Tracey Hawkins: Tracey the Safety Lady

Commercial  0:00  

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Tracey Hawkins  0:17  

Everyone needs to be alert, and you'll notice I didn't say everyone needs to be scared. We don't operate from fear, but we operate from empowerment, knowing how to keep ourselves safe, knowing the safe practices so that we can move forward in our differences. Not only that, let's use it to build our business so we're making everybody safe, the consumers as well as the agents.

Podcast Intro  0:39  

Welcome to Real Estate Excellence, making lasting connections to the best of the best in today's industry, elite. We'll help you expand your circle of influence by introducing you to the leaders in the real estate industry, whether it's top agents who execute at a high level every day, or the many support services working behind the scenes, we'll share their stories, ideologies and the inner workings of how they run a truly successful business, and show you how to add their tools to your belt. Now, please welcome the host with the most Tracy Hayes,

Tracy Hayes  1:13  

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, today, I have a very special show, and one that I know everyone listening will see great value in why it may make the difference between life and death. Real estate agents are in the top 10 highest risk occupations, and my guest will explain why she is a international keynote speaker. This former real estate agent found a passion in focusing on personal safety, and her favorite book is the gift of fear by Gavin de Becker, 2022 RIS Media Award winner, two time NAR NXT conference speaker. She specializes in corporate and real estate agent safety. Let's welcome Tracy, the safety lady, to the show. Miss Tracy Hawkins,

Tracey Hawkins  1:57  

hi, Tracy. We're saying my name. I don't need a lot of Tracy's well, and the

Tracy Hayes  2:04  

difference is, you got a D and I don't. So we're trying really. I was listening to your show in a Markey lemons, and you pronounce her last name. Ry Hall, is that? How you pronounce it? Ryle, yeah, on her social selling made simple podcast, and I heard you on there, and I said, I've got to have Miss Hawkins on the show. Because I think, you know, having friends in the industry, in the safety industry, and one of my like, I said, my good friend works for Gavin de Becker, and I'm and I really think you know people just, you know, as you will explain, in a gift of fear, explains, we kind of neglect our own personal intuition.

Tracey Hawkins  2:41  

Every animal in nature is born with a survival mechanism that will keep us safe if we listen to it. Human beings are the only animals who ignore it. And you're right about to get the beer you can sit over my shoulder, and since I talked to you last, I dug up a few other copies.

Tracy Hayes  3:01  

Now has any of those books been inscribed for you?

Tracey Hawkins  3:04  

I have not met them. That's he's on my wish list. And okay,

Tracy Hayes  3:07  

I talked to my good friend, his Vice President with Gavin de Becker, and I told him you were going to be on the show. And he said, Send me her mailing address, and he will inscribe a book and send it to you. No way, no way. Yes, I told him you were a big fan, and I I hope between connections, somehow, maybe he even reaches out to you. Because, I mean, what you're doing and and preaching, what he's been preaching for decades, obviously, with his book. So right? I want to break in Right, right away, because you mentioned you're the gift of fear. So I spent the last week I said, if I have Tracy on I have got to read the book, which I've had the book I just haven't read. It's a long book. So you know what? The only way I'm going to do this by Audible. So I did. I have listened to the entire book. It's like 12 hours of audible, but it is really good. You every time you get in the car, you will be listening to that much more, because you're going to want to it. What is your feeling like when you go and do these talks and so forth and try to push more people to pick up that Bible of safety.

Tracey Hawkins  4:11  

Every single program that I do, I start with talking about the gift of fear. I talk about not just the book, but gift that we all have that intuition, and that goes for any industry, whether it's real estate. I teach home health workers, because they're in the same position. They're going into strangers homes. I teach personal safety, senior safety, college students, safety, every single class, program that I store, I talk about that because if we only listen to that voice, we don't need all of the devices and all of the tips and the training, listen to the voice, respect the voice. So that's what I try to ingrain in people in my training. And so often the mistake that's made is people think that you can judge someone just by looking them over. And that is so dangerous. And I also weave that into my presentation. Information. I show a picture of Ted Bundy and Tracy. I know you know how they describe Ted Bundy,

Tracy Hayes  5:05  

yeah, I'm here in Florida. Everyone in Florida knows Ted Bundy, right?

Tracey Hawkins  5:09  

Clean cut, charismatic, good looking guy, and so that's what he traded on. He counted on people to judge him by how he looked, and that is, you know, as a notorious serial killer That was dangerous. So I'm telling people you have something better. You have an internal voice whose sole job is to keep you safe. It has no other purpose other than to warn you when you are in danger. And every single one of us has a story where we either listen to it or didn't listen to it. All of us have a story about it. So that's the number one thing that most people have to understand, is that we just need to listen and respect that voice 100%

Tracy Hayes  5:47  

when I first got out of college, I went to the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. So I was in Charleston, and one of the first jobs I had was in the plant that I was working in. It was a polyester fiber making plant. It was in Lake City. Well outside Lake City is a little place called Cades. Cades is a basically a post office rural South Carolina. But can't remember who the serial killer was, but this serial killer actually drove a hearse and picked up people hitchhiking to Myrtle Beach. Now, can you imagine how people looked at this hearse with shovels and stuff in the back the way it was described in the stories that I read and actually got in, because so you know, where was our intuition had to be just bubbling in them. Yet they just like, oh, this is just a nice old guy. No problem. And get in. And when i The more I listened to the gift of fear. And I turned to my wife, I said, You need to listen to this, because not she's generally a little more apprehensive around people or certain areas of town that we may be in than I am. And sometimes you need I thought the gift of fear actually kind of described those feelings that we were having, made them more gave them more of a visual. And, yeah, other people are having those same feelings,

