Toby and Jenna Elkins: The Elkins Group

Tracy Hayes  1:04  
Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Your host, Tracy Hayes, are you ready for an exciting and action packed episode today I have Toby Elkins, a Navy veteran who served the country for 13 years and somehow managed to even earn his bachelor's degree while in the Navy in Business Administration from Columbia College. But that's not all. He's also joined forces with his wife Jenna to form the Elkins group, a powerhouse team that has served 67 families in 2022 closed deals worth a staggering 25 million. But wait, it gets even better. In this episode, we'll be diving deep into the strategies, mindset and vision of the Elkins group has for 2023 after their incredible success in 22 join us as we welcome Toby and Jenna Elkins of the Elkins group with momentum Realty to the show.

Toby Elkins  1:54  
Thanks so much. We're really excited to be here. Yes, I thank you.

Tracy Hayes  1:57  
As we're talking pre show, I really enjoy having the couples on because you guys, I'm digging more into the top agents, and obviously couples working together is is a unique thing. And actually make it work at work and not at work is quite amazing. So we're going to dig into that today. Yes, yeah, so, but Toby, let's start off a little bit, just so everyone gets a little background on you guys. I'll start off with Toby. Start off with Toby, Jenna, and then we'll go to Jenna, Toby, where did you grow up? And then, you know what led you into the Nate, sure.

Toby Elkins  2:28  
So grew up in a small town called pint up, Arizona, maybe like 5000 people grew up there. So if you don't know, there's two ski resorts in Arizona, ones in Flagstaff, and the other one, kind of from sunrise there. And then we kind of, you know, I did a little bit of college outside of high school, didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I ended up joining the Navy. I told my parents, hey, I got to get out of here, do something. Yeah, join the Navy. And then did that for 13 years. Did what, six deployments. So six deployments away from each other, learned a lot from that. My family has some background in real estate, and that's kind of how I jumped

Tracy Hayes  2:59  
into that. Because, I mean, from what I could tell from your LinkedIn, and then just translating what's online to what you're telling me now, you actually it wasn't something like, immediately, like, after high school, you're like, Oh, I'm gonna join the Navy. You know, that summer you came out and started to work a little bit, and we're like, I at some point, you're like, you know what? I just I've got to get out here.

Toby Elkins  3:18  
Yeah. So sports all in high school, baseball, basketball, football. So I did a little bit of play college baseball at a community college. Kind of thought, you know, everyone pro athlete, you know, and then you hit the reality, we're like, oh, it's a lot harder than you think. So I, you know, I had some odd jobs. I was like a manager at fut Ruckers, which was nice.

Tracy Hayes  3:35  
My favorite hamburger. I put that in the top five hamburger places

Jenna Elkins  3:40  
because he's very proud of that job. I'm very proud for

Toby Elkins  3:43  
murders and shakes and then that was in Phoenix at the time. But I didn't really have a lot of direction at the time. I was a young kid, so I moved back home. I started working at a car sales place for one of my friends their parents owned. It wasn't really in the sales side. Is more just like cleaning cars. Yeah, and I became the head high school baseball coach there to get back a little bit, because I love baseball. And then at that point, you know, I wasn't really in school at the time anymore. I was like, you know, my uncles actually lives in Jacksonville. He was in the Navy as well. So kind of talked a little bit about that. And then I was like, I think I'm going

Tracy Hayes  4:14  
to join the so what was your What did? What was your occupation in the Navy? What in

Toby Elkins  4:18  
the Navy? So I was on the aviation side. So it's called a wo so I did a lot of the I was in the back of the plane. It was crazy. You're in the Navy, but I was never on a ship once.

Tracy Hayes  4:27  
So well my meeting, when he said air service, I saw immediately, I figured you were on a carrier. That was

Toby Elkins  4:31  
my has a big plane. They're all stationed at NAS Jax here. It's like a 776, 67

Tracy Hayes  4:37  
but it's called, they're fighting for submarines. Yep, it was a

Toby Elkins  4:40  
p3 and then it transitioned to a p8 the new planes. So they had different roles in the back. I was more of the electronic warfare to the radar electronic work, the camera work. And then there was another role for some other people that were doing that dropped the sonic buoys, and then right, you track it with the sonar. And then we're, you know, tactically, right?

Tracy Hayes  4:56  
Pax River is another or, well, I don't know if it's still up operation. Pax River is another

Toby Elkins  5:01  
where we were stationed in PAX for three years. Jenna called it hard time. Three years hard time. Three years hard time. There's a lot to do with there. It wasn't that for me,

Unknown Speaker  5:09  
because I was, like, kind of that far from DC, though. I mean, I mean,

Jenna Elkins  5:13  
yeah, it's, it's, there's Amish country, country in between where we were living and the airport, and I was traveling a lot for work. So it was just very in the middle of nowhere for us. Yeah, pretty much live in

Toby Elkins  5:23  
DC or Baltimore every week. I'm trying

Tracy Hayes  5:25  
to remember what year I want to say it was like 9495 ish, before your time. A good friend of mine. He was actually a civilian attorney for nav, fact, the naval facilities command at the time, and he was stationed at Pax River. So I was living in Centerville, Virginia, so a couple times, like, on the weekend, because he had officer status at the base, so he could go out and play on the golf course. So we'd go out and play nice, you know, yeah, on the go your golf course overlooking and of course, those planes were coming in and out all the time, because those guys are getting their hours and touches down. Yeah, Jenna, give us a little background on you. And then, when do you run into this guy? Yeah.

Jenna Elkins  6:03  
So I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, about 20 miles north of Boston. Grew up there, went to college at Northeastern University, and after college, immediately got into event planning work. So I was in corporate event planning for about 12 years, traveled all over the world, planned massive events for mainly large events for about 10,000 people, and then covid hit and and that was sort of how I transitioned into the real estate role. That was sort of like a backup for me.

Tracy Hayes  6:30  
So was the event planning just something that came about? Or does it was actually an interest of yours at the time, or just an opportunity that you you took to and went with?

Jenna Elkins  6:40  
Yeah, I've always loved event planning, and I still do. I still kind of have my hands in it, but I grew up just planning all events for my friends. I was class president in high school, so I was planning all the proms and everything. And then Northeastern is an internship college, so you work six months out of the year, and you go to school six months out of the year. So my last internship was in event planning, and I kept that job for about 11 years.

Tracy Hayes  7:04  
So I was looking on your LinkedIn in you most recently, went back and got your masters recently. Excellent. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Yes, they're up. Did you do that kind of online thing?

Jenna Elkins  7:16  
Yeah, I went through Northeastern again and did the online What

Tracy Hayes  7:19  
is it like? You know, I, you know, obviously I'm old school, and I'm older than you guys. So the the online thing to me, I can't stand this, watching these webinars. Yeah, you know, Joe, we have, I mean, loan depot has all this training and, I mean, it's, it's overwhelming the amount of stuff that's out there. But how do you stay focused on, you know, in getting a master's degree online? I mean, is there, did you feel you had a have discipline yourself to stay with it?

Jenna Elkins  7:45  
I think I'm just a very self disciplined person to begin with. When I have my mindset to something I'm I'm going to get it done. I think with the with the online MBA, course, you miss a lot of the personal connections that you would make if you were attending classes, right, meeting the professors and all of that. But for me, it was just, you know, powering through and getting it done, a lot of reading, a lot of listening to, like you said, webcasts and all of that stuff. But it

Tracy Hayes  8:11  
wasn't well, actually, I have more attention to the YouTube videos, and I do some of these webinars. Yeah, go on because I guess, I guess sometimes I can pause it and, you know, go back or, yeah, I just always, I have thought about it and go last 20 years. So should I go get a master's degree? And can I actually, do I have the discipline? Because when I was in college, I had to learn how to learn. And one of the things was sitting in the front row and, you know, taking, you know, taking dubious notes and so forth, is, you know, the online thing. Am I able? Am I going to be able am I going to be able to stay focused? That's always been just so that's why I wanted to ask. That's that question, when you

Jenna Elkins  8:46  
when it came up, but when do you guys have when we met? We actually met at a party in Arizona, at Arizona State, and I was visiting a friend from high school, friends with her. He was good friends with and we played beer pong, and I beat him in beer.

Unknown Speaker  9:03  
She's the one, yeah, I still do.

Tracy Hayes  9:10  
You know, that's interesting. I think the cotton team met in a very similar situation. They were at kind of a friend's party type thing, and she actually made more advanced towards him. He was, Josh is a little more reserved. So you're not even in the Navy yet.

Toby Elkins  9:30  
Wasn't in the Navy yet. So we were like, you know, get instant connection. We were young and broke, you know, have a job. Okay? How's this gonna work? I was still living

Tracy Hayes  9:39  
in Boston. Well, you know, I'm trying to the dynamic too, of because that you're still going to school at this time, you're a full time student, and here's this guy who just graduated from high school. What's he going to do with his life?

Jenna Elkins  9:52  
I don't think, I thought at the time that I was going to marry

Toby Elkins  9:57  
So, yeah, so that, you know, we were like, mess. She not Aim. Aim. That's when aim was,

Tracy Hayes  10:02  
yeah, we lost. I still have an AOL email address. My personal email is AOL, yeah.

