Matthew Rathbun: Have Fun, Be Creative, Be Human

Matthew Rathbun: [00:00:00] We don't focus on how much fun we could have in this industry. Um, and that technology should be an asset to you, not a burden, and it should not be a crutch. It's just an extra thing to help you get done. And if we humanize this process,  it makes it all worth it.

Matthew Rathbun: The learning the skill sets, whether they are social media, marketing or can bar, whatever it is. If I start with Uh, my humanity and my creativity and then add the tool, I get much further along in my career nowhere else. So have fun, be human and be creative.  Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast. Today I have another amazing experienced and knowledgeable real estate influencer to share with you. He's a facilitator at this week's RE Bar [00:01:00] Camp One Coast here in St. Augustine. He is an executive vice president with Colwell Banker Elite in Fredericksburg, Virginia, president of the Four Pillars Education that provides training and consulting to the real estate industry.

Tracy Hayes: In 2021, he was recognized as Educator of the Year. Both by the real estate business Institute and the Fredericksburg associate area association of realtor real tours. Let's learn more about this dynamic experience and well spoken real estate influencer, Matthew Rathbun, Matthew, welcome to the show.

Matthew Rathbun: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Tracy Hayes: I appreciate you coming on this morning as, uh, I've been going through many, I unfortunately couldn't get to all, uh, of the facilitators, but I really want everyone to get a little, know a little bit more about you and, uh, cause I think the RE Bar Camp, uh, your goal is, you know, to expand, get out of our box.

Tracy Hayes: And I'm really excited about this year's RE Bar Camp because Kim's put together a good bunch of facilitators from outside the area. Bringing in new ideas.

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah, I love [00:02:00] Bar Camp. Um, you know, , when Kim reached out to me, I just realized that, you know, it's been a number of years since I've actually been able to, to, uh, jump into one.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, but I was doing these back in 2006, seven and eight when I didn't know what they were. And then we were literally sitting in a bar. Just talking about what is this social media thing? What should we be doing as real estate agents and made some amazing relationships over the years just from those group of people.

Matthew Rathbun: So, yeah, I was pretty excited to be invited

Tracy Hayes: back. Yeah, certainly. I mean, the lineup is, I don't know if there's enough time in the day. I know there isn't. There isn't enough time in the day to really sit and pick the brains of each year, but hopefully everyone, uh, you know, grabs, uh, something from you and then hopefully follows up with you afterwards because everyone is bringing something a little different, a little different angle.

Tracy Hayes: Uh, obviously. You know, like you said, social media, uh, is, you know, number one. And we, we are doing a lot of talking about it, but I still, in my opinion, feel it's really un, I wouldn't say untapped, [00:03:00] but just barely tapped as far as real estate agents are concerned.

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah, it's, it's, it's significantly underutilized, um, you know, and I.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, I have some feeling about blessings and, and not of AI is it come about? Because I think it's going to break down, make it even less authentic, uh, social media is less authentic as people are looking for quick ways to do it. Um, it is a powerful tool has been for me for building relationships in a business.

Matthew Rathbun: It's a powerful tool for some agents and then there's others who are doing it simply to check the box. Right. I need to get content out there and they're not really engaging and not doing other things. And so our hope is always as instructors to, to say, this is the best for your career. This is the best thing you can do and to build from our own experiences on it.

Matthew Rathbun: And so when you're looking at things like bar camp, you know, it is. It is about the technology, but the technology as a tool to build the relationships and I saw that last graphic that came out with a bunch of us as speakers on there and there's nothing more imposter syndrome inducing seeing yourself amongst some of those really, really [00:04:00] great people who who are gonna be there speaking and sharing.

Matthew Rathbun: So I'm excited about it.

Tracy Hayes: Well, I like to, uh, kick off every show. Just say everyone get a little bit of background to you. Where are you from Matt?

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, I am from Fredericksburg, Virginia. I'm currently sitting in Richmond, Virginia, one of our offices, but, uh, yeah, born and raised in the same County in which I grew up in.

Matthew Rathbun: Excellent.

Tracy Hayes: Um, uh, you, you go to, uh, according to your LinkedIn Germano community college at that time, what are you thinking about as a career? Um, cause I assume it probably wasn't real estate.

Matthew Rathbun: No, you know, my, my path was like most people, we don't really grow up going, I want to be a real estate agent when I grew up.

Matthew Rathbun: Right. We want to be firefighters and cops and astronauts and dinosaurs. So, um, real estate was never on the scope. I was in the middle of, I started working very young. I started at 14. I got out of school at 16, um, was taking, you know, classes for emergency services management, which was a thing, believe it or not.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, And, uh, that's what I was doing. You know, I'd started from volunteering to being a paid fire rescue services. Um, you know, those type of things. And [00:05:00] then I, um, we started having kids. My wife and I got married young. We've been married for over 30 years now, but we got married young. A couple of years later from 18, a few years later, we had our first kid.

Matthew Rathbun: And my wife's like, Hey, we can't live this life anymore. Marriage wasn't doing great, to be honest with you. And, uh, we've been married for a few years at that point. As you do as teens getting married, you start to grow and learn and change.  uh, we said, you know, she gave me the ultimatum and I said, okay, cool.

Matthew Rathbun: At least you care enough to give the ultimatum. We found faith. We found family. And my mother in law was a real estate broker at the time and she's like, Hey, you're going through this thing. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what school was going to be for. Uh, I was a little half hearted about school.

Matthew Rathbun: Most of that college experience anyways and jump from one thing to another. And I said, okay, I'll go do the real estate thing for a short period of time until I figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And that was now, um, years later, I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, but it took a very short period of time for me to wake up and go [00:06:00] each morning I get up, I get to choose whether I'm going to be a, the chief executive officer or the chief marketing officer or the agent, or I can control my time and the money was particularly good. I built a business very quickly.

Matthew Rathbun: out of just engaging people. Um, and I adopted the technology quicker than most. Uh, and so by 2003 I had websites and I had, um, I had, uh, you know, 2006 I had social media, but I had websites up that were getting found because nobody else was doing it. We didn't know what blogging was, but I was writing about everything in town.

Matthew Rathbun: I had my favorite restaurants. I had, you know, favorite playgrounds and dog parks and library features and things. And I was just building a lot of business that way. And so I just said, This could be me for however long the industry lasts. I, I don't know if, you know, I don't know what that looks like 20 more years from now in my seventies, but for now I love what I'm doing.

Matthew Rathbun: And I still feel 20 some years later, like I get up every morning, getting to decide what type of work I want to do, whether it's creative work or productivity or whatever it is. Yeah, it's [00:07:00] that, that's kind of a nutshell of my career path here. There's three or four questions.

Tracy Hayes: It's flashing my heads. I'd like, okay, which one should I ask next?

Tracy Hayes: You know, well, I'll go with this one here because I think, uh, one thing I think we have a lot, I have a lot of new agents or at least I, you know, as when I visioned my listeners, um, you know, are, you know, new agents and always agents who. They may be struggling, may think they're struggling or just, you know, hit a lid and they're looking for something new to move them, you know, past into the next step.

Tracy Hayes: So, you know, for the newer agents, you were fortunate to have your mom. Was she a good mentor to you? How did, how did that relationship? for you when you, you got showed up at the office.

Matthew Rathbun: I didn't know how deep yo that. So first of all, ma clear. It's my mother in my mom's and my mom's a m law. And uh, my mother in

Matthew Rathbun: my [00:08:00] mother in law adopted us. I'm, uh, my, my wife has a brother and then his, uh, her brother is married. And the two of us are the favorite kids. We joke about this all the time. Like our mother in law likes us more than she likes her own kids. Sometimes she'll deny it, but we know it's true. Um, my, you know, um, but, uh, my mother in law really saw an opportunity there, saw what the business could be and saw that I had a very entrepreneurial heart anyways.