Tracey Hawkins  7:03  

and the stories are great. And also for teenagers, there is a another book called Protecting the gift, and it's on the level where teenagers can understand or relate to so that's another must read. But let me, let me address something you said. You said that your wife has certain apprehension certain parts of town. So this is something that I talk about to real estate agents and whoever I'm talking to, don't let your guard down because you think you're in a good part of town. As long as criminals have cars, there's no such thing as a good part of town. Criminals are everywhere. And typically in the part of town where you think, you know, everything's okay, you know, this is upscale. No one there. There's no crime here. It's where the good stuff is. And what criminals know, and I tell this to agents all the time and to everyone, what criminals know is that people in certain areas think nothing's going to happen here, so they're just casual. You see the garage doors open all the time and no one in sight, people leaving their cars out windows down unlocked because they're comfortable. Criminals know that key

Tracy Hayes  8:02  

fob in the cup holder for the cars, the key fob for the cars, they leave them in the cup holders and leave the car. Don't tell me that brand that was happening in my neighborhood. But let's I want to dig into just a little bit of background about you so everyone knows. Could put you in context of your background, and obviously our underlying thing here is about real estate agents and the focus on that particular individuals, because that's the audience for the show here. But Tracy, where did you grow up in initially? What were some of the career ideas that you had before actually getting in into real estate with your sister.

Tracey Hawkins  8:40  

I'm an Okie from Muskogee, and I, when I'm speaking in Oklahoma, I start out singing that, man, I'm not a good singer, so I spared you that. I'm from Muskogee. My parents are veterans, and we lived at Fort Sill and did some traveling Orleans and I we ended up here in Kansas City, Missouri. I'm the product of a Catholic school education. I'm Catholic, and part of our curriculum was community service that was a part of the class. So I grew up learning that I needed to serve the community. My mom also happens to be a teacher, so imagine that and a teacher as a parent. Imagine my childhood. Okay. Anyway, so I was born to serve. And so I worked for a real company about, I want to say two of them, about 10 years total, and it's like I need to do something else. I happen to have a twin sister who she and I got our real estate licenses together about 35 or so years ago, and she is still an agent now, so she's a great voice insight for me in the industry. But I decided that that's not what I wanted to do, so I opened up a store. Well, I started selling, like, pepper spray and alarms wholesale while I was still working. I still sell those items now and then I opened up a store. So I had a safety store, everything, child safety, auto safety, home security. So I am pepper spray, my number one product. So I had a store, and then it's like, I got itchy in a mall. You're. There from open to close. If your people don't show up, you're there the whole time. And a little so I started speaking here around today.

Tracy Hayes  10:06  

Today, you buy it all on the internet, right? So it'd be a little bit tougher for you imagine today, but Right, yeah, right,

Tracey Hawkins  10:12  

back then. And so now. And so what I have done is I started speaking around Kansas City, so everywhere, anywhere they got an opportunity to hear me speak. And then, next thing you know, it was national. So I was traveling out of town, all over the country, speaking. And then, of course, two years ago, pandemic happened, and then my speaking took a stop for a minute. And then next thing you know, virtual. I invested. I got myself a studio, and then I did probably more programs in on on Zoom or virtually than in real life. And then now it's kind of sorting, sorting, sort of evening up. I'm doing real life. I'm doing virtual and I'm doing hybrid. So this is the wave of the future. I can reach more people this way.

Tracy Hayes  10:55  

So I heard correctly in your conversation with Markey, you actually created a designation for real estate agents. And are you the only I think, if I can recall, there's other people that are also teaching that course as well now, or you're the only one that actually can teach it.

Tracey Hawkins  11:12  

I And oftentimes people say, Hey, can I teach your classes? Can I do what you do? And what I do comes from 27 years of knowledge, from working as a real estate agent, from absorbing anything and everything safety and security related. So no one else is teaching classes that I teach. I have people who are inspired by my classes, and they do share my information and they credit me. So that's fine, because the goal is to reach as many agents as possible. That designation was born out of needing to be able to make a living teaching safety, safety. And I had someone say this. I'm kind of feel weird saying it, but I heard it like three times in one week. Safety isn't sexy. Agents aren't lining up to take safety classes. Agents are lining up to take social media classes, to video classes, lead gen classes, but no one's lining up to take safety classes. And so I had to think, I've got to make a living doing this. This is all I do. I don't do it part time. I don't do it on the side. I am solely focused on safety. So I contacted an education director and say, hey, you know, I'd love to come talk to your agents. She said, Tracy, your information is so important. She said, but it's not a good business decision, and I couldn't understand it. She said, If I invest in you, that's good for me, because agents only show up for training that teaches them how to make more money. So after I picked my job off the floor, I got realistic. It's like, okay, how do I make safety profitable, so I created my designation, and the designation, it's a two parter, and it's a CE class, a full day of CE. The first part of it is, we're talking basic safety practices, the basics of screening, showing how to host a safe open house, how to do everything in a safe manner. But the twist is, I'm teaching you not only that, but how to do it to serve the consumer and make more money. So I tell you how to be safe as an agent, but then I'm saying, here's how you protect the consumer, that includes the buyers, the sellers, even FSBOs. And on the FSBO, I created a tip sheet, 13 tips, and I tell agents when you or and I had to add Legion into it. Tracy, so I'm saying when you see a FSBO sign, they don't like you, they don't respect the work you do. So don't bother knocking on their door, calling them. However, here's where it becomes of service. Take this biz boat tip sheet that I've created for you. Staple your business card to it. Hand it to them, put it in their door. Mail it to them, and it has things like, don't open your door for strangers, which is the first thing they're going to do. So I tell them, you know, the sheet explains how to screen, how to show that means to make sure that you always let the person looking lead and don't let your escape route be blocked. Let someone know when you're showing get valuables out of sight, medicine out of medicine cabinets, jewelry out of jewelry boxes, paper, financial documents, everything out of sight. And by the time they get to number 13, this FSBO, who thought, all I have to do is put a sign in the yard. How easy is this? By then they're realizing that they're putting their families their possessions in danger. So guess whose business card writes to the top of the stack? The one attached

