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How to Build Multiple Income Streams in Real Estate: 5 Verticals That Generate 120+ Leads a Month · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each one of these verticals are funnels, you know, they do all the hard work, for example, that institutional relationship, you know, they're recruiting, they're hiring, they do all the hard work to capture the lead, and then because we built a strong relationship with them, you know, we've just got to help convert that lead.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everyone, welcome to Know Like Trust for Real Estate where I help you craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your strengths.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Christine George and agents who work with me grow their business on average by 40% by aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And today I'm super excited to have special guest Mike Huddle with us today.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mike is the team leader and broker of Huddle Real Estate with Royal LePage in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mike has received numerous performance awards over the two decades he's been in the business, but I can tell you that what I'm super excited about Mike is that he's very, very approachable, very, very committed and dedicated and serious about his business.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And today we're talking all about sources of income or what Mike calls verticals and how he keeps the right systems in place to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mike, thank you so much for being here on the no-like trust pod.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so great to have you with us today.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's fantastic to be here.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's super excited to connect with you.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Been looking forward to this and thanks for having me.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited to talk to you because when we did our prep call, you just got me like really excited about how you run your business and your sources of income, which is your verticals.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I want to just dig right in.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go right in and ask you like you call your sources of income verticals.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not call them sources of income.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think probably what you've found interesting is I studied a couple of things I studied marketing, I have a degree of marketing and commerce and engineering so I'm this very logical thinker.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know the order of operations certainly comes to mind in almost all of my thoughtful answers.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I bring in a bit of a creative side as well some of my background was in art animation.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when we first started talking, I think what you found interesting was what I referred to as my verticals or my pillars of income.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you said, why don't you call them sources of income?
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And certainly in our practice, I'm an active trading real estate broker that runs a big team.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've got all these various, I don't know, sources of leads, which you could call sources of income.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I built the business on what I would call more a pillar of income and creating multiple pillars that essentially create an abundance of opportunity for myself and my partners.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I love that.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I believe you have five, am I right?
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I do have five.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd love to say, although I, you know, talking about that architectural background engineering, most of them just came organically, which I think a lot of it entrepreneurs truly find so.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the first pillar was really creating an institutional relationship within the practice.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I tell a huge story very early on when I got my real estate license, I'd go into the office.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I'd see a lot of people sitting there and I'd see some people making calls.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, and I kind of thought, you know, very early on, like, how am I going to make, you know, this darn thing, this telephone ring?
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's 4,000 realtors in our market and what's my unique proposition.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was home visiting family and I had a nap and that must have been 22 years ago.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the last time I had an nap and I was walking up from this nap by my phone ringing.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a block number and on the other end of the line somebody said, is this my kettle to which I replied, yes it is.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they went on to say, well, I'm looking to buy a home.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I scrambled.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know what to do.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was my first call without ever received as a realtor.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as I scrambled looking for a pen and paper, the voice changed into what was my younger sister's bratty voice.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she proceeded to say, it's dinner time, get downstairs for dinner, but head.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, I was mad at her in that moment, but I attribute her to that creativity today to say, how am I going to make this phone ring?
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So back to that first vertical, I was able to open a door within our institution in Hamilton, one of our biggest institutions is the medical center.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I sat with Adina Medicine and presented to him a relocation.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: opportunity or tool.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, as the faculty of medicine and these professors are considering looking at teaching or working out of McMaster University, I wanted to showcase that our town was much more than a steel town that we had great value, that we had great communities and some great outdoor space.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And thus was born this institutional relationship.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: that as they were recruiting new faculty members, they'd love the program because I became a bit of a tour guide showcasing you know, communities and neighborhoods and all of the things that might attract somebody to living in Hamilton.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that first vertical of what I call institutional relationships was born.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did you actually, you say you just sat down with the medical director, but like, I mean, how does anybody just sit down with the medical director?
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did you even get that opportunity?
