10 Questions That Will Change the Way You Connect with Clients

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of challenge. To challenge the status quo and think differently. So if this is your why, then you don't believe in following the rules or drawing inside the lines. You want things to be fun and exciting and different. You rebel against the classic way of doing things. You typically have eccentric friends and eclectic tastes because after all, why would you want to be normal? You love to be different, think different, and you aren't afraid to challenge virtually anyone or anything that is too conventional or typical for your taste. Pushing the envelope comes naturally to you. So I have a great guest for you today. His name is Richard Robbins. As one of North America's most preeminent authorities on real estate sales and business performance, Richard has developed a business dedicated to discovering your passion for unleashing your potential and building a business that supports the life you want to live. Co founder and CEO of one of North America's top real estate training and coaching organizations, Richard Robbins International Richard has been a leader in the industry for over two decades, delivering actionable advice, intelligent insight and show stopping conferences. An international speaker, author and real estate business coach, Richard has dedicated his life to delivering transformative learning and leadership to the 10,000 RRI coaching graduates and over 350,000 real estate professionals who have attended Richard Robbins International World class conferences since 1998. A real estate sales professional and broker turned business mentor, Richard boasts a 35 year career in the industry. He continues to lead every day. His relentless commitment to excellence fuels his organization and is the reason why he has become a mentor to thousands of real estate professional professionals across the world. Armed with one goal in mind, Richard believes that everyone is capable of building A business and life they love. Richard, welcome to the podcast.

Gary. Thank you so much for having me. Boy, listening to that introduction, I wish my mom can get to hear that. She'd be so proud.

That was a mouthful, but I'm so glad that we have that because it's, it sets everybody up to know a little bit about you. Right.

We're gonna dive in deeper. You and I met through a group called Genius Network, and, and we've had some fun times together and some events together and. But let's go back in your life, Richard. Where were you born? What were you like in high school?

Terrible student. Honestly, I got hooked up, I definitely got hooked up with the wrong crowd, if you know what I'm saying. And conditioning is very important in your life. You know, atmospheric conditionings can impact you. But anyway, I grew up in a town of about 65,000 people called Peterborough, which is 90 minutes northeast of Toronto. And I, I finished high school and then I went to college for about three months and I didn't leave because I graduated early, if you know what I'm saying. And then I, I started my very first entrepreneurial experience then. And I've, I've sort of been, you know, ever since, you know, I'm, that's what, 40, I guess when I started. 44 years ago is when I started my first entrepreneur experience. So, yeah, it's been a blast. You know what I mean? I, I've, I don't regret anything that I did in school because I wouldn't be where I am today if I had to take in a different path. That's the way I look at it.

Well, let's talk about that. So give us a sense we're now meeting you. There's Richard Robbins over there. We're in 10th, 11th, 12th grade. What are we seeing?

What are you like.

Hard worker? Because back in school my dad taught me something. He said, work ethic will overcome a lot of problems in your life. So my dad was very disciplined in terms of work ethic. And my dad at the time had three service stations in Peterborough. And I used to work, so maybe why I didn't do too well in school. I used to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 3:30 to 7:30 at the gas stations. 3:30 to 10:30 Thursday and Friday and 8 to 4 on Saturday. So I almost had a full time job from when I was about 15 years old. I remember my last year in high school, if you can believe it. I had a motorcycle and a car, so. Which is pretty crazy if you think about it like, you know, back then, you know, I was working my butt off and. And I still lived at home, obviously, so I had some money. And that's got a lot to do with why I didn't take school so seriously is because I was way more interested in work. I was made way more interested in, you know, making money and, you know, really enjoying myself. So that was. I would say that, you know, people would, if they were to try to describe me back then, I would say, oh, he's a really nice guy, but we don't see him around much.

Okay, well, you were not solving sports and any of that kind of stuff.

No, the only thing I did a little bit of was cross country running, but I never. And here I am from Canada, where hockey is religion. I never really played any hockey. I never played football. And to be honest, the only thing I do today is play golf. And I didn't take that up till I was 31 years old, so. And quite honestly, I'm not the most talented athlete in the world, to be honest. You know what I mean?

Well, so work was your thing, right. And didn't attend many school functions. None of that kind of stuff. Just off to work. School as little as possible. Off to work. But gave you a good work ethic.

Yeah, you know, I. Yeah. I don't know why. School just never appealed to me. Like, even when I went to college, I was three months in and my parents wanted me to go to college, obviously. And, you know, I was three months in. And I just think to myself, I can't do this. I know I had too many other things on the go outside of school that were of great interest to me. And I remember when I came home and said to my mom and dad that I was going to leave college, my dad said, well, what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to start a business. He said, what type of business you're going to start? And I said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring truckloads full of logs in. Now, this is back in the day when wood stoves were very popular. I don't know if you remember that, but for a long time they had Franklin wood stoves and then airtight wood stoves and because, you know, a lot of oil heating back then in homes and oil became very expensive, so a lot of people started to use wood. Wood stoves actually heat their house, you know, in different climates. And in Peterborough, obviously colder climate, this was very popular. So what I did with another buddy of mine named Alan Coons is we started bringing in full transport truckloads of logs, if you can believe it. And the Honda dealer, he had space behind his dealership and I can't remember, we paid him a little bit. It wasn't a lot, but Alan knew him, so he let us dump the logs there. Then we would go to the rental store and we would hire a log splitter and we would get kids in in the weekend and they'd cut it up, split it up. And then we'd advertise it in this paper called the Shoppers Market, which was sort of a local marketplace type paper. And we would advertise it and then I would borrow my dad's truck and we would deliver a face cord or a full quarter wood to all of these people. And we ran out, we'd do it all over again. That's. That was the first thing I ever did. Wow.

