How Josh Altman Built a Multi-Billion-Dollar Business from Nothing

So here's the thing. Entrepreneurs, leaders, salespeople, we all want to create consistent, repeatable, and scalable ways to grow our business and our income. And we want to do it better, faster, and more seamlessly. Why? So we can actually enjoy our lives, take vacations, and spend the quality time we want with the people that we love. How do we do all this without spending a fortune or running ourselves ragged? That's the big question. And this show is dedicated to the answer. Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to break the Internet. The number one coaching and training company for 12 plus years is now talking to the $10 billion legendary real estate broker Josh Altman. Josh, what's up, man?

My guy, Tom Ferry. I love you, bro. Hey, listen, I was talking to somebody before I came on here, and I said, look, I got to get my energy up because Tom just runs on adrenaline 24 7. So to be here, I, I, I had to get mentally prepared to sit with you.

I love it, man. Well, you're. Listen for, for my friend that's out there listening. If you, hey, if you know Josh Altman and you're watching this on YouTube or wherever you do it, just, just give this guy some love. If you've seen him before or if you're with us at the summit where we had a rocking session, and that's really what this is all about. We want to, like, inspire Josh, as many people as we can. So, so we're going to get into the backstory. We're going to talk about tactics today for my friend listening. We're going to talk negotiations, we're going to talk branding. We're going to get really deep into what this guy has done. And I always say, guy, we know Heather and your brother to build this incredible empire that you built. So maybe just give people context. I don't know what day it is. I know we're in. I almost said September. That's horrible. We're in the month of October. And I've been on the road, Josh, nonstop. Give, give my friend the listener a little backstory. How long you've been in the business. Don't go into the backstory backstory, but just give us a quick year to date number, then we'll go to the backstory.

Yeah. So, I mean, look, we, we are on target to hit our goal. We're going to be better than last year, which is always a good goal. It's probably going to be our best year ever, which is interesting in this market, as right now we're at a billion one Sold. So by the end of the year, because we're averaging a little over more than 100 million in sales a month, we'll be probably at 1.4 billion, which will be our second best ever.

Now, that makes some people, you know, some of their jaws drop. Some of them go, of course, because I've seen them on Million dollar listing for 15 years. But you and I both know them. That's not how this business started for you. You were fighting and scratching. So I thought, like, to just maybe get people started with this before. Like the television shows, the fame, the luxury listings that come list me calls the, you know, the everything that you are today. How did you get started in this business?

Yeah, I mean, look at, you know, people who know me know it. It wasn't always a billion a year in sales or something like that. It started the same way where probably most the people watching this started. Came out to la, didn't have two dimes to rub together, zero connections. You know, people see us on Million Dollar Listing over the years on Bravo, and, you know, they're like, ah, he must have been connected. His family must have been in real estate or something like that. And it was none of that. It was just pure hustle. And, you know, a lot of the things that I went through in life to get to where I am today make. Make me the agent that I am today. But, you know, Tom, you've heard this before. We, we came out from Boston, Massachusetts. We lived in a fraternity house, my brother and I, because we couldn't afford a regular place. And, you know, next thing you know, I'm working in the mail room making $6.50 an hour. And every time I got a paycheck, you know, I would take one of these successful people I was delivering mail to, I would take them out because that was. I was always taught, surround yourself by successful people. That's what I was taught growing up, which a lot of people watching this, it's mentors, right? You gotta have those people in your life, no matter, you know, how, who they are or how they're a mentor of yours, but you gotta have successful people around you. And it was funny because these people were in the entertainment business and all of them were talking about real estate instead of entertainment. And I'm like, I don't get it. How can you be so good in one thing and then also make money in something else? And I, you know, I. I got home and I said to my brother, you know, I'm in the fraternity house. I said, we're in the wrong business, man. We shouldn't be in the mailroom business. Not that we had a choice. I said, we got to be in the real estate business. And, you know, my brother is my older brother Matt. He's my partner. He's, you know, typical older brother. He goes, josh, that's a great idea. Genius. We're broke.

Yeah.

And I. All right, so let's figure this out. And that next year, I saved $5,000 to my name. He saved 5,000 to his name. We took that 10 grand, we walked into a bank, and they had 100% financing at the time. This was like 2003, 2004, and we bought our first place, and that was it. We bought it for $390,000. And every week we got a paycheck, we would do something different to the place. Now, listen, it was the lowest level of flipping you've ever seen. Like, Matt and I, Home Depot, we bought a can of paint, we put on our high school football jerseys because you know what we're going to do with that. And we end up painting the place. And then, you know, we did a couple different things. Six months later, or not even six months later, we ended up selling it for 600,000. About. So we ended up making 200 grand. Ish. In that transaction. And for us, you got to realize that opened up our mind to just a world of possibilities. And that's what you see a lot with people. They get stuck. They get stuck in the box that they're in. And very quickly now, obviously, the money was a big deal. It was most money we'd ever seen in our life. You know, we thought we were millionaires, Tom. We, like, we got 200 grand. What do we. You know, we were partying and the whole thing, but, you know, at that time, I was like, wow, that's interesting. So let's kind of push this a little further. Let's go buy another place. And I'm going to start studying real estate. So not only we can be flippers, but let me see what else is out there, because every time I buy a house, I got to pay a mortgage broker. Every time I sell a house, I got to pay a realtor. And so I. Eventually, I studied it. I got my real estate license the third time. Okay, how many of your students fail the real estate exam the first time?

