Megan Farrell-Nelson: Failing Forward

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progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states. Hey guys, it's Megan with the Megan Farrell team brokered by exp Realty. If you are looking to level up your real estate business, you need to be listening to the real estate excellence podcast with my good friend Tracy Hayes. 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  1:02  

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, I've been looking forward to this episode for some time now. This agent in the house is firing on all cylinders. She's aggressively making moves as an influencer in the real estate space. Not rare that a former educator, kindergarten teacher is rising quickly as a top producer. She's very involved in far Gnar and even the Flagler County Habitat for Humanity. I am interested in her social media campaign, her vision in digital marketing in the real estate industry. Says, Take notes here. She is very active in going to a lot of conferences, educating herself. Let's welcome the difference in the Megan Farrell team. Difference the Megan Farrell Nelson of EXP Megan Farrell team. Hi everyone. Thanks, Megan for coming on. 

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:49  

Thanks so much for having me. 

Tracy Hayes  1:51  

As I said, I really look at you, know, as I actually met you at rebar, and then really started following you. But I had seen some other things from you, obviously, meeting you at rebar kind of brought things in for me, yeah, and then started following you and how much you are being active. And of course, you went up and just recently went to a conference with Ryan as well there, so I'm looking forward to hearing about that. And then you were at another conference just last week. Yeah, that sounded interesting, so we will get to those. But let's get everybody a little groundwork on you. Where are you from? 

Megan Farrell-Nelson  2:20  

Sure. Hi, everyone. I am from. Originally from Pennsylvania, and I knew I went to school to be an educator there, kindergarten teacher. And I knew very early on in my adulthood that I did not want to shovel snow all winter, so I decided to not wait till I retired to head south. I lived in North Carolina for several years and taught kindergarten and pre kindergarten there. I absolutely loved it, but life circumstances brought me even further south to a city I'd never heard of called pump Coast, Florida, and I ended up making my way down there. I left in the middle of the school year, I had saved up some money, and I also was in an opera or in a situation where I didn't actually have to work at the time. So 26 years old, moved to Florida, just try to figure out my bearings. And one day, my one friend that I was down there with was like, Hey, why don't you try real estate? And I was like, real estate, like I know nothing about houses.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  3:22  

a house. I knew one person, he owned a house. His two best friends were realtors, so I literally had no clue about how to do any of it. And they told me, you like people and you're friendly, so go try and nine years later, actually, this month, May of 2013 I got my license, and nine years later I am still at it. So be that first year. 

Tracy Hayes  3:49  

Well, there's no doubt, if you and anyone listening should be following you on social media. You're very you can see the passion and the energy. I think you made a I assume that post was from this morning, just saying, Hey everybody, I'm up and I'm ready to go. And every time you're on social media, you you're pouring out energy. 

Megan Farrell-Nelson  4:05  

Thank you. That's everyone. 

Tracy Hayes  4:06  

So, so I imagine that drive down 95 this is like this, what December, January of that year, mid school year, yeah, January 1, actually, yeah, we, I mean, were you thinking like, I'll just apply to the local schools or so?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  4:06  

 Yeah, I was kind of just thinking I knew what it like, what how it transpired as I left, and it was really challenging for the students, really challenging for me. Knew I didn't want to hop back in right away, like I said. I didn't really have it wasn't like a have to get a job situation. And I really thought I was gonna enjoy not working. I really did. I was like, I'm moving to the beach. Right, right? It turns out, like everyone else worked,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  4:46  

no one to spend time with, right? I remember my best friend

Tracy Hayes  4:49  

Well, the people in Palm Coast that don't work are like three times.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  4:53  

They're not my age demographic. I did make some great friends, but didn't have a lot in common. But. I know my friend texted me one day and she's like, so are you like, bored out of your mind? I'm like, yeah. Why? She's like, because you're literally the only person on my Pinterest page pinning things all day long. That's so funny. I didn't even think about it, right? But yeah, so I had an experience in sales. I actually worked for vector marketing, which, if you don't know, is actually Cutco so I sold Cutco knives when I was 2223 to pay 2221 or 22 pay for my study abroad. I did my student teaching in Ireland. Oh, wow. And yeah, it was like when you looked for jobs and newspapers, and I saw this little ad, like, how much you could make, and I had no idea what sales was, right? I was like, oh my god,

Tracy Hayes  5:44  

so you're because I was an education major, yeah? So the spring of my senior year, that's when you go do the your student teaching, yeah? I actually allowed you to do that in Ireland,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  5:54  

yeah. So I did mine in the fall, because of how they set it up. So I did an extra semester, and I was a double major. So that whole summer between I graduated, but didn't have my license to teach, because I needed to fulfill that commitment, right? And that summer, I was like, I can make 10 grand over the summer. Yeah, great, right? I didn't know I would be calling people out of a phone book to buy knives. I did know I needed to pay for my school, right? And I needed to pay for everything that comes along with studying abroad, and I knew I didn't want to go to Europe and be like having to pinch pennies and not being able to take the have some fun, yeah. So I knew I wanted to work hard, and that was actually my start in sales. And I remember walking home, walking in the door like not realizing everyone gets the sales job. By the way, I was like, Mom, I got the job. She's like, Of course you did, honey. They want you to go sell their product. I had no idea how hard it was going to be. And I really, truly believe that is the foundation of my real estate success, because yeah, and I still have my 2008 top sales of the summer award. And I I like, it was hard. And my mom told me, she's like, it's gonna be hard. You're not gonna like it. And I'm like, What do you mean? It's gonna be hard? It's like, can't be that hard. And I literally remember her walking out. I was sitting on our porch at my parents house with the house phone and the Phone Book crying. And she's like, Oh, honey, like, you don't have to do this. And I was like, No, I will do it. And I just, like, got back to making calls, and

Tracy Hayes  7:26  

seems like, when immediately they want you to call your at least, like, friends and family, same scenario practice. Yeah.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  7:33  

So like, just tell them you're gonna come over and, like, do a demo, cut a penny, sharpen some knives for them, right? I really, I mean, I was passionate about it. I learned from there. I learned scripts from that. I followed that script to a tee. I learned the process, like the sales, like a listing appointment.

Tracy Hayes  7:49  

Let's take that for a moment. So, for lack of better description, you didn't know any better, right? No, I knew no better. And you there, you're given a script, and you executed on it, and obviously started to see some success with

Megan Farrell-Nelson  8:02  

it, yeah, verbatim. Didn't go off the script, right?

