Leading a Real Estate Team with Christina Welch

welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, best of the best is what I promised to the my listeners on each show. This agent, broker, partner that sits in front of me today is one of the best of the best. She's someone who I admired for the 12 years that I've known her, her professionalism, success and contribution to the communities of Jacksonville and St Augustine is highly regarded by her peers. Her team, month after month, sets production records, both enlisting on the buyer side. She's a partner in her Keller Williams, Atlantic Coast partners. I welcome the Welch in the Welch team. Christina Welch, thank you for coming on today. Thank you, Tracy, that was a great introduction.

Christina Welch  3:24  
Oh, man, yeah, I don't think I can do this long term. So my boyfriend at the time, had gotten a job in Jacksonville, and I was like, oh, okay, that sounds fun. Maybe I'll move to Jacksonville. So we moved to Jacksonville, and my dad calls it a starving artist career, and I

Christina Welch  3:41  
couldn't really find a job in photography, so I ended up working with a rental car company, and worked there for three and a half years, and got my real estate license towards the end. And then my boyfriend just we decided to get married three and a half years later, and he's like, Whatever you do, don't quit your job. Don't quit your job before. So I quit my job because I'm pretty strong willed and, you know, don't tell me what to do,

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Tracy Hayes  1:45  
Christina, tell us just you know, where you got started. I know, you know, obviously I go in and I dig in and try to research a little bit as much as I can on my guest start, you know, prior to go into Georgia, Southern where you Where'd you

Christina Welch  1:57  
grow up? So, my father is military, so I grew up a little bit all over the United States, mostly Midwest. I'm sure you've seen those videos where people are like, Hey, where are you from? And then you start listing out every single state you've ever lived. So grew up moved 18 times by the time I graduated from high school, wow. So lots of moving in my life. Prior to going to Georgia, Southern I graduated high school in Cincinnati. I don't know if you knew that. No, did not know that. So I vowed to never live in cold weather again. I moved from there. It's not that I don't love the snow, I just don't love living in the snow. So and I can relate to a lot of people who are relocating here now from the north and Midwest who deal with that. So going to Georgia, Southern graduated in 2003 with a photography degree of a Bachelor of Fine Art.

Tracy Hayes  2:46  
That was my big question. What? What did you What was your plan with the photography degree? You must have a dream. There. I

Christina Welch  2:51  
did. So my dream was to work for National Geographic at one point in my life and graduated from college, the industry quickly changed. We went from film, where I was developing film in a dark room, which I might be dating myself now, to digital. And so it changed quickly, rapidly, and we just couldn't keep up. So everything that I had learned in college was kind of a learn and dump, and I realized that I needed to change my career path pretty quickly. So was in grad school to be an art teacher, and I'm like, I just

Christina Welch  4:06  
and got my real estate license and worked at Bath and Body Works until I got my career started. So,

Tracy Hayes  4:12  
so really, you really didn't play. I mean, you didn't really have an entrepreneurial spirit. You just, Hey, I just want to be an independent photographer, and I want to go. And that was, you know, then the art teacher was just say, I'll just go work 180 days a year, or 190 days a year as an art teacher, take my summers off. Have your kids or whatever, really setbacks, and you've got so now you've really changed and grown. I would imagine. I

Christina Welch  4:37  
remember in third grade, my teacher was always like, hey, what do you want to be when you want to be when you grow up? And I was like, I don't really know. I would just want to own my own business. So I've always wanted to work for myself, whether that be in photography or whatever my career path was at the time. You know, you graduate from high school, you go directly to college, and they're like, What are you going to do for the rest of your life? And you're like, geez, I have absolutely no idea. Yeah, I don't know. A lot of people can relate to that, because they're like, Oh, I'm going to be a business major or or I'm going to be in business management, or whatever. That career path, well, where is that actually going to take you? So you don't truly know until you have to get out into the real world and provide yourself money, right? And career path.

Tracy Hayes  5:17  
So you're, you're doing the rental cars. You did that for a period of three and a half years, you said, so what? Somewhere along the line, what fancied you did a real estate

Christina Welch  5:25  
so moving around as much as I did, I was like, Oh, I really enjoy meeting people, new people, relocating. I actually did enjoy it with my my parents. As hard as it was growing up to transition, I feel like it gave me a leg up compared to some of the other people that I know who grew up in the same location their whole life, because they had never had all the experience that I had living pretty much all over the United States. And so with all of that being said, I met a lot of really good people in the rental car industry, and it was great money, and young out of college. They give you a management role if you work into it. And that's kind of where I'm at, George. George is our lead buyer's agent on the team, and him and I actually got our real estate license together.