Okay, so shout out to my buddy Rogers Healy, who I have to introduce you to, is inside this studio with me. Josh. I. I don't want to misquote the number. We could probably Find it in our YouTube archives. I think he failed it 19 times and set a record in the state of Texas. And now he's one of the most successful brokers in the state.

It's, it's insane because you, you, you're like, oh, I'm making money, I'm flipping houses. Obviously I know real estate. What could they tell me? And you end up failing and failing and failing. And thankfully I don't have to take that test again right now. But, you know, eventually I got my license, I decided to become a mortgage broker.

Smart.

I'm gonna fast forward the story a little bit. I started, you know, not being able to sell anything and calling out of the phone book all day, every day, door knocking, whatever we had to do. Eventually I became a really good broker in the mortgage business. I closed a lot of deals, started my own shop, and by 26, so I was broke when I moved out to LA. And then by 26, I, I made my first million bucks.

Wow.

And you know, so I like to say I was a millionaire, but I was a million in like five bucks, you know, still a millionaire. And after that I taken at that time. This is just the worst part of the story. If I could go back, I always say I wouldn't change anything, but if I could go back and change this moment we had up to that point flipped now like 12 houses. We took all that money right when it was 2006.ish, 2006 and a half. We took all the money we were making on the flips and all the money I was making in the mortgage business and we put it all into one big house. And it was a castle, which we laugh about because who buys castles? Nobody. Nobody buys castles in the Hollywood Hills like kings, but there are no kings in the Hollywood Hills. We bought this castle looking house. The economy collapse. I'm done. I'm dead in the water. My, my mortgage business is overnight, the faucet shut off. It's done. Because there's. You couldn't do, you couldn't do a loan. I had the office that I personally guaranteed I'm screwed there. I got all the, you know, you know that, that poster in when you're growing up where you got all the fancy cars in the house and it says, decisions, decisions, decisions. Well, that was like what we were living. And so I got all these cars which I can't afford. I got this house that we bought with all the money we had. And we closed a couple months before the economy collapsed. I wake up in a cold sweat I look at my brother, I go, listen, I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure looking at the money we have left in the bank, we're gonna be out of this house in, like, five months, no matter what. Like, that's how many. How many payments we have left. We said, all right, cool, we'll sell the house. We try to sell it, no calls. First month, we lower it to. To 200,000. No calls. So now we're losing. You know, I think I bought it for like three and a half, and now it's 333-272-5219. Eventually, we sell it. So that entire million, whatever that I put down on the house, gone, wiped out.

I went from, I like to say, the castle to the duplex. And not that there's anything wrong with the duplex unless you lived in a castle, right? So that was a. A defining moment in my life, in my career. I lost everything. I remember calling the bank asking for, you know, for relief. Is there any way they could help me out? And they said, we can't help you out. I'm sure a lot of people went through that at that time in 2007. It was a horrible time. And.

There I am with my brother in the duplex, and, you know, we're trying to figure out how to get back to the. The Altman brothers, the confident, fun Altman brothers that we were. You know, I was the guy who used to take everybody out to the club, buy the bottles every, you know, dinner on me. Everybody loved rolling with me. And that' was. And now I'm broke. And so that was a very difficult time in, you know, and not to get too much into it, but I got depressed. I lied to all my friends because I was embarrassed that I had no money. It was. It was. It was not a good time for me mentally or anything. So let's.

Let's stop right there just for a second, because I think it's important for. First of all, thank you for being so vulnerable and for the person that's listening, Josh, I don't know many people that haven't experienced something like this in their career. Maybe not at the level that you experienced it, but, you know, if you were working during the global financial crisis, you felt it. If you were working the last three years in the largest mortgage drought and transaction drought for real estate transactions, certainly in my lifetime, there's a lot of people that are feeling it, maybe even right now. So before you were going to go into the unlock. I just want to Just call it out. We're talking about breakdown to breakthrough, right? Like, we learn from tragedy, we learn from the mistakes, we learn from the pain, hopefully. What would you say was the change in your mindset that put you and Matt back on the right trajectory? Because maybe someone listening right now is like, he's talking to me.

Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's a great question. So for that six month period or so, you know, I, I, I'm always, I'm a gym guy, right? I like to work out every morning. I couldn't get out of bed. I was depressed. All I do was order food to the house. I tried to think about the next get rich quick thing because that was how my mind was set at the time. And I failed times after that, trying to pull myself out of the hole. Eventually, I'll tell you what it was that unlocked it was. I was sitting with one of my mentors, right? One of my, you can call it a coach, you can call it a mentor, whatever you want to call it. It was, it was a guy who my brother and I looked up to and basically always was very open with them. And, and, and, you know, he said, look, folks, he said, you got to stop with the get rich quick thing, right? That's not. Life's a marathon, not a sprint. He said, what do you love to do? He says, because I'm successful, because I'm obsessed with what I do, and I don't work a day in my life because I'm obsessed with it. And this guy is very, very wealthy. And I go, I don't know. I mean, I was a mortgage broker. I flipped houses. You know, my brother and I, we go around to open houses on the weekend because they're free, and it just kept us busy. And we try to look at mansions to motivate us. Like, one day we could live in here. It was just a mind thing. And he goes, well, why don't you just become real estate agents? And that was literally, that was the lunch when we are out of luck, right? This guy's just trying to talk us out of this hole. And I was like, yeah, I guess we're doing it for free.

