Contributing Through A Mindset Of Abundance And Customer-Centric Real Estate W/ Brandon Brittingham

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.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast. We go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so we can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily want to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute to it in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish the success that contribute to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You are often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. And so this week I've got a great guest for you. His name is Brandon Biddingham and so Brandon is one of the foremost experts on the Shore in short sale, foreclosure and investment real estate and has been recognized nationally for his achievements. Having lived on the Eastern Shore for most of his life, he is familiar with every aspect of the local communities and properties within them. He is considered one of the leading real estate agents in the country and has won many awards for his success in real estate including eastern shore of Maryland's top agent and 2012 NAR class of 30 under 30 and was featured on the COVID of NAR magazine. He was named by Real Trends as one of the best real estate agents in America. Brandon, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

So, Brandon, take us through. So eastern shores, for those people that are on the west or Midwest, where is that? What part of the Eastern shore are you?

So I'm in Maryland.

You know, I'm in. In between the Maryland and Delaware border. If you don't know Maryland, that's where Baltimore is. Washington, D.C. is technically in Maryland, although it's not considered in Maryland. But that's the part of the map I'm on. And then I'm on the eastern shore of Maryland, which is on the coast. You know, we're. We're famous for the Maryland crabs. That's where all the good crabs come from. The United States.

Got it. So how close are you to Baltimore.

For where I live is about two hours.

Two hours. Okay, so take us through. Where did you grow up? How did you get on the path that you're on? How did you get into real estate?

So I grew. I lived in Maryland my entire life. I have moved around, I've lived in a couple of different cities, New York, Philadelphia, lived in Florida, and always just kind of had an interest in real estate. You know, when I was younger, my father told me I should get into real estate because he had a construction background. Of course, when you're younger, anything your dad tells you to do, you do the opposite. So I actually got into real estate from wanting to invest in real estate. And that's kind of what led me to get into it. I bought a couple investment properties, didn't have the best experience, and that kind of led me to wanting to get my license only honestly to.

Buy and represent myself. And then I kind of quickly found my calling in real estate. You know, that that was kind of my purpose was to be in this business.

So what about that business feels right to you? How do you view your business?

So one of the things that I saw that was a challenge was when you came in as a new agent, there just really wasn't. It was just kind of like, go figure it out. And, you know, it's a tough business to be in, especially if you're new. So kind of early, I figured out that I had a different way of doing it. Very customer centric, really cared about my clients, really wanted to go above and beyond. And so I started to do really, really well. And then I wanted to teach that method to other people because I saw that eventually there was going to be a ceiling. And so then I kind of switched my business Model from being a single agent to building a team. And then that led us to last year, we were the number one team in the entire state of Maryland, and we were number five in the United States as far as homes sold. So it's been a pretty cool journey, and it's been pretty cool to bring people in my environment and watch them succeed and do really, really well.

So what do you mean by customer centric.

Business versus, like, what were other people doing? How was customer centric any different than what everybody else says?

So again, and I can just tell you from my experience of when I bought a house that, you know, the first investment property, you know, just I didn't have great communication with my agent. I just kind of almost felt like a commodity, you know, And. And investment property aside, when someone buys or sell us a house, it's a huge emotional attachment that they have, right? It could be their first house, it's their dream, they saved money. Whatever the case is, they may have came from another country where laws are different, where home ownership was kind of out of reach maybe, or just something they never thought that they could achieve. Or on the other side of that.

People have kids, their kids grow up there, they have all kinds of memories. So this is huge emotional attachment to purchasing and selling a house. And it's honestly, it's a stressful process, especially nowadays. So a lot of different industries have kind of accelerated through tech, where there's a lot of archaic methods still using a real estate transaction. So, you know, I just felt that from a customer service standpoint, my experience wasn't the greatest. And I just didn't want my customers, customers to feel that. And I wanted to be able to solve every problem I possibly could and give them the peace of mind that they didn't have to worry or stress. And that's kind of how I approached my business model. And by doing that, we started to see tremendous growth.