Tracy Hayes  6:08  
Oh, is there? I did not know that. So we went to

Christina Welch  6:11  
night school. Reminded me, I'm dating myself again, that show night night school that used to come on TV. So we would go Monday, Wednesday, Friday, from six to 10pm and we got our real estate license. And once we graduated and got our state license, we both went different directions. And at some point I was like, George, you should join our team,

Tracy Hayes  6:31  
yeah, but you did, as a lot of successful agency set that I've talked to that have lasted the period time you didn't just dive in. You said you you started working at Bath and Body Works, right? Yeah. And doing that was just to keep the income flowing. I mean, because were you newly married at this time? So

Christina Welch  6:50  
newly married, but off on my own. As far as income is concerned, my husband had his income coming in, but I'm very strong willed, as I said earlier, and so I wanted to make sure that I had my own income coming in as well. So I got the job at Bath and Body Works, and they actually hired me on as a manager. I went in for holiday work, and I ended up staying as management for six months until the real estate career got up and running. So if I had to choose the two, obviously my goal and passion was to build a real estate career that I could have my own business in

Tracy Hayes  7:24  
so new agents starting today. I'm sure you talk to a lot of people are thinking about getting into real estate. Do you kind of tell talk to them about this plan

Christina Welch  7:32  
I do, and I think that the biggest misconception in real estate is you have your free time. That's the number one thing I hear. I'm getting into real estate because I need time with my kids, or time to do this and time to do that, and it's like it's still a nine to five job, or sometimes a nine to nine job, like you put in the hours you get out, what you put in. And that's why most people that come into real estate don't make it, because they think that they can work their own schedule when actually they're working schedule of their customers. And it's a realization it takes a long time for people to get used to, yeah, yeah, that's,

Tracy Hayes  8:07  
that's, that's a good point. So Watson was big. They offered to school. I assume you went to Watson's. Watson's actual school did started with them. You're in your first years of real estate at Watson. When did you start envisioning, you know, a team, the Welch

Christina Welch  8:20  
team, in 2006 when I got licensed, it was right past the height of what the best market anybody had seen in quite some time. Right? Very similar to where we are today. You put a sign in the yard and it sells, or it sells even prior to you putting a sign on the yard. So I got to hear all these glory stories, and then not even six months later, the market started to crash, so I had to learn everything from the from the very beginning, and work hard and prospect to customers. And so I was actually very successful in the beginning, because I was the only person answering the phone. It seemed like our office went from 60 agents down to 40, and then Watson decided to open another office. So then it went to 20, because half of those agents went to another office. So imagine being one of 20 agents sitting at the office. You're probably the only person that's going to be there. So I was the only person there. I set floor duty, I answered the phone, I held open houses, and my goal was to get customers. And so I was extremely busy in the very beginning, and then life happens. So we have baby number one, and I was never home because I was always with my customers, because I was around customer schedule. And I was like, there has to be a better way. So that's when I went back to George and I hired an admin, and I'm like, we need to just continue to keep growing this. And it's kind of grown organically ever since then,

Tracy Hayes  9:42  
you've brought up a good point there that. So the latter half of about ending of 2006 seven and eight, you're starting to go, you're in this time period, and even getting back as the rates dropped in Oh, eight, nine and 10 weren't like on fire or anything. What do you think was the maybe one or two things? That really, because this is where Welch team really breaks out. You guys, what were you doing? What was your because you transitioned from Keller William, from Watson to Keller Williams, during this time period. What do you think you were doing on a daily basis that you know your ship was still sailing when the storm was

Christina Welch  10:16  
for me, and I don't want to judge anybody else's work, but I was there. I was available. I was showing up. I was following up. I was continuing to reach out to customers who had called me years ago that weren't ready to buy, and I was continuing to follow up with them. And it's funny, people are like, if they're not an A and B buyer now, they don't put them in some sort of downline to follow up with later. We still have people that come back to us that weren't ready to buy when I was pregnant the first time, and that child will be 13 this year, they still come back around, and we still work with them. So our biggest customer base has always been our past customers. We truly reach out to them, we appreciate them, we love them, we hope they love us, and they want to refer us, and we've already built that rapport with them, versus trying to start over with a new customer. What

Tracy Hayes  11:05  
are just some you know, to go into a whole I'm sure you have a whole gamut of things. What are a couple basic things that you do to reach out and touch those past clients?

Christina Welch  11:13  
So we have a 33 touch campaign that we assigned to all of our past customers, and it's, it goes on for 10 years, and it hits them 33 times a year. And it's not just we definitely don't call them 33 times a year, but it's emails and holidays and anniversaries for their home and customer appreciation. We drop gifts by twice a year. Our Customer Appreciation parties kind of fell off, but we'll be picking those back up, obviously after covid. So we just want to make sure that they know that they're a huge piece of where we are. And so we want to make sure that we're constantly reaching out to them.

