GiGi Urbanski: Value, Add and Contribute

Gigi Urbanski  0:29  
I think, is important, is surrounding yourself with like minded people. Not that they think exactly like you, but their goals are similar. Maybe they have a different approach. You know, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, so we don't always have to hear ourselves talk. Sometimes we can just throw a topic out and just let people go with it, and then take what you can from it, and then when it's time to value add, contribute, that's when we need to speak up and share it. I think what happens is nobody wants to share because they're so afraid somebody is going to take their idea. Here's the thing, we're all taking each other's ideas, because the last time I checked, none of us invented real estate. 

Podcast Intro  1:10  
Welcome to Real Estate Excellence, making lasting connections to the best of the best in today's industry, elite. We'll help you expand your circle of influence by introducing you to the leaders in the real estate industry, whether it's top agents who execute at a high level every day, or the many support services working behind the scenes, we'll share their stories, ideologies and the inner workings of how they run a truly successful business, and show you how to add their tools to your belt. Now please welcome the host with the most Tracy Hayes,

Tracy Hayes  1:44  
back to the real estate excellence podcast. Today's guest has been recognized by the jack's real producers for her production in 2023

Tracy Hayes  1:52  
her team specialize in turning expired listings into highly desirable homes. She uses a creative markets marketing strategy along with her savvy seller program, which we need to find out about, to secure best price for her sellers. She prides herself in assisting her clients to navigate this currently crazy market, and loves the thrill of making the winning offer. She is committed to the integrity and empowering her clients to achieve their real estate dreams. She is the team lead of the Jax home squad. Let's welcome Angela Gigi Urbanski to the show. I like that. Urban ski.

Tracy Hayes  2:27  
Was there a fighter somewhere in your family? I could have been the introduction to a fight.

Gigi Urbanski  2:33  
Husband will appreciate that I went from a bunch of syllables to just more. So basically, my original last name is Cicero, pronounced Chitra. Oh, okay, married a Polish man. So Italian Mary's polish, and you get urban ski.

Gigi Urbanski  2:49  
And Gigi is just a name I earned. So that's why I go by Gigi. And we want to start off the show, because you got a landley here with you from landmark title there. If you don't have a landley, you need to be working with landmark title, right? Oh, she got some sponsorship dollars for that this morning. I should, I should

Tracy Hayes  3:10  
Gigi. I'd like to kick off every show as I go talking to pre show. I want people to learn about you. I want people to know who, what's Gigi all about? You know, you know you. You use some nice, descriptive words in your bios, which I stole here for the intro. That's okay, so

Tracy Hayes  3:25  
we're gonna dig in there. But just to kick us off, where are you from?

Gigi Urbanski  3:28  
I am born and raised right here in Jacksonville, Florida. Where'd you go to? High School? Ed White. High School commanders

Tracy Hayes  3:36  
isn't Ed White, the oldest high school in town. I'm not the oldest, not Ed White. No, no. The the the other one, the other one downtown, they did. They changed the name from was as Robert E Lee High School. Now I forgot to change it to Ed White, right? Because they're both original early high schools in the area, for sure,

Gigi Urbanski  3:53  
but we had the undefeated football team when I graduated.

Tracy Hayes  3:56  
Oh, there. You want to put that out there? Yeah, the greatest class, right at Ed White. I hope so. Young Angela, she's Gigi. You're, you're graduating from Ed White. What are you thinking about life in general, as a career? What are you thinking about doing?

Gigi Urbanski  4:14  
I wasn't. I was a typical graduate high school. Your parents, you know, want you to go to college or get a trade. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and so I did what we all do at 19, right? We have a baby. I call it the school of motherhood. So I had my daughter when I was 19, and I worked restaurant jobs. I mean, anything you can think of, I was probably doing it, but I always had an entrepreneurial spirit. So even from like nine years old, I remember washing my dad's work trucks and thinking, Okay, if I wash his truck and three other neighbors, I could make this right. And so I always had that in my mind, and I never knew why. I could never find the right job. And. Had my daughter, and I was just forced to, you have to make money, right? Because here we are, you know, myself and this little girl, and I have no idea what I'm doing, because they only write. You know, what to expect your first nine months. They don't write the, you know, years after. And so I just worked myself through different jobs. So when I was graduating high school, I had no idea what I wanted to be.

Tracy Hayes  5:19  
I'm gonna have you just pull that mic a little bit closer to you. You sound great. Great, perfect. So, and I want to point out your nice shirt you have on there. Nacho. Average realtor is that you picked you may have those made as you picked up. Where'd you pick that up? So, somebody,

Gigi Urbanski  5:35  
I got this on Amazon, because when I got into real estate, you know, there's everybody watches selling sunset. You know, we all see these Well, put together people. And I knew that that's just not me, like I am very just down to earth. You get what you get, unfiltered. And so I made a decision, when I got into real estate, I would stay real to me, and people would feel that now that comes with consequences. You either love Gigi or you hate her. There is no in between, and that's okay with me, but I'm authentic and Nacho average realtor comes from. I do things way different than what people would expect in real estate, and it comes from the way we work with our clients, how we procure them our open houses. I remember doing a mega open house, and the whole world thinking, what is this girl doing? She's brand new in real estate, and she's got a mega open house. I knew that if I had to be out of my house on a Saturday or Sunday, it better be fun. We just came up with the whole nachos at your open house, so walking tacos or having live music, and it's just stuck with us. So the t shirt, the tennis shoes is never going to change. It's always going to be there. Some girls want, you know, Louis Vuitton heels, and that's great, I don't, because guess what? Number one, I'm going to fall and number two, my fetal art.

Tracy Hayes  7:01  
What's so interesting about what you're saying is, this morning, I finished a book, audio book yesterday, I started a new one today. And it's Ryan sir Hance, you know, new one out on branding and yo. And then that's what you're talking about. I mean, that's and that's you, and we, you mentioned pre show. You know, as we talk a lot about on the show. It's not the brokerage that that sign really isn't. It's not the back in the 80s where the century 21 jacket, or, you know, you're thinking that REMAX is the only other one with the balloon that I can think of, a logo that sticks out right? Everyone recognized the century 21 jacket, you know, type of thing that was their brand. And in today's real estate agent, you have to, you're you have to create your own brand, and it has to be around you and your personality.

Gigi Urbanski  7:51  
And that's the thing, you know, I love that you say that because if it's genuine to you, if it's authentic, you don't have to create anything. You just do it right? And I remember having such bad imposter syndrome when I first got in real estate and going, oh gosh, okay, well, if they wear this, then I should wear that. And one day it hit me, no, you don't be you do what you've always done. It's going to work out the way it's supposed to, and I'm pretty excited that some people are getting on board with the whole tennis shoe and dress thing now, I mean, I'm very proud. I'd like to hope it's my trend, but it's not. But the thing is, is just do right by people. Be yourself and everything else has a way of working out, and that's just how I've always been. Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  8:38  
the tennis shoe and dress thing goes back a couple episodes. I had a classmate of mine who is former FBI agents personal security. He worked for Gavin de Becker, but he would appreciate the sneakers because we were talking about safety for real estate agents. And you can have this look with the high heels, but something goes down, you better be flinging those things off when you gotta you know, if you have to have to move in your personal safety, says, maybe think about and also, how are you gonna sneakers are actually practical.

Gigi Urbanski  9:06  
I'm an addict. How are you gonna walk someone's property, right? You know, people have ring doorbells. They have cameras. When you first pull up to a property, they're watching you long before you even shake their hand. And if you're not walking their yard and looking at their house, and even if you don't know what you're doing, if you're a new agent, if you're a new agent, there's your protein right. Get the roof line. Act like you're looking at something. They just get it right

Tracy Hayes  9:28  
now. That's good information there. So you have your daughter and a son. Okay, so you're in your your young 20s, still yet what I was going trying to go back into your, your career here with LinkedIn, that's my little type of thing. When do you start picking up curcus You You had some business development, Aspen Dental, you were there. And obviously orange theory, before eventually going in into when do you. Start jumping into career. And what are you finding out about yourself? Yeah, and then, you know, fast forwarding that to, you know, the last couple years as a real estate agent, you know, what did you you know, you didn't go to college. I got my AA later, right? Got you So you did it, I wouldn't say the unnatural way, but, you know, I think you you found out now, I mean, I think a lot of people find out college is just another four years of maturing, you know, because at 18, no one thinks you have any experience. So either you got to go out and work the four years, or go join the military and get a lot of experience and then come back, then someone thinks you're worth something, because at 18, they still don't think you're worth anything, right, right?

Gigi Urbanski  10:41  
So here's the shortened version of gigi's Wild Toad adventure. So if you've ever been Disney World, you've been on the wild Toad

Tracy Hayes  10:51  
adventure, one most popular rides. Okay, buckle up.

Gigi Urbanski  10:55  
So in school, as I told you, I didn't like to do things the way most people do, so I found myself not attending school as frequently as others. My mom actually worked at the school. I didn't say I was smart. I like to do, you know, extracurricular activities and not attend class. My mom took my civics test for me. It was fun. I got back to school the next day and saw that she wrote me a love note. The teacher just, you know, had a shitting grin on her face, like, skip my class again. So that was kind of the start of my entrepreneurship. And the reason why is, my dad owned an air conditioning company, and so that summer, he said, you're coming to work for me and you're going to go to half day school and half day work program. And I thought, I'm getting what I want. I don't have to go to school, but half the day this is great. And so I worked for my dad, and I worked there for all through high school, up until I had my daughter, and I built out a what's now known as telemarketing department. So I had this hair Brian idea, and said, Hey, Dad, we should do this thing where we call people and check on their unit and offer a maintenance and he said, Okay, do it. And so I built a telemarketing department. I trained up my staff on scripts. And I mean, hey, he let me go.