So when was that? When did you get into real estate? So you, you're primarily residential real estate, right?

Yeah, have done some commercial. I'm in property management and a couple other other verticals. But I would say I spend the most time in residential.

So when did you get into residential real estate?

2007. And what I'll tell you is why I think.

I kind of got a different view of it is because 2008 went through a recession. In 2008, I spent the majority. Well, 2008 to about 2010, I spent the majority of my time trying to help people not lose their house to foreclosure. So I got a different emotional attachment to doing business with people because I was basically helping them fight for their life and not get put out on the street. So prior to even that happening, you know, I just had a different model of customer service in my head and I felt like a lot of the agents that I had experienced back then just didn't have that customer centric model. And so I took that and then, you know, we went into a recession and, you know, just kind of making sure I took care of people. When a lot of people ran away from foreclosures and short sales at that time, I didn't and I helped a lot of people. And then so the other side of that, when the market turned, all those people that I helped became customers for life.

So what does customer centric like take us through what that is today? What is a customer centric real estate agent or real estate company look like? What does that mean to me? What do I get for that? What is it? What does that feel like to me?

So it's a couple of things. Number one, it is if you're hiring me to sell your house, it's providing the best value I can. And by that what I mean is like best photography, best marketing, best systems, best process, best CRMs, best team that I can put behind you. Right. Unfortunately, there's still people in our business who take cell phone photos and do limited marketing for your most expensive asset. So aside from that, it is. We've scaled our operation to figure out any problem. So prime example, you're in the middle of a house transaction. Home inspection comes back, there's nine things wrong with their house. Maybe we negotiated down to six, but the six you're going to have to deal with whether this person buys it or another person buys it. Right. I got a team of contractors, I'll dispatch it. It's a company that I own and we'll take care of it. And you don't have any headaches. I have a mini storage pods business because I've had situations where a moving company doesn't show up or settlement day gets pushed or whatever the case is. So we'll dispatch our team to do that. We're in the construction business so we can build people houses and again do repairs or anything like that comes up. So we basically try to take every single piece of the home transaction and control it because that was another thing that was a big deal to me was there were times in my real estate career where there was a part of the transaction that I couldn't Control went wrong and I couldn't fix it. And you as a consumer, that's all you remembered. You knew it wasn't my fault, but that was the pain that you felt. So when you went to go buy or sell again, you had this nightmare, you know, still this pain. So what I tried to do was get rid of the pain in every transaction. So that's a lot of that has to do with communication, too. Letting you know what's going on, being in constant communication with you as to what's going on throughout the transaction. And then ultimately, at the end of the day, it's really about looking out for your best interest. Like, hey, I don't think this offer, in my opinion, you know, you're the customer and it's your choice, but my opinion, I don't. I don't think this is the best offer. I think we can get a better offer. Or on the flip side, hey, I think this is a really good offer, and if you let this one go, I don't know that I'll get you one as good. So we have. One of the core values in my businesses is clients over commission. And so to sum all that up, it is.

How can I provide you the best value, give you the best service that's not attached to the outcome of my commission? Because if I'm the best at the process and I provide you the best level of service, the commission will work itself out. Because if I do a good job for you, you're going to tell people, especially probably because before in real estate, and again, I don't want to paint everybody with the same brush, but you probably didn't have the same experience that you'll have with us with other people.

Yeah, I can tell you from my own experiences, that's a totally different process that you. Well, you're covering all the bases that could come up to make sure that the transaction goes through, which is essentially what both you and I want, Right? Yeah.

And you as a homeowner, and especially in today's times, there's so many companies that are out there that control the ecosystem in products, and you as a. As a consumer, you don't want to. I mean, there's so many things you have to think about when you have to buy and sell houses, and frankly, it's stressful and you have a life and you don't do this all the time. So then you're like, I got to figure out a mortgage, I got to figure out this title. I got to figure out insurance, I got to figure out Moving, you know, what if something goes wrong? All those kinds of things. So we just tried to how can I figure out how to take the pain away from you and give you peace of mind? And we build companies around doing that.