Tracy Hayes  11:49  
I go back and did you read the original Sirhan book? And then we were talking about, so you got to get the original one selling like Sirhan, because he tells a story in there. And I may have sure shared this with you before, because when I read the first book, I was like, you know, and as soon as the second book, I was all over. He talks about how he dripped on this client that he met. Didn't do anything with him. And I think it was like four years later of sending postcards like quarterly, and he goes, and the guy called him up said, hey, I want to buy the $17 million apartment in New York. And so he calculates in there. How many, like, 200 something dollars a day for four years is what those postcards were worth, that he was sending them, you know, every few months, or whatever, just touching base with them and just don't know who's going

Christina Welch  12:31  
to come back. That's so funny, because I always say, how do you figure out what a lead is worth? And like, how long have you been in the business, and how much marketing have you done to get your brand out there, and how much time have you spent following up with them? And, like, it's a number that I still haven't been able to figure out, but it's amazing to me that he's been able to do that. Yeah, I would love to figure that.

Tracy Hayes  12:50  
Yeah, you'll have to get that original one. That's a story that sticks with me from that original book. And, like, it makes total sense. And I think, you know, even some of the things that I do, you know, I've got the birthday cards are going out all the time, and I put some brownies with them, whatever. And you just don't know when they're going to move or they're, you know, that night they may be talking to a friend who says, Hey, I'm looking to move there. And now you're at the top of mind. You're, you know, there's your referral, because you're right there in front of them, even though they may have forgotten your name.

Christina Welch  13:19  
So smart, because people follow up with people all the time. But are you purposeful about your follow ups? Are you just calling to say hi, and I'm like, don't call just to say hi, or I'm just checking in, because it's not a purposeful conversation. You constantly need to remind them that you are in business, and you do want to work with all their friends, family and co workers, and you want to help them buy

Tracy Hayes  13:39  
sell, remind them, remind them that this is what you still do, yeah. And

Christina Welch  13:43  
even last year, when our market was very unwary of where we're going to go, we could still reach out to people and be like, hey, the interest rates are two and a half 3% thought about refinancing, because when we sold you that house 10 years ago, your interest rate was five and a half or 6% right, right? I know you saw a lot of refis last.

Tracy Hayes  14:01  
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So you went over to Keller Williams, and they have their systems. We touched on this probably few years ago. I think you're just talking about you getting in with Atlantic, Atlantic Coast partners and so forth. What is it in Welch team that is hardcore Keller Williams versus what is Christina's Welch's twist on it?

Christina Welch  14:23  
We have, well, there's different levels within Keller Williams, Mr. EA, which is the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, and they give you tools and tactics on how to get to those different levels. So we are a true seventh level agent. A lot of people don't realize I'm not in production anymore, so I don't meet with customers. My job is to educate and grow our team, whether it be brand awareness or out in the community, networking or having classes or educating our team doing a podcast or doing a podcast. So my job has a lot. Still on its that encompasses, but at the end of the day, it's we took the MRE and we are true, seventh level agent so, and it's easy for me now. I know a lot of people in the beginning are trying to, like, how do I get customers off and like, refer them out to our team. You have to be confident the people that work with you, and so not for you, but with you, because we truly are a team. So they're just an extension of me. I just can't be out with them,

Tracy Hayes  15:27  
right? But have you, have you added any of your twists to

Christina Welch  15:31  
it? So our twists, I would say, we learned from failing forward. We had to reset expectations as far as commission structures and expectations in the very beginning, because the MRA doesn't outline exactly what you as a team needs to expect from the individual agents that work for you. And a lot of people are motivated by different things, so money doesn't motivate everybody, and you have to have these conversations with your employees, or your and or your team, and make sure that you understand exactly what they want for their goals and their key metrics to be. So it's a lot. It's not just one thing. It's it's a bunch of different moving pieces, right? And I think the biggest thing that I can give any advice to, or if somebody's starting out, is to set up your org chart. That was the best piece of advice, because in the beginning, I had no idea how that looked. So we truly have an org chart, and for today, for three years, for five years and 10 years down the road, on where we want to be at, and we have a clear vision of what that looks like,

Tracy Hayes  16:34  
right? So you were leading into a little bit about individual motivations when you're either out actively recruiting, or someone comes to you, what are you what are you looking for in an agent?