Tracy Hayes  12:19  
That's That's awesome. You know, actually, when you were talking earlier about you have an entrepreneurial spirit, my first question was going to be, were your parents entrepreneurs? Obviously, your dad was, I mean, what? What did you take from him? And we know this area here, if you're especially in AC Heating and Air, if, if you're halfway decent and show up, your business can blow up in Florida,

Gigi Urbanski  12:42  
so I worked for him. I ran the service department, the warranty department, built up the maintenance telemarketing department, and then started going on calls where people need to replace their unit. And I remember vividly. I won't say his name, because I adore him. It's another company. And I remember I was the only girl walking in to give an estimate, and I got a smug look from a gentleman, and that was the day it hit me. It's like, laugh at me. Now I'm gonna laugh

Tracy Hayes  13:10  
last How old are you at this point? Oh, 18. Oh, so, oh, you still were young. Yeah, yeah.

Gigi Urbanski  13:18  
So I learned that, and then eventually decided, okay, I don't really want to run an air conditioning company, not really what I want to do. And my dad and I, you know, probably not the best business partners, you know, we all were very bull headed. So I went to work for, you know, Blue Cross, Blue Shield. Learned very quickly working in a call center is not for me. And then I married my husband after coming out of a very abusive relationship. And he said, What do you want to do? And I said, I don't even know. And he said, do something that you love. Don't do it for money ever, and I promise you'll always be happy. And he gave me that freedom. So I went back to school, got my associates degree, you know, had my two kids, his two kids, blended family. We're trying to figure out this whole marriage thing. It was just berserk. Oh, so getting that associate's degree was like getting a doctoral degree to me, because I'm working a part time job. I'm taking care of four kids, trying to blend a family. It was just mayhem. Yeah, and so we finished, I got done with school, and he said, great job. What's next? And I said, I think I'm gonna go to nursing school. As I told you, it's Mr. Toads, wild adventure. Why not? Yeah, and so I, you know, boogie woogie, boogie, trying to get through it and got to ju, had all the letters of recommendation, everything you could think of, like shoe in, did the work, and I didn't get in. And I remember being so deflated and thinking, this was my

Tracy Hayes  14:38  
theme. Was it? The civics teacher was the god, I don't know. Civics teacher might have made a call over there. Yeah. And I

Gigi Urbanski  14:46  
said, All right, you know, had been staying home with our kids, because, you know, four kids is expensive, yeah. And so I stayed home in the summers, took care of them, went to a jewelry party. Kept calling it perimeter designs. It's actually premier designs. I didn't even know what I was. Doing, I didn't wear jewelry, so Mr. Toads adventure decided I'd sell jewelry for a while, and we made a nice little business for six years. We did it a multi level marketing right? And it was great. It was everything I didn't think it was. I hated multi level scared me to death, and I built some really good relationships, met some amazing mentors through it, got in front of people speaking, developed my business acumen I didn't know was doing all these things during that time, right, building relationships, helping people see value in a product and a service. And then that ended, the company closed, and I saw an ad for Aspen dental office manager. And I thought, why not retail experience, believe it or not, that's what I said. And some medical background I interviewed when I walked in, there were six men in amazing suits, and here I'm coming in home based jewelry party, single mom, Mr. Toads, wild adventure. And I thought there was no way imposter syndrome hit again. And I just took a deep breath, and I went, Okay, I'm going to go in there, and I'm just going to do the damn thing. And so the guy said the traditional question at the very end, why do you think I should hire you? And I remember channeling like that, that inner girl walking out of that HVAC estimate, like, don't look at me like that. And I said, What makes you think that I want to work here? And I remember swallowing and thinking, I cannot believe I just said, you

Tracy Hayes  16:33  
probably said that too.

Gigi Urbanski  16:35  
I said, you know, what makes you think I'm the right person? And went through, you know, just started asking, they turned it back on him, and I didn't even know what pivot and art meant at the time. I was just doing all the things I'd learned along the way, and about two hours later, I got a phone call and said, Don't let me down. Yeah, I'm giving you a chance. Because that took balls to say what you did, and that took the job. That's awesome. And we just worked our way up Aspen dental, and I got tired of traveling, and that's how I ended up doing orange theory fitness, right,

Tracy Hayes  17:06  
right, people, don't you? Just made me think of days back and when I was with in telecommunications, and we were as a manager, we were taking trainings on how to interview, type of things. But when you go to the other side, like how to be interviewed. You know, being the heart to turn it back on them, to start asking them questions, right? You know you had that How to Win Friends and Influence People comes into play when you start. You know, you're kind of by, you know what made what made you? You know, how did you get? Where you're at, your inquisitiveness, and when you turned it back on on them, it took them back on the heels. It's like, you know, it's interesting how the dynamics, if you're people, get nervous about interviews. But if you actually read some of the books or listen to them, whatever you want to do, it actually coaches you on how to be interviewed in a job interview situation. And turn it back on the interviewer. It gets you played. No doubt, I've used it time and time again. I laugh interview that people used to call me because I'd been to so many different interviews and and, but because I was comfortable with it, right, like you have to you, it's one of those things. It's like as a real estate agent or anything in your walk life, someone's going to choose you. There's a reason they're choosing you, right? And if they don't choose you, you should probably look at yourself and say, why didn't they choose me? You know? And let's say, you know, it does happen in areas where they know who they're going to hire, but they go through the motions of saying, Hey, we interviewed 10 people, but we want to go with this one. And they kind of that happens. I mean, we all do it. If we ever hired somebody, we all have gone through the thing. But if you really, truly have an opportunity at that job to be authentic, be you just like being an authentic, like you said, being that authentic real estate agent, because that's who you are. And you don't have to work at it. You

Gigi Urbanski  18:58  
can't. People ask me all the time, like Gigi, what? What is it? What is it? How did you, you know? How did you succeed in Aspen? How did you, how do you succeed as a recruiter for Orange theory? How do you do this? How you the bottom one is what you said. It's all about communication style. I think we go to overcome the objection before we even find out if there's an objection. What if there's not right? What if they're doing what you just said? They're just interviewing 10 people. Because, like, their grandpa interviewed 10 people, yeah. What if we just say, Hey, let me be kind of ballsy and say, like, why are you hiring Why are you interviewing three agents? And when you do hire an agent, walk me through it. We're at the closing table. You've gotten your commission or your check. We've gotten our commission check. You've got your bottle of champagne that we all bring you that nobody really wants, by the way. Fun fact, no one really wants that, right?

Tracy Hayes  19:49  
What you're bringing about bottle of DOM. I mean, maybe they're

Gigi Urbanski  19:52  
like, Dom's not actually marked as the top champagne. We just, is that right? Yeah, we just sold on the brand, right? Yeah, the brand. You know how. He's asking that at the end of the day, we're at the final part. We're at the closing table. Walk me through what the experience looks like leading up to that. And that one question has taught me so much about the client's viewpoint on real estate, on a realtor, and what their expectations are. Now you have the three components you need to go all right. Now I know where I go to work instead of let me come in here and show you my sexy presentation that I spent 42 hours branding and getting the right color in the right font, right? They don't even notice that they're glazed over, right?

Tracy Hayes  20:34  
That's brilliant. What are some of the answers do you get to that question? What is it? What does it look like going up to closing? Because I imagine you get a lot of just get a lot of just blank

Gigi Urbanski  20:43  
faces. No, no, at first you do, but you have to learn the art of the pause. Awkward silence is okay. You see what just

Tracy Hayes  20:55  
happened. Yeah, I know you threw

Gigi Urbanski  20:58  
that at me and they chuckle, and I go, but no, seriously, what does it look like to you? I imagine you've sold a home before. What was it like? And then they'll tell me, usually what I hear a number one is, do what you say you were going to do in the first place, and communicate with me. And you know, most agents will say, okay, cool, yeah. And so here's what I do. And did it work as a magician, not as a mule. So mules, you can compare mules, right? So a mule is a mule. If I have two mules and two mule owners, and they do the same thing, and they went do all these things, how much will you do it for the cheapest one wins, because there's nothing to compare, right? The magician, you don't really know what they're going to do. They just do it and you feel it. And that is where people make decisions on which agent they're going to hire out of the three. It doesn't matter if you interview first last second. I know there's a whole thought process. That was

Tracy Hayes  21:54  
a brilliant analogy. That's a brilliant analogy. Where did you get that? Did you create that? That little too Leo and a magician. Where'd you steal

Gigi Urbanski  22:02  
that from an amazing coach that I hired when I first got into real estate and realized no one's going to tell you the secret sauce. You got to go find it your damn self. And so I YouTubed for hours how to be a listing agent, how to be a listing agent, because I learned real quick on this little team that was not my jam. Driving buyers around was not my jam, and I really didn't know what I was doing, so I hired a coach, and that was the first fundamental lesson we learned, is stop being a mule and rattling off all the things that you do, be the magician and create the experience

Tracy Hayes  22:37  
in this industry, because it's not like going to the grocery store, which they do several times a week. They're only doing it. Who knows it could be. It could have been 2030, years since the last time they actually been in that transaction. It could have been just last year. But it's not something they're doing so often that it becomes you want to create a system or a mule situation. The grocery store is a mule situation. Checking out, right going. You were creating a unique experience and obviously tailored to your experiences yourself to give them a wow moment,

Gigi Urbanski  23:24  
possibly, or they decide right then and there, this is not the agent for me, and that's how we start most of our conversations off. Is, listen, I don't know. Number one, if you should even sell your house. Number two, I don't even know if I'm the right agent for you. Here's what I do know, and here's what I'm capable of. And, you know, and a lot of times, coming in, we come in on expired listings, that's, that's kind of been my thing, which

Tracy Hayes  23:49  
are starting to think they're going to start, we're starting to see some now in the market, versus going, Yeah, I've been seeing them. You're finding them.

