Shonda Campanaro: Excellence in Real Estate

Shonda Campanaro: Excellence in Real Estate - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoA08YJNZ74

Transcript:

(00:16) hey welcome back to the real estate excellence podcast your host tracy hayes a real producer in the house today i'm calling this the power hour because today i have a guest host miss melissa rick's far right and i have one of the most successful agents in northeast florida here center her awards are many and it would not would take a hour just to list them all she is recognized consistently by the best of jacksonville year over year in 2020 she was recognized as a top instagram influencer we gotta learn about that her business

(00:46) is built on my comprehensive on her comprehensive knowledge of the local markets unmatched negotiating skills and constant dedication to the industry and her clients she considers the most rewarding part of her career is developing lasting relationships with her clients while guiding them through such important investments and decisions whether buying selling or investing this agent strives to exceed her clients expectation no matter the price point let's welcome the campanero in the campanaro group realtors shonda

(01:16) campanero got a girl i need to meet her i stole some of that uh from uh your instagram if i do some a little bit of a background check but i'm i'm glad you finally made it to the show thank you i had to bring in your your escort over here to uh make sure you got here today she's my realtor bestie we do we do this stuff together you know i'm cracking up as he's giving your intro where he says um your negotiating skills are like one of your strengths yeah you know how she negotiates she threats

(01:49) she'll threaten i'm going to burn your house down is that bad i'll just burn the house down that's actually how we connected years ago we did a we did a transaction together feisty as ever i'm like yo girl calm down why are you coming to my back just send me an offer boom come out she is worse than me now it's like don't make me homeless right are you guys are you guys bullies am i learning that we got two bullies or the other agents say that you guys are doing this are you gonna own that oh

(02:18) she's she's so full crap she's not listen i never claim to be a southern belle she claims to be the son of belle she's definitely not well you're from new philadelphia anyway yeah so ain't nothing about that and you don't have that beautiful accident [Laughter] shonda tell us tell us a little about where where are you from where'd you grow up oh lord i am from a small little town in southeast georgia tiny little town the biggest thing there is like a walmart that's where i grew up

(02:50) southeast georgia don't want to name the town it's called hazelhurst probably never heard of it hazelhurst hazelhurst it is amazing when you go when you go around the country you find some of these little towns that are not on the maps and so forth like my son's ty and for some reason i was going to a football game in some small college in georgia we had to drive through this one of these off-roads and one of those towns is named tai tai t-y-t-y is the name of the town oh wow so i'd take a picture of it and send it

(03:16) to him funny thing is as small as that town is since i've been in jacksonville everyone i meet somehow has some tie to that town or surrounding town like baxley or alma i've met people i'm related to which isn't hard the town's so small i'm one of six children my mom is one of 14 children right so i probably am related to everyone yeah that that's that's a huge area so uh you you grew up there you guys assumed me graduated from the local high school there okay so at this time in

(03:48) your life you know i think you mentioned early pre-show you you had your first child really at 20 what did you have any aspirations or what was going on in your life at that point of what you wanted to do as a career or any career at all well you know i grew up in a small town and in my mind all my friends were like i want to be a doctor i want to be a lawyer and i was the one who was like i just want to get married and have kids so i never and it's amazing that i i think back and i never really planned on doing anything else did not

(04:19) plan on doing it at 21 years old but you know right it's a lot easier than it is now with an eight-year-old so what migrates you or what's going on you're in your young 20s now what what brings you to is coming to jacksonville kind of the next chapter in your life as you're raising your first one yeah i moved here when i was 19 years old i was married at 20 i had my daughter at 21.

(04:46) okay so yeah that from then on i've been here ever since so is real estate really the only thing you've ever done professionally yeah absolutely interesting so how what so you're raising your kid at what age you start does someone introduce you to real estate or you start getting an interest in it well i started getting bored i was my daughter had gone to school she was my everything we did everything all day long together i sat at home all day and i was like there's got to be something else i want to do something

(05:14) i had always been fascinated with real estate and i knew a typical nine to five was not going to be for me because i still wanted that work home balance right so i met a lady who had known for a couple years miss putt english she was a realtor completely looked up what was that name hud english paul's pudge she started palencia i met her she lived in deerwood okay so i called her up i said i want to be a realtor and she said i think you'd be good at it you should do it so i'm like okay so i go to real estate school i get

(05:49) my license i call her back up and i'm like i have my license now where should i go i have no idea and she goes well i have a sister who works with prudential network realty they're the best her name's cindy littlefield call her up are these people still active in the or are they retired and moved on or well sandy actually retired a couple years ago from berkshire and i believe they're both up in the mountains now they're both retired now so sandy got me an interview at prudential and now bert

(06:20) hathaway and i've been there ever since 15 and a half years now yeah that's all you're on your linkedin absolutely so think about that moment where you were getting in versus the new agents today because a lot of them are in the same situation would you agree melissa they're they're like what what should i do and now you just starting to fall in and have by pure chance that it seems like knowing these people that were fairly good at it you know they took you in and they probably trained you in some way you've

(06:48) been at berkshire halfway 15 i don't know if there was any agent there's probably very limited agents so we could say i've been at the same brokerage for 15 years right oh yeah that's not normal yeah so i'm not normal but you're not yeah so i mean so if you were talking if there was a new agent looking there or someone who just got their license and maybe they just sought to fall into brokerage right now and they don't even know what's going on what would you suggest to them or you know like someone like you said

(07:11) hey i'm looking to get in real estate called you what would you suggest to them to do before making that choice of you know which brokerage to go so different now than than back then too honestly i think that i think that they're actually it may be a lot more confusing nowadays because there are so many different options out there is i usually give a list of brokerages for new agents to talk to because there's there's just so many and so many they offer different right opportunities and you know like you think back then

