Move From a Real Estate Salesperson to Consultant w/Justin Stoddart of Think Bigger Real Estate

What's up, Business freedom podcast listeners, super excited today. I met Justin probably about a month or two ago, and we had an awesome conversation on his show, which is Think bigger real estate. It's think bigger real estate. If you want to look him up and he's done something that I think all of you can benefit from, and I'm gonna let him dig into it. Justin, welcome. And just give us like a teaser, like 60 seconds on why someone's gonna want to spend, you know, the next 20 or so minutes with us.

So the real estate industry is under fire right now. Massive tech platforms have agents and their commissions and their crosshairs. And the really only way to remain as a well paid real estate agent is to move out of being something that's commoditizable. You can't just sell real estate. You actually have to advise and help the client make decisions that determine wealth, that preserve and grow wealth. A lot of agents already do that, but they don't brand themselves as such. And the way they go about getting leads and getting business doesn't support that either. So I've really developed a model to help real estate agents move from salesperson to advisor and again, get referral streams coming in from sources where they're introduced as such.

Brag on yourself for 30 seconds. So what have you achieved with this model?

I love it. So I built one of the larger books of business in the title and escrow world. I come out of the building industry, so I was built some of the prominent homes in the valley where I worked end of 2009 happened. I realized my passion wasn't building homes. You know, the economy kind of helped me out of that, but my passion was really building people and building business. I'm very much a business builder using kind of unique strategies. So I've applied those in the title and escrow world and now get the good privilege of consulting real estate agents and helping them strategically grow their business. And that's really how I've grown. My practice is really by not just being a vendor, but by being a peer and even a mentor. And I think real estate agents need to do likewise in order to attract referral partners that will give them good margins and great businesses moving forward.

Yeah, yeah. That is the most clever way that I've ever heard it said. The industry. How'd you say it? The industry helped me get out or the economy helped me get out of the industry.

The money was good enough before the crash that it would have been hard to actually close a business and walk away from it. Even though I knew in my heart of hearts I didn't love building homes, the day to day management of subcontractors made me want to pull my hair out. But it was good money at the time. The economy actually forced me to make a decision of like, do I love this or actually want to build a career doing this? And the quick answer was, no, I don't. I don't love this. I love the building the business part of it. And then I was like, oh crap, I got another home I got to build now, right? And so my passion is really the strategic side of how do I go, you know, how do I like? And really for me, at the time, I was in my mid-20s, convincing people to part with $2 million so I could build them their dream home. I didn't like most of the people I was competing against had been in business as long as I'd been alive. And so it wasn't based off my good looks. I didn't have that for me necessarily. My wife might argue, but she might be the only one that would argue that. And I didn't necessarily have the experience or the portfolio that others did. So I had to create a different model on how to get business. And again, that's the part I loved. It wasn't the building home. So again, 2009 gave me the opportunity to realize, like, I don't want to pursue this. I really want to pursue the part that I love, which is strategic business building.

Awesome. So let's come with it. Come up with a title for this podcast as we're recording it. What's the title of this podcast? Because I got to come up with it anyway, so I figured I'd have you involved in it. So what's the title?

Let's crowdsource it. Move from real estate salesperson to real estate consultant.

All right, I like it, I like it, I like it. Alright, so break it down for us. So before we hit the record button, you know, you were talking vendor, peer, mentor, adding value, going after bigger relationships in a different way than others do. Break down the strategies for us and kind of just lay this thing out for us.

