How to Be Value-Add to Our Clients in Uncertain Times

Well, good.

Well, why don't we jump into it And I know people will join but that way we can got great content to cover and I want to welcome everyone. We've got the New York office on the line, we've got our US capital markets. Rod, really appreciate everything that you've done for our company, for the industry. We're going to be talking today about being a lighthouse in turbulent times. You are the epitome of that. I really consider you first and foremost, of course an incredible friend, but also mentor throughout my career. And Rod and I had the opportunity to meet through Bob Nackle, who I started my career with back when you wrote Brokers who Dominate. And I'm looking for the year that you. What year was that Rod?

Released in 2012.

Okay, 2012. So I know that you were in touch with Bob clearly before that, but Bob was featured in the book and we quickly became students of your program and it's been amazing to see how much your business has really grown and the impact that you've had. In addition to running the Massimo Group, you're also a best selling author, speaker and consultant. And I'm going to just read your mission statement which is to assist independent contractors, solopreneurs and small business owners in transforming their business and ultimately their lives. So and I can again personally attest, and the last thing I'll say in the intro is, you know, for a while I was a weekly coaching client of your organization and then once I was ready to make a move.

Towards.

Davis and Young, I needed really to take a step back, do some business planning. You introduced me to one of your colleagues who a lot of the people on this call know well Blaine Strickland was very helpful to kind of do that big five year plan. But you know, since really delivering on that at Avis and Young got to the point in my career where I was spending too much time just on that, you know, transaction treadmill, not taking a step back and working on my business. And you refer in this book and everyone this is going to be coming out in September. Knowing isn't doing build a business and life you desire. And you sent me an advance copy and in this you talk about Bob Topper and I think I have a guess of who that was based on. But it's kind of for some of us who's been doing this for a long time you say, oh well I know what I'm doing, I've got it figured out. I don't need coaching. I But then what happens is your calendar starts Running your life. And I, you know, I felt like I needed coaching more than ever, being at home, because you think that I just have infinite amounts of free time, and yet suddenly my calendar started getting loaded up where I was doing, you know, listening to, you know, a half a dozen webinars a day and board meetings and this and that. And I said, I got to get more proactive with my time. I got to get back and really start focusing on, you know, what are some of the key metrics? And so I signed on. I've been working with one of your coaches on a weekly basis. In fact, I've got my call later this afternoon. So it's been really, really fun to re engage and get my business back. So that's a really long intro, but it's just huge thanks for everything that you've done for me personally and again for many of the agents I know who are listening right now.

Well, James, it's always great, obviously, connecting with you, and it's a pleasure. I want to thank everyone who's on this call. Heck, it's Friday afternoon and Memorial Day weekend, and you decided to invest some time with us, and so I can't thank you enough for that. One thing I will ask, and this is one thing I know James will make this a little more interactive than just he and I are discussing, but one thing I will ask is, look, you can spend that time with us this afternoon, and you can listen to us, and that'd be great. And then what's gonna happen is nothing. And that's a fact. Nothing is going to change. So I don't want you to listen to us today. What I would ask instead is what are you listening for? So exactly what are you listening for? I know there's a chat. I know we all know Zoom by heart now. So I know there's a chat box. You know, go out there, be proactive. Tell. Tell us, what are you listening for? So if you're listening for something for some approach, some solution, some whatever, we'll deliver that. We will if listening just to us and see what we talk about, you might catch something great. But this is a great time for y'. All. It's Friday afternoon. Be selfish. Be selfish and tell us, hey, I'm looking for this. And we'll. We'll talk about that. So, James, I'm really excited to get started. Hopefully some folks go out there and. And use the chat box. No one has stepped up yet, but use the chat box and tell us what they're listening for instead of Two, and then we'll move from there. So, James, let's get started.

Yeah, Rod, I really appreciate that because we want this to be interactive and people can definitely send us our questions throughout this on the Q and A. But yeah, let's see that chat box light up. You know, what would you like us to deliver on today? A lot of uncertainty on the market. Are you wondering what should you be communicating to clients? What should you be doing to advance your career? Get specific. And we'd love to cover that just to make it as useful as possible. So, Rod, really appreciate that. So, Rod, very early into this couple weeks, you put out a webinar, which I thought was incredibly helpful. It was entitled Being a Lighthouse in Uncertain Times. So I guess if you could kind of start with that. I mean, what was the takeaway from that? You know, how can we be a lighthouse to our clients and build relationships for life at this challenging time?

Yeah, there's no doubt this is an uncertain time. And look, New York, for a lot of your listeners, you know, and visitors here, New York is absolutely a turbulent market. We have clients throughout North America, throughout the world, but mostly in the United States. And every market is different. We recognize that. But if your focus right now, I know you don't want to hear this probably, but your focus is to become a transaction facilitator. You're not going to get a lot of traction. You're just not. Right. You got to be. Not facilitator, but more of a advisor, a resource out there to everything. Something, something. Every day there's something that, look, look, I'm doing it this way. Every day is something that you can help your prospects, your audience, your followers with. This is where a lot of brokers. I use that term, although it's. That commoditizes you. And I don't want to use that. You all are, you know, you're the best of the best. You're. You're Everson Young. You're on James team. You guys know what the hell you're doing. But your role right now more than ever before is to take information, translate that in your own way and interpret that and apply it to your audience. And what does it mean to them? So think of every day something's coming out there. What does it mean to your audience? COVID 19 restrictions opening up. You're all doing that already. Great. And I'm not. I'll never do one of you find out me. I'll never say anything political. I just won't. I don't believe you Should. But today Biden said that he wants to increase capital gains at the same time he wants to increase payroll. Well, that means that our margins will all go like this. Right. But if in fact capital gains went up, it's going to happen anyway. We have to pay back those stimulus packages. What does that mean to your audience? So my point is, James, is this. Our role right now as part of this group is not to think about transaction. Transaction. Because they'll come. They'll absolutely come. Think about how can I be a resource to my client and they recognize that's the person I want to work with, that's persons I built trust with. They're thinking about me, not themselves. So that's the role you have to be in right now.