And I'm sure you had really good insurance coverage for all these kids chopping up all the logs.

Yeah, insurance.

Insurance was back then. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, so first job was getting wood. And then where did you go from there? How long did you do that? And then what came next?

Yeah, I did that for a couple seasons, like a couple winter seasons. Uh, but even while I was doing that, I was still working for my dad. And what ended up happening was because I had a side hustle, My dad was sort of proud of me that I was being proactive. I wasn't just laying around on the couch, you know, leaving college. And I worked my way up and actually became one of the managers of one of the gas stations or service stations. Right. Like we had lube shops and all this other kind of stuff going on. And I took over one of the stations and, and I ran that till I was 24. And you know, it was, it was. I worked for Shell Canada and, and you know, one of. Somebody treated me well. It was a really great job. I think to this day I still get $5,000 in that pension from way back then. I don't think I can catch till I'm like 65 or something. But anyway, they're probably worth 6,000 now, you know, after 40 years. But anyway, it was such an interesting story. So now imagine this, Gary. Back then, no computers. Now, our gas stations were called Beaver Stations, which were a subsidiary company of Shell. And the policy of Beaver is we were going to be the lowest priced gas station in town at all times. That was going to be our thing. Right. So we competed on price. Well, I used to have a clipboard. And on the clipboard there was a map of every gas station in Peterborough. And every day I would have to drive around and write and write the price of all the stations and that I'd have to come back and I'd have to call into Shell and, you know, get permission to lower our price at all three stations. Excuse me, to whatever just below whatever the lowest price was. When I was driving around, I used to drive by a Century 21 real estate office. And all I remember for some reason was they all seemed to have nice cars and they all seem to wear nice clothes because they used to be. I could see them through the glass window, right? And I thought to myself, that would be sort of fun, you know, selling real estate. So I went into the office one day and I met Don Harriman. He was the manager. And he said after three or four meetings, he said if I was willing to leave my job and get my real estate license, he would pay for all of my real estate courses. And that was it. I drove over to the station, I went into the office, saw my dad. I said, dad, I'm getting into real estate. They get a. And my dad was an amazing human, like he was. He's my, you know, strongest mentor this day. God rest. And anyway, he looked at me and he said, rich, you've made a lot of really crazy decisions on your. But he said, this one makes no sense whatsoever. I said, well, why? He said, rich, you're making a really good living right now, you know, in a relatively small town where the cost of living isn't that high and you could literally do this and retire with a really nice pension, you know, I can't remember what he said. 60 or 65. I don't remember. And I said, yeah, I understand that, dad. But I said, I just can't picture myself doing this the rest of my life. Like, you know what I mean? Like, driving around checking prices, changing prices on pumps. This before computers, in the middle of winter, my hands used to freeze, right? Then I'd have to get up on the side and change the price by hand with a ladder in the middle of. I think it was just crazy, right? So. So anyway, yeah, I quit and I got my real estate license and I've never looked back.

So what was that like going from no, you know, great, good income, I guess, for that time to no income? Right. You don't make any money right away as a realtor?

No, no.

And how did that play out for you? How long did it take you to get going.

Well, it was sort of interesting because, you know, I had a little bit of money put away, but not a lot, like not very much, but I had nothing to do but work. Gary, I remember my manager, here's what he said to me. He said, and why I gave this answer to this day, I do not know. Now remember I was making $38,500 at the gas station back then, which if you go back that far for a single guy, it was a decent living, right? And, and he said, how much money do you want to make in your first year? And I just to impress him, for no other reason, I said, $100,000. Now in 1985, a hundred thousand dollars was like a lot of dough, right? And he said, okay, well then we've got a, we've got to get a plan. The next thing he said me with this, Gary. He said, how many leads do you have right now? I said, none.

I said.