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great point.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's where I think a lot of entrepreneurs or businessmen
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: business people rely on their network.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in a family of medicine.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: My grandfather was a GP, my father was a surgeon, and my mother was involved in research.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So as I approached the dean of medicine, I handed him for a little bit, and I came in with a strong patch.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll never forget him saying, I'd watch you grow up, and that's the only reason I'm going to give you five minutes.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't waste my time.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so as I presented a very strong value proposition, you know, he loved it and so I attribute, you know, that relationship is one, but but I had to work harder because that door was open to to earn that business and and 22 years later, it's been an amazing.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: not only vertical for business, but you can imagine, you know, when if institutional, you know, recruitment, you know, sometimes you see it in, well, medical, or you might see it within, you know, different industries like the air forces, where people have to relocate.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: They often don't do somebody in the neighborhood.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have an ability to establish a relationship with these people beyond that of just the professional.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, very grateful for that opportunity.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, we've had to work very hard to maintain it over two decades.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kudos to you for leveraging that relationship and for, you know, knowing that you needed to actually be prepared as prepared as possible.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then that's just, that's just the beginning, right?
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's just the work happens after that.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: absolutely, you know, you have to deliver on your promises.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that I mean, that can, that can be a segue to other conversations, just to, I don't know, under promise, under promise and over deliverance on a soul for it.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, to go back to those pillars, that was the first relationship was, which was,
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: making my phone ring through a relationship with a large local institution that had a need to be fulfilled.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second is, as the practice grew, my business grew with a great local builder that loved the way that we were doing things and very similar, you know, brought me in and, you know, just had a very, you know, a great conversation but worked on developing a relationship and so we got involved in selling master plan communities, you know, exclusively
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was vertical number two, you know, in the real estate business, it was number one is institutional number two was new development to new homes.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The third vertical became working with investors.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was a young investor as I finished university, loved data and numbers.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as we saw one of the country's largest investment networks,
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: growing, you know, a relationship open to door.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think most entrepreneurs that have a high level of success, you know, really are granted those opportunities often through, you know, their network, who they know, but again, you better deliver.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so roughly a third of what we what we do, we sell roughly 300 homes a year, you know, a third of that is investment properties and we can talk a little bit further about that.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: like as your verticals continued to grow specifically in the investment vertical, was there anything that you did that was unique or different?
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's an area that we had, you know, a very unique value proposition with a ton of success surrounding.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm going to start with concept and I'm going to share with you what we did.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I invited you into my home and I said to you, hey, I've got one of those tubes of chocolate chip cookies in the fridge.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: some cookies in the oven.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're likely say to me, you know, don't bother.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm you know, I'm good.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, if I walked into our den where we were chatting with a warm plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, I think you'd find it irresistible and very difficult to take one.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: not to take on the need.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we use that concept within what we created as our deal of the week.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we started running a weekly campaign and I've seen people do this not for just investment real estate but just any real estate within their market and that's why I want to share this with your viewers.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a few things that the reason we had such success with it, I'll talk about that afterwards.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: We packaged our deal of the week as a marketing material that went out weekly and it was consistent and it broke down the financial performance on these properties in a very simple and consistent matter.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, we were breaking down the investment opportunity and delivering it on a silver platter.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: and part of the reasons that we've had so much success with that is number one it was simple.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was it was easy for people to, you know, to sign in too.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has simply www.do.ca, and so simplicity was obviously number one.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But number two, the consistency of it.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've put that deal of the week out every single Friday for the last 10 years without a miss.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I have industry professionals that sign up for that just to watch how we do it.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would encourage any of your listeners if they like this context to do that, model it, mirror it, and bake it into your practice because we had a ton of success.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are periods that we go through every Friday selling that property of the deal a week.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a very, very successful mechanism, and we've stuck with it for quite some time.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so not only the business to consumers see that, the consumers are purchasing, but that also strengthened our referral business, our business to business relationships, because they got to see us, you know, front of mind on a weekly basis.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'd encourage your viewers to go and check that out and model a version of that.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might be, you know, this is the, you know, the best luxury property in this market or this are deal of the week this week, you know, is a cheapest property within a certain niche.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've seen a lot of people bore our concept and have great success with that.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, what a great tip.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, D-O-D-O-T-W-D-C-A.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Love that.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fourth is, as I began to build a large national brand within our broker's royal page, as a Canadian brand, I began speaking in front of this network and becoming really a common household name amongst some of the top producers, they entrusted us with the referral business.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, there's another multiplier.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I often will say if I sell a client their home and I do a really good job, they're not going to need me for five to seven to ten years, which is great and they should refer friends and family, but somebody like a referring agent in the city of Toronto, where about now we're outside of Toronto.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know they have a lot of clients that might migrate west of the city and so we built really strong referral networks amongst you know other real estate professionals so that's vertical number four and then the last is I kind of touched upon this but your network, your center of influence so we've got those five verticals that you know really generate a lot of opportunity