Fantastic. So what are the opportunities right now? I mean, it's, you know, when we're in the office, everyone's running around 100 miles an hour. It can be, you know, challenging to get through to people. You know, are there opportunities at this time where people might have a better shot to connect with clients?

Sure, if you're a tenant rep. Let's go, let's go there on the line. Right. So if you're, if you're a tenant rep, what is there any worry about right now? Yeah, we're about reopening in most states. We are not quite yet in New York. But your current is concerned about that. But what lessons can you learn on the tenant rep side from one city to the next to apply? What does reopening up look like, by the way? What's the number one concern? It's not how they're going to pay their rent right now. It's the self and the safety and health of my employees. So what can you do to address that? What can you do? For example, maybe instead of going in by yourself, you go in with the folks in your organization and you grab a space planner and you grab an architect and you grab a contractor. You go into the team and say, look, we gotta rethink your space and utilization of your space and how that's going to work for you. You go in as that turnkey resource versus just another broker with an idea. Then they'll listen to you. Here's what we're finding out. It's working throughout the United States. This is how it can apply to your space. Mr. Tenant. Mrs. Tennant. That's one way to work. Now go in your world, James. Now you're representing property owners. You know, you're going to assume we're going to wait for distressed marketplace and with distress and turbulence becomes velocity. That's just going to happen. And just tangentially, folks, if you're worried that values are going to drop because they potentially will in most markets, that's not your concern. It's just not. I mean, that's not your job. Your job is to transact. That's what you want. You want the transaction. It'd be great if it was higher for a commission standpoint, but you want, you want the transaction. That disruption is going to create transactions. But if you're representing an owner right now, an investor, he or she isn't necessarily thinking property value. They might be portfolio value. They could be. But I think the problem here is most brokers I'm seeing right now and saying, hey, would you like to do a bov? Let's figure out what your property's worth so you can be in a, in a more. Say you can be in a better position to make a more educated decision. Let's just do a bov. Well, the problem is how do you know what it's worth today? How do you truly know? You know, it's funny, on the drive over when I drove down, I talked to my financial advisor and he told me, and it's just true. Rod, there's two people that know about the stock market. Those that don't know and those that don't know, they don't know. Which I think is true. And the same is true with commercial real estate values right now. You don't know. If you think you know, you don't know, you don't know. And that's the way it is. But what if instead, I'm shocked advisors, brokers aren't doing this. It shocks me. What if they said, look, I don't know what your property's worth? I don't. But I do know based on certain factors, history tells us this is the variance we're going to be seeing. So why don't we do this? Mr. And Mrs. Landlord, why don't we jump in and do a wide range sensitivity analysis. You tell me the variables, we'll figure that out. Look at rent projections unfortunately decline, maybe. Right. Look at values unfortunately decline over one year, two year, five year hold period. And let's show you what it takes, what information you need to make a decision today. Are you in a better position today based on the sensitivity analysis and these different scenarios to sell today reinvest in something else in another market, maybe at a better cap rate? Probably. Right. And in five years from now, or do you want to hold Go through this trough where no, we're going to go in, that's okay. In five years your property's worth this. That's a completely different approach than just saying, let me give you a bov. It gives your clients just a sense of wow, I didn't really look at my properties in all these different scenarios. And then by the way, if they say yes, guess what happens? They open up their kimono to you. And now I didn't realize the impact on this portfolio, that portfolio, this holdings. So now James, now the world is your oyster. You get so many opportunities to work with them. Awesome.

Rod, you said a lot of incredible things just then. And starting with really leveraging the Avis and Young global full self service network. I mean a lot of us think, well okay, I'm a sales broker, I'm a leasing broker, so that's what I do and that's what I'm there to find out about. But when you ask those questions and asking those owners where their pain points are, these are opportunities to kind of expand on the relationship, be helpful to them in their time of need and you know, the transactions will come later. To your point, but I really like what you said about the range because we have not been doing that. And you're absolutely right for us to sit here and tell an owner what their property's worth today. It's just, you know, finger in the wind. Right? So, but looking in the past and one thing we did for our sales report was we looked at peak to trough from 07 to 09 and to be able to tell clients, hey look, last time when the market bottomed up, cap rates went up 80 basis points for residential and office and retail went up 150bps. So look, we're early onto this thing, who knows but could pricing move in that direction? And we know this isn't going to just turn around overnight. So I think really helpful to kind of give some guidance and also range and speak historically. What should our brokers be asking owners when they call? When they call them? Reach out. Yeah.