Matthew Rathbun: But when I got my license, I decided not to join the same company she was with. Um, the company she was with was owned by her mother and father and her sisters and her cousins and everybody worked there and I didn't want the family thing. And they were a little bit further out of my market area anyways.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, and so I said, look, I want to try this on my own and I want to try to my local market and not go out there. I was helping them on the side, you know, just doing some side. the marketing stuff and things. Uh, and they understood, she totally understood. And so, but you know, she picked up the phone every time.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, I went to a small broker with no training, no development, no anything. Uh, quite literally my training day was the broker pointing to a wall forms. Cause back then we didn't have, you know, in a computer, it goes read [00:09:00] all over the, let me know if you have any questions. So I took the reading and didn't have any questions of him, but would ask her questions all the time.

Matthew Rathbun: She was very gracious to answer those. Um, and then years later, Uh, I was in a senior position at a large firm. The company she was with was changing hands and not doing well. And I was able to offer her a new office, a new branch. And so then kind of it flipped and she was calling me for advice. And now we just trade ideas.

Matthew Rathbun: So nice. There was no business referral or anything. I literally had to do it from the ground up because she was still active. So, and, and not too far from the market to take those clients. Um, so it was just really digging in and, and figure out how to do this.

Tracy Hayes: So, you know, you sound, it sounds like obviously, you know, to be, go back to that time and break it down day by day in your struggles as a new agent, as.

Tracy Hayes: they all do. Uh, one, one thing, one question that I always ask, uh, you know, because agents do move from broker to broker and some are fortunate enough to walk in with the right one. They get the right mentorship. The leadership is good. They're, [00:10:00] you know, uh, cutting edge and they get off to a great start.

Tracy Hayes: We're so many. Uh, you know, I feel as you know, you know, 80 percent don't renew their license, you know, uh, the first time they're out of the business within a couple of years, how important it is to, to dig in, uh, if you are looking to get in this business and you don't have your mother in law. You know, on, on your speed dial to really, you know, go out and interview agents at different brokerages.

Tracy Hayes: Obviously you're going to talk to the brokers. They're going to tell you everything's, you know, uh, you both are telling each other lies about each other, but they actually sit down with an agent and say, Hey, what goes on at your brokerage and find out. Are they doing business the way you work at you might not know how to do business yet But you know that connects with you How important is it to to really do some due diligence before you just sign up under anyone?

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah, so let me say

Matthew Rathbun: Failure is the best trainer I've ever had right [00:11:00] doing the wrong thing is what led me to the right path more often than not and It's very challenging right now And I just, I was just at another, um, kind of podcast recently where I was being asked a similar question and I'll, I'm pretty consistent with my answers here.

Matthew Rathbun: Um,

Matthew Rathbun: you need to go to the broker who's going to invest in you, not just give you the money in lieu of investment. And what I mean by that is it's very sexy to go to a company that says, we're going to give you 130 percent of every commission you earn. And, uh, you know, you're going to be truly independent and, and to say, okay.

Matthew Rathbun: What does that mean to me? So I did that. My first company was very small. I went to them because I heard it out on the radio and it sounded like some of their belief system matched my own and they were very nice people who had no idea how to run a brokerage and how to train agents. And so I had to go outside.

Matthew Rathbun: I was traveling all over the coast in my first year taking training because it just wasn't available locally at the time. Um, and I think it's important that when you interview a brokerage and you're looking for [00:12:00] somebody walk alongside you and everybody will say, you know, I'm an independent. I did this and that.

Matthew Rathbun: It just isn't true. I have never I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of agents over the years. I've written lots of curriculum for N. A. R. For C. R. S. R. E. B. I. C. R. D. And in that, in the course of that interview, people ask their thing, learn about him from from training. And when I really deep dig down in there, everybody had somebody that was either a mentor or a role model or exemplified behavior.

Matthew Rathbun: Do you never wanted to see again? And that itself was a training. It doesn't matter what signs on the door. I don't care what brokerage, what franchise it is or independent or boutique. It's about the heart of the broker there to be a real leader, to invest in you, to provide training. You know, right now we're in the cusp of an incredible, incredibly transformative part of our industry on multiple fronts.

Matthew Rathbun: A. I can be a much bigger impact than anybody thinks are anticipated. It was. I mean, I really been pondering that. Um, and of course, with commission changes and compensation and all these rules, your broker can all day long say we have a training program here. We have all the technology you want [00:13:00] here. But if they don't show you how to use a technology to build a business and have work life balance, it's not going to be great.

Matthew Rathbun: That broker has got to be more than just some programs they've set up. They need to be walking you through how your financials are in order. How is your family life? Because I'm going to say this with, with all sincerity, if your personal life isn't in line, you will never find success in business. You will be frustrated and burned out very, very quickly and everything will be a heightened amount of stress.

Matthew Rathbun: And so that burger should be looking out for how to help you with productivity and a good work life balance, uh, educating you on contracts forms and how to care for consumer and the consumer first. Um, And having something there. So if I go to talk to you about joining your brokerage, I should be asking for a copy of your mentoring program and your training program over the next 12 months.

Matthew Rathbun: And if you just go, Hey, we just put it together. That's not good enough, especially in your first four or five years. You need something. It's knowledge work, right? That's what they hired us for. We're knowledge workers. And so somebody needs to be taking care of making sure you're taking of that. [00:14:00] by the way, just to get to the next question.

Matthew Rathbun: But of that 80 percent who get out of the business, it is amazing how many of them are not just new agents. It's experienced agents who are now upside down in their taxes because they didn't pay them. They haven't treated their business like a financial institution or a business institution would. Uh, they're spending every dollar that comes in as fast as they can make it.

Matthew Rathbun: Instead of saying, I got to get a portion to you. You know, taxes and to charity into investing in my business and whatever is left, I get to spend on running my household. And so there's a lot more to it than just who has the best tech stack, uh, and who has the biggest company. It's about who has the time to invest in you and teach you to be a, your own entrepreneur and your own ceo.

Tracy Hayes: I think you said Earlier, you know like the social media, uh, you know, just oh, yeah, I do. So I i've posted check, you know checking off That's some some brokers Um, hey, I I got this great tech stack I I've I've got the latest and greatest this that and the other thing and they check it off, but the reality is Too many and I see it [00:15:00] even on our side and on the mortgage side, but I think it's sales in general They don't, they're not mastering the CRM, which personally, I believe if you're large enough, you should have a marketing department that actually makes that work because that is such a tool that was so many facets to it.

Tracy Hayes: It can do so many things at any one time and, and, and set up that they're actually spending time with each and every real estate agent or loan officer or whatever and, and going, okay, what kind of market and set up those things? Because As a loan officer or a real estate agent, you can spend weeks and weeks learning everything that that CRM does, but what you actually use is kind of like our brain.

Tracy Hayes: We only use like eight percent of it or whatever the number is. I, I really feel, you know, a lot of, if they're selling you the tech stack, my question be, okay, so how are you training on it so I know how to use it? It may be all this great things, but are you actually utilizing it [00:16:00] is, is another thing, uh, that this is one personal statement.

Tracy Hayes: Um, Artificial intelligence, you made a, uh, a semi bold statement there. You feel it's going to impact our business. You're, you know, everyone I've spoken to, obviously AI, you know, really didn't come on the radar screen for me until I had Markey lemons on a year ago. And she told me about chat GPT and she had just learned about it weeks earlier.

