Lisa Barton: Luxury Home Specialist and Team Builder

Commercial  0:00  

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available

Lisa Barton  0:19  

in all states. Hi. This is Lisa Barton with Keller Williams, Atlantic partners. If you are looking to level up your real estate business, you need to be listening to real estate excellence podcast with my good friend Tracy Hayes.

Podcast Intro  0:31  

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  1:05  

welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, best of the best, my guest today has positioned herself in the most competitive area of Northeast Florida, Ponte Vedra Beach. You want to sell luxury homes at a high price point, this is where you start in the greater Jacksonville area, likely to find more agents here than golf balls. Her team was considered the third best of large real estate teams by the Jacksonville Business Journal in 2021, 109 transactions for over 92 million correct in volume. You do the math, it's a lot of homes over the $1 million dollar mark. Let's welcome Lisa Barton of the Lisa Barton team of Keller Williams, Atlantic partners, to the show. Thank you, Tracy, it's nice to be here. Thank you. I'm so glad you came down. And again, another opportunity. As we were talking pre show, we have never met before, we talked a little bit on the phone. You had some questions about the show and how it will progress and so forth. So you felt comfortable, but we were really interested in you when I saw your numbers and I see your leadership. Ponte Vedra started in retail mortgage lending. I should say I'm skipping around here a little bit. When I started retail mortgage under lending with the company I was prior to Jed here, they asked me where I wanted to be, and actually Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra is the area I didn't want to be, because everybody who wants to do loans and sell homes would love just to camp out in your Naka tee, Ponte, Vedra Beach, right up into the Jax Beach area, because that's where all the high dollar loans are. And so I avoided that and went to St Augustine and started making my way on the street, so to speak, when I came out of the call center. So I am very interested on how you have been successful in that such a competitive, very small area, really, you think about it, square footage wise, and how your team is really, you know, grabbed a corner of that market. Okay, so that's right. So as we start off every show, tell us a little bit where you're from.

Lisa Barton  2:58  

So I am a Florida girl. I'm from Gainesville. My father was a professor at the University of Florida for over 50 years. Oh, wow. So I lived in Gainesville, went to college at the University of Florida. I love Florida. I love living here. I went to graduate school at George Mason University and got my degree in School Psychology, and then I worked for four years in the Pennsylvania public school district as a school psychologist. Oh, okay, job I loved.

Tracy Hayes  3:26  

Was that something you working on the school level? Because I often look at myself as I should have been a psychology major, because I love studying people and wonder why they do some of the things they do. But was working at the school level something that you envisioned, or was that kind of just the first job that kind of came to you?

Lisa Barton  3:42  

Well, my degree, was specific to school psychology, so working in the public school system was a perfect fit, and I was responsible for kindergarten through 12th grade. So I got to work with a variety of age groups, and got to follow my kids from one school to the next, from one grade to the next, and it's a very hands on type of psychology. So I did assessments, looked for learning disabilities, and worked with teachers and worked with parents, and it was, it was an awesome experience.

Tracy Hayes  4:11  

I imagine, as our teachers today, there's a lot of ups and downs, especially with you dealing with some of those that someone we don't see, such as we don't use the word mainstream, you're a lot of times dealing with people who are not in the mainstream, and it can be inspirational at times to see what they do, but also heart wrenching at others,

Lisa Barton  4:29  

it can be my oldest son. He's a first year high school math teacher, right? High School, and he's experiencing some of those challenges, but also some of those satisfactions. He loves his job, right? And it's been really challenging, but it's been great for him. That brings

Tracy Hayes  4:44  

up an interesting thing, and we see where we relate this to working with real estate agents too. Because we were talking a little bit about pre show, about some of the attitudes of some of the new agents. His inspiration probably comes from the class that comes in, and they just want to give it to me, give it to him, Give me more. Give me more. And then the heart rate. Teaching part is the others who are, you're like begging to come in and sit at their desk and I, let me just teach you these basic skills, and they're not even there.

Lisa Barton  5:07  

Absolutely yes, and especially Ed White is an underserved school, so it's a population of students who who don't have a lot, right, and are doing the best with what they can. So it can be very heart wrenching.

Tracy Hayes  5:18  

Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt, reach out to our school teachers and personnel overall on that and however, so you're up in Pennsylvania, you're in the school system. How does that develop and get you to Berkshire Hathaway? Because that's who you started with in 2009 of them, correct?

Lisa Barton  5:34  

So actually, I started with a very small brokerage firm in 2007 was only there for about a year, and then moved to Berkshire Hathaway. So what took you from Pennsylvania to so I wanted to move back to Florida. So moved back to Florida. I was a stay at home mom for three years, four years, and then decided I wanted to go back to work, and I kind of tumbled into real estate. It wasn't something that was on my radar. And I think that happens to a lot of real estate agents. They're not sure what they want to do. They're people who want to work. And so I started helping a friend of mine who was a general contractor, and he was building a house, right? And so I helped him a little bit with the design, and we talked marketing. And so I went and got my real estate license, thinking that I would work with him, but he was a very small custom home builder, and I realized I would likely have one deal. So I decided that I wanted to get into real estate full time, right? Berkshire Hathaway was a great start for me. They had good training programs, and it was a very supportive environment.

Tracy Hayes  6:36  

So was there one individual at this time that that kind of maybe a Berkshire Hathaway that took you in and or was it a slow growth,

Lisa Barton  6:43  

a little of both. My managing broker was Jill strite, who actually is not in real estate anymore, but she was awesome, and she saw the potential in me and helped me think about real estate, think about it as a business, not just something that I did when my children were at school, right? And so we kind of created a plan, and I worked that plan, and then got so busy that I started to lose my life. I remember going on vacation with my family and my youngest son saying, I'm not sure why you're here, because you're so anxious and so nervous about what's happening at home, and that was a powerful and kind of painful yes realization, yes, yeah. So then I decided to form a team, and my two team members are still with me, and we're going on 11 years, which is that's awesome. They were both buyers. So Marcia Keller was a buyer from Ohio. She had been in Taiwan, came back and was in Ohio with her family. I helped her buy a house she never saw the house she moved here and the house we had already

Tracy Hayes  7:56  

that's happening today quite a bit too. Yep,

Lisa Barton  7:58  

and that's a huge leap of faith, yes, to make a decision that big, her husband and I work together, but we closed the house before Marcia came down.

Tracy Hayes  8:06  

Not everybody can do that as an agent, because you do, and it could be very quickly just say how you injure yourself, or maybe today, how your social media presents you, that they immediately build some sort of trust in you for the most Now, granted, there are some people just say, hey, I want a house in Ponte Vedra, and I want one on the beach. And hey, oh, there's one on the beach. Okay, well, it's the only one. I have to buy it. Don't really have to sell that too much. But there's also, yeah, I want one in Ponte Vedra. But you know what schools my kids going to go to? You know, is this the right fit? You know, you know, you got to build that trust

Lisa Barton  8:41  

with them, and you can't build trust quickly. I mean, trust doesn't happen in three seconds. It takes a while to build trust, and there has to be give and take, and people really have to believe that you are hearing them and you are listening to them and paying attention to what they need. And so I think, I think that's one of the things that our team has done really well, is that we're a very high touch team. We really listen to people, we understand what they're looking for. And that has enabled us to sell a number of houses to people who have not even been to Florida. In fact, Tanya O'Quinn in 2020 sold two new construction homes

Tracy Hayes  9:21  

to people sight unseen. They just saw the models online. They saw the models online.