He said, you don't know anybody who wants to buy or sell real estate? I said, no. He said, then here's what you're going to have to do. You're going to spend all day trying to find people want to buy and sell real estate. And I said, well, how do I do that? And he said, For three hours in the morning, from 9 to 12, you're going to dial the telephone and cold call. He called it dialing for dollars. He said, then take an hour, an hour and 15 minutes for lunch. And then he said, from roughly 1 to 1:30, I want you to door knock until 4 to 4:30, knock on doors. And then I want you to do two open houses on Saturday and two open houses on Sunday. And I will find the open houses of agents that have listings that don't want to do. I used to open house from 12:30 to 2:30 and 3 to 5 right on Saturday and Sunday. That's how I started. So basically I generated leads all day long. That's what I did. And this is back with rotary phones, you know what I mean? We had the old rotary phones back then. I used to have a callus on my finger from dialing, right? And so I, and I didn't know what I was doing. People just, oh, yeah, I'm thinking of buying a house. I try to find them a house and, and end up getting the sale of five weeks in, I sold a listing of another agent and he was the top agent in town. His name was Dan Grady and he was the top real estate agent in town. And he was marketing everywhere this Guy. And he literally just retired this year. I sold his listing, went back with my first deal handed in to my manager, Don. He was all excited. And then he said, you know, Dan's the top agent in town. I said, I know. He said, well, you should call and take him out for lunch and pick his brain. And I saw Tangride is not going to go for lunch with me. Right. Remember, I'm 24 years old, right? You know, why does he want to go for lunch with me? I'm just a new agent. He goes, all he can say is no. And he said, you know what no means. Next. Make the next call. So anyway, I called Dan. We went out for lunch, we spent two hours at a Chinese restaurant, and he told me all of his trade secrets. Now, here's what's really crazy. At the end of my first full year, my first full year was 1986. So from January of 86 until the end of December of 86, I made $102,000. More money than anybody in my family had ever made. Now, in all fairness, I spent 150, to be truthful.

So that's how I got started just prospecting all day.

So I bet you learned some really good lessons doing that.

Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, I still teach today.

Tell us some of those lessons. What was the biggest lesson you learned in making how many calls you think you made?

I estimate okay. In my sales crew, I ended up opening a company and buying a company. So, and this is an estimation that I did try to figure out one day. But we estimate in a seven year period, I made 100,000 calls. Wow. Yeah. It's insane. It used to get to the point I wear two headsets and we finally had push button phones. And I would actually be dialing. This is before automatically dialers. I used to dial one number with one hand. And I discovered that if they didn't answer within four rings, there was over a 90% chance they weren't going to answer. So while this one was ringing on my right side, then I started dialing the phone with my left hand, which was a little harder because I'm right handed. And then it would start ringing. And once this one hit four rings, I'd hang up. I dial the next number and I do that to somebody answer. Then I hang up the other phone and talk to them. And I had. I had a script. I go through the script fast, you know, and find it if there's any interest.

All right, let's hear the script. Do you still got it?

I got it. So. And this was cold calling. So this literally was phoning from the phone book, if you can imagine. Okay, I'm not phoning around streets. I'm literally phoning from a phone book. So I called him up, and Gary, to answer, I say, hi, Gary, it's Richard Robbins from Century 21. I was just wondering, when do you plan on moving? That was my first question. And you'd go. And you go, never.

I'm not moving. We're going to cam you out here in a box.

I used to hear all these things, right? And I start laughing. I go, well, I hope that's not too soon. And then I'd say, I'm really curious. And I think one of the keys words where I'm really curious, how long have you lived there? And Gary, go on. We've been here about six years. And I go, six years, you know, following the nlp, you know, repeat their answer. You know, that's really cool. Where did you move from? And, you know, Gary would say, oh, we moved from Toronto or moved from the US or whatever the case is. And I go, Toronto, wow. What.

What brought you here?

And now we're in a conversation, you know what I mean? And now, not all of them answered all my questions. Some people just hang up with me, but most of them did. And then I would. And then I would say, you know, what brought you here? And he'd tell me, and I say, you know, I'm really curious. If you were to move. I know you said you're not, but if you were to move, where would you go next? And that was the key question, because now I was going to get the honest answer, right? And they might say, oh, when we retire, we'll probably move back home. I go, that's terrific. You know, be so nice to get home. So when do you plan on retiring? Oh, another 15 years. I go, gary, that's great, man. Well, thanks so much for taking the time and talking to me. Now is my script. I did that over and over and over and over and over again. And I got so good at it. I got so good at building rapport, right, That I would say 90% of the time, I could get through all of the questions and somebody would feel relatively comfortable talking to me, right? So now, again, this is way before no call lists and, you know, all this stuff that we're faced with today, you know, no call display. You know, people didn't know who it was, and they were more open to telephone conversations back then than they would today.

So the point of the call was to build rapport.

It was to ask a question they probably weren't going to tell you the truth to. And this was a Mike Ferry script, by the way, a real estate trainer. Because the first question, they're probably not going to tell you the truth. Then you start asking some, they call them softball questions that are really simple for them to answer. That sounds like something another human being would be interested to know, right? I'm curious, how long have you been there? Right? Pretty easy question, right? Non threatening. And then once I could get through, through those, and sometimes I'd have a little more discussion around each question, right? Like, so, how did you like it in Buffalo? You know, something like that. And then I wanted to get to that last question was, you know, I'm just curious, like, if you were to move and you'd almost do that. I'm really curious if, if you were to move Gary, where do you think you might go next? Just like that, right? And then they generally tell you the truth at that point, and then you just casually, somehow, some way, you know, when do you think you might retire and, you know, 15 years. Well, it's obviously not a lead. I had a great conversation, thank them for their time and move on. That was the deal.

And so what were the stats? Or do you remember the stats that you had or, you know, every call you'd get, how long would it take.