Toby Elkins  10:07  
And then we last touched for a couple years. And then I, you know, I joined the Navy, and I told her friend, I was like, Hey, do you have Jenna's number? Because, you know, I had camp, and then I was getting stationed up in Maine, oh, I was stationed up in Maine Brunswick, which is like, two hours from Boston, she was in Boston, so I got her number and text her. And awesome. That's kind of how, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  10:27  
oh, that's really cool. That's really cool. How that happened. You know, what's the chances that you knew you were gonna, you know, end up in Maine, but you end up in Maine, and, you know, of all the 1000s other places they could have sent you, yeah, that's awesome. I grew up on Cape Cod. I was born in New York, but really good. But really on Cape Cod, and graduated high school there, but I came south for college. Well, Charleston's a little nicer. So you're 13. I'm just imagining you. Fill in the gaps here. You spent 13 years. You we, as I mentioned in the intro, during that time, it looked like because I saw your time, you got your degree. Took advantage of that the Navy got your degree at that time, 13 years comes up. You decide you're not going to enlist again, and you're already in Jacksonville. Is that kind of Yeah?

Toby Elkins  11:12  
So, yeah. So we were up in Maine, and then I went on my first deployment to El Salvador. We're doing like, drug ops down there, and we were moving, the whole base was shutting down. We're moving to Jacksonville, and so Jenna came down with me. And then, so, like, I did a couple more deployments in like, the Middle East, and then, like, my six year mark, I wanted to, like I was talking about, I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, maybe nurse, maybe do this. I have no idea. I was a cop. You know, it just wasn't the right time. We didn't have enough in savings to make that move. Jenna was working at the time. She was breadwinner, for sure. So during that time, you know, like, a couple years before I got out, I knew that I finally hit it. I was like, All right, this makes sense. I'm gonna get into real estate. My dad did it after his job of 30 years, and then my he works with my sister. My brother's a wholesaler in Arizona as well, so I kind of knew a little bit about it. But obviously the market's different from here and there. So all I really did is I started building relationships with all my, you know, Navy buddies and sisters. So I made sure to never burn any bridges or anything like that. So when I made the move was a little crazy, because Jenna was in a job transition too because of the covid thing, yeah? So we didn't really have any income for a couple months, yeah. So it was like, you have to make this work. And so my last deployment, I was doing tons of research, just looking all the different brokerages. And I didn't know what I didn't know, right? So I was just looking at the numbers. I'm more of like, you know, I can figure stuff out on my own, trying to learn it. So look at podcasts, everything like that. And then that's how I went to exp first, because it was I get to work from home. Already. Got the discipline and everything from the Navy, which is great. So got some couples, good skill sets, communication, stuff like that, through that way. So kind of hit the ground run. I had a couple deals right off the bat, which was nice. And I remember I have this thing the first check. I feel like I'm saved that forever, because, man, I did this for 1213, years, and I got my first check like this. That's awesome. Yeah, yes. Kind of hit the ground running. And then first year still didn't really know what I was. Know what I was doing, just taking action, you know, reaching out as many people as possible. Well, let's,

Tracy Hayes  13:07  
let's dig in a little bit to that. Like I said, one of the things I the podcast for is, if we got people who are thinking about being an agent, like you were, you were listening to podcasts, maybe you're listening to this or, you know, there's a lot of agents out there that have hit a lid or or are struggling through, I know, like Heather Perez, it took her several years before, you know, figuring out. Of course, she started at a very young age. So what were, what was exp doing? I mean, I guess someone you ran into recruited you into exp. So where did that action happen? And you what were some of the things that they help you with some initial things to do? Or you were just totally, hey, I had to go on YouTube and find out what people do to get their real estate business going.

Toby Elkins  13:48  
Pretty much, yeah. So, yeah, they, you know, they a lot of brokers do too, like, sponsor someone coming in. So with that, you know, I was listening to podcasts trying to figure out, like, how do I get coached? I had, like, really, no guidance or anything. Like, I didn't really know how to do anything, so I was going through YouTube, podcasts, anything. I stumbled off across some other ones. You know, one in particular that was, you know, they're probably aside, but they were, you know, trying to get recruiting people to exp. And one of the people that they were interviewing, you know, he's in South Carolina. I don't know him personally. I just reached out because they give him the number, and that's how I got connected. P but I knew the numbers and the splits, everything kind of made sense. But still, I didn't really know anything about real estate. I really still don't. So that's kind of what led me there. And it's just, you know, I just kind of had to learn on my own. But with the XP, It's great though, too, because especially, like, I mean, every broker just like this too, they had, they had great training for me, and I soaked it all in. And, you know, I love to learn. And then, you know, they have a program, you know, like for your first three deals, get help with your contracts, right?

Tracy Hayes  14:44  
I'm trying to remember who I had on was mentioning that well, the whole and not to put exp down, because I've had exp agents. There's people do it really well. But real estate in general is a lot of times these brokerages are set up, like multi level marketing things. And the best. Best teams that I've ever seen, having been involved in my 30 years post college in some different Mark multi level marketing. The guys that are really making it are pouring the consistent personal development in their own trainings, in back into their downline, so to speak. And so, yeah, if you join a exp team, where there you don't have someone who's consistently pouring into you. And what's interesting you said about you heard them on a podcast is, I know, and it might be that person, someone was telling me there was some Asian who's they set up a podcast, and they invited all these people in, and they, of course, introduced them to exp, and now they live in Puerto Rico, and you know, exactly we might have talked about that when we met the first time. So when do you actually envision the Elkins group? When does Jenna join you here and and start helping you out with some of the back ends?

Toby Elkins  15:52  
Sure, so it was probably towards the end the first year I would go, like, you know, a couple deals, and then not, didn't have anything like a month. And I was like, Oh, this is crazy. I don't I'm not building it much consistency or, like, some momentum going. But then I finally started to figure it out, like, around six to seven, six or seven year, mark or mark, yeah. And so, you know, I told Jen, I was like, hey, you know, I'm starting to get pretty busy. This is why I'm working to like, 11pm midnight, sometimes one in the morning, because she's like, You got to shut it down. I was like, I was like, I can't shut it down, because it's the customer. Think about the customer. And then I was like, you know, get your license. I mean, we work together, you know, we get along great. I was married for going 12 years. I was like, I'll get you up to speed as fast as I can. So she got her license towards the end of the first year. And then, you know, we've been trying to

Tracy Hayes  16:39  
figure it out still, how we I need to do you what you just said, sounds like my wife right now. And I keep telling her she needs, no, it's not going to be me. I could tell you that I could not be her operationals back office because I am not attention to detail, but to have that because, yes, you know she's, you know, the the whether you've got a listing appointment and then you got buyers you're trying to show around, and you're you you know, obviously want to focus on that. In that situation, if you got to, especially with a listing, make sure that listing is, you know, squared away and it's ready to go, you know. And of course, they want it on as soon as possible. But, you know, there's things that need to be done. Yeah, sometimes you got to get over there and do some of those things to help them get it ready. It takes up a lot of time. And the next thing I know, yeah, she's on the computer into the evening. I'm like, what could you be doing? But, yeah, but there's agents who are messaging. There's agent skeleton scheduling showings. I know she literally had a listing. I stuck the sign in the yard on there's my operations. I stuck the sign in the yard for on Thursday, and literally, immediately, was three showings on Friday, a dozen or more showings on Saturday, you know. And you know, she's scrambling around, and she's, you know, she's a looks like so slightly towards the perfectionist side. And wanting that house to look is the best it does. Like she said, I need to run over and turn the lights on. It looks a lot better when all the lights are on. You know, that kind of thing. No. So Jenna, where did you you saw his pain? Yeah. Where did you see? Were you going to step in and help?

Jenna Elkins  18:15  
Well, it's interesting, because, you know, you were talking about EXP and, you know, I think that if I was joining or if I was running real estate organically, I never could have vibed exp. I just, I love I'm a people person. I love community, and so for me, I mean, I think exp has been a wonderful brokerage for us, but it didn't feel the personal engagement that I think would have helped me drive. So I really, like, kind of held on to his coattails. And, you know, I think the transition from, you know, seeing him, you know, up all night till three in the morning, watching these videos, trying to learn, and just being like, what is going on. But then when covid hit, and I really did need a backup plan, it kind of forced me into, okay, let's try this. And so it took us a while to kind of work through the kinks and figure out, you know, I don't love the cold calling, I don't love going out and getting the business. It's really hard for me to pick up the phone and call someone out of the blue and get rejected, like it just, it ruins my and I'm working on it, but it's very it's very difficult for me, so we kind of ironed out the kinks. And I'm a problem solver. It's like a natural thing for me being in events. And so pretty much, what we've worked out is, you know, once they get under contract, I'm there through the end. I'm working out the deals on, you know, the infection report, and helping them with all the obstacles and the negotiations and stuff like that, which I which I

Toby Elkins  19:41  
love, right? I'm still there, but she takes the lead completely. Yeah, if they need to talk, if I'm, you know, if I did all the showing, if I have the rapport, you know, I connect her immediately with the with, you know, the customer,

Tracy Hayes  19:51  
yeah, I can see the transition from the event planning to what you're doing now, because you're a detail oriented person. Person, yeah, and eventually, and then on every event, you have the details ironed out, but we know it ain't gonna happen that way, and you're prepared to handle the issues like a like a real estate transaction, no real estate transaction goes through perfectly smooth, and maybe just a small thing where something, something small, needs to be repaired. Hopefully, that's it. But there's others that, you know, go awry, whether it's in the lending side, the home's not there, or the appraisal comes in low, or whatever it is there's, there's always something that throws a little wrench in the engine. But I can see, you know, you direct, how that directly correlates with the because it is an event. I think people I don't know, they don't understand. I do a lot of events. I'm president my Alumni Association, so I hold several events. But even when I, if I'm doing a seminar like next week at the St John's board, I'm going to start hitting the social media out there now say, hey, you need to be there. You need to be there. You need to be there. And because you got to create, create that momentum going in, I see a lot of people from an event planning. Just to go off of my slight little tangent here, they plan an event and think, because they just post it once on Facebook, that everyone's just going to be like, looking for events that day. There's a lot of things going on in our in the real estate world, right? But when it comes down to the customer, it's an event for them. Oh, yeah. And you're in your detail that's got it ironed, planned out this is going to happen on these days, knowing that it may not happen, that they might get pushed out a day, but you're prepared for that, because

Toby Elkins  21:27  
you're used to that. Yeah, she's really good at it, yeah.