Christina Welch  16:46  
We have a culture set on values that we truly live by, and we talk about this all the time in the team, and if you don't uphold one of these values, then you're probably not going to make it on the team. And it's basically being honest, being accountable, being fearless, adaptable, educating yourself constantly. And if you can't hold yourself to those standards, we have to be able to hold you to those standards. So those are the number one key things that we look for in most people that join the

Tracy Hayes  17:16  
team because it's got to be a give and take situation. I imagine they're joining the team because they want the synergy. You can use that fancy word, you can to get it and then obviously get the knowledge from more experienced agents and so forth. But yet, when they have to show up, they have to show up right and make the calls, and that's what you have assigned to do well,

Christina Welch  17:38  
and you need to outline the job 100% it's not you're just going out and showing property. Where are these customers coming from? Because if you're joining the team expecting all of the leads to come from the team, that's probably not the best expectation. The team is there to provide support, to provide training, to help you build your pipeline so you can be successful down the road. And as we know, real estate isn't an overnight sensation. You're not going to be successful overnight. You have to put some time and effort into it. And so it could be a year or it could be two years, but we outline our new agents goals with what they want to make per year, and then we help back that up, saying, like, these are the number of appointments you'll need to go on. These are the number of contracts you'll need to actually write and have accepted and then close, so that way we know what your bottom line number will be at the end of the year.

Tracy Hayes  18:27  
So Tucker, you were mentioning the marketing part of the individual. Obviously, you don't typically see a famous person who has a big, warm circle well known goes into real estate. No, they generally is someone who's not known, and then how do you get some of those people? Because I wouldn't say they're introverts, but maybe a little bashful. They need to go out and shake some hands and show up some places.

Christina Welch  18:49  
Yeah, well, I think it all comes with confidence, like I didn't like to publicly speak or talk on podcasts in the very beginning, but I've got a confidence now that I feel comfortable in what I'm talking about, and I think that's with anybody new in the industry. I always say, here's here's scripts. Let's memorize these scripts, but now let's take them and put them to how you all actually speak to people, right? Because most people aren't walk around and go, Oh, that's fabulous, or that's fantastic.

Tracy Hayes  19:17  
But you know, I known you most of your career. And, you know, you talk about confidence, you know, if you your your name is out there. I mean, obviously you're involved in NEPA, and what's the best buddies as you're one of your big charities, and you're out there, but you have a reputation out there in a very positive way. Yeah, you say hey, you know, you know I've name dropped you. I mean, hey the Welch team, or hey, I you know Christina Welch. Let me call her. Everyone knows who you are. Your presence in in the real estate in Northeast Florida, at least, you know from that standpoint. I mean, I don't think there's anyone that doesn't if they don't know you. They're not obviously following too closely what's going on in real

Christina Welch  20:03  
estate. So again, my job is to get out there and do that. But with that being said, one of our key and crucial ethics is to always do the right thing, and so we truly live by that and do what you say and always do the right thing. And if you do that constantly, it doesn't matter how much business you sell, as long as you're humble and don't get ego driven, then hopefully you'll be respected in this industry. Well,

Tracy Hayes  20:28  
it's a long term play, and that's what in real estate. The true people that we look up to, I think, are those, those people have been in it 1520 years, are really if they've been doing it right, they're on top of their game and living a lifestyle that they probably even didn't even truly envision at the

Christina Welch  20:44  
beginning. I agree, and a lot of teams I see out there, they start these teams, and they still use pronouns, like I and me and just singular pronouns, but it's a team. It's a true team effort, like I wouldn't be anywhere that I am today without the team behind me. So that's why we immediately change everything to we and us. And even in our emails, it's always we and us, because it truly takes everybody on the team to make us as successful as we are.

Tracy Hayes  21:12  
So you're talking about team. You have challenges. You've mentioned someone here in the few weeks. But what's the what's you know, every day, you know, we all get up where? Okay, what are we going to do at work today? What are we going to what are we going to do? What are your biggest challenges as the leader?

Christina Welch  21:25  
Our biggest challenges currently are setting the right expectations with employees coming in, and I think covid hit everybody pretty hard. A lot of people got used to working at home, and our market has not changed. In fact, it's done the exact opposite, as you've seen. So it's been accelerating at an exponential pace for quite some time. And so we need to be able to stay on top of that. And our phone, it took years and years and years for it to ring, and now it rings constantly, and we need to be able to answer it, and we need to be able to follow up with these customers, and no, they're not going to be a and b buyers, but we put them in our database, then we'll be able to follow up with them down the road. So our biggest challenge right now is staffing, and we've and I think we're coming, hopefully to an end of that. We are making two job offers today, and we've brought on three new transaction coordinators in the last 90 days.