Tracy Hayes: And she's going around the country teaching about that. What tell, give me your, what's your opinion, how it's going to affect the real estate industry.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, well, we've got a few hours, so we'll be fine. Uh, we'll get this done. Markie's great, by the way. Um, she and I have talked about this quite a bit. And, and, um, you know, she's, she's, she's killing it out there.

Matthew Rathbun: I mean, she's a force to be reckoned with. Yes. And she's definitely on top of this AI stuff. A lot of my lecture now has been asked about AI. And I have to be, uh, when I'm asked to teach it, I'm like, okay, but you got to tell me. where your audience is, because basically I'm staying much more on the practical side of it, the entry level side of it, because that's where most people are.

Matthew Rathbun: [00:17:00] If we go to where it's going, if we start paying attention where it's going, it's largely impactful. And I've always look If you can't humanize it, it's not should be part of your business, right? And so

Matthew Rathbun: AI, I treat like a unlicensed personal assistant whose work I have to double check before the light of day for anybody else sees it, but it is growing so exponentially that is now in part of what we do.

Matthew Rathbun: So we're, we're using a switcher studio for this. I'm using Ecam as a filter. We use zoom a lot in what we do. Zoom has features now that are part of their, if you have paid zoom, it's already part of the fact that factor there. That can let you know when, um, uh, someone mentions your name. If you walk away and give you a summary of that, you can do an end of meeting summary with action items of what you're supposed to do.

Matthew Rathbun: It's incredibly powerful and people are not people underrating it. And people like me who are instructors who do a lot of virtual stuff should really be paying attention to the next iteration is going to tell you which learner is engaged or disengaged in what you're saying and who's not paying attention, whose eyes have shifted.

Matthew Rathbun: It's a very, very powerful thing [00:18:00] for an agent. We are seeing a I make Google look antiquated. In other words, people are going to go to AI to say, give me recommendations for things as opposed to going to Google where they used to look and for real estate agents where we have been years trying to say, please do good SEO content, your blog posts, please do good social media, make the right hashtags work, make sure you're doing video because that's what the algorithms want.

Matthew Rathbun: When you were doing all this stuff, it is, we are just months to a year away from a consumer going. Dear chat GPT, I need you to recommend an agent who is doing business in this region, who has a good track record with equestrian farms, who seems to be knowledgeable in these types of things. And chat GPT is going to be using an AI model to go search for that content about that person and recommend them as opposed to the focus we've had over the past 20 years of, or we'll say 15 years, especially of rank well in Google.

Matthew Rathbun: Right. [00:19:00] And then everybody out there. And that's just one small facet of what's going on there when we're looking at graphic design. We're looking at marketing stuff. It is a equalizing, uh, tool. When you learn how to do the prompts. Well, you don't have to be good at graphic design. You can go to Canva, use magic and create something.

Matthew Rathbun: You can get listing agreements. Your productivity starts to shift. Um, your accountability starts to shift to be more, uh, augmented when you're properly using the tools. whether it was social media, whether it was whatever talking technology come out there, I've always been. Hey, there's a place for every agent.

Matthew Rathbun: You may be analog is anything, but you still had a client base by the nature of where technology goes. A eyes going and who we are as an industry. The agents who are utilizing AI are going to greatly outpace those without if for no other reason, then I'm going to have automated services setting up my showing schedule, responding to consumers, generating marketing content.

Matthew Rathbun: You mentioned the CRM. I just wanted to touch base on that for a second. CRM is a [00:20:00] database that should be utilized to help you humanize your relationship with your consumer. right? Because otherwise that's all it is. Automated emails aren't going to be very effective. And you know, just a package of six things.

Matthew Rathbun: Get your house ready to sell. Doesn't connect with the consumer because they're finding that data everywhere and they're going to start migrating to dear chat, GPT or duet or whatever. Recommend things I need to get ready for my house in this market to get it ready. What's the most appealing aspects to a buyer about my home?

Matthew Rathbun: Those are questions they used to ask us. Right. Well, they still do ask us, but they are going to go get very curated content for their specific situation and as opposed to have them to make it work. Now, the good part of all of this is with the proliferation of AI and all this content and stuff that's out there, the consumer is going to say, there's so much junk.

Matthew Rathbun: I need a human to sort through it for me and tell me, do you do you align? With bottom line. Yeah. Do you align with what AI is telling me at whatever [00:21:00] level? And so there's so very much, uh, there's so much out there. There's so many aspects of this that are gonna be impacting and changing us, but making us more efficient when properly use and executed.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, it's gonna be integrated if it's not already for you and Google workspace and then Microsoft copilot. Um, I mean, I'm just looking at things right now. That, uh, and I won't mention any tools right now because I haven't vetted all of them yet, but I'm looking at one that the chat bot on my website. That, quite frankly, answers questions quite well and most of them the same way I would answer them to all lead to getting an appointment.

Matthew Rathbun: That means I don't have to hire an assistant, which means I can take that money to go invest in more marketing and content creation and other things like vacations that I couldn't, you know, and, and these tools or we're in months to a year of some of them being what I handle your business for a week well enough to let you have time for a break that we've never had, uh, that ability before.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, and unfortunately, so many brokers [00:22:00] now who we should be trusting to lead us and train us as agents have got their head in the sand because the stuff didn't exist when they were practicing agent. They're having a hard time transitioning to it or bringing in the right speakers for it. Everybody's an AI speaker now, and it's really hard to tell who really knows what they're talking about and who doesn't until you get your hands on it.

Matthew Rathbun: So sorry, that was a very long explanation is what we're saying. But I truly feel this is, um, this and The changes of MLS policies, Department of Justice action, some of the civil suits, uh, all of this is going to be creating a very different real estate industry in the next five years.

Tracy Hayes: You're an agent listening to this right now.

Tracy Hayes: Maybe they're just, you know, doing some, you know, regular posting or whatever, what little social media they're doing. They're hearing of the AI. They've maybe gone on and. Done on the listing description using it just on the basic levels. They need not to be overwhelmed in my opinion. I want you, I'm going to give my opinion and see if you agree with me.

Tracy Hayes: Sure. The, [00:23:00] because it's so cutting edge. Uh, I mean, social media has been around for a decade, but it's constantly adding, changing, getting better. Don't be afraid of the AI, but would you, would you agree, um, I think, you know, to attack it and, and work on one thing and kind of more or less master it, like, you know, maybe your graphic arts, right?

Tracy Hayes: Go use Canvas, use an AI and, and do that. And then, you know, spend a few weeks on, hey, I'm okay, I'm pretty good at this using the AI here, and then move to the next thing. Because. It's, it's, you're not behind the eight ball. It's just, you want to start your journey like anything, anyone, you know, going to run a marathon, they start with their, you know, the first mile first, right.

Tracy Hayes: And, and chip away at this. And if you're constantly moving forward, you, you're actually probably ahead of the curve.

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you got to start somewhere. Uh, you know, the, the ability to sit back and see where things go has passed. That's not a, it's not a business tactic. It's, you know, to sit back and wait till it's easy or whatever.

Matthew Rathbun: And it's easy. [00:24:00] It's easy now. The, you know, a lot of agents, the immediate response I get to A. I. Is how do you find time to learn all of this? Well, chat GPD is like having a conversation and you mentioned listing description. Um, prompt engineering isn't a career. It's a skill set. Right. And so learning how to, to interact with the, with the, uh, uh, AI is just like when most people took their real estate licensing class, the word you thought you knew the meaning of.

Matthew Rathbun: are different when you start taking the legal aspects of real estate. And so you're essentially learning a new language, but you had a basis for it. Right. And so chat to me T is easier than social media, to be honest with you, because, or, or AI in general, whatever tool you're using, because if I go to chat to PD and go, Hey, I've got a listing, here are the major benefits of this listing that I found just a bullet point.