Jenna Elkins  21:29  
And I think communication is the biggest thing, too. As you said, right? You can't just put an event out there and expect that everyone's going to come. It's making sure that they're informed throughout the process. And I feel like that's one of the things that we really try really hard to do is just making sure that, you know, there's not a lot of lag in between the times that we're communicating with them, that they know. Here's what's happening. We're waiting for the appraisal. We're waiting on this. And that's, I think that's been one of the reasons our customers come.

Toby Elkins  21:53  
We're really big on that, is the education. So it doesn't matter if it's first time buyer, if they bought like, 10 homes, you know, we always treat them the same. Because I remember when we bought our first place and we sold, not saying anything bad about the other agent, but we didn't. They didn't really tell us anything you know. So we didn't really know what was going on. We just you know, because you're you're putting all your trust into them. So what we do is make sure to disclose everything at the same time, I want to make sure you know they know what their appraisal is. They know that in the contingency contingency, they know what a binder is. They know, you know what seller credits are, concessions like all that, because I feel like it's really more parks. We're all on the same team, you know. So at the end of the day, when they're done, they have that great experience, and then they tell their friends. So, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  22:33  
I mean, Jenna, how important? What I mean, because you're well, each of you answer this question, actually. I mean, how important is it just to set the expectations for them like you said, giving them a little giving. Hey, you're gonna, you know, this is what the escrow is gonna have. You're, you know, I was just working client. I got a process here today. Yes, here's your insurance. They're gonna put it all together. That's gonna be part of your cash to close. So she's, oh, great, thank you. You know, she's not closing for another couple of weeks, but now she's not worried about paying that out. Now, you know, taking that little bit of time to educate now, okay, now we got the policy set. This is what we're gonna do. You're just gonna, that's gonna be part of your cash to close, and you don't, you just, we're gonna bring it all at closing. How important is it? You know, up front to set those expectations with your buyer or seller?

Toby Elkins  23:20  
Very important, because if you don't, and then they get that settlement statement, or the Alt and they check it out, and they don't know what that is, there's gonna be some issues, and you're gonna have to talk about it, and then, you know, sometimes you're gonna have to eat it, you know, like, what it is. I mean, we do that quite a bit. Who's better at explaining the Alta,

Jenna Elkins  23:37  
oh, I think he is. I think that, I think he's really good at, to be honest, it's, it's setting expectations, whether you're a seller or a buyer, about the market in general, and just letting people know, you know, you put your house on the market, the market shifted. It's not going to get 10 offers right off the bat like it did three months ago and and so people know what they're getting into, but it's also a very emotional experience for people. And so I feel like Toby's really good at, you know, taking the emotion out of it and being very matter of fact. So I definitely think that I hand that off. Are you

Tracy Hayes  24:12  
the shoulder they cry on? So this is came up in another, you know, team, and I can't remember. I think I've actually asked for a couple teams, because you have, you have different personalities, or just even a male female situation, where have you found the customer bond to one of you more than the other, like tote, maybe going out and did that listing appointment, and then, of course, he introduced me, but then they're just calling you all the time. Jenna, yeah, they just and vice versa, just today, on who they kind of connect with, kind of as I always, I The analogy I use is like the the kids, you know, they always want to go to mom to get the answer, because dad will tell it. So, yeah,

Toby Elkins  24:51  
we talk about this every now and then, because, like, if we get customer when I like, I can tell, like, their personality, how, you know, how they approach their communications and everything like that. And if it's a better fit for Jenna to do it, then, you know, I'm like, I'm gonna pass I'm still here, right? Like, the help or anything, but like, you're gonna take this customer because it's gonna be a better fit for your for this, for this person,

Jenna Elkins  25:11  
yeah, and sometimes we've done listing appointments where we'll go together and you know, he'll talk the numbers and he'll talk the details, and I'll go around the house and comment on things and talk about how things should be placed and stuff like that, and that's worked really well too. Yeah. What have

Tracy Hayes  25:26  
you in the recent market conditions, from what I am understanding listening to agents, is the pricing of the home is very important. You could have two homes in the same listed at the same price point. One's listed at the correct price point. One is not how important is it when you're sitting down, especially recently, last three to six months, and really honing in on the price, and when you have that customer who wants to, well, I mean, they want to charge less, and you tell them more, I guess they're not going to argue with that too much, but obviously thinks their house is worth more. I mean, how are you handling that kind of discussion?

Toby Elkins  26:02  
Yeah, so that's setting expectations up front. You have to before they sign anything. To be on the same team, you have to be on the same level, because pricing now compared to what it was. I mean, you could price it whatever you wanted, like you're you know, you offer right, as long as they're covering the appraisal gap, not offer the term for representing the seller. But now it's everything, because it's gonna sit longer. And the longer it sits, the consumer is gonna be like, Why is that sitting? You know, it depends on their skill set of their agent. To let them know is because interest rates are higher. There's more, there's more, you know, supply, it's a little less than 10, but it started, you know, it's gonna get better. So pricing is everything. So if you're looking at that in a neighborhood, you're letting them know like, Hey, this is your competition, you know. So if you're a little bit lower than what it is, and depending on the different variables, that other property has been on the, you know, the market a little longer, right? You just got to position yourself going in the right way, yeah.

Jenna Elkins  26:51  
And I think, you know, we've had a recent customer who was really proud of his house and want has to sell it, but wanted to price it higher. And, you know, ultimately, it's their say, right? They they want to price it at a certain point. You say, Okay, and, and the expectation is that, you know, there's three other houses in your neighborhood that are priced lower, so it's going to sit a little bit longer. If you're willing to wait, that's fine. And it's, I mean, it's always just a constant conversation. Oh, you know, check in every week and let them know how many showings there are. And then this is, yeah, it's like, it's

Toby Elkins  27:25  
like, the pricing thing is very important the beginning. It's like, one of the most important things, but it's also like, setting expectations, like, how often you're gonna, you know, if you don't have a certain amount of showings or offers by this, or we're probably the market size, it's gonna be, we're gonna need a price adjustment, right? So, you know, just, just having that stuff, those conversations up front, it goes a long way.

Tracy Hayes  27:46  
As a real estate agent, how much does that that digs into you? Does? What's that when you, when you even, even when the customer priced the home, they insisted, no, no, I got to get that extra 20 grand, or whatever, even though you went, because when you go with them, you're already

Speaker 1  28:03  
okay. We'll do it because you said so.

Tracy Hayes  28:06  
But I'm recommending here. I mean, it digs at you dick, because you're not seeing it in you know, I've dealt brag about my wife a little bit. She's had two listings in the last two months. And literally, they went on one on Friday, one went on Thursday, by Monday, they had their offers. They had multiple offers. One even went for 20 grand higher in all in the last couple of months. And where she's telling me how much she worked to obviously educate the buyer that that's the right price to sell it for the buyer. Thought the house was going to sit for six months, and now it's under contract, right? And but it digs into you when you know that house is sitting there, and it's a good house, but just because of the price, that little thing is just setting everyone off, and you're not getting the hits like you are in social media, right?

Speaker 1  28:56  
You don't get the hits, yeah? And it's that right price, you just don't get those initial hits. Yeah?

Toby Elkins  29:01  
I mean, it's tough, but at the end of the day, that's, it's the customer's choice. You're just educate and let her know, like, hey, we know the market. We work here. We've lived here for a long time. This is what is going on currently. Yeah, if you do that, we can do that, but it's gonna sit right, you know?

Tracy Hayes  29:17  
No, I wish that I don't you know if a buyer or maybe a future someone listening the house with you, or thinking about you guys as listening to this and this is happening around them, because I, you know, talking to the agents, that's the differences of the house sitting for weeks or not being sold yet, versus that house set the first weekend had multiple offers. Is what the agents are telling me, is, is it priced right?

