Are You the Weather? How Leaders Set the Tone | LeadingLane Podcast | Ep 102

And I told my team when they brought it to me is I am glad that we have competitors sitting behind the freaking screen going through and taking the time to inspect our photos, to then write a formal complaint to submit to the association. Because the more that we can keep them behind their computers means they're not selling relationships and selling real estate. So let them.

Exactly.

And go somewhere. Real estate.

Welcome to the Leading Lane podcast for real estate Pros by Real Estate Pros with your hosts, Ashley Frederick and Stephen Burch. If you're looking for an honest, authentic, and raw perspective, you found it.

All right. Welcome to the Leading Lane podcast. So kind of a fun little topic here. We're going to bounce around, but bring it. Bring all the way full circle here. But Ashley, your office has been doing some hysterical videos. I see them all over the place. The most recent one was one of your agents dancing on top of your conference room table in an elf costume with all of you guys else around the table like cheering her on. So one. I didn't. I told you I didn't know if that was AI Is that pre recorded? Like, is this real? But you guys legit had her on top of the table dancing in a.

Buddy the elf costume.

All right, so tell us, how did that originate? What came about?

Why have you watched Elle?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So it's when he's in the mail room, if you remember, he's in the mail room and he starts doing this dancing or whatnot. So I'm assuming that the girl saw it on another tick tock and thought that it would be funny to do. And Dana is always up for anything here. She is popular for her mouse theatrics response as well. So no, yeah, she. We got it. She like hopped up on the table and everyone. It's just so funny. Like, like everyone started doing it at the same exact time and like we all fell in unison. But she was legit on the table. Legit had a. There's no AI involved. But it was more or less talk about how excited we are for December, which is next week. Hard to believe, you know, but where that I think comes into play, I mean, is we send each other ideas all the time. Like, I'll watch someone else's TikTok and be like, oh my gosh, we should do that. Right? That's normally how almost all of our tiktoks happen, is we see someone else doing something similar and we decide to do it. And for us, I think it's important. You know, real estate is ever changing and it is just today's reality that you have to be engaging with your clients and find ways to either entertain people or to find new clients. I know for a fact, you know that one other ones, I mean, people send me messages all the time about like, oh my gosh, those were hilarious. Or oh my gosh, you guys must have so much fun in your office. You know all those types of things we have. Charles told me that his daughter's friends all started following us on TikTok. But right. Like if you were to think about that outside the box, like, okay, they're in their young 20s, like when they go to potentially buy in the next three to five years, like who do you think they're going to turn to? Like they're watching and they're engaging with our company. But there has been, as always, some negativity that surrounds when people get attention. I think that's the world we live in. So we've had some people reach out to other agents that have said, you know, made dumb comments like do you guys even work? Or you know, must be nice to just be filming Tik Toks all day, which also, I mean, do you watch them? They're like 30 seconds. So like 30 seconds out of my 14 hour day. I don't, I don't think that that's where all that we're doing.

And also, let me say it, I'll say it for you. Look at the numbers. Like the numbers don't lie. Your sales are there. So obviously you guys still sell real estate and you have fun doing it. So those great.

But that's just it. I think that like it's because we have fun at work that we can then turn around and have good experiences with our clients because we know we have the support back at the office. We know we can trust one another. We enjoy coming to the office. Right. So I think all of that leads into people doing well in their, in their career. I mean, I know for a fact I worked somewhere where I was miserable and I didn't want to go to work and that obviously in fact impacts production. So I think, you know, it's, it's the ability to, I think it's like the let them like brushing that off. Right. So like if I were to hear something like that, I would, I could care less. And I will keep on going about my day and I will think about the people that enjoyed it, laughed it. Oh my God, I love it. I can't wait to see the next one. I think that was even. I think the girls had done one, like, where they, like their. Their legs were intertwined. And then somebody commented like, where are the boys? And then so sure enough, the boys found the Pamela pumpkin one. Right. I mean, like, that. That all came off of someone being like, how come the guys aren't in this? Right. So it just shows, like, they're waiting and they're engaging. And I think that we live in a very negative world in general, and we have to just find ways to be the light or, like, be positive, but also just to be, like, not worth my time and effort. I don't know if you've seen those tik toks lately where it's like, I just had to ignore my client's text. Have you seen those? So. Oh, it's. It's wild. So I think it's a lot of, like, hairstylist. But it'll be like, their client will be like, hey, something came up. Can you fit me in at 8:30pm on Christmas Eve? That's the only thing that works for me. Or, you know, I understand that you're. You have plans with your family on Christmas Day, but I really want my hair done for pictures or something like that. It was like, just choosing to ignore those text messages or, or whatnot. So I think that is more of a reality, is like, we just have to choose to ignore some of it, but otherwise take it as an opportunity. Like, obviously it's bothering some people, which in the same sense means you're doing the. You're doing something. Right.