Tracy Hayes  8:05  

And then, which encouraged you to continue to go on the script, yeah, and be better and better at it. And obviously memorizing it and being able to act it out, yeah, type of thing. So, so those starting new, and we have a lot of new loan officers here, so yeah, you got to get on there. You got to practice that script. Get sharp at it. In the better you're at it, the more success you should have. Yeah, there's a lot of people have broke these scripts are not written overnight. They generally have generation over time. Have evolved,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  8:33  

tweaked, and I will tell you that I right now at nine years, like just nine years. So it was into my deep into my eighth year, I just went back and revisited scripts because I was such a like, Ah, I sound like a robot, right? But I didn't understand, like, you learn the script and then the script comes out like you. And so this is a friendly reminder to me, too, to like, trust the scripts and trust the process. And they even had like from the sales process of like, you don't sit down at a listing appointment and some the first thing they always ask you, right is, how much was my house worth? And how much is this going to cost me? You don't answer that, because then they're going to be like, okay, out you've given them what they wanted, yeah, and you haven't showed your value. And so I learned from Cutco that I needed to go through the entire process of cutting a penny. If anyone's ever had someone come to their house, they cut a penny with scissors. You cut leather, you cut all sorts of things with the knife, right? Like you demonstrate the value and so and then at the end. And then also, I had a little page where I had a thermometer that showed, like, my goal is this amount for my study abroad, and I let people, like, color the thermometer, so I showed it at the beginning and at the end they colored it. And like, learning things like that, like sharing my goals with people, was that was a super concrete experience of that. But now I'm not afraid, like Brady and I, our goal this year is to sell 100 homes or help a. 100 families, get into a home, buy yourself, buy, sell, refer, rentals, all of it. And when we when someone's like, you need to talk about that. I can't talk about that. And now I remember, oh no, that makes it connect with you like people don't want to. It's not that they don't want to. People want to be a part of something bigger than myself, right? So when, when Brady, my husband, and I were a team, by the way, and when we talk to people about our sales goals, all of a sudden it becomes about helping my son, you know, get swim lessons and helping a young family build a life, versus like,

Tracy Hayes  10:37  

that's an interesting so a lot of everyone has goals or what they want. Yeah, I want hey, I want to make so much money because I want to do this or, Hey, I'm young. I want to my cars. They want to get a new car, whatever it is, or buy their first house, or whatever. How do you do that? Because you are building it into your routine, your script, but also under letting them understand that they're just, you're going to do this by adding value to them. Sure you're not going, hey, just sign here, because I need 100 this, right? How

Unknown Speaker  11:08  

do you

Megan Farrell-Nelson  11:09  

express that? I think, I mean, let's just go back to where you started. I think it all starts with, I show my value through social media. But I think it all starts with finding what you're one competent at first, break it down. What are the skills that you need to have for the job you're trying to do? Right? Right? So like, if I'm going right now, I solely focus on listings. That's the point I'm at. So I know my I know how to show my value that way. So if I'm going on a listing appointment, my value proposition looks way different than if I'm sitting down with a buyer, if I'm going on a listing appointment with someone who's ready to put their house on the market next week. That looks different than someone who's maybe just inherited their, you know, grandparents house and they it's a whole process to get there. So you have to know what is the job you're applying for, and then, so

Tracy Hayes  11:59  

you want to do some due diligence before every one of these appointments.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  12:02  

Oh, absolutely. I think that if you're early on in your career, or even later in your career, and you're kind of having one of those lost years, I think really taking a step back from making the calls and all of that and really doing some soul searching to find out, what do you like to do, because I think that's the key to success in this.

Tracy Hayes  12:22  

What do they like to do? I have to ask that now. So what is it about everything that you do that you like the most, you could actually get paid for that actual

Megan Farrell-Nelson  12:29  

action? So building meaningful relationships, that's one of my sparks. Sparks are things that keep me alive. That's what I call them. Sparks. It's not purpose. It's if you've seen soul the movie, the sparks are what the little guys trying to get. But one of my Sparks is meaningful relationships. So building those relationships is super important to me. I am a true believer that the more you help people get what they need, the more you get you want back. And we talked about this a little earlier, like I'm not concerned with where the money's coming from, per se, it's more of the energy of it. So I've found that I love building relationships. The more you can solve people's problems, the better. That's where money exchanges hands when problems are solved, right, right? So jobs, right, solve problems. I know that's why. Just a little plug here, if you are complaining about your job or have something that's difficult in your job as a real estate professional, good that means you will have a job for a long time because it's easier for us to solve it exactly so,

Tracy Hayes  13:32  

or a computer, right? Everyone's we've been threatened that the zillows of the world are going to take over. Never gonna realities.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  13:38  

Yeah, never gonna happen. But yeah, so I love building relationships. I love helping I call myself a conduit a lot of times. Like, you could tell me what you have going on, and I could figure out who is going to be the best to solve your problem in different ways too. Like, if it's to save the most money, I could find someone that way. It's the highest quality, but you're going to pay more. I could find someone that way. So it's just figuring out how to solve people's problems, and

Tracy Hayes  14:02  

you need to put the, I don't think Cutco is on your LinkedIn. I need to add that into Yes, Cutco to the LinkedIn because it's, it's your story,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  14:13  

it kind of is. Yeah, never really realized it before, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  14:16  

because I actually started off with Onslow County Schools. Yeah, and obviously you're a kindergarten teacher, so I'm going to spin that to what did you take from there that you actually use today? Or what did you learn anything from being in the education

Megan Farrell-Nelson  14:33  

world? I think that I taught, like I said earlier, I taught kindergarten and pre K, which are four and five year olds. And to me, that was, like the best job ever. I was always like the best singer and like the coolest but I went from taking care of people's most valuable possession, right, their babies, yeah, and having to go through all that entails is the first year at school with parents and stuff. And I went from that to handling most of the times, the biggest and. Investment someone makes raise in their home. And it's not just to me. It's not a pair of shoes, right? It's actually where you're going to raise your child, or it's if you're selling it's helping you take that next step up in your income, or protecting whatever asset you need. And so I went from the most valuable, like non monetary items, their biggest. I will

Tracy Hayes  15:19  

tell you this, I just picked this up when you said that the energy that came out of you is the same energy that I see in your social media when you're doing when you're doing that. Yeah, that's your little world, right there.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  15:32  

Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love teaching when this is a whole nother conversation, if you got me in the room with the kiddos, that was the best. It's just all the, you know, other stuff that comes with it. But it really like you do learn, you learn about patience, you learn what is really important, and fighting over a light fixture, not super important, right? I mean, granted, depending on the fixture. Of course, we're not talking like a $25,000 picture. We're just talking about a regular

Tracy Hayes  15:58  

one, right? Will you change that

Megan Farrell-Nelson  15:59  

out? Yeah. But it just, it's like that that's, I think that's where a lot of the stress and the problems come in this industry, is that we everything becomes so personal and so like, important, and it's, it's like, okay, at the end of the day, these people want to buy, these people want to sell. Let's figure out how to merge them together, keeping everyone's best interest at heart, and also, like, don't take everything so seriously. It is serious you need to write, but let's not get in a fight about a fixture.

Tracy Hayes  16:29  

And nothing is like. Nothing happens overnight in our business anyway, it takes time and things evolved, and people go home and they think about it, and then come Yeah, and what they said, and so forth. So you started your you were getting it a little bit into some people recommended you to get into real estate. So, I mean, did you go find a realtor? Actually, your friend had a couple friends that were, yeah, agents, yeah. Who did you start to consult and led you?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  16:54  

So I went to them. This was in 2013 in Palm Coast. I went to them. I said, Who do I need to go to? What do I need to do? We did a little Google search, and Watson School of real estate came up, and they were offering it, like, literally, four days later, starting in person. So I was like, All right, that's a sign. Did you do the week? Week long? I didn't. I actually did one night a week for like, 12 weeks, or something like that. And it was awesome. I learned a lot. I ended up staying with that company. I spent the first significant portion of my career at Watson. Learned a ton. They're very happy with my experience. I am still very dear friends with one of the brokers in Palm Coast, Ryan Ford, and really enjoyed my time there. But at the end of it, we kind of grew out of that space and out of that corporate structure. Would

Tracy Hayes  17:44  

you wreck? I mean, Watson's obviously very large in our in Florida, they offer the school all the time, yeah, is it a good place for someone new coming in the industry to consider?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  17:55  

Yeah, I absolutely think that Watson has a great school. It's a little different. Now, the times are obviously much different, but I don't think they offer as many in person classes. For me, it was all about the in person education. Yeah, the in person that's how I learned best, and so I really sought out an in person.