Tracy Hayes  22:21  
So what is the expectations of that transaction coordinator? So anyone who might be listening to show it might be interested in doing something,

Christina Welch  22:29  
yeah, they're an extension of the agent. So once a contract goes or once an agent gets a contract together and it's fully executed, it's turned over to our back office, all of our transaction coordinators are licensed, and they have to be so that they can negotiate repairs and appraisals, which are the two biggest hurdles that we have to go through once a property goes under contract. I'm always like, don't celebrate the win until it's actually closed, because there's so much to get through from contract to closing. So their expectation is to be an extension of that agent and close out that contract. Because if they don't close out that contract and the agent doesn't get paid. And that's why I always say it's a true team, team camaraderie, because they have to work together for that to take place,

Tracy Hayes  23:07  
right? Relieving that agent to go out and do what they do, which is really marketing and prospecting themselves for the next right sale, keep keep the pipeline moving

Christina Welch  23:16  
well. And most sales agents are not organized, and they don't like to communicate on a level of five

Tracy Hayes  23:23  
different people. That's me.

Christina Welch  23:27  
In my opinion, it takes a different temperament to sit behind a desk all day long and help close out files, versus being out in the field and prospecting for new customers and showing properties, because agents like to be in that role, because they appreciate that type.

Tracy Hayes  23:40  
There's no doubt that there's, there's people that they they'll get caught up in the minutia of moving the paperwork, but that that actually isn't making you money. What's making you money is, you know, getting that new prospect, either a listing or a buyer, and getting them out. That's your next dollar after that. Yes, there is a total transaction going on, but the the transaction coordinator can handle that. The agent doesn't need to sit and watch their file every day. So it's the same thing in the mortgage world, when I originate, originate, there's professional people that are trained to sit in a cubicle and collect the paperwork and stuff like that and move on, because I've got to go get my next client. And it keeps the same same thing. So those are your challenges. What is your motivation? What? What is it about the Welch team? You wake up every morning, you're wearing a nice shirt today and and wear the brand you have to.

Christina Welch  24:32  
For me, it's creating something bigger. And it didn't. It's not like, I went out, I woke up yesterday, was like, I'm going to create this company that is the largest team in Northeast Florida, Florida that closes more business than any other team in Northeast Florida. For me, it is all about everybody else on the team. How can I make them successful? And what I found is it organically keeps happening like we people want to work with us, and the majority of our team members have been. For quite some time. So that's honestly what motivates me.

Tracy Hayes  25:04  
You're this is a hypothetical situation, but actually, you've probably been asked to do this numerous times. Keller Williams calls you up and you know, hey, we're doing our big annual event. When everyone can get back together again, they want you to come in and share some tips of what it takes to consistently have a team and consistently be on top of your game.

Christina Welch  25:26  
So how do I do that? Is that what you're Yeah, what are some

Tracy Hayes  25:29  
things that you, I mean, isn't like the leader is always spinning the plates, right? How do you keep the plates spinning all the time and keep everybody motivated, even though they just had a great month and they don't know they're not. They don't just go, Mia, they get they disappear, yeah, and go to on a vacation and then come back broke again, and now they're ready to sell

Christina Welch  25:47  
you. So we call that the roller coaster effect at the Welch team, and I'm sure there's tons of other sales people that call it the same. But to avoid those pitfalls, we do get together and we do what's called call blitzes. And it's not to cold call. It's to follow up with our current customers, because we do get so busy that you have to time block to make sure that you're doing the things that are going to make you successful in this business, and if you're not doing that, then you won't be successful. So we set time blocks. We have consistent education on the calendar. We have huddles for motivation. We have a team meeting once once a month. They have an agent roundtable once a month, and so we're constantly motivating each other and celebrating the wins. Of course, there's going to be some negatives, and there's always going to be negatives in any type of job that you do, but it's how do you overcome those pitfalls? And we can't, we focus on that and we learn from it, and we move on.

Tracy Hayes  26:39  
That's an that's an interesting point, because they, all of us read personal development books and all about how, you know, the big question on the podcast is, oh, hey, what's your morning routine? You know? And you get, you know, they go and, you know, Bill Gates gets up at 730 Einstein got up at 5am or whatever. All these things, right? And most of us, the average person. We don't, we don't really carry that, that calendar to really, hey, we're gonna get to 5am we're gonna work out. We're gonna then meditate for 15 minutes. We're then gonna take the cold bath, right? That's the new thing, right? Jump at the cold bath, you know, so. But what you're just saying, like, you've got to say, time out in the in the your team, obviously, you're, hey, we're out prospecting. That's number one. But hey, we got to take time out, because we need to take two hours this morning, and we need to call those customers that we just dealt with, or whatever your routine is, how far you go back? And I think a lot of people are out there. We all a lot of times just we get excited of the adrenaline of the hunt to get the next deal, even though it can be challenging and so forth to acquire that next client, but we forget about the honey that's actually sitting there that we're not taking care of. We're not protecting, right? And Yogi bears coming and stealing it because we're not taking care of the past clients, because that's really where our long term business comes from.