(07:37) when you it was for you it's pretty straight forward oh yeah call her get in there it's done absolutely but this the brokerage that works for me may not work for her or anyone else it depends on where you are in your life where you want to be and what you want to do in your career you know um i would definitely tell them to go to a company that has training that's the most important thing as a new agent because when you get your license you don't know anything so berkshire hathaway or prudential back

(08:06) then had some of the best training we went through an incubator program it was like going to school we had to go there like four days a week and it was all day long and i had a great instructor sharon wilson and i was scared of her i mean i was scared i was scared to say i can't be her tomorrow she'd be like yes you can you will be and i'm like yes man [Laughter] damn shondo has scared us so you're in your mid-20s right now at this time right that you're talking about my late 20s late 20s okay and

(08:40) that's did that structure of them coming in to get you kind of a foundation of saying hey you got to come in that helped you in your business because you didn't know anything about real estate i knew absolutely nothing about real estate but again that training there um we did everything we wrote contracts we got up in front of the class we did caravans together so it was like we were you know really talking to clients now she would make us call people i remember one time she busted me out because i put my phone on mute because i

(09:15) don't call people i don't cold call and i was faking it [Laughter] you're faking having a conversation with yourself complete conversation with myself well so i'm you if you look back and anyone listening now you calculate it's 2022 you go back 15 and a half years so there's a couple other great brokers in the uh or associate brokers everyone list them that i've had on that were going back prior to 2008 so you get started it's what uh 2007 issue 2007 and all of a sudden i mean before you really get started the

(09:56) housing market collapsed what was that the tail end right so when i got started i learned how to i was writing contracts on short sales and foreclosures i was listing homes back then we negotiated our own short sales there was no lawyers handling it so i would have a listing and you know there could be two banks so you're trying to negotiate with this bank and they're like okay yeah we'll take that but second bank wants money too and they're having a second mortgage or whatever yeah so it was hard but to me it was normal

(10:30) because that's how i learned right now you know last year was like picking flowers yeah so but so again going back because i think one of the uh greatest thing about all the successful agents has how you got started some faster than others so you know that we had we got the housing issue finances going on and you got all these foreclosures these deals don't like happen in 30 45 days like i mean you know occasionally they do but a lot of these short sales and stuff drag out that you were dealing with so what are

(11:01) you what are you doing initially in the sense of marketing and getting yourself out there let everybody know that you are in real estate well that year it was a little easier for me and this is going to make me look really old but no one really used the internet like they do now so i got online and i started just pasting my url everywhere so when you went online i was popping up so you know i'm a new young agent in a company and people are having a hard time just kind of like right now and all of a sudden i'm selling houses you know

(11:36) not a ton like back then it was amazing if you did what do you find a lot of your a lot of your uh you have people from out of state they're searching the internet and googling or whatever and because you were putting your stuff all over you were popping up is that absolutely i even remember sharon wilson doing a class like the next year on like shonda camp well back then i was solved but shawn does marketing that's what shonda is doing you know isn't it crazy how different things are now though like i

(12:03) mean even just from a couple of years ago as far as your online presence and how important it is i mean it's just insane so i mean it does show your age though sister [Laughter] well i think a lot of people discount the fact how much youtube is a search engine too and you're put you if you're putting videos whatever length out there you're putting regular content people are searching from other states and looking into the area are you doing youtube no i gotta get on youtube i just had this conversation with the girls because

(12:34) we're on pretty much every platform except for youtube and we're starting to try to build that as well because i mean i know a handful of agents around here that have really started to even if it's your i think you could you start doing some really good videos of showing a house you know what you normally do anyway and you're putting them on youtube people are searching even though that house is still not up for sale they still see your professionalism yeah that's just a thought to just get in my head and

(12:58) that's where you're going to see that's the key word professionalism that's probably why it's stronger on youtube with insecurities because that's why i cancelled so many times i do not like the way i look the way i sound i'm sure everyone has the same insecurities but i did a podcast um with a guy and when he sent it to me i was like oh my god we can't put that out i was in a rolling chair i'm like rolling everywhere i'm like talking with my hands bobbing my head around it was that's normal

(13:36) i don't remember what actress reminds me of you know obviously i grew up watching dallas and um what was the other side show to dallas it was a spin-off yes yes yes at that time oh my god you guys are terrible you guys don't say that you look marvelous i love melissa's hair today she looks great i love the little curl in it yeah i think that looks i did that just for you because that is dope and stuff she's different today yeah she put a little curl in here no i really just do this so i don't have

(14:10) to wash my hair in the morning no big deal it's really dirty i text her i'm like you want to go on johnny cash i want to touch base on because like just yesterday obviously you guys are out for lunch with some of your counterparts you guys work for different brokerages how important has it been in is it something that you did at the beginning or just yo has developed in your 15 years of hanging out with other you know top producers successful people in the real estate industry how important is that not just for a friendship but yeah for

(14:40) me it's actually boosted my business my confidence and it's awesome and especially you know we help each other we know what's coming on the market you know just last month i showed a house for a friend who works for exit real estate because that's what you do there's enough business for everyone so it's nice to be friends and have friends with all these amazing agents if i have questions at midnight right we have a text change so we help each other well i can imagine what a multiple things

(15:25) i would argue with anybody that i think right now it is a top maybe two or three priority to be in collaboration with agents well since i got both of you guys on you had lunch with marissa and some other people yesterday was that something you guys schedule weeks in advance or sunday night you say hey let's get together on tuesday so yesterday was actually a different event um that was a little bit of a different concept there was a lot there was a lot more people than just us there yeah we typically do we try to

(15:53) schedule like dinner or something i would say like once a quarter yeah um and like try to be there for like you know birthday party like it's genuine friendships you know like and it's it's it goes so much bigger than just real estate like the support that we like we you have to understand like on our side of things i'm sure you guys are the same in the lender world like not everybody that's outside of our industry understands this lifestyle right so i have a ton of amazing friends that i'm super close with but they don't