Sure. I love people, so I love negotiating deals. All right, so that's what it is. And I remember walking up and down those streets that used to have all those mortgage companies. None of them are there, Tom, anymore. They're all out of business except for, like, one. And there was this one company that was a real estate agency that had been around forever. And I remember I looked at Matt, I said, we gotta go to that one. And he said, why? I said, because everybody there is great. And he, he, you know, Matt looks at me, he goes, well, that will never be the top people in the company. And I said, yeah, but wouldn't it be better to be the worst people in the best company than the best people in the worst company? And I don't, I don't know if that's the answer, but that was my answer at that time. And that's what we did. And we joined the company that everyone. And it's funny because I'll list off for you one day, all the people in that company, you, you know, all of them, Tom, they all run their own brokerages. They're all the top 10 agents in LA. And we've all, we all started at the same time and that was it. And just so you know, just when we unlock that moment and realize maybe we should be real estate agents. How much do you think I sold in the first six months? Months?

I'm going with 100 million. I'm kidding.

Yeah.

Zero. Did you get a listing? Did you do a lease? Tell us about it.

Probably the worst time to be a real estate agent.

What year was this? Just for context, it's like seven, eight, nine.

What's that?

What year was this again?

2008. Perfect timing, 2008. And, and so, you know, it's. Of course they're going to hire you because, yeah, you want to be an agent, good luck. And we were the new agents, and all we knew how to do was call out of a phone book and pound the pavement. And that's what we did. So just everybody watching. It wasn't like overnight, six months went by, I sold nothing. The next six months went by, I sold one deal. So my entire first year. And this is coming from a guy now who sells $4 million a day for the past 2,000 plus days, my first year, I sold one house. And what's crazy, Tom, because you listen, I'm sure you remember all the big moments in your life when you broke through, you need you. You closed the deal that you needed to close, whatever it may be, that deal at that time from my brother and I, we, we needed that commission like we needed air.

Yeah.

Like when I tell you we were like, we were done. We were about to quit real estate. Like this. This is, this is stupid. We've been sitting in this, you know, little space for eight months. We haven't made a dollar. I'm like, matt, maybe we should. Maybe we made the wrong decision. Maybe we should just find something else. Go back to the mailroom. It's a real PayCheck, you know, $6.50 an hour is a hell of a lot more than zero. And we finally, I was sitting the open house of a successful realtor in my brokerage because I didn't have any open houses. And he let me sit that one because it was the worst open house. And he was like, I don't want to waste my time on that. You go sit it. And we did. And eventually somebody walked through. They didn't buy the house, but they loved me and they let me take them around.

That's it.

Eight other places. And I sold them the deal. And I remember, this is what, I remember every single thing from that deal because I needed that deal so bad. It was a four million dollar tear down in the Hollywood Hills. And I, you know, I remember how long the contingencies were. I remember when they didn't lift the contingencies and it got pushed and I'm freaking. And eventually the deal closed. And then, you know, that, that was it. We got one or under our belt. We, we closed the deal and then another one came the next year and another. Then the next year we sold $12 million worth of real estate, which was, you know, in LA, that's really only four deals. But then the next year we did 38 million and then 80 something, then a hundred something. And yeah, now we do, you know, we do what we do now. But that was it. It wasn't overnight. I was, you know, people remember me from the show. It was, you know, like the guy in Flip Flops in Malibu and then there was the trust fund kid in Beverly Hills and then there was the kid from Boston and that was it. So, yeah, that's the story.

It was a, it was a good cast, by the way. It was a good cast because there was great contrast between all of you. So, So I want to go a different direction because the person listening, Josh, every one of us, you, me, everybody's got a story of that. I hope tragedy to triumph, right? In some way, shape or form. Everybody's got it. And certainly the person listening to this, they probably, like me, done it multiple times, just as you have. Right. Everything we do doesn't always work out the way we want, but we persevere. I want to get into some tactics and I'd love for you to think about the questions I'm going to ask you for the standpoint of maybe early Josh and today Josh and you can bounce between the two because there's. There's things that you did early that caused you to win, and there's things that you still do today that allow you to run this machine, run at the level that you run. So you ready for some tactics?

Let's do it.

So. So I think one of the most important things, especially with all the luxury brokers I know, and I'll just say every agent I know, if I said to you, do you have like two or three daily disciplines that make the motor of your life and your business work? And if so, what are they?