Gigi Urbanski  23:58  
All I've done, I've worked for sell that owner expires, and recently got into probate. That's been my claim to fame. Interesting, and with an expired listing, I have to uncover it's like they're going to that third cancer specialist, hoping and praying that somebody's got the secret sauce. If I don't know what happened with the first two specialists, because I like to think that most Northeast Florida agents are the best, because, first of all, it's my hometown, and you can't live here if you're not the best. So I like to think that we all went into real estate with good intentions. We all go and do our work with really, really good intentions. And I think somewhere along the line, there's just a disconnect that happened. It's just like most doctors are really good, but it's how you feel when you're in that doctor's presence, and the questions they ask, and did they listen to you? And did they come up with a creative strategy? So for me, it's like a diagnosis, okay, you put your house on the market with someone you trusted, and it failed somehow. There's only three outcomes, right? It was either the market was the problem, you're the problem, or the agent was the problem. And so I can't fix the other agent. I really can't fix you, and I can't control the market, but what I can do is give you some tools and some analytics and say, Hey, here's where I would position you. And this is kind of the how behind it is that something you're open to exploring. And the number one they thing they say is how walk me through, how we get there, and we just go back to that closing table moment again. Picture at the closing table walk me through. What makes you feel like the process is working? And usually what I find is the agent didn't communicate in the right way, because nobody wants to hit people with the uncomfortable truth. It's so much easier to comfort them with lies week over week. You know, the market, the rates, there's new builds. No, the price is wrong. Let's just call a spade. I

Tracy Hayes  25:55  
was gonna go right to where, what you know, in the last, you know, 1824, months, the price. Yeah, I mean that. I mean almost errors, like, if you're in this region, if you're priced right, you've done the right comps, your listing agents done all the due diligence. It comes up with a price your cell, but if you want 10, $20,000 more, you'll sit and I'm not your girl,

Gigi Urbanski  26:19  
and I'm okay to say, Tracy, I get it. Walk me through it. That extra 20,000 means to you, and I let them talk. Why are we even putting your house on the market? Is it an option to stay and rent it out? Is it an option to do this? Give them three or four options? Adults want options, right, right? It's kind of like I'm not paying that mortgage.

Tracy Hayes  26:41  
Here's three pricing. Still giving too many, yeah, just don't give them too many. Two or three tops.

Gigi Urbanski  26:47  
Here's the potential consequence. Or here are the attractors to those options. Which one do you feel most aligns with you right now? Doesn't mean I'm going to work with you if you tell me I want to sell my house for 50,000 ever asked price, and I know that's not possible. I'm not the agent for you. If you want me to work for pennies, I'm not the agent for you, because what am I going to take away?

Tracy Hayes  27:10  
So here's one of the challenges that I know as an agency, you guys deal with all the time, and you're going out on that listing appointment, and we've seen it, you know, because people are seeing, hey, the national average, this, this, that the other thing. But we know we're this area is very neighborhood centric. It's what's going on in your name. Because there's especially with, you know, these PUDs planned urban developments. You've got other model. Your house is not the only house. It's not unique. There's other the same model scattered throughout the neighborhood in there. And then, you know, when you got that same model just sold, and it's got this, you know, you got the same pool, or not a pool, or on the golf course, or not on the golf course, or whatever it is, those little things. And how do you deal with that client that does like, say, 120, 25,000 $50,000 more than what's realistic,

Gigi Urbanski  28:02  
right? I like to start my listing appointments a little different. I come with the comparables, and if possible, let's say there's a couple homes that are vacant, or I know the listing agent on them. I asked them, would it be okay if we did a show, a walk through of your of that home that's for sale around the corner. Because here's the thing, if I do that and I get my seller to see, oh, wow, yeah, I can see the difference. Or hey, yeah, we are similar, maybe I do need to price the line. It's not only helping my sale, it's helping the other agent. Because if we price correctly, we're both going to attract the right buyers, and we're gonna get the home sold, and we're going to appraise, and everyone's gonna be happy, and we're gonna clink glasses and start all over again, right? So I like to take them, or at least offer to go see a couple homes that are comparable, and to go see some new construction. If it's a saturated new construction market, let's go take a look, Mr. Seller, I'm not saying you're wrong. You might actually be on to something no one's ever taken me up on the offer to go drive, and I've pre made appointments. All it is doing is establishing credibility and saying, let me show you, not tell you. And I always see the shoulders drop a little and they go, tell me a little bit more about what you know about how this is going to impact my value. Walk me through this, and they also, I would do it too. It's my house. You know, if I look at my house, I'm like, Oh my gosh. Raised our kids here, and there's granite this, and there's that everything's gold. Calm down like it's not, it's not the greatest house on the planet, nor will it ever be. There's always going to be a better home. There's always going to be a better upgrade, but it also is determined by what the buyer values. And some neighborhoods, believe it or not, I took an appraisal course. Some neighborhoods shout out to Hollis, okay. Some neighborhoods a pool is a detractor, and I know there's probably some view. Right now going full crap. Yeah, we just went through an appraisal class at Landmark title, and that's exactly what they told us, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  30:06  
what were some of the reasons to explain that, that you that statement you just made, because I don't disagree with you. There's got people don't want to make most cases, is an ad but, but there can be instances where it's not,

Gigi Urbanski  30:18  
it's not, and just, I'll give you another one. This was really odd to me. All these 55 and up communities, right? We think more square footage, but more bedroom is popular. Well, not in communities like Del Webb, where they're 55 and up, a third or fourth bedroom might be a detractor, and so we have to know the market. And when I first started, I remember thinking, I'm a listing agent. What do I care about new construction? I'm a listing agent. What do I care about this? And quickly I learned I do care about it, because I have to know what buyers are looking at to properly educate my seller so they can make the right decision for them. So when we do get in that conversation, I have solar and I have a genrex system. Okay, that's great. But unless your buyer is that target buyer that really sees value in that little bit of efficiency that we can't technically prove all the way through, then I don't know how we express that, except putting it on that features and benefits sheet. And we all know how US realtors are. It's hard for us to read a lot of things. Yeah, so even though it's in the document section, doesn't mean it gets properly distributed. So something we've done, we get, in those cases, and we know that we've got, you know, 100,000 worth of upgrades. Some are very hard to see, like when you're knockouting Those terms are fully upgraded. We've made a property booklet that's on the desk, so when buyers agents walk in, it's their 10th showing they do their best. They're not going to remember every single detail about every house. I can't remember my own listing, right? We've got a property booklet right there for them that details out everything explains the neighborhood the best place to grab coffee or lunch, because the buyer's agent is our partner, and the buyers need to know from the seller what's important.

Tracy Hayes  32:03  
That is, is brilliant, and some people may already be doing what you're doing. There's somebody listening that's not doing that. It's to me, it goes back to a phrase my wife doesn't like when I use it, I kiss, keep it simple, stupid. Yes. And the reality is, sound better. The reality is, you're right. They're running around. Maybe, who knows, at the last they were looking at another house. Maybe they went by and saw this one or, you know, or you just, maybe it just came on. You're like, hey, you know, I saw this house just around the corner, whatever. Maybe you want to go look at it. I don't know all the details at it. Let's go check it out together. And now you walk in and you've got a little cheat sheet for them, you know, giving those, those little things again, you don't know, you know, there's, there's people that move to nakati because they want to take their golf cart to Publix. That's their thing. And if, if it's that close, and it's not crossing the main road there, might be happy about that, right? You know, we don't know what's gonna really sometimes people say, Yeah, I want all this stuff in my house. But there's this one thing that no one ever thought of. They're like, Oh, well, I like to, I like the fact there's double doors going into the master bedroom. Who knows what.

Gigi Urbanski  33:14  
They're little, right? But everybody has, like, everybody has their core things of what would make them purchase a property, right? Our job is to showcase what, what made the seller buy that property in the first place? Yeah, right. Put that in there because somebody thinks like them, because this seller was a buyer. And then I think also, just going back to the basics, I love that kiss method I've always worked with that we got to get back in this current market to working as a team. It's we, not me, you know, it's not listing agent, buyer's agent. It's, hey, there's two agents trying to represent two different parties on the same common goal is to help the buyer get the home they want and the seller sell the home they want to sell. If we can make the virus agents job just a little less stressful. They're going to do the same in return when we get down to those nitty gritty negotiations. And what can we do to cross the finish line? We just had one this week like Susan Bishop shout out to her, like this girl worked her tail off on this transaction. It was a probate home. It needed a lot of work. We worked our way through it. We did a mega open house that I've been laughed at for years on and guess what? We sold it in two days. Thankfully, Susan Bishop was on the other side, because we overcame at least 15 obstacles together, including sitting at the closing table. We almost didn't close, but because we chose to work together, we were able to make the transaction happen.

Tracy Hayes  34:45  
I think it's one of those, you know, the builders don't even get it, in my opinion, where they're working, they're working with the same group of realtors. It's not like, like the group is changing. It's a pretty large group. But the. The collaboration. And, you know, yeah, you might there are some agents that almost bring their their clients to some of these builders religiously. And you know, some of the builders had to tailor off some of their bonuses. If you bring so many people through a 12 month period, we give you a little bonus. They had to tailor that down because some people were blowing it up. And then there's some other agents who are, you know, maybe only bringing one or two, but there, but it's still a process. It's still, it's a process they're doing, you know, hundreds of times a year. And yet, they themselves haven't actually got that collaboration attitude that you're talking about Agent X is might only work with you once every three years. Who knows? You know, if you, if you're doing a lot of listings, who knows? But it's having that attitude that you're talking about, that collaboration, that, hey, we're two people. We're not lawyers fighting for someone's money. You know, we're two people that have, we have a house in the middle. We have someone who wants to sell it and we have someone who wants to buy it. So let's work out the little, minor things that we need to do and move on in 30 days.

Gigi Urbanski  36:09  
Yeah. And you know what makes that marriage so beautiful is when the buyer's agent sets the right expectation with the buyer from day one a buyer consultation. Imagine that if we did those and the selling agent, the listing agent, has the right expectations set with the seller. When we get into those hairy situations, we can remind them, hey, wait a minute. Back up 10 Steps. When we were here, we said this, and now we have to do these three things to cross this bridge. What's keeping us from crossing the bridge? And then we go to the next one, and I think that's where we're going to find that this, call it new market, is taking us to and we're going to have to call on our our OG realtors that went through this, you know, 1015, years ago. How did they maneuver through because now we're going to start to see the OG real estate agent that knows all the tricks and things to do to get through this type of environment. And you got your savvy social media collaborative approach, realtor, when we all come together, we're going to win. Let's

Tracy Hayes  37:10  
talk about your first year. Oh, at what point you're at? Orange theory, you were there for, I think, almost three years. Little over three years. What makes that decision for you to make the transition

Gigi Urbanski  37:24  
state? Well, it's that one word that we all know starts with C. Can you guess what it was? Cash, some people.