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the good thing is, often this not cold business, they are warm business, somebody that's, you know, been, had an introduction to us, and that's certainly our conversion rates.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you told me when we were prepping that your verticals generate, let me look at my notes here, but between 120 and 140 organic inbound leads per month.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know where we're super blessed and super fortunate, because each one of these verticals are funnels.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: They do all the hard work, for example, that institutional relationship, they're recruiting they're hiring.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They do all the hard work to capture the lead, and then because we built a strong relationship with them, we've just got to help convert that lead.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's a receipt from my favorite restaurant.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Normally, this is the kind of thing that ends up in my pocket, then my car, then gone.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not anymore.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: All I do is take a picture and text it to be.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: No app to open, no category to select.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing to fill out.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just sent a text.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And here's what comes back.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We already pulled the amount, the vendor, the date, and the category, straight from the receipt.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: If anything needs to be adjusted, I just reply and plain English, but this looks right.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll just say, done.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if I want to see everything in one place, every receipt, every category, a full report, I go to my portal at my.bkeeper.ai.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's my dashboard.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every expense I've texted in is right here, organized, categorized, ready to go.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can see the full history, filtered by date, or category, and when I'm ready, I can run a report and have it sent straight to my inbox, clean records, no scrambling, ready for my book keeper, or my CPA whenever they need it.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's beekeeper, snap, text, done.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: For more information and to sign up, go to beekeeper.ai.com.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So going back to your sister's call right when one of those comes in right like you're you need a different message or a different campaign for each of those because each of those are have a very different need so how do you manage those leads.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, it's very early on in my career.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll call it 2011 or 2012 when we started doing new home development.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we had a hundred homes to sell that required, you know, multiple deposits on different dates, different conditional periods.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, even though I'm good with numbers, I needed a system.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that system obviously started with, you know, a CRM.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen CRM's advance immensely over 15 years.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think today, when I look at the practice, I've had the, I'll maybe call it good fortune of being in business for 20 years, but I've got time on my side where I've had the ability to, you know, try something if that doesn't work tweak it a little bit.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So our CRM is definitely the hub of our business and not just in the sense that it keeps contact information and conversations,
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it helps us determine, you know, kind of the sales process and the sales cycle, and it's against for that.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I'd love to take you through that.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think this business model, the way it exists in my mind anyways, is applicable to any realtor.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: whether you're an individual agent or a team, but I think it's also applicable to any business, whether you're, I don't know, a roofing business or electrical company or selling widgets.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I break the model down to look like this.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're able to look at it, it seems a little bit overwhelming, but it's not.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: We essentially take in leads into our system through various sources.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: For us, those are things like new home sales or realtor.ca or.com, hosting open houses, having those institutional relationships or working with those investor networks, our center of influence people we know, you know, inbound referrals from other agents or professional network or just generating leads through social media or other advertising.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: When that lead is generated, it comes into our system and it sits in the lead stage or the lead bucket.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: and my sales team, which now consists of an insight sales agent as well, but my sales team's job is to determine whether that leads fits into one of these four categories.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the first category that I often joke about is the trash category.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that I joke, but I call this the jerk rule, that 2% of the population are jerks.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't want to work with them.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: They drain your time, they're hard on you, they don't respect
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Put them into the trash.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it's a jerk that comes in as a lead and you don't want to work with them, forget about it.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Put them into the trash and move on because they will be training.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: If a lead comes in and we cannot get them to respond for our system, it's about 27 attempts over 30 days.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: If they don't respond in those 30 days, they get put into a deadly stage or bucket.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: pool that you can always go back to or you're going to be running a marketing campaign passively to try and build some rapport or trust with that dead lead.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, when we have a conversation with them in our business, our sales cycle is quite long.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's 18 to 24 months out, but we might determine if they're looking to buy or sell or invest in real state within three to 12 months.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: they're going to sit in a nurture stage.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And during that stage they're going to have communications that are nurturing and of course try to move them into a hot prospect stage.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those hot prospects are people that are looking to make a move within the next zero to three months.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So of course our communication plan but also our marketing plan is designed to move people through the sales cycle.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, our hot prospects we want to turn into active clients, whether that's listing a home for sale or representing them to purchase a property.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once we get their property sold and they're sitting in escrow, they become a pending stage.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, once that property closes, they've come a past client.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think here's what's really applicable to your audience is we should have marketing systems.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, email campaigns, drip campaigns, direct marketing, etc.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: what I might refer to as predo's principle.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: 80% of our business comes from 20% of our efforts.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's our annual marketing plans.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What we might call our annual lifetime referral system, or something that we've launched recently, that we're having a lot of success with, what we call our pipeline mastery community, is designed to just encourage repeat business.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, at the early part of your funnel, you should always have lead systems or strategic partnerships
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: to, you know, generate new opportunity or new leads.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is fascinating.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love how systematized you are.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so can you talk a little bit more about what you, this last piece, the partnerships and the things, tell me, what does that look like?