Tracy Hayes  18:14  

So I'm talking like post. I mean, that's your license. I

Megan Farrell-Nelson  18:18  

think you're just getting your real estate license. You should call me

Tracy Hayes  18:22  

where hiring. We'll get to that point here. That's one of my last questions. Hopefully we'll get to it in time. So, I mean, there's someone who takes you in, who you grab on to, a mentor. What are some of the challenges you are running into?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  18:35  

And so I think your first year in real estate, it is crucial. So the statistics are, over 80% of agents fail out. I'm sure you've learned about this before. Fail out in the first year or two, and so I think it's absolutely crucial that you set yourself up for success and sit down with people before you even get your license. Call your friends. Everyone has a friend who's a realtor. Call your friend, take them out to coffee, take them out to lunch, pick their brain about their life, and hopefully they will be honest with you and tell you that it's hard. It's really hard, and just set yourself up for the first I would say, if your head is down and you're grinding, maybe a year, you'll start to see some success. But you really should plan for 18 to 24 months till you really start turning and showing but let's

Tracy Hayes  19:19  

say a good friend comes up to you and says, I want to get started. Maybe they want to come work with you, because they see what you're doing. What are some of the first few things you're going to

Megan Farrell-Nelson  19:27  

tell them to do? So with us, we have a couple of different beginner pathways, and I think that's important to find the right beginner pathway for us. What we offer is mentorship program, which is just a guy. Everyone should have a mentor. I don't care what level of business you're at, I think every person should have a mentor. The only way you're gonna, you're gonna elevate your success, your life, anything in your life, is by surrounding yourself with people who are doing what you want to do at a higher my opinion, is at a higher level. Yeah, at a higher level, because, like, my brain. Can't even see. Like, I remember when I sat down with my mentor and and he's like, Okay, we're gonna do a business plan, write down what you want to make next year. And I was like, 50, okay, that's a stretch. And he took it and he crossed it off. He's like, Okay, so we're gonna write 100 and I was like, $100,000 and with his guidance and with his guidance and with surrounding myself with the right people, continuing education, getting involved with the board. In three years, my first full year, I made 65 and my second full year, I made 104 and it wasn't because I saw that right, because I put myself around somebody who pushed me out of my comfort zone and said, No, you can do this. And so I think that's important about surrounding yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, because they're going to show you the way through with a map, right? Like you're not going to go into hike a mountain by yourself that with someone who's never done it, right? So they're going to have a guide map for you. They're going to

Tracy Hayes  20:55  

or who's out of shape, it doesn't someone that's going to push you Exactly, yeah. So

Megan Farrell-Nelson  20:59  

finding a mentor is crucial. Joining a team. There are a lot of incredible teams in Northeast Florida. And I know you have people all over, but there's a lot of incredible teams out there, especially in Northeast Florida, to join these days, but definitely surround yourself with someone who's doing what you want. So that

Tracy Hayes  21:15  

is a common theme that I from all the you know. This is a 69th episode. So 60 something realtor agents, top agents that I've taught, and even some of the successful business owners, surrounding yourself by top people. And it doesn't necessarily mean physically close. You going to a Ryan Sirhan conference, right? You go do that. You went to your conference there. There was obviously high level people there. Sarah Rocco recommended, go up and ask the keynote speaker if you can have a minute with them. Oh yeah, just to surround yourself and bond yourself with these people who maybe, maybe you're listening to their podcast. Oh yeah, they're, they're successful in that, and they're talking about what an agent does, and it gives you that mindset of what you should be doing, yeah.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  22:00  

So I call this the balloon effect. So it's like, when you blow up a balloon, right, as big as it can go, that's like how I feel like when I go to the conference, right? My brain is like expanding from the knowledge, from the speakers, from the networking, from being in a new city, that just the energy of it all. And then when I come home, sure, my balloon deflates a little, right? Even if it's deflated all the way, it's never that balloons never going to be the same as it was before. So it's like learning, like getting your brain, like stretched.

Tracy Hayes  22:30  

Well, I can imagine going to Ryan's thing, Chris, the pomp and circumstance that I saw putting on there the show, yeah, but obviously the top people there. And the reality is, and I've expressed this before, you may spend, I'm sure you spent a good dollar flying up there, staying in New York and so forth, and maybe out of all that, your balloon was so big, but when you actually got home, you it was really only a couple pieces of the 100 pieces he gave you that you grasped on and could immediately see, I need to input those now, but you can Always go back later. And the great thing with technology, a lot of stuff is recorded, or he writes in his book, or I'm sure you guys probably got some sort of workbook or whatever, yeah, and then go back and try to grab some of those other things. But even just implementing one of those couple of things into your business moves you another Oh,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  23:19  

absolutely. I always look at cost versus or investment versus value, instead of cost versus whatever return, yeah, because cost is like, like, it's up to me what I do, right? I can go to I can sit in the rooms with Ryan, sir, hey. I can sit in rooms with any big real estate professional, and I have, because I put myself there, right? But if I go home and I don't do anything, then that's on me, right? But if I go to one of these events and I take one thing that'll move my needle just to pinch, think about the average commission right now. Yeah. I mean, I we're looking at over 10 grand right now for our average commission. So if I can do something to help me sell one more house a year, then it's all worth it. And the

Tracy Hayes  24:01  

thing, it just snow. That's one house this year and maybe two more houses next year. It starts to snowball. It's not a one time I did this, I spent 1000s of dollars, all right? I sold one house, and then it ended, yeah, you're continuing to use that tool.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  24:14  

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And that is one of the things I really did, like, just since we're talking about it, is Ryan's events. They are very like, it gives you information that you take away that day, and I could go home and, like, actually do it. And that, to me, is the best, because I hate, like, keep it simple. Stupid. Yeah, so simple. Like, if you give me, like, a checklist, I can do that, but if you tell me a theory behind it, forget about it. So I love that about that event. We just went

Tracy Hayes  24:42  

right, right. Did you actually get time to, like, imagine, everyone shakes his hands, yeah. It's like, how many people were there?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  24:47  

There was only, like, 40. Oh, okay, yeah, small group. It was super Hayes, right, yeah, couple day event, yeah, it was a one full day, and they had a VIP session the day before. And it was really. He I was sitting over on the side with Stevie, and he walked in the room, and I was like, if you've ever met Ryan serhant, this is the second or third time I've met him. He's just cool. He's super chill. He's a human I love that part because he's a real estate agent, right? And we ended up being invited to his office to go grab coffee, and we were in the hallway together, like, going down the stairs and up the stairs. And he's like, he like, comes out and I come out. And he's like, Hey, are you having fun? I'm like, This is so great. And we just, like, chit chatted. He's like,