Tracy Hayes  37:35  
Oh, okay, all right. Oh, yeah, no one's going to orange theory. I didn't think about that. Okay, yeah,

Gigi Urbanski  37:40  
kind of hard to recruit fitness coaches during covid, but I will say this. You know, when that happened, they they kept they kept us on, and we found creative ways to work through madness. I don't know if you've ever run on a treadmill with a mask on. It's not like the best experience in the world, but we got through it. But during that time, it was a time of reflection to go, Okay, what do we really want to do? And so here it is, Mr. Whatever urban scheme my husband decided over one of our multiple cheese happy hours during the pandemic, we should go to real estate school. Wasn't even my idea. It's totally out of the blue. I said, Okay, why not? And so we went to class and we worked through it. We're both highly competitive, and we worked together to make it happen. When we got done, he said, All right, well, what we gonna do now? I said, let's, let's just start this thing. Let me. Let me just start. And so I interviewed with two people, two brokers, and landed with Ray and sunny at what was exit. And you know, felt right at home. And they do a great agent program. There was just some really cool people that you got to be around. It felt like a family. And I just slowly started working, and so sunny was offering this agent certification program, and you had to apply to be in the program, which I thought, here we go. Ju again, serious, right? And then he offered fisbo Fridays, where he would teach you how to pull for sale by owners, how to pull old expireds. And you would go, door knock. I had no idea what I was doing. And he gave us a couple little scripts, and I just went with it. And from there, I can't really explain it. It's like I blinked my eyes and I woke up, and we were at the end of the year, and we achieved more than I ever even thought possible. And I attribute it to the training, to not being afraid to fail forward to being authentic, watching people who are succeeding in mirror and matching but not losing your personality along the way. What I wish we would have done then was took the time to put the systems in place for the growth, because to the next year, we took a little tumble. We did really. It on paper. If you look at it, it's like, oh, she did great. What is she talking about? We would have doubled our business had I had some systems in place and took the time to learn those. Instead of just hunt, kill, eat and kill eat, I should have hunt, put the system in place, process, it, kill, eat, repeat. And so now into year three, we've hired, you know, we have a transaction coordinator. I have an assistant. I'm getting ready to hire my second social media assistant. We have some buyer's agents on our team. Systems are in place now, and I changed up my coaching because it was time to grow in a different direction. Switched brokerages and changed my coaching style. I'm excited because last year I know what our production was. And in q1 of this year, we did an our entire production last year, in quarter one of this year, awesome. Taught me how to every quarter, what are you doing? Right? Worked? What didn't work, what needs to go

Tracy Hayes  40:59  
you're with the XP, so you're not, you know, with big Keller Williams office here that might have some transaction coordinators in there, this is going on you. So at what point did you you'll hit your lid. You're like, hey, I need to bring on. And who was that first person? Did you bring them on full time? Or was it a virtual or is it someone that works transaction by transaction, Tell us. Tell us, at what point did you come to discovery? Because I think this is a number one challenge of a lot of agents who are, I think there's, there's so many agents out there right now that are successful. They meet the real producers minimum list, and they're in the top 500 they're standing on they've arrived. And they've arrived because they are really the top 500 of 12,000 in production, and they're making decent money, so you can't complain, but really a lot of them have such huge potential, they could do twice as much if they broke through that lid. And as I said, put some of those tasks off on some other people so they could focus on more of the money making. So when did you kind of come to that discovery? What was your first move?

Gigi Urbanski  42:07  
So over time, right? So first year, finished up and said, Okay, I need a transaction manager. There's, there's no way I can do all this driving down the street. I'm gonna wreck my car trying to submit an rrta. Like, come on now. It's ridiculous, and you can only pull over so many times. So I hired a transaction manager. She works transaction by transaction for me. She's been with me for two years now. Love her. She's great. Becky with transaction medics. She's amazing.

Tracy Hayes  42:32  
Transaction medics call out right there. Okay, I will call anybody. They should be advertising here on the show. She's going

Gigi Urbanski  42:41  
to interview her people too. So she's just been phenomenal. And then align Money Mastery, Bruce and Jacqueline absolutely shout out to them. Hired them, and I'm so glad you said we did, because you segued me right into this. It's like we didn't even plan it, but we did. You said you make Jack's role producers, you get in the magazine. They're going to all the events. They're dressed in sexy, they're buying new cars, right? So they must be doing great. And many are. Many are not. But when you really open up the books and get transparent, are you? I can't speak for them. I can speak for me. Imposter syndrome. You've heard me say that a couple times. Yes, it's because we all have it. We all have imposter syndrome. We just have to decide how to tackle it. And what I learned was, you don't need a flashy car. I'm still driving the Cadillac I bought from my mom when my grandmother passed away, and I'm going to drive it until it dies. I'm totally fine with that. It's a

Tracy Hayes  43:40  
great thing about Florida cars last but not bad in most cases, not batteries. Yeah.

Gigi Urbanski  43:45  
So I met with Bruce and Jacqueline, my husband and I actually met them at an event we were doing in our yard for Halloween, and it was blow out like I thought, look at us. Like we got all the things we're like the house to be at for Halloween. Look at us shine, right? And he started talking about our finance. I don't even how we got the subject. Let's go, Who is this again? Bruce spread love and Jacqueline with a line, money master.

Tracy Hayes  44:11  
Align. Money Mastery. Okay? And they're just friends of yours at first, or,

Gigi Urbanski  44:17  
yeah, we met them in passing. They're our neighbors, okay? They're also well known in the real estate community, all right? And so he said, mine Money Mastery, let's bust open your books.

Tracy Hayes  44:27  
How many other real estate agencies you work with?

Gigi Urbanski  44:32  
I don't know exactly how many. I know one other that's in my program right now, and she's done with them for

Tracy Hayes  44:36  
a couple years. No, I'm just thinking if you would be an interesting guest on the show, yeah, to talk about some of the things. When he opens some of these books out, he probably has a heart

Gigi Urbanski  44:46  
attack, because I realized you don't know what you don't know until you hire someone who does. And it's like that moment was pivotal for me, because I realized. I'm producing high volumes, but what am I making? Where am I putting it? Are the taxes, right? Are you? Are you saving? I mean, real estate agents, we're entrepreneurs. We have no other we don't have 401, K. I mean, yes, there's brokerages that offer this and that, and stock options, sure, but are they the right fit for us, and so he bussed up on my books with me every month. First month was brutal. Second month was impactful. Month three were intentional, because now I can look at things and go Hold on a minute. Did I budget for that? Number one? Number two, does it align with what my goal is to move me forward? And I've learned that every cent has to be accounted for. And you know what? He told me, not many agents do this. And I went, Oh, that's scary. So when it, when it really went to bed that night, I thought about it, and I went second, we're helping people make decisions on their biggest investment and discussing somewhat of their credit, not all of it, but a little bit comes out their finances, and how they're going to make decisions. If our house isn't clean, how do we have credibility? And that's probably why some of that imposter syndrome comes in. And when we're so busy trying to hustle because we don't really know how much money we have, because we don't really account for it in our bookkeeping properly, how are we making good decisions for ourselves and for our clients? And then we're making decisions out of scarcity and haste. And so when I made that pivot and decided, okay, they're going to help me get through this and decide how I'm going to make my money work for me, long term and short term, it's like a weight came off of me, and when I make decisions with clients, I'm able to make it out of abundance versus scarcity. It's like, Hey, you want to sell your house for 20,000 20,000 more, and I gave you a chance, and I let you go a little bit higher on the price, just to show you that it's not going to sell. So we can realign it. If we have that conversation two or three times and they're just not willing to budge, I can now confidently say, You know what, Tracy, I just can't share something with you. I don't know that I'm going to be the agent for you moving forward, and I can walk away from that feeling good. Now, thankfully, we've only had to do it one time. But the thing is, is I think we need to know our finances, and we need to know how to make our money work for us, because as these rates have climbed, let's elephant in the room and the NAR settlements here, and all this noise around us, it would be so easy to get caught up in that storm. Instead of going, that's noise. We're always going to have noise right plug forward. I know how my money is working for me. I know what my ideal client is. If it's not one of those things, I don't need to worry with it. And then the final thing is boundaries, not being afraid to say, you know, that doesn't fall in alignment with my goals, so I'm going to have to say, No,

Tracy Hayes  48:09  
I think you're, I mean, there's so many things that you just went through right there. And I need to have this gentleman on the show, because I can, I can tell right away we're going to go deep, and it's going to be a lot of interesting, because hopefully he'll be able to share the plan, yeah, might scare the the share some of the stories that he has. Doesn't have to mention names, because that's not important, but to share some stories, because you're 100% right. The one of the big, one of the, I think, top three reasons why real estate agents get out is all sudden tax time comes. Now the IRS, you can work with them and dig your hole out. I don't know why you would get out of real estate. Doing it is you need to be, you know, managing your books like you said, correctly. They get this 15, $20,000 check. And did you, you know you are you, you're what are your goals? Right? Are your goals to own some investment real estate. Are your goals to I want to, I want to have a retirement fund going. You know, you think 401, K's that kind of thing is corporate America. But that doesn't mean as a 1099, self employed person, you're not able to put money away pre tax as well. Just like everybody else is, there's all these different things. And when you get that large chunk of money to you'll be putting this, this stuff away. And because, yeah, do realize, maybe you go, maybe you sell two homes in January, yeah, great, but you don't sell another one till March, right? Or be involved in a transaction, buy or sell, or whatever, you don't get another check till March. I mean, you've gotta, you know, you've gotta live within your means, which we know, you know, with credit card debt right now, we know a lot of people are not living within their means, real estate agents and all everyone else there's, they're running up these, these things, and then, like you said, these, how many times a day are you hit with all the shiny objects that you know we could I can scroll through Instagram right now. They're going to tell me how we're going to create leads for you, or it's another thing, hey, we can make your podcast be listened by more people and all this, you know, like I said, the mortgage side, oh, mortgage, mortgage loan officers, you don't need real estate agents. We'll get you the leads. And, you know, all that type of stuff. And you know, you don't even have to pay until you close a deal. Now, some of the offers that you're getting, right?