Three. Three questions. These are three questions you need to ask right now. And it depends, I'll give you some, let's say variance based on how well you know somebody. Some of these questions, you're not gonna know them at all. Some of these questions you can have good relationships and you can, you can deviate a little bit. So let's talk about that. Number one question you're gonna ask when you get someone on the phone is what's working? What's working right now because not all tenants have stopped paying rent. You know, not all. Not everyone's sick. It just is what it is, right? So find out what's working. Always start out with something positive and reinforce. They may tell you, hell, you know what? I can pay my mortgage, by the way. If they tell you that, then you know that could be a problem, right? Then you. Now you. Now you have something to learn about. So ask them what's working. Share with them. Something's gotta be working. Nothing's working. Everything sucks. No, everything doesn't suck. Right? Something is working after that. Based on how well you know, I'm going to give you two chances here. If you don't know them that well, you just start now. Just ask them. Okay? You know, right now, what's the greatest challenge you're facing? Just what's the greatest challenge you're facing? That's an easy question to answer. And they may tell you, you know, my tents aren't paying rent or I have no customers, whatever. Whatever you're representing out there, they're going to tell you. That's going to give you a glimpse of what's going on and how you can potentially help them. Now, if you know them really well or you know them well enough, you can determine that. I can't. You can ask them. You know, let me ask you a question. What keeps you up at night? What really keeps you up at night? And then you've got to be prepared for some really heavy stuff, right? You may hear something you're not prepared for. You know what, James? That's a great question. I got to tell you, I wasn't prepared for this stock market hit that we just took. And then on top of that, now my tenants aren't paying rent. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, James, but I'm not sure I could pay my mortgage. In fact, I'm digging into my 401k right now. I need something. Yeah. Is that horrible? Absolutely is, sadly. Does it mean you can help? Yeah, it does. It means it can.

So that question, not to stop you, but that level of question and that level of transparency, I am assuming that's going to be someone you've known for 10, 20 years. This is someone you have a great relationship with, you're trusted, you've earned their trust. For those. We've got a lot of new agents on the call today. And Joe, who's our manager of our New York office, when we asked him what was he hoping to learn, he'd really like to get some Advice for our newer agents. Let's say they've never, you know, maybe they've spoken to the person once in the past. And, Joe, we are going to get to your question also about, you know, in New York, we actually can't even make cold calls right now. So I've got. I want to get to that down the line.

Oh, yeah, we're going to get political. I wasn't going to get political.

Let's talk about if someone has a superficial relationship with someone, they've called them in the past, they've either offered them space, you know, maybe they've never even met them in person. So how do your questions change for someone who you don't have that deep relationship with?

Yeah. Then if that's the case, you better be calling them for a reason. And it's not for your right, it's for their value. That's the reason you're calling. So that conversation goes like this. Hey, James, the reason I'm calling is many of the. And James was making investors for your world right now. Many investors I'm talking to right now are challenged with the following. And you're going to figure out what that is. All your markets are going to be different. It just is. I was wondering if I could share with you what these challenges are or. I'm talking to many owners who are sharing with us what their challenges are. Do you have a few minutes where I can share with you what I'm hearing in the marketplace? First of all, they have a few minutes. Second of all, yes. They want to hear what you're saying. Right. They want to hear what other challenges are. To call it community proof, social proof, just a mental trigger. So that will work for the newbies. That means is you're going to have to start learning from your seniors and asking the office, where are people really challenged? If you're, if you're not ready to make that call and ask them where you challenge, ask your team, ask your associates. What are you hearing? What challenges are you hearing about? Just. That's all I want to know. I don't know what your deals. What are the challenges you're facing? Right. Then use that language and go ahead and call someone. Say, look, many investors we're talking to are challenged with right now collecting rents. And I want to share a few minutes to show what we're hearing in the marketplace. Do you have a few minutes? They're going to tell you, yes. They can say, well, yes. Let me ask you, are you also challenged with collecting rents? No. My biggest challenge is actually this. Then you just dive into it that way.

But Rod and I really want to dig in here. So, you know, everyone's having challenges collecting rents right now, right? So that's not something. If I'm calling with a piece of valuable information, you know, that's kind of stating the obvious. I know you're just using it as an example, but let's get more specific. Would it be XYZ landlord collected 92% of office rents, but only 24% for retail. You know, how are your collections? Or, hey, I just spoke to another owner who, you know, what he's been doing is accepting half security deposit, half rent. He's tacking the rest on the background. I mean, I would assume the more specific you can get, the better, right? Otherwise they'll just say, yeah, no, no, shit. You know, pardon the French.

First of all, you must have a great coach. Number one, you're absolutely. That was the third mental trigger, James, and you used it. It's specificity or data. So, yeah, if you can use that data. But, you know, for your newbies. Question was, what the newbies would do. I'm not sure yet. Your newbies have that data, and if they do, great, then leverage it. Absolutely leverage it.

We got another possibility, which we keep rolling out these webinars and I keep telling the team, call the owners to let them know we have a webinar. So, for example, week after next, we're going to do something on what's going on with the city and state budget and how that's going to affect property taxes. You know, I haven't met one owner in my career who doesn't hate, you know, doesn't want to talk about how much they can't stand property taxes. So, you know, it just opens up that discussion. So for one of our newbies calling and saying, hey, we have this piece of information. We're doing a webinar. We'd like to invite you to participate in it. You know, on the front end, that might be a way to get them on the line, start a conversation with them, or after you've actually done the webinar and now you've got a couple talking points from that. Call and follow up with them after and say, hey, in case you missed this, there was three pieces of information that I thought was really, you know, helpful.

And.

And here's the link where you can go listen to it. How do you like that approach?

I like it, but let's plus that. Okay, I like that a lot. But let's say that Person says, okay, great, thanks so much. I love to be in a webinar. Or no, I can't make it. I'm sick of zoom, whatever it might be. So before you look at the phone, say, look, great, you can make it, or sorry, you can't make it, but there's one question you like to be answered, what would it be? Ask them that. If there's one question you like to be answered, what would it be? And then maybe you ask that question yourself in that webinar and then you report back to that owner. Here's what I found out for you. That could be a powerful entry and a resource for someone like that.

And it gets them talking. Wow. Okay.

I like that.

