell some houses that all the tools and resources are right there. We do that with support with technology. So we pay for all the technology. We the only thing we ask them to do is make sure you're in good standing with the MLS. So join the MLS. Exp has a low month. It's like $85 a month fee to be the agent. Those are the only two things that we ask them to pay. We take care of everything else. Most of our agents focus on buyers. We do have agents. All agents have the opportunity to to list houses. They have to go through our listing training. They do have to qualify for that so we don't have just one listing.

Tracy Hayes  1:12:05  
That's your your endorsement, not exp investment.

Chris Snow  1:12:08  
That's my endorsement, meaning that they know how our team lists houses, what process we take people through, what does our listing presentation look like? That they can answer those questions of why we do what we do, and setting the expectation of what the outcome is going to look like. And if they can't get the presentation the way we want it, then they need to work on a little bit more. But it's in their their control of whether they're going to get listing certified or not. We some teams come in and go, Oh, well, you know, you're we have one listing specialist, and everybody else is buyer specialist. We don't do that. You know, if you've got talent, and a customer says, Hey, I'm working with Sally. She's helping me buy this house. I want her to list my house. Okay, why are we going to buck the customer? Just because we have an old process in place, and I did it the old way, it probably cost us. It did cost US business. It cost us relationships, yeah, because all of a sudden there was this disconnect. Well, I really like Sally, and I want to work with Sal Well, no, you can't work with Sally. I'm sorry. You got to come over there listing. It makes sense in our eyes as team leaders. But for the customer, you know, we have to keep the end customer in mind, right? So for the individual, again, they're going to be able to plug into tools and resources. You're right. Culture is just thrown out there as a word. I would say this, if you want to go into an environment where agents are supporting one another and have each other's back, that's what our team has now. Call it culture. Call it what you want an agent is not going in there just becoming this person that's going to run their own little business and unplug from everyone else. It's going to be, they're, they're not going to feel comfortable on our team. Why? Because take full benefit of what you're correct, yeah, because there's no, you know, yeah, there's no they're, they're not going to get out of the team. What they're going to lose from being on a team. And I'm upfront with people, and just say, Look, if you want to make the most per transaction, you need to be an agent by yourself. But if you want to make more money, then come with a team. You know, I talked to agents, and they're like, Well, I made $120,000 last year. I'm like, Oh, that's awesome. How much did you spend to make that 120 Well, you know, I netted out about seven it's like, okay, so you didn't make 120,000 you netted 70,000

Tracy Hayes  1:14:19  
and how much, like taking a mortgage application. How come a self employed person?

Chris Snow  1:14:24  
How much stress did you have with that $50,000 worth of expense? All it weighed on me every day. Okay, well, you know my agents will make 100 120 150 202 50. And that's straight to the bottom line. They're paying nothing. That's that's straight to them. That's, after all splits. And so it's like you can make 300 400 it's up to you how much you want to make on a team. Our breakdown is we've got listing coordinator who helps set up everything, all the packages, orders, photos, gets the staging done. We have a stager that goes out. We have a professional photographer that goes out. We have a closing coordinator, transaction coordinator. We have marketing people. Also on the backside, we have inside sales people, you know, so people who are out trying to book appointments and help it make it easier. Plus all the marketing advertising is paid for, so we take care of everything for the individual team member.

Tracy Hayes  1:15:12  
So well, he goes back because you, you mentioned earlier we were sure whatever specifically we were talking about, but you said, you know, if you're, you are that solo agent that's kind of trudging along 10, four years in, you probably need to join a team. And it sounds like the way you're describing it to me is you've covered all the basis for them. You you, you've got this cart of different marketing things that you know, what they feel they want to do. But you know, or narrow down to these are the things are actually working, the feedback from others and and marketing analysis and so forth, that they can plug in, plug into your system. And, you know, as we see a lot of teams, there's a lot of top teams that where people come and, you know, they're there for two or three years, and then they move on. Maybe, you know, they want to go out and do it themselves, right? I'm sure that's you know, something that you know in real that's real estate. And there's others that just truly love that atmosphere. And I see some teams that in the reason why some of these teams are really great is because they do have these core group of people who just love being part of that team. Not quite making, they're well, they're not making as much per transaction. They just love the they love the process. They love they love having more action and being there in their their they're going a little bit a little bit further, and feel that, feel that energy.

Chris Snow  1:16:31  
And what we look at is like, okay, there are three things that you break down real estate to. There's the marketing, advertising, there's the sales, and then there's the contract close. A solo agent has to do all of those. Can they get really good at any one of those? Possibly. But normally you'll find that they gravitate to one versus the other. They end up doing one at the expense of the other.