Gigi Urbanski  50:20  
It's not bad, right? Like when you do a Zillow team, if you're doing it through your brokerage, people always say, oh my gosh, would they charge this much? Okay, but you had this much. So if you start now at the guidance of your broker, might not be a bad idea, but to your point, I think we can sum it up with one thing. We think we can swipe a card because we have microwave mentality, and all of our problems are resolved. Well, what we just did was created 10 more long term problems. And I've never really bought leads in money. I bought them in time. So as a new agent, I didn't have people say, Oh, farm a neighborhood, it's only two grand. It's only this grand. It's like, whoa, 2000 I need to make $2,000 you know. So I would knock doors, I would go on the MLS and look for expired listings that were in an area and a price point that I wanted to work in, and take a chance, right, you know? And then market the ones that you have. And then follow up and get good client follow up systems to where your are their person for life, that they'll just refer to you. And here's the thing, because I was able to learn those lessons in the first one to two years, year three and beyond are going to be phenomenal. So where people are panicking about inflation and the rates and the NAR supposed settlement, I'm not gonna go there. You want to talk about that today? I don't. I mean, I don't want to. I don't need a lot of hate mail. Is this, you could always negotiate your commission. It's always been that way. We've negotiated since caveman days, right? So do a good job. Work hard. Shut off the TV, stop watching this nonsense, because everyone has click bait. That's what this world is made on right now. Click bait. That's all it is. Know your stuff and educate the people you come in contact with on a level that they can understand and relate to. And it won't matter what the rate is. It won't matter the North settlement. It won't matter if this one's sold. This person sells 22 houses in the neighborhood you're going and listing none of that stuff matters. What matters is knowing what you're doing, having the appropriate systems in place and the right mentors that will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, and having a coachable spirit that says, All right, this didn't work. Fix it. This isn't in my wheelhouse. Get rid of it. Focus, where you need to focus.

Tracy Hayes  52:44  
How much you the focus part that, how much of all this stuff that you just compacted there really comes down to when you're one on one with that buyer or seller that's right in front of you, like you and I are right now, and being totally focused on that person and giving them in striving for I'm going to call it that wow moment at the end of that, that transaction that they explained to you that, yeah, I'd hope it goes this way, and you work and you make it happen that way. And even better, they're like, I didn't even know it could be that easier, or whatever they you know, say that that is the key to the door that is the key to the next 10 deals, because that person is now an advocate. They're not doing another deal with anybody else, and if their brother and sister tried to go to another real estate agent, there's no way they're going to allow it to happen. Because you just went, I'm going to just use above and beyond, or however way you want to describe that you were just amazing and that's it's being totally focused on that piece at that moment.

Gigi Urbanski  53:46  
So I'll tell you a story this short, I was brand new in real estate, Mozilla, buyer, fireman, Clay County, got his first job. So excited, moved up from South Florida. Helped him. We went through multiple houses, and some of them, I was like, I can't believe he would even buy this. And I had to turn that off and just go, what does he want? We found the one, and we, you know, we go in, we're looking at it. And the sellers came home early, and it could have been a disaster. And so we came out, and they had a little toddler, and I said, Oh, I'm so sorry. We running late. And they said, Oh no, we're so embarrassed. We came home early. We thought you guys were done. I'm so sorry. I said, it is so fine. Don't worry about it. And the little kids just, you know, looking up at me, a little diaphragm grabs my keys and just start shaking the keys, having a great time. And the mom is just freaking out. And I said, don't worry about it. I'm a Gigi, as long as we can find those keys before I get to my car, it'll be fine. And it was a wonderful moment, because here you got a firefighter in the seller's military, and I didn't have to do anything. They just connected, right? So we. Eve, call the other agent, tell them what happened. Of course, we want them to understand how it happened, right? And we said we're writing our offer. So we write our offer. There was multiple offers, and our buyer got the house, but the story gets better. Fast forward a year out. When we closed on that house, I sent the sellers a thank you saying, Thank you for your kindness, thank you for your understanding during the hiccups throughout the transaction. Here's a picture of your house. I wanted you to have it because you explained to me how much woodwork you put into it. And by the way, didn't you say so? And so's birthday was coming up, and they said, Yeah, and it's this theme party. And so I sent a birthday gift because it just felt right when so many people would say, Oh, you shouldn't do that. That's someone else's client. Do what's in your heart for the right reason. There was no branding, there was no business card, it was just a little book. A year later, their sister called me, this is so and I'm so and so's Sister, you're our family. Realtor, you have stayed in touch with us, and they told us that from the word go, the way you treated their children and the way you conducted yourself throughout a transaction that was really one sided, and it was, I didn't admit it, but it was that agent took more of a commission because I was a, you know, rookie agent. I know how to fight for myself, so I just went with it. And I've done two other deals, and I'm getting ready to list that sister's house in a couple weeks. Awesome. How you treat people matters, being transparent in that matters. And I think get rid of the imposter syndrome and the little voices that are in your head that say, Oh, I'm not saying go murder someone, but that say, Hey, don't act on this impulse. There's a reason that you're being led and felt to be helpful or to just take a step back and be caring through the process and the experience is who you are, not what you are, what you can do, or you know what sign you have, or how big your For Sale sign is, or if you're in real producers, those are all great things. What they're really looking for is, how did you make me feel throughout the experience when you had nothing to gain

Tracy Hayes  57:15  
100% I mean, this is you've poured on some great stuff. I haven't got to even half my questions, not that they're even more, but maybe we could just go, I mean, some of this, obviously, some of the short form stuff that will come out of this podcast is just awesome. In that first year, you talked about a little bit, you know, what Sonny and Ray are, you know, what they were teaching you should do this? Did you have a senior agent or a mentor that you attached to and tried to replicate some of the stuff that they were already doing successfully.

Gigi Urbanski  57:45  
Yeah, my first open house was with Sydney Ragusa. She's still with United, and she wasn't my mentor at the time. She was so kind to me and walked me through everything and never made me feel like, oh, you should already know that. Like, I didn't know you needed a super lock box app on your phone. You kind of do. She's like, what else do you not know? I'm like, pretty much everything. And so she really took me, her and Amanda Hauser under their wing, and we're like, we're gonna, we're gonna help you through this. And so she got me over that fear, and I think that's what I needed. And then from there, I just kind of just went and as I went through, I remembered how I felt and when new agents come and have such a heart for them, that's why we run masterminds the way we do. It's not to recruit your agents. It's because I know how it feels to be the new kid on the block and feel like you have it all together, but you don't. You just need that extra little hand that says, hey, walk with us. We're going to help you. There's

Tracy Hayes  58:40  
just, there's just so many agents, and we talk about it all the time on the show, if you've listened to any episode, I mean, some of them were able to do it, sometimes by themselves, but a lot of others obviously had someone you know involved. And if you're one of those who can't do it on themselves, you have to find somebody to carry you through. It's not that you can't do it. It's just, I think people get into the business and don't realize it's not walking in nine to five and like, Okay, here's your job. You got this assignment. Get, we need to get this done today, you know, get this report, or whatever gets this, you know, type of thing you actually, you have this, just this huge box to work in. You got to get it something and get out of the box, get out of the corporate box and sometimes trying to expand. It's like, you know, I'd carry a survey on we were talking about artificial intelligence last last week, and it's like, people don't even realize what we're what this is, you know, this Pandora's box for artificial intelligence can do for you a lot. Yeah, it can do so much, and it's like, you're like, trying to, like, you gotta break through what you've been already taught and get outside. And some people have a hard time doing that. They're not comfortable. Okay, yeah. But some of that you have to get with that senior person, or someone in there that you could say, Hey, I like the way you do business. I'd like to learn more

Gigi Urbanski  59:57  
about it. Yeah. And I'll tell you, you know. Know, when I got into exp, Mike rollowitz Does a mastermind, and I went and was just like, This is great. All the emotions, just like throwing things out there and you're just spitballing. And it was so impactful, and I started helping him with it, and that's one of the things I think is important, is surrounding yourself with like minded people, not that they think exactly like you, but their goals are similar. Maybe they have a different approach. You know, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, so we don't always have to hear ourselves talk. Sometimes we can just throw a topic out and just let people go with it, and then take what you can from it, and then when it's time to value add, contribute, that's when we need to speak up and share. I think what happens is nobody wants to share because they're so afraid somebody is going to take their idea. Here's the thing, we're all taking each other's ideas, because the last time I checked, none of us invented real estate.

Tracy Hayes  1:00:56  
I'm going to name this episode, value add, contribute. Yeah. You mind that? I don't mind. I like that. I like that came right out of you. And I just assume that's yeah,

Gigi Urbanski  1:01:06  
just value add contribute. Because here's the thing, when you value add contribute, you're Tracy, I'm Gigi. I could tell you exactly, detail by detail, how I run my day. You go try to mimic it. You're going to still do it Tracy's way. And we just said throughout this whole process, don't be an imposter. Pick imposter syndrome. Away. Be yourself. It doesn't mean you can't take ideas and cross, share, collaborate and then go make them yours. And I think we're getting so caught up in what's the secret sauce? Well, there's no secret sauce. Secret sauce is good. Work ethic, integrity, be who you are, and just do the damn thing like, just go work and you know what? If you screw up, who cares? Laugh at it. I mean, don't we all love bloopers.

Tracy Hayes  1:01:57  
There's, I mean, I don't, you know the last four books I've listened to because, I mean, all of them talk about failure, all of them, and if you're not failing, you ain't doing. You've got to keep failing forward. You ain't doing. Look for the next failure so you can learn something. Every one of these top people made it to the, I mean, that we look up to that wrote the book because they've had success, and now they're sharing it back of all told you they failed, and that's where they learned that the success was not, you know, ultimately they got to success, whereas we see them successfully or whatever their own definition, right? But where we see them as successful, wealth wise, or wherever they achieve, they all got there because they failed enough times, and learned and improved and kept improving because they failed and they stepped to the left, but no, they needed to go to the right. Now they know, and then they get the next step.