Matthew Rathbun: Could you please create an S O S E O friendly. Uh, listing description without violating fair housing written an eighth grade reading level and boom, it creates it and people stop there, but it's a [00:25:00] conversation there. A. I thank you for creating this. Now, can you create a marketing campaign for the next 60 days of how to best market this property?

Matthew Rathbun: And what you're doing is you're asking the totality of all the knowledge we have about marketing. That's ever existed because it's all been digitized into the system to give you a marketing campaign instead of me. So now I'm going, Oh, my gosh, what kind of buyers are out there for this? And how do I reach them?

Matthew Rathbun: And what's the best efficacy of these things? Chatty PT or A. I. In general. Is never going to say go do door knocking, go do open houses because the statistical probability of conversion is so low is that they would not be recommended by any true marketing entity outside of just real estate agents following their own path.

Matthew Rathbun: And so that's where agency, where I see breakage with agents is that it breaks apart what they thought to be true or what they've done in the business. And now there's a system that's again, to totality, a very marketing expert ever published. Saying that's not how you do it. And so I just want to have a conversation [00:26:00] with chat GPT as if it's a marketing specialist.

Matthew Rathbun: Please write the listing description. Please give me a six day marketing campaign. Please draft a email. This is all in the same channel. It's just a conversation. Great. Thank you for doing that. Now can you build a social media campaign for posting about this property complete with emojis and hashtags and things that will get people's attention on these four platforms?

Matthew Rathbun: It's very much common sense. It's just how in chat GPT and Google Bard are incredibly forgiving. You don't have to worry about grammar. They'll figure it out. You don't have to worry about capitalization, spelling commas. You can just in most cases now say it. And I think that's where people get the breakdown as I'm like, they see it's a new tool.

Matthew Rathbun: They have no idea how to use and it looks so simple. It's just a line, but it generates stuff on you having a conversation and continue that conversation. It learns and grows with you. So, you know, I, I mean, that's, that's what I would say is just have a conversation with it, play with it. When you're looking at adoption of tools, one of the biggest [00:27:00] barriers is ages going, Oh my gosh, I don't, where do I have the time for this?

Matthew Rathbun: And it's because again, you haven't structured your business. as a CEO or productive person was. What's the cost of your time? A lot of agents are, and quite frankly, this is not all agents, but this is a lot of agents. They're getting up at whatever time they have to get up to get the kids off to school or to, you know, catch morning news and make a cup of coffee.

Matthew Rathbun: 10 o'clock they sit down at their computer. Things that would never be acceptable if you worked for somebody else we allow ourselves to do. And so then We do about four or five hours work. We are totally engrossed in that one home inspection issue that's coming on today. Cause that's our big fire. No way.

Matthew Rathbun: When reality is there's only so much you can do with that. And then, uh, we go do a little other work. That's very responsive to what's coming in. And then about six o'clock we make dinner, we have dinner, we put the kids to bed or we get done with their home schoolwork. We walked at all or take the trash out and 10 o'clock we sit down and go, now it's time to learn.

Matthew Rathbun: And your brain is fried from the whole day. Instead of [00:28:00] saying I am going to invest 20 minutes a day learning this skillset, Just how to engage with ChatGPT to get the best results because it'll save me hours of work next month if I spend minutes of work learning how to use it today. Um, and it's got to be a structured business like any other business.

Matthew Rathbun: You know, you hold yourself accountable as if you were your own boss. That's what being a CEO means.

Tracy Hayes: Well, I want to turn it now because I, you know, I went on your YouTube page. Um, uh, which is just Matthew Rathbun. That will YouTube, whatever the, you know, just search Matthew's name, uh, tech insight and growth for real estate.

Tracy Hayes: And I broke it down. We've we've dabbled in actually each of these areas, right, right now. And since I was going to finish with tech, cause that's always the popular one, but since we're, we're kind of in. Uh, what we're talking about is all part of that insight growth and then obviously using the technology and your site's a perfect example of what's out there, what so many others have provided the one that [00:29:00] caught my eye that I want to go back and watch when I was just, you know, combing through your different videos was using chat GPT to create a PowerPoint.

Tracy Hayes: Um, you know, to, you know, so I, you know, as a loan officer go in and do a lunch and learn, I can, you know, so, but you have taken some time and done it. short videos, you know, whether just a couple of minutes to, you know, you know, just a short period of time on particular topics, um, which I imagine you've gone out and researched, you're like, okay, I'm good about it.

Tracy Hayes: I'm going to go now share this with others. Cause that's your, you know, you're an educator, you're training, you're giving back to others, and now you're becoming a resource. All in the same thing, so you're, you're learning it, so you could use it, you're sharing it with others, and now you become a resource for many different people, other agents, it doesn't even have to be a real estate agent, it could be someone, well anywhere in the, anywhere in the world can get to your YouTube page, but you become a research because you're sharing some of these things that you're working on.

Tracy Hayes: In utilizing [00:30:00] YouTube. And I, I wanna talk about, talk about YouTube. 'cause I think it's the most underutilized, uh, platform. I don't, unless you call it social media, but does have, uh, its own shorts. Um, but YouTube is so underutilized by agents in becoming that, uh, that resource like you have with your library of of short videos.

Matthew Rathbun: There's nothing that's going to reach consumers, whatever your job is, uh, better than video. Uh, we are viewers.

Matthew Rathbun: We're not readers anymore. And, uh, my YouTube channel is, uh, it's something I've known for years and I've built other people's content for them for a long time. And so I started just, uh, Honestly, there's videos on there from nine years ago, but I've only started taking it seriously maybe in the past, uh, year, um, because I was doing so much of live training and live teaching and I realized, um, and this is not great for the.

Matthew Rathbun: For, you know, being a designation instructor or a tech instructor or traveling instructor. What I realized most of us want right now, learning and bite size. We only want to know what we need to know right now. And we want it right now. We don't want to wait three months for the next SRS or [00:31:00] ABR class to come up.

Matthew Rathbun: Now, those things have incredible value to be saturated for one or two days and a knowledge base of incredibly. Talented instructors and, and, uh, writers for that content. Um, there's a lot of value there, but when I'm sitting at home going, there's gotta be a better way to write listing descriptions because I have writer's block and I've got to get this in MLS tomorrow.

Matthew Rathbun: And you start going, I've heard about this AI thing. Let me go search it out and do a Google search on it. That's what agents need to know. And I, um. I just sounds so self aggrandizing, like something you would script or expect to say, but I teach because people invested in me and I want to invest in others and I want a better career for other people because if you were asked me, I'm a broker and when I'm recruiting, I, you know, everybody gets a fair chance and there's some amazing agents out there, but the most amazing careers I've seen have come from that person who had no other job option and needed to succeed.

Matthew Rathbun: And those are my favorite people to recruit. But those folks don't have themselves. necessarily knowledgeable brokers or trainers in their [00:32:00] area or time to go to class or the money to go to class. And I want to provide information for them as well. And so the YouTube did that. Now it's not all. Matter of fact, I get emails frequently from people going, I am not a real estate agent, but I wanted to thank you for this video and how to use Trello to organize my life.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, because people are looking for answers out there. This week, and I posted a video about my new security, my new smart home security system I installed in that house. And I immediately got an email from someone going, I was just looking for something that works within the, uh, Apple home kit system, uh, inherently in that system, as opposed to third party stuff.

Matthew Rathbun: And, and I'm reaching them too, as a real estate agent, my, my blogs about. How to get a fishing license in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Uh, the best museums in D. C. The, what the library offered kids during COVID, uh, when nobody was going anywhere, our library had so many free online tools and one on one in person Zoom trainers, uh, or, or educators, whatever.