Tracy Hayes  25:37  

high energy level. I wish I had an ounce of his energy. I'm telling you, yeah. And

Megan Farrell-Nelson  25:41  

he has his daughter is a couple weeks younger or older than my son. And I just, I don't know how he does it. I don't his wife and daughter go to Greece for like, three months a year. I told Brady, anytime he wants to send me for three months and he can focus on

Tracy Hayes  25:58  

bring it, right? So Brady's working with you in the business? Yeah, how does that function?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  26:02  

Sure. So, yeah, Brady is my husband, and he started as a buyer. That's how he met my real estate love story, but he really wanted this pool home on the water, and then I moved in it so, and now, seven years later, we have a three year old. And so yeah, he came. He and I was a I had the team at the time. It wasn't super functional. I will tell you. I If you want to know what not to do with a team, I can tell you. And he went, the most valuable lesson of all, the most valuable lesson of all of what not to do. And I don't regret any of the things that I've done, but he so he came on, and it was just me. And like, my team was my mortgage, my title, my mortgage rep, my inspector, all of that was the team at the time, and a couple, I think, like, a year and a half into it, I just got to the point where I was getting so busy, and it was like, 2016 so the market was really moving, and he is, he's a financial advisor. And so he was like, you want help with things. And so he just started, like, little bit by a little bit helping. And then one day he said something to a customer, and I was like, You need a license, because we are getting real close to stay without a license. So he got licensed, joined the team. We've fired each other at least 50 times in the last five years, but the first couple years, it was rough. I am not gonna lie about it was my business that he had come into with a significant experience in the workforce and in finance, so he had a lot of value and

Tracy Hayes  27:39  

a lot well, no, he was he going like doing personally. He had to go out and acquire his clients. No kind of financial advisor.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  27:47  

Yes, correct, yeah. So he owned his own, he owns his own financial advising company, and so he's still doing that. Yes, he is. Yeah, he's so he has his like crew that he manages, that just super meaningful relationships to him. And he's not really getting seeking more now, because real estate is so busy, but he came in, and I will tell you that Brady Nelson is a far better real estate agent than I am. He is so patient, and he is so he's just his brain just works that way, right, like he I could tell him, like, Hey, I have a question about the contract, and about this part of the contract, he's like, You mean, page six, line 27 right? You know, paragraph C, just, that's just how he is super smart in that way. And he's been an incredible asset. It's they always say, like, the best thing you can do for your life and business is like, you're choosing your spouse, right? And I absolutely agree with that is such an asset to our team. He now, as we've continued to grow and just

Tracy Hayes  28:52  

we have his clients the way he goes out in I mean, from what I see, a lot of those guys, their job is networking all day long. Yeah, and they're probably getting the door slammed in their face more often. Even a real estate agent just going, Hey, are you looking to buy or sell a home? Everyone? No, not really, but maybe one day I'll take your card. A lot of people. Financial Advisor, dude, you're bugging me. Just leave me alone. So he's, I think that's what I see his work. He took a lot of that, and I could see the networking and from a marketing standpoint, what he was doing in real estate just go hand in hand.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  29:27  

Absolutely. I mean, and he dealt with people's homes when he, you know, is assessing assets, advising, yeah, so yeah, when he now, he's running the team pretty much completely on his own. I do. I still am the mentor for our team, but I'm the Marketing Officer. We're actually formalizing our roles this week, which is super fun because I said cmo after my name the other day, I put team leader after his, which was like a huge weight off my shoulders, right? But it's really cool to have a life partner in your business. That. That supports your dreams, and it's a lot of communication. I have been talking about this often on podcasts. We actually have a couples therapists that is the biggest asset to our business.

Tracy Hayes  30:12  

And it's true, it's a business

Megan Farrell-Nelson  30:15  

expense, but it's honestly, it's like the best thing we've ever done. So if you work with your spouse, I highly recommend it, just because it helps us learn how to communicate better, and it helps us, like, develop.

Tracy Hayes  30:27  

Maybe my wife is listening. She's an agent. She wants to come home and complain about whatever, this, mortgage, this and that, and why is this and that? And I'm like,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  30:39  

Okay, I've been dealing with this all day. Yeah, it's hard, because then, like, you're like, for me, what I was noticing is I would have this business idea, and I would be like, it'd be at night, right? And I'd be like, telling my husband about this business idea, and my business partner would respond, and he'd be like, how are you going to advertise it? What's your budget? What is your framework? What's this? What's that? And I would be deflated. And it was starting like that was starting to become our thing. And then I would go to him, thinking, now you

Tracy Hayes  31:07  

don't even want to tell him the vision, because you don't want it to be

Megan Farrell-Nelson  31:10  

deflated. No, because I was like, My husband doesn't like it.

Tracy Hayes  31:14  

I just wanted you to support me. Have you read rocket fuel? No, I just read it. Yeah? Sarah Rocco gave it to me. Okay, it's your visionary versus

Megan Farrell-Nelson  31:23  

the Yes, integrator, integrator and I am the visionary. It's not a

Tracy Hayes  31:27  

long book at all. I read it in a few days. Okay, I highly recommend it. Both of you to read it actually. And who is a visionary

Megan Farrell-Nelson  31:35  

in the integrator? Yeah, but we learned that's how we were having our conversation. So that was that in itself, that little tool alone has been huge, because now I brought him a huge idea last week, because I do it at least twice a week, and he responded with the business partner answers. And I was like, hey, I need you to be my husband right now. Can we talk?

Unknown Speaker  31:58  

Oh, come on.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  31:59  

He's like, took his hat off, and then he's like, Okay, can I be the business partner now? And I'm like, you can let me live in happiness for five minutes, and then you can crush my dream. That is so great, and it's good.

Tracy Hayes  32:13  

We gotta go. I gotta go my wife, we gotta go out, because she needs to hear this and how you guys work, because that is exactly okay, because she'll have her ideas from the real estate side, yeah, and I'm telling her, Hey, this is my vision, whether it's the podcast or running, you know, the branch here, just and then it's like, Yo back, back and forth, and how you guys actually turn it off. That is precious.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  32:36  

It's been, I'm not lying. It's been a skill set that has been learned and smooth, but it really, I will say that the last year of our business has been by far the most successful, and we started couples counseling. I call it our couples coach, because everything in my life is a coach. Our couples coaching about a year ago, and it truly has

Tracy Hayes  33:00  

what's the initial theme to really direct to this? Well, both this was the issue,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  33:06  

yeah. So it, I mean, we went through some personal stuff as a family that was outside of our control, that we had to address. And just like, life, right? Like, life's hard, yeah. And so we went through some stuff there, and I was getting sober at the time because of what we were going through. And that's a whole challenge in itself. And so we but we still tried to work together. We still were living together. We're still hanging out with friends together. We were still trying to be parents together. So I had to look at what were we doing together? And we were it was good, right? Like, everything in our life has been good, but like, how do I get to Great? And how do I prevent it from, like, one it could be good, and then you could be, like, on Rocky ice, or, like, not solid ice, in one step, and you fall through. And I don't want that kind of a situation. So we took the time to really decide, like, what's one thing that we had a business coach. We loved our business coach, and we're doing really well with them, but we're like, what can help us live an elevated life? Because that's kind of our whole motto of everything. Is like, how do I live a life doing things I want to do?