Gigi Urbanski  1:02:51  
And why did NFL coaches and their players watch the playback? Yeah, they're NFL players, but still inside that NFL player is a little boy who just started out, and I met this past week at a conference with my coaching group in Nashville, the CEO of Success Magazine. The CEO of Success Magazine, remember that when I tell you this, she gets up on the stage and you know, she's talking all this, and she said, I got to be real with you girls. I still get panic attacks before I get up on a stage. I'm the CEO of Success Magazine. And I was over there trying not to vomit, yeah, and it was like it hit. I just you felt the whole audience go, huh? You're the CEO of Success Magazine. When we see someone being so successful, we probably need to remember that they're still a real human like us, and on the inside, there's that little imposter that just keeps trying to come out. They're just gotten really good at going, get back down, right? I'm going forward. There's no room for you. Get out of my way. And so we have to learn how to beat that, and as a brand new agent, I'm talking to you. The only way to not be an imposter is to go learn and go find someone to learn from that's doing it right, pick up the pieces of what you can learn and then turn it into your personality. Right? You know, if you hate door knocking, don't go door knock like why would you do that to yourself? Right? If you don't like cold calling, I personally enjoy it. Don't cold call. But if you're not going to do those two prospecting actions, what are you going to do that you're comfortable doing? Right? And that's how you're going to succeed in this business. Is the agents that have the mindset of, I'm going to fight the imposter every day, and I'm going to do the things that I need to do with discipline. Are going to get the results like I time block, I tell people no more than I say yes anymore, and I used to be a yes girl. Now it's like, hey, you know what, Tracy, I appreciate that, but that doesn't really fall in alignment with my goals for the week. So I'm. Gonna have to I'm gonna have to pass this time, and most people know me, with exception to events like this, from eight to 11 Monday through Friday, I am on outbound phone calls. I'm not answering my phone, and I've even been quoted for saying, it doesn't even matter if a family member has passed away, it's sad. What am I gonna do at 10 o'clock in the morning? I'm going to do the same thing that I am at 11. Now it's extreme, but the point is, is you got to be so hardcore with your boundaries that when you set them, you don't waver from them, except for extenuating circumstances. So when we're done here today, I'll be back in my office prospecting, because I didn't get it done this three hours, and you're gonna get, I'm gonna get those three hours, and there's 30 contacts in before I go to bed tonight. And that's the difference between the successful agents that you see when you go to these real producers event, and you watch it from afar, and they're like, Well, how, how are they doing it? They just went one more round. They just went one more round. They just tried one more time. They just made one more phone call before they called it quits.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:11  
I wonder why I'm it's on my mind the few people we've met, the gentleman, the money that's make sure you because I want to make sure I tag them and all, yeah, so that when they see the episode or tag them in any direction, that we can get them on. You've been in the business little over two years, right? If I saw that correctly, I'm going into year three, going in, going into year three, you've seen the market has changed. I mean, I mean, I think it was May of 22 when we started to see the rates start to go up and type of thing and start to slow down, or start to become a factor in the decision making, because now the payment, I mean, now we're quoting 3000 something, dollar principal, interest, tax and insurance payments, you know, like,

Gigi Urbanski  1:06:58  
I look at the printouts that team profit gives me, That's, that's our preferred lender. And I'm like, holy crap. That's how much the monthly payment is on this house. I mean, you have to, yeah, and that's what the public's doing. So why are we telling them date the right mayor of the house? Why don't we just go, Holy crap. Like, why do we as real estate agents get so like, on our, like, real estate, high horse. When someone says the right time, no, they're not okay. We were together just complaining about the price of gas. How come we can't complain about, I'm

Tracy Hayes  1:07:28  
glad you're I'm so glad you're being so real. Like, damn it, because, because it was spring, spring of last year, probably around this time, maybe a little earlier, we're watching a well known person a lot of people follow, and I basically throw this person's name out and laugh with other loans, because they tried to start to make predictions and talking about how, oh, interest rates are going to be they're going to be below five by summer, when, and this is a professional person that does this and actually puts material out for others to absorb, and people follow him and go off of their predictions. And you're right. The the, you know, in the mortgage world, we're trying, oh, rates are going to drop. Rates are going to drop. It's going to be all right, refinance, marry the house, date the rate, right? You know, the whole thing which it totally understand. I mean,

Gigi Urbanski  1:08:24  
it just makes me cringe when I hear that. I hear uneducated well,

Tracy Hayes  1:08:30  
because, you know, everyone looked back five years ago. When should you bought a house? I saw a meme the other day. Someone was, when should you bought a house five years ago, but you should buy the house. You should have bought the house 10 years ago. 15 years ago, you should have bought one by now. So get in the game, because it's still going to continue moving forward. Buy the house when you're ready to buy the house. Yeah. I mean, the important thing, yeah, the underlying fine print is when you can afford that house that you want, or obviously you and I know there are a lot of young people who can't afford the house mom and dad had. That's the house they want to buy. They want to have the house that mom and dad have worked for for 25 years, invested and obviously, probably bought and sold other houses that gained an equity, and they use that equity to buy this house that they do when they really need to be buying this two bedroom, three bath starter home, you know, type of thing. And build that equity in there and sell that, and then have a larger down payment move forward, and then that kind of thing and that so

Gigi Urbanski  1:09:25  
but are we educating people that way, or are we saying, date the rate mayor of the house? Think about that for a minute. Yeah, if what you just said, If agents in Northeast Florida all just decided we are going to truth serum people, and we're going to stop saying this crap that's just like, oh, say that, because it sounds so good. How about we just said the damn truth. Listen, kids, your parents spent 4050, years building up to this. Right? Yeah, here's how they started. What was your parents first house? I don't know, we'll go ask him. Let's talk about it. Because

Tracy Hayes  1:10:03  
$21,000 I think, for their first house, 21,000

Gigi Urbanski  1:10:08  
was a lot, yeah. I mean, remember they say a nickel for if I

Tracy Hayes  1:10:11  
recall, my dad told me it was actually the seller financed it, right?

Gigi Urbanski  1:10:16  
Yeah. So it's like ask questions to understand where you need to start. So you're starting in chapter one, and you're comparing it to your parents chapter 30. Same thing with real estate. You're in chapter one, and you're looking at this agent that's done this 15 years, and you're comparing your chapter one to their chapter 100 million. Right? Like, just be real with people, and people want to know, like the little kid that's sick and the mom takes them to the hospital. And what does a little kid always say, Mommy, am I going to be okay? What does the mom always say, Oh, yes, yeah, of course, you're going to be just fine. Yep, you're going to be just fine. And this is what they're going to do, right? I think people need to hear that in this economy. Listen, yeah, this is jacked up. I don't know the answer. I don't know what's going to happen in six months. I mean, look at Mr. Toads Gigi, wild adventure of my career. My God. I mean, I didn't even know what I was going to do. I was a professional class Skipper, and here I am leading a real estate team, right? You know, we just have to be real with people and tell them I don't really know what's going to happen. Here's some potential outcomes. Let's just work through it together. Do

Tracy Hayes  1:11:27  
you think that? Because I call it realism, some people don't want realisticness to them. And you know, I sit here and every morning I come in the TV behind you. I put on Bloomberg and I listened to these people talk out of both sides of their mouth. In the last couple of days, it's gotten really bad, right from the reports that have come out now, all of a sudden, Fannie Mae saying rates probably won't be here near 6% till probably closer to the end of 25 What are you talking about? You said they were gonna have rate cuts this year. They knew that they knew, but they kept trying to put the shiny polish on something. Piece garbage, right? But it's the same pretty well. The same thing about these mortgage predictors in their mortgage, all the rates are going to drop rich. Are you actually factoring in the human element that's going on in this? There is a human element that's in my opinion, and this might shock some people. I think a lot of the people that I have on I tracked like kind there is a human element deliberately trying to put us in a spot, and we trying to fight out of it, and until people realize that we're going to be in that spot. And that is a factor. It's not just, oh, they they printed a lot of money that had a lot of factor to it, no doubt about it. But there's all these, there's all these other things that are going on that you aren't even paying attention to, because you won't watch the other news channel because

Gigi Urbanski  1:13:01  
you're so distracted. Yes, everything's a

Tracy Hayes  1:13:05  
distraction, and your social media is only feeding you what you like. That's what it's designed to do, keep you on the channel. So if it's feeding you, you know girls in bikinis, and you like girls in bikinis, you're gonna keep scrolling on that, and that's what they're showing you. And the same thing for the for the news, memes and everything else, you have to go out and research what's going on. So being real, I think there's more story to it, and I don't think, I think a lot of people avoid actually telling the story because they want, they don't want to be seen as being negative. No, I'm, I'm trying to set you up for this is what you should expect. It's kind of like, hey, you know, your taxes are really low right now, because the person you just bought the houses have all these exemptions, bingo. But November 25 you need to be prepared, because you're gonna be hit with a tax bill, right?

Gigi Urbanski  1:13:50  
So it's two reasons. Yeah, right. I mean, Tracy, we're going there. Yeah, I guess we're going there together. I love it. You either fail to educate yourself, or you're an imposter. If you fail to educate yourself, you're living in Pleasantville. My husband will be so happy when he sees this channel. Don't follow Stephen, Mr. Whatever Bansky, buckle up buttercup. I mean, he writes paragraphs of comments, you know, and I've unfriended him during election years. We agree, yeah, our political stance. Say to him, baby, really shouldn't say that. He goes. I don't really care. I'm going to stand up for what I believe. And whoever doesn't believe with me or agree with me, that's okay. We can agree to disagree. I mean, I've seen him shake hands with people on the other side before, and go me, and it's a great conversation, yeah? But he said what I won't tolerate is ignorance, yeah. So if you can educate me, I'm fine with it. And I think what happens is they're not educated like you said. We only watch what we want to watch. It makes it feel good, like I mean, I'm sorry. I know. I need to go get a mammogram and a pap smear and all these things. And apparently, now 45 is the new age for colonoscopy. Didn't know that.