Lisa Barton  9:26  

Tanya went to the Design Center with her iPad and her phone and said, Here's the cabinet, here's the countertop. But because she had put the time in to really listen to and

Tracy Hayes  9:37  

understand, took her design recommendations, probably in a lot of cases, think about, you talk about spending time and building trust, and I went to a recent seminar in listening to the podcast of the group that I follow and not saying that he's saying anything special that other trainers and leadership are telling us to do, but that. Customer Service. Part of it in our business is that you're face to face a lot of times. I don't ever see my customers. You know, they go to closings. But, you know, here working with a large builder too, but even my non builder stuff, it's tough to go around and even talking to the the high, real, high producing loan officers, they don't have time to go to 30 closings a month that just it's just not the time. So that communication part of it, and putting things into your system, in your case, leading to the question of before you brought on a team that would cover you while you were away, but obviously you were getting so busy that you only had so much time to spend with other customers, it started. There had to come a little hurt in your business. You probably couldn't measure it so much because you were so busy, but some of your customers weren't getting the same satisfaction, to say, a few years earlier, when you were just doing the right amount of loans for your time, or purchases, sales, whatever, for your time. So you come to a point where you're losing that customer service edge. And one of the biggest things I think that loan officers and realtors miss out on is that relationship, that trust, because that person, that borrower for us, buyer for you, maybe seller is the key to other deals. It's the best marketing you could ever put out on the street for you,

Lisa Barton  11:19  

without a doubt, and the time and the energy has to come from somewhere. If you're giving all that time and attention to to your customers, then what happens to your family and what happens to your life? And that was kind of all the reasons why you're working. So that's where I felt like I was tilted in the wrong direction, is that I wasn't giving my family the time and attention they needed, right? And so having a team allowed me to be able to do that, right. And the other thing that having a team has allowed me to do that I've really enjoyed, is that we work very collaboratively together, right? So when we have a new listing, we all talk about the listing, and we all know the listings. So basically we have four minds working on a property, and we all have our customer base and our sphere, and if we have a customer who who we feel like we're not meeting their needs the best way, then we talk about it, and maybe another person steps in, or maybe somebody has other ideas, but it's a really collaborative environment, and that makes it fun to go to work every day.

Tracy Hayes  12:25  

Well, as we were talking, you know, pre show, I mean, going to a mastermind where you're sitting around people who are think like you have have a drive and have a level and want everybody in the room to rise, I can imagine, you know, you you put a team together, and you guys kind of can't wait to come in and have that sales meeting or whatever and talk about the new listings and whole, you know what, I got a client that might be interested in that home that you know, that you're gonna go on that listing appointment or whatever, and that energy, you know, right there. And I think as a as a buyer or seller, if I'm a seller, because you label yourself as a team. I'm hoping that, yeah, I'm not hiring one agent. I'm hiring, you know, four or five agents that are going to go out, and they all have circles of influence, and I'm going to sell this pretty quickly and get what I want for it

Lisa Barton  13:12  

absolutely and especially since we're talking high end, we attend all our showings, whether we have a buyer or not, if another agent is showing one of our listings. We are there, and we are there to answer questions. We're there to make sure the house looks as great as it can. I've made a lot of beds and put just a lot of dishes in the dishwasher. We have availability, and I can't be every place at once

Tracy Hayes  13:35  

because your your high end client. Yes, they want to make sure their stuff is being watched, and obviously they have the trust in you. It's why they hired you. When you said that, it's made me immediately think of, how does the buyer's agent coming in? Because I imagine some of them don't like you there.

Lisa Barton  13:50  

I'm confused as to why? Yes, that's my question. Buyers are going to have questions, and the buyer's agent is likely never seen the house, and there's only so much information MLS can provide, right? So we try not to be all up in their business. We let them show the house and look at the house, but we're there to answer questions, and there's always questions, whether it's questions about the house or the neighborhood or the school district. And so we're there as a partner, not as a competitor. And I would

Tracy Hayes  14:17  

also think, you know, when you start getting up into the higher price points. These houses are custom made. There's unique things about them, absolutely, that the previous buyer or original owner may have put in there, that someone just reading it off the MLS has no idea where, you know, they see the picture, but don't know what room that's in, right? Oh, that's really cool. I need to show that room. Well, which room is it in? Well, if you show up at the same time this buyers do? You don't flow as quickly. You don't show it as it should be shown, just like someone might watch a TV show. There's a reason why it's edited and so forth. You have already got it edited, and you're going to highlight that house

Lisa Barton  14:53  

and a lot of things in a house that add value you can't see, right? So you can't see that. It's black construction. Person, or that their hurricane impact windows, or that those types of things, and that, as a listing agent, I want to tell buyers and their agent some of the things that make the house special that might just

Tracy Hayes  15:11  

maybe like, obviously, we have a lot of people who are eco friendly. They want to know that it's got a tankless water heater that you know does that and some people, that's a decision maker for them, and makes me thinking, I don't know if you did. Do you have a pre conversation with the selling agent coming over and just say, Hey, what are your family looking for?

Lisa Barton  15:31  

Sometimes, if they call, we certainly have that conversation, right?

Tracy Hayes  15:35  

Sometimes, that way you can present it in that way, show them those eco friendly things. It's kind of like the people buying cars. Some of them are all about the engine. Some people never lift the hood. Yeah, I can imagine that that's interesting, but yeah, that would be my question too. Is why they don't want you

Lisa Barton  15:49  

to do that? I'm surprised.

Unknown Speaker  15:50  

Gonna get paid the same.

Lisa Barton  15:53  

I will tell you when I'm working as a buyer's agent, it can be very frustrating to have to work around a listing agent schedule. Okay, if you've got 12 houses to show you've got everything lined up, and then the listing agent has to be there, but they can't be there this day this time. So that, again, is why the team makes it helpful, because we'll have somebody there,

Tracy Hayes  16:12  

right, right? And the bottom line comes down to begin back to your customer, who is the seller here? Wants their house shown at the best is because why they're asking for the top dollar and they want the best to present it. You transition from Berkshire Hathaway, eventually over to Keller Williams two years ago, two years ago, what was it that you saw in the change? Because sometimes we do need to be we need to whether it's changed jobs. In this case, as you change brokerages, to put a new light on things. What was your reasoning there? And obviously, you had team. Your team was a little bit smaller, right? You had some we've we've grown since, yeah, so you took a small team and now added more to it over Berkshire Hathaway, what was, what did you see there in that move? What the benefit you and your team?