Christina Welch  27:58  
It is, and one of the agents on our team, she constantly says, I don't even remember the agent that sold me this house. I love them. We were really good friends, and I would work with them again, but I can't even remember their name. We don't want that to happen to us. And you forget because you do get so busy that you don't time block to follow up with people who you already have worked with, that already love you, that want to work with you and refer you again. So the big portion of our business comes from that, yeah, but I do not wake up at 5am

Tracy Hayes  28:28  
I do three days a week. Actually. At 420 I get up Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm in the gym actually now, at 430 I do a 25 minute walk, then I work out for an hour three days a week. That's my that's my routine right now, and I'm

Christina Welch  28:41  
so, yeah, for my sanity, I've actually made it at 6am I used to get up really crazy early, and then I'm like, why am I getting up so early? It's not affecting anything that I'm doing. So I get up at six. I work out every day, get kids on the bus, I walk under the bus, and then I start my day. So day starts at 815, which in real estate, most people don't even get into the office, and you can't have any conversations with people until an eight o'clock timeframe. Anyway,

Tracy Hayes  29:07  
we talked a little bit when you came in, and we talked about Ryan Sirhan, I know you do, you read and or you also do audio books or whatever so forth. What I find is a lot, obviously, most people don't do that. The average person coming into your office probably doesn't do that when you're coaching. I imagine George, he's been with you a long time, and so far, there's a couple other people have been with you a while. They're probably reading because they're following you. How do you get that new person to say, hey, you know, pick up a book or listen to audio, or maybe listen some podcasts in the industry. Well,

Christina Welch  29:38  
and that's one of our core values, I think I was telling you about. So we get together, and we're actually trying to figure out our next book for book club, because we want to set the tone of how people deliver a verbal communication to somebody. So we're searching for a book on that piece of it, but they need to constantly be educating themselves, whether it's reading a book that we've provided to them. Fanatical prospecting by Jeb Blount. I don't know if you've read that book, it's phenomenal. It's not just sales in real estate, it's sales in general. And I think the best line from the book is, nobody likes to make calls. Nobody does. It's not anybody's natural go to there. They don't like to pick up the phone, but you do if you like to, if you have success and you have wins, and the only way you're going to do that is if you actually have trained your mind and your body to be confident in what you're saying when you're making these phone calls. So he teaches you how to do an elevator elevator speech, and so that way, whenever you do make calls, you're prepared and being purposeful with every single phone call that you're making so that it doesn't go as a hey, how are you just checking in? Because you're not really going to be purposeful with that

Tracy Hayes  30:47  
call. There's no and I've, I've done personal development like purges through my sales career, for instance, since I've been working, everyone's in sales, really, but, and I found, yeah, there's no doubt, when you, when you, when you read that book, especially a good one. I mean, there are some books you're like, oh my god, you know, you can't turn some some of them, you want to turn the next page, but it really gives you a sense of energy and a mindset. I haven't actually been caught. I've become, obviously starting the podcast, become a podcast junkie, yeah? And I'm amazed by how many great people out there, and I've actually bought books off of listening to their interview, going, I gotta, I gotta read that guy's

Christina Welch  31:20  
book? Yeah, yeah. There's so many great people in this industry and leaders in this world that give great advice. And it doesn't necessarily have to be real estate focused or leadership focused. It's how any walk of life is living. And I love Ryan's book because he starts from the beginning and kind of works his way through being successful and giving that reputation, and if you just exude confidence, you'll be successful in any industry you're in.

Tracy Hayes  31:47  
He's, well, it's such a rags, the richest story, and he's such a great I mean, I when I'm reading the book, I can hear him talking through it, but you were talking about communication. And I have the I have the disc, I also have the book, and maybe you want to review it. John Maxwell has one. Everyone communicates. Few Connect. That's the name of the boat. Okay, so, yeah, share the audio with you, and then if you like it, then your team may want to share it and use it as a thing. Okay, so we're into the two minute warning questions. Since I officiate football, I got a football on my desk here. I call it two minutes. Someone call it the hot round, or whatever, speed round or whatever, just you know, however you Yeah, these are just random questions. Is it more important of who

Christina Welch  32:30  
you know or what you know? I always think it's more important of what you know.