Yeah, I love it. So again, I developed these not knowing that I was developing them as a home builder. So I'll kind of start with that. Story is again, kind of painting the picture. Again, in my mid-20s and realizing that I was at a severe disadvantage, I realized I had to go upstream. So I actually call this the upstream model. Maybe that's even a better name. I had to Go upstream to architects and then upstream from them, interior designers, real estate agents that were selling vacant lots, land developers, and begin building relationships with people that were going to touch the clients long before the client was going to select a builder. And that was the way that I built my business is to be strategic partners of these potential referral sources. And what I saw a lot of people doing is builders would walk into an architect's office with a stack of 10 cards and say, what do you have for me to bid? I, I'm a really good builder. Here's ten of my cards. Please sell me. And they'd walk out, leaving literally a trail of mud out the door because they're heading out to a job site. And that was just status quo. And I realized, I think I can outdo those guys. It wasn't about me or what I'd done. It was about the architect and how I could help the architect. And so that worked because the architect started to like me enough because I was making introductions to people that are upstream from him enough to where, then he wanted to then introduce me to clients and bring me to the table to bid on projects that otherwise wouldn't have had the opportunity to do so. And even at the point where I was adding enough value that he would ask me how I wanted to be introduced to where I could save. My unique value proposition was a great client experience, which I knew my other builder counterparts. That was a weak spot of theirs. And so as I got out of the building industry and got into consulting into the title and escrow industry, I realized that that's a very similar strategy that real estate agents could employ, is that there are people that are upstream from a real estate agent that know that a real estate transaction is going to happen before that client ever actually talks to a real estate agent. Like, that's a great pool of business to be fishing out of, rather than I'm competing with four other people for this lead, you know, from an online lead form, I'd love to be introduced by a financial advisor, a cpa, an attorney. Like three months before they actually were going to talk to a real estate agent. Now I've got time to build trust. So to where I'm not competing with anybody. And in part because of who the referral came from, which is a financial advisor. And so very similar strategy that I employed as a home builder can be done by a real estate agent that don't walk in the office of an estate attorney and say, here's 10 of my cards. I hear, you know, people are going to buy or sell, please refer me. See you later. That's what a lot of agents do. If they recognize that there's an opportunity there, they'll just go hand people their cars and say, market. Me and Lars, you and I both been in those situations where people like even, you know, maybe a home inspector for you, you know, even a lender for me, saying, hey, please introduce me to agents. Hey, please. You know, it's like, first of all, who are you? Second of all, what's your value proposition? And you just handed me a bunch of your pamphlets because you don't want to do it yourself and you want me to go sell you for free. Like, sorry, but we don't have a lot in common, right? And so I think that's the strategy that people have employed, if they've employed any, and it's a weak one. And so a stronger one is to actually approach those individuals that are upstream and rather than approaching them as a vendor, like, what can you do? For me, it's more a peer. Hey, I've heard great things about your practice. I understand you're a top producing professional. Your clients say great things about you. I was actually referred to you by one of my clients. Similarly, I've got a very similar style in my industry. I'm a top producer in my field as well. I'd love to collaborate with you and see how things that we're learning in our respective practices might be a benefit to one another. There's no talk in there about what can you give me. It's like, let's collaborate together, let's be peers, even let's share referrals. At this point, you don't know if that person has referrals to give or if even you'd want to give them one. So don't try and get married before you've even gone on a date, right? And once you have some rapport as a peer, then you can kind of assess where are their weak spots in their practice. Who are people in your network you can introduce to that advisor, that cpa, that would help strengthen their business and their practice, maybe even things that you're learning at the many real estate conferences you're going to, you know, things you're learning from real estate B school, Take some of those same practices that are business principles, and apply those to, you know, offer to apply those to that professional's business. And all of a sudden you become even a mentor, right? So you've, you've, you've had the prospective person who can send you business here before you walked into the equation as a vendor, and that's where most people stay. First approach is how do I turn this person into a peer to where they respect me as a peer, Fellow business owner, fellow top producer. And then how do I even start to offer mentorship to them and to their people? Now I've added enough value that, you know, a natural referral relationship is going to happen. You know, one of the downsides that people think of this is, boy, that's going to take forever. It's going to take a year to establish that. That whole process there can happen in a week, two weeks. You know, it can happen in a conversation. It doesn't. It's just how you approach it and being more strategic than Less.

Yeah.

And when you, when you talk about real estate team leaders, even, you know, if, as a real estate team leader, if you're not. If you're not managing big relationships, you're. You're probably too deep into the business. You know, if you're, if you're. I know a lot of real estate team leaders that they're still working with buyers, they're still working with sellers. And this reminds me, not tactically as you've described it, but there is a. You ever read the book by Chet Holmes, Ultimate Sales Machine?

I haven't. I probably dipped into it, but I haven't. In fact, I got the audio version and listened to part of it.

There's a chapter in there that I think the chapter is called the Dream 100. And, you know, it's essentially, you know, it's identifying 100, you know, 100 folks like this that are in your market, you know, and going after 100 folks that could give you, you know, five or 10 deals a year where there is this potential for peer, you know, to mentor. And if all you had to do was manage those hundred relationships, you know, how creative could you get in terms of direct mail pieces you can send to them, value you can add, you know, that you can just send them and really just influence them on a personal level so that they're willing, you can break through the clutter.