You to get a lead? 75 calls. I could get a deal in 75 calls. That's, that's short. 75 contacts. I had to talk to 75 people, not call 75 people. But the way I had it worked out over, you know, I used to track it just by putting a line on a piece of paper and then a, you know, diagonal line through it. I had it all worked out that I could get a deal within 75 calls. But then when they showed interest, the next thing I had to do is qualify them. And that's something that Don Harriman taught me. He said it's critically important because in real estate, everybody loves to talk about real estate and everybody's going to move sometime. So he said, now you need to qualify. So he taught me the when, where and why. So, you know, the, the first question is, so, you know, I'm really curious, you know, when do you want to get moved by? And you know, Gary says, oh, you know, Christmas. Well, that's a mediocre lead, you know what I mean? Because that's a long way away. Or Gary might say, while I, I'm being transferred and I need to find something very soon or whenever we find the right house. That was a seed lead because that probably they're not moving anytime soon. So A was. They had a very specific date. I used to say it was in 90 days, more than 90 days with a specific date. To me was a B lead that I would probably follow up at some point in the future. Right. And then whenever we find the right house was sort of a C. And I didn't bother with those. So then once I had them qualified, then I would move to setting a face to face appointment with them. And then I would either do a listing presentation or talk to them about their needs as a buyer, that sort of thing. So that was the whole process that I followed, you know, for many, many years. Yeah, you.

You know, it's. It's interesting how many agents were willing to do what you did.

None in my office.

None in my office. And the deal was this. Dawn. Dawn was great. Like, you know, if you didn't want to do it, he didn't care. It was your. It was your income. Right. Like, you know, he'd try to guide you the right way. But as I started to get busier, all of a sudden now I had appointments. But the secret was this. Even though I still had appointments, I had to do appointments after lunch. So I could still do three hours of prospecting every morning, five days a week. That was the rule. So I might not door. If I could show property. If I could do a listing presentation, I didn't have to door knock.

And if I didn't have an appointment, then I had to door knock. That was the deal. Right now, five of us all started at the same time. And the only other one I'd say that did it consistently, and probably not as consistently as me, was a guy by the name of Bert Riel. But the other three people, you know, they didn't show up in the morning. You know what I mean? The same old deal, right? Yeah. I'm on, boss. I can do whatever the hell I want. And you know, that's exactly where most people fail. Right?

How did the.

You said Dan Riel, Burt Riel was probably the other.

How did he do.

He killed it. He killed it? Yeah, he killed it. And it was really interesting because I was 24, and I bet you Bert was 40 or 45. He had left a fairly good career to get into real estate. But he was one of the most competitive people. Like, we became great friends, but he was one of the most competitive people I had ever seen.

So why did you work so hard? What was it inside you that said, I'm gonna do what this guy told me to do? Because that doesn't seem like in line with how you do others. Or maybe it is how you do other things, but it's something inside you said, I better work my butt off here, was it?

Yeah, I think I would say probably. I got to say two things I'm going to say. Number one was I was probably scared, right? Because I had taken a big risk and I wanted to succeed. You know, I wanted to show my parents that I could do it because they're a great influence in my life. And probably number two was all I knew my whole life was how to work, because my dad had taught me right. How to work, and my dad was a hard worker. So I. I don't think I felt it was anything unusual. I felt it's just what you did. But also, let's face it, I probably needed the money.

Yeah, for your car and your motorcycle.

Exactly, yeah.

Okay, so you're. Now you're working your tail off. You're making your. However many calls that is a year.

You're.

You're starting to do better. You made a hundred thousand your first year. You probably did better and better year after year. Take us through what happened over your next seven years.

So I got to be 20. When I was 27.

I wanted to move out of Peterborough. I wanted to spread my wings. I wanted to, you know, do something different. You know, I. I have trouble doing the same thing over and over again. Like, I need variety in my life. And so what I did there was a company that had opened up in Peterborough. It was a small, independent, and I knew the guy that started it, and he asked me if I wanted to start one in Toronto. Okay. Well, it's Markham, which is basically just north of Toronto. So from the time we talked about it to the time I moved was 10 days. Wow. And I left. I went to see Don Hereman, told him I was leaving, and he was beside himself because, you know, he didn't want me to go. Obviously, I told my parents I was going, and they just looked at me and said, we know you'll do great, Rich. You know what I mean? But I'm the only one, to this day in my family has ever left the hometown. They're all still there. Right. And I moved to Markham with Dana Richard, who we. We partnered up, and he was an agent that I had sold an apartment building to that came to me and decided he wanted to be a real estate Agent he was by education, he was an engineer. So he get into real estate. I helped him, you know, sort of learn the craft of real estate a little bit. And he was an agent in his office right beside mine. And then we decided together, I'm single, he's married with kids. We decide together we're going to move to Markham. And we left within 10 days. And we opened our real estate company in a place we knew nobody zero. But it was a high end area. And I thought if I'm going to sell homes, I want to sell big ones because, you know, more commission. So Dan and I moved up there and I can tell you for the next three years.

We board and every credit card to pay other credit cards. It was like the experience we went through was, was crazy, but it was amazing. I remember we even borrowed some money off Dana's mother, you know, to pay for our advertising. There was. They weren't going to give us advertising the next week. And people go, why didn't you go to your mom? I said, well, I didn't want to ruin my inheritance. So we went to Dana's mom and yeah, we bore like 1500 bucks off of her and we just shoestring budget like. But then all of a sudden, three years in, the whole thing turned around and. And we actually grew that company to have the highest production per agent of any company in the trading area by three. By three.