I'm learning. I'm taking notes too. So. Okay, good. So let's talk about why this time is so critical for everyone to work on their business than in the business. And, and our good friend Blaine Strickland. He talked about Disney and he talks about their Floridian resort that's been at 100% occupancy since the day it opened. And the place is tired, but they've never been able to justify doing the renovations to that place because it's always full. So now they have a once in a lifetime opportunity to go in, renovate the whole thing, do whatever improvements. So his advice, you know, to me was don't look back on this time and say, oh, well, I did a really good job of keeping my email blocks clear. And you know, I had some good conversations. But like, what's the big initiative that you want to do? And maybe it's writing a book, maybe it's launching, you know, your social media or whatever it is. But you know, what would you tell those listening right now about the importance of kind of accomplishing, you know, Those, maybe those 90 day rocks that Gino Wickman talks about, like those long range, like quadrant two type stuff.

Yeah, this is the time to get off that treadmill because the treble is not moving very fast right now. Let's face the transaction treadmill you talked about earlier, James. And to really work on the business in a Michael Gerber context, work in the business transaction, work on the business, the marketing, plan your strategy, plan your team, the operations, your CRM, your prospecting plan campaigns. That's what this is all about. Because here's the biggest reason why. Because that avatar or that client you had pre Covid is not the same post Covid. It just won't be. So that means now your messaging has to change. Your approach has to Change, everything's got to change. Now you can determine what that's going to be and how you're going to do that for the veterans on this phone call. One of the best things you can do right now and we have our clients doing this is that go back, go back and just confirm every deal you ever did, every relationship that you have, look at every historical deal you ever did, why they did what they did. Think about that, why they did what they did. So now you go back and you go to an owner and I'll give you more reasons. You go an owner, you say, look, five years ago you bought this property because of this. Well, world has changed a little bit now. I'm an optimist and the world will come back in a couple of years where we are, but that's just me. So how's that motivation changed for you today? So it's both working on your business, but it's building your next pitch, your next offering, your value proposition for post Covid reentry. That's what's doing. So number one, historical income is huge. Number two, I know our friend Bob Nacol is doing this because he put it out there on the social media. So it's not a confidential thing. But a lot of our clients are getting in their cars and driving their markets because they couldn't do it before New York specifically for traffic or because they just didn't have the time or that's all gone. There's no excuse anymore. That on time excuse is completely gone. So get in your car, drive your market, look at buildings a different way than costar can possibly show you, right? Look at them things differently, look for opportunities, see what's happening. You can see distressed assets, you know, look at the different owners have apps like Land Glider or something, paying your market on your phone and looking up what's going on. Get out there, look. Another thing to do is look at all your marketing material. Messaging that messaging that you had in February, it's not going to work. It's not going to work in July, it's not. So go back and look at your websites. If you know you have for you all, go back and look at your LinkedIn profiles. What is that saying now if you look at my LinkedIn profile in February, it's completely different than it is today. Completely different. Why? Because I don't want to get too heavy into LinkedIn here. But LinkedIn will tell you if you look at your, if you look at your, your profile, what messaging working and what's not. There's There are reports within LinkedIn that show you that we found our messaging was going down. Well, first of all, when no one had money, no one's gonna invest in coaching. That was one reason then. Now everyone's. Now we've got a big uptick in coaching in the last two weeks. Couple reasons. People are realizing things, that things are gonna change.

We gotta change.

And we change our messaging. We completely change our messaging. So you should be looking at your messaging everywhere now and is it resonating with your audience or it's the same old stuff. It's not going to work. Those are three things. So historical income. Number one, look at your messaging. Number two, drives your market. Look at different buildings. Number three, there you go.

That's great. I love how specific the advice is. I just want to go back. Sorry. To the last topic we covered because we did have a question or from early on what Jamie was hoping to learn from this. And you know, I was just realizing, I mean, when we talk about, you know, offering our firms full suite of services. Well, guess What? That's what CBRE is saying. That's what JLL's saying. That's what Cushman's saying. And frankly, they probably say that they've got a bigger footprint and they can do it better than us. So how, how do we differentiate ourselves in that approach?

As far as AY or as far as you individually?

I would say let's answer the question for AY as far as our capabilities.

Okay, look folks, total transparency. We got clients in every firm. We do. That's a fact. So whatever I could tell you, I'm going to tell them as far as this is how I differentiate ay, but not the same message. First of all, I don't know, James, have you. I haven't read anywhere that you guys have cut anyone yet. Have you?

We've had, you know, small layoffs, but yes.

I mean, we're small. Small, small layoffs. Okay, so you've adapted. So why. You gotta get beyond the AY situation. You gotta go beyond AY and talk about you personally. Because look, are there firms are gonna have a safe bet with cbre? I'm shocked. But there still are firms that one makes a safe bet with CBRE because they're the biggest. That's like the old IBM challenge back in the 80s that you can't, you cannot offset that. Sorry. It's just those, those people, they're fearful for their jobs. They're based on safety. Right. I think you gotta look at more. What? Why would, why Would someone invest in AI or work with AI either pre or post? Covid. So James, what is it? What's the value proposition of AY today? Forget Covid. Covid has nothing to do with it. How are you different than cbre? I think if you're thinking that you have to be different in a different way, you don't, you don't. You guys are different for your own way. So you tell me, why is AY different? Why should I hire ay?

It's a principle led model. So rather than just getting, you know, if we work for you, rather than you just getting handed off to someone, you have owners in the company who are going to give, you know, all hands on attention. Got tons of expertise here and it's really kind of that boutique full service approach.

Okay, I love it. I agree with you by the way. And you have plus you all, you're gonna have to especially now or as anytime. I don't think this has changed. Especially now. Excuse me. James knows what I'm talking about, so I'll put it in non Massimo terms. You better have a portfolio of track record success stories, let's call them right, that you can leverage going forward. If you're saying you have this all service team, prove it to me. Prove it to me. Show me that you've applied this even pre Covid, it's fine. Applied it to a tenant if that's the case, or a landlord and how it's worked. Do you have those success stories? If you don't, you just tell me this. You know, you got to prove it though. So I'm assuming you have to say about assumptions from assuming you all have those success stories, that you have this full service integrated approach that can help me as a property owner or tenant.