Tracy Hayes  34:13  

This kind of goes into the and let's turn it back to the business, because you talk about coach, and I think a lot of people it was over a year ago. Well, I mean, the first coach that I went to was a podcast. I went, I started, I saw the ad. I was envisioning stuff that I read with John Maxwell, influence and credibility. And I'm like, Oh, this might be something. So I researched, and I went out there, and it sounds like you're spending a lot of money, but now I look back over now I was probably like 1516, months ago when I started, but the podcast is coming up on a full year, and what how that's changed my mindset, my relationships and everything in my life, and actually my coaches. He's gotten bigger too. And actually just invited to come out to Vegas for a couple of days. He's having a. Mastermind of business people, but because I hired a coach, and then that's led now into now I have my mortgage coach from running the branch and so forth. I have that coach now as well. And because the more and more successful people I spoke to, they all either have a coach or have had a coach in their career. Yeah,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  35:20  

yeah. Yeah. I'm a firm believer that you everyone needs a coach. And, I mean, like, think about it anyway. It's all, it's like the therapy coaching, right? Like you're being coached on how to navigate tricky situations in your life with skills that are going to help in the future, right? So, gym, fitness trainer, personal trainer, that's a coach. They're going to teach you how to eat, right? They're going to teach you the exercise. Exercises to

Tracy Hayes  35:43  

do, hold you accountable

Megan Farrell-Nelson  35:46  

through it all right? And all of this is hopefully something that you can use for the rest of your life, those skills business coaching, if you are in the long game for your business, you need a coach. I'm a firm believer that everyone needs a coach, and that I also believe everyone has a level up, and if you surround yourself with the right people, you're naturally going to go to that next level. So just by having, by being in proximity to these people, a business coach, and there's coaching that is super affordable these days too. That doesn't have to be, sometimes

Tracy Hayes  36:15  

they're because they're doing it in groups, some of them versus one on one, yeah, we

Megan Farrell-Nelson  36:20  

have two group settings that we are involved in, and like our one on one does also have a group setting, but we have one coach. It's with Tessa, Bella and John Marone, real estate mastery coaching. They are 500 bucks a month. They meet. They have two opportunities, I believe, a week, and it's like an hour, and they do one that's like, you come and go as you want. Yep, it's real estate. So they're

Tracy Hayes  36:42  

putting out roughly eight hours a month of

Megan Farrell-Nelson  36:46  

Yeah, solid, life changing stuff, because one of them is on how to live a better life. So they'll bring in, like a nutritionist, they'll bring in, they had someone lead us through meditation and talking about the importance of meditation. And if you have a meditation practice and you are in the real estate industry, you already know that's a game changer. If you don't try it for a week, and you're gonna be thinking,

Tracy Hayes  37:08  

it's one of those. Generally, they're not necessarily always been successful, but those coaches oftentimes hang with successful people. Now you're actually getting some of that when you're actually interacting with the coach, plus it's sometimes you can't go your spouse, if they're in a different industry, don't exactly know what you're kind of dealing with. And that coach is someone that you go, here's my ideas, here's this, and they can help bring you down, yeah, or at least get you narrow it down, to get you on the track to to accomplish some of

Megan Farrell-Nelson  37:39  

those things. Yeah, absolutely. That's the thing. It's like. Back to what we're saying earlier. You're not going to climb to the top of Mount Everest by following me, because I've never been there. But right? You know, an actual train guide who's been there is going to show you the best routes. They're going to tell you what to pack. They're going to tell you how long to expect it to take.

Tracy Hayes  37:57  

You're going to enjoy it, yeah, or have more success, in this case, in business, quicker. So I have on here, I always ask this question, you know, what do you do to stay sharp? You're trying to you're with the XP, so you're recruiting, you're, you know, in your team and so forth. What do you just say this you do to stay sharp, and obviously you have coaches. What are you a book reader, a podcast listener? Who do you like to tune in each week? Is there someone religiously that you like to listen to?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  38:26  

Yeah, so I love Gabby Bernstein. She is, I guess, like a spiritual kind of coach, mentor. I listen to a lot of her stuff. She just talks about living a better life, and she's also in recovery that she's probably who I listen to most consistently. I am a conference goer. I like to go to conferences that are going to help with specific areas. I used to just go to whatever, whenever, and now I've had to be more strategic. There's more pulls on my time, but I really do enjoy going to conferences for the networking aspect, especially living in Northeast Florida, we that's really how I built my business at the start, was through social media and networking at events, because people are always moving to

Tracy Hayes  39:14  

Florida. So if you're new, you have a lot of time on your hand. You're not getting calls and running listing appointments and sending someone who might be a couple years ahead of you in your career to grab these opportunities, even if it's at the local board, getting grabbing all the education. Just go. I got my CS. I'm done. No, go. Take all the classes. Yeah, conferences and yeah,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  39:35  

figure out what you like if you want. I mean, it's, I know when you're starting off, it's like, take what you can get right. But while you're finessing, like figuring out how to be stronger at your skills, I think that it's a good opportunity to find out what you like, because, like, if you could be a really good niche down buyer's agent for military buyers, that is phenomenal in certain areas. If you want to. Exist only waterfront properties. And if you study and learn all of that, that's going to be the become the expert, come the resource for that. There's two ways, in my opinion, to build confidence. One is time on task, and can I say curse word? Yes, podcast. And second is knowing your shit. And like those are the two ways

Tracy Hayes  40:19  

that, sir, I thought you say something more. No,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  40:23  

I have a toddler. No time on task, and knowing your shit so, like, if you you don't have 10 years experience, like I do, knowing what you're talking about is gonna allow for you to to close the gap. Yeah, close that gap. Come across like I don't, I couldn't tell you bullcat prices right now. So if you went up for a listing against me at a waterfront property and they asked those questions, you would win over me, right? Like I were, I would prep before the appointment. But what I'm saying is like, you're gonna win over an older, lazy agent who's not bettering themselves, but just like dialing in to figure out, knowing everything you possibly can,

Tracy Hayes  41:04  

we're finding that 10 year agent and going hanging with them a little bit. Don't have lunch with them or whatever. Yeah, what do they

Megan Farrell-Nelson  41:11  

do? And I think that's something, that's something I did. I sat in the number one top producer, whose name was Danny green, and he I sat in his office on the floor with a yellow legal notepad and just wrote down what he was saying on the phone. I listened to him talk, and he just sat in his office when I had nothing else going on, because I could hear him negotiating deals. I could hear his language pattern. Oh, that's powerful, yeah, yeah. And he was, he's an absolute asset to the start of my career, him and another man named Richard sigley and Rich is still with Watson, and they just allowed for me to shadow them and to partner with them. And I think as a young person, I got in when I was 26 It was brutal. Not gonna lie about that, sales young, it's hard when you're young, especially like I felt like I looked like a little kid, like, who's gonna let me sell their house? Right? And it was really hard, but I did find the people. And people didn't like they don't a lot of people don't like new people in real estate. I don't know if you knew that, but yeah, like, new people don't get all the love all the time, but if you have the confidence and you find the right people, right? Like, I found the right people. I found rich. I found Danny. I found, like, there's still so many agents that I clung to while I was getting started that I could go to and cry, because I'll tell you, it is hard. Or go to and say, Man, like, I want to quit today, and someone could say to me, yeah, that's how that sucks. That's a hard one, right? Like, your best friend just bought a house because they walked in the open house. That's horrible, I guess. What? Pick yourself back up and, like, go back out the door.