Toby Elkins  29:40  
Yeah. And you know what? It really matters, though, obviously it depends on the customer, but there's so many variables, right? Yeah. So like, what if they, you know, they have to buy, if it's contingent on that sale, to buy the next property, then they're Pro, they're going to be more willing to listen, right? Aggressive, correct? Hopefully, right? No, hopefully. Because otherwise, you know, it's a lot of pressure, so, but if they don't, if it. Can sit, it can sit, but the pricing is everything.

Tracy Hayes  30:02  
I'm gonna just to step off, well, just kind of step back, actually, just a moment, because I had this question in here, and I think this is very important for all of our veterans. You know, the transition from, you know, 13 years, you know, you're that structured environment. I had Jordan, Jordan planko, he put over a decade, I can't remember exactly how many years, but roughly about the same amount of years, you and then they amount of years you in the Navy and to come out of that structured environment and into real estate literally overnight. You know, you, like you said, you left the Navy, you you know now, where's my next paycheck going to come from? From that standpoint, what are some things, you know, two or three things that you would recommend to your your your brothers and sisters out there who are in the service and are coming out, and whether it's real estate or whatever, what are some things they could start preparing themselves for? I think you started preparing before, obviously, a couple years before. Yeah, give them a couple tips. Yeah, it

Toby Elkins  30:52  
depends on their goals. So if they're trying to look to retire, they'll do their 20 so they get their pension and everything. Obviously, then you have some time procrastinate at all. A lot of people that I know procrastinate to the very end. They don't really know what they're going to do, and then they have, you know, they're forced to get in a job either, you know, they have kids or whatnot, family. But what I you know, what I recommend, what I did, you don't have to go two years, but like, start looking at least a year out just to get an idea of what you want to do. There's tons of great programs out there too. You know that you got your tap class, everything like that. There's, there's a non profit that we're going to be start working with that helps veterans, you know, transition from that, from that career to the civilian world. There's all those different programs, but it's mostly like just getting out there and being vulnerable and talk.

Tracy Hayes  31:35  
Would you agree that they they kind of have to get out of the box? Because I think one of the challenges with being in the service and coming out, and I know these different groups that are trying to help the veterans who are coming out there, is not always a direct relation to what you are doing there, but there are things that your those skills can be translated over into something else, or in your case, your self discipline, the structured environment that you were coming from, you took that, and now, of course, now you're civilian. So Allison, there's no more structure. You created your own structure. Correct?

Toby Elkins  32:10  
That was a big reason why I joined the Navy too, is because I need a discipline, a young kid, I needed that. And, you know, the biggest thing I think, out of the military get is the best thing is perspective. So you're going, you know, on those deployments for six, seven months, there's all these roles, crazy roles. I hated it still, but what you get out of it is you learn discipline and you learn patience, which is very relatable to, you know, the civilian side, because that's, I think that's why we, you know, do good with our customers, because we're patient, we're disciplined, and kind of take the motion out, right? I mean, right,

Jenna Elkins  32:45  
but I think, I think just building on that, I think one of the things that was a little difficult for you, just from, from, you know, observing, was, you know, the and even a lot of our buyers and sellers are our military, or former military, and so working with VA buyers, they are on top of it. They sign the contracts, they they, I mean, they're, they're just deadlines. Are deadlines, right, right? And then you work with some of the civilian side, and I remember him getting really impatient by one thing, just Simon and and I'm like, Toby, this is a real world. Not everyone is, you know, disciplined like that. And so that was, like a little bit of a transition for, yeah,

Toby Elkins  33:23  
it could be anything that buyer. So I could be another agent over there. I'm like, All right, we got the inspection done the next day, and then we got it all here's RTA, we sent it over there for repairs, like John, why aren't they signed? Like, that day's not what they do,

Tracy Hayes  33:36  
making the command decision. I took, I took the the assessment that John gives. I don't know if you've taken that yet, where it tell it breaks down. I think it's 35 or 3836 personalities, and it breaks down. You know, of course, you want to focus on what's your five things? And one of the clear things in there is for for me, and I think you probably fall in, is we make a command decision and we go forward. We don't all even need to know all the details. We just know, you know, we've got to get from here to there. Let's start the journey. Let's go because we're going to sit here and procrastinate

Toby Elkins  34:10  
over that is the same, yeah, like, that's really important. That's what we did. You just got to take action. Take action. Otherwise, if you don't take action, then you're just going to think about it. You want to try perfect. It's never going to be perfect, and by the time you do think it's perfect, it's perfect, it's years down the road. You got to take action. That's how you make mistakes. Well, you are going to make mistakes, but that's how

Jenna Elkins  34:29  
you learn, you know, so flying the plane while you're building it, yes, I want to, I'm going

Tracy Hayes  34:36  
to ask this question, but slightly different to each of you, but a similar question, because I just went from the now you've been what? Three years. Yeah, we just Yeah, three years. So what are, if you look back, what you know now, you know, I think you kind of mentioned the EXP thing you that you probably would have searched out a more structured brokerage to feed you at that time. But, yeah. You only knew what you only know what you know. But what are? What are two things that you you did and you've probably obviously changed, because you guys are doing really well, but two things you were doing initially that you know, you would recommend, recommend to a new agent that you know, I don't, I did that I wouldn't recommend doing. Those are, those are a couple mistakes or a couple of learning, right?

Toby Elkins  35:20  
Like, in my first year too. Like, I said, I didn't know what. I didn't know why shiny things out there, and there's a lot of people wanting to pay money and all that stuff, that stuff that doesn't work. You know, what it really comes down to is, like, you know, I get asked all the time, like, hey, I want to get started doing this real estate. I'm like, That's great. Like, let's go, let's go get a coffee. Let's talk about it. You know, sometimes they don't show up. You know, it's like, showing up first. That's number one. Number two is, is that it's not like, I tell them, it's like, real estate's not what you think it is when you see on social media. Like, I really like doing that stuff, but I have to do it. You got to be top of but like, comes out, it's work. You got to work. It's a lot of hard work.

Jenna Elkins  35:54  
So, I mean, in terms of things, I know, there's things that you we would recommend doing. I think I, from my perspective, it's not a lot of what I wouldn't do, because I think for me, it's like building those connections with people that you trust is super important. So we found, you know, a lender that has been, you know, had our back for for three years now, and we've, we've got a transaction coordinator that, you know, is tons of experience in the business and has been really supportive of us. And I think building connections with people that you trust is it is so important. And so I think one of the things that I would have done differently starting out is hopefully joining a brokerage like we're in now, momentum where, you know, the culture is just unbelievable, and it's, you know, it's so positive, and everyone's just like vulnerable and trying to support each other wins and losses. So I think that would have, you know, I've been in and out of wanting to stay in real estate or get out of it and go back into event planning, but I think now I'm just, I'm really feeling inspired by the passion that these people have, and I think that I probably that's the big thing. I would have changed from the beginning for us. Yeah, all right, so

Tracy Hayes  37:03  
you are, you're gonna, I'm gonna create my own question. Now I'm gonna go off my sheet here, because you brought up something very important there. So someone's starting new. You guys, you from what I just translated from what you just told me. It was the relationships that you, that you had, in this case, it was the lender, and you had a transaction coordinator that really kind of gave you a peace of mind, took a load off of you, as far as those, those particular pieces of the real estate puzzle, right? So, if someone is starting new, what are some ways that they can, I mean, because now, as a lender going in, you know, having coffee with people who haven't produced anything is can be hit or miss, and a lot of times it's the newest of agents go get coffee appointments with the newest of loan officers of having written a loan yet, you know they'll they'll have that appointment because they both are in the same field where that agent that can really knows what they're doing, they're sort of Busy, and they're looking at, ah, you've only done a couple transactions, or if any, and do I have time? You know for you, you know occasionally that you know you run into, run into, so how would you make force that if you're a new agent, to take your book? What you're saying is get some of those relationships together, whether it's other real estate agents that you can get on the phone with answer questions, or the other this all the support vendors that we have in our industry.

Jenna Elkins  38:27  
So in my opinion, I don't think you can force it like I think you have to have that drive that says, I want to do this job, and you have to, I mean, having mentors is really important. But you know, we were talking about this yesterday. It's like, how do you get these agents to produce more to to actually show up you? I mean, that has to be some sort of self motivation for them to show up. But I think if you work at building a community of people around you that that have your back and are there, you know, I know Toby or I, in a heartbeat, would go out and have coffee with someone who's interested in getting in the business, but you can pretty much sniff out what, whether or not that they have the motivation to be in this job. I mean, we've been approached by some people getting out of the Navy who have said, you know, we want to, we want to get into real estate now, because we don't, we don't want to work that hard. We just kind of want to do our own thing and not work that hard. And not work that hard. And then it's like, okay, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  39:26  
I'm gonna, we're gonna get on that subject here in a minute of the working, the working hard, it's a different work than you, than your time when I, when I use the term force is you have, I guess there's lack of better word, meaning you have to actually go out in but make those interactions. You have to show up for the coffee appointment. You have to go to some of these socials because you're going to meet people that you know you don't necessarily cross paths every day, right? Yeah, a lender is not necessarily your neighbor. You know. You've got to go out and start interacting and mixing and mingling with the. Was, you know, especially the quality people in our industry.