I love that. So for those of you that are listening, before we started the podcast, Brandon and I, I had Brandon go through and discover his how and his what. So he's got his why, how, and what. And so Brandon's why, as we talked about, was contribute.

Right?

You can hear it in everything that he says. He wants to have an impact. He wants to make a difference for people. And how he does that, his how was finding better ways. And then his what was simplify. So his why is to contribute to a greater cause. How he does that is by finding better ways to help them move forward. And ultimately what he brings is a simple SOL solution where he makes it easier for them to get things done. And, man, that just comes out loud and clear when we hear your story. Right. You want to be the one that makes a difference for them, helps them have an impact. And now you found so many better ways to do it that other people didn't think about, or maybe they did, but didn't take the initiative to, and then you simplified the whole process so that if anything goes wrong, you'll have an answer.

Yeah. And I think another thing is, I think at our core, we crave human connection. And I love, I mean, gosh, look what we went through with COVID I mean, I don't know about you, but the first time I was around allowed people or, you know, around people again, I mean, I think the first thing I said for about 45 minutes, man, it's just so good to be around people again. Right. And so for me, too, I don't look at as a, as a customer, as a transaction. I look at that as a relationship. And, you know, what kind of deposits am I making for this long term relationship? So, I mean, like, I'll tell you another thing we do that's very different is every single person that we've ever sold a house to, we send them four gifts, outside of just holiday gifts and things like that, but we send them four kind of personalized curated gifts every year just to try to stay, you know, in that, have that connection with them. Because it is a big deal to me. I mean, it's, you know, the thing about it is when you come to me and you want to buy and sell a house, it's typically because of a life event, Right? It's not A transaction. You know, wife got a job, wife's pregnant. You know, I got a job out of town. Do you know what I mean? On the flip side, like, you know, mom and dad passed away. You know, whatever it is, there's a life event. So, like, for me, I want to know why you're selling because it gives me the ability to figure out how I can help you best. And then I want to understand the pain that I gotta, you know, move you away from. Do you know what I mean? So for me, I get really close with my clients, and I have a real connection with my clients, and I think that that's why we've grown. And then I've ingrained that into my team because I think depositing into relationships long term makes a huge difference. And I've had several clients of mine end up coming to work for me or become really close friends of mine. So we kind of look at it differently that way. And again.

The most rewarding thing for me that I can't put a value or money on is when you impact someone's life in a positive way. And a case in point, I heard, I hear in a transaction, you know, something like, you know, I've never been to a Baltimore Ravens game. I'd always want to do that. And at settlement, I give them tickets to the Baltimore Ravens game, you know, and it's not wonky or because I want them to refer me business. No, I want to actually make an impact on your life, and I want to create a memory point for you. So real estate is just the vehicle. And I've been fortunate enough to get those connections over the years because of my real estate business. I love that.

And so, Brandon, I know you've been in this business, like you said, since 2007, and you've built it quite significantly. And so what's next for you? Where do you want to go next? What are some of the things that are on the horizon for you?

So, you know, kind of COVID put a damper on this, but I had started to speak nationally and kind of speak on stages. And not just real estate, just business building. Kind of inspirational.

Kind of getting people to find their true greatness and the true champion that's inside them. And because of what I've done in real estate, I've gotten into kind of coaching and masterminds and things of that nature. Actually got a book coming out end of this year or first quarter next year. So, you know, just my. My goal is to impact as many people's lives as I Can. And it's easier to do that when you get on stage or obviously through the Internet now, where we can do a group coaching session with several hundred people. You know, to me, that's pretty cool. I mean, it's pretty cool when you get people that after something you said or a coaching session or speaking on stage saying, hey, what this part of your presentation or this thing that you said, change the trajectory. And not to get like. Like super, like, negative or anything, but I've had a couple people tell me, man, I watched your presentation. I was. I was contemplating suicide. And this one specific thing that you said or how you said it changed my mind. And I've connected with people that way, and it's just pretty cool when you can. The best. One of the best feelings in the world is when I'm speaking on stage and I can see the change in somebody. I can see it in their face and I can see it in their eyes and then getting that connection afterwards. So that's another cool thing that I'm working on, aside from building all the companies continually through customer experience and bringing people into my environment and essentially changing their lives.