Tracy Hayes  42:47  

I mean, how many times did you want to quit?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  42:48  

Oh God. But a lot, like, it was a lot. And I've cried on the floor where I thought people were going to be loyal to me, and they weren't. And I, like, on, I can picture in my first house that I the one that Brady bought with me crying on that floor. You know, I was three or four years, three years in, just like, why am I doing this? This person doesn't care about me. But then, like I said earlier, it's like, gotta let it go and take Don't take it so seriously. Yes, it's a career. Take your job seriously. Know your contracts, know the process,

Tracy Hayes  43:24  

and I tell a lot of new whether it's real estate agents or loan officers. I mean, the reality is, your friends and family are around you, but when you first jump into a business, they know you

Megan Farrell-Nelson  43:35  

know too much, right? And you're still the brother sister,

Tracy Hayes  43:38  

yeah? And then they're gonna see if you stay in it long enough. Now, there are some others that just love and whatever you do, they're going to support you and know that they're you're buying a house that they'll tolerate your inexperience and fumble through it eventually get there, because they they want to be your first client. But there's others that want to wait till you're three years in before they go, Oh, okay, she's actually still doing it. I guess she knows what she's

Megan Farrell-Nelson  44:05  

doing. Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, I want to be I know myself like how I like to be sold to them now, because that's something that I've learned, because then it helps me learn how to sell to others who are similar to me. And I love the sales process, and I want someone to like pursue me, right? I want someone to show me their value, and then I want to be able to work with them, and it's not my family and friends all the time. So I think Don't take it so personally. It's not about you, right? People make decisions, especially big financial ones. To this day, our really good friends, people that stood in our wedding just sold their house with another agent in there in Jacksonville. And I we don't really know why we help them buy it, but at the end of the day, it's just one of those things that we sat there and like for 15 minutes. We're like, maybe this, maybe that, maybe they're mad. Are they mad at us? No, well, we still hang out with them, all right, whatever. And am I gonna lose. A relationship with someone I care about over like, there could be a million reasons why they didn't call us. I

Tracy Hayes  45:07  

had an aged friend who he actually kind of similar thing, and he just got he said, I went that 30 seconds in the past, I would have gone off on him, but he's learned over time, you got to live through the abundance, not the scarcity. And it's like, okay, for whatever reason, maybe they have other relationships, not just us, yeah, and they felt that way. Okay, great. You know you because the more time you do that, it's taking you away from the actual the other person that you need to be working with, because you have this negative error about you.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  45:37  

So I literally had this conversation. So our new intern is in the room right now, and she is 17 years old and going to be a senior next year, and what the first thing I said to her yesterday was like, Are you cool with failing? Because you need to get comfortable and good with failing, and good with hearing the word no, and good with like things not going the way you planned them to be successful in this business. And I think that covers a lot of things, life lesson. Yeah, it's totally life lesson. And just like, release attachment to the outcome, I think that's where with my not

Tracy Hayes  46:10  

enjoy the process, not Don't, don't be there just for the outcome. I hate all the great ones will tell you that. I mean, it's the process, you know, if you go on any of the motivational things. But let's turn to social media, because I brought that up just a few minutes ago. Tell me your vision. Here's my here's my belief. I believe there's a very thin line across the top of real estate agents. Successful real estate agents. Some have been doing it a while, and obviously have a book of business, or whatever you're talking but agents that are in your time frame or less, they're doing social media and are pretty good at it, and they're getting business from it, they'll tell you that. But then there's this whole second layer of agents who want to do it. And then, as we saw at rebar, in a lot of the breakout sessions, there was multiple different social media breakout sessions with different titles, but there were those rooms are full, yeah, a lot of people in there. But a lot of those people, I guarantee today, are still not doing even just the simplest thing, yeah, what is your vision of social media and how you work it into your business? Sure, how important

Megan Farrell-Nelson  47:16  

is in your business? So it is the absolute foundation of my our real estate business. It is the number one place that we do our marketing. It is, I mean, I would say every single transaction we do, maybe 2% of transactions will have never seen us on social media. But it is very rare that anyone comes to us, whether that's an agent to agent, agent, referral, anything through social media. I think it's super important. It's we're people business right? And our business card has real estate agents have had their face on business cards for decades, right? And it's because we're dealing with an intimate purchase. The new business card is your social media. So my well said, honest opinion is that your face needs to be on it. You need to show who you are as a person. You need to show that you have time on task, right? You need to show that you are competent at these skills. So putting out videos, getting into houses, doing tours, posting pictures that of you doing some kind of real estate related activity, I think is an incredible way to just remind people, super subtly, that you are a real estate agent. And it's also a way to show, like the I could send, I know exactly how much it costs to send my mailers out. It's the one neighborhood we farm. It's $270 a month to hit 600 houses or so something. I can make a post that cost me and run an ad that cost me $25 and run it over five days and have 10,000 people see it. And so it's just when you're talking bang for your buck social media, there's nothing better than social media, and I understand that people don't want to put their face on video. I understand they don't like the way they sound, but I am sorry that I'm going to disappoint you. That's how you look and that's how you sound, and very well put it's just the truth, right? Yeah, I now looking over my last nine years of Facebook posts, I've had a baby, I've just gone through stuff. I've run marathons, so I've gone through where being super in shape, I've gone to after having a baby, right? Like all sorts of your life, life, I guess what, if someone saw me in person during those times, I would have been in really good shape, and I would have looked like I just had a baby, right? And that's, but what's, there's nothing wrong with that, right? Like, that's me, and that's who I am. And I mentioned,

Tracy Hayes  49:46  

I tell people, you have your friends and family around you, love you no matter,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  49:50  

no one cares what you look like, right? I challenge anyone listening who thinks that people do care. Like, are you watching people's videos and saying, Oh, her hair's out of place, oh, she doesn't have mascara. On, oh, like, does he? Did he wear that shirt yesterday in a video? No one cares. No one cares. So if you are serious, right, like you could be, you could not be on camera, but you're gonna be broke, or you can put your face on camera, get over yourself and make money and build relationships and help people. That's the That's how I build relationships, is through social media. The amount of people who say to me, who hug Brady when they meet him, and Brady's like, I remember them before they know you from Facebook, but or tell me how big Elijah is getting, and I'm like, you've literally never seen him. But that's cool to me, because I built relationships through that platform. My favorite story is my I was at Publix after a run, super grimy and sweaty, picking on a Mother's Day card, and I hear, Hey, Megan. And I was like, hey, it's like, it's me Carl from Facebook. And I'm like, Oh my god. He's like, good to see you. I'm like, yeah, great to see you. So I like, grab my card, I run out, and I go home, and I'm talking to Brady, and I'm like, Oh my God, this guy, I was sweaty. This was also seven years ago, so I was like, still, like, oh my gosh, I was sweaty. And he saw me in person, sweaty, like a human does sometimes after they work out and and he Brady, goes, there's no way that someone came up to you and said they saw you on Facebook. And I was like, I swear to God, he's there, Megan, there's no way someone did that. And I was like, Okay, fine. And two weeks later, we were at our favorite restaurant in Flagler Beach, and there's like a place where the bathrooms come out together. And I met him there, and this man walked up and said, Hey, Megan, it's me. Steve from Facebook. Scene was like, how are you good to see you? We walked away, and I was like, I told you, he's like, you did. Tell me you did. So