Wow.

Yeah. And then I, then I sold it in 1998 when I started this company. And Dana had left a few years before that because his wife didn't like living in Toronto and they wanted to get back home. So I sort of bought the company off him. He left. And then when I started this company, I called Dana back and I asked him if he wanted to be my director of coaching. And Dana's still with me today as my director of coaching. So Dana and I've been together for like over 35 years in one capacity or another.

Wow. So you had the high end area for how many years before you sold it? What was that area?

It was called Markham Unionville. Markham Unionville was the area which was sort of on the northeast side of Toronto. And remember Peterborough was northeast of Toronto. So it was an area that was only about an hour and a half drive to Peterborough, my hometown. And like literally 20 minutes, 25 minutes from downtown Toronto. Okay. So I opened that in 1988, October of 1988, I opened that and I sold it. 1998, I think April. So for argument's sake, I had that for 10 years, we built it up and then I sold it to ReMax.

Because I had. So with 24 agents at the time, I had 12% market share. ReMax at 88 agents and at 18% market share. So think about that, how productive my agents were. So they were pretty excited because the sale would cause them to get another 12 market share and get them to 30% right in the area. And I sold it to start this company, Richard Robbins International. And essentially, believe it or not, Richard Robbins International does exactly what I did as a broker. I train and coach agents. So instead of just training, coaching 24, you know, I train and coach thousands. But my fl. I still do the same thing I did with my own agents in the office, right? To some degree.

That's exactly what I was going to ask you next. Why were your 24 agents almost as good as the 88 agents for ReMax? What was the difference?

I would say, so what I did. And again, I didn't know if I was doing right or wrong, to be honest with you. But I had these ideas all the time. I used to go to Jim Rohn seminars, Zig Ziglar seminars, Tony Robbins seminars. And I learned so much from those people.

And I'm. I'm a bit of a personal development junkie, right? And I'm always trying to figure things out. And my theory was this. My theory was I had these people in my office that were raw talent, but what I had to do was mold them, just like Don Harriman molded me. And there's an old saying that says, if you change your words, you will change your worth as a salesperson. And I believe very much in that. So I had a mandatory meeting every Tuesday from 10 o' clock to 12 o'. Clock. And in that mandatory meeting, we would role play objections that they were struggling with. You know, so somebody might say, well, the other agent said, then get me more money for my house. Or the other agent said that they'll do it for a lower commission or we need to interview three other agents or, you know, whatever, right? Just objections and objection. Me is just a question in the seller's mind. Like they're. They're saying to you, why should I pay you that fee? They're saying, you, why should I list the price you suggested? That's what I hear in my head, right? So we used to sit and we used to role play, role play, role play, but in a real casual way, not in an intimidating way.

And we'd go around the table and I'd say, you know, okay, Gary, when you get that objection, what do you say? And I'd say, dana, when you get that objection, what do you say? And we'd get everybody's input, and then we'd create a script from that, and I'd have my administrative staff write up a script, and then we'd give that script to all the agents, and then we might work on that the next week again. The other thing I did was I held them accountable to the generation of leads every week. So what are you going to do this week? Okay. To generate leads, which really is somewhat of a coaching relationship. Right. And everybody would go public with their plans. I would write down what their goals were, and then in the next meeting would sit down, and I'd go around the table and say, okay, Gary, you know, last week you said you were going to do this. How'd you make it? And Gary go, I did pretty good. I got a little off track on Thursday, you know, that sort of thing. And, you know, then. But. But the. The public accountability was so powerful, right? And we weren't trying to make people feel feel bad in any way, shape, or form. We were just trying to get them to give us what their goal would be and then do everything in their power to hit it. Because I knew they, you know, they do better. And then sometimes we'd say, okay, well, I was way off last week. You know, it was a crazy week. We just say, well, what happened? And they take us through it, and sometimes we'd all try to help them. So even though we were individual salespeople in some ways competing against each other, we really were almost a community of people trying to help each other. Right. We used to celebrate people's wins, like so. And I took that whole concept and I just started it for more people.

What was the. Did it. Was that a plan? Was that something you thought you would do? Or did it just so happen that ReMax said, Hey, I think I want to buy you out? And you said, well, okay, I think I'll do it. Or was that, you know, more strategic than that?

No, actually, I went to ReMax. They were the only ones they went to because I felt at the time that my agents would be happiest there. And I was very close with my agents, and they were very close with me. So I want to make sure that, you know, I made the right decision for them and they made the right decision for me sort of thing. We could work it together. And actually, I think I'm. I think I'm lying here, but the dates I think it was 1996 when I sold the company to ReMax, but I had to stay with them till 1998 as part of the contract because they were afraid of my agents. If I left, my agents would leave.

Richard, why did you want to. I mean, what made you say, yeah, I think I want to sell?