I love that you said that. I had a conversation just earlier today that every ship needs a captain. And unfortunately, most agents don't step into the team leader role because they're too busy being the crew.

Right.

And so there's no captain and there's nobody managing those key relationships, really directing the ship in a sharp way, in a strategic way. And so it just kind of goes with the wins.

Right?

Yeah. And I know guys, you know, generating 5, 600 forced registrations, you know, on their buyer home search site. And they're sort of in the weeds of that. And just to elevate out of that and act like a business owner and a peer to other business owners, you know, it takes some effort. So let's talk about how this looks in a 3, 6, 12, 24 months, 36 months, sort of, you know, how does it really look like, just tactically, what advice would you give someone that knows they should be managing bigger relationships? Knows, like, you know, straight up Zig Ziglar, if you give enough value to enough people, you know, whatever the, you know, all your dreams will come through sort of, sort of approach. What's the tactical look like on this?

Yeah, I appreciate it. It's interesting that I actually started this kind of exploration identifying because for me, as a home builder, it was pretty clear who was upstream. So I began to really kind of discover and reach out to different professionals to find out who's upstream from a real estate agent, like, who today is having a conversation with their client, with whom they have massive amounts of trust that that client is sharing that, hey, yeah, we're going to sell our home in six months, right? And so, like, one of the first people that I began interviewing was financial advisors. And so I began to ask this question, Lars, which is an interesting one I would ask. I say, do you get in these conversations where you know that a home is going to be bought or sold in, you know, the next short period of time, three to six months. And because I'm not a real estate agent, I think they answered me differently than if I were a real estate agent. If I were, they'd probably put their defenses up a little bit and say, like, ah, they're moving in for the kill, right? Like, no, I don't really have those kind of referrals. But because I'm a neutral third party, they. They actually started opening up, especially ones that I had closer relationships with. And like, the answer was unanimously, the good ones, right? The ones that are actually having reviews with their clients on an annual basis or even more frequently at times. They said, yeah, we asked those questions. Our intent is to be the center of all things real estate, or, sorry, of all things financial in their lives. And so you better believe that we know that a home is going to sell. And so I said, okay, interesting, you know, that a transaction is going to happen. Do you refer that to an agent? Do you bring up an agent's name? And just as unanimously, the answer Was, no, I don't. It's like, okay, interesting. So we've got you over here saying, yes, I've got stuff to refer and no, I don't refer it. Tell me why, like what is happening that's causing you to not refer. And one of the biggest breakdowns that I, that I found is that they say, you know, agents work very differently. Agents are transactional. They have a ratio with a client for two to four months and then they're done. There's a closing for us. We don't have a closing. We have clients. Real estate agents have past clients. So there's this paradigm shift that I started to realize is that agents are, if they really want to get business from these professionals, they have to, they have to brand themselves and work and think like these other professionals, which isn't hard to do. And they're already doing it. The good is already doing it. They have like referral based businesses. They're already doing it. It's just a matter of changing some of the vernacular around it and recognizing no, I have clients for life. And I just like you manage their 401k and their stock portfolio, their investments, I manage their real estate portfolio. Like we do the same thing just with different buckets, right? Different buckets of money. And so if I were an agent and I were hearing this today, I would start to identify who are the professionals. Kind of like it teaches. I'm sure you've read, as have I, multiple times. Rich dad, poor dad, right? One of the kind of the classics. And he talks about having a financial team around you, right? Which is a cpa, an attorney, a financial advisor, an insurance agent, this group of people. If I were you, I would begin to build a team of people around you, one or two deep, that specialize in specific things so that when you approach a client, you can begin recognizing opportunities to refer them. Doesn't mean you need to refer them right away, but at least start to build that team around you of those people without your hand, don't put your hand out like right away. Like don't say, look, I'm here to get referrals from you. Yes. You need to know a couple of things. Number one, that they're pro real estate, right? You get some financial advisors that are not. So that's first thing, be pro real estate. And then number two is to have somebody who's actually growing their practice. There's a lot of financial advisors that are like just coasting retirement. They aren't taking on any new clients. That's not A good fit. So be looking for those people that are pro real estate and they're looking to grow their practice still are reciprocal like that are good collaborators. Start to align yourself with those people and then begin to identify with your clients things that you can ways that you can refer those people. And so looking at financial advisors, a couple of the things that came up right away that were really clear is that when somebody is selling a home and not buying another one, they're leaving a title company with a proceeds check.

Right.