Lisa Barton  16:55  

Well, Berkshire was a great environment for us, and I still have a lot of respect for the company. I still, still have a lot of friends who are Berkshire agents for my team. The move to Keller Williams was really about growth and expansion. The Keller Williams model is about real estate agents as entrepreneurs. So we had the freedom, both financially and structurally, to grow the team as we saw fit, and really to brand it as our own. And we are kind of a boutique real estate team. There's only four agents, four agents and four support staff, and Keller Williams was a good fit for us. And then when we moved we helped open the Ponte feature beach office for Keller Williams. So that was exciting, too, to be able to have a voice in how that the actual office was run,

Tracy Hayes  17:44  

I think, you know, as I'm sure you did when you first got in the real estate and started with, you know, the first brokerage before going to Berkshire Hathaway, there's so many, so many different ways you can do this business. And you kind of learn as you go. I mean, from the lending side. You know, I started with, with Quicken Loans in the call center in 2005 and I thought those are the only type of loans you could do. And then when I get out here on the retail, Oh, hold on, like we got portfolio lending over here. We can do this. We can do that. We got all these different things going on that I never was exposed to because in those walls, that's what they did. And as I'm sure your time at Berkshire Hathaway talking to other topic, you really, what are they doing with their teams? What are they and obviously, you know, you caught on to Keller Williams and dug in, found out that's, you know, a path that you want, you wanted to take. So you're leading a team. And in looking at your team there, it's a very mature looking team, professional looking team, or old, I didn't say that, but all of you have to stand because the clients you're you're targeting, so to speak, are generally more affluent. Some of them may we know people got rich and didn't even have a high school diploma, but there's others that are, you know, executives, they got their and their wives are educated and so forth. They're just, they're on a different level in the under the luxury, not that they put their pants on any way differently, but when you interact with them, it's very you have to be swift of mind. Would you agree?

Lisa Barton  19:13  

I would agree. And we, we work with all levels of buyers and sellers, right?

Tracy Hayes  19:18  

Yeah, no, yeah. Don't, yeah. I don't want to put out there too that everyone, what I'm interested in Lisa is because the luxury thing is a small percentage, and Lisa is going to take care of anyone who comes to her and asked to buy or sell her home. We're not, I mean, the same with me. I don't care someone. They say I'm buying $100,000 condos. Okay? I They have the same treatment as someone buying the $500,000 home, or even the million dollar home. As far as you know, the service, I don't do anything really differently from that end. But what I wanted to try to get out because that market is so unique, and not every agent focuses on that market, but what I was leading to is, how do you guys stay sharp? And since we were talking a little bit about personal development before the show, do. You guys like to, you know, certain books. You guys like to read podcasts. What are your crew do to kind of stay sharp of mind?

Lisa Barton  20:07  

And, okay, yeah, okay, so obviously, I value education. You know, everybody on my team has a degree. It's not necessary, but it's, it's important. And then several of us have graduate school degrees, again, because we value education. So I think there, it's kind of twofold. First of all, at the luxury market, the thing that that the person who has is a very high net worth person. Thing they value most is their time. You know, they, like everybody else, gets 24 hours a day. This is not a group that wants you to waste their time, right? So we are very careful about what we present to them. We don't just if they say they're looking for an ocean front house. We don't send them, you know, 50 ocean front houses. We really cull through and make sure that that we've heard what they said and we're sending them things that are legitimate for them. Then to stay informed is really important, because real estate is changing. So we take a lot of classes from nefar. Nefar offers great classes. We're all GRI certified, so we're all graduates of the realtor Institute. We've taken the senior real estate specialist class, the Certified International Property specialist class. So we've taken those classes to learn how to be a better agent. And then I read a lot. I read Inman every week. I read the Wall Street Journal, I read The New York Times. That's what these people are reading. That's what they're reading, and that's what I need to read. That's what I need to know. I need to understand what big national economists are seeing for the real estate market, not just what's happening today in Marsh Landing. We need to know what's happening across the country, because those people are coming here. So we want to know what their experience is like.

Tracy Hayes  21:48  

That's interesting the way, you know, just, you know, obviously everyone knows the Wall Street Journal, but does the other things. Because these people are taking that 10 minutes, an hour before they go to bed, trust me, and they are doing the research for where are they getting their research from? They are looking at the Wall Street Journal. They are looking at these national publications. They have, you know, trust in them, because some of the circles they circle in are people who are writing those articles Exactly. And so you have that's so that's a, that's a very great nugget right there, because, and also there's, I'm just thinking of the strain a little bit on your team too mentally, is because you are dealing with a lot of custom homes. You're not, you're generally not in the track building homes where there's three or four models you can memorize in 15 minutes. Every one of these homes, you know, they want to be aware of what's going on, what's the situation. Hopefully, you've gone by and seen it. So when they are having this, you know, pre buy conversation of what they want, you know, they want to have an intelligent conversation. But, like you said, time they need to ask the right questions to get the right answers. And there's, it's kind of like doing a great, you know, employment interview. You're doing that with that possible that buyer exactly for that kind of home.

Lisa Barton  22:58  

And we also have a list of vendors. So if we look at a house and needs a new roof, it needs a new kitchen, whatever it means, we have somebody who can come and give us a quote, right? You know, I don't say well to the to my buyer, well, you can get somebody to come in and do this.

Tracy Hayes  23:15  

You're doing it for them. They expect you to do that in least give them some idea what it's gonna Yeah, yeah, you know whether you're doing luxury buy or just, well, I mean, I don't know what the average home now in St John's counties, it's not 400,000 each is 874 right? So if we look at all the St Johns County, though we're obviously majority of the sales are obviously going on because it's a lower price, and we're still looking at 350, to probably $500,000 somewhere in that area is where the average where the average home sale you still should be doing that. You need to have these vendors in your back pocket. That's a great nugget, right there. Have these guys on speed dial, and I will, I'm going to scoot it, because you bring up an interesting thing. My wife was looking at a house that we were looking to invest in for my sister to live in. And there, there was some an issue with the foundation. And she sent me the picture, and I quickly sent it over to Austin gray. Gray's home inspection. And, you know, Austin was right back. I don't think it was 15 minutes. It was probably 15 minutes because I started doing something else. And then looked back at my phone and realized he responded. And by the picture, he gave me a little direction, and then gave me a number to a general contractor who would probably give us kind of an idea what that might cost to repair that. But that's what every agent should have, that absolutely, it doesn't matter

Lisa Barton  24:30  

what you're selling, and it's a list that the agent needs to generate. You know, I've had people say, Well, can you send me your vendor list? It's not going to help them, because that vendor won't recognize them, so they're busy, yes and return the phone call, right? So I am very careful with my vendors time.

Tracy Hayes  24:46  

Let's transition a little bit into your team and your ideology, because I think this is as we're already tipping into it a little bit already, the mindset you've planted yourself in a hornet's nest of real estate agents, and it's. Kind of a well from a, I don't know, lender side of you know, there's a lot of agents who will sit in some of those bigger offices out there and literally just sit and wait for someone to walk in the door. And because of the price point of the average home out there, they'll just sit there and wait for that person to come in, and they'll jump up, boom. And, you know, hopefully they'll they'll have a deal where those are coming your part full time or part timers, you know, those. There's a lot of those out there. As we talked about earlier, a lot of these new agents aren't digging in and listening to the podcast of the successful agents that I interview each week and every week of what they're doing, and they're really, you know, accelerate quickly, if some of them have so digging into the ideology your team you had, you brought over a couple from Berkshire Hathaway. I had the list of your name of everyone least was on the website.