Toby Elkins  40:03  
It's like, I mean, I remember, it was only three years ago. I was a new agent. So know what it feels like. So if you are like, Yeah, you gotta go out. You gotta show up. You gotta find other agents that are producing because and then emulate what they're doing, take some of their things and make it your own. That's the best way to do it. And then and to get connections, because they've been in the business for a while. So they can, you know, they can point you over here. Hey, this is a good idea over here. Hey, this is a good idea over here. Check this out. Check this out. But it's really, the motivation is really has to

Jenna Elkins  40:27  
be on them to begin with. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think we have been as good at showing up to some of these larger events recently. I think some of the stuff that we've done is like, one on one connections with people, you know, I think whatever feels better for the agent, I think is really important, but it's a matter of putting yourself out there and just making that one on one connection with someone who can teach you something. Everybody has something to share.

Tracy Hayes  40:51  
Hey, folks, this episode was produced by streamline media, the number one media company for helping brands generate content that converts I knew I wanted to start a podcast to reach more people and bring value to the world, but I did not have the time or the knowledge. Streamlined media became my secret weapon to building my show. They handle all my back end work, production and strategies to keep my show going strong. If you're in the real estate business and looking to make content that generates more leads and brings in more revenue, check out the streamline media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to real estate excellence. I heard something I know. I've heard this before, and if you've been in any sales or especially multi level marketing, your effectiveness is oftentimes related to, you know, how many people know you, you're you're getting out there. I was one reason why, why I started the podcast, right? I, you know, to come in, add value to you guys, but then I get to meet every, every one of you, the to go out and actually, like you said, showing up, whether it's one on one, because you're more comfortable with that, or you like going to a Jack's real producers event where there's a bunch of people around, but generally, most of those people already all. Most of those people already know each other. There's only a handful, you know, there's some people like, well, maybe we haven't interacted, but I know who you are. You know, type of, type of thing goes on, so to get out in in I think one of the things you like you said your your navy friends, brothers and sisters calling you. I want to be well, you got to get out. Start meeting people. You gotta start shaking hands. You. You mentioned it earlier. You know, the last couple years, you spent a lot of time trying to build the best relationships you can with the brothers and sisters you were working with before you got out.

Toby Elkins  42:36  
I did, and I was, I didn't ever bring up real estate. I never told them what I just I made sure to make connection. I mean, it's a good thing that you should be doing

Speaker 1  42:42  
this anyway. Should be doing this anyways, right? Nice. Now, you have a reason

Toby Elkins  42:45  
to right? But, like, it's just being friends with everyone. Oh, and just, like, being there for them. And it just, you know, especially, like, now this is one thing I miss about the Navy, the camaraderie, you know, like, like the people you're around. So I'm, I'm not around that many people anymore unless they work together. So it's constantly, always commenting on their posts, knowing what's going on in their life. Because it's, you know, it makes them feel, it makes me feel so

Tracy Hayes  43:12  
well, there's in, there's definitely a bond in, I think, the military you've treaded over the same turf, you know, whether it's been at one naval installation or another. You've been there? Oh, yeah, I was stationed Jackson. I've been stationed in Maine, or wherever, you know, wherever you went to boot camp, that sort of thing. And you, you have a bond, whether you were serving at the same time or 20 years different, you know, you were on the same ship, or some, you know, it just you were on a ship, or, in this case, you weren't, but, but it's a bond. There is a bond. There is a bond there. That's why I

Toby Elkins  43:46  
always have the hashtag Nate. Trust me. Navy, trust navy.

Tracy Hayes  43:49  
I'm gonna put that, I'm gonna, I'll make that a little Canva thing. All right. Well, you, you said something there about like, making remarks on their social media posts and so forth. Which leads me into one question, what is your because I imagine you're kind of leading the prospecting. Yeah. So what is, what is your favorite way? And the reason why I asked this because John Brooks drills down on this for you guys and tries to help everyone find their niche in prospecting, because everyone's a little different. What is your, you know, your go to prospecting that you can, you know, 10x yeah.

Toby Elkins  44:26  
So a lot of business for Facebook. Don't pay for any ads or anything like that. One's probably because I don't know how to make it, yeah, it's always reaching out to people like that. My first year, because I had to, I didn't know where I was gonna get business, so I did a lot of cold calling. So I had to figure out how to do that. Followed a couple people that successfully online. Did that for a while, and I was like, I really suck at this, but it's starting to work a little bit. And then I got a couple transactions under my belt with, like, some Navy people, but I have a, we have a running theme right now where, like, we're working with a couple of people that are deployed right now, we work with a lot of people deployed. So we do a lot of virtual showings, you know, make sure they're all good to go. And, you know, when. Coming back. They're excited, which is great. They're gonna buy their house, but they're talking all their buddies out there, and you get a referral from there. So we've had, you know, probably referral just keeps going to the point they're

Tracy Hayes  45:10  
in close quarters, very close. Yeah, they're talking

Toby Elkins  45:13  
sometimes, you know, one point we had like five or six in a span of like four months, because they're all coming back, right? So it's kind of blown up a little bit in the Navy, because, you know, they know that's like one of their brothers out there that's doing it, and so they know, and trust me, because, you know, it's the same it's the same thing. I tell everyone, like, I'm gonna give you the same advice of Jenna and I are buying or selling. If I don't think it's a good idea, I'm gonna tell you, and I'll tell you why.

Tracy Hayes  45:38  
That brings up an interesting thought there. And I know I've had someone on here. Can't remember what we were talking about, virtual, the virtual sale, the, you know, walking around, face timing, or whatever you're you're doing, I imagine on the, on the on the ship, if you're sending someone a video, and they're sitting here watching it, I guarantee you one of their buddies is over their shoulder. Yeah, I'm sure watching, you know, watching it as well. Hey, this is a house I'm looking at. Boom, you've got eyes. So there's a plumber. You're bored. Yes, exactly. So what are some of the little things that you've done or just learned how to do it? Imagine you weren't perfect at it at first. But when you're doing that, that virtual sale, that distance sale, whether they're up in Seattle, Washington, or they're on a ship in the Mediterranean. What are some techniques that you do when you do that? Walk through through the house to show them?

Toby Elkins  46:30  
Yeah, so it's, you know, I make sure. Obviously, that's why sometimes I'm working two or three in the morning, because, you know, they're 1213, hours ahead, you know. So their schedules, you always got to accommodate to them first. So that's the main thing, is to build the trust and everything. You know, they had one of their buddies that one of their buddies that I that I helped, or we helped, but it's, you know, they're on our side. They're looking at their homes, you know. Then they let me know what they like, and then usually what I'll do is, you know, depends on their situation, if it's like, late or something like that. If it's not, then we'll do like a FaceTime. But most of the time, I'm always doing a video. Anyways, I record it, I put it on my YouTube, and then I send them the link. And then when they get the link, you know, they open it up, let me know, you know, we'll jump on the phone whenever they wake up or whatnot, and then kind of take it from there, talk them through it, and we talk it through. You have to just, but this is the thing, it's like, I'm still uncomfortable doing it, work at it now, because we've done, we do a lot of virtual stuff. So is, you have to disclose everything, because they're

Tracy Hayes  47:20  
not here, they're not seeing the neighbor's house. They're not totally different, way, different experience.

Toby Elkins  47:25  
So you have to approach it like, just very carefully, you know, because, you know, always running joke, always almost like failure, but like, you know, so you're recording, I they're pretty long, because I want to make sure they know everything that's awesome, right, right?

Tracy Hayes  47:41  
Because there's more to just sending them the link to the listing correct, and then just seeing those pictures, which are obviously, you know, anybody's going to list a house, are going to make the house look the best they can, because I want people to actually come and look at it. And most of the time, the house doesn't look quite as good as the pictures, but it got you there, and that's, that's what they're for. There's there. It's, it's a online sales. And now you're, you're but now you got to be the realist. Is there times where, based on what they've told you, you kind of, you know, because I imagine they're online too. They're like, Hey, Toby, what think of this house over here? It seems to be in the price point where you kind of distract them from it, or recommend that now that based on what you told me, that house isn't going to work. I know it's the right price, but that way you're not into because, like I said, You got to be full disclosure. You want to get a full 360 around that house. Show them who the neighbors are, show them, you know, be careful too, because I can't, because you have to protect yourself. Yeah, from Yeah, correct.

Toby Elkins  48:41  
You can't say the wrong things or give out the wrong information, but you can video it. I can

Jenna Elkins  48:46  
video, I mean, I've done that before, too, with some of the showings. And you know, you go in advance, you go and you turn all the lights on, you make sure all the doors are open, you make sure the house is fully ready. You You know, you start by spanning the neighborhood and what, what they're seeing outside. And then, you know, you can tell, based on the conversations you've had with the buyer, what they're gonna like and not like so ways to kind of get around, like, I'm not sure that you would be super excited about this, this, right? And you know, one of the first times that we closed with a buyer that was overseas was they were home for the closing and we did the final walk through. And that's always like, oh boy. They like the house, you know. And we haven't, luckily, had any bad experience, but I remember that first one was pretty nerve wracking. Okay, are they actually what they bought?