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then there's a few things, you know, I think the majority, roughly a third of our business comes from people that we already know and we have a lot of opportunity sitting with our database.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We generate a lot of opportunity.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So lately we've been focusing on something really interesting.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's more than a prospecting room.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a community that's designed to hold one another accountable and designed to have some strategic direction us to where to focus that prospecting.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the energy that goes into somebody like a deadly that's gonna require, I don't know, 12 or 15 attempts to contact them in the first place, and then to warm them up versus conversation with those past clients, or those that might be sitting in a hot prospect stage, are very different frequencies of connectivity, and very different conversations.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, it's really important to have, of course, meaningful conversations.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're tracking, I don't know,
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: the first is just how many meaningful conversations are you having with the prospect?
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that doesn't matter to me, it doesn't matter how many dials you make or how many texts that you send, these are real conversations with people who know who you are and those conversations tend to create opportunities.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's a really first important metric for anyone it sales to be thinking about.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second is how many appointments are being set and this is where we determine
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know appointments are where the pipeline becomes predictability and if appointments are increasing then certainly closings will follow that.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's go back to once you have a closed transaction and now that person no matter what funnel they came from or what vertical they came from now they're considered a past client.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you nurture and keep those people engaged because I do think in our business in real estate that's probably the number one biggest opportunity.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: for agents is keeping their steer of influencing gauge.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you guys do that?
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a big challenge for a lot of brokers.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you don't have a system, it's very difficult.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you hear things of like, you know, reminders on birthdays and anniversary cards and so on and so forth.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the sales cycle in our business is very long usually.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's five, seven, ten years.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: sometimes you've got to be in the right place at the right time because we see in the statistics are quite high, something like 80% of people that buy or sell a home had a great experience with their past agent, they just weren't the right place at the right time when it's time to make a move.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we do that certainly through some slow drip campaigns to stay front of mind, but we've also created some additional tools that position us as consultants for anything to
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: one of those tools would be our home advisory club.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've created a list of, and this is not just a directory, but a list of trusted professionals that we've worked with over 20 years that deliver the same five-star experience that were known for delivering, delivering in a transaction.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they might be people that are involved in early transactions, or one-off transactions, like home inspections, and mortgage brokers, etc.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they'd also be electricians and designers and financial planners and lawyers, catering companies, etc.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Part of that pipeline mastery when we focus on the past client stage,
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: isn't positioning ourselves to ask if they're ready to make a buy or sell or to make a move, but it's positioning ourselves to be the authority in the space so that when that time comes up or when they know somebody that's making, considering a make a move that we're that we're front of mind.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that home advisory club is one of them.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that we do quite frequently and this is a nice parallel is many Canadians own more than one property, the
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And many Canadians also like to invest in real estate even if it's passively, you know, through let private lending or mortgages.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we've positioned ourselves.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: We hold quarterly meet-ups, but we call our mastery 90s, where every 90 day we meet up and we talk about what's happening within the real estate investment space to, again, this isn't in position ourselves as consultants.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's brilliant too because that, in fact, is the vertical that you said about 30% of your business comes from.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, staying fond of mine, obviously is really important.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we do all of the things asking for testimonials and Google reviews and poppies, you know, this part of our lifetime referral system.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think you have to continue to deliver value consistently, and one of those might be another nugget that we use within our lifetime referral system is annual home checkups, a home equity report, as tax season.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And many people want to get an idea of what their net worth is, would you be interested in getting an idea of the value of your property this spring, so that as you're preparing your taxes, you can maybe get a complete picture of
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let's go back to your verticals because those obviously grew over time, you've been in the business for 20 years.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you determine what might be a valuable vertical to bring in versus not?
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you're kind of directing towards what most entrepreneurs in certainly in this industry, I think we're looking for the shiny object, the diet, pale, or the get-rich quiz.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've certainly become more disciplined about this over the years because I've seen, you know, the next greatest thing come along.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think I start with as that shiny object arrives, every opportunity gets filtered through a thought.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that thought is, you know, does this system, does this object, does this shiny widget strengthen our business and the current model that we're running or does it distract us from it?