Lisa Barton  25:49  

So everybody from my team at Berkshire Hathaway transitioned, which was with me, was Marcia Keller and Tanya.

Tracy Hayes  25:55  

Tanya, okay, so they were listed us. So let's just go down. You know, really quick. Just tell a little bit of some. But how did you meet Tanya, and how did you meet Tanya and how did

Lisa Barton  26:03  

you get her on your team? So Tanya was a buyer, and she was moving from Canada, and I don't believe Tony had actually even been in Florida before, but we couldn't find a house her first trip down, so I found her a rental property two weeks before they were to move. The rental property fell through this, the owner decided that they wanted to sell it, so all of a sudden, she's moving here and has nowhere to go. So I found

Speaker 1  26:28  

her unless she wants to buy that home. Yes, her a

Lisa Barton  26:31  

rental property, and she moved into that and then when she was ready to buy she called me back, and I helped her buy a house. Similar story with Marsha. Marsha is the agent who moved from Ohio. She had not been here. I helped her buy a house. When they decided they wanted to get back into work, they called me and we so our, our team, grew very organically, yeah, and they both started with me, because this

Tracy Hayes  26:55  

is, this is not they didn't move down here because of covid. No, no, this is long before that? Yeah, that's something, these, these, this is, was a while ago that they came down and then obviously, saw how you were doing business, and just enjoyed

Lisa Barton  27:10  

they experienced it. Yeah, I helped them buy a house, and so we had a level of trust built up, if, you know, before they even decided to come work

Tracy Hayes  27:19  

for me, right? And then reached out to you. And then, well, obviously, I mean, obviously you got a mesh, which obviously you have for 11 years with these two ladies. That's awesome, Sean.

Lisa Barton  27:27  

How'd you get So Sean is our newest agent. He is. He's been with us for almost three years, two and a half years. How does he

Tracy Hayes  27:35  

handle it with I gotta ask, because he's the only guy in Seoul is

Lisa Barton  27:40  

a trooper. He is really a trooper, but he's he manages to put up with us. And Sean was in new construction before he came to work with us. Oh, good. And we actually posted an inside sales agent job, and he recognized the potential and came to work with us as an inside sales agent and did such a marvelous job that we brought

Tracy Hayes  28:01  

so for someone who may know, or maybe a fairly new agent, an inside sales agent, what's that? What do they do? So basically, in a real estate world,

Lisa Barton  28:08  

that person is the person who follows up on leads. So it's, you know, dial and smile, kind of position. He called leads, old leads. Tried to resurrect them. And did? He really did a great job.

Tracy Hayes  28:20  

And that's a hard Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt brandy. Brandy is

Lisa Barton  28:24  

our transaction coordinator. Brandy is the person who keeps the other everybody in line. Yes, she manages the timelines and the paperwork and signatures. And, you know, there's a lot, a lot of steps to real estate. I know that's something consumers kind of forget or don't know, because they haven't bought a house, yeah, or sold a house in a long time. But brandy keeps track of each step to make sure that we do every everything is done on time, and that everybody is clear with their expectations. And she's she's wonderful.

Tracy Hayes  28:58  

Well, you know, as from the lending side, obviously, we have a lot of, you know, compliance, you know, the lawyers get involved. But even on that contract, there's certain things that are set for certain days. And trust me, if you're dealing with a more affluent buyer and something doesn't happen when it's supposed to, somebody's already calling, you go, you know, where they back out? Who knows? They may have got an actual better offer. So they were trying to find a reason for the buyer to cancel the deal the seller. So that transaction coordinator, I imagine Brandy is communication. Is her like

Lisa Barton  29:33  

it is her forte, and it just makes everything go smoother. Yeah, you know if, if we can call two days before the appraisals due to find out where it is, rather than 20 minutes before the appraisals, why

Tracy Hayes  29:45  

isn't showing up today? It's due today. Why isn't here yet? Exactly? Yeah, I'm with you on that one. There's, there's no doubt. I had one not too long ago. It was, it was a condo, and we're like, Hey, I. Uh, actually, I think, I think, I don't know what it was to something epiphany, because I think it was actually prior to the due date. I said, are we on time with the the appraisal? Because they want to close so quickly. And you know how long it takes for, you know, the appraiser to go out there and get back and then do the report. We're like, I'm like, Hey, we're going to have it next Friday, or whatever the day was, and all of a sudden that we get an email back, oh, the appraiser. Kind of let it slip through the cracks. They're going to get out there right away and end up turning out we got it a week later than what it should have been. But, yeah, those things happen. And to be on top, you know, even Chris, the volume that we deal with here, you know, we can go into the site and say it says the inspection is set up for X date. Okay? So we don't say nothing. We said, well, you already set the date. Well, did that date happen? You know? Are they updating it and saying, oh, yeah, the inspection happened today, which we will get an email saying, Hey, your inspection was completed. So we know, you know. Okay, we're a couple days away from actually getting the report right. Yeah. So that's very vital, and especially, I would imagine in some of the individuals that you're working

Lisa Barton  31:01  

with, especially the volume of business we're doing, we closed over 100 transactions before we had brandy. I was staying up, and Marcia and Tanya were staying up, you know, in the middle of the night, going through, checking all the paperwork, because that was the only time during the day we had to do that. So just to make the transactions run smoothly and create less hysteria. Is really important. Yep, 100% Heather. So Heather center fit is our Director of Operations. Heather has been working with my team since the beginning, and for a while. She was at for a long time, she was in a consulting role. She helps with all the back end stuff. So she manages our website, and she manages our contact management system and our file management system, and she does payroll, and she's really like an office manager. She keeps everything together. And you know, you don't really see what Heather's doing, and because she gets keeps it all running smoothly, but her role is crucial.

Tracy Hayes  32:00  

I'm going to circle back to Heather after you go over Savannah, because that's something I think you're going to agree with. But tell us about Savannah.

Lisa Barton  32:06  

So Savannah is new to our team. She's been with us for about six months. She is our Director of our marketing coordinator. She's our marketing coordinator. Savannah is quite young. She's fresh out of college, and she brings a new set of eyes to everything. I think she thinks we're all dinosaurs, but she is lovely, and she's very creative, and she is a social media queen. She knows what works what doesn't work, and she is really she's been a really nice addition and and really refreshed everything for us.