Toby Elkins  49:34  
That's very similar to a normal let me just, it's pretty similar to a normal showing, but it's just, you know, you just have to go more in depth, and then to have them, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  49:43  
because they're not there, turning their head, you have to turn their head for them, right? Yeah, the are you finding a lot of them are ready to buy sometimes from the distance or, you know, the husband or wife is deployed, and the the spouse is here, and then, yeah. So. Or more are you getting? Are you are you getting some clients too, that are they're actually starting their looking process because they know in six months, and they just want to see what's available in, you know, what in the price range, or in the neighborhoods they're thinking about right now. But they're really not gonna buy for six months, so the house you might be showing them is probably not gonna

Toby Elkins  50:18  
be there. Yeah, yeah. And, but that's the initial conversation, no. So if they, before they go on deployment, and they know that it's, you know, they they want to buy, they want to buy it while they're out there, because, you know, because that's the thing we know about orders, we know about the lingo, we know about how all that works. So that's why it's, it helps with them. So if they want to buy out there, that's fine, you know, we got online, notary, all that good stuff, because they, when they when they come back, they don't want to waste their leave to go look at homes if they don't right? I mean, especially if they have, like, a family when they want to be settled that way, when they're there, they're good to go. Family settled, good to go. A lot of it happens before they get home. Yeah. So if it's, if it's six months out, to answer your question, we just don't. We just let them know, like, it's not a good idea to look you're on our site or like that, check out homes. I just want you to have a feel of the market. What's out there, the prices, the price points. But like, if we look at something right now, I don't want to show it to you, because you're going to love it, and it's right, unless you want to buy now, we're going to

Tracy Hayes  51:11  
be paying a mortgage. Are you? Are a lot of these. What's the percentage or that you're are just being given orders to come to Jacksonville, versus those who are actually like yourself retired, you know, leaving the Navy, or any of the armed services. What is the percentage of that you're that you're dealing with a lot of these and the reason I'm asking the question is because I think the person who's getting new orders to come to Jacksonville is a little quicker to make just a command decision, because they just want a house for their family to be in, versus that person who is, you know, now leaving the service there might be in there for a while, right? There's a different

Toby Elkins  51:46  
attitude, yeah. So what's the percentage of Yeah? How many Yeah? Probably say it's 5050, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  51:53  
But do you notice a difference in the 100% yeah

Toby Elkins  51:56  
as well? Because they, I mean, they have, they have to make a move, you know, because in that time crunch, so versus people here, like, we're not salesy at all, like, I can't stand sales, so it's like, you know, we don't like if you buy, you buy,

Tracy Hayes  52:10  
you just really good at it. You don't know what you're doing.

Toby Elkins  52:13  
If you buy, that's great if you don't, that's great if you sell, that's great if you don't, that's great we don't. We're just here to advise you, to help you out. So, you know, someone might hit me up, and they might not buy for like, a whole year. Cool, do what you want. It's your money, right? But like, if it's someone that's coming in for like, a deployment, you know, or whatnot, like, that's when, you know, like, Hey, these are our priorities, because it should, but they have to be in, like, we have a charter within the next month.

Tracy Hayes  52:38  
So, so who's following, who's following, who's keeping track of this scenario. And I bring this up because, you know, I had Heather and Danielle on last week and the shoot, they were talking about a postcard or whatever. They kept trickling on this person actually, I think for, I think it was two years, if I'm not mistaken, forget the time, but it was, it was a period of time, and then the person never responded, didn't unsubscribe from the emails or anything. But then all of a sudden, just out of a sudden, just out of the blue, said, Okay, I'm ready, I want to go buy this, this house and or I'm ready to go buy I'm ready to just go find a house. So you get these people in this pipeline. How often are you? What are some of the things that you're doing for the ones who are, you know might be six, eight months or more out. What are you doing to to make sure they're still in your house and you on your team, sure.

Toby Elkins  53:23  
So, yeah. So, I mean, we have them on our CRM, and then we just set it up for follow up. So depending on a lot of them are our friends that we met over time. You know, all our customers become friends, and they tell our the other friends about it. But I would say, if it's like six months to a year, we'll have that initial conversation with them over fun to see what they want.

Tracy Hayes  53:40  
Is it all email or you, I mean, text, what's kind of your process from, you know, I know a lot of different teams have, you know, whether it's a 3060, 90 day, and then, you know, obviously the 180 and three. Are you? You calling him for a while and then go to email? Or do you have, what's kind of your schedule? Yeah, so we'll

Toby Elkins  54:01  
have that initial call, and then we will, you know, put them on a, like, a drip campaign or whatever, but like, like, those weird ones where it doesn't make sense, it's

Tracy Hayes  54:09  
just alerting them when new houses come up, so they can exactly, so they're always on

Toby Elkins  54:13  
the site. So I know, I know when they're looking but it's probably every 30 days, 3045, days. I'll either call them. If I don't answer it, I'll send them a text. I don't want to, like, be all over about it when

Tracy Hayes  54:25  
you know that they're when then they're seriously six months because I think it's a little it's a little different, and actually it's beneficial. Obviously, the clientele that you're focused on your navy Brothers is, is they know when that time, they know when that ship's coming back, right, right? Or they know when their their deployments over and they have a date set, versus just any run of the mill customer just looking to upgrade their home or maybe downsize locally. They may have time, but then they might see the right house and buy it tomorrow. Oh, exactly, yeah. Never know what they're saying. Yeah, six months and be like, Oh no, that's it. Yeah. I'm not in a rush right now, and all of a sudden they see it, and they're gone.

Jenna Elkins  55:03  
They're out, yeah, and I think that's happened to us a lot of times too, because with, you know, some of the internet leads that we've, we've tested, you know, there's been some that will look, you know, we determine, or they tell us when they want these listings to be sent to them, whether it's monthly, whether it's weekly, whether it's every day. And so you can tell when they when they look at it, and we figure out the touch points based on, you know, the age of the customer, like the price point of the customer, you know, where they are in the country. One of the things I tested this year, because I do a lot of the, you know, customer appreciation stuff, so one of the things we tested was sending out a handwritten Thanksgiving card with a Starbucks gift card, and we got a lot of good feedback from that, from people that we hadn't heard from in months. So I think a lot of people really appreciate that personal outreach, and I think Toby's pretty good to

Tracy Hayes  55:53  
give me the details of that campaign. So these are older, a little bit aged, yep, leads, yep, you send

Jenna Elkins  56:00  
them a $5 gift card? Yeah, we did. We did. We did. Thank You cards to our customers that have closed with us. Thank you to cards to our customers that are we're nurturing, and then thank you cards to people that we kind of that kind of went dark and we haven't heard from, just to say, you know, thank you for, you know, being a part of the Elkins group. And here's a $5 gift card Happy Holidays kind of thing, right? And so we got, you know, really great feedback from our past customers who were like, wow. We didn't expect this from the nurture people. It kind of generated another part of a conversation. One of the people, actually, we just got under contract last week because they were like, wow, we we should probably make a move on this. It kind of like jogged their memory. This was something that they were thinking about. Our books, gift card, I know, I know, but I think it's more just the handwritten, yeah, a long way everybody gets emails. Their people's email boxes are flooded with emails and just having that personal touch. And a lot of times I'll throw in because we have a Facebook page where people subscribe to and so I can see, you know, they're having a baby. I'll write in congratulations on your new addition, and just adding that personal touch that really makes it feel like a relationship versus a business transaction, really.

Toby Elkins  57:11  
And to go back real quick, just like those people you're talking about that are out there, we always make sure to add they always add to our social profiles. Okay, I think that's key, because that way you don't have to, like, bombard them with, like, calls and texts, you know, unless it's like, 3060 days, because you're top of mind, that's why.

Tracy Hayes  57:29  
Well, my, one of my next things was social media, and what you're doing there, and you mentioned it earlier, and that's, you know, you're hearing from some of the social media gurus you get on our different podcasts, that I'll tell you, if you're using social media, is to engage social media is to be social. And that because you're when you start engaging with those people, then they then Facebook starts putting you more in front of them because you are talking to them. Yep, yeah. So 100% I think, I think, I think that's one of the little things. There's, well, two things that we all should be doing both both sides, whether loan officer or a real estate agent, is adding people to the CRM, and then, like you said, going on and friending them on Facebook. Start interacting with them. Start seeing, you know, like you said, to stay top of mind, and seeing it's their birthday, or I know what the birthday is, because I pull credit on them. I know what that is. You may not know unless you got a copy of their driver's eyes but, but it pops up on social media. Say, Hey, so and so's birthday, or maybe they went on a on a trip or something. And you chime in, oh, those are beautiful pictures from your trip. Where'd you go? Where was that? And, you know, that type of thing. So to to engage on social media, how in it, and you were leading into it, but just to kind of make the statement for those that are listening, you said early you well, you don't you still, still today, you are not the way you gestured. You're not fully confident that you are an expert in real estate, and so you feel you've got to be constantly educating. How important is that? And what are some sources that you use to, you know, keep feeding yourself with new information and on the industry.

Toby Elkins  59:08  
Yeah, I don't, I don't, really don't. So to me, like, it was three years ago when I started, like that was a big reason for us to move to was, you know, I love the culture. I love everyone wants everyone to win, because I mean business, it really is. But like, the end of the day, like they know more than I know, because they've been longer than me than us, and you have to get back to like, I never really have been trained, like I can make the calls and take action, but like, I need to know the basics of real estate. And so we knew, you know, we, you know, we had trajectory, like we were going pretty good numbers, but like, it sort of plateaued. I could see it and I could feel it. I was like, Hey, we got to make a move, because I need to be in the local presence to people that know what they're doing, and just to soak it all up and learn, and also to be able to help everyone else out brokerage, because it's everyone's great, right?