Yeah, that. That's. That's a great question. And I do. I will tell you. One of my favorite things about being in the business that I'm in is to be able to be in a car with some of the most successful people on the planet, right? CEOs, heads of state, all this stuff of people that we sell these crazy houses to. 40, 50, 60, $70 million houses. Because when I'm with them, I pick their brain and I basically listen. In my mind, I'm still that guy in that mailroom or the guy closing my first deal, right? I also still think I'm 26 years old, which I'm not. But, you know, I get excited. I asked, though, I asked them the same questions that you just asked me, Tom. So the approach. And believe it or not, I know this is going to be funny, but I was a college football player. I know I'm a kicker. And you're like, what, nine? Forget. Yeah, but I was brought up in sports, and preparation and visualization was very, very important in my life growing up in. In order to be, you know, a very successful soccer player, then, you know, later turn field goal kicker. Prep is the most important thing, whether that be on many different levels. For me, I'm up very, very early in the morning. I almost look at a day as a competition. I have to be up earlier than my competition so I can get the head start. Now, whether that's something wrong with me mentally, but that is what goes through my head is that the early. You know what they say, the early bird gets the worm, right? I have to be up earlier than everybody else. Like, I want to go to the gym when it's dark out because I want to come out when people are waking up, and I already want to be 110 miles an hour.

Hey, it's a show inside of a show. But check this out. On October 22nd at 10am, Josh and I are going to do a big webinar together. And he's going to break down what we call the $9 billion game plan, where you're going to learn exactly what he's doing, the marketing, the tactics, the strategies, obviously some of the negotiations and so much more that we're doing on this show. So check it out. Link below. All right, back to Josh.

Every morning starts with the gym. It has to. I, now that I'm 46 years old, I, you know, I make fun of my wife makes fun of me, but we make fun of it. I feel like I'm a classic Ferrari. It takes me a minute to get going. Right. You know, before I was a new Ferrari. Now I'm a classic Ferrari. As a dad, it takes me a while to warm up my mind, my body, and get really sharp. And I have to be, because you have to realize when you're selling a billion and a half dollars worth of real estate a year, you have clients all over the world that all have different clocks. So the earliest I can be sharp, the better. And so the morning always starts with that. Wake up, hit the gym, do the. Do my whole routine at the gym, sit in the sauna for 30 minutes. I know this, you know, you might not want to hear this because it's very into, but I feel like I mentally have to sweat out everything from the previous day before I can start my new day. It is what it is. You don't have to go get a sauna. That's just something I do personally. So at this point, I walk out of the gym, I feel like I'm top notch. I'm. I am. I am ready to go to battle with anyone, anywhere. I'm mentally sharp. And so then I go home and I spend some quality time with my kids. Of course, it was different when I didn't have kids, but very quickly, what's important in life, like before, back in the day, you know, Tom, it's all about the numbers, all about the commissions. You gotta find what fuels the fire inside you. When I was a mortgage broker and I was starting to make money, you know, I had a. I had something on my desk that had the four things that I wanted that I thought were important in life that I look at every time I sat at my desk and it made me pound the phones harder. And it, you'll laugh now because it was silly, but I was a single kid. It was, you know, it was a AP watch. An Audemars was a 64 Lincoln Continental. It was a Range Rover and, And a house. And that's what Was important to me. All really not important things in life. Now, of course, I have two kids, and they're my entire world. So what fuels my fire to be successful and to. Can you do it? Continue doing this? Every day is for my kids. That's it. It's not even for me anymore. I have. I have officially passed the torch in my head that everything I'm doing now is for my kids. Like, it's actually a really interesting way to think, because things don't bother me like they used to bother me, because I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for my kids. And anyway, so after the gym, I end up going. I go home, and I spend quality time with my kids, and I drive them to school every morning. And that. That hour and a half or so with my kids is the best time throughout the day. Better than any deal, any negotiation. All that I've done my. My deed as a father, they're at school, so now I can go to battle. And then, you know, I sit down, I go through the MLS every single morning, and I do three different things. I look what is. What came on in the past 24 hours, I look what sold in the past 24 hours, and then I look what's coming soon. The MLS is our Bible, right? We have to know the. If you don't know the inventory, you will never be a rock star agent. I've been doing it since the day I got into real estate. So at any point in my life, throughout the day, somebody asks a question about a property, I am so on point and up to date with everything that it doesn't slip. And let me tell you, that'll be the difference of them using you or using me. And so that's basically my morning routine. Once I get through all that, then I can do deals.

So it's interesting, Josh. You know, we know a lot of the same people, and we've known each other for a while. It doesn't matter. I could be in. I could be talking to Nuno Gomes, who's the. Who's the Josh Altman of Portugal, selling homes in, like, Lisbon and Cascais, or Kurt Kessel, who's one of my best friends, who's the number one Compass team in Florida, and I think number two in the country. They all say the same thing. I get myself ready, I get myself right. I get, like, family time, because kids could be grandkids or, hey, it's taking the dog for a walk. And then everybody says, and then I study the mls like, crazy, because whoever knows the market, that's the smartest broker in the room. So you're like, it's so fascinating. It's spot on. And I know for my friends out there listening, I'd love for you to write a comment. How does that differ from your morning routine? Put that in the comments down below. We can't wait to read that. All right, let's talk about two different things. I'm going to, I'm going to kind of blend two together. One is, like, you compete against a bunch of great brokers in all the marketplaces that you serve. So I want to, I want to, like, unlock for people, like, how do you view competition? What do you do differently to win? And then the second part of that is everybody's going to say the same thing. How in the world does he get all these come list me calls? Like, what did he do to create that? Or do you. Are you more like my. My friend Tim Smith who's like, no, I'm making phone calls every day. So let's do, let's do. Let's start with how you get them and then let's do how you win them.

