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A Real Estate Leader Discovers Alignment Helping Agents with Joe Arnao · Beyond Expertise

• 0:01
  Eric Dickmann: Welcome to Beyond Expertise, a podcast about identity reinvention for professionals ready to explore who they are beyond their job titles and careers.
• 0:11
  Eric Dickmann: I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
• 0:13
  Eric Dickmann: Today, I'm excited to welcome Joe Arno Joe spent decades building a successful career in sales, real estate leadership, recruiting, and coaching.
• 0:23
  Eric Dickmann: Along the way, he built businesses, led growth initiatives, and helped professionals advance their careers.
• 0:29
  Eric Dickmann: But around 2019, a cancer scare forced him to reevaluate more than just his health.
• 0:35
  Eric Dickmann: Although the diagnosis turned out to be treatable, the experience became a turning point.
• 0:40
  Eric Dickmann: Joe returned to the same kind of work afterward, but something no longer felt aligned.
• 0:44
  Eric Dickmann: He began to question whether the recruiting and leadership work he was doing was truly serving the people he was trying to help, or simply feeding a system that pushed professionals towards opportunity that genuinely didn't fit who they were.
• 0:58
  Eric Dickmann: That realization eventually led to start his own firm helping people better understand who they are, what they need, where they thrive, and why it matters.
• 1:07
  Eric Dickmann: Today, we explore how success can quietly drift out of alignment, what happens when a wake-up call changes your perspective, and why so many accomplished professionals end up building lives that no longer feel like their own.
• 1:21
  Eric Dickmann: Let's get ready to go Beyond Expertise.
• 1:24
  Eric Dickmann: Hey, Joe.
• 1:25
  Eric Dickmann: Welcome to the podcast today.
• 1:26
  Eric Dickmann: I'm so glad to have you on the show.
• 1:28
  Joe Arnao: Thanks, Eric.
• 1:29
  Joe Arnao: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:31
  Eric Dickmann: Every time, I do these episodes, I like to go all the way back to think about when you really started your professional journey, whether that was, out of high school, undergrad, graduate school, wherever that journey started.
• 1:43
  Eric Dickmann: What did that look like for you?
• 1:45
  Eric Dickmann: Did you start out focused on the real estate business way back then?
• 1:49
  Joe Arnao: Not at all.
• 1:50
  Joe Arnao: Not at all.
• 1:50
  Joe Arnao: I was, I was destined to be a restaurateur when I first...
• 1:54
  Joe Arnao: Yeah.
• 1:55
  Joe Arnao: Yeah, I had the dream of opening up a restaurant.
• 1:57
  Joe Arnao: I spent, uh, two years in culinary school, two years in management school, and quickly realized that that business is kind of brutal and didn't really wanna spend my life doing that kind of work.
• 2:11
  Joe Arnao: Although I did get into food service management at colleges, Boston University, and I remember thinking I had made it at that point.
• 2:20
  Joe Arnao: Driving down the Riverway in Boston, singing with the tune,"The future's so bright I gotta wear shades."
• 2:27
  Eric Dickmann: Right?
• 2:28
  Eric Dickmann: Yep.
• 2:28
  Joe Arnao: I'm like,"I made it." I was making$18,000 a year.
• 2:32
  Joe Arnao: Wooh.
• 2:33
  Joe Arnao: And, uh, so that went from management.
• 2:39
  Joe Arnao: I got itchy to go back in the kitchen.
• 2:40
  Joe Arnao: Went back in the kitchen, realized I like cooking and this isn't fun anymore.
• 2:46
  Joe Arnao: Went back into management and then finally realized I, I wanted to get out of that world and got into sales.
• 2:56
  Joe Arnao: I went to Eastman Kodak.
• 2:58
  Joe Arnao: Phenomenal, phenomenal training.
• 3:01
  Joe Arnao: Best, best sales training I, I think at, at the time, and then I went into real estate after a couple other sales positions.
• 3:11
  Joe Arnao: I got into real estate with my father-in-law, who's a developer, at the encouragement of my wife.
• 3:16
  Joe Arnao: Took me a while to figure out how I could go in there and help him, and once I figured that out, I opened up a brokerage inside his development company, found new deals for him, helped him sell his own deals,'cause he was, he was having somebody else do that.