Tracy Hayes  1:15:09  
I don't want to do my doc said, come back in 10 years. I was good. That was really good

Gigi Urbanski  1:15:15  
for colonoscopy. The point is is like, I don't want to do that, but I need to be educated on what is going on with my body. And another thing I heard from the speaker that I told you about was Success magazine. She she actually had colon cancer and didn't even know it. Wow. And thank God she went for that. So it's like, it goes back to education. It's not that extreme. You're not gonna have cancer, but you can if you're so blinded by what you think reality is, because you only listen to what you have to say, and you don't hear another person's opinion or another person's fact check. How are you really making educated decisions? And then imposter syndrome is you're just regurgitating what everyone else says and just believing it. And it's like, okay, then who are you really and then you're going to be on Facebook, speaking of your authentic self. So wait a minute. First of all, we just chat GPT. The whole thing, which, there's a time and a place for that, but if I read you my chat GPT right now, you'd be like, that's not how Gigi talks. And my husband said that to me this morning. He goes, Hey, that thing you posted yesterday was that really you or chat GPT? Which one? He goes, it just said some different words you don't use. And I said, Yeah, that was I probably needed.

Tracy Hayes  1:16:24  
Well, that was one, one thing Carrie survey said, Actually, I put a reel out from her podcast. And one thing is that agents have started to use it so that they, you know, not getting her is because you haven't gone deep enough. And it's that thing, it's one of the first things you need to do is teach it to write and, you know, basically speak the way you speak, which I kind of, I, if I've used it to, like, you know, I maybe written an article, paste it in there, said, rewrite this in, you know, with better grammar. And all, you know, have it do all those checks for me, because I'm English class was not my, you know, forte, I did show up to class, so, but, you know, that's, that's where I or, you know, and put it, you know, put a different spin in, using chip. But that was one of the things she put on there. But the circle, what we were saying, going back to real estate, in how you use, it's like I said, asking those questions, digging deep. Don't just say because the person says, I want to live in nakati. And, you know, darn, they can't live in nakati. And even if we even there's some loans, just because we're approving you for a loan doesn't mean you can afford it, because we're not what you spend on Friday night. We don't have factored into this. Well,

Gigi Urbanski  1:17:37  
if you work with Bruce, you do, you'll know real quick with a line money management, right? Yeah, mine's, I'm a food looking

Tracy Hayes  1:17:44  
at your credit Yeah, looking at your credit card, how much you spend in restaurants?

Gigi Urbanski  1:17:47  
Yeah, I like to eat, drink and shop the point. Like you brought a good point up. It's like, if you're not educated as an agent, like, I'm not a loan officer, I'm not a mortgage broker, but I know enough smart ones to go, Hey, walk me through your process. What are some of the things you ask clients? What are things you look at? Then you can go back to your client and have your buyer consultation and really ask educated questions. Why do you want to be a knockout team? Because I'm a foodie like Gigi, and there's, like, six or seven amazing restaurants, there's a wine bar, Oh, and there's two workout facilities so I can at least try to work off the stuff I eat and drink. Okay, that might be their answer. Maybe it is a status symbol. Or maybe, like you said, they want their ability to be on their golf cart and be within a contained community, but at what cost? And so there's options in different communities that reach different price points. But if I don't talk about the elephant in the room, the monthly payment and how that aligns to their personal life, now I have to look at your finances. Yeah, Jack, you just told me that you're you guys stopped at Starbucks every morning. I don't even like Starbucks, but I'm assuming that it's like 1015,

Tracy Hayes  1:18:58  
bucks, easily, if two people each two drinks, yeah, you're going to spend a minimum

Gigi Urbanski  1:19:02  
$10 Okay, so Jack, if we took that off the table, how much more would you have each month to put towards x, right? Or, hey, maybe we should wait six to eight months and do some homework and get some things paid. Down

Tracy Hayes  1:19:15  
there was an agent that posted on Facebook. I believe it was they had the clients they were looking at, I think was beacon lakes, might even been beach walk or Shearwater. And I responded to him, I said, I think they were actually, I don't know maybe they were someone, someone was looking for an agent or something. I can't remember the actual The question was, it's been a few months, but the bottom line is, what about all the communities that are in between the existing communities that have better built homes, bigger homes for less the fees are less the there's trees

Gigi Urbanski  1:19:50  
in the neighborhood. Oh, you mean they have trees in neighborhoods like gillington Creek.

Tracy Hayes  1:19:54  
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you did you have you showed them an existing neighborhood and say, hey. Say there, here's some existing homes. Yeah, we can, we can do a renovation loan. Maybe you don't like the kitchen or something, you can, you know, you can update it, but you're going to get more bang for your buck in all the communities between those two communities along there. And then what schools are they actually going to because there's about three different elementary schools that those kids are going to be divided up. Some couple of them are pretty good. Ones, really good and in not so are you actually showing them those other what are those other things versus just, Hey, let's go show them the flashy new home in Shearwater or the flashy new home in Beacon lakes, all those factors that come in to what we're talking about. They're not. You know, it's easy to go sell that new home. I think a lot of new agents just flip them off to the site agent and walk away. Okay, what did? Okay, oh my gosh, we could. We could be we're gonna go for hours here. Yes, we need to finish up.

Gigi Urbanski  1:20:53  
You just said the perfect thing. They just take them to the easy way. Isn't that what people are really saying on click bait about the NAR settlement, we just opened doors. So what if we stopped wasting the mind that God's given us in the voice on nonsense? What if we stopped combating clickbait and we just started becoming real bait. Like, hey, yeah, if you've been like, Josh Rogers comes to mind. Phenomenal job showcasing neighborhoods and in such a creative way. I mean, I've seen the dude talk about alligators, and then he talks about where basements are, I don't know. I'm just, I mean, it just does a really good job of captivating an audience. I'm not saying everyone should go out today, blow up YouTube and go drive Josh crazy with questions. Just go watch a couple of those agents the way they explain it. Jimmy Judd comes to mind, does an excellent job with talking about communities. What if you just hyper local, focused, like some of those folks, and just said, Okay, let's talk about this community. Did you know In St John's County there's some hidden gems? Yeah, go to a community. Take your phone. You don't need all this because, Lord knows, I'd knock it all over. Take your phone. Everyone knows who you are, so you don't need to say your tagline and all your fancy stuff and what the brokerage is going to show up on your ad, right? And you just say, found a community that actually has a nature preserve that's protected. It has this many trees. Oh, and check out this dog park. Oh, and by the way, you can get in here for less than this much per month. Message me for the deets. That's all you say, right? And then guess what? Your logo is on your page. You're not violating any laws because you've done everything you're supposed to do. And then all of a sudden, you get organic leads, yeah? And what if we did the same thing in those Facebook groups, because you know what? I hate seeing one poor soul ask one question and one of those real estate groups, and it's like we all become teenage boys that just got hormones. And it's like 92 comments in 60 seconds, and I'm like, I was using the bathroom.

Tracy Hayes  1:23:20  
I will actually, when I see that, when I see that, I actually, I sometimes I like, Oh, I'd like to respond. And also, I see all the comments, I'm like, No, I'm not gonna do because if I make a comment every time someone else makes a comment, it's gonna ping me. And I'm like, No, I'm not gonna,

Gigi Urbanski  1:23:33  
you know what you do in that situation. And someone's gonna be like, I can't believe you're sharing this, because I'm not gonna make it to it, because I'm too busy doing life and work. But if I was a new agent, and I'm like, do desperate trying to find business, I'd be watching those groups. Here's what you do, get your phone out, record a video about you and that community and what a community is known for. Have four or five of them that you work right? Only join those Facebook groups. Don't join any other one, just the ones you're going to specialize in. Soon as you see that private message that video to them the answer to your question I have, when's a good time to chat? That's the end of the video. That's a tagline they're going to want to know, because they want the answer. What I see agents do, and I'm just like, they give out too much. Hey, I'm so and so with XYZ real estate in it, banana street lane, and I've sold 662 houses in your neighborhood, I'm a top producer, and here's all my stats. Oh, and by the way, you can get into this builder at this price, blah, blah, blah. And here's my card. You gave away everything. They have no reason to call you. Every other agent just copied and pasted your stuff, put it in chat. GPT made it their own, and now they're going to do it next time. And if you would just private message them a video, they're going to watch it because you did something different.

Tracy Hayes  1:24:48  
That leads us. I want to finish up with marketing here, because we're almost at an hour and 25 minutes. 90 minutes is pretty much tough. What have you found? What have you developed over the. 20 plus months. 24 going on year three. You know, entering year three. What is your go to? Marketing? I know it's always evolving, but what does it evolve to right now? Where are you in this current market condition with? You know, a couple years of sales behind you? Where are you getting your your the clients you're working with right now. Where'd they come from?

Gigi Urbanski  1:25:21  
So 90% of my business is expired listings. The rest is an even split between repeat client for referrals and probate.

Tracy Hayes  1:25:31  
I did not realize there's that many expired listings. Is it just there are a lot of people not worked them. They don't want to work. It's always been something in the in the tool belt of a real estate agent is a work expired listings. But there's not a lot of people that want to work the expired listings.

Gigi Urbanski  1:25:48  
They don't. It's not that they don't want to work the expired listing. They want to make one phone call, one door knock, and they got a listing. That's how it works. You have to find out. You get to be a detective and find out what happened to the expired listing, and go about it that way, and most people are going to tell you, No, today, are

Tracy Hayes  1:26:07  
you always getting that from the seller, or you kind of do some other work to get that information.