Got it, got it, got it. So, first of all, yes, there are amazing brokers. And it's funny because you, you go to head to head with these people and you know that's saying that 95% of the people, I'm sorry, 5% of the people do 95% of the business. In our business, that's not only is it true, it's probably less. It's probably 3% do all of it. So I've been going head to head with these other rock stars in our markets forever. And you get to a point where first it starts with anger and hate, and you're like, I hate that guy. And then you start to do deals and you realize you need each other, right? You need each other to do deals. And then you get to a point where you're like, well, I heard you're going up against this, so maybe we'll do it together. Because, Listen, I got 147 listings. You got, like, it's all good. And, and that's kind of the moment where we're at right now, which is why I'm starting to do a lot of this stuff. Because for me, it's not about, it's not about a single deal anymore. Like, I've done the deals, I've done all of it. So it's more about having a good time, enjoying life, while of course, crushing it, but also it's a different level of respect. And so I've now I'm very much into giving back to the real estate community and I spend a lot of time teaching people who work for me and that's fun for me. I like that. I like generation by the way. If I lose a listing to, to, to, to you know, a younger person in the business, I'm like, not bad kid, not bad. Like that's, that's cool, that's cool. That's where I'm at mentally in my life.

So, so let me ask you though, on that same note, I get asked by new agents all the time how do I break in the luxury market? And I'll, I'll tell you what I share with them and then you tell me if I'm right or wrong or you're just your insight on it. Literally. I was In Denver yesterday, 19 year old kid raised his hand. So if you're listening this and you remember who you are, the kid, the blue shirt and your other buddy who had the white shirt and both of you guys were like 19. How do we get in the high end? And I said, you bird dog and you find deals for other high end brokers and then you call them and say Josh, I have a listing appointment, can I come with you? You take the listing, pay me a referral fee, pay me half, pay me something and just let me work on the deal with you. And, and I probably had 50 other luxury brokers in the room, first of all raise their hands and say I'd love to be that agent. And then a lot of them said yeah, that's exactly how I got started. What? Give, give the person once again in the high end there, maybe they're selling 30, 40 homes a year with their average sales price is X and 5X. And they, you know, like they, they can't get their ego out of the way. What advice do you tell them to raise their price point?

Okay, first thing I just want to say out there, and I know you guys had seen me for the last 15 years on million dollar listing. And yeah, it's amazing when you get a 30 million dollar listing. 30 million dollar listings don't sell very fast and they don't sell very often, right? So first of all you got to learn to appreciate the deals you're doing, right? Whether they're a hundred thousand dollar deals, five hundred thousand dollar deals, million dollar deals, whatever they are, you can have a very, very successful career owning that market. And those move quick. So, and you know, these High end listings. I do. They cost me, you know, throughout the year, hundreds of thousands of dollars to market all these crazy mansions. But long story short, the first time I broke in my first 10 million dollar deal, I got a call from somebody who said, I work for this guy, I can get you in. They were, you know, I was friendly with them. I can get you in to meet with him. And I googled the guy and I'm not going to use his name, but he's a billionaire. You guys would know who he is. And.

Even on the phone he talked smarter than me. That even makes sense. Yes, talking. And I'm like, man, this guy is so smart, I don't even understand what he's saying. And I remember I hung up the phone and I had an appointment the next day at whatever it was, two o'. Clock. And I immediately walked into the number one agent in my office at the time and I said, you know, in my way, hey bro, listen, will you do me a favor? I have a listing for $10 million. I, I'm not confident I'm gonna get it. Will you come with me? And I'm gonna do all the work. All you got to do is show up at 2 o' clock tomorrow. That's it for one meeting. I promise you, you won't do anything else. If we sell the house, you're going to get 50% and, and you'll never hear from me. I'll never bother you. I'm very, I'm going to be very good at what I do, but just trust me. He goes, all right, no problem. We go on the listing appointment. When that billionaire guy opened the door, I remember it was like, literally, it was like out of a show. The first thing he said, so how many other 10 or 15 million dollar listings do you, do you have?

That's it.

Myself, I, I would have been dead in the water. I wouldn't have even made it past the entryway of the mansion at that time. And of course my partner, the top agent who was crushing, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, real estate goes. Well, yeah, I have like 10 in this area. This, this, actually from this balcony I can see three and this and that. Next thing you know, we get the list listing. The house never sold. Just so you know, it never sold. Not every story ends like it ends on million dollar listing. It didn't sell. But that was my first 10 million dollar listing I ever got. And you want to know what was coolest about that listing was when I was sitting the open house, somebody else Walked into that listing, and I ended up selling them something for $10 million. That's how I broke. That's one way to break in. The other way to break in, just so you know, is just work do work, right? The more people, you know, we have a contest in our company where we. We pass out our business cards like they have a disease. We. If we have our business cards, a box of business cards sitting on our desk for more than a week, I. I just throw them away. I throw them away and I tell the people they got to go pay for more and get more. I'm like, what are you holding the business cards for? They're not. They're not baseball cards. They're not going up in value. And so we, you know, we have a contest. You got to give out as many business cards a day. And whether that be 10, 15, or 20 a day, you got to do it. You got to talk to everybody. You really got to put yourself out there. It doesn't happen overnight. But if you're in a market and you want to be dealing with the expensive stuff, you got to rub shoulders with the people who own the expensive stuff so they recognize you. And I got all.