• 3:30
  Joe Arnao: So I ended up bringing a brokerage inside and then that's where it all started into real estate
• 3:37
  Eric Dickmann: So it sounds like along that path you had a lot of twists and turns.
• 3:41
  Eric Dickmann: Were you encouraged by the progress that you were making at that point in life, or was it discouraging if you thought you were gonna be a restaurateur and then you had to go into sales?
• 3:51
  Eric Dickmann: Or did it just feel like opportunities were opening up and unfolding in a very organic way?
• 3:56
  Joe Arnao: Yes, absolutely.
• 3:57
  Joe Arnao: There was, it-- opportunities were popping up, uh, when I, when I was ready for'em, I was starting to see'em.
• 4:03
  Joe Arnao: I had to hunt for, for them.
• 4:05
  Joe Arnao: My first gig in real estate wasn't actually Eastman Kodak, it was in New York Life Insurance.
• 4:11
  Joe Arnao: Great company.
• 4:13
  Joe Arnao: Not me.
• 4:15
  Joe Arnao: Not me at all.
• 4:16
  Joe Arnao: It laid the path for me to be able to knock on doors and pick up the phone very easily after doing it for just six months and doing it hard and not feeling it at all.
• 4:31
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 4:32
  Joe Arnao: So it was great, a great, great curve.
• 4:34
  Joe Arnao: So I always had to look for the opportunities when I was ready for'em, and I took chances.
• 4:40
  Joe Arnao: I still, still do.
• 4:43
  Eric Dickmann: What attracted you to the world of, real estate?
• 4:45
  Eric Dickmann: I think we all have people in our networks that are somehow associated with real estate, whether they're on the broker side, whether they're an agent or on the commercial side.
• 4:54
  Eric Dickmann: What attracted you to the field?
• 4:57
  Joe Arnao: The ability to build something on my own terms.
• 5:01
  Joe Arnao: So I had the sales experience, I had an entrepreneurial bug through, through all of this, uh, and to be able to go in to, to build something and create, and not just build something for myself, but build something that's bigger than me.
• 5:22
  Joe Arnao: And that was, that was the big thing.
• 5:24
  Joe Arnao: It was a, it was a business decision, not just, uh,"Hey, this looks, this looks like it'll be fun," and I see all these people stand in front of their Mercedes-Benz on, uh...
• 5:36
  Joe Arnao: Well, there wasn't social media back then.
• 5:38
  Joe Arnao: It looks like big money.
• 5:40
  Joe Arnao: It wasn't that.
• 5:41
  Joe Arnao: It was,"Okay, I'm gonna build a business, and I can see how my skills can fit into this." The service, the sales, the, the freedom, it all, it all fit.
• 5:50
  Eric Dickmann: When you look at the real estate business and everybody who's involved with that, you've got people who get a real estate license, right?
• 5:58
  Eric Dickmann: And just do it as a part-time side hustle, all the way to people who take it incredibly seriously, build these big firms, and make a tremendous living off of it.
• 6:07
  Eric Dickmann: That's got to be an interesting dynamic to work with such a broad range of people who have different goals and aspirations of what they want out of it.
• 6:16
  Joe Arnao: A-absolutely, and that-that's, that's where my excitement comes in with this business.
• 6:22
  Joe Arnao: It's uncovering all those desires and dreams and the motivations of, of these people that are getting into this.
• 6:30
  Joe Arnao: Real estate is easy to get into.
• 6:33
  Joe Arnao: It's very difficult to survive in.
• 6:35
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 6:36
  Joe Arnao: So when I have somebody that is talking to somebody that got into it because they like houses or they like people, it-it's gonna be super challenging for them.
• 6:50
  Joe Arnao: There needs to be a bigger drive.
• 6:52
  Joe Arnao: There needs to be a business aptitude to be successful.
• 6:57
  Joe Arnao: There are many that are happy doing a deal or two a year.
• 7:02
  Joe Arnao: There are hobbyists.
• 7:04
  Joe Arnao: They're could be somewhat dangerous for their client because they're not in it so much.
• 7:10
  Joe Arnao: But there's a place for them.