(16:24) understand what i live every day so when you find a group of people that you shop with and you're friends with but now you're in the same industry we get each other on different levels so those friendships are even more powerful and then like not only like you know she mentioned you know we talk about you know coming soon listings when there's a multiple offer situation and you know you're in there and you're throwing your offers in and you have a really great relationship with that listing agent that rapport is

(16:50) already built like there's so much benefit to it and then just supporting each other and helping each other grow i mean absolutely i mean how how many times have you stolen not stolen but you know uh politely we still all the time steal from each other from the standpoint of because right now like making offers is important how you present it yeah and they stole someone's other someone else's successful idea and put it into your next offer and i don't know that we look at it as stealing i don't know i'm

(17:15) using that as uh yeah we give each other the tools you need melissa's an open book if you want to know anything she will give you she'll tell you everything she does what but the problem is you have to be able to do it most people are not going to put in the work i'm not doing everything she's doing there's no way i don't know how she she's like superwoman uh i wouldn't go that far so deeper into that deeper into the surrounding yourself with successful people so where where in your

(17:47) 15 years did you start to realize this is about you know meeting with these top agents because melissa wasn't there when you started that's right when did you start to realize hoes that this is actually even though they work for a different brokerage did you learn that quickly is that something that came on you know over the over the years wasn't really something i learned and it wasn't really about real estate it was about meeting my people you know they came into my life at the right time you know i went through life

(18:16) for a long time just right here but when i real when my husband and i got married and he's my support he motivated me he pushed me he wanted he made me want to be better and do better get out of your comfort zone yeah and you know i used to be so insecure about trying to get luxury listings you know very early in my career i went to a listing appointment and this guy talked down to me so bad about my accent so i crawled in this shell and i stayed in this shell for years and mark was like that's probably why you're sensitive to

(18:55) it now exactly he was like what are you doing you are amazing you go out there and if you want luxury you get luxury just like another like a an agent that you sort of looked up to that that demeaned you or no it wasn't it was an older gentleman yeah absolutely so um funny thing is i sold his house a few years later so you know with the motivation i started getting out there i started going after this and i started getting it so the moment i stopped caring what people thought i didn't care anymore you know i stopped

(19:29) trying to do this big full-on listing presentation they taught me to do i do it my way and i like my way so it worked for me and then all these amazing women came into my life and it just helps we motivate each other i feel like all of our business do you feel like track to the like yeah yeah exactly what's cool is and this is the beat of what we do you know you work like her and i connected and we've gotten really close over the years through a transaction because we the way we communicated we were just we were just girls from day

(19:59) one and then at the back end of it then we tried to do the whole like let's sit and have some brainstorming sessions and talk about how we run our businesses and that worked real well um we'd go in and be like oh margaritaville yeah exactly three glasses of wine later i don't know but then you throw a genuine friendship out of it i don't know about you shawna what you would say but like i feel like i've seen a massive increase in agent support and collaboration over the last two to three years absolutely by far

(20:26) like before that it was a lot more competitive i just think we've turned a corner um i think people realize that there's plenty of business out there none of us ever like all of our everyone's circles are different different pipelines you have a different data like we i've never crossed paths with another like an agent friend of mine and you know well i mean i picked up on it because you guys do a lot of posting when you do get together with your regular group on instagram or facebook and i'm seeing that i'm going home and

(20:54) then as i'm chatting with you guys here we're coming up on 11 months of the show and talking all i'm seeing all these people meeting each other and you all are coming from different brokerages all coming from i know your backgrounds now because you told me your story and that's what i sound so powerful yes that's me yeah it really is and there's there's a lot of it i mean it's not just i mean there's a huge group i think if you're out here in this industry and you're

(21:17) you know not wanting to collaborate and build relationships with other agents you're only holding yourself like for what why there's so many so many agents have so many great things to say and ideas and i mean i learned from her she learns from me and all of our all of our girls i mean we're all doing the same thing so i'd like to hear from both of you on this typical side so you guys are in a circle that that probably a lot of people and even loan officers are like oh those girls are way too powerful they would

(21:44) never talk to me or whatever type of thing right they only knew i talked to myself but you've got an agent out there maybe new or maybe just someone who's hit a lid maybe he's been in the business for a few years and they're hearing us talking about this regularly this is a common theme on the show surrounding yourself by other successful agents and i've i have seen a brokerage well known in this town where the new agents tried to join each other like let's do a new agent group it's like

(22:14) and the senior agents are looking at them going no no no no don't do that because you you're not getting anywhere you're not putting that you're not the fifth person in the room you know that you want to be you know you want you hopefully surround yourself with four people that are that you look up to and strive to be type of situation so how would someone trying to pop through that lid and grow grow their business to another level what's to surround themselves with the successful agents that they know and see

(22:41) every day pick up the phone and call them and i'll tell you anybody that's in this industry no matter how successful you are if you're not a jerk ego person they're going to give you time i honestly i love my girls but i meet with newer agents more than i meet with my group of friends well that's not right you want to come yes cheetos free lunch my only disclaimer up front is it has to be lunch time and there has to be tito's that's right tequila well so well pick up the phone i i am debating to

(23:17) move some of the shows to later in the afternoon and i'm there yeah i know you are actually i'm done because people are probably like why the heck is the emperor [Laughter] but no joke i respect so much an agent especially a newer agent that can pick up the phone and call someone like shonda or call someone like me and just say hey i'm new can i pick your brain for an hour that shows you are chasing an opportunity you are hungry you want to get in front of somebody nobody whether you've been this for 15 years

(23:47) five years it does not matter five months nobody's better than anybody we're all trying to do the same thing so stop living in fear of judgment from that and it could be something very simple because we've seen some of these really young agents i mean just go to college or whatever and whatever they're listening to senior people giving them advice they're doing exactly that and they're seeing success quickly yeah so if you want to turn around a dime you know whether it's a couple months