Tracy Hayes  32:39  

So as my Daniel, our marketing person here, jet is filming this for us. One of the things that I have evolved is people don't understand that you know, you on as the face of the team, and really, actually, all your agents are out there and you're there's things that you have to do, there's things that you do, whether it's go over and scout out a home. Maybe you're listing it, and Sean goes over. He want, he needs to go over, and he wants to look at it so he knows he may have a buyer coming. And these type of buyers, I would imagine your agents, probably go out pre time make sure the house looks great. So when the buyers show up, everything's perfect, right? They don't. Nothing is shows up unexpected. There's a lot of things we do per se. We you know, you don't get paid for but actually you are getting paid for it. You should be doing these things, but you have to put the people, the brandies, the Heathers and the savannahs into the mix, because I may have a great or read about, see on YouTube, whatever about this great marketing potential with YouTube or the podcast or Instagram, all those types of things. But you and I are at 30,000 feet. We need the savannahs to come in that actually know how to implement apps. The plan Absolutely and it is so, so important. And I think so many companies miss the ball because they are not looking for people like you and I, who are at 30,000 feet and have these ideas implement. It takes time marketing, I think one of the, one of the words I'm going to ask you here in a few minutes consistency, how many times you know loan officers, we talk about doing this all year long. We work really hard, get on the phones, do all that thing, great. All sudden, we got a bunch of deals. We're like, in those deals, we don't we stop our marketing, we stop doing those things that makes the phone ring. We close those loans, and then we're like, okay, get back onto the inning. Yeah, the next month you're up and up and down where to be successful in your as an agent, to be successful as a loan officer, you've got to have that consistency plan going all year long. Absolutely, you're mapping it out. I'm sending out Christmas cards. I'm sending out things how Valentine's Day. I'm sending out Easter cards, whatever, whatever you're doing marketing wise, and doing it consistently.

Lisa Barton  34:58  

That's really important. Yeah. And the support staff that we have in place allows us to make things look easy. Yes, you know, when you buy or sell a house with us, it feels easy. It's smooth. There's not a lot of unexpected surprises. I don't like surprises, not even on my birthday. I want to know what's coming. And so we because we have good support staff in place. It looks from the outside, it looks easy. And most consumers don't see all the things rolling, you know, in the background

Tracy Hayes  35:28  

well, because they see themselves as the only thing in your world when you it's really you have maybe 10 other people that you're directly working with and buying or selling a home in the next, you know, two months or so, you're working on that. And I think the value in being able to make it look easy. You're not running around with a chicken your head cut off. You actually are. You know, hey, I know I have a call with Mr. Smith at 10 o'clock. Let me go and get his file, let me get up to date on him or her, and then have that call, have an intelligent conversation. You know, you already know what points you need to get out of the conversation, because you took the time. You're not worried about the mailers going out. You're not worried about, you know, did someone get this recorded in the CRM? Or did we send the Thank You card? Did we get the closing gift?

Lisa Barton  36:13  

We have a process, yeah, process for everything, and so that process is running in the background, Yep, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  36:19  

And it's allowed you, you know, I can only, I'm just, you know, visioning your your team and how you're describing it. It's a dream team to me, because I wish I would, I, if I this is what I want to build personally, is those things are going on in the background. So us with the imagination we need, there's certain times we need to get on the phone, there's certain times they need to get on the phone, your support staff. It's not You're not handling that brandy may need to call the customer for whatever it is, or the vendor, and you're doing what you need to do, which is make next phone call ring, get that next client started in the process, and then you're handing them off, and then be there at the end and say, great job. It's it is a team effort. It is. And I think a lot of people lose that in our on my side and your side of the transaction that they think they've got to carry that ball from start to finish, and you're not going to go very far if that's what you're trying to

Lisa Barton  37:08  

do, and you're going to be really tired when you get there. Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  37:12  

And at the end of the year, give me, oh my God, look at I had, I worked hard in January, didn't have any closings. I had a couple closings in February, but nothing in March. And then it's you don't want to, you don't want to do that puts a lot of stress on your family. When's my next paycheck coming in, you know, or bills getting paid? So you asked me before the show about the podcast. So here's my my latest vision. And I say latest because I think somebody think I'm going to give it up. I'm sticking to this one. Okay, I have had so many great agents like yourself on sharing, I mean, just super nuggets, lot of common themes, just different stories about the themes. And so what I'm doing now is make sure we're covering those themes in the podcast, because I really feel at about probably 150 episodes or so, I could actually put a book together, okay, and have these chapters, because you use the word before consistency. You got to have a marketing whatever you're doing, you know, 10x consistently and doing it and doing doing it. I mean, how many times you see agents, they they send a bunch of postcards out to a neighborhood, like they're fishing, and they wait for the fish to bite or forget, send it out the next quarter and the next quarter and the next quarter, and whatever it is, you got to do a consistency, consistency.

Lisa Barton  38:24  

And people have remarkably short memories. So, and they may, they may know you and really like you, but when they go to buy a house, they forget. So staying on top of mind all the time, no matter how much marketing we do still, 75 to 80% of our business comes from our sphere. So those are people we know, or people we know. Who knows somebody else or past customers.

Tracy Hayes  38:51  

I think about this with some we have some brokerages around our area. Some of them depend a lot on, you know, we talked we actually were talking again pre show. We were talking about this dollars by leads convert so many, they have this equation down, and they want to make it into an assembly line atmosphere. And, yeah, I mean, you can do that. But as soon as when the money runs out over here, or someone mismanages it, and you're not in some somebody doesn't put a screw on over here, your whole assembly line completely falls apart,

Lisa Barton  39:23  

potentially, or if the market changes, and that's a grueling business to be in for those, for those agents you know, to have to make 100 phone calls a day is exhausting, and there's not a lot of success in a three if, if the conversion rate is three to 4% Which is pretty much the industry average, that means 96 to 97% of your phone calls, somebody's either going to yell at you or hang up, right? And that's personally not how I want to spend my time, or how I want my agents to spend their time.

Tracy Hayes  39:53  

There is a level that at the beginning that they need to be comfortable talking on the phone Absolutely.

Lisa Barton  40:00  

Absolutely but, but I'm not sure that that's the only thing I want them doing. I think, as a new agent, yes, you need to be comfortable making phone calls. You need to be comfortable making cold calls. But there are other ways to get business. Yes, you know. And those would be where I would suggest people spend their time and energy.

Tracy Hayes  40:18  

I think some of my, my, my most of my non builder business that has come to me in the last six months are circles of influence that I have outside the office. Now, do they see me consistently doing the podcast? The great thing about social media, those people, your friends, when you put something out, they see me every day. And so my consistency. I started a few years ago, doing short videos, and I got deals. I actually had that because I was the subject. I was talking about, rang with somebody, and they called, but ready to do a transaction, as we know, they know you, but it might be three or four years, but if a year into it, you stop doing it, because you don't think it works. Well, they forget about you. They might their friend refers them, or the neighbors selling the house, and they go, Oh, well, that looks like a good age. And I'll just use them. You know, the staying top of mind. The great thing about social media is there's a lot of there's you can do it

Lisa Barton  41:11  

for free. There's a lot of chatter out there too. So how do you differentiate yourself, yes, from everybody else?

Speaker 1  41:17  

Yes, do a tick tock dance. Oh yeah.