Tracy Hayes  59:58  
Well, I love you. I've had both John and Brittany on separately, actually, on the show. I love their angle on running the business and making it as profitable for the agent as possible, not going out there and doing 100 homes. And you know, you run up this huge volume of commission, but you end up, you blow it, spend a lot of it, and actually, at the end of the day, what do you actually go home with? Is he and their attitude towards that? I mean, what have you picked up already? And what's it been a month? Every couple weeks, couple weeks now, it was beginning the year. Yeah. So, I mean, what are some, some of the things that you picked up, and I imagine in your initial conversation, because John's pretty forward about that part, that he likes to focus on the business and making it profitable. So I've been recruiting,

Toby Elkins  1:00:53  
and I like that, because forcing you into anything so but the mindset they have

Tracy Hayes  1:00:59  
sales guys are easily sold to John has a good product, that's why he bought it. But the we

Toby Elkins  1:01:09  
we saw because everything, you know, like everything, that's how business, too, is watching your fees, making sure you're not blowing all your money on crap. But they, we just saw the vision that they have, and it's very similar to what we wanted.

Jenna Elkins  1:01:24  
So it's Yeah, and I think the quality of life thing is really something that struck me with them is like, you know, we don't want you guys to be slinging a rock uphill. Like, let's figure out a way we were talking about social media, like my best friend and my worst enemy. I hate social media when it comes to promoting the business, so it's like they have, they've kind of talked us through, you know, what are the things that you can delegate? What are the things that you can offload to be able to be more productive? Because ultimately, you need to get go, get more leads. You need to go do this. But you're also your quality of life needs to matter in this whole business, right? And, and I think them being a husband and wife couple, and us being a husband and wife couple or team is is like, you know, it's something to look up to and something to aspire to, because they've, they seem to have

Tracy Hayes  1:02:13  
figured it out well. So I lately, I've been on this artificial intelligence thing. If you've listened to my last couple podcasts, the chat, GPT. If you have not gone to chat GPT yet, you need to. And so I asked it to create some other those questions were mine, this question, these are a couple some questions I had it generate for me because I think I asked this basically a husband and wife real estate team. What questions are they not often asked, or something like that. I came up with this. So how do you balance your professional and personal relationship while working as a husband and wife real estate team? Oh, wow.

Jenna Elkins  1:02:49  
I mean, I think that's been a work in progress. So I think when we first started, it was constant. And you know, Toby's obsessed with real estate, and it's been his obsession for the past three, four years. There's a point at which I think I do not want to talk about real estate anymore, and I'll be very clear about it, like, we're going to shift the conversation into something so I need to have, like, little guide guard rails to say, if we're going out to dinner, like, Okay, we've got to let's it's not going to be about business at this point right now, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty clear about that, aren't you?

Speaker 1  1:03:26  
Like, stuck? Like, oh, okay, this is a nice restaurant.

Jenna Elkins  1:03:30  
What am I gonna talk but I do, I do think we have a lot of fun together. I think, I think we have a significant amount of respect for each other, but we just enjoy work. We have fun. And I think work hard, play hard. That's like the slogan. But I think in general, like, we really do just have a good time together. So work doesn't always feel like work, which is, which is a huge thing,

Toby Elkins  1:03:54  
we get to celebrate, like, our successes together, and then, like, we have, like, bad days, because we do, we're normal, like, we're it's like, accountability partner, like, it's okay, it's not a big deal. Like, yeah, it's all good. Let's keep pushing. Just keep pushing. Keep pushing.

Tracy Hayes  1:04:07  
The one of the things that they're like, those people making that phone call you said is, hey, we're thinking about getting into real estate, and we don't want to, want to, want to work where we're going to circle back, I guess we're going to circle back to that. But I think people don't understand. I know I have family that don't under understand. You know, my wife's an agent. I'm, I've been doing loans for 17 and a half years. You answer the phone when the phone rings, yeah, and, and I always use it's feast or famine. You win it when it's time, when it's rolling. You gotta, you gotta go, because you just don't know when there, there is going to be a slowdown, or a 2000 acres, you know, that type of thing. Or, you know, everyone got so, you know, on the, you know, highway the last 18 months, and now all of a sudden it slowed down to a normal County Road. And so Everyone's panicking from from that standpoint, but we actually live our business. We're. Or, you know, even though I do, I work for loan depot. You're, you're, you're, guys are totally self employed. Even though you've got the momentum logo there on your shirt, it's still you. You know, John's not going to yell at you because you didn't show up today. You know, he might call you have a couple times and say, what's going on, but the third time he's probably gonna say, I guess they don't want to do it anymore. Yeah, you know, we've got to get up and make our own things happen, whether that takes 15 minutes or 15 hours a day, that's what that's what it takes. And I think a lot of people don't quite understand that. So when they talk about it, oh, being easy is you may be going out to dinner with a past client, or maybe a client you may have just acquired that's looking for a home and say, Hey, let's go out to dinner tonight, because you're building a relationship. And it's building that relationship as part of what we do. That's it. It is you are actually working in doing that. And I think that it's the relationship part. I think a lot of people take up. You may be really good at having house parties and then great socials, and you're creating relationships all day long, if that's your business, and it gets you referrals. Do it every Saturday night. Yeah, no, I was talking to Century 21 down in St Augustine, and they were talking about the, I think it was sent, I think it was there, or they were referring to someone. There's an agent who just loves doing YouTube videos, and he gets leads off of it, and he just gives the leads other. He doesn't want to actually deal with the but he gets the license, he gets the referral fee. That's what he likes to do, chill at home. Yet he's 10 Xing that, I guess he makes enough to do that. So that's where I think the disconnect is from. We don't want to work as much. Yeah, we don't want to be required to clock in at nine or, you know, if you're on the ship, you're you're required to be at your posts, whatever, from here to here, and show up at certain times, and that sort of thing. They don't want someone else dictating that to them. But we really just, we just blended into our

Jenna Elkins  1:06:48  
life exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's constant. Oh, I this

Tracy Hayes  1:06:52  
is the these are, these are the good questions. I like when you have the husband and wife team and we're gonna do it, oh, boy, how do you well this, this is gonna lead into the second question. But this is, this is the softball question, how do you approach decision making and problem solving as a team? Then you kind of led a little bit into it when you said you're having a bad day, the accountability part. But when it comes to marketing, or anything that you guys are doing, or even how to negotiate some little tougher deals that need some post contract negotiation, what do you got? How do you guys do your problem solving?

Jenna Elkins  1:07:23  
Should we talk about the good cop, bad cop? Yeah. So I think in terms of problem solving, I think we're pretty, very well aware of what our strengths and weaknesses are. And so I think that one of the things that we've established is when it comes to negotiation. I my experience in the corporate world has helped me be a little bit stronger of a negotiator. So sometimes Toby will come in as a little bit of the gentler presence, and then when we really need

Unknown Speaker  1:07:50  
I would have thought the other way. That's what most people say.

Jenna Elkins  1:07:55  
Well, I can, I mean, I that's the part that I like. I mean, it's all about, it's all about give and take. But I think I really enjoy getting, I enjoy negotiating to the point where everybody is winning, you know, in some way, right? So I think we've pretty much established, you know, it's sort of an easy handoff, okay, the decision is that you're going to deal with this, and then the decision may be that I'm going to deal with this just based on, and that's all been trial and error. I don't think anybody figures that out right away. I think it's a matter of time and experience

Toby Elkins  1:08:26  
time, yeah? But, like, well, like, if I, if I did that, though, like, I can do it because I did it before Jenna came on, like that just takes time away from what I need to be doing. That is income producing activities, yes, actually matter. Yeah, you know what I mean, prospecting,

Tracy Hayes  1:08:40  
because that one's already in the Tracy, it's good to go. It's going

Toby Elkins  1:08:43  
to close. We're going to make sure it closes, right? So it allows me to put all my energy, because that's all we do, or that's all I do. The prospect at lead gen every day,

Tracy Hayes  1:08:52  
you know. So you've been in the business three years already, you've already realized that I had Kim Knapp on, you know, a few weeks ago, very successful. She's been in the business 20 years, and she said the same exact thing. I don't know where along the line she came to that conclusion, but you know, whether it's having, you know, pre listing inspections to avoid, you know, the repair because those are time suckers, yeah, and, you know, going over the littlest of things. And, like she said to a lot of times it's, you know, for something less than $1,000 it's like, she goes back to her buyers and center. So you're really, you're willing to pass on this for $1,000 this is the house you want. With the market conditions you're, we don't know, you know, there's only one house on that street. We might find another model like it, but that's on that street. It's on the golf course, or it's on the water, or whatever that that's the only address, right? Are you willing to walk away for $1,000 but she mentioned the same exact thing. Those types of post contract things are time suckers to take away from the money marketing activities. Yeah, that's 100% I mean. And she runs a huge team here, and you've picked that up in just three years to. Define those things, or obviously have a teammate that knows how to squash them quickly, efficiently, yeah, and enjoys doing it. She does all right. How do you handle conflicts and disagreements between each other? There has to be a story of a disagreement. Have we had a door slam? Any door slams what

Jenna Elkins  1:10:21  
I I think we like there's, there's, we need some space sometimes, right? I think we work together. We live together. When we first got into real estate, we were renting an apartment and working from home. It was a small apartment, so I would just hightail it out of there. The coffee shop at Jack's Beach, just to, just to get a little space in between us. I mean, yeah, it happens. And I think that, you know, getting a little time and space away from each other sometimes, just to let it all simmer, is probably my best advice.