So do you take people that are not in real estate and teach them how to do real estate?

That's 100% what we love to do. Because I can come in and teach them and train them my way.

Which, you know, is very different than the industry and they're easier to mold because we do things a lot different. So that's actually. And even people without sales experience, we bring into our environment, and it works out really, really well.

Do you think that people at the top of the real estate industry.

Do things similar? Yes.

Yes, I do.

Yeah. Because I've had two other.

You know, top of the industry residential realtors on the podcast before, and you guys all. You three all sound similar. Obviously you do. You're in different parts of the country and do your own few things, but maybe 90% you guys all do the same, and 10% you have your special sauce.

Yeah. And what's cool about that is typically we're all friends too, you know. You know, there's. There's a conglomerate of us that are at our prospective production, and typically we're all friends and hang out in the same rooms.

Yeah, I could see that. Because.

In order to get there, you had to do a certain amount of things really well.

Sure.

And then you got your other little local flavor things that maybe somebody here couldn't do.

Correct.

Yeah, that's really neat. And so what do you think has Been the, you know, if you had to narrow it to one thing, that has been the secret to your success from going in, you know, 15 years, from just starting to top of the food chain. What is that one thing?

Been thinking in abundance.

Definitely.

What do you mean?

So we are trained over time, I think, to think in scarcity and think about ourselves and not think in abundance. And by thinking in abundance, what I mean by that is, and I'll just give you an anecdote from our industry, a lot of people won't go on a stage and tell people their playbook of how they run their business. I will, because I think in abundance. I don't think in scarcity. If you think in scarcity, oh, if I give away my secrets, someone's going to compete with me. Actually think of it the opposite way. I've spoken before and someone in that stage came to work for me or by putting that message out, I found another customer or someone found me through something I did on the Internet by giving, giving out, you know, free information. Leading with value is thinking in abundance. Thinking in scarcity is I have to get something and I'm transactional. You know, when I stopped thinking about myself and when I started thinking globally of how I can help more people, that's when a lot of things changed. And see, the other thing too is when you think in scarcity.

Everything is a destination. And what I mean by that is when you think in scarcity, you think that a certain amount of money is enough or a certain status or a certain thing is your destination. When you think in abundance, your destination is just being the best version of yourself at all times. And that is, I'm always thinking in abundance because I know that I can get better. I know I can make people's lives around me better. When you think in scarcity, you think that if I have this amount of money or half of these things, that I'll be happy. And when I thought in scarcity and I achieved certain things, I still had a hole, right? And so then I'm trying to chase the next thing, but when I switch to if I can concentrate on just being the best version of myself every day and then implementing that on the people around me and stay in that abundance mindset, that's when a lot of things change for me.

How did you come to that realization.

When take us into that moment when all of a sudden it just like what happened that said, hey, Brandon, maybe you're on the wrong path. Maybe this other path is better. What was that moment?

So you Know, I think a big influence to me was my, my grandparents and my grandfather, who's now passed away with my grandfather or my grandmother is still alive. So my grandparents didn't have very much and were very poor. And I was very fortunate and lucky enough to buy them a house, put them in a new house before my grandfather passed away. And my grandmother and grandfather, well, my grandfather had a heart attack in his mid-30s, and he was told that if he lived to mid-40s, if he lived to 50, it'd be a miracle. And he lived till, I think, 83 or 84. And they said the whole time he was a, he was a medical mystery because I can't tell you how many open heart surgeries he had, how many strokes he had, he had a pacemaker, he was diabetic. I mean, whatever you can imagine he had wrong with him. Right. And he always had this mindset of do for others, always this positive mindset. And I just remember as I got older and I understood what was keeping him alive, it was by far his mind, because his body was going, you know, he had just lost control of physically where he was. And I just remember that my grandparents were super poor and if they had $20 in their pocket, they'd give it to somebody off the street. And his happiness and his will to live kept him alive for so long. So I just remember that man, like take all the material things away, like this gentleman. My grandfather's quality of life is 100% based on how he thinks. And that kept him alive for so long that that was one of the things that changed for me so early in my career. My main goal was put my grandparents in the house. Right. So that he can enjoy the rest of his life in a brand new house. So I can't tell you memory wise what exact year that was, but I think that was the connection of, hey, you have this guy who's been through it, but he just can't get beat down mentally. And he's living such in his life, he's living the best life he can because that's where he's at mentally. And that was the connection that I made.