Lisa Barton  41:21  

Our marketing coordinator has said that Tiktok is not my forum. Yeah, our platform, platform was the word she is not your platform. That's probably about goodness nobody needs

Tracy Hayes  41:30  

unless, unless the teenage daughter is making the recommendation dead and where to live. But the consistency is so, so important. But, yeah, the circles of influence, that's where I wanted to go with it. The circles of influence. And I don't think enough people sit down enough and realize, what am I doing. What are my kids doing? What am I involved in? Is it the ball team? Am I? Am I doing this? Is it a mom's group in my neighborhood? Whatever it is, you need to be subtly reminding them this is what you do. I mean, if you want to wear a t shirt and wear it across your chest, that that's, you know, sometimes that works too.

Lisa Barton  42:03  

And it goes back to some of the things we talked about at the beginning. It's trust, you know, how do you get somebody to trust you? They have to know you. And so if they know you, then there's a potential for trust. And then it also goes back to education. People's favorite thing to talk about is real estate. So when you go to a party, when you go to a ball game, know coming right up to you what's going on. So know your numbers. Pay attention. Know what's happening. And every time we go anywhere, somebody asked me about the real estate market, and I love talking about real estate, so I'll be in Publix and have that conversation. But you need to know what's happening. You need to read. You need to pay attention. So you bet,

Tracy Hayes  42:43  

you know, again, there's a nugget, right, right there. We talked about some agents prior. What's the difference of these, some of these new agents getting started and off on a great trajectory, which some of them might have on the show and some of them are gonna have on the show in the next couple of weeks. We're talking really young agents that are doing, you know, nine, $10 million in their first and second year were. I mean, how many agents would have dreamt of doing that kind of volume, but they get it because they're listening to advice like

Lisa Barton  43:10  

that, and they're working hard. Real estate is not a sprint. Yeah, I think there's a misconception in in the media, but also just in our culture, that it's a quick way to make to make a good living and to set your own schedule. It's not, not.

Tracy Hayes  43:26  

It is it is self employment, yeah?

Lisa Barton  43:28  

And there's no, there's no ceiling, but there's also no floor, yeah? So it's a lot of hard work and consistency and knowing your message and sticking with

Tracy Hayes  43:38  

it, yeah? Because, I mean, I think everyone would agree to make it to have your influence and credibility that you have in Ponte Vedra, the years you've been there and the way your team presents itself in, you know, you set up your team to make sure, you know, we all have boo boos. We all blow ups. You know, in our business, things go awry for whatever, all sorts of reasons, our fault, the house's fault, buyers, fault, whatever. But you have to have the people in play, the experience and the maturity to just make it look easy. But you are sweating in a little, you know, in your office, but having the right staff in the right reliability, the vendors on call to make it look good, because you know someone's the people are, people are out there to help you, yeah? And then in this business, there are a lot of people that tell me, and I hope somebody calls you after some emails you and says, Hayes, I'd really like to sit down and have coffee with you and learn a bit more about you, because I'm sure you have no problem helping younger agents. No questions. What did you do when you know those type of questions, yeah, yeah,

Lisa Barton  44:42  

I enjoy that, and that's another thing I really like about Keller Williams, is that it's very collaborative. And so my team and I are teaching a class next month, and I get calls from from younger agents, or even agents who aren't younger, but who have kind of hit a bump in the road. Yes, not sure how to handle. Lit, and I'm happy to talk things through.

Tracy Hayes  45:02  

I think, as myself, any agent, John Maxwell talks about it. He talks about the lid you you only get so far doing what you're doing, you have to be continuing to educate, evolve, stay on top of things, because our markets are changing. I mean, our interest rates have literally doubled in the last year. Okay, you think about that, and you know what in the now, our home values, for some reason, are right. Currently, are still trending up, but I have a feeling they're going to level off here at some point, because people are going to be looking going, oh, you know that? You know, instead of paying 3% I'm not going to be paying 5% or more. You know, what's that due to my payment? You know, affordability, that whole thing is going to come into effect. So you you might have to change gears, and maybe we keep doing the same thing. Who knows? But you have to be prepared.

Lisa Barton  45:47  

That's been really interesting. In the last two years, I feel like in real estate, we've seen 10 years of change, and it has, we've had to pivot and change the way we do things like monthly so again, paying attention to what's happening in the market, but it is really the way real estate is conducted has changed pretty dramatically, yes, and so we want to be on the on the front of that wave, not on the back.

Tracy Hayes  46:12  

I think this is just an evaluation that I've had recently, having interacted with a lot of foreign buyers, but buyers basically who weren't born here, they now live here. Their families are here, and they seem to be so much more in touch of the circle of our life, you know, the ups and downs of real estate and how our capitalism works. And some of these people didn't even come from capitalism, so it just interesting, and there are much more relaxed than the person who was born here, who has actually lived it and seen our markets do what they do, but then start to panic when because the the interest rates are going up, and it's like, you know, the sky was falling, you know, well, you're still paying sub 5% at the moment. You know, what did you What did you What were you doing when it was two and a half percent, you know? And that's sort of what comes around, goes around. You can refi your home. If it goes up, it goes down. But you shouldn't be buying a home that maxes you out anyway. You know, you should. You have to have some flexibility where that payment goes up a couple $100 or goes down a couple $100 you you shouldn't be pressed into a situation. I need to refi because I need a couple 100 need a couple $100 a month or I can't make the payment. Well, you need to move

Lisa Barton  47:26  

out of the neighborhood. Yeah, and I think, I think sometimes people forget that real estate's a product. So yes, it's an investment, but it's also a product. So you're living in it, you're enjoying it, you're raising your family there. So you can't look at it as a stock, yes, because it's a product, it's something you're using. And even if, if, when you sell your house, you sell in a down market, and you don't make money, you've still not paid rent, so you still, you've still seen value in that. Yeah, I'm sure you get

Tracy Hayes  47:57  

the question, because you were talking about going to a party, people, was first thing to do, what's, what's the home value? Sorry, home values. They're one another. Are you selling your home? Are you or do you need to take cash out of your home because you want to go buy some investment properties? Because, unless you're doing that, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. So the interesting, top, some of the interesting underlying themes that I'm getting from everybody, and we've talked about these just naturally in our conversation. Obviously, you, you know, starting your career off in the education field, education, and that is so in where can you find the education? And you said it, go down. Go down the nefar, the St John's board. There's classes going on all the time. Some of the younger agents that I've talked to that came along quickly. They had a lot of, you know, it's like, okay, what do you do? You just had this nine to five job. Now you're a real estate agent. What do you do? They were getting on the phone and having coffee meetings with experienced people, whether it was in lending or other real estate agents or whatever, and learning something. There is no doubt we can go to a three day seminar and maybe an entire thing. We got about 15 to 30 minutes of that entire three days where we actually got something that was extremely valuable. But that's the time you have to put in to find those nuggets. You know, the gold's not laying on the ground. You have

Lisa Barton  49:16  

to dig. There's no low hanging fruit. Yes, it's you have to put the time and the energy into it.