Tracy Hayes  32:34  
Do you I do? Why I have to ask? Because I totally disagree. It just not totally disagree, but sort of disagree.

Christina Welch  32:42  
I think that goes to the question is, what makes a person successful? Everybody's level of success is measured differently. And for me, it's, can I have a conversation with anybody in our industry and be lucid with that conversation and know what I'm talking about, and whether it be real estate or any other industry, am I educated enough to come across and have a educated conversation with anybody confidence?

Tracy Hayes  33:07  
Yeah, because for you, it's because you know it you're confident now you've done it, you have you have the the trophies on the shelf that gives you confidence. So that makes sense,

Christina Welch  33:18  
well, and if someone's successful there, they might be successful in their own right, but you might not think they're successful, because your success might be something completely unmeasurable that they're not even thinking about.

Tracy Hayes  33:30  
Right, right? You break the team up, you have listing agents, and you have buyer's agents. What do you if you had to go back to one of them, what do you prefer to

Christina Welch  33:37  
do? Oh, that's a tough question. You really stopped me there? Tracy, well, I think both sets everybody's going is opening or closing a chapter in their life, whether it be downsizing because they're retiring or moving to another state because they're relocating, or a buyer that is a first time home buyer. There's we touch on so many different things in this business, I really think that's hard to kind of narrow down. I'd probably try to go into both,

Tracy Hayes  34:08  
because you just enjoy the transaction, enjoy

Christina Welch  34:10  
the transaction as a whole, and I enjoy the people as a whole and getting to know them and what their motivation is for selling or for buying. And it's really important to me to make sure that we all come out in the end as a win, win, but I did separate them in the beginning, and I'll tell you why, and I don't know if I'm going over, but plenty of time we separated them, because I realized when I was listing people's property, I didn't have time to field phone calls that were coming in from buyers who wanted to see their property, because I was also fielding phone calls from agents who had Questions on their property, and then I was spending time marketing their property. And so if I'm out in the field showing a buyer property all day long, there's no way that I can effectively market multiple listings at one time. And so it all boils down to what's most important for that particular person and how much business. You want to do, and that's why we separate.

Tracy Hayes  35:02  
It's interesting. How you brought that up. Do you find some people have the skill sets for the list? Because there is a different skill set.

Christina Welch  35:10  
I truly believe it. And on our team, you'll definitely recognize there's a different temperament between our buyer agents and our listing team is very headstrong, and I love every single one of

Tracy Hayes  35:24  
them, right? You're, you're, I mean, I'm sure you're always out looking for agents to join the team. Do you prefer to, you know, because I think you have a mix of both on your team and over your history. Do you prefer that person to have maybe a couple of years experience, or maybe just one. You would even take someone just graduated from

Christina Welch  35:43  
Watson school. So newer agents, we bring them on as junior agents, because we want to be able to train them welshing way with that being said, Any agent that comes on, we start from the beginning and make sure that we get across exactly how we want our agents to represent us within the community. So experience is always a plus. We're actually hiring a shameless plug here for you're always looking

Tracy Hayes  36:08  
for that home. You're always looking for another babe. Ruth, right?

Christina Welch  36:12  
We are. But somebody asked, Are you going to be hiring a recruiting agent? And I'm and I said to our leadership team the other day. Like we don't want a revolving door of agents. We want a set number that we have put on our goals for this year. We want to get those agents in the door. We want to train them. And then, should our business continue to keep growing, look at bringing on more

Tracy Hayes  36:35  
people jumbo shrimp or the Jaguars. Jaguars. I

Christina Welch  36:39  
can't be a fair weather fan. I still love them. They're gonna win this season. I just know it well.

Tracy Hayes  36:45  
I'm happy to see the initial attendance at the that the jumbo shrimp games and because they didn't even play last year. So it was great to see that they've had, you know, great attendance in this first week.

Christina Welch  36:55  
I think that's just, is it football or baseball? Bigger football fan than baseball.

Tracy Hayes  37:00  
Baseball can drag out a little bit. And then what I what really was telling someone the other day, I said, you know, I'm going to go to a couple jumbo shrimp games this year. I'm going to pay to get the really nice seats where they do have the service. Because every time you go up to get a beer, you have to stand in line so long you miss an inning. Yeah. So what is on your Carter's travel bucket list.