Tracy Hayes  1:16:54  
But if you don't, two of those aren't making you any

Chris Snow  1:16:57  
advertising get you but yes, cost you money. But yeah, you so we take all that off the table and say, look, what do you like doing? I just like being with the customer. Okay, we can put you in front of the customer all the time, and you spend your time with the customer, and we take care of everything else. That's really value proposition is if, if you hate doing contract to close, yes, as a civil agent, you can go hire your own contract closed person. Are you doing the marketing, advertising? Do you like having that overhead and that expense? And you like, have that bill coming in? I've talked to agents are gone $2,000 a month Zillow, and if it doesn't close, I'm, if I don't get this closing, I'm not going to pay my bills. And it's like, they have this overhead and expense. And I'm like, Look, don't our teammate. They don't have to worry about this. Yeah, I get to sweat about that.

Tracy Hayes  1:17:41  
I mean, there's no debt. It doesn't matter what small business you're doing, whether it's a real estate agent or, you know, even one of the any little business in these strip malls that we drive by every day, they all are have blown money on different marketing things, you know, different flashy thing comes in front of them. They they spend money on it doesn't produce they didn't do it long enough, didn't do it correctly, whatever, whatever the situation is, money is just blown in that area.

Chris Snow  1:18:07  
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna relate it to what you're doing right now. When you did your first podcast, was it good?

Tracy Hayes  1:18:13  
No, well as actually, some people say that was my best one, but Right? I hear what you got? No, the

Chris Snow  1:18:21  
first one you do, you're competent, right? But there's a lot of room for improvement. Yep, 100% and the more you can do, the better you're going to get, the more you can do in a shorter period of time, the more you get really good, right? Being on a team accelerates your learning and accelerates the number of transactions. Because before you really feel confident, like right now, when our I've got a brand new agent, they go out and they're sitting in front of a person, and they go, we sold 220 homes last year. How many did they sell? None yet. But they have the backing of a team knows the market knows this, and they're not on their own. Now that person, a year from now, they can start to lean on their own. But I've got agents that are selling 4050 houses a year. Guess what? They lean on the team? Why? Because it is. It's not just about me and my collective knowledge. It's about 17 other agents that work on with us and our support, we are going to make this process super simple. What they say? You know, it's 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Do you have to do it 10,000 times? 10,000 times? So now the question is, do you want to do it 10,000 times over two years? Or do you want to do it 10,000 times in two months? Exactly same amount, right? Get your transactions up, get your calls up, get the number of a bats, and get really, really good. And then that gives you the confidence that if you choose to step off a team at that point and go run with it, you can, or, you know what I'm liking, what I'm doing, I'll just stay here and let them take on all the overhead, the risk and the expense, right? So, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:20:00  
Uh, recruiting and retention. Biggest part of you know, probably, you know, you know, obviously you want to keep your team alive, right? Absolutely. People do, you know, life changes. Some drop out of real estate, some go on, do their own, absolutely. Hopefully you're retaining more and more every every year. Because obviously, as any employer, the more seasons there more bats they have, the less necessarily you have to pour into more the probably drawing out of you. And it's a little easier there. Type of thing. What are some of the things that you think are important that you try to do? You know, as far as the retention part, what is what you know? Because I think, as any leader, any manager, any owner of a company, they're to retain the best people you've there's a little bit of stress going on. It's part of being in the position that you have to consistently do.

Chris Snow  1:20:48  
Yeah. So a lot of times, people don't leave for lack of opportunity. They leave for lack of leadership. So that puts a lot on my plate. Like, what is my job as the leader of this team? My job is to get as easy as possible for people to transact and to recognize and reward them for staying in the process, right? Because not everybody's gonna have the same outcome. So reward them and recognize them for the contribution that they're bringing to the team. I said, how do you how do you recruit someone to come to your team, to your organization, to your brokerage? Is you become more valuable to that person than where they're at. And how do you do that? By relationship. Do it by giving and giving and giving and giving and not asking for anything in return. Because at some point that person's gonna go, I'm not have I'm not seeing that success where I am, or maybe I am successful, but I've just kind of hit this wall. Why am I staying here? This person is pouring and giving me value, and they've never asked me for anything in return, right? We try to do the same thing and treat it just like that with our customer is provide value. Provide value. Just keep giving value over and over and over again, and when the time is right, you know, hopefully that person is going to go, you know what I would be dumb not to we still have to go and do our part and do the presentation and do all that, but my job is to make sure that we are constantly putting things out there that bring value to the customer and bring value to the agent.

Tracy Hayes  1:22:12  
You Well, you mentioned recognition there at the start of that.