But I mean, also, these same people that are the naysayers, the haters, whatever you want to call them, they obviously had to watch it or see it.

They're helping with our engagement. So thank you.

That is one of those little tick, you know, for views for engagement. So thank you. That's the purpose, right?

Well, you know me, like, when people say that we can't do something or they're like, all it does is make us want to do more. Like, watch me now.

Yep. So I, I think you're right. Like, it's one. It's marketing, right?

That. That's 101.

You got people to engage, you got people to watch, and you got people to be able to talk about you. Good, bad, indifferent, it doesn't matter. You got people to talk about you, and that's all about marketing. And I think it's super important to emphasize what you were talking about as far as, like, the world is already negative. This industry is already ever turning. It's evolving all the freaking time. It's A tough industry, like, good for you. For guys having fun, like, that's. You have to create that culture and keep that culture going. Because, because as a leader, I think that if you dwell in the negativity and, and like, if you're not pulling people up and being the light for them, you're going to as a group be down in the dumps together. And that's not the, the positive place to be.

You know what? One thing I caught on TikTok the other day, which I like made a. Made me think a little bit, is like, you're the weather. Like as the leader, like, you're the weather. So like, are you bringing in the storm? Are you bringing in the sunshine? Right? So I think sometimes it's easy to just kind of try to go with your like daily, daily basis. But if you can, in your meetings or whatnot, try to be, you know, positive, fun, etc for that short amount of time, like that just helps other people versus if you're negative all the time, like it just. That's a cancer that grows. Right. So it's just a matter of trying to be more sunshine.

Absolutely. And you know, I think with the, the marketing aspect of things, I had a, an event that. Not really an event. I was watching it on one of the, the forums that we both are on and really, you know, there's. There was a T shirt, the name is upside down on here. A. I don't even know what the fad or like what the hype is or what the meaning is of having words upside down on hats and T shirts and everything else. But that's what's.

It must. It has to do with this like handstand thing. It must be like all these teeny boppers doing handstands.

I have no clue what it is, right? But it was requested and we produced it and people can purchase it and also people can keep on scrolling out and purchase it. Right? But somebody was, you know, being negative and they're entitled to their opinion. That's totally fine. But I really commend somebody else that stepped up and was like, maybe we should look at it from a different perspective. Maybe this should be creating an opportunity that if somebody asks you about why is your logo or the name upside down to start a conversation. And really this person pointed out like, look how many people have interacted on this one post this photo, right? How many conversations are here? Like, this is, this is what marketing is all about. Have conversations with people and how it's curated like and created. Like that's. That's a different story and have different approaches. You don't just do the same old thing waiting for somebody to call you yet create these opportunities out there. So I think it is all about the perspective and it is doing something that is going to maybe be outside of the norm a little bit and that is okay. And it's also okay that you're not going to get everybody's approval. You're not here to get everybody's approval.

Right. I think the other part of that too is not only like negativity but I think like when things go wrong, not necessarily in transactions, but you know, we've had a couple things here where people had like services that were maybe not provided well or whatnot. And I think that if you can take that as an opportunity to help the other person. So like I always tell the, our team, right, like if we're doing something wrong, like we'd want to know so that we could fix it. We could put different protocols in place. And so I think people, it's like you have the extremes, you have the people that are especially keyboard warriors, but we'll talk about like all the negatives, point all negatives. Then you have the other people that like are concerned about something but they won't say anything because they're concerned of how that will be perceived. Where if you just were professional, voiced your concerns, right. It can then be like left off of you. But I mean maybe you help someone change a protocol in their business because you're like hey, that, that didn't feel right or I don't know if you made like this made me feel this way and like, you know, sometimes people at the top don't understand what's going on on the bottom until someone mentions like hey, this didn't feel right or this probably shouldn't have happened that way. And then you can help to lead them to have better businesses because now they realize that there was a gap in their services.

And I think really what you just described is the closed mindedness, right? Like you have the two extremes of both, two different sides of how people can be closed minded, close minded in the negative and not going to look at different perspective, closed minded, that they're not willing to speak up and say anything, right. So they're to. So that you need to be in between those in my opinion. And you're absolutely correct. If you can actually help somebody else, see it from a different perspective, understand it from a different perspective. Because in reality, you know, we all, each and every one of us has a completely different view on the world, completely different view on life and how things should go. But if you internalize everything and there really is something majorly wrong, how is it ever supposed to be corrected? How are you supposed to help that person, that business, grow and evolve? What if that one time that you brought something to light was able to have them shift and have a huge drastic change in their whole business?