(24:13) your business around you you need to make this those calls are i think those calls are easier than calling the like you're saying you don't like the cold call clients call a senior agent say i want to sit down and have coffee with you and i've done that before when i thought about starting my team you know i called i think i called you because lots of people i talked to um cece underwood i called anybody i knew that had a successful team because i just wanted to say what are you doing and everyone was so willing to open up

(24:43) and tell me what they were doing and that's the great thing about our real estate community we are a tight-knit community and everyone is willing to help everyone and you have to be you know your reputation your name is everything you can't be nasty there are there's a handful out there that i'm sure would not give the time of day but you move on yeah the next one there will be people willing to provide value and i will say back to the the the new agent groups i'm seeing a lot of that too and

(25:08) i think that's great too like they do need to be there they have need to have their supportive groups and like i think that that's something that like i had that when i first started like i had a group of people i could go to we all started somewhere you know like you need to have a support system no matter what it looks like absolutely all right so you're you're 15 years in the business i i can't i can't [Laughter] who do you look up to right now who is your resource is there someone that you

(25:40) admire in the business whether locally or nationally that you you follow or maybe you've uh had confided in over the years is there any one person that you there's not one there's a lot of people you know when i got in the business i was young so obviously i idolized some of the um ages and prudential at the time so you know i used to look up to them and i love me some anita vining i love anita binding she is one of my favorite people and i've all i used to tell her i'm going to be like you one day and i i

(26:16) said and i still joke with her to this day i call her queen anita and um you know i've had people ask me before are you anita's daughter i'm like yeah and then meow had to go and get into real estate and she's an amazing realtor as well so um love anita vining you just um haven't seen lisa mordecai in years she used to love me some lisa mordecai when i got into the mandarin office she was you know the top producer in that office and i used to tell her one day my name's going to be on that

(26:47) board because we had a sign by the road and we all fought to get on that board the the big one that's still there uh well no it's not watson that has the big one on the on yeah they have one but we had one too and she said come on come take it you know and i worked my butt off to get my name on that board she left before i got it up there but darn it so you i mean you immediately it sounds like you when you got in his office you quickly went over to these top producers and created something some sort of relationship with

(27:14) them absolutely yeah you know i mean they knew what they were doing and i wanted to know what are you doing to get this business how do you do this and i've had you know great conversations with many ages and everyone has always been more than willing to help you and tell you what they're doing yeah i think one of the most important things about that conversation though if you don't catch on to what she's saying that like people need to really like meditate on is she did that 15 years ago she still does that to this day

(27:47) that's what's important because a lot of people i heard this quote the other day i'm going to jack it all the way up so i'm not something like um the difference between i lied see i jacked up already something about understanding that success means when you get to whatever you're you were chasing you understand did you post it you may have listened no no oh um yeah i'm jacking it up though i told you you know is it is it the one where you got to keep putting the work in you're right

(28:16) yeah you know people there's common things and successful people and um it's people just stop they stay so they don't swing the hammer one more time they don't take that one extra step but you can't just reach that you know whatever that right sometimes the treasure is just one hammer away she's still 15 years and still making an effort to like when she's you know building our team because i remember like we talked about it and i was like call cece call like talk to the people that have done it and and that

(28:45) you know can offer support and value to you you know sometimes people have been this you're 15 20 25 years they're like oh i don't need to ask anybody for anything like you're only keeping yourself here all right so no one else in the in the entire world has a team that we know of like her so who did you talk to me [Laughter] um that's tough or you just formed your opinion by everyone else's input and formed your own okay so you remember i came from a team so i knew that model but and nothing against that model that

(29:17) model worked for them i knew i didn't want that model so i did i approached i approached like my model from doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing but that's kind of how i live life because i'm a rebel by nature so like i just like if everyone if ever if the term everyone else is doing it you're like yeah i'm the same way um we talked a little bit about pre-show you know over the years you know going from you know someone in their 20s and and having continued success and really i mean

(29:52) i mean you continue to put keep pushing the the limit on your your records and things that you're doing what are you doing to stay sharp we you talked about a little bit earlier you you just do listen to podcasts occasionally but you're on social media um i mean do you do you try to stay abreast of what's going on in real estate on a national level what what do you do there just to stay yeah and for real before you answer that i'll piggyback on that question like tell us tell us all the small people how we can

(30:19) get the awards that you get yeah because like for real girls do you have a whole room in your house for this how can i get on your level i text them and i'm like just tell them to send you checks instead of glass no more room for the lot of glass i mean we still have an incubator program i can go up there anytime i want we have um you know ann king kevin longman they're constantly putting out education online videos so i have access to that but i also have people like melissa that i'm learning from because

(30:56) again you're constantly learning and growing pivot so did you see the thing i posted a few days ago that was like the cd we used back then i made a comment on it i said we were going to talk about it on the show actually thank you for reminding me so that's how we marketed that i was fancy i had dollar cds laid out and that's how i marketed but now there are so many programs that i'm overwhelmed so yesterday i learned all these programs that melissa and her team are using and other ages for talking about programs they're using

(31:32) that i want to implement into my team so last night i was online all night long like really all these programs so i think that we're learning from each other more than anything right you know it's hands-on experience the one of the common themes was obviously surrounding yourself by successful people the other one is education and you just brought it up how important is it now i will say everyone that i've had on all says their brokerages has an education level so i don't want one brokerage has something

(32:04) other because i think you uh your brokerages are all going to give you some level of education but is it how important is to go outside of that like like meeting with other like you're talking about how important is that changed your trajectory of being an agent or going to a conference or something of that nature how important is that to be looking for those things outside your just your your stuff that you're just getting at the brokerage for me it's the most important it's impacted my whole career because

(32:34) i don't do well in a classroom i am so add i can sit there and say i'm gonna listen two seconds later i'm staring at a spot on the ceiling so that does not work for me i could sit in all the training i wanted it's not going to help me so for me that's the best training and even social media you know social media i think you said this yesterday is kind of the new training tool so instead of the podcast and things i used to listen to i'm scrolling through social media listening to you know all these big people just