Tracy Hayes  49:21  

But you can make it low hanging fruit if you are educating yourself with your ladder, and you build and build and build on the on that ladder, we talked about consistency and what and whatever you're doing. Can you think of something, you know, let's see what you said. 2007 right? Rough is where he starts about, you know, we're going 1415, years now, something that you would you would look at that you do today consistently, that you were Subhan, I wish I started that three years before,

Lisa Barton  49:47  

and this is something I need to do more of. But I think reaching out to my sphere just with a quick phone call and my sphere people. They're people I know. They're people I like. I always enjoy talking to them. Right? So. Staying in touch with those people and finding out what's happening in their lives. Those phone calls, those they're not sales calls. I'm not calling to say, Hey, do you or someone you know want to buy real estate? I want to find out how that person's doing and find out what's happening in their life. And those calls matter, and then reaching out to other venues of things that you're passionate about. I am on the North Florida land trust as I'm a board member for them. Land preservation is something that I am really passionate about, that I really care about, that I'm really interested in. So that's a natural venue to meet new people. It's not I'm not going I'm not

Tracy Hayes  50:38  

doing it, or to keep you in the know exactly what's going on, keeps me in the

Lisa Barton  50:41  

know, gets me in front of a new group of people. So my advice to newer agents is find something that that you care about, you really care about, and get involved, whether it's volunteering or just learning about it, or, you know, going to an event. But there's so many great charitable places, charitable, charitable institutes here that we can become involved in. They need our help. And so I think that's a good way to expand yourself. You bring

Tracy Hayes  51:09  

you bring up a good point. And I saw, actually saw this just this morning, one of another podcast, right? Listen. She's in the branding and so forth. And I know someone here locally that has used her. She's, I believe she's out of Michigan or something, and she did a little Instagram post. And when you go and talk and you say, making these phone calls, if you're not genuinely interested in those people,

Lisa Barton  51:30  

don't make the phone call. Don't know if you don't like them, don't make the phone Yeah. I mean, you got

Tracy Hayes  51:35  

to be genuinely interested in them. And you know, just to touch base that you really people know whether you care or not, they'll read through it, if not the first time, the second or third time. They're realizing, you know, you don't really care what I'm what I'm doing, that type of thing. But if those genuinely be interested in those people you're, you're doing, which brings up my next subject, which is relationships. That's a common theme. I mean, if you think about like you said, I think we all, and I think everyone would put what you just said to reach out and continue to nurture your relationships, because obviously, we get our lives. There's only so much time in the day. We only talk to so many different people. We got to do our business and earn our living, but you know, to continue to nurture those relationships, because you actually do care. And you know, however you do it, whether it's a phone call. It could be just a simple text message occasionally, or a combination of both text messages, just touching people. You know, Facebook puts a lot out there for us and makes it easy, because they'll post, oh, it's my child's birthday. Wow. Good reason to call, good reason to send them a card. Hey, congratulations on your son. It's always great. He had made, you know, playing baseball, whatever, you know, those types of things. It kind of doesn't make it a cold call anymore, because now you actually saw them doing something and or they went to a restaurant. Hey, I saw you went to that restaurant. What Tell me about it? Was it any good? I was I've been thinking about

Lisa Barton  52:53  

going there. All those are natural conversations. They're things you do with friends, yes. And most of our customers end up being your friends.

Tracy Hayes  52:59  

Yes. That is another common theme that I'm finding in a lot of the successful agents, is the post close relationships, going to dinner, inviting you over each other's house or something for cookout, or whatever. The last thing, we didn't get into too much detail, we talked about a pre show surround Well, I think you do it with your team, surrounding yourself with successful people,

Lisa Barton  53:21  

absolutely, you can learn something from anybody. So surrounding yourself with successful people and being available to people who could use some assistance, I think that's really important,

Tracy Hayes  53:32  

because even though you may be, you know, here in your success, and they're down here, you know, like you said, was it Savannah is your, your youngest one, your newest person, right? Savannah? Yeah, you've probably learned some things from Savannah, absolutely, because that's a whole nother generation of market. What, what things are going on, what's trending? You know, tick tock is not your thing, not for, not for this area, and maybe, and maybe more in central St John's County, might be a tick tock client, but in Ponte Vedra, tick tock, it's not, you know, knowing those things and having those people who are savvy that so you can learn from someone who's may not have reached your success yet. But also, I just like the way you just describing your like your sales meetings, and the way you guys, you enjoy coming in and collaborating on different ideas. That's that, right there, is powerful. But you did, also, you did mention Keller Williams support and going to their events. I imagine you do this, they do a lot of national

Lisa Barton  54:26  

just had family reunion last month, actually, the beginning of March, so almost a month ago. Yeah, and you know, we hadn't had conventions for two years, so it was wonderful to be back in in the same space as Asians from all over the country and actually all over the world. We met several international agents, and, like you said, masterminding, hearing what they're doing. It was also really interesting to talk to agents from our feeder markets. So we talked to a lot of agents from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Atlanta, places where people are moving from. And wanting to know what's the experience like there? What is this person who was a seller coming from? And what are they? What are their expectations? And that was,

Tracy Hayes  55:11  

that was the expectations. And just building the relationship with that agent as a referral agent, because if they're doing their business correctly, hopefully you know your clients, if they're moving somewhere else, that you put yourself out there enough that they're calling you and going, who should I use? I'm moving to Gainesville. Who should I use? Right?

Lisa Barton  55:27  

Yeah, yeah. And that, those, those connections are powerful, Yeah, huge.

Tracy Hayes  55:32  

And so where a lot of this stuff, you don't put a direct dollar to, it's a long term play, like you said, it's not a sprint, it is a marathon. You may sprint at different times during that thing. Because, as I always tell people in this business, is feast or famine. If you can, if there's a lot of low hanging fruit, you need to go grab it right now, because there may be, you know, where interest rates, literally, in the last couple of months, have nearly doubled. There's loan business. There's people going out of business. Refi shops are going out of business. They know the business is not good. Now they got to try to transfer over the purchase. And it's like, Oh, my God. And then if they're there, their markets not hot like ours. I mean, there is going to be closings and layoffs. I know in the lending world, the processes aren't needed. Processors aren't needed. The underwriters aren't needed. They're gonna be, you know,

Lisa Barton  56:17  

started with some something companies. They're already starting, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  56:21  

layoffs, yeah. All right, so we're going to wrap it up. I'm going to, I'm going to ask one important question, and we probably have already talked about it, so if you want to just say, Yeah, I mean, this is what is Lisa's three keys to success,

Lisa Barton  56:33  

three keys to success, life, or real estate, life or, well, I think they're the same, because real estate is life. I think it's hard work, education and persistence. I don't give up. I never give up. In fact, if you tell me I can't do something, then I will probably I'm gonna

Tracy Hayes  56:50  

bring up Sylvester Stallone's phrase. It's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you can get hit, and get up and get up and keep you know, take that no, okay, all right. You know, as we were talking in our conference a couple of weeks ago, is that you, you're making a call if an agent doesn't want to meet you for coffee, don't take it personally. They're just not. It's not, they don't even know you. You know maybe more, unless someone already, oh God, Tracy's calling. No, we hate that guy. You know that's possible, but it's generally, a lot of times it's not has anything personal do with you. It's just they're not, they're not open to talking to someone else. Maybe they're very happy. Maybe, you know, like, my wife is an agent, I mean, another mortgage lender calls, which like, hey, you know my husband's

Unknown Speaker  57:31  

Okay, all right, that's it. Don't take it personally. Don't

Lisa Barton  57:34  

take it personally. And you never know what's going on in the background for that person. Yeah, maybe just gotten them on a bad day, yeah? You know. So you never know. So trying, or

Speaker 1  57:42  

maybe they're looking to get out of the business of this, having the conversation anyway.