Christina Welch  37:23  
Oh, we actually just booked our travel bucket list. Well, I do not own a passport. Please do not judge. So we booked a trip for New Year's, and which will also be my 40th birthday, for December 30 through January 4, we're going to St Luc just, oh, cool, I know. So now I have to figure out how to get a passport, which don't work. Got don't work. Plenty of advice,

Tracy Hayes  37:44  
yeah, that's, that's that doesn't take anything. You just go online, yeah, St Lucia is, I went to St Lucia back in the I was about. How old was I was 2000 was that about 20 years ago now? Yeah, 20 years ago. It was very fortunate. I was actually, was actually a part time job that I had as a travel agent. My mom had a travel agency when she was, when I was growing up, and she knew this lady, and they I didn't have any experience, but they needed someone to cover when Dillard still had travel. Okay, when Dillard still had travel? Yeah. So I was doing that part time, and one of the things that came across the facts was, hey, for, I think it was like $300 go to St Lucia for three or four days, and the Chamber of Commerce was inviting agents to go down. And you would, we had one hotel we stayed at, but you wouldn't visit all the other hotels, even the sandals and all, but all the other hotels got a chance to see them all. And they had someone wherever you're at for lunch or for dinner. They fed you lunch or dinner. Yeah, it was really, oh, what a great, what a great trip. Was like, it was like, 10 agents.

Christina Welch  38:43  
That's awesome, yeah. Well, I'm excited. And we, we travel, probably, we booked two or three big trips throughout the year, and then we don't really travel from that. So you go up to North Carolina a lot. We go to Blue Ridge, Georgia a lot. We go to Asheville a lot. We really like to hike and go to the mountains, and it's a completely different scenery than Florida, because we're flat here. So did

Tracy Hayes  39:06  
your destination have in the fact of how well the cell phone works there? No, hopefully it works poorly. That's why I like going on cruises. So I don't think hopefully the day out at sea you have no calls. It's so funny, because you're

Christina Welch  39:22  
like, do you take your phone? Do you not take your phone? But then if you don't take your phone, it's not like we all travel around with our cameras anymore, like we used That's right, and there's your camera, so you want to take pictures. So I'm very torn about that. Maybe I should buy a camera.

Tracy Hayes  39:37  
All right. Last question, you're obviously, you know, we've heard your entire career growing up, went to Georgia, Southern you worked at the car rental, so you know that very well, and then you got into real estate. But if you could do it all over again, what is your dream career?

Christina Welch  39:52  
I really think it's always been real estate. I've always wanted to own my own business, and I really appreciate working with. People and seeing them succeed like it is what gets me up every day. It's very beneficial to me to see an agent close their first deal or have their first successful prospecting call. And I know that sounds cheesy, but I really do mean it. It's It's really what gets me going. Well, it's

Tracy Hayes  40:16  
funny you just mentioned that, because actually that was had that on there. We got talking about something else. Do you remember your

Christina Welch  40:21  
first deal? Yes, I do tell us about it. I took the real estate class, passed it, then I started working at, you know, bath and by works, but I sold it to autumn Tucker. Her name is Autumn Martin, age now, and she'll probably listen to this. So it was a condo off of Bell, Bell Reeve and Southside Boulevard. And I just thought you could go into everybody's property. So as a new agent, they don't give you instructions, but they do give you a key to access everybody's house that's on the market. It's like going in people's houses, all these listings and yeah, so I remember it. I've learned a lot since then. You didn't

Tracy Hayes  41:00  
set an appointment. You just showed up. Nobody told me was everyone dressed decently.

Christina Welch  41:08  
Thank God I didn't walk in on it. They could have went south. I could have gotten shot. So I'm still here.

Tracy Hayes  41:16  
Christina, anyone listening to the show today, whether an agent, a buyer, a seller. What's the best way to contact you and your team?

Christina Welch  41:24  
You can call us at 904-476-5539, or you can go to our website, which is just Welch team.com or if you're on any social, it's any at at Welch team dot Welch.

Tracy Hayes  41:36  
I really appreciate you coming by and helping me. You know, launch this podcast, and you're one of my one of my first shows that will go out. I've gotten some really great interviews. I'm really excited, and I think this one went well as

Christina Welch  41:51  
well. So thanks for having me. This is exciting. If I didn't answer anybody's questions, y'all feel free to reach out at any time. Well, you

Tracy Hayes  41:57  
know what I tell you? You know, this was a GET TO KNOW Christina interview to have you on maybe in three or four months, and just, hey, what's going on in the market? And everyone loves a good real estate story. Yeah, there's some great podcasts, actually, with some four letter words in them that actually, that's what they talk about, is the stuff that happens in real estate. They don't use stuff.

Christina Welch  42:19  
We have a lot of really good real estate stories. I always told the team. I was like, Maybe we should put a confessional in one of the closets and just set it up so people can go in and just tell story after story, because

Tracy Hayes  42:29  
write them down, because eventually, one day you could write a book with it easily. So thanks, Christina, okay, you have a super day. You too.