Tracy Hayes  51:50  

I'm hearing that a lot from the agents I was talking to, Melissa Ricks and Shawna cabanaro had them talking about how, even in our world, we're not in or in, of course, a lot of things people are doing are remotely Yeah, but you're interacting. And then when you do run into each other at a social you're like, oh, yeah, we've been seeing each other's families or whatever back and forth on Facebook, and yeah, we they are creating relationships. As much as people want to deny it. There's actually people get are getting to know each other.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  52:17  

Yeah, the same part of your brain lights up when you're sitting face to face, right? Like, so whatever part of my brain's lining up is the same one that, if I was watching you on a screen, right? So my brain can't tell, like, obviously, I know I'm sitting in a room with you, but my brain can't tell the difference. And that's why, when our favorite character dies on a movie we're watching or on a show, we have these emotions, emotion breakdowns. Like, Glenn, I

Tracy Hayes  52:40  

cried at the end of double Oh, seven. I'm just telling when they

Megan Farrell-Nelson  52:43  

when Glenn died on The Walking Dead. I don't know if you've seen walking dead, it was like, He's the nicest character on the whole show. And then when he got killed, it was brutal. And I was sick for three days, like, I never met Glenn. Glenn's not real, right? Like, what I made this relationship with. So it is. It's just so powerful. And it's really, I mean, I think that if you are a real estate agent and you are not putting your face on camera, you're missing. It doesn't

Tracy Hayes  53:07  

have to be perfect. No, it does not have actually, the more imperfect it is actually will

Megan Farrell-Nelson  53:12  

get on Yes, well, because you're a person, and that's all that I if anyone is listening to this, and you can take one thing away from this podcast is that social media is social media, right? So it's like social like what you're doing in real life. So building those relationships comes from these different platforms and behaving how the platform wants you to behave, right? But you're building those relationships and the people want to see you being normal, like you said, making mistakes, flubbing over things, post bloopers, wearing your hair and like, for me, like, I remember one of the first sunrise videos I did. I just went live at sunrise, and I didn't have makeup on. My hair was a mess. And I literally looked at myself and was like, oh gosh. And I remembered, oh my gosh, I'm at sunrise. If I had my hair done and my makeup on, people would be like, yeah, that why is real? No time. Did you get up? And that's not relatable, right? Like being at sunrise with my hair in a messy bun and a T shirt with no makeup on is totally

Speaker 1  54:10  

spontaneous. Yeah? So one of the things I had on here is a

Tracy Hayes  54:15  

couple running a running down on time. I just a couple Content Tips. What are some things that you do regularly? I know you, I do see you just shooting winging it from your office seat. You do that a lot. What are some other content things that you've done that that seems to get a response

Megan Farrell-Nelson  54:31  

or the following? So we're really lucky. If two things, if you're in Northeast Florida, you're really lucky, I think, for content purposes, and also, if you're in the real estate industry, you're really lucky. Everyone loves houses, right? And everyone loves the life in Florida, in Northeast Florida, especially. So I think that if you can grab on, my biggest success was when I was consistently going to sunrise just about every day during the week and posting the same like feet walk. Out hand, right hand, left

Tracy Hayes  55:01  

consistently. It's Wednesday. Yeah, sunrise, it's Thursday, sunrise at

Megan Farrell-Nelson  55:06  

the same time every day. And that was like one thing people always messaged me about to this day, they say they missed my sunrise videos. And I'm like, my toddler is now more of a toddler, so I'll get back to you in 10 years. But like just finding something that one day, or one time a day, or one day a week, you can post consistently, I think is a great, a great idea getting into model homes. There are so many communities that you could just pop in and say, Hey, I'm over here at Beacon Lake, at the dream finders Boca, or I'm at beach walk. Check out this huge lagoon. I did a Facebook Live at beach walk. I just happened to be there for a networking event. And did this Facebook Live, and it got like, four or 5000 views just in three days, because people have seen it or have heard of how long

Tracy Hayes  55:54  

are you're like you do something like this is something you try to carry out for a couple minutes or 60 seconds to two minutes.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  55:59  

And I think general rule of thumb, when you're talking, if you're talking live videos, go as long as you're providing value. So there's a whole strategy behind that, but you can, I like to go live from community events sunrise. That way I can go live longer without having to be the talking voice, right? Or focal, visual, focal. I'm over here at first Friday in Flagler Beach. Here's the whole event. Show that off. Instead, I think a good rule of thumb is two minutes or less for pieces of content, you're going to lose people's attention span. Obviously, try to capture them in the first three seconds with a hook, or at least showing your face as for longer content of Facebook Lives as long as you're you're providing value to people. And I think it's a great Facebook Live, to me, is like the best video, because no one expects it to be perfect. They expect you to be a human like talking to them. It's so relatable. Facebook's pushing it, or Instagram Live, they push it and it's the number one tuned into type of content that's out there, because it's the closest to reality TV, which is the number one thing watch,

Tracy Hayes  57:11  

right, short to YouTube, right? Yeah, so you said something the hook. So let's we're we have a room full of brand new agents. So we talked like at rebar, people that just wanted to give us as an example of a hook. How would you start one of your videos, for

Megan Farrell-Nelson  57:25  

example? So you always want to start with what you're going to talk about, right? So, like, let's say we're going to do a video here, and I would say, Have you been wanting to learn how to start your podcast today? I am here. Hi. It's Megan. Or are you in the real estate industry and wanting to wanted to learn how to start a podcast today, I'm going to teach you three ways to do that. Hey, it's Megan with exp Realty today. I'm with Tracy Hayes, who's at episode 70 of his podcast, and here's what we're going to talk about. So, like, go right into, like, a problem. Someone has a story. Like, what kind of story are you going to tell? Tip you're gonna get you're gonna give. Yeah, I say like, three is pretty like, a three piece information is pretty much what people can handle. You wanted to hook intro your meat and potatoes and then call to action. That is the foundation of any video you're

Tracy Hayes  58:18  

finishing in. Like, hey, if you guys have any questions, call me exp Flager, or give your phone number or whatever, direct message me if whatever, excellent

Megan Farrell-Nelson  58:27  

you always want to have a call to action, because then people know, like, subconsciously, people know what to do, right? Like, everyone knows how to call you, most likely, if you're an agent, but you want to remind them to call you over and over again. Yes,

Tracy Hayes  58:40  

I said I was going to come back to this question, so I'm going to go right to it. Why should agents be considering to go to EXP and specifically your team?