(33:06) talk and pour out all this information that's really helping me when you when you say that uh because i'm visualizing what you're doing because i do you know i get caught on the reels there's a lot of motivational stuff on there you know it's 30 seconds or whatever but then it starts your mind it's a mindset going influencing is the new educator i said this yesterday and i believe it wholeheartedly i just had a conversation with an agent on the way here that's getting prepped for a panel in a couple

(33:33) weeks and we were talking about like fear of growing and like how to work people past that and i say this all the time it's a mindset if you are not relentlessly chasing opportunities and putting your fear behind you you're going to hold yourself back nobody else is going to do it for you you're going to hold yourself back so like the conversation of how important is further education beyond what your brokerage can offer are you signing up for seminars are you doing the research god we live in an age of like unending knowledge

(34:03) you can't expect to go to your brokerage class from 9 00 to 11 monday through friday and and go to the next level it's not going to get you there that's good stuff to know it's good to have that knowledge but how much further do you want to go in your career and what kind of work are you willing to put in to go to additional training do you find the the education that we're talking about this higher level thing it's not just an actual hey go do this it's not an actual uh always you know sometimes they give you

(34:31) a piece of advice like hey this is you know do more instagram videos or something you can go implement that right now sure but listening to other successes these stories listening to podcasts and the positive stories people's successes that this higher education is hearing those stories actually gives you more energy and may send you on your own search you didn't actually get like do more instagram videos from it you got like hey it's out there you got to take another step you're you're and it just

(35:01) gives you another energy for the day that positive mindset that your mindset was the word you used a moment ago which is it's all it it all comes full circle and then learning how to engage with your followers once you start doing those things i mean shauna kills it on instagram you know and and the the beautiful thing we talk about this all the time is organic following you won't see this girl and i out here paying for followers yes it's not how we roll you know what i mean like how do you build an organic

(35:26) following of people you're authentic you make sure people know what you're doing and you're consistent i heard uh there's a big exp agent out in utah he's one of the first podcasts i started listening to and he came on and said he was actually killing his entire old original instagram page because he did do the paying for the follower stuff and he got to the levels he wanted so you can do different things when you have more followers but he realized after a while they realized how many were actually

(35:54) you know what he called authentic engaging i think they're bots so i don't know anything about that i actually just heard a couple months ago that you can actually pay for followers i didn't even know that was it they didn't buy you some i don't even know all this i'm gonna go and have ten thousand dollars i don't even know how it works i don't know anybody that's done it i just heard that it's a thing so i'm like wow people really i mean i guess if you want followers

(36:18) it's a way to do it but are they but the algorithm's already figured out you're buying them that's the thing that it was i think it was a thing at a time and it got you a certain level but now you can tell yeah really yeah you just click on their followers and go through come on you're a woman we all stalk people i don't i don't click on people's phones you just click on them and you go through and you can see who are bots and who's that does it say dot on it though no it's like no picture with symbols oh

(36:42) yeah like no no profile basically yeah but we all get bought so i mean you can go on and you have to go through your page and filter them out because somehow you do get bots because so i got they're trying to get you to follow them you get someone who says uh so-and-so is following you now so you're like feel good say well i'll follow them they're following me but the reality it's one of those bots that she's talking about i've started figuring that out [Laughter] my question for that is then okay so

(37:14) there's an option for you to do boosted ads why aren't people doing that isn't that a better source of your money than paying to have followers or am i not understanding it the the paid follower thing is like a new con i have to bring daniel on for that expectation maybe it's perception maybe you started a new page if you have no one so you want to have this thing that you're big and then you grow big and you get your own followers and you're done i mean and then what do you go in and delete it it allows you to do

(37:43) different things you see these people with like the swipe up on the instagram where it says swipe up like if you're doing an ad yeah and you like the ad and you can do a swipe up well you have to have like when i understand like 10 000 followers to be able to do that so if you look at this do you want to just invest in some followers tomorrow we'll go have these you take 10 grand um berkshire hathaway home services florida network realty you know went from prudential to florida network realty right that's how that

(38:18) went to berkshire house which was the berkshire although it's pretty it was prudential florida network really yes that's berkshire hathaway you've been there the leadership team i mean brag a little bit i mean obviously you must like it there imagine a lot of other brokers have tried to come steal you away so tell us a little about berkshire hathaway and what why is it that you fit there and you seem to have made home and unless you're planning to open your own uh deal tomorrow [Laughter] i'm going to have her drink she doesn't

(38:58) drink but she will be saying shauna doesn't do this but i already have a plan for her last and final move when she moves right now okay no so when i joined berkshire hathaway um this goes back to the beginning so i'm young i'm scared to death i go in this interview room and i'm expecting like a broker to be sitting there to tell me how great they are now it was linda shearer herself and there's sharon wilson there are a few people in the room and you know here i am this little nobody and this woman who

(39:29) runs the whole company is sitting here to interview me she was the sweetest most down-to-earth person i loved her i instantly felt that connection and i knew that's where i wanted to be to this day she's on my facebook if i make a post right now she's going to be one of the first few that likes it and comments they're our biggest cheerleaders christy budnik you know christy's moved on and she's running berserker hathaway now i'm just here right and um still she makes time i could text her right now and say call me

(40:05) and you know if she wasn't busy she would call me so it we are strong relationships that you've yeah we are big the roots that you've put in here are strong absolutely so now you know a lot of things have changed in the company we have new people that have stepped up but without change you can't grow so you know now we have kevin and ann king and um the technology ann is bringing to berkshire is absolutely amazing i am excited about it you know that's one of the things that i lack in because i am older i tend to