• 7:12
  Joe Arnao: You know, they could do a deal or two a year, and then there are people that wanna build teams.
• 7:17
  Joe Arnao: Uh, they, they want people that wanna build their own brokerage, and there are some agents that wanna be on the team and, and follow somebody else and have somebody else take care of all the decisions, just go out and produce.
• 7:30
  Joe Arnao: It is something for everybody in the business, and that's the challenge when we look at the brokerages, how does one brokerage serve that many different people?
• 7:41
  Joe Arnao: And it's very difficult.
• 7:42
  Joe Arnao: There isn't one company that can serve them all.
• 7:45
  Eric Dickmann: So continue with your story.
• 7:46
  Eric Dickmann: So you left the sales world, went into the real estate world.
• 7:51
  Eric Dickmann: Talk about how that progressed for you.
• 7:55
  Joe Arnao: Yeah, so 2-2006, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
• 8:02
  Joe Arnao: We're in the, the, the Lakes region of New Hampshire, and we're on the coast of Rhode Island with projects, and we start to feel the market shift.
• 8:13
  Joe Arnao: Our product was a very low entry.
• 8:16
  Joe Arnao: It was-- We-- I used to call it popcorn.
• 8:19
  Joe Arnao: Uh, there was one weekend up in New Hampshire where I put 30 units under agreement from Wednesday night till Saturday morning, same weekend.
• 8:31
  Joe Arnao: So it was like popcorn.
• 8:32
  Joe Arnao: It was low end.
• 8:33
  Joe Arnao: It was easy entry.
• 8:34
  Joe Arnao: At the time, people had equity lines.
• 8:36
  Joe Arnao: They were throwing checks around, paying cash.
• 8:38
  Joe Arnao: It was, it was a blast.
• 8:41
  Joe Arnao: And then in, uh, 2006, we started to feel that slow down because our product price started to get closer to the downs- the downturning of the market.
• 8:53
  Joe Arnao: Prices started coming down to almost match us, and it wasn't worth it.
• 8:57
  Joe Arnao: Just started to slow down.
• 8:59
  Joe Arnao: The company started to falter.
• 9:01
  Joe Arnao: I saw the writing on the wall.
• 9:03
  Joe Arnao: Started my own firm in those three states to serve my father-in-law's product and another investor's, uh, properties and to develop gen-general brokerage as well.
• 9:16
  Joe Arnao: So that was a blast.
• 9:17
  Joe Arnao: That was exciting.
• 9:19
  Joe Arnao: And, you know, 2007, 2008, the timing could, could have maybe been worse, but I'm not too sure where that would've been Uh, so we rode that downward, and it was, it was a challenge.
• 9:35
  Joe Arnao: I was a listing agent.
• 9:36
  Joe Arnao: That's all I knew was how to sell properties.
• 9:39
  Joe Arnao: I didn't, didn't work the buyer side.
• 9:42
  Joe Arnao: Took me till 2009 when I was on a webinar, the light bulb went off, I was like,"I have to shift.
• 9:50
  Joe Arnao: I need to get into being a buyer's agent." Kicked into this program, and I started my recovery on Craigslist, believe it or not.
• 10:03
  Joe Arnao: Craigslist was, yeah, it was, it was...
• 10:06
  Joe Arnao: No one in my area was doing it.
• 10:09
  Joe Arnao: I stepped out of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, just focused on the Cape, Cape market because that's where it was more lively than the other two.
• 10:21
  Joe Arnao: And it started to, it started to kick in.
• 10:24
  Joe Arnao: I started doing different technology pieces that nobody else was doing, really on the edge of the internet, and it, it was really fun.
• 10:35
  Joe Arnao: Got to a point in probably March of 2010, things were starting to turn and get better, yet owning my own firm, and you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, they're probably bigger than what I was at that point.
• 10:52
  Joe Arnao: I had three agents.
• 10:55
  Joe Arnao: They were producing at some level.
• 10:57
  Joe Arnao: I'm alone most of the time.
• 10:59
  Joe Arnao: I'm in my office, um, doing the books, I'm investigating tech, I'm keeping up with the website, all making the calls, doing all that, and I was so alone.
• 11:11
  Joe Arnao: It was isolating,
• 11:13
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Joe Arnao: and it was-- you talk about opportunities pop up when you're ready.