Tracy Hayes  14:20  

I was listening to you tell Markie the same exact thing and the details that you were going in. And I'm like, wow, we're not even thinking about that. And again, that would go back to my wife. She's generally one of those obviously afraid of identity theft and those type of things, and we don't even realize what we're doing when, when those FSBOs, or allowing these people to walk through their house you mentioned in there. And I have a question. I just want to, I imagine there's a good answer for it was the your prescriptions in your I guess, now that I asked a question, I assume the first thing is that someone doesn't actually take a prescription that may be harmful to them or. Or harmful to others, or obviously prescribed to you under you know, some of our pain prescriptions are, you know, can only take a limited amount, but people sell them out the back doors for money and that kind of thing. So I imagine you have going in there and doing that kind of thing. That's now what I asked the question. I'm thinking part of the answer, is there any other what are some other things in the house, whether you're Fizbo or whether you have an agent right now representing you that you at that agent isn't telling you, but you need to be going around that, you know, obviously you

Tracey Hawkins  15:29  

hear the horror stories, anything and everything of value out of sight, and that is especially means the gun collections. I had an agent who was, this is, he was doing pictures for an open house, and the homeowner happened to have a vast gun collection. So those happened to be in the picture. Everyone who showed up for the open house, they were there to see the gun collection, not the house. So I totally just focus on the house. Focus on the features, focus on the property, not the content. So if you think about these media rooms with all of these expensive electronics, homeowners who have expensive artwork, handbag, jewelry collections, all of this in your property. Criminals. Or since, since covid, since the pandemic, criminals are working virtually too. So they're sitting on their laptops working from home, casing properties, and then they're sending them an appointment to go show it or see an open house or burglarize it. So agents need to be careful what is visual, what is shown in the pictures. You have the conversation with the homeowners, and I've had an agent who said, I will not show a property that has like a block or block of knife in the kitchen, of knives in the kitchen. So anything of value, people don't think about the expensive electronics that their kids leave laying around their little game deals and their cell phones just carelessly laying around the house. When the house is open, you have to have the conversation with your sellers. I can't control who's coming in, so anything and everything of value needs to be out of sight. And Tracy, you know, that's buried in a listing agreement somewhere that the agent is not responsible, but if something ever comes up missing, that agent's going to get a phone call and they're going to be angry. So if you say it out loud, and then you walk through the house, and that's another thing that I do when I talk about serving the consumer. I tell agents, when you're having that listing appointment that the seller probably already interviewed, what two or three other agents, here's how you set stand apart. And I have a theme that is called leading with safety. Every conversation, every interaction with the consumer, needs to have safety woven in. Because whenever someone decides they're going to put their house on the market, think about it. Even if you or I decided we're going to put our house on the market, then you're all of a sudden thinking there will be strangers walking through my house. And so think about a seller who knows hundreds of people will maybe walking through I tell agents to start their listing appointment, not talking about net proceeds, not talking about anything except safety. Walk in with your checklist. You know we're going to walk through. I'm going to look at the property, but I'm going to tell you how to keep it safe and your possession safe while it's on the market, so that you keep your family safe. So you're talking about the mail, getting all of the smell out of sight, not just esthetically. You're talking about shrubs and bushes being trimmed back so that people won't have to, won't provide a hiding place for criminals. You're talking about personal pictures on walls kids soccer or sports schedules on the refrigerator door. You're talking about depersonalizing the house from the safety standpoint. You don't know who's going to walk through. So we don't want them to see our kids, our daughters, our family pictures on the wall. We don't want them to see where we're going to be, because stalking is a big deal in this industry. So the

Tracy Hayes  18:31  

point you made with Markey, and I think it was like, oh my, you know, people don't think about is, like you said, the schedule on the wall, you know, I know, obviously most houses, if you got kids, you know, and they're all involved in activities, you got some sort of board or something that's saying, hey, on Wednesday at three o'clock, we got this, we got that. And if those things are in the picture, or they're or they're, people are walking through the house, they're able to, you know, they're basically, they could be casing the joint for all you know, you don't know, and whip out their cell phone, snap a shot real quick. They don't have to write anything down. It's a whole

Tracey Hawkins  19:07  

different mindset. And Tracy, that's one of the reasons why I and I'm trying to say this delicately, but let me just say it, in the safety industry, we don't value expertise. It's an industry of talking heads. And that concerns me. If someone says, Oh, I'll talk about safety, or Susie Smith can read a PowerPoint, we'll let Susie talk about safety, or we don't want to pay for safety, so we'll, let's let a staff member talk about safety. No, no, no, no safety. This is an expertise. This is something I live and breathe. I know the stories, I know the numbers. So that's what I'm saying, You need to have someone who lives and breathes it so then they don't tell you stuff that doesn't make sense. And most people wouldn't think about, you know, the pictures and the schedules, but that's what I think about. That's what my job is, to think about it.

Tracy Hayes  19:53  

Yeah, 100% what? What led you? I mean, you started in real estate with your sister 35 years ago. Was it just. Serving that, that that really kind of getting you know you were trying to find a way to serve others within the industry, and just saw this void, what really led you with safe, a little bit your your passion.