Tracy Hayes  1:10:54  
I'm gonna, I'm gonna just my last formal question. Okay, unless you guys, you guys can add anything in here if you have things, because, like I said, I want this video. It's out there, the podcast out there, whether someone tomorrow or three years from now, listens to it, learns a little bit about you guys and what you guys your ideology and how you guys work together, that they're going to pick up something from this, from the show, and everything. So if I've missed anything, you guys could be thinking about something you want to say. But here's my last formal question, share a unique challenge or benefit you have experience working as a husband and wife real estate team.

Toby Elkins  1:11:30  
So I would say challenge is, it's still a work in progress, but trying to figure out how to make make sure our systems are nice and smooth, right? It's a challenge, because otherwise we're going to argue a little bit, husband, wife, around each other. What are you saying? Well, you're

Tracy Hayes  1:11:47  
just willing to say it to her, where, if it was a co worker or someone you hired, you just kind of wouldn't, you'd polish it a little bit more.

Toby Elkins  1:11:53  
Yeah, correct. So, like it's doing that right now.

Jenna Elkins  1:12:01  
I mean, there's, there's obvious, unique benefits, right? We are a team of two, and everything that we do comes to us, which is amazing. I mean, it's, it's been, I think, a unique benefit. To be honest with you, we've made such a community of friends through this job. And, you know, there's a lot of young couples that will come to us to buy a house and look to us, you know, to see that what we've done, and we keep relationships with them. Oh, and I think that's been really nice. I mean, I I worked from home for 12 years when I first moved to Jacksonville, and it was really hard to meet people and throughout, you know, getting into real estate and building this community, I feel like Jacksonville is where we're going to be forever, because we just have this group of people, you know, they come, they go, but we still keep in touch. And I think that that, you know, being able to do that together is really

Tracy Hayes  1:12:50  
you bring up an interesting thing. I know another couple. They're very social people, they like, and their kids are already out into college, so they have, they have the ability to do it. Do you feel, because you're a couple, and the fact that they're meeting you through this transaction, that because they did business with you as a couple, it's a little easier for them to say, hey, why don't you guys come over, or you're or you invite them over, versus, if you're, you know, the single agent and the spouse is doing something completely different, you know. Well, you know, I don't, I don't really know, you know, they're gonna get along, or it's just not, but because you're a couple, it's already like, oh, you know my family, I know your family, you know, type of thing. It's a little bit easier to have that interaction, for sure, more social and relationship building. Yeah, that's all I have. Guys I, you know, obviously I try to do as much research on you as possible. We were going almost an hour, almost an hour and 20 hours, over an hour 15 minutes. Yeah, it goes by fast. There'll be a lot of a lot of good reels in content to create for you guys, for your social media. But anything that Well, I guess you know, the common question is, is that sales question? Yo, if someone simply asked you, and if you, I'm sure you've been asked, Why should someone be working with the Elkins group? Why should we why? What benefits are we going to be working with from you guys?

Toby Elkins  1:14:16  
Well, I would say that one like, we take this stuff very seriously. So we are in it with them to win it. So they're looking for a home. It's the same thing. If Jenna buy a home, we're gonna make sure they're getting the right property for them, because they always got to have their seller hat on before they buy, if they want to, you know, sell down the road. So constantly giving them advice throughout the whole transaction to make sure that they know that we have there, we will do whatever we have to do on our side to get to the and we're pretty and then on the selling side, it's the same thing. It's just people want real and they want people that are going to actually tell you the truth and not BS it, you know. And I feel like that's what we do

Jenna Elkins  1:14:57  
very well. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with. That I just think, you know, when people, when people work with us, they definitely feel a part of the family, because we are a family. So I do think that it's sort of, it's sort of, we just have that, that effect where, like Toby said it like, well, well, we think about this as, would we do this for our family and a lot of people that resonates with them. And I think, you know, we're very dedicated to the customer, and we don't pretend to know everything about real estate. I mean, that's the thing about even being on this podcast, is I feel a little silly because I'm still learning so much as we go, but we don't pretend to know everything. And so we're very clear about the fact that, you know, if we don't know an answer to something, we will find out. Yeah, we'll find out, but we're not gonna

Tracy Hayes  1:15:44  
bullshit Well, I will say, let's say a couple things actually. One your you, your dynamics are there, knowing your roles, your strengths. You said that earlier, plays with you. I know I had these thoughts going through, and I'm gonna lose half of them. But I think if there's an agent listening right now, your success is because you you focused on you when there's time to do the prospecting time. You know, the last two years, you started thinking and putting your mindset into, I'm being I'm going to be a real estate agent. So you were meeting and greeting. You were doing those, those things, shaking hands and and I don't know if you were keeping track of everybody or whatever, you know, whatever it was you you've created this process because the front thing is the prospecting backed by the relationship. And that's what you guys are pretty good at you know? I don't I? Yeah, I'm with those people say I'm not an expert at all. I don't know every loan program. If you call me and say, Hey, so and so, do you have this program? Because I've heard there's this program out there. We probably do. We've got a lot. We got more program. I can clog my brain with programs, but I'm not a trainer. Yeah, I'm an originator. I have to build relationships. You are an originator. You have to build relationships. If there comes a loan comes off the track, or the transaction comes off the track, there are a lot of people who we pay a lot of money, you know, that make a lot of money in this business, like the title companies. They see all these transactions. We only see a fraction. They see them all, because they're all coming through the underwriters. They see all the Loans At Loan depot rights, not just few so that the originator is doing. They're dealing with all a bunch of so there are smarter people that are there to back us up. And when you have that confidence that's there, you focus on what you need. And the Navy, you had one job, or you had a couple different things that you had to do. You weren't flying the plane, yeah. So that was your job, and you focus on it. And I think that's what you guys got here, is you're building relationships. And then I think the really great, the really dynamic thing that I've seen with the couples, as we've talked about before, whether it's John and Brittany, whether it's the Glenn team, whether it's John and Andrea is their roles. You know, not to say that they only stay in their lane,

Speaker 1  1:18:07  
because we know we cross over. They want to tell the other person they got by on their face.

Tracy Hayes  1:18:13  
But I think that's, that's, that's what they're getting with you guys in the in the couple dynamic in our conversation here. So good, everything. Yeah, good. All right. All right. This, I asked this question every everyone that's been on the show, each of you, you might have different answers. Maybe, is it more important who you know or what you know

Toby Elkins  1:18:31  
and why? So I think I've heard you say this before, and I know

Tracy Hayes  1:18:35  
what you I change sometimes too to me, and this

Toby Elkins  1:18:39  
is just my perspective, opinion. I think it's what you know, because when I first came into the business, I had to learn everything okay. And so I feel like that, that's just my opinion, but I feel like knowledge is everything, and learning and it also it helps with your drive, and more you get more confident because you're learning. So I think.

Jenna Elkins  1:19:01  
And no surprise here, but I'm the opposite. I think it's I

Tracy Hayes  1:19:05  
think I My Media thought when I looked at you and you said, as my media thought in event planning, yeah, there's a lot of who you know.

Jenna Elkins  1:19:13  
It's who you know. I mean, I think you what you know has so much. It depends so much on on who you know. Because when you spend the time talking to people, and when you go through different scenarios with people, and you build relationships with people, I mean, things happen for you. So I think that that's, I think that you know what you know increases based on who you know.

Tracy Hayes  1:19:36  
I think the this, my analogy, are your two different answers, because of the world you came from, from the event planning, yeah, you don't pick the you don't pick the location often, right? If someone says, I want to have an event and we're going to have it at that hotel, make it happen. So you got to get to know, you know who, who's the people are going to help me get that done. You come from the structure, environment. Or you're trained heavily to do what you do, and then they leave you alone and let you go do it. Yeah, and and then, so you entering the civilian world, your first thing was to do when you entered the Navy was to learn as much as possible about what you were going to do. This is my best thing.

Speaker 1  1:20:18  
I always thought I should be a psychology major. All right, I'm painful. All right,

Tracy Hayes  1:20:23  
I just gonna close out the show. Please like and subscribe. We're on. I'm on. The only social media is the ones I Snapchat and those things I'm not on. But this is you're gonna see reels from the show on Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook reels, Facebook itself, all at real estate excellence and also including LinkedIn on my personal account. But even if you put real estate excellence, that should come up as well as I do post articles and the clips from the show behind those, those great ones. So please like and subscribe, especially to the YouTube channel trying to pump that up. But appreciate everyone. If you can make a review of the show, I would appreciate that as well. And thank you for the Elkins group for coming on today. Thank you. Huge.