• 11:18
  Joe Arnao: My wife and I had a conversation.
• 11:19
  Joe Arnao: She's like,"Joe, you need, you need to get around more people.
• 11:25
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
• 11:25
  Joe Arnao: Maybe look at these other firms." And I was like,"You know, there's only a couple I would even consider." I went to the gym the next morning, and a agent that I know stepped up, and she's like,"Joe, what do you think about William Raveis?" I'm like,"Huh." And three months later, I joined that, joined that firm, took my team over, and I felt like I had lost.
• 11:50
  Eric Dickmann: Oh, really?
• 11:51
  Joe Arnao: Yeah, I felt like I just, I just failed at my firm.
• 11:53
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 11:55
  Joe Arnao: Took me years to realize it was just a shift in how I was running my business.
• 12:01
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 12:02
  Joe Arnao: And when I went over to that firm, my life changed dramatically because I didn't have to look into the tech, I didn't have to do the books.
• 12:12
  Joe Arnao: They're basically fronting all of that money that I was spending on a, on a monthly basis, and I didn't have to pay them until I got to the closing table, and they took it out of my commission So it was like this huge shift.
• 12:26
  Joe Arnao: My-- I got-- I, I was able to do what I loved to do at the time, and that was to sell, to build relationships, to grow my business instead of the nuts and bolts of running the business.
• 12:38
  Eric Dickmann: I think it's very interesting what you said there because I talk to so many entrepreneurs and that's a common theme.
• 12:43
  Eric Dickmann: It's that loneliness, it's that isolation where you are really the only one invested in your business there just isn't that other person who can really be that advocate, that, mentor to bounce ideas off of to see if you're really on the right track.
• 12:58
  Eric Dickmann: And I think there's this desire on the part of a lot of people to have that independence, to have that work-life balance without really realizing that it can almost get out of whack more when you become independent because everything falls on you.
• 13:12
  Joe Arnao: Yes.
• 13:13
  Joe Arnao: Yes.
• 13:13
  Joe Arnao: I speak with a lot of agents who aspire to go out on their own thinking it's gonna be easier'cause they can run everything their way.
• 13:23
  Joe Arnao: And yeah, they can, and they have to run everything their way.
• 13:28
  Joe Arnao: Everything,
• 13:29
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Joe Arnao: And that's the part that they don't always think through.
• 13:33
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah, I chuckle a little bit because at one time I had my real estate license here in Florida, and there was a law change, that was going into effect that said you had to be practicing as an agent for three years before you could apply for a broker's license.
• 13:47
  Eric Dickmann: So right before that happened, everybody was like,"Well, I got to get my broker's license now before that change goes into effect." I remember some of the instructors just saying,"You've been in the industry for a year.
• 13:57
  Eric Dickmann: You're not ready to be a broker just yet." But, you know, people wanted to make that change because they thought that it was gonna be so much better on the other side..
• 14:05
  Eric Dickmann: So you're now working for this new firm.
• 14:07
  Eric Dickmann: You've got the infrastructure to be able to support you.
• 14:09
  Eric Dickmann: You're doing what you love, good at selling.
• 14:12
  Eric Dickmann: What happened?
• 14:14
  Joe Arnao: So my-- It's, it kind of goes back to that whole thing, food service, management, cooking.
• 14:20
  Joe Arnao: I had-- two sides of my brain weren't getting scratched.
• 14:23
  Joe Arnao: So I'm doing deals, but I'm not growing anything.
• 14:26
  Joe Arnao: I'm not, I'm not building other people, which is why I started my firm to begin with.
• 14:31
  Joe Arnao: I didn't wanna carry a bag and knock on doors the rest of my life.
• 14:35
  Joe Arnao: I wanted to build something bigger than me.
• 14:38
  Joe Arnao: So I approached management, my vice president, and said,"If there's any opportunities coming up in management, I'd like to be considered." And they were opening up an office on the Cape in Yarmouth, and she said,"If-- when that comes together, you can open it with us." So I got into that when that opened up, and that led to a few years later, I had five offices that I was operating From, if you knew Cape Cod, it's Chatham to Provincetown.
• 15:16
  Joe Arnao: So that was a lot of fun, and that, that was going well for a bit.