Yeah.

And that allowed you to see from scarcity into abundance 100%.

Again. It's interesting. I work out a couple days a week in the morning with a friend of mine who's the top commercial real estate guy here.

In New Mexico. And almost to a word, he said exactly what you just said there. It's really interesting. He said, I used to be upset when I would bring Somebody in and train them, and then they would leave and go start their own and compete with me. And that just upset me to no end. Hey, I gave him all my secrets. I gave him all my stuff. And then when I. He said, when he switched it to abundance and continuing to help him and mentor him and teach him and show him, because there's enough for all of us, he said it brought him so much joy and happiness that it was worth more than anything that he could have ever made off of them. Monetarily, the pie is.

The pie is always bigger. And if you think in scarcity, you think that if you give up a piece, you're actually giving up something when the pie is actually bigger than. Than we all really think it is.

And so you're going to be. You already are coaching, mentoring masterminds with other real estate agents. And where would you like to take that? What do you see coming for you in that area? Because it seems like everything you're touching now is just going great for you and now and you're going to kind of expand out and show other people what you did. Where would you like that to go?

Yeah, I mean, if we could, you know, impact, you know, a couple thousand real estate agents, you know what I mean, and show them how we've done it and show them that there's a better way, but also impart on them how we do it so that it changes the consumer's mindset of a real estate agent's value as well. So I think it's. I want to put a dent in the industry and make our industry better. You know what I mean? So teach people how to. How to do the transaction better, but also help them help fulfill their lives by teaching them how to do everything the right way. And I'd like to impact as many people as I could doing that.

One of the things that Paul Allen, who started Ancestry.com told me one day, I asked him what was the best piece of advice you've ever been given? And he said, the best piece of advice I was ever given was to not take advice from people that don't think like I do.

Yeah, that's a good one.

And so that popped into my head as you and I have been talking here, because.

What you say would resonate really well with somebody who has your why.

Sure.

But it may not resonate very well with somebody who doesn't.

Yeah.

And so somebody who has the why of contributor listen to you and say, man, that's exactly what I've been looking for. That's exactly what I want and God, give me more, give me more, give me more. But somebody with some of the other wise might listen and say, yeah, that sounds good, but, but that's not me, man. That's not, that's not what I'm trying to do. So it'll be, it'll be interesting as you go along to see which ones take off with your advice and which ones say, hey, that was kind of nice but I'm doing my own thing.

Sure. Yeah.

Because it's.

As I'm listening to you, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm wondering if that is something I would have energy for like you do.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I can tell you I've brought some non believers and converted them.

And they're loving it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, that's awesome. Well, listen, if people that are listening to this real estate agents or not want to connect with you to go through your course or work with you being mentored by you or just have you come speak at their event, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?

Brandon? So the best way is honestly, it's Facebook messenger. Just because I get so many emails, phone calls and all that crazy stuff and rather than send people to the website, I really like to connect with people and I don't mind it and I have a whole team that helps me in case I can't get to somebody. So just Brandon Brittingham, find me on Facebook, shoot me a message and then you'll find all my stuff from there. But whatever specifically we can connect you with or help you with. That's the easiest way to get to me probably.

You better spell your name, Brandon.

B R A N D O N. Brighingham. Last name B R I T T I.

Yeah. Brandon, it's been awesome having you on, man. Thanks for taking the time away from you. I'm sure you have a busy day every day and being here with me, I've enjoyed our conversation.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Awesome.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest you heard how important it is to know 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.