Matthew Rathbun: [00:33:00] volunteering their time to help kids who are struggling because of the COVID issue that nobody knew about. That's what builds client bases for us. The video is the easiest way to tell that story. Google owns YouTube so they index it very highly in results. People want, I mean, maybe not you, but for me, I look at something and go, if it's longer than six minutes, like, Oh God, I don't know if I can do this.

Matthew Rathbun: I have to take a break because our attention span is so short. But when you look at homes dot com is really just flying through the ranks as a, as a lead generation tool and as a consumer facing tool, um, they are prizing video over things. They will boost. I just talked to them. They're going to boost your profile.

Matthew Rathbun: If you have a video attached, Zillow has said that they get 104 times more engagement. On listings that have a walkthrough video through their premiere app. That's free. Uh, real. com is that there is significant evidence that consumers will look at listings with videos before about, um, other outside sources who monitor consumer engagement, say age consumers are now Googling are going to YouTube first, [00:34:00] not Google YouTube first to find out about community information and homes for sale in neighborhoods.

Matthew Rathbun: It's very, very obvious. Statistically speaking, in every market I've ever talked to is going to tell you video is a requirement and you must have within your industry. Yet the agents we talked to go, I don't like being on video. Well, look, let me just say this to your audience. Take your phone, record yourself and play it back.

Matthew Rathbun: That's what you're subjecting to the world to every day, right? They're going to hear your voice. They're going to see your face. None of us look like we 20. Um, and they want, they want, there's something about even in, I, this is a little bit of a tangent. And I'll, I'll wrap this one up, but. If I'm, if you're my seller and we're going over home inspection addendum, I don't just forward that to you by email or text, let's meet in person.

Matthew Rathbun: Let's get on zoom. They need to hear the warmth of my voice and sincerity. They need to see the confidence in my face. This is the same thing with my marketing content. You can do written word all day long. Without the voice, it's not the same. If you've ever read a good book and then watched the movie, you're always gonna default to the book being better [00:35:00] because you created an entity and a voice and a structure in your mind that is broken by watching it on TV right now.

Matthew Rathbun: I don't want to write and only write. It's good for SEO. But they need to hear my voice. They need to see my sincerity, my confidence, my excitement about whatever I'm talking about. And that sells me much more quickly.

Tracy Hayes: I, you know, talking to agents, um, your episode 171, I think, you know, so I've, I've well in, you know, near 160 of them were agents.

Tracy Hayes: How

Matthew Rathbun: did you get to 170 people before me? I, yeah, I've had,

Tracy Hayes: um, um, but they, they're getting, they're getting better. I could tell you that, uh, well, you're just. My journey from podcasting, you know, obviously the first one wasn't videoed, but you know, my ums and ahs and so forth. And I still critique myself because I do as soon as the episode comes out on Apple, I'm listening to it in the car and I'll listen to it back and forth from work until I listen to [00:36:00] the whole thing and critique myself and improve.

Tracy Hayes: Uh, there's a journey and you have to start to journey. And I came across a, uh, a lady over in Orlando. Uh, she has got a great, uh, Instagram page filled with short. Reels, um, you know, about every subject you can think about, um, selecting a lender to anything having to do with real estate. And what she did is she has a tape.

Tracy Hayes: She set up like she's doing a podcast, but she isn't talking to anyone. I could tell because I've looked for any long form video on. There's nothing that I could see. She just puts a mic in for like, kind of like I have here. And she looks in there and asks us if someone, you know, you and I are having this.

Tracy Hayes: conversation. And so I've turned it on the agents and I started doing what I call 30 minute market updates with them, you know, just whether they want to come in or go virtual. And we just talk about them talking about real estate, but, you know, to take it to the, to the next level [00:37:00] is something I've been envisioning to put, just create the short term video, put a question up in front of you.

Tracy Hayes: If you want to put someone over there that no one can see on camera, um, that asked you the question, so you answer it back as if you're having a conversation, and you've got yourself a short term reel, and you can do four or five in, you know, probably 20 minutes. And you know, yeah, you there's people edit it and fancy it up for you If you don't want to do it yourself for for not that much and you have four or five reels Of you talking about real estate and giving the tips like you have on your youtube page uh, very very easily, uh, and You know, you can look as good as you want to look but I think you're right a lot of people Don't like what they hear.

Tracy Hayes: Don't like what you see, but that's what everyone else hears and sees as well. And we're our worst critics. So just got to do it right. Like Nike says. Yeah.

Matthew Rathbun: You know, and then one thing I think is important to also remember is, um, consumers tend to connect with real and what we call dirty [00:38:00] video, much better than hyper polished video.

Matthew Rathbun: Right. And if you look at Tik TOK, for example, these are kids, they have no money. They've got a. Maybe a hundred dollar light and, and, and Abby, uh, um, Ali of all is my favorite YouTuber ever. He's a big productivity guy. It was a doctor who quit being a doctor to go do this. And he, you know, you were talking about my YouTube channel.

Matthew Rathbun: Most of that stuff is I just learned it and I'm excited. So I'm going to teach others. So we're learning together. And that's what he did and his videos are. but yet he is the one of the biggest names in YouTube right now because we learned that we grow and finally he found somebody who could, you know, edit form and do some other stuff.

Matthew Rathbun: And he teaches a whole Academy about it. Um, with CapCut for example, especially now that it's a desktop version, you know, it is easier than ever. to take your phone. This is your whole recording studio, this cap cut and maybe a good microphone or just a good lighting to record and post and just post and post and post.

Matthew Rathbun: And I know that sounds so cliche, but it is. And you have to also know where your channel is. I am [00:39:00] not good at one minute videos. I'm just not good at it. I'm trying, I'm learning. It's just, it's always one minute and four seconds. So YouTube kicks out that short and it doesn't work. I'm not good at it. It's a skill set I've had to learn to be more succinct.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, But people will watch and sometimes I have a one video in particular four years after I posted it, it got popular, but that means there's no shelf life. And so if you're doing a newsletter, you're doing postcards, there's things die the second somebody puts their hand on it and they barely read it or scanned it.

Matthew Rathbun: But when they need to know something and they do a search, that video forever, that blog, blog post is. forever until you take it down. Um, and it's just knowing where your channel is. I'm not a TikTok guy. And the reason is I'm not a, uh, young person in my twenties who can dance. I don't, I'm not particularly, you know, witty enough in 60 second blocks, but YouTube works for me.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, and tutorials work for me. So it's really knowing where your channel is.

Tracy Hayes: Well, the, the, what I've been using now, uh, because the amount of content between doing two full, you know, [00:40:00] podcasts a week like this, uh, and then throwing in a couple 30 minute market updates. And then another friend of mine is a loan officer.

Tracy Hayes: We do a mortgage athlete, a 30 minute thing, uh, Opus pro. Uh, there's others. That's the one I'm using. You just upload that and you could I make it easy because I'm already streaming to youtube. I take the youtube link stick it in there It'll go and it'll in a 30 minute. Um, and it's using ai and a 30 minute conversation, it'll cut me 2025 reels.

Tracy Hayes: Now, not every one is really good. You know, it'll start off with the best ones. What it thinks will be the highest, uh, you know, uh, you know, gives the greatest impact, all those things that they're looking for in short firm. Form content. Yeah. Um, it'll rate them from the start to the finish, but there's some and, and, uh, you know, uh, puts in an arrow, put some emojis in there and so forth.