Yeah, I mean one specific example is a lot of our clients, companies, they need advice on how to open back up their office and what does the office look like of the future. And we did do a webinar on the topic and having Kirsten Beck in our New York office who heads up project management, you know, if you spent five minutes listening to what she had to say on that, you would know that she knows this stuff, you know, inside and out and it would be a huge resource.

So. Well, and hold on then I'm assuming, James, you take that from a presence perspective, you take that audio of her saying that and you would share that with other office users and say here's a quick audio in five minutes on the best practices for opening your office and now you're a Resource. Right.

I don't know if we have done that. So I'm adding another note on my things to do list which I know is better than or equally important things not to do. Okay, so now I want to get to your book, knowing isn't doing. And I think this is really important and you kind of alluded to it at the beginning of our conversation. So what's the present premise of the book?

Well, I wanted to share over the 12 years and actually many careers that I've had in figuring things out and where to get there. For those who don't know me, in 2008 I was laid off. I was working for a small national commercial real estate firm as an executive and I was laid off. And I was sitting in bed in 2008 saying, what the hell am I going to do? Because for those who don't know you young guys, stock market went down 53% in the great Recession. This time it went down about 20 something percent. Right. Unemployment was an all time low in 2008. Not like today. Absolutely not. And not the acuteness that we've had. So in 2008 things were pretty crappy. They were. And it lasted, by the way, for about 18 months. I'm not sure this is going to last. 18 months. We'll see. I'm not sure it is, by the way. But the point is this. I had to figure out really quickly what can I do to build myself from me, right, the Massimo group, which was me 12 years ago, to get to the point where I've had 30 coaches, clients across the globe, team and so forth. And those methodologies, we call them the Massimo methods. What do you got to do to get there? So this book was about taking all these methods, all these approaches and saying this is how you build your practice from one person to 40 to 50 to 100 to or one person to five. These, this is how you build the business you need to build to start having consistent income. Now the reason I call it knowings and doing, James, is because my sales guys went ballistic when they saw the book. They said, rod, what the hell are you doing? You're putting yourself out of business. You're taking our. We're not gonna make any sales. You're giving all it away. And I laugh because that's the title of the book. It's gone. Knowing isn't doing. Because we know that if I just share with you information, it doesn't mean jack. It just doesn't like this call. Hopefully you'll take some advice, but otherwise this is the difference between a broker and a real estate professional. This is it right here. One is information. Brokers give information, right. Real estate advisor, top producer. They provide the transformation. That's what coaching does. It provides a transformation. Anyone could provide information. Not everyone can buy transformation. So that was the premise of the book. How can we transform someone from struggling like I was unemployed, lost in the Great Recession, to building a company that. Yeah. Provides a pretty cool life.

Yeah. I love the book and looking forward to the, you know, your full release in September on it. But I really liked how at the end of each chapter you had action items. It's now. Okay, now do it. Don't just read about it. Okay. Do it and report back. And I think that's a big part also about coaching is every week now I have to be accountable. If I say I'm going to do something, I have a check in. Did I actually account? You know, did I actually accomplish what I said I was going to do? Let's look at next week. What are my goals for next week? So really, really important, I think in this business. On one hand, being independent contractors. Yeah. We get a lot of flexibility. Right. A lot of time. And it's really incumbent on us, you know, to use it in the right way. On that note, you talk about your favorite quote, which is you will never find time for anything. If you want to make time, you have to make it. So talk about that in context to your I paid principal.

Sure. It's fact. Look, I can't. I just. I can't believe when people tell me I'm too busy to do something, to grow to whatever. How can you be too busy? Because you're responsible for your time. No one else is. You're an independent contractor. You just are. You're responsible how you allow your time. If you're a junior, you're a senior. Is definitely telling you how to spend some time. I get that. But. So we came up with this acronym. In fact, this approach to time. The approach today we call I Paid ipaid and it goes like this. And it's much deeper in the book. Like give you a quick, quick version. One is I to identify. Identify everything you should do. By the way, your list is only allowed to be 10. That's it. Believe it or not. If you have more time, sure. Try to get the rest done. So you identify every day and then p prioritize where my three priorities I have to do. Now, we only have certain buckets of priorities. One's working in the business transaction on the business Growth and personal. I do believe we don't spend enough time to prioritize personal. We get caught in the weeds. So identify, prioritize, A, allocate, allocate, resources. You have three resources. You have time, allocate in your calendar. You have money, capital, allocate that you need, and then you have people. That's the delegation part. People, Right. So identify, prioritize, allocate. I is the hardest part. Implement. You got to do it now. That's the hard part. Right? But if you allocate the right time and money and people and on your calendar, you leave a lot of white space for the whirlwind that happens in this industry. It does. It's gonna be fine. And then the D part is to delegate or delete. I believe more in the delete lately, but delegate, absolutely. And through the book, you learn why you should delegate, how economically makes sense. But if you ask yourself every day, every day at the end of the day, was I paid today? Did I identify, prioritize, allocate, implement, and delegate or delete, you're going to make a lot of money because it's going to force you to work on things that are going to make you a lot of money. And that's the point of ip. Awesome.