Like they have four to five hundred thousand dollars and what are they going to do with it?

Right.

And a good script I think to share with your clients at that point is hey, I recognize you guys are selling and not buying. I understand you're going to have a good proceeds check coming out of here. I would imagine that you have a great financial advisor that's helping you get the most out of that money, have that money do the most for you. If you don't by chance or if you'd like a second opinion. I work very closely with a financial advisor who specializes in helping people make the most out of those proceeds. Checks customize to where they're going and to position yourself and looking for those opportunities as well as sharing with that financial advisor. Hey, these are questions I'm going to be asking my clients that real estate agents that work transactionally, they don't ask these questions because they don't care.

Right.

All they care about is get the commission done and move on to the next client. I care. I want to come into this client for life. I'm going to be looking for a partner to whom I can refer those situations. So just like that, with every one of these professionals, there's key triggers that you can be identified in your client's life and transaction where you can be recommending these professionals that are upstream from you. Realtors in general know that they need to be able to refer a painter or like a gutter cleaner, kind of like the home maintenance team. But I also think you need to have a professional team because that team will serve you, will serve you even better and your clients in higher, higher value ways than just kind of a maintenance team.

So what are the buckets of folks that we might look for? Financial advisors? You've talked about attorneys.

Yep.

So I think there's multiple attorneys. I think there's estate planning attorneys, I think there's actual real estate attorneys, I think family attorneys. I think those are kind of three key ones that tend to interact with real estate. I would say CPAs and I would say insurance agents, those are the ones that I'm delving deep into to identify what is it that would trigger an opportunity to refer to those people.

Yeah.

And how do you manage? You know, do you typically start with the vendors that you're already personally working with? If they fit in one of those buckets, yeah.

That gets tricky at times. Right. Because sometimes the person who you personally trust isn't growing their practice or isn't necessarily the referral giving type. So I think it absolutely does not need to be, it does not have to be that person. It can be.

Right.

That's a natural fit. But if that person doesn't fit the other criteria, I would not hesitate saying, look, I'm looking for somebody whom I can refer. Like me and my family, we've got this long term relationship. We're not looking to move ours. But I come across a client a month that I think could be of benefit in having a conversation with a qualified financial advisor. That's the referral I'm looking for. Those are the opportunities that I'm looking to refer to somebody. If somebody gets caught up. Well, I really want your business in order to establish referral relationship, then they're not the right fit.

So in terms of timing, what does this look like in your journey in the title world, did you have like you went from 10 to 100 to 1,000? Like what? And over what time? Like what? What? Everything worth having takes, takes effort and patience and consistency.

Yep.

When do you think the fruits, the fruits of this labor yield themselves to set expectations for folks that are listening?

Yeah.

Again, I think you could probably get lucky to some degree and have a referral come in the first week.

Right.

But I wouldn't plan on that. This is a long term strategy. This is for those that want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now and be insulated against the commoditization that real estate industry is bringing forward. I wouldn't necessarily trade this out for prospecting. I would add it to the stuff that you ought to be doing every single week, which is establishing relationships and adding value to these people. But this should not take the place of business that you need to get to make payroll next month.

Right.

If that happens, great. But this also isn't a one year plan.

Right.

I think the fact that these people that are upstream from you are already having these conversations today. So what comes down to is how fast can you add value to them and how fast can you then educate them on what you're looking for.

Right? Yeah.

Got it. So, you know, I think probably realistically the clients who I've helped implement this strategy or I've got, you know, I'm fortunate to have a bunch of kind of beta test cases in my role. You know, working for a title company is it, you know, I think 90 days. Realistically, it takes a number of appointments to really get clear on what you're trying to do and to start to give referrals back and then to get a referral that works, that, you know, that closes. I think, you know, by the end of summer, if somebody were really diligent or you know, in early fall, you could be closing deals from this strategy.

Yeah, that's interesting. At real estate B school, we talk about, you know, the four, four key drivers in a business and number one is attract and you know, 1.1 is database marketing. So this is just a deeper, you know, more thoughtful, more intentional approach. Approach to a segment of your database.

Yeah.

You know, so building out a database across 10 service providers, you know, two or three or four vendors deep, you know, that you're going to sort of approach with a heart of service versus, you know, a heart of what, what can you do for me sort of thing. And just like anything else in real estate, in any other business, something like this will work if you work it. You know, it's just like. Well, we don't really teach geographic farms, but geographic farms are great in year five, you know, but nobody gets to year five.