There was a lady by the way of Nancy Etche, who is still in real estate today, and she was one of my agents. And one day she said to me, I'll never forget, she came in my office. She goes, you know, Rich, she goes, you've taught us all so much. Like, you know, we're all making way more money than we ever made before and, you know, and all that sort of thing. She goes, you ever thought maybe you should do this for more people than just your office? That was a seed. She planted a seed in my head and I started to think maybe I could, right? And so that was the seed that led me to say, yeah, I, I want to, I want to take this bigger, right? And, and remember, there was other real estate trainers in the space that I had been exposed to. So it wasn't necessarily like I was doing anything that hadn't been done before. Right. So I could see the model, I could see the way it worked. I could see them being successful because I'd use some of those people myself. So the model wasn't anything new. But then I, yeah, then I sold it and, yeah, started and again, another few years of, you know, severe suffering through the startup, and then I must like to suffer. Gary.

Yeah, you're good at suffering. You're good at turning suffering into success. Right? That's going to be your next book.

Yeah.

Because so you suffered a few years to start a consulting. And what was that like? Okay, so now you, you're out of real estate, sold to ReMax, free to do what you want to do. How did you build such a successful company after that? Because you now coach thousands and thousands of agents, not just a handful. How did you do that?

I don't coach it all myself. I have 23 coaches that do all the coaching. Right. But here's how I started. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, the money is in coaching. If I can get people pay me, you know, every month to coach them, and if I can help them be more successful, they'll probably stay with me for a long period of time. Why would you leave when something's working? Right?

So I thought, well, how on earth am I going to get anybody into coaching? So I decided because during those two years, I was ReMax. ReMax had come to me and asked me to give some talks, right, at some of their, I don't know, regional conventions or whatever they were having, because they understood the productivity of my agents and they want to know how we did that. So I, I did not a lot, maybe six or something over the course of two years. And I was like so scared because I didn't like public speaking at all.

And I thought to myself, but what if I started doing talks and talking about what we need to do to succeed and then what the missing components are? So most agents are missing accountability, right? They're missing consistently generation. They're missing duplicatable behaviors that will produce a predictable result. So that this is back when there's still faxes. So what I was doing, believe it or not, I was faxing to all of the real estate offices in the Greater Toronto area an outline of a talk with a title and three bullet points. And I said that I would come in and do it for nothing, with a little bit of history, my history, if they didn't know me. And my goal was to book a talk every week. So I'd fax it and then I'd phone, I'd fax phone, fax phone, fax phone. So it's back to prospecting again. And.

And what, what ended up happening in my first year, I didn't do. So I wanted to do, you know, 50 talks in a year. That was my goal. I was going to take two weeks, holidays, 50 talks. I got to do one a week, which means I got to book one a week. And I'd do 51 talks my first year. And at the end of my first year, I had done 51 talks, you know, and I might be speaking to 12 people, 20 people, eight people. I don't know. The biggest one might have been 40, right. And. And then I, you know, had at the end where they could have a call with me, sort of a free coaching call if they're interested, know more about what I do. And at the end, I had done 51 talks and I was coaching 60 people myself. So now with coaching 60 people, you know, I think I was charging 500amonth back then. I now had an income again, right, Even though I had some money because I sold the company. But the problem was I had golden handcuffs on because I was now doing a talk a week and coaching 60 people. I had no time left. So I started to think, what am I best at? And I wasn't best at coaching I was best at selling. Right. So I started, I hired my first coach and over a period of time I started to bring them in and I'd give those clients. So I kept my clients and I think I probably coached for five years before I decided I'm going to give it up 100%.

And that's how we started it. But then the next step was I thought, why do a talk for an office when maybe I can actually sell tickets to a talk and have a multi day event. So then all my sales became selling tickets. We started to do multi day events all across Canada, eventually into the US multi day talks. And we would convert about 15 to 18% of that audience into a coaching member. So that then became our model. Very much the same model we use today.

Wow. And so how long did that take you to build it up to? So that was in 1998. So now it's whatever we're talking about 26 years later. How long did it take for you to get it to sustainable place? And then you've just kept growing it bigger and bigger and bigger. And is it still going bigger and bigger or you kind of plateaued and kind of maybe it's too big or what? Take us through your last.

Yeah, no, we grew. When we got to about 2008, we had, I had 100 employees. I was doing 14 multi day events a year. I was doing nine in the U.S. i was doing three in Canada and one in South Africa every year. And we were rocking, man, it was big. Then 2008, financial crisis hits. I had an office in San Diego, I had an office in Toronto and I had a partner in South Africa. And we got hammered because the real estate market just shut down. Nobody was spending money, nobody had any money. So they're not spending any money in coaching. And the Canadian office started, you know, covering the losses of the US office. And I finally got to a point, I said, we can't do this anymore, right? So I shut down the US office. So I'd say between 2008 and 2011, and that's roughly. I spent a lot of time scaling back, right? Getting rid of some people, closing the office now and dealing with the leases, dealing with all that sort of stuff. And up until then I'd been, I sort of, for some reason I became popular as a keynoter and I was speaking all over the world. Like, I mean I was in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, all through Europe, South America, all through the US all through Canada. So I was on the road 150, 160 days a year just doing speaking engagements. And of course, that's pretty cool in a sense, because I got to travel to all these really cool places. Remember, I'm a college dropout from Peterborough. So this is unbelievable. I'm getting to do this.