Tracy Hayes: You can go and add more. If you want to, you can go and trim it a little bit. You simply go in and it has the script for it. And you can go, no, take out that word or take out the sentence and it'll shorten the video. Accordingly. [00:41:00] And so from the simplest standpoint, it's, you know, you're not even in there moving the cursor back and forth and trimming the video.

Tracy Hayes: It'll do it by you just trimming the The transcript and, uh, boom, you have, I could take a 30 minute video and have 10 reels of an agent saying something profound. And then I'm obviously sharing it and putting it across whether it's all platforms. I take, I take that same reel. I'm using it on LinkedIn.

Tracy Hayes: I'm using everything I do always goes into YouTube, whether it's short and long form, uh, and, uh, uh, Instagram. And, uh, I do throw a bunch on Tik TOK just to see where it goes. It only takes a second to upload it and, uh, you know, put it in there and move on because I'm, uh, taking that same real all across all platforms.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, for the, you know, um, so I'm not recreating the wheel for every platform.

Matthew Rathbun: there's a number of AI tools that will do just that for you, where they will go in, they'll create down what they think is the most valuable piece of content and then recommend it and you can do it on, you know, again, I won't recommend a whole [00:42:00] bunch of them because some of them I'm still testing out and I'm not, you know, sold on any, any one yet.

Matthew Rathbun: But, um, uh, the other thing that, you know, for agents to think about is an off camera. Like you mentioned the gal who's doing the off camera interviews, a single person off camera interview, which is a whole technique. It's very effective and it breaks down your anxiety. If you think you're just answering questions or you've written them down, like I have a whiteboard on the other side of the camera for some of those things.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, and then you can transition your eye line of sight from where that whiteboard is, as if you're being interviewed to the camera and it's. All of a sudden it's the same thing, but, uh, it just takes a while to warm up. There's also just not being on camera. And so for example, um, I tend to use a video of myself on some of my tutorials because I think it brings a little bit of depth to it, but you don't have to, most people are there for the content.

Matthew Rathbun: But one of the ones I did recently with how to use Trello to manage home inspection repairs. And I put a link there that I recorded that video and I send it to my sellers like, Hey. This is where we are in the home inspection, because I said all that stuff all the time, right? I'm using a tool called Trillo to help you and I,[00:43:00]  uh, monitor the repairs together.

Matthew Rathbun: Here's a three minute explanation of how it works and you're going to get a link with it. And so those videos become tutorials for my clients and my consumers to watch as well. Market updates you can do, uh, in, in NAR RPR, um, you can go. In there, and I have a video of my website, how to do it. You can go get video scripts.

Matthew Rathbun: You can now go put that into AI. It'll create its own video without you have to be on it. Explaining what you feel passionate about, what you want for content. And you don't have to worry about editing. And, and those tools are very inexpensive and out there. Um, and video. io is one of the examples. Um, that I think it's very easy just to go.

Matthew Rathbun: Copy and text. It creates your video for you. And now you can post it on your website and not worry about editing and lighting and, you know, um, stuttering and stammering, uh, and there's tools to get rid of that too. But I guess I'll be on this, but just keep it simple. Post some stuff. I'm not really, you know, there's a lot of stuff I post.

Matthew Rathbun: It's just something I did three, three years ago, just [00:44:00] short years ago. And I wouldn't look to the quality at it cause I was going to send it to somebody. I was like, Oh, yeah. Gosh, I got to redo that one. Yeah, I got to redo this one. But I think if most people were watching that, they'd go, this is really good, but it's not good to my standard because now I've invested a lot of money and time and learning how to do it better and right, using the right editing thing.

Matthew Rathbun: So anyway, I'm sorry. That, you know. No,

Tracy Hayes: it's there in the technology. And, you know, I had a friend of mine, uh, he's a videographer and, and I had him on, uh, several shows ago, uh, probably a month or so. Um, you know, it's getting to the point where he's actually offering a service where he'll videotape you, uh, for, it says it takes, you want to like have conversation for the hour and the AI will pick up on your mannerisms, how you speak and so forth, and then he can, from there, simply take a script, upload it and have you speaking.

Tracy Hayes: That's right through AI and it's not really you and he actually showed me an example and he uh of what he did He posted it on facebook kind of telling people about it And uh, only his mother was really the first person. Is [00:45:00] that really you you know, that's how good it was And obviously we know it's getting better every moment.

Tracy Hayes: Uh, it's it's crazy um insight growth in in tech because I think this is uh, you know, like I said something on your on your um, YouTube which I think is important um We talked about a lot of it. I want to dabble. I'm going to go through kind of kind of do kind of rapid fire Questions because they're just from time and and and so forth, but we talked a little bit about pre agents people just getting into the business technology changing What brokerage they should, they should utilize, , where should someone be reaching out to, you know, if they're thinking about getting in this business or, you know, in your case, you had your mother in law who wasn't local, they're recommending to who should be, what would be the first step you would recommend for them to, to start talking to some people about real estate and what it's really like.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, um,

Matthew Rathbun: you know, this goes both [00:46:00] ways. Like, you know, you see a lot of people pontificating on social media about their real estate careers, and most of it's fairly cynical. And honestly, I don't think it's very good reflection of the industry. What a lot of agents do put on social. I think that's, that should stop, but I will never win that battle.

Matthew Rathbun: I don't think, but, um, I think you need to find someone who, um, uh, resonates with you. So if you're thinking about getting in the business and you go and look up real estate agency area and you see a video of an agent who, you know, you, you feel like it's somebody like you call them up and go, can I take you to lunch and ask what this career is really like?

Matthew Rathbun: Don't ask a broker because you don't know what your answer you're going to get. And I will say this as a broker, I have about 250 agents in our company right now. And when you ask me, what is it like to be an agent? I will think about the last one I met with in a mentoring meeting that may not be the totality of everybody, but they're killing it and they're very organized and they're doing great and they love this career and I love people.

Matthew Rathbun: And I go, man, that's, that's who you should aspire to be. Um, but you need to ask an agent who resonates with you first, you know, about it and, and then there are, you need a, you need a broker who's willing to do the mercy kill. You need to talk to somebody who's going to be honest with you and [00:47:00] go, maybe this isn't for you cause that's not for everybody.

Matthew Rathbun: 1. 5 million realtors, 49 percent of them did no transactions last year. Uh, I mean that's, that's a lot. That's pretty substantial. And then you need to talk to somebody when you do, you need to interview multiple brokers, not the one you just feel more comfortable with, not the one that just gives you the most amount of money, but the one who you can see vision and planning for and say, look, what would you tell me as a new agent and how would you get me started?

Matthew Rathbun: And don't just tell me you have training and resources and brush me off. What's the plan? Um, and I think that that's a big one is asking him for a plan and interviewing multiple companies. And then once you like the broker, ask for three names in the company they can talk to that the broker isn't related to that have been there for less than three years.

Tracy Hayes: I don't want me to cut you off because it's going to spin into my next question in that same. Uh, and I put this under your insight that it might not be what you, but my insight, what I think of insight, what about current agents who are, you feel like they're stalling right now? They're there. Maybe hit a lid with the broker where they're at.

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah.

Matthew Rathbun: A broker can't take you to the next [00:48:00] level if they're not there. If the broker's not using video, if the broker's not using AI, it doesn't matter how good they, how, how well they speak about how good they speak. How well they speak about these things, but if they're not actively using it, they are not going to be able to demonstrate it to you and you're not going to emulate them.

Matthew Rathbun: And we use whether it's for recruiting or whatever. Um, but if you feel like you're stalling, it needs, you need a coach or mentor. We all do. Everybody in every stage of life, no matter how smart or competent you are, you need someone to hold you accountable and someone to be a mentor. Um, if you're looking at brokerage levels, the other part of that is, are you productive in keeping yourself accountable?