Right.

You know, so this is, this is the same thing, committing to, to a strategy like this, you know, structuring. I've heard it said before. This is like kind of a structured sphere of influence.

Yeah.

Where it's, I forget what, what is. What else is it not, not affiliates, it's called. I'm trying to think of what, in Keller Williams vernacular, what they call it your affiliate, your.

Allied resources.

Yeah, allied resources. So this is really going deep and intentional and that, that is not trained anywhere. You know, even though it's in Gary's red book, it's not. I've never seen any training on it, you know.

You know, they just pivoted bold to be more kind of more relationship based. I hear, I'm told I didn't go through it when I came to town most recently, but I hear there is like a B2B kind of business partner part. My guess is that it's not very deep and this is the purpose because this has worked for me now in multiple industries and now I'm helping kind of mentor agents doing It And I'm actually, I'll have an ebook that in fact, I'm happy to share with your audience that ought to be ready by next week. And then I actually signed a book with a publisher to help get this concept out to agents faster. And you could tell from my titling of the episode that the title of it isn't clear. But the concept is, I'm working through the content. But again, it's the concept of agents are going to become like baristas running cappuccino machines unless they start to add more value.

Right.

What I mean by that is technology is getting really good and if the value proposition stays the same, the people aren't gonna be happy with what they get paid. And so it behooves them to increase their value proposition. And so I'm trying to get this message out as fast as possible because I saw it work for me, I've seen it work for me, and I've seen it work for other agents. I'm eager to get it out to the marketplace. So I'll keep posting on it.

And you know what's funny is that most real estate agents don't believe that we're a commodity. You know, there's 15,000 agents in my market.

Yeah.

You know, and it's just a weird concept. You know, we are a commodity. You know, unless you go to the top of the chain and you take a very intentional, you know, value and client focused approach like we're talking about today, you will be out of business or you'll be working for someone that figured it out.

Yeah, yeah.

Either is fine. This is more making sure you're the one that's in business for yourself in the future. So, yeah, this has been awesome. So, yeah. So think bigger. Real estate is the way to connect here. And any final thought, What's a final thought? For someone that is looking at the pending doom, the shift storm, as I say in real estate, what's a last thought here for the audience?

You know, if you look at any industry out there, you know, we pick on travel agents a lot. You know, we talk about the extinction of travel agents. Like, the reality is travel agents aren't extinct. Like the ones that helped you book a flight or book a hotel. Yes. There's no need for that anymore. But there are travel agents that still earn amazing incomes. I have a good friend who was booking a lifetime trip to Europe and he said, I can do this online. He went out and tried reading all the reviews. There's no shortage of information on travel and I'll add or on the topic of real estate, but he got to the point where he's like, look, I don't want to mess this up. This is our dream vacation. So he hired a travel agency and there was a group that came in and said, look, not only have we do we have all of this data, but we can interpret it for you. And we've been there before, we've stayed at these places. I think the future of well paid real estate agents is to not just actually be a doer and be somebody that offers not just the tactical salesperson stuff. I can help you buy, I can help you sell, but helps the person make decisions that preserves and promotes the wealth of that client. And I think agents that do that and it's going to take another skill set. It's not going to be just, I have a license, therefore I can have a good business. It's going to be people that double down and really develop a whole new skill set, a whole new conversation and value proposition that's, that's clear. That completely outweighs whatever the fees are. It's where the fees become irrelevant. Those are the ones that will create very profitable business. I'm very hopeful for a certain group of real estate agents moving forward. I'm not doom and gloom. I am doom and gloom. For those that I think won't put in the time or the effort or find the right mentorship, like, they'll get it. Real estate school, those that educate themselves and align themselves with people like you, Lars, they'll be fine. It's people that just keep trying to do the same thing, just doing it harder and faster. They're gonna be in trouble, you know, so stay close to Lars, follow what he teaches, and you'll be fine. It's my closing notes.

Awesome. Well, I appreciate the time. This has been really cool and it's challenged me to think about, you know, we'll do like 3.6 million as a team this year. And, you know, none of it, none of it is coming from a relationship that we described today.

And you think about it, Lars, how many touches you guys have, how many referrals and value could be going the other way. We'll have to circle back as I polish up my content. I'd love to share with, you know, you and your team and, you know, your students, some things that I'm developing through this book. So I think there's some cool collaboration we can do.

Awesome. Sounds good. Appreciate you. We'll talk soon.

Sam.