I know that. You know that I struggle with food. Like, I. You'll always watch my face because I'll get my steak and then I'll be like. And then I'll just try to eat around it. And then you're the one. And I'm sure from your background, but you're like, no, no. Or sending that back. So. Right. Like, I get that. Like, I. For some reason, like, there's this guilt we feel in when we don't get what we wanted, but in all reality, like, that kitchen isn't going to know that they were messing up or that it didn't come through or that maybe they're, you know, maybe part of their burners broke or something. Right? Like, we just don't know. And it's not a. It's not a bad thing. It's just I. I remember Stephanie did the same thing, too, when we were in Michigan, and I think I got a. That. Remember that bad drink I got? And then she was like, excuse me, excuse me. Like, no, no, no, I'll drink it. It's fine. But, you know, it's also, like, it's not the waitress's fault. So you feel bad about those things. But I think if we just try to turn it to the other piece of it is just if you're kosher about it, like, if you're not rude, like, this is horrible. But, like, I just. I must have ordered it wrong, which we realized I ordered it wrong. You know what I mean? Like, I think people are way more help when we're apt to be helpful and serving of you if you're appropriate in your response to them or to your concerns versus a yelling or swearing or any of that. Like, I just had one where I, like, outlined my problems. I outlined what I thought their solutions would be. And I mean, they took them and they were very kind with them. And I think that that's all people want.

It's all about the approach, right? Approach and perspective and understanding that. Like, I try to really put myself in the other person's shoes, right? Like, making sure that how would I receive this if I were them? And, like, how do I need to go about addressing whatever the situation is with them. And, you know, there's. There's a lot of times depending on if I know the person or not, like a certain employee, that I always have to say and end with, let me be perfectly clear, this is not anything negative. This is not a bad thing. Like, I have to make sure I truly articulate those things for them to be able to receive and comprehend what my message is trying to be delivered. So just making sure that you're. You're looking at it from their side and your approach and it really, like, it doesn't have to be confrontational.

I mean, I think I get that, like, as a leader, like, whenever you call someone in your office, they automatically think that something's wrong.

Yes.

We'll always be like, hey, like, do you have a couple minutes? And then someone's eyes will get bigger than. They'll come in hand. Be like, there's nothing wrong. You're not in trouble. I just need to have a conversation with you. So I think, yeah, you have to, like, set that tone in order to not have, like, defense mechanisms hop right in right away or anything like that.

Yeah. And I think it's asking, you know, those damn good questions of making sure that you have a true understanding. And sometimes it's. It's listening. Like in those situations, like, yes, you want to give them the feedback, but also it's. You need to maybe understand a little bit more the, the realm of what is truly happening. So asking better questions before you start that approach to be able to deliver that over for sure. Yeah, I. I think it's great. Like, everybody's gonna have an opinion. Right. Like somebody told me before every. I think you said this right? Just like everybody has a belly button. And so. And it is what it is, Right. Like, you have to let them. There's going to be constant shade. There's going to be constant, like, people throwing things at you daggers, saying negative things. It is what it is. Like, lo and behold, legit. Yesterday we got an email from our MLS association that we're getting fined because we have a logo in our. Our photos. Well, it's not our logo. It's Luke, our mascot. In a doghouse. No, in the photos. And so they put Luke, our mascot, corrugated sign in the doghouse. And now the. Somebody reported us.

I was gonna say. And who reported that? My goodness gracious. Thank you.

Sell some real estate. Go sell some.

I think we have it where, you know, we give out a lot of plush stuff to animals of Loop. And I mean, I am not kidding. Like, there are many times where pictures, like, they're on the kids beds because it's their stuffed animal. Like, I'm not gonna, you know, I mean, like, we're not. It's not a market. It's. Yeah, it's. It's wild what people try to. That goes back to like, jealousy and not, you know, too much time on their hands. And I just go back to, like, just focus your time on the people that are kind supporting. Those are the people that we care about, their opinions, not anybody else.

And I told my team when they brought it to me is I am glad that we have competitors sitting behind the freaking screen going through and taking the time to inspect our photos, to then write a formal complaint to submit to the association, because the more that we can keep them behind their computers means they're not selling relationships and selling real estate. So let them.

Exactly.

And go sell more real estate. So good conversation as always. Make sure you tune into the next one and we'll see you when we see you.

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