So let's talk about competition. And I love the way you started because I've always said to people, broker to broker relationships, especially at the top, it's everything. You all want to kill each other because everybody wants the deal. But at the end of the day, they have the buyers. Right, because they're running with the same customers you are. So. So give us some insight on what are the sellers saying to you today and how are you taking that information and winning the listing over the competition? Are they talking about AI? Are they talking about, you know, find me global buyers, you know, find me the. Find me the Dubai buyer to buy this house who doesn't care about it because they've got oil money. What are you hearing? And then how are you dealing with that to win the business?

First of all, what has always separated my wife, my brother and myself from everybody else? And even our competition will tell you this. They might say, ah, I don't like Altman, but, man, that guy works. He's 24 7. He never stops. And it's relentless to a point where even home sellers just go, I. I mean, I guess we gotta hire a Josh because he hasn't stopped since we met him.

Yes.

Now, don't be annoying, but be relentless and know what you're doing.

AI has. Has. Has come to, you know, to a level where if you're not comfortable with it. It. Right. And we have somebody who works full time AI in our office at this point and we're just starting to see that. And yeah, it's expensive. These AI people, let's be real, they want salaries of 3, $400,000, right? It's a lot of money. But if you don't have that, you're going to get left behind so quickly. It's not something that like is going to start for the next couple years. Like it started, it's here and it's now, right?

Bingo.

And just for instance, I had a, I have a 40 million dollar listing right now that I did a showing there yesterday for an hour and a half. And the people walk through and they go, we like the house, it's a little too dark for us.

I probably would change the floors if I bought this house and light it up, no problem. By the end of the showing I was already on chat. GPT took the pictures I took from the MLS, uploaded it said please add in 8 inch white oak floors and make it more Santa Barbara Spanish onto. By the end I was showing them the pictures. First of all, they were freaking out because people still don't do it that much but. And we'll see if it helped. But you got to be able to do all that stuff from the videos, the listing videos, to the renderings, but also of course to the Legion and everything else, which is a whole nother episode that we can talk about. AI but also the global buyer, right? So the Globe has very, very small and in the market that I'm in, whether it's Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Vegas, Scottsdale, those are our five markets, right? Those are global buyers. And you get up to a certain price point, high end. Price point and high end can mean anything. It can mean, you know, 500,000 in Minnesota or it could be 50 million in Beverly Hills. Whatever it is, high end is high end.

Those buyers are global buyers. You cannot market locally anymore. And what separates us from everybody else and why I did that, you know, a lot of people, why would you do that show, that silly show which, you know, when I started that show, everybody hated it. Not hated the show, but they hated on us. I would do that, I'd never do about TV selling houses. And we, you know, Tom, we paved this road for every other show. We were the first. We were. And we went through, we went through a lot to get to where we had to get to and. But I will tell you that gave us a platform that played in you know, 70 something countries around the world. It gave us a platform that we never let go of. And so we knew what we were doing the whole time.

So let's, let's take a step back. First of all, I appreciate all these insights. Take a step back with us for a second and let's talk about a newer person in the business and an experienced person on the business. And let's just say, you know, you and I were, you and I were walking on Balboa island together with our wives hanging out, and a brand new agent walked up to us and an experienced agent walks up to us and they were from anywhere in the world. Like the new agent said, josh, tell me how I can build a brand and tell me how I should market myself. And then same thing with the experienced agent. Like, let's talk like, I'm a new agent. How should I build a brand and what should I do to find clients? Let's just, we'll focus there and then we'll go to the experienced agent.

So. So with a brand new agent, first of all, there's a lot to it, right? There's not just one thing, but you have to. I always felt it was really important.

When you're driving around with these successful people, time and is money, right? And you have to be so on. There's no room for error. And the younger generation, of course they're going to mess up. They're newer in the business and there's, they're going to slip, they're going to take a wrong turn when the client's following them, whatever it may be. And I remember, and I've done Lois sweating, just literally sweat my suit.

But when it comes to branding yourself, you have to realize that you are a walking billboard for you, for you and your business. Every single thing you do reflects on your business. Because listen, you're not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars like we do marketing ourselves, right? You're a new agent. So it comes down to the little things you want. Do you want to sell to a certain type of people? First of all, you got to look the part, you got to play the part. I don't care if you got to fake it till you make it. That's cool. I did that for a while. But then eventually you got to make it. But the most important thing I can tell you, because we did all that and we were on TV and we had the shark skin suits and, and the fancy watches and all that. And that was cool for me. It worked for me at that time. You have to be an expert at what you do. These kids come in to interview for us and they go, yeah, I'm at a brokerage for a year, but I want to, I want to be with your brokerage because you guys are rock star agents and I want to sell more. And I asked them very simple questions, which is, you know, can you write your own contracts? Oh, no, I have a TC that does it, A transaction coordinator that does that and all that. And that does, I'm sorry, but that doesn't impress me that you can hire somebody and give away the money that should be in your pocket. If you can't do something as simple as, as understanding the contracts like it's the back of your hand. Because this is your life, this is your business. If you can't, if you can't give it the respect, how are you thinking you're going to get it back? What was cool about when my brother and I started the first contract I ever wrote on that deal, I walked over to. He passed away. It was one a very good friend of mine, older in the business, he was a mentor. His name's Steve Levine. And Steve was the greatest, the nicest guy. And I remember walking into Steve's office and I was all nervous. I'm like, Steve, I gotta write an offer. You gotta show me how to. Do you have, do you have any offer? I can copy your offer, but I'll change the numbers, but I'll see how you did that. And that's. I wrote my first contract by copying his contract on a different deal. And, but you look, you learn what works, you learn what doesn't work. You make the mistakes on the contract, which you'll never do again. And, and you, you build it that way. So we went through it. People today, they have too much, it's too easy access. So what I would say to the new agent, you got to be an expert. What you do, you got to, you got to respect the business and you got to work at every point of it. Listen, if my son Ace or my daughter Lexi become real estate agents, which I hope they do right, I am going to start them just like I started in the mail room. And they have to learn every aspect of the business so they can be a well rounded agent. That's, that's what I would say. The very short answer, you want to break into the high end market, join a rockstar team, learn from them and take off on your own.