Tracey Hawkins  20:11  

I just real estate sales was not a good fit for me. I tried it for a few years. It was fine. I learned some invaluable lessons, but it wasn't my passion, it wasn't the way that I wanted to grow my business. So that's when I got, like I said, a real job, a couple of real jobs, and I worked there, and then it's like, I need to get out. I was the girl. I'm an avid reader. So I read every entrepreneurial Small Business magazine you can imagine, and all of them, and I started noticing a thing people were talking about safety business, sell safety products, or open safety kiosk or whatever, and it's like, aha, that's a business where I can really help people. That's the community service part of it. I can really give people information to be safe. And it's a market that's untapped. There are not a lot of people doing it, so let me jump in with both feet. And so that's what I did. And even now, there are not a lot of people who do it. I do, and so there's an opening in the industry. But then the reason is because anyone thinks they can do it, so people don't value expertise. So that's my challenge, is to let people know there is value in working with someone just like real estate agents and FSBOs, right? Anyone think they can put a sign out and sell a house, and then real estate agents come along and say, it's I have experience. This is my expertise. I have knowledge. So it's the same concept. And then, just to backtrack a little bit when we talked about the designation, so the first part is where I get to teach agents the safe practices, how to be safe, how to incorporate Legion and business building and protecting the consumer. The second class is the technology class. That's where I get to talk. I talk to Nar next this year about technology, what's the latest and greatest technologies, and if you look at realtor magazine, that's my most recent article, and we picked like eight of them to focus on. Agents. Love technology, but in that second class, I also talk about cyber security, and that's a big deal. Data security, not only agents protecting themselves from scams and frauds, but again, protecting the consumer. That's my theme. Lead with safety. Not only keep yourself in your information safe, but protect the consumers. I talk about frauds and scams that real estate agents are victims to also consumers, so that agents educate them. So that is the second class. And after they have a full day of classes, they earn the designation. And I want to say, I want to say about 700 agents have completed that. And so I created something that didn't exist because I saw a need. And along the same lines, the broker manager owner certification class, no one's out there talking to agent to brokerages about being safe and reducing liability. And again, here's another story. A real estate agent was murdered, and after that, her family sued the real estate company for negligence. Sue everybody, yeah, so they exactly. They said, if there was some kind of safety training, then she wouldn't be dead today. So my light bulb went off again. It's like, let me offer a class you know, how to not get sued successfully. So I get to go in and talk to brokerages and owners. And it's like, this is what you need to keep your office, the four walls safe, the equipment inside, the people inside, how to have safe practices, what to do. And in case of a natural disaster or a man made disaster, how do you document what you need? How do you get out and basically, how to have a safe office, how to make sure your agents are following the safe practices that you set up that keeps you from getting sued, and it also helps with your risk reduction. And I wrote a handbook. It's the only broker, manager, owner office safety policy handbook in the industry. And I want to say about 200 maybe 250 brokerages have taken that, that certification training. And so my goal in doing programs like yours, talking to people like you who are interested in safety is to let people know that there's not just one safety class. I have 13 classes. And so I want to,

Tracy Hayes  23:55  

I want to plug in a little bit with you here on a couple of these things, because you know you were, you were going through, and then, because you're I obviously broke down by listening to your conversation with Markie, some some questions and so forth. And you brought up several things. The booklet you create is that specifically, or do you have, you know, because I'd love for you to send me some of those. Obviously, I have, I do about eight podcasts a month. Typically, it's a top real estate agent. Typically they're team leaders or brokers as well. They're very influential in the area. And I want to, I want to get something in their hand. And obviously, you know, it's kind of that thing. You're, you're Catholic, I'm Catholic. I feel from our Christianity that I've heard a word and I need to spread it exactly, and he put us together for a reason. I agree. I agree. I've got to get the word out and tell everyone about you know what you're doing. I'm definitely going to share with the local boards that I work with. You know whether, whether you come into Jacksonville, or whether you do a webinar, or whatever, that that you. We need to share the word that bottom line there. So I went off on that little tangent

Speaker 1  25:04  

because you were going off. And I have, I had these questions, you're like, you're answering

Tracy Hayes  25:09  

them all for me there, I was talking to friend of mine. He's also a vendor. He actually does photography. It's a very big used to do Jiu Jitsu. He's a very large guy. When I told him, I said I was going to have, you know, have you on and he his immediate response wasn't negative, obviously, towards you, but just towards the general attitude that when people, they say they're going to have a real estate safety class, they're bringing in someone to teach them some sort of how to do a wrist hold or twist or whatever, you know, all these different things that you can get away from somebody when really you're talking about not even getting in that situation. Because when you get into physical altercation, some most time, both people are getting hurt somehow, and that when you're actually you're actually teaching things you can do to prevent any such thing from happening. I'd love for you to comment on that angle. And in the one thing he also mentioned, which I think is clearly true, is because he sees that he's in the houses a lot of times with the agents taking the photography is a lot of the agents, you know, some of them do conceal carry. You know, they have a handgun, it's in their purse. But what do they do? They either leave that purse in the car, or when they go in the house, I see a lot of them, they'll like, put it in a, in a in a drawer, or something in the house, so no one sees their purse out on the counter. But that's where the that's where the handguns at, so that handguns not with them when the actual situation may arise.

Tracey Hawkins  26:35  

Okay, so two, three things, and you you should know, when you get in a conversation with professional speaker. You know how it's going to go, right? Okay, so two things, and your friend, who is the self defense person, is spot on. One class is not enough. When the National Association of REALTORS surveyed, they do an annual member safety report. It's called the residential member safety report, agents are saying that the number one safety tool is pepper spray. The non lethal tool, it happens to be non lethal, is pepper spray followed by a fire orb. Same thing applies to both of them. Regardless of what your weapon of choice is, it must be accessible, so you have to be able to get to it, or it does no good story. And two stories, I'm a storyteller too, and that's how it resonates.

Tracy Hayes  27:19  

Facts tell stories sell. So we need to the audience needs to hear the story to actually implant it. Go ahead.

Tracey Hawkins  27:26  

I agree, and that's why I got chosen to talk to do to do lessons learned last year at NAR. So in Colorado, there was a real estate agent showing a client, and they were in a room, and then this client decided he's going to show pull out his knife and can of bear pepper spray. She pulled out her gun and she shot at him. He got away, but she survived. He was later arrested. But the moral of that story is number one, she carried a weapon, and she knew how to use it. She was not afraid to use it, and she had it accessible. So that's what saved her. Another story in Virginia. I've got all these stories in my head. Real Estate Agent had a client come in, and he decided that he was going to assault her with a wrench. He hit her in the face and head area 10 to 12 times with a wrench. She happened to be a black belt. She was able to fight him off. She had injuries, don't get me wrong, but she was able to fight him off. She survived. So the lesson learned there is, if you're going to have a skill, a self defense skill. One class is not enough. Now, you don't need to be a black belt, but the moral of the story is that one class, oh, we took safety class. Now we're good. We're ready to go. No, you need to take the classes on a regular basis. And I know your friend will agree with you. Sign up, take the classes so that you learn the skill. So the point is that if you have a weapon, whether it's you or whether it's a physical weapon, it needs to be accessible, and you need to be willing and able to actually use it. And then I talk about layers, all of it's important, say practices. That's what I teach. Let's avoid the crime to start with. But just in case, the next layer means let's have a way to physically defend ourselves, if that's your choice. Some people can't or don't want to take self defense or use that as an option. In that case, a weapon is great, whether it's pepper spray, if you don't feel comfortable with lethal weapons, or a firearm is ideal. But you need to make sure that it's legal to carry check with your association, check with your real estate company, and make sure it's legal to carry. So layers are important.