• 15:21
  Joe Arnao: And then I hit a ceiling again.
• 15:24
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 15:25
  Joe Arnao: is where it gets muddy.
• 15:27
  Joe Arnao: This is where, like, the real transformation started happening,'cause I didn't know what was going on.
• 15:32
  Joe Arnao: You know, I had that...
• 15:32
  Joe Arnao: I always have that itch every three years, I gotta do something different.
• 15:37
  Joe Arnao: And I wasn't at my three years yet, and I was getting itchy.
• 15:40
  Joe Arnao: I was confused.
• 15:42
  Joe Arnao: Uh, so I went to, I went to a coach, hired a coach to help me out.
• 15:47
  Joe Arnao: She's a high-end C-level coach, and she started to help me try to figure out what my next path would be, where I could go.
• 15:58
  Joe Arnao: Day one, I met her on a Friday in April 2021, and that's, that Monday my wife came home and was like,"Joe, you serious about wanting to move?" 90 days later we were in North Carolina.
• 16:18
  Eric Dickmann: Wow, that's a big change.
• 16:20
  Joe Arnao: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Joe Arnao: So that whole transformation, that whole what am I gonna do when I grow up, uh, led to a, a move and a couple more different risky moves that I made, to try to figure it all out.
• 16:34
  Eric Dickmann: So you left that management position, you left that company, you packed up the house and, and moved to North Carolina?
• 16:40
  Joe Arnao: No job.
• 16:41
  Joe Arnao: My wife had something lined up.
• 16:42
  Joe Arnao: I had, I had no job, and figured I would be able to do what I was doing up there here, which I did.
• 16:51
  Joe Arnao: That was fun.
• 16:52
  Joe Arnao: It was interesting.
• 16:53
  Joe Arnao: A, a boutique firm.
• 16:55
  Joe Arnao: Very, very, very cool model.
• 16:57
  Joe Arnao: Really dug it.
• 17:02
  Joe Arnao: Cancer came into the game.
• 17:05
  Joe Arnao: Um, quick bout of cancer.
• 17:07
  Joe Arnao: Luckily it wasn't anything that was going to take my life.
• 17:12
  Joe Arnao: So that was a fight I had to get through.
• 17:15
  Joe Arnao: Came out of that more lost.
• 17:20
  Joe Arnao: And, and then I got recruited to go to another firm, which shiny bells, good company, good people, great learning experience.
• 17:33
  Joe Arnao: Still from that same feeling I had way back, it was still with me, didn't, not feeling satisfied.
• 17:41
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 17:42
  Joe Arnao: The, the shininess and the newness was good, and as soon as that wears off, it's like, okay, I'm still doing what I was doing back when I started feeling uncomfortable.
• 17:53
  Eric Dickmann: See, that with so many people, right?
• 17:54
  Eric Dickmann: It's always that next shiny thing that that's gonna solve my problem.
• 17:58
  Eric Dickmann: There's this underlying feeling that something's w- not right, that something's out of alignment.
• 18:02
  Eric Dickmann: But the next shiny thing, which is usually somewhere, closely tied to what you're doing today but maybe a little bit different, that's gonna solve the problem, but rarely does.
• 18:12
  Joe Arnao: Correct.
• 18:12
  Joe Arnao: Correct.
• 18:13
  Joe Arnao: I wasn't getting to the root of what was-- where that misalignment was.
• 18:18
  Eric Dickmann: You've got a coach now.
• 18:19
  Eric Dickmann: You've, you've made the move.
• 18:21
  Eric Dickmann: You're still feeling this misalignment.
• 18:23
  Eric Dickmann: What was the, the aha moment where you really dug deep and, and found out what was out of alignment?
• 18:30
  Joe Arnao: I didn't have a choice.
• 18:31
  Joe Arnao: The op- the job where I was, they shifted the way they were doing business, and they regionalized, and my position, which should never have been, disappeared.
• 18:43
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 18:44
  Joe Arnao: Um, so I, I was out, I was done.
• 18:49
  Joe Arnao: I was like,"Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift into coaching." I love coaching, I loved recruiting.
• 18:54
  Joe Arnao: Those are my two favorite things that I loved about the business, and that journey was long, trying to figure that out.