Megan Farrell-Nelson  58:50  

So as I mentioned earlier, I really do believe that everybody has a level up, and if you surround yourself with the right people there, you're naturally going to get to that next level. I also believe that life is way too short to work anywhere or with anyone that you are not 100% aligned with or not 100% happy with. And I also believe that the best life that we can live is that of abundance, and that we shouldn't have to worry about where our next deal is going to come from or where the next dollar is going to come from. And I have found that through working at exp, that I've been surrounding myself with agents doing more than me, and naturally I've been elevated to that our compensation plan is such that rewards the agents we have accounts for our son that we never would have had three years ago,

Tracy Hayes  59:37  

right? Yeah, I think my kids is going to be the richest 22 year old around, right? Yeah, guys, we saved up all the money. They're gonna get scholarships. So yeah,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  59:48  

but that's, I mean, that's important, right, especially for me as a parent of a young child, thinking about, do we want more? It's expensive, right? Life is expensive, so being able to keep our commission dollars. And having multiple opportunities to earn additional revenue from doing my job right? Like all I do is sell houses, all I do is invite other agents to join our company, and because of that, I get compensated. And so I really love that. I'm going

Tracy Hayes  1:00:15  

to give you an endorsement here, because, like I said, I've spoken to a lot of top agents. There's a lot more out there. I haven't got to, thank goodness, because I'm gonna go on for a while doing this. I enjoy it that this is if someone asked me, said they didn't realize they had to ask you if I still originate loans. Yes, I still originate. I love the podcast, but I don't get paid for this part, but I enjoy doing it, obviously, getting to meet you, but if there's anyone in Palm Coast that that should be Tracy. It's just simply your the energy and what you're doing and the fact that you are going to all these things, you're going to Ryan Sirhan, and then we didn't even get into conference you were at last week, but you were putting on you're having a leader. That's like getting bringing in a ton of education and the value that you are going to be able to pour to your the people that want to follow you, yeah.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:01:07  

Well, and here's the thing, right, like, we can work 24/7 365, in real estate industry and still not get everything done. And I did that, and I was tired and I was burnt out, and my son was the first one dropped off, and the last one picked up, and my husband and I talked about real estate all day long. 24/7, and we hit a like a bottom. It wasn't like the bottom, but we hit a bottom for us, where we looked at each other and we're like, what are we doing? Right? Money's Great. Life is great. Great, right? On paper, we had it all, but we weren't living fulfilled lives. And so when we aligned ourselves with this company, we surrounded ourselves with dreamers and doers, and we we were already dreaming integrators. Yeah, some

Tracy Hayes  1:01:54  

integrators in there, otherwise you can't get anything done.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:01:58  

And so we elevated because of that, and I honestly work significantly less than I did before joining this company, and a lot of it has to do with being able to take a step back and focus on, what do I want to do for the rest of my life? Right? Like, life is so short, and if you are unhappy at your job, like, find a new one. We're not trees, right? We can all move, but that's what really allowed for when we made the decision we were going to open our own or join exp. We did so because of the compensation plan, and now we because we're now living an elevated life, we're able to help other agents do that, and whether that be through working with us at exp, or any of the events that we do, or any of the mentorship that we offer too. So I'm gonna,

Tracy Hayes  1:02:45  

I'm gonna wrap things up. I call these are my two minute warning questions. Is it more important who you

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:02:50  

know or what all day? Who? Yeah, you can figure out the what later. But if you got, if you know the right person, but mentioning he Ryan $12 million deal, yeah? Right, yeah. Ryan had a referral in Florida when I happened to be up there, and we are going to a listing appointment on Friday. It's all about who I know when I didn't know what the listing was, but I like, I live in Florida. What can I help you with? Right? And now I found the right person. I'm the conduit to the right person who's in that area. Now we're partnering together. So what's on you and Brady's travel bucket list? Oh, goodness, Hawaii. We're actually we sold our house earlier this year, took advantage of the market, and we're going to Hawaii for Christmas. Did you go buy another one? We also went, bought another one, and we're also probably gonna

Tracy Hayes  1:03:35  

buy more. Is such an interesting market? Yeah? Because for a while it was like, Oh, just go down to Flagler. They're a little cheaper down there. Now I don't these canal homes have been there since the 80s and so forth.

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:03:48  

Wild. Yeah, it's very I mean, we still get the folks who think they want to live in St John's, and then they find out about taxes there, and then they're like, nope,

Tracy Hayes  1:03:56  

the fact that if you're not in a CDD community, you're not getting the amenities. So they look at that part, yeah, and then go to, well, Palm Coast, although, because tax wise, I think you're a little higher millage rate wise. But as far as the amenities and yeah, for you, that's it is a different clientele, yeah, from St John's too. Yeah, we,

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:04:16  

that's what we focus on all of Northeast Florida. Because people end up like you said, like, they've, they're like, we didn't even know about Palm Coast, but we drove from St Augustine to Daytona and saw the signs. And now we want to look here. And it's the shortest exit off of 95 to the ocean, which I just think is incredible.

Tracy Hayes  1:04:35  

All right, this is my last question, obviously, in the mortgage world. Now I'm going to, I'm going to pretense this, because I've been asking, what's the number one thing in your referral partner? Referral partner? Number one thing everyone is saying is communication. What's number two? And whether it's a loan officer or any of your you talked about your team, your home inspector name, what do you require out

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:04:53  

of them? I just want someone who can admit there that when they make a mistake, to be honest with you, somebody. Is hu who's humble, somebody who's authentic, and somebody who is has integrity, that can say, You know what, I messed up, but I'm gonna fix this, and then can figure out how to fix it, not

Tracy Hayes  1:05:13  

wait to the last minute. No, we got an issue. Yeah, I'm working through it. Just want to let you know, because if it gets it becomes greater than

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:05:23  

there's nothing that pains me more than and I think it's because it's how we do our business. So it's not it doesn't get mirrored. If I have a referral partner or anybody who's not owning it and blaming you, his, her, him there, that just comes across to me as unprofessional. It comes across to me as insecure, and it doesn't make me want to trust you. If you can sit there and say, Holy crap, Megan, like I messed up. I'm like, okay, so many things happen in the real estate industry that mistakes.

Tracy Hayes  1:05:53  

That's why the computers can't do it, yeah, and mistakes

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:05:57  

happen and fix it, right? Like, just fix it. And that's all that you know, and just be kind like i If you cop an attitude once, I'll forgive you. But when you start to be not unkind or nasty about other agents or about other people in the industry, then next interesting. Yeah, thanks. Kindness goes along.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:17  

Appreciate you coming on today.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:20  

Yes, great show so

Tracy Hayes  1:06:25  

put your contact information in the show notes. That's what I wanted to say. We'll put our contact information as show notes. So you want to reach out to Megan, but obviously you're all over social media. Megan Farrell Nelson, Megan Farrell will pop it up because on LinkedIn, it's Megan Farrell. Yeah, you didn't add the Nelson yet on LinkedIn. That's another reason Brady, she didn't add the Nelson on So, but yeah, she's on LinkedIn, obviously, all over Facebook, Instagram, you can find her exp in Flagler

Megan Farrell-Nelson  1:06:51  

County. Yeah, and yeah, feel free reach out with any questions, if you need any help, or even a one on one little brief social media audit, I'm happy to do that with you. Just reach out or how good looking Ryan is, yeah, yeah, my husband's better looking, though. Thanks, Megan, thank you guys. See you soon.

Podcast Intro  1:07:15  

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 you

Speaker 2  1:07:43  

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