And not only that, the more I speak, the more people get into coaching. But what was funny, the people are paying me to speak, to pay me to travel. So I kept thinking, how good is this? Is like they're paying me all my expenses and paying me personally to go market in front of a crowd. So I was taken on as much as I possibly could as well as still doing all these events. And it sort of got crazy. Crazy. And a lot of other things happened. My wife got sick. And, you know, we dealt with a lot of challenges that way. So. So sort of the financial crisis, my wife getting sick, and, you know, some other issues.

Caused me. I don't know if the word is right, size, but it caused me a lot small, smarter. So Today we got 33 people. Like, we got a staff, about 33 people. But I can say today that our company. I got staff that in with me 20 years, 22 years. I don't have much turnover. They're all like family. Our coaching members are like a really amazing community. And the business, in all fairness, is as profitable as ever been. So, you know, it's. There's always. I don't know how. I don't know how people find that line, but what I discovered about me. And I had reached a point that I didn't want to grind anymore. You know, I didn't want to feel like I was behind the eight ball all the time to keep this thing moving. And I felt that. And I just reached a point, especially with my wife getting sick, where I said, you know, I can't handle this anymore. Right. Like, I. And I did. I. In a couple years, I dealt with some depression and all that from all the challenges that I had to deal with. And. And I found myself, if I wasn't speaking, I was sitting in a boardroom reading financial statements and cash flow projections. It was just. It wasn't sort of who I wanted to be, if that makes sense. Yeah. And so that's when we scaled it all back and that. So, yeah, that. So it's. It's been like. I would say we've been really an exciting, fun.

Company that I love and the staff loves and are for about 13 years. Right. Okay, maybe 12, 13 years.

So how is it different.

With 33 people? How many events do you do now.

A year we do two. Well, we do some smaller ones, but let's say. And we do promo events, but if I talk about paid ticket events, we do two.

Two. So you went from however many that. Would you say 14?

Yeah, 13 went from 13 to 2. Now we went from 13 to 6 and then to 4.

And you know.

Do you miss the excitement of the event or are you glad you don't have to do the event?

I'm glad I don't have to do the event and I think my staff is glad they don't have to do that many events to put on an event. Well, obviously, you know, we're lucky to have you coming up in November to speak at our event. And now that's going to be a two day event with 1100 people there and then we get a third day with just our coaching members.

The amount of organization to work to put on an event is unbelievable. Right. And we do events way better now. Like these events are not events. These events are experiences.

We couldn't have created that type of experience doing more than one a month. Right. Where now we just create the most amazing experiences for, you know, our members and the people that purchase tickets to these events. I love doing the events that we do now, but I don't want to do it even from a keynote standpoint. I probably do. I don't know, I might do eight or 10 or 12 keynotes a year now. And I, you know, I say no to probably 70% of the opportunities. Just, you know, I, I've been there, done it, you know what I mean? And I'm 62 years old. I love my life. Don't want to work 80 hours a week. I love the business. I don't want to retire, but I want a business that I love and I want a life that I love and I believe, you know, I feel anyway like I have both of those right now.

Boy, it seems like there's a recurring theme in your life and well, well.

How much value do you put on hard work and grit?

A lot. A lot, right. It got me everything that I have, hard work and grit. I mean, like, I can remember Gary waking up in a hotel room and thinking, where am I? Like, I was traveling so much, I didn't know what city I was in sometimes. Right. I'm not saying that everybody has to do that, but it's just my personality, you know, I, I just, I work hard at anything I do. You know, my preparation for events is crazy. My preparation for a keynote is crazy. You know, I Don't take anything lightly. I know if I, if I have a job to do, I'm going to do a good job for whoever has hired me. You know, it's like we do it events or an experience.

Our coaching community is meaningful to me. Like they're invaluable. I want to make sure that they're getting the best they can possibly get. So I'm always trying to create and figure better ways, you know, to do a better job. So I guess maybe it's just innate in me, but I still think it comes from my dad. He used to, I bet my dad said that to me a thousand times. There are not many problems that a strong work ethic won't overcome. I remember saying it. Wow.

So for those of you that are listening, Richard's why is we talked about to challenge the status quo, think differently. How he does that is by simplifying things.

Taking things down to just a couple of, of things that need to be done. But ultimately what he brings is a trusting relationship.

Right.

Where other people can count on him. And so it sounds like simplification is also a big important thing for you.

Yeah. If you think about when I started, real estate is pretty simple. Prospect in the morning, door knock in the afternoon. Yep. When I started, when I started booking talks, pretty simple. Book and talk every week. Like that's pretty simple, right? Yeah.

Well.

Have you seen anybody make it to the level that they want in real estate without hard work and grit?

No, no, no. Like we, we've helped a lot of people go from like 100 grand to 3,4 million dollars in annual GCI gross commission income. Right. And you know, one thing they all have in common is they put in the time. Right. They're always thinking. You know, the other thing that I see too, I think, Gary, this is another characteristic of successful people. Their implementation is fast. Like I work with this. They're called the Roca sisters and they, you know, they do very, very, very well, you know, many millions a year. And I'm telling you, they blow my mind all the time. They were at a talk one day, I'll never forget I was giving in Toronto. It was just a half day talk that I was doing for somebody and they were there and I presented this idea to them and it was an idea around an email about market updates to everybody in your database. They sent me the next day a draft of their email ready to go up. And I remember thinking, when I got the email from them, I thought, that's why you're so bloody successful. Yeah, everybody writes down the idea. But I said the next day, before noon, they sent me a draft of their email to say, what do you think about this, Rich? You know, we want to get it out this afternoon. So I do think there's something about, you know, execution and not execution late. But Mark Faris, another really successful guy, he said every time he reads a book, when he finishes a book, within one week, he has to have put into action the best idea from the book.