Tracy Hayes  29:24  

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. Streamline 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 streamlined media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to. Real Estate excellence. I want to make this point. I know you would agree with me, whether the black belt was she was consistently doing her her thing, so when it came time, she could act swiftly and with confidence. These one hour or two hour class where they're trying to show you a couple of moves, and you do it once or twice. That's not going to help you when you're under that fear situation. You know that you're Gavin de Becker talked about that, that you know you're up against the wall, and you got to act now. First of all, are you going to act quickly because you haven't been practicing? And I think that also goes to the handgun, pepper spray, I guess you know, is just having the confidence to use it. But you know, someone pulling out a handgun and confident use it quickly and swiftly. You know that takes practice. You gotta, you gotta go and do that stuff. You know, the baby seals really they they pull that gun out 10,000 times before they ever start showing them how to shoot it.

Tracey Hawkins  30:57  

The same thing, Tracy muscle memory with the self defense. If you take more than one class, you take it on a regular basis. Sign up for the whole series. The one and done is not good enough. So muscle memory, you know it will come to you when you need it, but you have to practice same thing with pepper spray. You have to, you can't buy it. And just hope, hope it works when I need it. I tell people when I'm selling them before you even walk away. I'm going to make sure you know how it locks, how it unlocks, that you need to test it. We'll talk about where you test it outside. Make sure it's not windy. And you need to know what you're buying. There's a difference between mace, tear gas and pepper spray. Know the difference? You need to know what happens when you get sprayed. So it's not a one and done. None of this is none and done, one and done, just like on the gun range, you have to go on a regular basis. So same thing with the safety practices. And so many people say, Oh, I know real estate safety is all common sense. What I say is, if it's common sense, that's the wrong safety class. It needs to be more than common sense. Common sense is that instinct that we're born with. But you need to know safe practices. You need to know the proper and safe way to do things. You can't just wing it and hope you get lucky, although most people get lucky, so they think I'm good. I don't need it. I don't need training. And then the big guy thing, I can't tell you how many times I've had agents. Male agents say I'm six, two, I'm 250, pound. I'm a big guy. It's like, I never get the female agents tilling their weight and height. But the guys tell me that for a reason, because they're saying we're good. Tracy, I wrote an article for realtor magazine back in 2017 it talked about the four ways male agents put themselves in danger, and it was the most read article of the year. It won. It was the most read article.

Tracy Hayes  32:33  

Give us give us a couple things. Give us a couple things on the what are the males doing?

Tracey Hawkins  32:37  

Mel, the reason I'm going to ask Mel is like, why do you guys not take safety seriously? One of them said it's the machismo we don't think anything's going to happen to us. And the other one says we're just stupid. Okay, but when I show a picture of the crimes against real estate agents, and I have a two screen, I put a boxes of the most recent crimes against real estate agents, most of them are men. From assault to murder to robbery, most of them are men, and it's because men don't think it can happen to us. It doesn't apply to us. No one's going to bother us. A gun is a great equalizer. Being caught off guard is a great equalizer. So no matter what size you are, gender, no matter what part of town, everyone is equally vulnerable. And it takes me showing that slide of male agents with their names, the dates the crime happens to wake up the males, and the problem is, there's a lot of males don't take safety classes because they don't think they need you. And it's like, right? You're the ones who really need to be here because your guard is down, so therefore you're a target. Right now,

Tracy Hayes  33:34  

do you? I mean, you in these places you go and speak, and the people you meet and talk to, they assume that sexual assault is probably the number one crime like real estate,

Tracey Hawkins  33:46  

that's a crime that affects women. But if you look at the stories about male agents, and I wrote an up to date article for R I S media that talked about the crimes, I think I was in 2021 about was it that year, this year? Anyway, the years blend in. But I talk about in the

Speaker 1  34:03  

most after covid, it's all the same. It

Tracey Hawkins  34:05  

really, truly is. It blends in. But I wrote about the most up to date crimes against male agents. And I'm telling you, robbery at gunpoint, being kidnapped. You know you're walking out of a in Florida, Stefan Barbosa walking out of a property, and here's a teenager who comes at him with a gun, get in the car. We're going to the ATM. They went to two ATM machines. They took $500 out of reach. After they got their $1,000 they killed him. Another male agent standing at a property with his clients, and within like, a couple of weeks, another teenager, you know, pulls a gun. Run for your life. So this agent, he had to think, do I run or do I take this guy on? He made the smart choice. He ran he saved himself. And then there are agents in NAR focuses on an agent who talks about how big he is and how he never thought it would be a problem. He went to a property. He had his wife waiting for him in the carts. He walked into the property to meet a client that he didn't know. He noticed that all of the bedroom doors were closed, and that was a. God, all of a sudden those stores opened. He was ambushed and beaten. And if you look at the NAR website, you will see his story, and you can see the bloody scars on his head. So it happens to male agents, no matter how big you are, no matter where and when I have a class in their mail, agents.

Tracy Hayes  35:15  

That was like a listing appointment. He went to show a property. I was gonna say, how did the people get in before he went

Tracey Hawkins  35:21  

to show it, and he said it was odd he had been in that property before. He couldn't understand why the doors were all closed. So obviously these criminals decided to break in, and they waited for him. He had access, so they went. And meanwhile his wife was sitting in the car, not even thinking about it. And the area where male agents think safety comes into play is they say to the female agents, let me know if you want me to accompany you, I'll go with you. And it's like you need to be careful yourself. And I tell agents, female agents, you don't have to wait for a guy to do that any agent will do. There's truly safety in numbers. So just two people, it could be another agent, could be a female agent, and you never, ever have to show alone. There's always a new agent who will tag along open houses. You never have to host an open house alone. There's always an industry partner, a lender, title company, who would do back flips to co host with you. So for every I can't do it or it's not necessary, my job is to show you how it can be done in a safer manner, and how to use it to build your business.