(40:36) get set in my ways and you know i've got to pivot i'm a millennial what are you talking about yeah i keep saying with this old age it's not a millennial are you a millennial no way absolutely okay my kids call her a baddie so her age doesn't matter they just made me a shirt literally the shawn it hasn't officially been named the shonda but it should be oh god there's a there's a shirt there that her her labels coming out with is that what you're talking about yes they made me eraser back with their you know because

(41:21) she's a diva so and you're telling me great you're telling me great things about berkshire hathaway technology used some several words there in describing there how important though is you're talking to an agent yeah different brokers just have different things that they're doing and so forth but the things that you're bringing in because it sounds like you're doing you do have really evaluated yourself over the years and obviously hanging out with people like melissa and uh marissa

(41:51) scott and those those top agents in there and the matching it with what your mindset you knowing you right you you've analyzing and you doing the outside what they're just offering at the brokerage and matching it with the brokerages has really like fueled your fire absolutely absolutely you know berkshire hathaway is one of the strongest brands out there i mean everyone knows that name brand and i want to be affiliated with that brand i love it but you can't just put hey i'm with berkshire hathaway call me oh no

(42:26) you've got to take it to another level yeah absolutely not and i do corporate relocation with berkshire hathaway and things like that too so there are advantages for me being where i am as well and it's you know it's where i've always been it's where i feel comfortable at so let's go well actually i want to i actually had a line in here tell us about when did you bring on you brought in judy and to diane together basically roughly the same time or um about it was close yeah about the same time okay all right so we were

(42:56) talking a little bit earlier you felt you kind of reached a lid in your business you needed some help because you couldn't just take care of everybody but you didn't want to cut everybody off either you were giving business away he said oh i got to keep it in-house so you bring in judy and diane howe how is that dynamic or how long you guys been working together now it's been a year now it's gotta be a year it's been a year now we're so proud we're still learning we're still growing

(43:21) i kind of did it backwards um it just happened um so i did not i wasn't ready i didn't have my systems in place but it just kind of happened i've been friends with judy for years i've been friends with diana so they were they new agents or they were working somewhere else and you brought them into the fold well judy has had her real estate license gosh i want to say 25 years she hasn't done residential she's actually the vice president of jones lane laselle so she does commercial property management so

(43:52) with her background it just kind of went together and um you know she had kind of dabbled in real residential a little bit and she's always been a huge referral partner of mine she's always referred all her friends family clients to me and when she was ready i i was happy to have her i couldn't think of anyone else i would rather have on my team than judy she's one of the hardest working women i know so now diane i knew diane's husband that's how i met diane um he was one of my clients years ago and you know

(44:28) i've done business with his family some of his friends people that work for him diane worked at the chamber for years so she has a great background she knows that she's got a big circle absolutely huge fear so diane called me and said she was thinking about going into real estate and i was like absolutely i could definitely see you being an amazing real estate agent so she came to you oh yeah absolutely and i told her you know i can you know set you up an appointment with bert shire you could talk to a few more

(44:59) people and she said well i was kind of thinking i might want to work with you and i was floored i was like yes absolutely this is going to be fun and is there a bottle of wine in the office so probably so then she's so then i get the call okay so um i'm doing this and when she says she didn't have sis like she had no systems so i'm like okay sister like we got to organize you let's sit down let's figure out like you had at least a transaction coordinator would you have melissa was like you have to work

(45:38) smarter not harder and that's what i'm still to this day struggling with because yeah i try to do everything myself and it's taking its toll on everything yeah listen trying to reign this one in is like i don't even we've had tons of they're doing fanta and they do it their way they do they do a fantastic job but systems was definitely like in the very first conversation i was like oh god we're going to need like we're going to need alcohol for them but i think i mean it's worked out great

(46:06) because she's a lot of it like when hiring is like if you hire the right people like you guys can figure it out together like i didn't when i first hired i didn't none of my people do the same roles from and like obviously i'm set up different i don't have agents but like we've had to pivot so like you know they work through the the challenges and stuff and you do it together as a group and as a team and you figure it out together which is the beauty of having support so you reached you reached a lid

(46:30) in your business these ladies come in yeah what is it done for your overall i mean just business in general are you able just to capture even just 10 times more i mean what what has it done for you for what you personally could do in the time of the day and what you personally were doing everything transaction coordinator and everything all there now you got these two ladies here that are bringing their time and skills in what has it done for the cabin arrow from cap and arrow to the cap and arrow group you know in a sense of your business

(47:04) volume well we're still growing and we're still learning again they came on at a time to where i was like listen i already talked to melissa i'm not ready to bring on buyer's agent she told me i'm doing it all wrong because she told me no no but i wanted them and i knew it was going to be a great match so i said i would love to have you ladies i don't really know what i'm doing i don't know how to run a team but if you're willing to learn together let's do this so they

(47:36) have helped me take a step back and be able to you know hand them off some buyers and i am now taking the time to actually get the correct systems in place to grow this team and i'm anxious to see what you know the next year holds for us i'm super excited because i feel like we're going to do some great this is the big talk really in a lot a lot of the podcasters you know the agents or your loan officers or whatever reaching this lid and then you know hiring that first assistant yeah loan assistance

(48:09) transaction the day she makes her first admin hire we will be celebrating like rooftop dinner i don't understand why hasn't come forward like forced you to have one that's what i would have done and tells me all that she hears it a lot yeah i hear it all the time it's just it's hurt it's you know giving up still to this day it's hard do you have an ego no all you have is your name if you tarnish that name you're done you know you're you need to have the respect of your peers and

(48:47) my biggest fear is for someone to mess up my i hand something over to someone and they do it wrong now imagine hiring somebody that does it right that values your name as much as you do that's what i need and they're out there because i tell you one thing that i hear on a consistent basis so that event yesterday i can't tell you how many people message me later and we're like your team your girls are amazing they love you so much they love your your culture they love your brand they love what you stand for