Matthew Rathbun: I have to be the chief marketing officer of my brand, and that means I have to dedicate time to it. So if you're looking in this camera lens, or you're looking in a mirror and you're looking at yourself and you go, if I were the CEO. And I had me as the chief marketing officer for our brand. When I keep me on staff and either you train yourself to do that and you schedule yourself to do that every day to be the chief marketing [00:49:00] officer, or you need to pay somebody else to do it on your behalf.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, one of the two, but you have to be a chief marketing officer. It is not a negotiable skillset. Um, so that's, that's where I think if you're stalling, get a good mentor and hold yourself accountable to be a good chief marketing officer.

Tracy Hayes: Under the subject of growth. What should, you know, and I imagine this has changed over the decades that you've been in the business because like I said, technology now, you know, you know, how much time we're spending on, uh, that versus, you know, 15 years ago, you really, you weren't talking about Instagram, uh, let alone Facebook, but what, what should agents be doing regularly in, in under the topic of growth right now?

Matthew Rathbun: Whatever your, your thing is, uh, whether it's, uh, meditating or prayer or whether it's counseling or stuff, the mental health impact of being the counselor for other people to work with them every day to deal with their stresses, their anxieties, their fears, and not take care of those things for yourself are going to shorten your [00:50:00] career and they're just getting more demanding.

Matthew Rathbun: We're in a very unusual, not unusual, new era, I guess, of high stress, high anxiety. Uh, in our culture beyond what we've ever seen. And a lot of agents are foregoing their own mental health, whether it's, you know, investing in your faith or your family or counseling, there's nothing shameful about getting a therapist or a counselor to help you deal with not only your own issues, but those people who you're acting as that on behalf of.

Matthew Rathbun: And the next thing is. Watch your finances. The, the, some of the best careers I've ever seen went down in flames because they didn't know how to manage their own money or live within their own means. And they were trying so hard to emulate top producers and buying or leasing the big cars or whatever else.

Matthew Rathbun: I, I think regardless what the interest rates do, regardless of what production does, the next several years is going to be unsettled, a settling stand. position in a, uh, challenging position financially as we learn to live with less, we're going to be getting paid less for the work we've done proportionally the way we have.

Matthew Rathbun: I just, I truly believe that my soul.[00:51:00] Um, and you've got to start to adjust to that and run your house. Just like I talked about the chief marketing officer in your last question, chief financial officer in this one. Um, because if you are struggling financially through the winter months or you don't have any savings and your spouses or partners like, why are you even doing this?

Matthew Rathbun: We have no money and you're gone seven days a week. Uh, you're not going to focus on making a good career. And so financial wellness. realtor is a free tool from NAR, uh, that will help you on that path. Uh, uh, and they are now offers a mental health aspect. There's a link on my website for both of those things under the resources that NAR is offering.

Matthew Rathbun: Plus your brokers and your family, friends, your, your churches or whomever take care of your mental health. Focus on your family, focus on your finances. Remember this career, those client relationships are, are the time you're working with them, your, your own mental health and your family's, um, uh, relationship with you is forever.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, and don't forget those.

Tracy Hayes: awesome points there. Um, which leads me, you're, you're going into counseling. I had coaching and I obviously had Jake Dixon, um, with [00:52:00] the locker room on the start to see is going to be there on friday at the re bar camp. Um, but obviously there's many coaches out there. What, what is your opinion on, you know, if you've got the resources and can afford a coach and, you know, you want to really, you know, be more efficient or sometimes it's just accountability, just your overall opinion on finding a coach or, or you might have some that you recommend have been successful, but finding that, that confidant, that person you can talk business with that, you know, we, the, Label a coach.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Matthew Rathbun: So there's got to be a little bit of everything here. And so there's a lot of natural national coaching services and people swear by them while they're in a program because the programs do great to make them feel comfortable where they are, build a little bit, question a little bit, hold accountable, celebrate them a lot.

Matthew Rathbun: And that generates this whole thing. I've never understood why agents would align themselves with a broker who the, where the broker themselves was not a coach or mentor and competent in [00:53:00] doing that. But it is the nature of the business we're in that not every broker is. Unfortunately. Um, I think coaching and mentoring is for all aspects and for the rest of your life.

Matthew Rathbun: I have people that sometimes didn't know they were my coach because I was calling and questioning things or hanging out with them. You know, we are, we are truly the sum total of the five people that we surround ourselves with. And so you need to be intentional about finding those five people to hold you accountable who are performing as you would and who are living a life you would.

Matthew Rathbun: And then you need someone who's a little bit separated from that, who can speak truths into your life. without worrying about you firing them, if possible, um, or, uh, you know, who really want the best for you. And so these national coaches, some of them haven't produced for a long time. Some of them have never been in your marketplace.

Matthew Rathbun: And so they tell you to go do things that may not be appropriate for where you are working in. And so there's got to be a merit, even if you're doing national coaching, you still need to have local mentors to tell you whether the The ideas you're generating from your accountability coach, who could be somebody you're paying for, will align with the reality of your marketing place.

Matthew Rathbun: And you don't want some curmudgeon, you know, [00:54:00] burnout because I've been doing this for 30 years. Um, you want somebody who's truly. plugged in. And that generally is going to be somebody in your company or your broker or somebody else in the area who could do that. So there's a little bit of everything. It can't just be one thing.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, and I'm just very, very, um, saddened, if you will, that we don't have more people mentoring and coaching in our industry, um, at a local level. Um, you know, I really wish there were more brokers invested in their own skill set and doing that. But You know, there's that. So

Tracy Hayes: that brings up, I just, it was something I was thinking about this weekend, some, something, uh, uh, sometimes the local people, especially if you're, I wouldn't say popular or just well known, you know, know you locally, um, almost like your, your, your family, like they know some of your pains, right?

Tracy Hayes: You know, they, they know what things that you've gone through and struggled to get through, but if you go to a different market. And want to share your experience. They just want to, you just want to, you know, take it all in. So I think that's, I think that might be a challenge, [00:55:00] but I, I'm going to go back.

Tracy Hayes: You know, I obviously have never worked for Kim Knapp before, but, uh, I never heard anybody say anything negative about her and she's been continued to be a leader. And I think one reason why she is successful, uh, at the level that she is, is because how involved she is, uh, such as like. Organizing the re bar camp, obviously all of you coming know her.

Tracy Hayes: She knows you guys in some level you've met at a NAR conference or whatever. And she's connected and, and she's staying in front  uh, as much as you can stay in front of this business. If

Matthew Rathbun: you ever hear anybody say anything bad about Kim Knapp, just send me a name and number, we'll take care of it. Um, um.

Matthew Rathbun: Uh, look, people who are not normally accepted in our own market, right? I mean, I do have a, I have, I have good people who come to my classes all the time. My local association, I'm on the board of director of my local association. I have friends and brokers who call about things like that. But if you're looking at acceptance to be the expert in your own [00:56:00] company or broker where you grew up, or they knew you, you're probably not going to get it.

Matthew Rathbun: We say, you 50 miles makes you an expert and even Jesus wasn't accepted in his own hometown. So, uh, I can't, I'm not going to do better than Jesus. Right. again, we have these people who, like I said earlier, that I have that were mentoring me who didn't know it because I watched everything they did.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, I have a brand new kitten in the house. She follows the old cat around everywhere. And we've watched just in the past three weeks, her start to emulate these specifically the actions of that cat. Um, I think we as humans are designed to do that, which is why it's careful to who to surround yourself with.

Matthew Rathbun: But. Don't ignore the talent in your own marketplace or even your own brokerage. And as a broker, I'll teach all the things to my own agents that I teach outside and outside. I get all these emails and accolades and good reviews. And for my own agents, they'll come back a month later and going, we just heard the speaker and they were killer.