Love it. So let's go to the experienced agent who's saying, hey, you know Josh Like, I'm not doing $4 million a day in business, but I might be doing $4 million a month in business, or I might be doing $4,000,000 a quarter in business. And you and I both know, depending upon where that person is in the world, that could be a huge amount of business. But, you know, I had, I had three seminars this week. I probably had, I don't know, 2,500 people in three days. And I can tell you, not one person in that room or in those rooms didn't say, how do I get more deals right now? Like, there are less transactions happening. What are some marketing tactics, some prospecting tactics? And every time I would show marketing or talk, like texting strategies or email strategies, or direct mail or open house scripts and dialogues, this is all I saw the entire time. All the phones go up, click, click, and they're stealing everything I'm sharing with them. So what, what's your advice to that experienced agent who says, I'm at. I'm at X and I want to go to Y. What do I need to do from a marketing and prospecting standpoint?

Look, the. The problem with agents that have been in the business for a while is they have, They've grown in ego. Right? Ego. Ego's cool. Like, it got me to a point. You know, you got to have a chip on your shoulder. You got to have an ego. But you also have to have confidence because you know you're the best at what do.

When it comes to. First of all, as a seasoned agent, you now have properties, you're doing deals. You need to go on your calendar. The easiest thing I can tell you is cross off every Sunday for the rest of your life because you are busy. And I, I was telling somebody this the other day in our office meeting every Sunday, your open houses, wherever your open houses are, I don't care if you selling billion dollars a year or not. In fact, fact, I just got a great listing in the Beverly Hills flats. I'm pumped to sit it on Sunday. And I'll tell you why, because this hasn't been on the market. I even told Heather, my wife, I said, do you want to come with me? And we'll have a contest and we will just pick up like 10 buyers in one open house. You gotta respect the open house and you gotta always do it. And don't forget how you got to where you are with those. You start passing off. It's very easy. You have a couple agents that work for you. You pass off the open houses. You know, you don't want to work on Sundays anymore. That's the simplest way to continue to stay in the game. But you got to be so well prepared for those open houses. And I have something that I do personally and I'm giving you all my tricks here, Tom. I don't, I don't.

Let's hear it.

You might have to erase some of this stuff.

I, look, if I'm sitting, let's just use a 10 million dollar open house. For me, it's a round number. It doesn't matter. If it's for you, it's 500 grand or 50, it doesn't matter. But I'm going to use 10 million. I go to that open house, I spend the night before going through every million dollar price point up to 20. So I start at one and I pick out the best house on the market on the MLS. I pick out between 1 and 2 million and then I pick out the best house on the market between 2 and 3, and then I pick out the best house from 3 to 4, 4 to 5. So I have 20 of the best houses starting at 1 million to 20 million. That's okay, smart people. At my open house, I have 20 MLS sheets of the 20 best houses in that price range. Those MLS sheets say my name on it, not the agent's name on it, my name. So I put them out and you can do that too. That's the mls. I then I then of course have the other stack of papers is all the comps, the active comps, which are very important in certain markets. So your active competition. And then of course the sold comps. I'm prepped. I'm prepped to argue why my listing is the best listing. Oh, you came from that house on one two three Main Street? Yeah. No, great, great neighborhood. Yeah. But the problem with that house is, do you know, you know, after 3 o' clock it's dark because of the way that it sits and it's blocked and oh yeah, that I know that house. I know the developer, you know you're gonna have to gut the house and then redo it again. I'm ready to argue against every house to make sure my listing is in the forefront. There's also a second when you're showing a house and you've been doing it for 20 years or so. Like me, There's a time when you know someone's no longer buying the house you're trying to sell them. You know it, right? I mean the obvious is I like this. But if they say but deal's done. They're not buying the house. But also you.

You.

You start to become a body language expert, right? Body language. You listen. You. You stop talking, and you listen to what people are saying, which a lot of people don't do. And I love to talk, but you gotta. Sometimes you gotta listen. The second you realize they're not buying that house, you switch the script and you do everything you can to set the appointments and not let them leave unless you have all their information, and you set up the appointments on the spot to show them more, because once they're gone and you don't have their information, you're gone. Doesn't work. It's the next agent's getting them. I don't let somebody leave, I'm either selling them the house, and if they're not buying the house, I'm selling them another house. That's what I do. As an experienced agent, you have the open houses. To do that. You got to do it.