(49:18) and i love that i love hearing stuff like that because that means the people that work with me believe in me there's there are people out there like yeah yeah and and i don't know how you know it's so amazing you know uh you're a woman of faith he puts people like that in front of you at times at different times oh absolutely and you have to just be smart enough to figure out who those two watch like a month from now and be like shonda this person's right in front of you i'm gonna like place them there

(49:47) and i am looking because that is our next step that's the next piece of the puzzle because you know again i brought them on because i was referring so many pieces of business out and it made sense at the time why don't i keep this volume on my team they were ready it made sense at the time um now they're hungry they're ready for more i'm ready for more um we don't aspire to be a huge team right um but we want more we're ready yeah well you get you get hooked on the transaction right i mean absolutely

(50:20) and we're completely referral word mouthpiece and um you know we can't handle any more without someone we do need something um we got this recorded i'm going to play i'm going to bring it back for you daily all right we'll cut that out daniel right there um all right so we talked we the common themes surrounding yourself with great people education was one of the things we've already talked about the one of the other terms was consistency what would you say looking over 15 years and it could be something you just

(50:51) really started in the last couple years but what would you say right now that what you've done consistently has made a difference in your business social media you know even back then before the facebook and things like that i was on myspace do you even know about myspace oh yeah i should have said no because i don't want to show my age now i have the coolest myspace profile by the way and my top eight friends were dope so mine has always been the internet because i'm not that agent that cold calls um you could probably give me ten

(51:26) thousand dollars worth of leads a week not gonna turn on because you have to be able to turn those leads you have to pick up the phone and cold call i'm not gonna do that so i know what works for me social media works for me and all my clients again are always word of mouth which is you know the best form of marketing so they're all word of mouth they're all from social media would you say quite a bit of your you know your circle maybe never have used you before but they're friends or whatever your past clients because

(51:57) you're consistently posting and they're your friends on instagram or facebook those regular postings just reminding them that hey i'm in the real estate business absolutely and that's that's how i do get my business you know i just closed let's see i think the third transaction with a client i met early in the business i'm about to close her sister's house so the majority of my clients continuously use me and send me to all of their friends and family and that's the biggest compliment right you know when

(52:27) you have repeat clients yes and that's hard yeah that that's a that that's definitely an ego you know or flattery it definitely it gives you a high but i think one of the one things that people miss out is the you know whether you're doing the short videos or you're doing the instagram post is you know i always go back and i think most of my talk about that guy who wrote sold 13 000 cars in his 15 years of in the business because he was writing thank you cards every month and it was building up he had a team of people

(52:55) writing these cards you can do that in 30 seconds on instagram every day and it doesn't cost you a dime and that's what i'm good at and the power and the power of it i text my clients to this day i have clients from years ago if i see a funny meme i'm blasting it out to them and that's you know i'm different because that's how i stay in contact with myself well you would do that with a friend yeah you would yes yeah you treat them just like that that's the key every single one of

(53:21) my clients have become my friends and i pick up the phone i call them they call me they you know i had a lady a couple days ago called me and asked me for a contract or sold her house 10 years ago it's just the way it is and that's the most important thing this is a relationship business and i feel like that's why i do so well is because i am authentic right you know you know we talked about another commentary about like too many people are putting too many rules and restrictions on how and when you need to touch base with your

(53:52) database and so we talked about yesterday i was like those are just ideas just remove it when you think of them let them know if you see something that reminds you there is no the more you system systemize that or you know like if you had a checklist every day i've got a call fred bob and harry today wha wha what's what's driving you to do that just just call them or text them or hit them up on facebook i hate the holiday emails that go out that these companies just think they're like i know we get we get them

(54:23) [Music] don't get me wrong i believe in like any opportunity to reach out to your database so i use these bon bon videos through my face i do it and i do it at random um i try once a quarter but i don't force it because i'm not a force you know whatever but like i said um it's like 30 second videos out to like our people right so i sent one out during christmas time and it was maybe a week or two before christmas and it was like literally me talking crap to him in the starbucks drive-thru line because that's what i do

(54:59) and like tell them all i love them and stuff but like talking crap through but like it was just me reaching that's impactful though it was yeah i stopped her vip page when she told me about it she told me to create one vip page yeah yeah probably i don't think i've been i i'm not i'm not on the vi how am i not on the vip page she let me in there because she was like and i forgot to take you i don't know are you have you even started one yet though yeah i have one good okay not keeping up with it the way she did hers

(55:35) but she let me on there and look at what i'm doing some of the authentic yes and this is something else she gave me another tool to use yeah so that was really cool i'm gonna go and show this vanity tomorrow and be like ah ma'am you haven't posted in here in three weeks you need to get on there and do a giveaway she's not getting the money ma'am but my clients you know they're all my friends they all send me funny memes we text each other back and forth we make fun of people you know

(56:02) no i don't know i don't know anything about making fun of people i don't know about that all right i'm gonna we're gonna finish i'm gonna ask one one last step not a serious question if you someone came to you today and said hey shawna give me three things three keys to success for shopping what would you there's three three things that are off the top you guys we've talked about a lot yeah just saying yeah just anyone who wants to get better in the business and it could be just in business in

(56:27) general what's been your success what are three key things that you think are i tell everyone i'm a realtor and i tell them how much i love it and they see that they see my face light up when we talk authenticity of loving what you do we talk about real estate and i get excited you know i'm i love going to look at houses with my clients so that and when you're a new agent i feel like you need to get dressed and go to your office i don't do that as much anymore i told my broker i'm going to start because it

(56:58) motivates you and make you see the other agents doing work staying busy and you want to get busy and you want to go out and get that work so that's really big advice i'm trying to preach that here in our loan officer some of these new people are not coming in and getting the energy from the office yeah and that's the key thing because at home it's so easy to just go on facebook go make something to eat so you keep getting distracted at least you're talking shopping in the office and exchanging