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I referenced this community, this pipeline mastery community, which we've actually just launched through social media today real estate underscore mastery and and we're going to the basics, which is just forming those conversations and those relationships.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: and so every Thursday our community spends 75 minutes connecting and having conversations with various clients depending on the stage of the sales cycle that they're in.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that there's something back to that relationship with the director of medicine or the dean of medicine.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: He gave me great advice very early on my career, and that advice was, don't be a jack of all trades become a specialist so that you got immense value that people are always seeking and looking after that specialized value.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And although, you know, we've diversified into many different specialties, and that's part of the way that we've orchestrated the team, when you're the best at something, there's always going to be a demand for that niche.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's such great advice and I totally agree with it and that's how you become known for something when you're the best at one thing.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think in part of that because this is a marketing conversation, we try to leave a love mark every step of the way.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, being the best at something might not be the best negotiator might not be that you've got the biggest business.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, that will say, you know, people don't remember what you did for them.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: They remember how you made them feel.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we've tried to layer those love marks throughout our practice at every stage of the cycle.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it might be anniversary cards.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's things like the morning that the for sale sign goes up.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Flowers are also delivered to the home.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've had people, no men yet, but I've had women that have called me and said, Mike, I haven't got flowers in 20 years.
• 27:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm just such a lovely touch.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so each of our processes are really designed to make sure that we leave that love mark.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's where every step of the process.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: For an agent out there, is either just getting started, or maybe five, six years in the business, and really is relying on one vertical, probably their sphere of influence?
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: How would you advise them to start to diversify?
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it building your team first?
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it leaning into your network?
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what would be the first step?
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, in two decades, I've really seen the industry shift towards team.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, team has its advantages for sure.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've also seen people coming go over two decades and I think some of them have been very successful.
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just this can be a lonely industry at times.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's why sometimes people rely on team.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the advice I would give first is to look inward before you go outward.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so asking that question, like, what am I exceptionally good at?
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And does it align with my purpose?
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: When your strengths and your passions intersect, you're going to be much more likely to build something of substance.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's kind of the first bit of advice.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I go back to that, to that commentary, that advice I was given by the Dean of Medicine.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for us, it really started with relocation work and knowing those neighborhoods, we're really good at that.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some ages just wouldn't want to act like a, I don't know, like a tour guide.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I knew that community.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in that community.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew what it felt like to be, to grow up in a family of medicine.
• 28:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I knew what the lifestyles look like.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew what the kids interest might be.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew the communities that would be of interest.
• 28:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was using a very unique experience, I guess, to solve a problem that was needed.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we did that with, with, with, with great success.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would also say don't focus on just building another business to create an income stream.
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would think about building another way to create value by doing what you're already doing and especially if you're exceptional at it, solving those meaningful problems in an area that you're very uniquely skilled.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we see our industry jumping on AI, right?
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even AI boys, and we're going, not against that grain.
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think AI's fantastic, you know, what a great way to increase efficiencies.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can't strengthen a relationship.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: with more newsletters or an AI bot having conversations.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think of when I was a child and some of the best strongest relationships that I had were byproducts of like a road trip just going on a long drive with our parents or in the car.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you strengthen relationships immensely sometimes when you just put in time.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think it's really important in our practice, our industry to stay front of mind, stay relevant and continue to foster and build those real relationships through real conversations.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mike, where can do you find you know, our website would be a headl real estate.ca certainly through the social media platforms at Mike dot headl on Instagram and Facebook.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I guess I'll just comment because I've always had I'll share another Tuesday or many years ago.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I used to keep my office a door open.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I still do.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: and people would always come in and ask questions how are you doing in this and how are you doing that.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I felt that I was never competing with those in the brokerage.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I love to share what we're having success with because the industry is big enough that we're not often not competing with one another.
• 30:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'd love to collaborate.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If any of your list in his listeners just want to connect want to hop on a 15-minute conversation, I'd love to hear, you know, more about them and what they're having success with and I think that our industry only levels up where we collaborate with one another.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for listening.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you loved this conversation, we would so appreciate it.
• 30:52
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• 30:57
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• 31:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sign up for our newsletter, the sunbeam, go to postenbeamcreative.com.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Christine George, and you're listening to No Like Trust for Real Estate.