Matthew Rathbun: And it's somebody like that's using my material that I wrote for them or somebody saying exactly what I did. And I don't get offended by that anymore because at least it's getting through to them, whether it's local or not. But don't dismiss wisdom. In any form, it could be from [00:57:00] your parents. It can be from, you know, again, a friend who's well meaning or something.

Matthew Rathbun: And sometimes we learn to ignore it because they're not, you know, it's not good for us. And sometimes we embrace it. Um, uh, but we, we've got to pay attention to what people around us are saying and doing. Um, and I think that that really helps us. It's not just one. person or thing

Tracy Hayes: how I'm going to finish with this last question and I'm just going to share with what You want you want to bring the message you want to get across on friday.

Tracy Hayes: Um How important is it for agents to? You know sometimes get up to that 30, 000 foot level and see everything that's going on nationally, you know, attend a NAR, not necessarily every year, but occasionally attend a NAR conference, or, you know, this week, uh, you know, Florida Realtors has got door. I always want to, I would get corrected when I say Realtors, it's Realtors.

Tracy Hayes: So, um, you know, they're having their conference, but to, to get out and expand your horizon of the business occasionally. to [00:58:00] see what's going on because sometimes we can put our head down and be so engulfed in our our own, our own transactions, let alone the transaction or things that are going on in the, in the, in the local area.

Tracy Hayes: But occasionally you got to step out and take a higher level look and go to some of these bigger conferences in exchange of what's going on nationally in real estate.

Matthew Rathbun: Yeah, we've gotten into a very dangerous, dangerous, dangerous place in our industry where people are getting feedback from other real estate agents on Facebook groups that have no idea who that agent is, the marketplace, their tools, resources, whatever.

Matthew Rathbun: And oftentimes, well, let me just say this about that. These. major online Facebook groups and things are the next feeding ground for antitrust lawsuits. Uh, and some of the comments and things that are there and some just untrue statements that are repeatedly stated in there as truths about how to do marketing and who to work with and who to trust and what company to use or not use.

Matthew Rathbun: And when you really boil it down, you learn, start looking at some of those people who are very vocal and giving us advice and they've got no production. Like, who are you to give advice about, [00:59:00] well, you know, especially online lead generation, my favorite, where somebody has very strong opinions about not using company X, Y, or Z, and then you go look up their production on any number of places and they've got 1 million in an average.

Matthew Rathbun: Sales price of 500, 000 or marketplace. Well, that's why they have time to give advice on Facebook. Um, so anyway, so I, I, I think, um, you know, getting out in front of people and hearing a variety of opinions and not just the echo chamber of what we used to call re net, the real estate people who are on social media, media going to things like, um, uh, Ari, um, bar camp or conferences, the best information I've ever, ever got period almost never comes from a stage.

Matthew Rathbun: It always comes from having a drink at the bar with somebody who's actually doing it. Uh, it's where I get my ideas. It's where I be able to expand things. I get to say, well, what, what if my version of that, what is that? This person's successful, even though they're not maybe a good public speaker. Uh, and I say that understanding I'm the person often talking from the stage.

Matthew Rathbun: And so that stuff that I'm sharing from the stage is because I learned it from someone [01:00:00] who, uh, I, I think everybody should emulate or someone who's successful. I talked to over a drink or through that thing. And then knowing about how your business works is important. You know, the sad reality is it's only been because of the drama later with it lately within a are that most people even know who those volunteer leaders are.

Matthew Rathbun: And so, uh, they don't know who their local board is. They don't know the talent on there. They don't know what resources are there and your local association is going to have meetings and they're going to have opportunities to learn and get together. And that may be some of the best ideas and relationships you're going to build by doing it to some extent.

Matthew Rathbun: And I just want to be real clear, volunteering with your association is not a full time activity. It doesn't, you're not going to build a good business. But spending a little bit time each month with other real estate agents, a let you know, you're not crazy. Everybody's going through the same thing.

Matthew Rathbun: You're not alone. Everybody's going through the same thing and you get to know them. So if you and I are going to do a transaction and I know who you are and I like you, it makes it easier to overcome. Then if we've never met and you've got demanding [01:01:00] clients and I go, I wonder if that's the agent, if it's them, I know you personally, it's going to be an easier relationship and we are more bound to build trust more quickly and work better

Tracy Hayes: together.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I mean, that's something we do definitely, especially during 21 when you still have multiple offers now, but not the 20 and 30 where I had one agent, she had 69 offers on this one home, literally within a day, um, you know, during, you know, 21, uh, period where that was going on. We, some people think, Hey, if rates drop, we've got so many people sitting on the sidelines saying, Hey, when rates drop, I'll buy a home while the inventory is not going up very quickly.

Tracy Hayes: So you're going, we could have multiple offers this summer. That's what some people were predicting, but we, we definitely were talking about get out and meet some of these other agents. So when you have that offer, you're looking at it going, Oh, I know Sally. She's. She's got her stuff in a pile if she says her, you know, buyers qualified and ready to go.

Tracy Hayes: I know she's, she does things correctly. And then obviously, like I said, in negotiations, it just makes things so much easier to be able to pick up the phone and get real, uh, with that person. Cause you, cause you've maybe broke bread with them [01:02:00] at one time. What message do, um, does Matthew want to get across this Friday at RE Bar Camp?

Matthew Rathbun: Um, real quick before we do that, just real quick, even for loan officers, like the loan officer I've recommended for years and years and years, started with us meeting socially at a, actually it was a church event. Uh, and I was like, okay, of all the loan officers I have at the time, I had some trust broken by the one I was generally recommending or the three I was generally recommending.

Matthew Rathbun: 15 years later, he's still the guy because I know his heart is for those clients. And he will turn down business if it's not good for them and he will never lie to me and it is always going to be what's best for the client, even if I don't want to hear it. That's who I found through a social activity that I probably never would have found through just emails and business cards and things.

Matthew Rathbun: Um, what message do I want to get across Friday? First of all, this is, this can be fun.

Matthew Rathbun: We don't focus on how much fun we could have in this industry. Um, and that technology should be an asset to you, not a burden, and it should not be a crutch. It's just an extra thing to help you get done. And if we humanize this process, it [01:03:00] makes us, um, it makes it all worth it.

Matthew Rathbun: The learning the skill sets, whether they are social media, marketing or can bar, whatever it is. If I start with Uh, my humanity and my creativity and then add the tool, I get much further along in my career nowhere else. So have fun, be human and be creative.

Tracy Hayes: Matthew. I look forward to meeting you on Friday. Yeah, me too. I'll see you there. Definitely. I appreciate your time today. And hopefully everyone listening in learned a little bit about you and you know, it's just Matthew Rathbun everywhere, right?

Tracy Hayes: And whether it's your website, your social media, just it, that's there. Just look up Matthew and, and, uh, you will, uh, dig into his stuff. I, like I said, I love his YouTube page. Uh, if every agent had a YouTube page like that. It would, I think they're, and I, and I'm going to need to take it from real estate agents.

Tracy Hayes: I want to duplicate your, obviously my YouTube page is taken up with the podcast, but I need to do my loan officer page on, on with those informative one less than five minute videos. Of every bit of the [01:04:00] process. Uh, you know, even, Hey, how do you select a real estate agent? Cause obviously all you guys have, how do you select a loan officer?

Tracy Hayes: Right? So how do you select a real estate agent and have those little bits and become a resource in there? So I think that's a great example. So everyone should go to your YouTube page and check that out and subscribe. So I'll see you on Friday. All right. See you Friday. Thanks again.