Lisa Barton  57:46  

So I try really hard not to make assumptions, and when I do, I try to believe that people are acting with positive intent. I really do

Tracy Hayes  57:56  

consistency, persistence, again, common themes that I'm hearing in with different stories and that that's we're talking about. What is when the energy I get out, you know, the conversation, because we have similar ideologies, and you're coming from a totally different angle. I've never talked to you in length at any other time prior to the podcast. Yet I got energy out of our conversation. I hope some of our listeners will as this goes out, whether they've been watching here or out into the podcast world. All right? These are my final I ask everyone these questions, right here, is it who you know or what

Lisa Barton  58:27  

you it's both. It is both. You can't, you can't fake it, maybe a little bit, but you really can't fake it. So if you don't know, don't say you know. Just say, I don't know, but I can find out, right? So I think what you know is important, but

Tracy Hayes  58:42  

who you don't want people to fear getting in the industry because they don't know all the industry, trust me, there's plenty of people that are smart that may not even go out and talk to people anymore. They're sitting in the office some brokers. But trust me, you call them and say, Hey, this is a situation. They're going to tell you exactly what to do. Your support is theirs. Get out and do it. I'm who you know. I think you know what you know. Yeah, we'll follow for sure. Because I think the who's will will tell you what direction they can make it easy for you. And would you agree? Too many people just don't ask.

Lisa Barton  59:15  

I would. And there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't know. Can you help me? Right? You know?

Tracy Hayes  59:19  

Or calling you out of blue after watching this and say, you know, Hey, Lisa, I saw your podcast. You know, what would you do? And you would gladly share that information, because one of the things I've noticed is common things. The top real estate agents don't see each other as competition. They actually drive off.

Lisa Barton  59:34  

We work together. Yeah, really do. And there are a number of agents who are very high producers that I will call and and ask them questions, ask them if they have something coming on the market,

Tracy Hayes  59:45  

absolutely, because you get, with all the information we have out there, one person can't take it all in, yeah. And somebody read something, somebody did something over there that worked, and you want to know,

Lisa Barton  59:53  

and there's enough business to go around. Yeah, I don't come from a scarcity mentality. Yes, there is a. Abundance. There is enough business to go around so we can work together. What's on your travel bucket list? Well, since you asked, in May, my youngest son graduates from the University of North Florida. Congratulations, and he is a history major, and he loves, loves, loves, loves Roman history. So we're taking him to Italy for two weeks. Cool, and we're seeing all sorts of obscure, yeah, Roman historical facts and artifacts, but that'll

Tracy Hayes  1:00:28  

drink some wine, have

Lisa Barton  1:00:30  

some good food, yeah, yeah, cool. That's two months

Speaker 1  1:00:33  

away. Excellent.

Tracy Hayes  1:00:34  

All right, I'm gonna finish up because I am a loan officer, and I've threw this in here recently. I imagine you have your your go to people, what is the most important thing when you're having that lending relationship, or even really any vendor, but obviously the money person and you is the biggest thing. The inspector, yeah, they come and go through the transaction. But really the money person and you are together for the

Lisa Barton  1:00:57  

whole ride and the pre ride too, right? Because some

Tracy Hayes  1:01:02  

of these people that you deal with their money isn't just the w2 right? Yeah, right. So you're making sure all that stuff is in line. What's the most important characteristic, or, you know, between in that relationship?

Lisa Barton  1:01:14  

Answer your own Absolutely.

Speaker 1  1:01:17  

Wow. We never heard that one before. I had a deal. Yeah? Communication is thing, but they really what they meant is answer their phone. Yes, I forgot so much

Lisa Barton  1:01:28  

when, when we hit a snag, which we likely will, I'm calling you because I have a problem, and I need to help me solve it, right? So I know or

Tracy Hayes  1:01:37  

you might lose sleep that night. You're calling at eight o'clock because, hey, tomorrow morning when you come in, we really need to squash this, yeah, you know. And I need to know that when you for, you know, maybe you go in a little early to squash it, but we need to, we need to get on it. And that's why I'm calling. And that way I can least put my head on the pillow knowing that we have a plan. We have a plan, because I can't go through the night. And yeah,

Lisa Barton  1:01:58  

that, to me, is for every vendor and for every other real estate agent. I don't understand why real estate agents don't answer their phones. I mean, that's your source of business. I don't understand why people don't answer their phone. I pick up my phone every time there's

Tracy Hayes  1:02:11  

1000s of dollars on every one of those phone calls. That's what. That's my that's why I tell the new people you don't you don't understand. You may have an agent. I might have an agent watching this podcast right now that might just call me out of the blue. I don't have them program in my phone. I don't know who they are, but Tracy, if I don't answer because I'm actually on the phone with somebody else, you know, in this stage, it's great, because you could send a text message say, Hey, this is Sally Smith, I need to talk to you, so I get off the phone. Oh, Sally, okay, right back. Because I don't like voicemail personally, I listen to it, but I'd rather you do the text and then I know. Oh, Sally, okay, I call you back because I don't have your number in my phone. Just unfortunately, we get a lot of garbage calls. We do get a lot of garbage. Yeah, so if you don't leave some sort of voice message or a text that, hey, this is you who's calling. Sometimes we don't call back because we assume it was just a sales call.

Lisa Barton  1:02:55  

Or my general contractor answers his phone. My major answers his phone because they money. It's it's money, and that's our relationship.

Tracy Hayes  1:03:05  

So in in our job for supporting a real estate agent is to take a little bit of that stress off of you, because you are the point person when talking to that client, because you referred these people that if there's a problem on the team, we need to know about it so we can make you look good, right? Yep, Lisa, I appreciate you being on the show. Another great another great conversation. And I hope some of our listeners got something out of that. But as we build this library again, lots of nuggets. Was great conversation. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Podcast Intro  1:03:39  

This may be it for today's episode of Real Estate excellence, but we both know your pursuit of excellence doesn't stop here, to connect with the best of the best and really take your skills to the next level. Join our community by visiting Tracy Hayes podcast.com where you'll meet more like minded individuals looking to expand their inner circle and their personal experience that's available at Tracy Hayes podcast.com

Speaker 2  1:04:10  

at Azure standard, we believe Healthy Food shouldn't be complicated. That's why we've spent 30 years delivering clean, organic groceries and earth friendly products to families who care about what goes on their plates and into their lives, from pantry staples to wellness essentials and garden ready seeds, everything we offer is rooted in real nutrition, transparency and trust. Join a community that believes in better naturally. Visit Azure standard.com today and discover a simpler, healthier way to shop for the things that matter most.