Gigi Urbanski  1:26:12  
So the first thing I do is, is I make a phone call, and I don't call them once. I call them up to 10 times in the same day, and then I will drop something of value at their door, not, Hey, I saw your house. Didn't sell. I could sell it. Okay, duh. The first response is gonna be, Well, why didn't you? So it's like, Hey, I've got a strategy that you may or may not be open to that would potentially drive some traffic to your home to sell for a premium, right? Here's a little piece of the puzzle, and I drop a postcard to them that has a QR code, and it scans it, so I know that they scanned it. And it's me talking to them, and I'm relating, hey, I understand how frustrated you might

Tracy Hayes  1:26:56  
using video, video, so you're making an attachment. They're not reading an email, which they'll have. People won't even read the video. They're more likely to watch, and you're getting notified that they're watching

Gigi Urbanski  1:27:07  
it, yep, then we're gonna follow up with a phone call the next day. Hey, did you? Did you get XYZ that I left at your door? Are you open to at least a conversation? So that would be that one with probate. I think it just scares people with probate. What I like to do is come in as the helping hand. Are you working with Al Nicoletti? That's where I learned. I started with his first basic class and went, Oh, I don't know about this. And I sat on it for about six months. And then I got a couple by accident. They were expired, that were probate. I thought, Damn, I'm working them now. I might as well go all in. So I took a class through MTI, kind of a deeper level. And what I've learned with probate is people just need resources. So if you just offer resources to them, like, Hey, I know a cleaning guy, Hey, I know this guy, you'll talk. You'll get business that way. And so most of my businesses come from expired and probate, but they're all really the same. Everyone just wants to know, what's your solution to my problem, and that's what's worked for me with those two and and I think a lot of times, is I'm like that too. I just want to make a phone call and you say yes, and you know, we get married, and I saw your house, and everyone's happy you've

Tracy Hayes  1:28:19  
committed this three hours a day. So you you've committed say, Well, I'm gonna make the phone call. So if that takes 10 minutes, that's gonna eat up my three hours a day. Not it's a reverse psychology of doing it. I'm just focused on the action that somebody is eventually going to say, take you up on it. And it only takes one. I

Gigi Urbanski  1:28:37  
mean, look how stupid I was in first year. Did I was doing asked Sydney, where goose I didn't even know how to fill out a purchase and sale agreement. I took the class on it, but I didn't know she had to do it, right? But, you know, the thing is, is I'm focused on the action, not the outcome. I'm detached from the result. I need to make three hours worth of phone calls and outbound prospecting. I'm going to talk to about 30 people if I do that consistently, I know my numbers.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:01  
Everyone says it's all about the process, all about the journey. You need to you need to be you need to love the journey. If you're focused on the end that, it's easy to disregard that,

Gigi Urbanski  1:29:10  
right? But if you can check off a box, I have a calendar in the office. It's so boring and I make a red X every day that I make the call a coach taught me this

Tracy Hayes  1:29:19  
when you look at your when you do your three hour workout, I didn't do it, you cross it off, yeah,

Gigi Urbanski  1:29:24  
and if I see there's not an X and there's not a reason the process worked. I just didn't do the work that month. And you know, that's been something that's been foolproof for me. And again, I'm just now starting to get repeat business. I didn't have a lot of people in my sphere wanting to buy or sell house when I first started. In fact, I wouldn't have wanted that. Wouldn't have wanted them to work with right? I know what I was doing, and so that's the best way to start, is just pick one or two niche groups and just get really good at it.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:52  
I'm gonna ask one last question here, because this is a challenge. It's happening. I'm seeing or hearing agents talking about it more and more, and we. Talk about those new communities. We're talking about Shearwater and beacon lakes, right? Those people want to and first question is, how long you think you're going to be living there? Because if you think you're going to be living there for a year or two, you don't want to be buying in that new community. Because what we're seeing right now is these people have lived there for a year or two for whatever reason, work moved about, or the people moving in that weren't living there when you moved in. You don't like them, and now you want to move out of that neighborhood where, if you went to an existing neighborhood, you would already know who the neighbors were. You could go in there and kind of snoop around, check it out, see what goes down. Are there kids or not kids or whatever, right? But some of the some of these, which will be expired listings, or there's probably expires coming on every day, coming from communities like this, where they bought into the new construction community. They've only been there for a year or two, so their house is still new, but there's still construction going on, and as we know, all the incentives coming from the builder, it's very hard to compete with that. It's not so that's why I'm asking you, what how do you attack that customer just

Gigi Urbanski  1:30:59  
had it Creek this house would not move with another agent that's off 210 isn't it? One of the top 15 new build communities, and they're almost out of builds. So it doesn't matter how sexy your marketing is. Doesn't matter the price is, what sells the home. Period. Exclamation point, like, fight me on this, when you have a new build, and like you said, they're offering all these crazy incentives. It also comes with their whacked out lender. No offense, if you work for a buyer a builder's lender, then God, rest your soul. Pretty much. That's I'm not even sure who works there. Never really met a builder's lender. Have

Tracy Hayes  1:31:44  
you? I've worked for jet for three years. Never really

Gigi Urbanski  1:31:47  
met them, but not really, not really a fan. But I do love the incentives. So if you can't give 20 or $30,000 in seller pay closing cost or concessions, because we all know that's going to exceed typically, the percentage allowed on most loan products, right? What else can you do? You can stage your house that costs four or five grand, right? Or you can virtually stage it that makes it look good. So now you kind of look like the model. But how do you compete? You compete with the price tag. It comes down to how motivated are you to sell, right? And to your point, if you've only been there a year or two, guess what? You're not going to sell 500 just because your mortgage is this. That's not our problem. The problem is the product. The buyer is looking at your house and going, Okay, if you're 500 and it's 528 for the new build, but I get incentive money, and I get all these extra things, and it smells brand new. Which 1am I going with? I mean, that's just logic, right, right? So we have to educate these sellers that if we're going to do this, we have to do it with intention. And so I had people calling me, agents left and right, like, why'd you sell it for 450 because she had to sell, she relocated, she had to go and appraiser called, why'd you sell it for 450 because it would go for this. No, it wouldn't. It sat for six months before me at every one of those price points, and she didn't sell. Oh, my goodness. We put it at 450 and we sold it. Imagine that, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:33:15  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's so logical.

Gigi Urbanski  1:33:19  
Price covers every single cent, and if I see one more person post, what do I need to do to get my listing to move? It's been sitting for 14 days. First of all, it's only been sitting 14 days. Let's all just take a deep breath. But to that point,

Tracy Hayes  1:33:32  
14 versus 14 hours. Just, you know, two and a half years ago, and the rates are low. I understand sitting

Gigi Urbanski  1:33:37  
14 days and there's no showing and it's you and your friends eating the tacos at your open house. And house, I mean, news flash, you're probably priced wrong, because people are looking online and deciding if they're going to come offline, right? And what gets them offline is the price, because they can see the house with the pictures, right? So we have to have the right pricing conversation. And I think what happens is agents get that imposter comes up again. It's like, oh, they said Zillow this. I don't care what Zillow said. Zillow is a macro.

Tracy Hayes  1:34:07  
We're micro. Because the reality is this, you may get the listing, but then you're going to sit there and pull your hair out because it's overpriced for what someone's willing to pay for this home in this situational neighborhood, and you're gonna pull your hair out and be stressed. You might just either have the conversation and don't get the deal, and the sellers will sit there and pull their hair out, versus you sitting there pulling your hair out, wondering why you're why you have a listing that's going on 6090, days or whatever. And

Gigi Urbanski  1:34:33  
you know what, if you comfort them with the truth, just, hey, I'm gonna break this to you, probably not gonna like it. Here's the facts, here's the data, here's the why, here's the recommendations. Do what you want at your choice. Here's what I am capable of. As your magician, I can't find a buyer for this price point, so I'm not going to commit to working for you if I can't, because what you said is true, if I. Take every listing that comes my way, and I take 50% overpriced, and I take the rest that are really motivated and willing to listen and hire you. I've spent more time proving my worth, imposter again, overcoming that imposter, 5050, 5050, when I could have just said, Hey, I don't think I'm the agent for you. Let someone else have it. Don't worry about it. About It. Yeah, it's because it's gonna take a lot of come over here. I can get five more listings and help a few more buyers, because I've freed up my time,

Tracy Hayes  1:35:31  
your time, your energy, and in that part of your brain, it because you have a heart. You were trying to help these people. And if you sign on that, you're going to list their house. If you have any passion in this business, or any enjoy this business anyway, part of your heart's in there. And when they're stressing and the house is sitting, part of your heart and is occupying your mind at the same time. What is the value of that

Gigi Urbanski  1:35:53  
right now, I am a fan of if I say to you, Tracy, I think your house based on the market, based on the data, all we go through everything we really need to be at, let's say 450 and you say, I really think 500 but can we at least start at 475 my answer to you is going to be a question as always, sure. But what do we do in seven to 10 days when we don't get anything? Let me lower the price. And what do you think we do? We lower it to this price. Okay, let's write that in, because when we circle back and have this conversation, we're going to re interview again, because if we don't go with what we said we agreed to, then now I got to have that conversation again about, am I? Am I your agent? Because at that point I might not be. And I think the stronger we get at having those conversations through educating ourselves on stuff we don't really want to learn about, but we got to learn it, and then fighting that imposter every day, we will get to work with people that we want to work with, and the outcomes are going to be better, and the referrals will flood in because we have the right people. We have our tribe.

Tracy Hayes  1:36:57  
Yeah, yeah. You found that, I want to call it a sweet spot, and that when you're talking to top agents as the hunt, you know, nearly on coming on 200 episodes, that's those there that are just grooving like it, just, you know, what's what I'm feeling through you, you've you've hit this groove, and you're 10x ing it, and you're finding because I focused on that person, had that long conversation, worked out the goal and worked it all out. It's given me the key to 10 other doors, and it's continued to roll. And the key being is finding that groove. And I suggest anyone who's listening, you probably need to call Gigi and have a cup of coffee. Probably not at Starbucks, maybe one of the local coffee joints, or she's got her her landley Over there, just chat about some of these things, or some of the coaches that you've had. Because this has been a great conversation. This is the longest podcast I think I've done so far by 10 minutes or so, because it beat me. There's tremendous amount of value in this show today. I mean, I've it was, this has been a Super Show. This has been really, it's been fun. I'm glad you asked Come on, because you were flying below my radar. You were flying below the radar. And all this is like, Who's this woman who wants to come on the show? I mean, you know, being a top fan does help. You know, tell me that you listen to other shows and appreciate what I do, that that that that moves you up the scale real quick, so, but I appreciate you coming on today. This has been really good. Thank you.