• 19:03
  Joe Arnao: What-- To get to the point of, you know, what, what is it that was missing?
• 19:11
  Joe Arnao: So went into-- just jumped into, and then started coaching business.
• 19:17
  Joe Arnao: I had a few people that I was trying to recruit to that other company.
• 19:21
  Joe Arnao: One of them was a business owner of a brokerage, and he wanted to, he wanted to find his suc-successor.
• 19:30
  Joe Arnao: And I was like,"Mike, let me help you with that.
• 19:32
  Joe Arnao: Let me, let me go out.
• 19:34
  Joe Arnao: This is what I do.
• 19:35
  Joe Arnao: Let me go out and see if I can find that person for you." And in one of the conversat- one of the meetings I had with an agent that was-- they were talking about, I'm like,"I think I might have stumbled into something here."
• 19:48
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 19:50
  Joe Arnao: There's nobody representing the agent when it comes to making a move.
• 19:56
  Eric Dickmann: Hmm.
• 19:57
  Joe Arnao: It's always the recruiter.
• 19:58
  Joe Arnao: So here I am trying to match these two people up.
• 20:02
  Joe Arnao: In most situations in the real estate world, it's a recruiter trying to rip somebody out of one place into another, or a friend who is in a, uh, call it multi-level marketing type of play, where they get revenue share off of that agent, where they're trying to pull them in.
• 20:22
  Joe Arnao: And the agent never gets that opportunity to sit back and say,"What do I actually need?" And then from, from what you were saying earlier, chasing that shiny object, right?
• 20:34
  Joe Arnao: "Oh, I'm not doing well here.
• 20:36
  Joe Arnao: They're offering me this.
• 20:37
  Joe Arnao: That's gonna make everything better." And then they get there, and they didn't solve their problem.
• 20:42
  Joe Arnao: So through that is where I uncovered what was wrong, what was-- uh, what I was looking for.
• 20:51
  Joe Arnao: By looking at what I do for agents, I reversed it into my-- to what I was going through.
• 20:57
  Eric Dickmann: That's so interesting because you'd had so much experience, right?
• 21:00
  Eric Dickmann: On all sides of the equation in the real estate business, but you were uniquely positioned in a way to understand how agents can be successful if they only can get out of their own way and understand what it is that they really want in order to be successful and need to be successful and turn that into a business.
• 21:21
  Joe Arnao: Yeah, and I couldn't see that problem myself, right?
• 21:24
  Joe Arnao: It's like the cobbler with the holes in his shoes.
• 21:27
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Eric Dickmann: Well, I think that's often true.
• 21:29
  Eric Dickmann: I think we can easily see problems in other people sometimes before we can see them in ourselves.
• 21:34
  Joe Arnao: Yeah.
• 21:34
  Joe Arnao: And that, that whole thing about the recruiting piece, uh, I wish I could find it back in years ago on, on LinkedIn, I, I wrote something about this being a huge industry problem because the recruiters and the people in the MLMs and the agents never take the time to actually figure out what, what the agent needs.
• 21:57
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 21:58
  Joe Arnao: And that's where my misalignment was,'cause I was the guy calling in trying to rip people out.
• 22:04
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 22:05
  Joe Arnao: And I found I cared more about the agent and making them successful than I did care about the company.
• 22:14
  Eric Dickmann: Yes.
• 22:14
  Joe Arnao: And I'm bringing people in sometimes where they were actually probably doing great where they are, and they just needed a coach or they just need a little tweak where they are.
• 22:25
  Joe Arnao: And I'm saying,"Oh, we can do better."
• 22:27
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 22:27
  Joe Arnao: over and then some do fantastic, some don't.
• 22:31
  Joe Arnao: So I started-- That was, that was where I felt out of alignment'cause I wasn't working for the agent, I was working for the company.
• 22:43
  Eric Dickmann: Now you really p-put together a business that's in the best interest of these agents.
• 22:47
  Joe Arnao: Correct.
• 22:47
  Joe Arnao: Yeah.
• 22:47
  Joe Arnao: Now I'm the agent of the agent.
• 22:49
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Eric Dickmann: When I talk to people, oftentimes they know that they want to do something in service of other people.