(57:24) ideas or experiences to grow absolutely and then probably social media social media for me has been the biggest game changer when i started posting every single thing i did every award every closing my business doubled um i got a lot of backlash from that at first because some people think you're bragging it did it came off as that people would say hey you got to stop that you know you're just you're why are you bragging so much i said you know what i'm not buying zillow leads i'm not paying for marketing my business doubled

(58:03) once i started doing this unfollow me it's just another reason to put something up there shows that you're in the business and you're actually really good at it people want to work with successful people i've had people message me randomly and say hey i used xyz for years but it looks like you're killing it and i want you to sell my house and i'm thinking in my mind oh my gosh they sell way more than i do but okay so uh exploiting social media in a obviously positive way letting everyone you know know what

(58:36) you're doing you love it absolutely and then what was the one in the middle what was number two there was the um i was trying to reach out show up show up right we would say show up and you could probably couple that with like consistency like consistent schedule consistent showing consistently showing up and get and engage with people i do have to say that engage with people don't just collect followers reach out to those people and talk to them and let them know that you know you want to know what's going on

(59:02) what are you doing in your business how is your market and that's worked for me a lot because i get a lot of referrals that's that's interesting i i picked up a tip a month or so ago i was listening to someone on and he you know when you're going on and you see someone's post on facebook actually say something with some substance to it absolutely you know versus just you know yeah i know a lot of times there's a lot of stuff we just like a lot of stuff but if you see something really exceptional

(59:25) oh wow that you know just say something write a sentence how you get engagement absolutely can i add one more thing to that list too chase every single opportunity that's in front of you opportunity opportunity don't turn away from like if you're in the if you're new and you're getting in the business and you want to you know climb to whatever get to whatever goal if there is an op even if it seems small or minor chase it relentlessly every single time can you give us an example um like let's say you

(59:52) you come into the business and you're just trying to find connections get into every single realtor group realtor mastermind social media groups whatever networking groups you know and engage and engage with those people right so like one of the best business decisions i made a couple of years ago was because i was in this networking group i watched what the people were saying i picked somebody out that i thought would be a fantastic partner for me for this side hustle that i had going and i reached out to them we set up a business plan

(1:00:22) for a whole it was an opportunity that i never would have taken had he not been in there making these comments and like having this desire to do something you had similar yeah and you chase it you know and it turned out to be an amazing opportunity it turned out to be an amazing business partnership that i grew over the years with him because of just watching and paying attention and not turning away from possibilities you know well as we talk about you know he puts people in front of us you go if you show up he's going to put people in

(1:00:50) front of you that'll give you those paths those those opportunities right there they're out there you just gotta pay attention all right we're gonna wrap this up my two minute warning questions is it more important who you know or what you know um depends on the situation right now in this market maybe who you know but um i think what you know you think so i think so i think so now who do you know will get you further sometimes but i think it's more important i i i listening to your story i think who

(1:01:23) you know is that what was the woman that you meant that berkshire hathaway you called when you said i want to be an agent had english she wasn't with berkshire but her sister was her sister was yeah i think that was your who i think that got you to your what i was just gonna say i feel like i answered this question the very first time i was on this and i don't remember what i said so i'd be interested to see but i would 100 say who you know she's gonna call me up and ask for a referral fee she'll say i'm shonda yeah girl she's on

(1:01:50) my facebook she's to see this okay i love it um what's on uh you and your husband so you have two you have two children right okay uh what do you have uh well there's a 23 even travel with you anymore or the sheep oh no we're not cool we're finally getting a little cold she does call me every day again she loves me again um 16 to 19 stage i'm the worst person in the world what's on your travel bucket list you have a family vacation or maybe just you and your husband that just want to go we

(1:02:21) have a couple vacations um planned um we don't really have time to make i mean you can't yeah travel's hard but we did buy an rv so we've been doing the whole camping thing lately getting into that yeah [Music] this is so interesting you're not the only person and i've been on my i've been on the thought process too because my kids are you know nine and she'll be nine tomorrow and 12.

(1:02:50) and we're like you know this time you go do those traveling they can actually understand what's going on you know go buy an rv because i've had numerous agents come on and say almost the exact same thing you did but you actually have gone and bought the rv yeah we absolutely love it we're boring we like the idea of friends we just don't like really hanging out with them so we go camping aaron loves it he's all about outdoors we just light a fire drink bottle of wine and that's that's our party and that's what we party dude

(1:03:18) i don't know if we talked about alcohol more or your age more on this podcast but i feel like we keep bringing them back you know i feel bad because alcohol always comes up and my small town my whole family they're you know really religious and my dad's actually told is it a dry county yeah what's really funny we don't think we talk about it that god would take the alcohol from me and i'm like daddy that's a show i don't really drink that much lightweight i drink two drinks and i'm

(1:03:48) like a high school kid yeah all right last question uh from the from the loan officer and we're gonna go out and talk to some more loan officers here you're i'm sure over the years you've probably gone through a bunch of different referral partners about do you have people that you rely on what is the number one thing that you uh require in that referral partner relationship and specifically the the loan officers that you use communication and that's how we bonded to me communication is key

(1:04:17) i don't care if you drop the ball and you completely screw everything up call me up and say shonda i screwed up it's gonna be another week but this putting you off we just need one more day and you're writing an extension we need one more day you're writing an extension and you not knowing what's going we look stupid and that was the deal we kind of bonded over because i didn't even know my buyer flipped to a bond loan and the buyer didn't know either remember that oh i remember we almost went to jail yeah i'm pretty

(1:04:48) sure i'm pretty sure everybody involved in that transaction remembers that one so communication to me is the biggest thing i don't care what happens just let me know pick up the phone text me that's for me that's the biggest thing cool ladies thanks for coming on the show always a pleasure she did awesome yeah she's going to want to come on next month and bring her ring judy and diana she's going to find something and she's like why did you let my hair sit that way i'm going to get yelled at

(1:05:22) you guys did awesome i appreciate you coming on thank you for having us thank you you