Everyone listening, please start typing in your questions on the Q and A box. We'll answer them as they come up. But also we'll leave time at the end. But anything that we're talking about, we want to. We want to get your response or if you have any comments, what we're saying, if some of this makes sense or things that aren't working, we really want to make this as beneficial as possible. Rod, what you just talked about, just to kind of finish that off and I referenced before, you're also a proponent of a not to do list. We find ourselves always saying, okay, what am I prioritizing? But also, what am I doing that someone else could be doing? I know you outsource. You're a virtual assistant. I think you were famous to saying, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. Just really trying to figure out how to leverage your time. I know you're a big fan of establishing your hourly rate, so figuring out your earnings, what is your time worth? And every time you do something, ask, is it worth it? Your coaching has helped me with my time map, thinking about how I spend my time. Buckets of time and levels of priority. So really, really important stuff. Okay, so let's talk about prospecting. Okay. And especially. And I'M going to make it more difficult because now we're talking about for. And this will hopefully answer Joe's questions about the, you know, the new agents who are making a first contact to even make it more difficult to get in New York. They can't even make an initial phone call before they get a request. So, you know, do you set it up with an email? Is it a campaign to kind of, you know, tee up that conversation? What's the advice for that?

Just for the newbies or for anybody?

Let's start with the newbies.

Okay, so for newbies, congratulations, you got a heads up on a lot of your seniors. Because here's why. I don't mean seniors in age, I mean seniors in experience. Newbies is something called LinkedIn, which is an amazing, believe it or not, prospecting tool. It is. Don't think my prospects aren't on there. Don't think your decision makers are on there or their influencers aren't on there. Because they are. Because I know it, because I do it myself and I've had my team do it a lot more than I do myself. LinkedIn is an amazing tool and you can have amazing conversations and connections. And there's four steps. Four steps you gotta know to LinkedIn. First of all, there's the content. That means your profile. Go back to what we talked about earlier in this conversation about the messaging. What's your profile look like? What's it about? Right? So then you have the connection, making the connections. You all can do that and it's easy to do and figure out who the connections are. Then there's the cultivation. That is where it comes to the communication discussions. And then there's a close and you take it away from LinkedIn. Making a phone call, getting the right to call somebody. DMing is big. And messaging on LinkedIn, it works a little bit on Facebook and not as much. So newbies don't discount LinkedIn. That's one thing that you have a heads up on. Just do. Because the seasoned veterans just don't. They don't believe in it or they just don't want to do it. And by the way, seasoned veterans, you should not be doing it. You should be using your juniors to do it for you. So that's one. Secondly, you got to leverage your season seniors. You just do newbies. You got to leverage the seniors and find out everything that's going on, what they know, follow them, figure it out so you know what to say. When you make client communication, you can do emails, right? But I think Look, I don't think, especially in New York, I don't think you're prohibited from doing letters right now. Are you, Are you, James?

No, no. We can send emails, we can send letters. We can obviously do social media. You just can't pick up the phone and call someone who you've never spoken to before.

So I do believe emails and letters for you guys, especially in New York, and even newbies are really strong ways to just let someone know you'll be calling them outside of New York or you have something of value to provide for them if you're in New York.

Okay, I'm going to put you on the spot. So I'm sending an email to a prospect and the goal is for them to say, okay, you can call me. If the goal of the email is try to get them on the line. What would be an email, what would the message be that would prompt someone to say sure thing. You can call me at 3 o' clock this afternoon.

Okay, so write this down, guys. Aida, Aida, Aida. Okay, don't. There's a different Aida that for guys my age that you learned about in the 80s and Alec Baldwin did a great job of it in Glengarry Glen Ross. We're not going there. That was a great. It's a different ada. So either in the email or in the letter. I like letters because no one does letters anymore. And letters. You asked about differentiation. Differentiation. Letters are a significant differentiation. They can be typed, that's fine. But emails, everyone sends emails. So I, if I was coaching, I'd say write the letter. I would tell you that right now. So letter email figured out. Here's the format. Number one A attention. Grab their attention. What does that mean? You better figure out exactly what is important to them. Now newbies, your seniors can tell you that. Seniors, through your conversations with your prospects that you shouldn't have in the last two months always comes you know what's bothering them. You do. And everybody. Every week something's gonna be different. You know, this week I might write Biden semicolon. Increasing capital gains. I might do that. If I was a capital A capital markets guy, I might do that just to get someone's attention. Love Biden. Hate buying. Doesn't matter to me. I want them to read my freaking email. Right. But depends on what your issues are and how that stuff should be. So a grab their attention. I get them involved. Get them involved. There's a fantastic marketing guru named Donald Miller who wrote a couple of really good books. One's called Building a story brand and one just came out. It's called marketing made simple. But I spent two days with Donald Miller and, and he shared with us a cadence which we put in the book James and we talked about that many we. So that format we talked about the involvement statement could be something as simple as many landlords we're talking to right now are telling us this many intents talking to are worried about that. It's getting them involved. So get their attention and get them involved now is the point that James made earlier. Now give them specific data to validate why it's important to them. So James, about 92% of people say that 24% of retail say this. Figure out those data points are three data points in an email which are bullet points or three data points in a letter which are bullet points. That's the data. Got it. Attention, involvement data, share them data and A, the last A is your action. What are you going to do next? If you're going to call them, tell me you're going to call them. I call you on Tuesday afternoon, call you on Wednesday evening. I'm calling on Sunday morning. Well not Sunday morning but you could call them on Sunday afternoon. You could just let you know. So I'm going to call you that you get the action or if you're in New York, look, you know the regulations, I cannot call you. But if you want to talk to me, here's my cell number. Give me your freaking cell number. Stop worrying about getting spammed. Give me your cell number. Here's my direct line. Love to talk to you. That's where I am. By the way, if you send out a letter, science proves that the three things they're going to look at three things and throw it out are the regarding, right, regarding Biden semicolon, increasing capital gains. They're going to read that. They're going to read the three bullet points, the data points. They better be good and strong and validate why you're writing. And then they're going to read the ps, the ps the HOY is going to read. And that better be something that reinforces the value proposition that you're throwing in there. Right? That's the essence. So that's what you should be doing. Newbies and seasoned veterans, you should be doing that, having your newbies do that for you, having your admins do that for you as well. I'll tell you right now, if any of you have ever connected with me on LinkedIn, for example, I didn't write you back. Now, did My account write you back? Yes, but I personally write you back. No, my team does that for me. And then they'll tell me, rod, you need to get involved with somebody after the conversation gets to a point. And for your mid careers and seasoned veterans, that's what we're saying. There's a great. Actually, I'm a junkie at getting coached. I love getting coached. I probably do it too much, frankly. But one of my coaches once told me it was Dan Sullivan up in Canada. He told me, stop thinking about the how and start focusing on the who. It's always like, how am I gonna do this, how am I gonna do that, how am I gonna do that? That's what I would think about all day long, Rod. Focus on who. And that changed everything. Oh, I don't have to do this, do I? Someone else can do it for me. I could pay them. This is great. And that's how it worked out. So that's how I do it. James. That's one. That's one way I would go with there.