• 22:56
  Eric Dickmann: They want to build some sort of a business, whether it's consulting, whether it's coaching, whatever it may be.
• 23:01
  Eric Dickmann: But that's a hard switch to flip overnight, right?
• 23:04
  Eric Dickmann: There's a lot of groundwork that you have to put in place before somebody is willing to pay for those kinds of services.
• 23:12
  Eric Dickmann: So share a little bit about, that process for you and how you fine-tune it.
• 23:18
  Eric Dickmann: Did you build frameworks?
• 23:19
  Eric Dickmann: Did you build formalized programs?
• 23:21
  Eric Dickmann: How did you put all that together?
• 23:24
  Joe Arnao: I spent a lot of time in coffee shops.
• 23:27
  Joe Arnao: Um, you know, we, we were talking before the show, we were talking about AI and how it sometimes can mislead you.
• 23:34
  Joe Arnao: Well, in this case, it was helping me take out of my brain and make sense out of it, right?
• 23:42
  Joe Arnao: And I spent a lot of time going through that.
• 23:46
  Joe Arnao: My model has changed a, a, a, a bit, quite a bit, especially the way about going, running the business.
• 23:54
  Joe Arnao: But yeah, it took, it took quite a while to figure out what it was, how I was gonna present it, and the formula to put it together, like you were saying.
• 24:04
  Joe Arnao: And it came up with the four W framework, which goes to back to the coaching, the training that I've had, and it's all about who you are, what you need, where you're gonna thrive, and why are you doing what you're doing.
• 24:20
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 24:21
  Joe Arnao: Too many people don't take the time to figure that out.
• 24:24
  Joe Arnao: And so I've built everything around that framework, and everything comes out of that.
• 24:31
  Eric Dickmann: I'm curious too because earlier in the conversation you talked about one of those early businesses and how you felt a little isolated and alone.
• 24:39
  Eric Dickmann: Now you're back here again years later with another business that you've built on your own.
• 24:45
  Eric Dickmann: Does it feel different this time, especially because of the types of people that you're working with and the interactions that you have?
• 24:53
  Joe Arnao: So one of the Ws is where, where do, where do you thrive?
• 24:57
  Joe Arnao: And it doesn't necessarily mean what company you're with, it's who you hang around with.
• 25:04
  Joe Arnao: And I have been fortunate enough to meet some really stellar people who are very entrepreneurial, open-minded, vulnerable, willing to share, willing to help, and that has been the godsend.
• 25:21
  Joe Arnao: I would not, I would not be where I am without those people.
• 25:26
  Joe Arnao: And I just had a mastermind with several of them yesterday Uh, so that is huge.
• 25:31
  Joe Arnao: That is, that is-- I don't have that loneliness as much anymore because of them, because of that network.
• 25:41
  Eric Dickmann: Yeah, when you're dealing with some of these people, do you see that same kind of characteristic in other people as well, that they're just longing for that sense of connection and community, even if they might be working for a firm of, 50 other agents?
• 25:55
  Joe Arnao: Absolutely, and, and that's exactly the case.
• 25:57
  Joe Arnao: We have, you know, we have agents that are in big firms.
• 26:01
  Joe Arnao: We have, um, people in different businesses that are solo that are in the realm of real estate, mortgage lender.
• 26:10
  Joe Arnao: It's all kinds of different people and yeah, it is because they're forward-thinking, they're very entrepreneurial thinking.
• 26:19
  Joe Arnao: They could be in a crowd of, like you said, 50 people, and they're still working on their own thing, and they still need that wavelength from other people that's gonna help them continue to grow and, and, and see that they're not crazy.
• 26:38
  Eric Dickmann: Mm.
• 26:40
  Joe Arnao: Although they might be.
• 26:41
  Joe Arnao: Sometimes I still question that.
• 26:43
  Eric Dickmann: We all need a little crazy.
• 26:44
  Eric Dickmann: Do you see your business today as being something that you wanna grow further to take it into new areas to open up new opportunities
• 26:53
  Joe Arnao: oh, I'm just starting, and I have a long way to go.
• 26:56
  Joe Arnao: It, it's been...
• 26:58
  Joe Arnao: So the, my main focus of creating this opportunity for agents to be, to have somebody on their side is so new to the business.