Tracy Hayes  36:22  

You I know you talked a little bit with Markey and and I'm sure the agents, you know, in whatever beginning class, they talk about some of this stuff, but a lot of them obviously get lazy and don't do it. And like, you know, when they're they're going to going on a someone gives them a call and they want to see one of their listings or something, or, you know, to get their driver's license. What are some of the things? And I know, and I wrote on here the eight apps, because you had a thing on your LinkedIn, I think, said there's eight different apps that you can get to run a some sort of background check with some minimal information on on someone, right?

Tracey Hawkins  36:58  

Those eight apps cover other things like Robo killing, a robo killer for killing robo calls, document storage, money storage, so like earnest, for safely wiring funds in a safe, encrypted manner. And then we talk about car lock, which is to keep their car safe. It lets you know if anyone's touching or bothering your car. But the one app on there that talks about screening safety is forewarn

Tracy Hayes  37:22  

and forewarned, W, A

Tracey Hawkins  37:27  

R n, f, O, R E, W, A R n, for one, okay, and they're, I'd say they're the industry leader. People need to understand what they do. So forewarn is an app, and I advise everyone to check with your association or your company to see if they already subscribe and offer it to their agents, and if not, they do offer a individual plan for agents, and I've interviewed them several times through the years for different articles that I've written, and I even wrote for the clothes.com I did talk about specific safety apps, so you can go there and forewarn is on that list, and I've written about it in realtor magazine. So they're credible and they're predominant in the real estate industry. And let me tell you why I like them. And let me tell you what you need to be careful of. Forewarned. Will confirm an identity if you have a phone number from whoever wants to look at properties. And then I also mentioned that you need to do this for sellers as well. Before you step foot in a seller's house, they're still a stranger. You're going to be behind closed doors with a complete stranger, as well as for buyers who you don't know who you're going to meet, check them out. For Warren, will confirm if that's a real phone number. By that, I mean, they will identify if it's a throwaway, disposable phone. If they're criminals, they don't want to be tracked so they may use a disposable phone. You're going to know that, and you get to make a decision whether or not you want to meet someone who uses a disposable phone. They will confirm the identity. They will let you know. They do some checks on social media accounts, and they want to make sure that the person is world, that they are who they say they are. They will also let you know of any criminal convictions. Now, there have been stories, and I'm trying to remember to remember, think was the one in Las Vegas where the real estate agent was assaulted while holding an open house. They eventually caught the guy, and then they we looked at his record, and in the paper, they talked about all of the crimes he committed, if the real estate agent would have had a tool like this. And we never blame the victim. We're not blaming her. We're just saying, let's learn a lesson from this. So going forward, if you can utilize a tool like forewarn and check out any criminal convictions of who you're working with, you get to make an informed decision if that's someone you want to work with. Now, what I will say is it only has criminal convictions. There's a statistic that says that there are that a criminal commits What 11 crimes before they're caught? So that's not a foolproof manner. It just lets you know if they're conviction. You still need to do your homework. You still need to Google them. You still need to do your research, Social Media Research. You still need to verify who that they are, who they say they are. The forewarn will will let you know if those convictions, it will also. Let you know of any financial issues, bankruptcies, any foreclosures and any financial issues, so that you can determine again, whether or not they're qualified to work with you. And then so forewarn is one of those tools that every real estate agent needs for.

Tracy Hayes  40:14  

One is digging in. It's digging into the public record, because a lot of all that stuff, you know, their convictions, or they're got a foreclosure or bankruptcy are public record. So it's cross referencing what the basic information, like you said, could be just their phone number, but obviously the more information that you have, if you have their driver's license, is just going to give them that much more to be able to dig

Tracey Hawkins  40:37  

here's what I know, Tracy before forewarn and for years, we would tell agents to meet in the office and get some information. That means get a copy of their driver's license, and the goal of doing that is to increase witness potential, so if criminals know you have their driver's licenses on your desk, they're less likely to victimize you, because someone can hand that to law enforcement officials in the apartment leasing industry, that's common knowledge. That's why you don't hear too many stories. There are stories out there, but you don't hear so many of someone being in an apartment and assaulted because they require no if ands or buts about it. If you're going to see a model apart,

Tracy Hayes  41:13  

just drive a car, you're gonna go test drive a car, and auto dealership they want your driver's

Tracey Hawkins  41:17  

license, no if ands or buts about it. But in the real estate industry, real estate agents don't want to offend someone, so agents would not meet in the office. Agents, to this day, will not ask for a driver's license. They won't do it. So that's why telling them to do that. It was something that I found out face to face, and I still hear people who are just saying, get a driver's license like that. It's ideal. I'd love for you to do it. That's the way you should do it. But until every agent across the industry does it, then if someone rolls their eyes and thinks it's a hassle, they'll go to the next agent who will say, Come on, let's go show let me show you without anything. So forewarn at least gives you an opportunity to check them out. And then if you don't have form one, you can still do research on your own public records or free. Go to your county website. Make sure that that seller really owns the home, the person that you're going to be showing a buyer, make sure they own some kind of property, a vehicle, something you want to be able to find something instead of meeting a complete stranger, and you can do it in a short period of time. And no, it's not a hassle. It's not a waste of time. We're talking about your life. So it's a whole mind,

Tracy Hayes  42:21  

the foreworn app, how? How quickly does it come back? Two minutes.