Chris Snow  1:22:16  
And let me tell you that is not natural for me. It's not natural because I don't need it myself, you know, I I don't need the awards. I don't need I just, I just need to pay for my bills and I need to take care of my family. That that's the motivation for me. That's what drives me, right? Whether I ever get recognized by the outside world for that. But when my daughter say, Dad, thank you so much for you know, I know you work hard. That is the reward for me, isn't they recognize that? So recognition is not something that's easy, that comes easy for me, for my team. So I hate I have to have help with that. I have to either have someone

Tracy Hayes  1:22:56  
find that you have to find that someone that has that gift. Yeah, that personality. I'm 100% the same way as I'm like, okay, so you want me to reward you for for coming to work today? Okay? And we kind of dumbify it down to that, but everyone's different, and you're running a team, and you're creating a culture. And I probably if we went across the board to every great CEO that ever they probably have that same mentality, but they realize either gotta, they gotta come out of their comfort zone, or think outside the box. Because there are people who do thrive on that, and that really gets them fueled up to be recognized. Because I think everyone feels in some way, shape or form, inadequate, right? You know, Am I really that good? You know, we need to something. You know, the coach sometimes telling us, Hey, you're, you know, I've talked to a lot of different people. You really do that well, sometimes you need that, right? You know, to realize you're on the right path. And I think that's the recognition comes these people, they want to go home and put that little piece of glass on the counter and have their kids see that they were, that they what they actually do every day and be recognized. Yeah, now I'm the same way for that, but it kind of sets what I the thought that came kind of sets that employer mindset, because people are comfortable in that, right? You know, not that you they are so self employed. They're all 1099, if they don't want to come in today or they want to go on a cruise next week. That's their prerogative. But to kind of, you know, make the team and recognize the leaders and team giving them some street credibility, obviously, with the other agents and so forth, is there anything we didn't cover? I mean, we could probably talk for hours, but for hour and 28 minutes now,

Chris Snow  1:24:37  
you know, yeah, I would just say that the hardest things for agents is is to understand that whether they're on a team, whether they work for a brokerage, they are their own business within a business. You like Starbucks for the most part, I don't drink coffee, right? Yeah, but think about it, I want a cup of coffee. I go to Starbucks at 6am I go in, I get my cup of coffee. I get rewarded. Man, this is a great cup of coffee. You come back the next morning, you go to open the door, and it's, it's not open, and you wait like five minutes, and then they come in, and they open up the door and, you know, they get your cup of coffee. It's like, Man, this is awesome. So you come back the next day. You know, you're sitting there waiting and waiting, and waiting, and finally somebody comes at, like, seven, 710, 715, and get your cup of coffee. Like, yeah, and then the next day you come and it's like, nine o'clock before they're there. And you're like,

Tracy Hayes  1:25:31  
I'm going somewhere else where I would have gone somewhere else at the seven o'clock.

Chris Snow  1:25:34  
Yeah? That's how real estate agents treat their business. Yeah? They think, well, I'm self employed, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna have this freedom. I will tell you that structure and discipline and owning your calendar will give you more freedom. And it's, it's, it's so anti in your mind, like, Oh, I've got this calendar that's holding me. No, this this calendar is holding me. HOST, no, this calendar is giving you freedom, because I know what I need to do, when I need to do it, and when there's nothing on my calendar. Guess what? That's freedom. And if, and this is what I'm bad at, if I want to do something three weeks from now, put it on my calendar, then I can know that what's coming up, and I work everything else around that. So I'm not booking an appointment over something that is more important, like a daddy daughter dance or a daddy daughter date or a time with my wife, right? So owning your calendar and just owning that part of it being disciplined, even if it's only four hours a day, discipline yourself for four hours a day. You can work this business for four hours a day, five days a week, and make a lot of money. Does that mean you're not going to work the weekends every once a while? Yeah, but

Tracy Hayes  1:26:50  
some people are off work. Want to go see houses. What you do? But hopefully, hopefully by the end of the end of that weekend, you got a contract.

Chris Snow  1:26:57  
Do four hours a day. Do the things that make you money, 100%

Tracy Hayes  1:27:01  
don't be busy. What goes all goes to consistency. You know, being consistent, like you said, keep doing this. You know, do what you're good at. Do it. Just keep 10 Xing, that, yeah, that, that angle, that lane, absolutely, yeah. So Chris, I appreciate you coming on Absolutely. It's a lot of fun. Excellent. Yeah, man, yeah. We could probably talk for three hours, I'm going to sign off. Please like and share. Leave a review. People need to be doing more of that. For me,