Within one week. Oh, I love that. And I know. And to me, I'm going, like, what a brilliant discipline. Right? And same with this guy. This guy's, like, super successful, right? Because we were. I interviewed him, actually. My podcast. You could listen to my podcast. And he said that he goes, within one week, I have to implement an idea, the best idea from that book. Now, I might not do it, but I might get my staff to do it, but it'll be implemented.

Wow. You know, I'm glad. So my team will be editing this, and now they're going to hear me say this, and it's going to be great for them to hear what you just said, because that's such a powerful.

Combination. Hard work and grit, plus execution.

Right.

And without either of those, nothing happens. Right?

Gary, let's face it. I don't care whether it's a. A relationship. It's hard work and grit. Right. Like, you know, in all fairness, it's, you know, everybody goes, oh, relationships are 50. 50. I go, no, they're not. They're 100. 100. Like, you both have to give 100%, not 50. 50. Well, the same with business, you know, you can't give 50%. You got to give 100. You want to be in great physical shape. 100. Right. You want to be a great parent. 100%. And I. I think, you know, a lot of people, you know, sometimes it's easy to cruise. I. I get that. Right. But, yeah, so I. I think to a large degree, yeah. Takes a hundred percent. That's why you got to be careful how much you commit to. Right. Yeah.

Last question. Rich.

What'S the best piece of advice you've ever. Because you gave us a lot of advice. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

This came from a friend of mine. I'm in Florida right now. I spent half my year in Toronto and half in Florida. And I got a. A Canadian neighbor who lives about three doors down, and she said, me one time, I'LL never forget it was not long ago, but it really stuck with me and I thought it was so true. She goes, own everything, but nothing on you. And I said, what do you mean by that? And her name is Sherrod. And she said, when you own everything.

You'Re not making decisions for money.

She goes, it gives you freedom. She said. Like we were talking about our houses down here because neither one of us live in extravagant homes in Florida. Like, they're nice, but they're not extravagant by any stretch. I'm in a 2500 square foot bungalow here, right? A lot of people might think, oh, I live in a 15,000 square foot castle or something. No, in a 2500 square foot bungalow. My house up north is bigger and nicer, but it's not massive and, and it gives me the freedom to make any decisions I want, right? Because I own everything and nothing owns me. It's like everything you own owns a piece of you. You got two cars, you got two cars to look after, right? You know what I mean? Instead of one car, you know, we can go on and on and on. If you got to make huge mortgage payments because you live in a massive house and you don't even need the space. That's why I only got one wife, you know, because I had two wives, that's not harder to look after, you know, I mean, so I just stuck with one. And I always said I love her so much that if she ever left me, I'd go with her.

Is there laughter I'm hearing in the background or. Yeah, he's probably sitting right there, huh?

He's the next room over. I'm just trying to get some points here.

You're getting points with that one? That's awesome. Well, if there are people. Well, you know, just as a quick aside before we finish, yesterday.

This gal butt dialed me. You know, just, I look at my phone and her name is Sandy Presley. She's the been the top realtor here in New Mexico for the last 35 years in a row. And man, and she was a patient of mine when I was a dentist. And I have never seen anybody work so hard so long in, in my life. I mean, just like you, she had two phones going all the time. She was always late for appointments, which would tick me off because she's sitting outside in the, you know, in the parking area on two phones trying to finish something up. But still to this day, she works harder, is. Has great follow through follow up than anybody I've ever seen. And that's what it takes, right?

That's what it takes, man. That's what it takes. I'm a believer in balance as well. Like I, I say, when you work, work, when you play, play. But I said, too many people, they work all day and then they get home and I thinking about work because I should have done more. And then of course, they get to work and they spend all their time at work thinking about home because they never spend enough time with the kids or the partner. And I always say that, you know, whatever you're doing, give it a hundred percent of you, right? So that when you go home, you go, hey, I gave my all off, nothing on the table. And it's not always easy to do, and I sure don't do it all of the time. But that's my thought. Whatever I'm. What I'm doing, let's give it all right now, right?

I love that. Well, Richard, if there are people that are listening, that want to follow you, want to work with you, want to be part of your organization, any of those things, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Yeah, just go. Richardrobbins.com that's our website. Have a look at everything there. If they're interested in more content, you know the stuff we're talking about. I got a podcast called the Richard Robbins Show. Actually, there was a guy by the name. Was his name Dr. Gary Sanchez was on my podcast, I believe. But we'll have to check. But yeah, so just go to the website, check out the podcast. Obviously, we're in all the social media platforms. I don't respond myself to the social media, but. But it's there. And yeah, we'd love for you to check our stuff out. That'd be great.

That's great, Richard. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to coming to your event soon and staying in touch. So thanks so much for being here.

Thanks, Gary. It was a real pleasure, buddy.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute. Com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.