That's really, really. That's awesome. Okay, and let's talk about this. No cold calling. This is a temporary thing. Once we open up your business, I gotta imagine we' being, you know, dialing for dollars. So you also in your book listed a bunch of don'ts and you said don't ask them if they're calling it, if you're calling at a good time, and also don't ask yes or no questions. So maybe talk a little bit about that.

Well, look, if you're asking closed ended question, now there's a time to ask closed ended questions. We talk about that in the book as well. There is, but it's not when you're calling all you're doing. And look, this is a problem. It means that you, if you're asking these questions, it means one to two things. One, you don't have a good reason to call and you're looking for an out. And if that's the case, you shouldn't be calling. Right. Not a good, not a good mindset. It isn't. Number two, you're not confident enough in yourself to make the call. Which I'm telling you is also a problem. But that's okay. There are ways around that. That's not an issue. So don't ask questions that are going to potentially give you a no or give you an excuse for them to hang up. Because what you're really doing is telling yourself, I don't want to make this phone call. I have nothing to add value for now, some of you don't know this or recognize this, but guess what? It's your freaking responsibility to call people and tell them what they can do to move forward. It's your responsibility. It's your duty, in fact, as an AY advisor to say, look, there are things going on in this market that you're not sure about, that you need to be aware of because it impacts you, your life, your family, your desires, your dreams. You need to make those calls. And when you get to that understanding that it's your duty to do it, making them calls come a lot easier versus I have to do this now. Then you, I would say look at different. Look at a different career. Sorry be so blunt and a coach, but find someone else then. Because you should be proud of what you do. You really should be. So, James, let me give you. So let me give you guys. And it's not in the book. That works. How's that? Can you do that? One for a phone call. Ready, James?

Absolutely.

Okay, so guys, here's an approach we learned by a vendor we work with. He said. He said, hey, try this approach on you, Rod. So my sales guy said, they're not doing it. It's too salesy. Never going to do it. I said, guys, let's try it. And now they can't stop doing it because I can't. Because all they get is yeses, right? All they get is yeses for permission to have a conversation. And this is how the approach works. James, you ready?

Yes.

Okay, James, I'm calling you. Ring, ring.

Hello?

Hey, James. Hey, James, this is Rod from the Masimo Group. Look, I really know I'm interrupting you, but I was only hoping for 27 seconds of your time so I can share with you how we're working with other brokers in New York who are getting specifically more market share.

Okay, stop, stop.

Break down what I did. It's really important, folks. I want you all. If you take. I hope you take some things away from this thing, obviously, but this thing works. Imagine you're calling someone and you say just that. You'd never ask permission. Hey, is this a good time to catch it? No, you just jump right in. Hey, this is so and so from ay. I know I'm interrupting you because every call you make, you are interrupting them. Unless it's a scheduled call, you're interrupting your prospect. It's guaranteed. So when you acknowledge it, the prospect then goes, okay. At least they acknowledge that they're interrupting me. It happens. I'm telling you, it just happens. And then when you say I was home for 27 seconds, that's the next start. If I had James, if I said, hey, James, can I have 30 seconds? What would you say? What would you think?

Yeah, you know, I don't know if I do. It sounds a little longer. I guess. At least it's gonna be quick, painless.

30 seconds. BS. That could be five minutes. Everyone's 30 seconds of my time. When you ask for 27 seconds, your prospect's mind says, I got a specific time. I'm gonna. That's all I need in my mind is 27 seconds. Get rid of this fool. I'll give it to them. That's what they're thinking, right? And then to share with you this, that sharing part better be of value. Why? When I give someone 27 seconds, you better share them. Exactly what that's going to be. To break it down like that. This is in the book. So break it down like that. Hey, I know I'm interrupting you. Ease them off. 27 seconds eases them off. Share key value. Yeah, go ahead. Now we get a lot of is now, by the way. We get 96% yeses on this. On this opening statement. 96% yeses on this opening statement when we do it. And our guys make thousands of calls every single week. Now, they've gone down during the COVID for fraud of reasons, but about thousand 1500 calls every week. So think of the numbers. So then you give them something of value. But here's what they also might say. Okay, I'm giving you 27 seconds. Go. You better have a good 27 second pitch. Not 15 seconds. Not 20 seconds. That's too short. You asked for 27 seconds. You better tell me exactly what's going on. So you might say, hey, hey, Rod. Hey. James, this is rod with ay. I know interrupting you. I just was hoping for 27 seconds to go share with you the recent transaction that happened on your street and how it might impact the value of your property. Okay, go ahead. So and so sold for this much. That much. Turning down Markovies tell us this. Therefore cap rates now being at this based on your property when you bought it, it might mean an increased value of X, Y or Z in 27 seconds. You give them all that with some data and they say, huh, that's interesting. And now you have a conversation. Now you start talking. So think about how you can use that approach in this phase of what's going on in the marketplace and what value you would share. You have A lot. And this is for the newbies too, by the way. A lot more conversations.