Tracey Hawkins  42:24  

He said, You can do it at a stoplight. You can be at a stoplight, get a phone call, someone wants to see a property, get a phone number, and by the time, this is, I'm sure, what he said is, by the time the light turns green, you have a report back on them. But the point is, he said about two minutes or so. So it's not, not

Tracy Hayes  42:40  

inconvenient, not going to delay your showing when

Tracey Hawkins  42:43  

we talk about it's a hassle, or rolling their eyes, it's like we're talking about something that could save your life. So that is the mindset change that I am trying to incorporate in the real estate industry.

Tracy Hayes  42:54  

Give me Give me some to kind of reiterate our points here. I know you know I'm putting you on the spot and tell you to prepare this, but you probably know the statistics that are that are out there as Gavin de Becker, when you're reading his book, you know, consistently tells you numerous times, like, how many 1000 abuses, how many kids were beat up by or killed by their parents in the last 24 hours? I mean, the FBI actually has that clock, you know every three seconds this is going on based on how many you know, or through as far as any assault on real estate agents, whether it's sexual assault or just a robbery or battery. What are, what are our statistics that are out there that everyone needs to

Tracey Hawkins  43:34  

there's not one organization that tracks statistics about crimes against Real Estate Agent. It doesn't exist. It's never existed. Think about how that would impact the industry. No one is the keeper of that information. However, the FBI, the crime center, what they do is they look at crimes in certain occupations, and that's how we know that the US Department of Labor considers real estate sales on leasing a high risk, a hazardous occupation. The numbers there, and I'll share those as well as the job description, which reads that a real estate agent will meet complete strangers in empty houses. A real estate agent will sit in an empty house and wait for strangers to walk in. So it's no surprise that that's a hazardous job. It's no surprise that it compares to an Uber or a taxi driver or a taxi driver, more than an Uber, at least Uber and Lyft. They're taking some measures of determining who you're riding with, but a taxi driver, a convenience store clerk or security guard. So it's a dangerous job. My job is not to scare people, but to give them the tools to do the job in a safe manner and to remove those risks. So when we look at numbers of the Department of Labor, on average, I'd say about 68 people a year in the real estate industry are killed on the job. I saw a, oh, I think it was an NAR report that said over 60,000 real estate agents were victimized on an annual basis.

Tracy Hayes  44:54  

There are one sort of crime, right? But whether it was the 60 that got killed. It, and then another 59,942

Tracey Hawkins  45:03  

different sets, two different sets of information. But then, if you think about it, there are 1.5 million realtors. Those are members of the National Association of Realtors. According to orello, there are another 1.5 million active real estate professionals who are not members of the association. So that's 3 million people practicing real estate. You can imagine the crime numbers. And again, they're not tracked any one place. What I do as part of my business, because I live and bring this is I keep up with the stories in the headlines. I know the crimes against agents when they happen, but I can't know them all. I know what's reported on a national basis, and when I find those out, I share them and I let ages know this is happening. Because agents are thinking, Oh, nothing's happening. There haven't been any news headlines. Nothing happens here. Nothing ever happens here. And I have to show them that it is happening. It's happening in places who don't think it's happening. It's happening to people, men, women, all ages. I had an agent say, Oh, I'm old and ugly. No one wants me. And it's like, it's not about what you look like. It's about if you fit certain criteria of a criminal. They may be looking for someone with a certain eye color, hair color, older, younger, we don't know. So everyone needs to be alert, and you'll notice I didn't say everyone needs to be scared. We don't operate from fear, but we operate from empowerment, knowing how to keep ourselves safe, knowing the safe practices so that we can move forward in our differences. Not only that, let's use it to build our business so we're making everybody safe to consumers as well as the agents

Tracy Hayes  46:37  

and Tracy just I want to touch on this point as this question came up, and while you were talking there, obviously, you know, my dad said several months ago, he's man, I noticed you have a lot of beautiful young women on on the show. And I said, Well, I have a podcast. I I'm trolling social media some of these agents. I've known some of them. I didn't know, but they're on social media. So I know, if I, you know, they're on the podcast, they're going to put, you know, we could, there's a place I can promote the show, how they can promote themselves, you know, we cut reels and that sort of thing from it. And you know that in this day of social media too, these stalkers, these people who want to do bad, I mean, they're, they're watching you through social media. They're getting to know you too, and your actions. A lot of times, it's not like, hey, they woke up this morning on a Saturday. Hey, let's go find a realtor open house and assault somebody. They probably have done some homework on you. And you know are watching, you know, a car you drive. So when they go by the open house, they only see your car there and tells them that there's in the house. These are type of things that you know, in our own way of we want to promote, promote the business, not to get away from because we need to. We need to move forward and not let these people deter our lives. But we need to take that time to do a little bit of due diligence to protect ourselves.

Tracey Hawkins  47:54  

We don't, we don't blame the victim, right? But there are people who give ammunition to those who target real estate agents. And there is a buddy of mine talks about being a predatory crime that someone doesn't just see, oh, there's an agent. I'm going to, you know, I guess I'll go attack them. Now. They study the agent, they look for the agent, they target them. And agents are giving ammunition to those and it has nothing to do with how you look. If you look at the criminals and or victims across all scopes. Criminals of all ages are attacked or assaulted, criminals both genders. It just doesn't it's not about your and I had someone say, Oh, well, don't be blonde and pretty in this industry, because that's what they want look at the pictures.

Tracy Hayes  48:36  

That's that's probably carrying the gun. The blondes probably carrying the handgun. So stay away, right?