• 27:11
  Joe Arnao: It's an educational gauntlet I have to get through, and trust.
• 27:19
  Joe Arnao: So that is like the North Star.
• 27:22
  Joe Arnao: And while I'm doing that, I've, I've picked up these other really cool opportunities that all dovetail together.
• 27:29
  Joe Arnao: So I have a long way to go to build that piece of it.
• 27:34
  Joe Arnao: And what I've realized working with the agents and speaking with my sphere, my, my other mentors, I'll call them, is what I do applies to any entrepreneur.
• 27:52
  Joe Arnao: So I have an attorney, solo ent- attorney, I've worked with insurance agents.
• 27:58
  Joe Arnao: The, the fundamental business of real estate matches a lot of other businesses.
• 28:06
  Joe Arnao: And more than that, the struggles of somebody that's trying to do something entrepreneurial, forward-thinking, something that's gonna set them apart from others, it's the same who, what, where, why.
• 28:24
  Eric Dickmann: Mm-hmm.
• 28:27
  Joe Arnao: Um, not when, where.
• 28:29
  Joe Arnao: Who, what, where, why.
• 28:31
  Joe Arnao: Um, it's the same thing.
• 28:34
  Joe Arnao: So it applies to just about anybody out there, and I'm building out a tool that will-- that does help anybody figure out their four Ws and what their next step can be.
• 28:54
  Joe Arnao: So it doesn't-- it'll, it is gonna be bigger than just real estate, or it already is.
• 28:59
  Eric Dickmann: Well, that's exciting.
• 29:00
  Eric Dickmann: I can see how this could apply to a lot of different industries.
• 29:03
  Eric Dickmann: And as I think back to my own limited real estate career, I think about the roles that people play, right?
• 29:10
  Eric Dickmann: You're a buyer's agent, you're a seller's agent, you're representing your broker, and you're here today representing those people that were always representing other people.
• 29:20
  Eric Dickmann: And I think that's really an interesting model and an opportunity that I can see a lot of people benefiting from.
• 29:27
  Eric Dickmann: I really can.
• 29:29
  Joe Arnao: Well, that's-- I need some marketing people to help me out, get that message out, like we were talking about earlier.
• 29:34
  Joe Arnao: I need a mini you.
• 29:37
  Eric Dickmann: Well, let's get a little bit of that message out right now.
• 29:39
  Eric Dickmann: I'd love it if you could just share with the audience where they could learn more about your program, where to find you, the channels that you're most active on.
• 29:47
  Joe Arnao: Uh, the most active channel, and, and I think you get a really good view of, of who I am, is on LinkedIn.
• 29:52
  Joe Arnao: And it's just my name, Joe Arno.
• 29:55
  Joe Arnao: I have a video showing myself.
• 29:56
  Joe Arnao: It's all on real estate.
• 29:58
  Joe Arnao: I post articles, thoughts, everything on that.
• 30:03
  Joe Arnao: So that's probably the best spot to go to.
• 30:05
  Joe Arnao: And my website is fourwstrategicconsulting.com, if you wanted to see more and, and be able to sign up and get a free consult to see if we can work together.
• 30:16
  Eric Dickmann: That's perfect, Joe.
• 30:16
  Eric Dickmann: I'll make sure that we have all of that linked up in the show notes so that people can easily find you.
• 30:21
  Eric Dickmann: I've really enjoyed this conversation.
• 30:23
  Eric Dickmann: You took a lot of twists and turns in that career and ended up something that, you know, just in our conversation today, I can tell is really bringing you a lot of joy and fulfillment, and that's so exciting to see.
• 30:34
  Eric Dickmann: So I really appreciate you sharing your story with our audience.
• 30:37
  Joe Arnao: Thank you for the opportunity, Eric.
• 30:38
  Joe Arnao: Appreciate you.
• 30:40
  Eric Dickmann: Thanks for listening to Beyond Expertise.
• 30:42
  Eric Dickmann: You can find show notes, resources, and links mentioned during this episode at podcast.ericdickman.com.
• 30:51
  Eric Dickmann: If this conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue exploring what it means to reinvent ourselves beyond our careers, titles, and expertise.