Fantastic. Look, we only have about five or so minutes left, so I want to do a little rapid fire on the questions that we have from our audience. But any advice on getting around the gatekeepers? So, I mean, right now we're mostly calling people on their cell phones, but again, we're going to be back in the office soon. And when the receptionists answer, how do you get directly to the principal?

Well, if your value proposition is strong, you give them the same exact pitch you give to the principal. Same exact pitch. We discount gatekeepers. That's absolutely incorrect. Treat them as they're more valuable. Treat them kindly. Get their first names. Always get their first names. And next time you call, hey, Gladys, hey, Bob, hey Jane. This is so and so. Again, you're gonna get off their thing, but treat them with respect and treat them just like you would and give them the same value. The reason I'm calling Joe is because of this. That's why. That's how you do it. It's proven to work.

Love it. Lisa from our Nashville office is asking about how to create a more balanced calendar that allows time for business development. Do you structure a daily weekly timeline that helps you to be more efficient in your business? If so, can you share how you do that?

Yes. Every Sunday, I go through a checklist of things I needed to cover based on my goals. And that week I allocate. Again, this is the A of IPAge when asked, acronym, identify, prioritize, allocate, implement, delegate. This is the allocation part. I allocate blocks of time, my calendar that I will do certain things. Prospecting. I don't do prospecting. My team does. But I may have some other conversations, webinars and the like. But I always, always make sure when I look at my calendar from far, if I don't see a lot of white space, that will allow for the whirlwind to happen. I know I get in the weeds fast. I always leave a lot of white space. I don't over schedule.

Okay. That being said, Ted from our Long island office asks, do you have any advice for changes in time management now that we are trying to navigate through the work from home scenario we find ourselves in?

First of all, Ted, I'm a Stony Brook Long island boy, so strong Island. I'm all 100% behind you. Love to hear it. Yeah, I mean, if you're working at home. I've been working home for 16 years now, so I'm kind of Used to it. But what I learned to do, number one, get the hell. Get your office away from the kitchen. Very important. Always go to work like you always thought you would. That's really important as well. You're getting dressed, working out in the morning. Don't stop your routine. You're going to get in trouble. Let everyone know what your hours are. Absolutely. Very key. But the thing that helped me the most, without a doubt, is I have my iWatch that I wear in my office every 52 minutes. Either in my computer, my Mac, or here I get a Bing. And that means get the hell up and go do something for five minutes. Because, believe it or not, people are so worried about productivity. Productivity can go up when you're at home, but you can get caught in the weeds. So make sure you get a break every 52 minutes.

Awesome advice. Angela from our New York office says when you're new, a lot of people don't reply to your email or messages, but then you try again in a few weeks. What's the line between being persistent and annoying?

Persistent and pain in the ass is what she's asking. I appreciate that. Look, if you are persistent, I believe persistent pays off. But you got to see what they say and how they react if they've never responded to what you're doing. I talk about this in the book about the no response and how you react to a no response. You can. And only after seven to 10 tries, you can try a no response email. I won't go into it in depth, but it's basically saying, hey, I tried to connect. Sorry, we didn't. Here's why I was trying. We have found mathematically we're getting about a third of our no reaction, no responses to come back and respond. So there is a. There is a. There is a cadence to that as well, by the way. I don't believe once a week you gotta be careful. You say you're calling once a week, it's not that important. Then if you're calling a couple times a week or every every day, it must be urgent. So is it urgent or not?

Jamie asks if your 27 second intro also works for emails to do it.

In an email, never, never, never do it. It's meant just for the phone call. They're going to read it and go, okay. And then they say yes. And then what? They can email you back, no, no, I do. On the phone.

All right, well, we only have a minute or two left. Sam is asking once again, can you give him the IPAID acronym? One more Time. Maybe it's a strong way to go out for the long weekend.

Sure, y'. All. You're going to identify, identify what you got to do that day. No more than 10 things. You're going to prioritize what you're going to do that day. Three buckets working in, working on the business and personal. You're going to allocate time, people and money to get those done. You're going to implement, do it. That's the hard part. And whatever you want to do, then you're going to delegate or delete. I'm a big delegator. I'm a big dealer. Massimo Group was one person 12 years ago. Massimo Group is over 40 people today because I delegate and I trust the people I work with. And by the way, last I'll tell you, if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong damn room.

So Rod, most important question before we leave. How do they connect with you if they want to sign up for your coaching? How do they, you know, what's the website? How do they, you know, get on your list?

Yeah. Well, thank you very much, James for this opportunity. This was freaking awesome. I always love working with you first and foremost. So thank you for this. Anyone else you check out? Masimo M A S S I M O M a s s I-m o-group.com I will guarantee you we have programs for every level of experience and or success as well as now every budget. We have a new program as well. So if you're interested in upping the game and taking the next step, we would love to talk to you.

Awesome. Rob, we thank you so much. This has been incredible and everyone just remember knowing isn't doing so. I hope you took a lot of great notes like I did put them into action. But definitely also enjoy the long weekend and I know Rod said definitely leave time for personal and family. So wishing you all a great long weekend and getting back and putting these plans into action next week. Thanks again, Ron. All the best.

All the best, James. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you.