Tracey Hawkins  48:42  

Say you. We can't make generalizations. We don't know that and but, but as far as the victims, anyone can be a victim, and it doesn't have to do with the prettiest or the youngest or the oldest. It doesn't matter. It just matters if you fit a certain criteria. And so the information to put out there no matter what your privacy settings are, privacy is a myth. No such thing as privacy on any social media. I don't care what your settings are, and that's something that I teach agents in my class about social media. No such thing as privacy. You need to control the information that you put out there, and that includes images. There are pictures of agents leading with sexual sexuality, male agents and female agents, because they think that's how they're going to get the phones to ring. You need to keep in mind that there are those who have criminal mindsets out there who may be looking for that, and that might attract them. But then again, you can have agents who are doing the right thing, professional photos, professional posts, who are victimized. What you need to do is you need to make sure you're careful of the information you share on social media, on your Facebook. Post nothing personal on your personal page, no business. That's a Facebook rule. If you post business stuff on your personal page one day, you're going to go and it may be gone, you're breaking the rules. So use your business page for talking about real estate, but you don't need to say hey, I'm holding an open house. Come say hi, come see me, because you're not only telling people where you are. Or you're telling them where you are not, and then criminals can use all of this open information and find out where you live. They could be burglarizing your house while you're inviting people to your open house. So I'm talking about and you think no one knows where I live, I'm sharing the sites that make it their business to publicize your public information. They make it easy for criminals to find it in one neat, convenient package. So that's the kind of stuff that I get to talk about in my training, that most people are talking about. And another thing Tracy and I know we're about to run out of time here, as you said, social media, the social media that real estate agents truly need to be on, not only for lead gen, not only for I call it E farming and keeping themselves safe. It's next door. So right now, I'm telling people don't sleep on next door. Next door has about 260,000 neighborhoods, and that neighborhoods are made up of what homeowners, people who rent apartments, people who are living in communities. And I love next door because it lets me know what's going on around me. So in my neighborhood, my radio, I can set a radius where I want to information I'm finding out whether or not there or car burglaries happening close to me, house burglaries, porch pirates. It's a big deal at this time, so neighbors are sharing this kind of information so that allows me to stay safe. I am telling real estate agents, not only do you need to keep your family safe, but utilize next door to be a good neighbor. If you see someone who is saying, I need a contractor, you can say, hey, I'm a real estate agent, and I work with a lot of contractors. Here are a few that you can check out, make sure you do your homework. Or you can be a good neighbor and say, you know, I know a tree person. Or be careful. I see a lot of crimes. And here's a story about how to burglar proof your house. Be a good neighbor. Don't get on next door and try to I'm a real estate agent. Let me sell your house. Let me list your house. Be a good neighbor. You can have a free group on next door. It could be your market report. That's where you get to tell people what's going on in neighborhood sales and how many houses on the market, the highest price, lowest price. Unique features have a you could set up a free group, and then you could also set up free events on next door, any open house, make it an event.

Tracy Hayes  52:07  

Totally next door came out. A lot of people jumped, jumped into and when I heard you talking on markie's show about this, and I'm like, yo, you're 100% right. Yo, everyone wants to be their, you know, their their real estate agent in their neighborhood, or neighboring neighborhoods next door, I think, have cleaned up their thing that one of the problems with next door, not to be negative about it, because I'm 100% with what you're saying, is it's become a trashing ground of your HOA board or something like that, to The point where we get enough negative news from our news outlets to, let alone to get it on our on our media. So hopefully next door has cleaned that part of it so that people actually do want to go in there and hear what people are saying, positive information, like you're you're talking about helpful information, and not become, you know this, this session about like their HOA border is some Gods up in the sky, and they're, they're actually the only negative thing I had when I was thinking about when

Tracey Hawkins  53:09  

that's everywhere, and we have to learn to scroll past the negative. But then agent, and I've got to get off, I've got another interview in a minute. But then agents can look and see and contribute positively or contribute to those conversations. If there's new property being built, everybody wants to get on there. Say, not in my backyard, an agent may come on there with statistics, facts and figures. Or if there's negative Homeowners Association, an agent may be able to lend their voice. And then final thing is, you can, I call it E form, you get to choose the area, the neighborhoods that you get information on. So pick out that a neighborhood that you want to work in. It could be that upscale neighborhood and adjoining neighborhood could be across town, be a part of that neighborhood, see what the conversations are, and then contribute here or there. And pretty soon, your name is going to be recognizable. So when they hear you or hear your name or hear from you, it's not like you're a stranger. It's like, oh, you're the one on next door who's always contributing. So make sure your profile picture has your business name or your logo something on there, but next door is where it said to keep yourself safe and to keep your consumer safe and to lead gen. And I know that's the big word, so utilize that.

Speaker 1  54:13  

That's the collateral

Tracy Hayes  54:14  

benefit of being being social. All right, so I'll wrap it up here, because I know you got to go here in just a couple of minutes, I'm going to put your contact information. But if anyone listening to the show, Tracy's right on LinkedIn, it's T, R, A, C, E, y, Hawkins, the safety lady, she's out there, but I'm going to put the information will be in the show notes. If you need to dig it up or just simply contact me, I'll link you. I've got her email, you know, to put you together. I'm going to put your word out to the local boards that they need to you know, have you in, whether it's just a webinar or something of that nature, or even some of these local teams that I know this, this is just really valuable stuff, and I hope somebody got something from the show. Last question, is it more important who you know or what you know, and what I say, what you know, if you're knowledge? Possible you're educated that empowers you so you can go anywhere you can be comfortable, and you know that you can take care of yourself. So I say it's what you know. And I mean, that's how I make my living, teaching Exactly.

Speaker 1  55:10  

I agree. I love it, and then also

Tracey Hawkins  55:13  

the way Tracy, I want to give that FSBO safety, that PDF handout, I'm going to give you a link so people can link and download that PDF and start using it immediately. Tape your business they pull your business card to it, and start helping FSBOs learn the dangers of what they're doing, and then increase your chance of getting that listing.

Tracy Hayes  55:31  

I'll do it. I'll do it. I appreciate you. Tracy, okay, thank you. Next show is just as great, and look for you and Mark, he's actually coming here on January 27 to speak at our re bar camp on January 27 and that's why I started listening to her shows, because I got her coming on next week. I wonder have her on the podcast before she came and spoke in town, and then that's where I ran across your podcast.

Tracey Hawkins  55:52  

So she is wonderful. Hopefully this was a precursor to me coming there too. I did a virtual show for your for I think it was RDR, I just mean any of them, so I would love to come there.

Speaker 2  56:01  

So excellent, excellent, Tracy, you have a great day. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye, Tracy. Brief, thank you everybody.

Podcast Intro  56:09  

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

Speaker 3  56:37  

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