You know what I love? I love the fact that you're sitting here telling an experienced agent that you're holding an open house, and you and Heather are busy this Sunday, and you're gonna battle to see who can get the most leads, that people are, like, fairy. Why do you go to all these seminars all over the place? I'm like, because I'm still hungry. I want to help people, right? Like, that's what I have. I could just sit in my office and do zoom meetings for people, but no, I want to be on the street. So I. I just have mad respect for that. So.

So you got. You. You have to. We're in a lonely business, Tom. We're in a lonely business. You're a lone agent out there. It's. This is why. This is why people need you, right? You're there. Your confidence is down. You don't have a partner. You're not making money. It very quickly can spiral, and you. And you're done.

For me, the. The. I would say, what? I'm so lucky for having my. My brother as my business partner from day one. And listen, we're like brothers. We used to actually, Like. I remember one time we got in a physical fight in our office, and everyone's like, oh, my God, call the cops, or whatever it was. And was like, what do you mean? It was my brother? They're like, yeah, but he punched you. I was like, yeah, well, I punched him too. Did you see that? You know, and we're brothers. Yeah, but you laugh and you get over it in a minute. I've been so blessed to have my brother Matt be my wingman, be my, my, we say my ying to my yang, my, my good cop to my bad cop the entire time in this business. So if you don't have that.

That'S why you need to be with people like yourself, Tom, where you can get that motivation, you have to feed off of other motivations. And whether it's the fire inside you that fuels you and, and, and, and it's being able to be present for your kids when you want, and that's why you want to be successful, or it's okay, it's okay to have people that you can lean on like you and teach you how to get through those moments, because that's where people get stuck a hundred percent.

So if I, I mean, you know, you and I should probably do this face to face sometime and we could probably spend like seven or eight days just kind of. Because the stories is the magic, you know what I mean? It's the, it's the example of you and Heather doing that open house, which, you know, I'm ping you on Sunday and be like, hey man, how's the open house? I'm gonna ping your wife and go, who got the most leads?

I'm gonna, I, I, I'm like, oh, for a hundred against my wife.

She's, yeah, I, yeah, she's a killer. She's a killer. So, so one last question for you, man. If I asked you, hey, this is your last podcast. You're never going to be on TV again. And this was just the moment. What, what will the Altman Brothers brand like? What's it going to mean 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now? Like, what's the legacy you guys are trying to leave behind?

You know, the coolest part about, you know, being in this business and doing and accomplishing what we have over the past, you know, since 2007 and even before 2007, but is when people come up to me in the supermarket or on, you know, at my, my kids football game or whatever it may be, and they go, and this dates me a lot, but hey, man, I got into real estate because of you. And I'm like, man, that's crazy. Yeah, that trajectory in life, he chose it because of what we've done in this business. And listen, when we started, we were grinders, we were hustlers, we were, we were clawing ourselves to the top and, and yeah, it got ugly at moments and we did what we had to do to make it in this business. But to think all that stuff we went through is there's this next generation that watched, you know, Million dollar listing for 15 years. I met my wife on that show. I had my kids on that show. I was a cocky little, you know, agent to start on that show to. Now you know where we are.

We were able to motivate people through that entire time, right? People say, oh, I love the show. It motivates me, bring people together, because I watched that with my wife. She loves the show. And we talk about real estate. We're not even in real estate, but we learned about negotiat appreciating from you or whatever it may be, all that stuff. It's so cool to look back. And for me, the coolest part is that at some point, Lexi and Ace, my. My daughter, my son, they're gonna be able to watch their dad at the top of his game for 15 years on million Dollar Listing reruns. And that's just so darn cool for me. And we have fun doing it. We love what we do. We're obsessed doing it. And I'm blessed to do it with my family.

And I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change the thing. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to let go of the reins because I'm so obsessed with what I do. And I love it, but I'm trying. I'm trying, man. I'm bringing on different partners and this and that, but, you know, the art of the deal, the negotiation, just all of it, it keeps me going. You'll. You might see me on a beach, but if you watch me carefully, you'll see me get up 17 times and my wife being like, where are you going? And. And I got to close this deal. I got to close this deal. I need it. It's in my blood.

I love it, man. It's the perfect answer. Josh. I've. I've so enjoyed just, you know, hanging out with you guys and getting to know you better and watching your career for, you know, I think really probably starting with Million Dollar Listing is when I was really starting to pay attention. And it is impressive what the three of you have built. So I'm super pumped. Hey, in the comments, if there's a question you want to ask Josh that I didn't ask, and I'm sure, sure you got a thousand. Just put it in, put it into YouTube. And I don't know if I'll ever get him to go to the YouTube channel, but I will have one of my teams, text it to him, and then we'll publish the answer for you there. So, Josh, we got to wrap the show. Thank you so much for being a part of this and for my friend out there listening. If you're not following him, you should definitely follow him on Instagram or all the other, you know, fun channels that you like and, you know, hit him up with a question there. So, Josh, appreciate you, man. We'll see you on the next show. Take care, brother Tom.

Appreciate it, man. Always. Good catching up.

If you want more information about this episode, including my show, notes, mentions, links, and everything else, make sure you visit tomferry.com podcast that's tomferry.com podcast. Thanks again and talk to you soon.