Latest / Christian Business Growth Podcast / Events to Impact with Lisa Lanier Allen
Transcript
- 0:00and welcome to the Christian Business Growth Podcast.
- 0:02I'm here with Lisa Lanier-Allen and she's got some exciting stuff to talk to us about today.
- 0:08Lisa, thanks for being with us.
- 0:11Would you introduce yourself?
- 0:13Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you.
- 0:15Would you introduce yourself and tell us how you got started in business?
- 0:17You're in real estate.
- 0:20I am in real estate.
- 0:23Lisa Leonard Allen with the Access Home Group, Keller Williams Realty.
- 0:27And when I was thinking about that question, was actually, my life is, and I guess everyone's is, it's broken down into like five chunks, right?
- 0:36There's the growing up time, and I was a preacher's kid.
- 0:40And so you kind of what that life was like growing up in that world.
- 0:45And then there's the college life, right?
- 0:47And then there was marriage after college, which involved me having children, moving internationally three different times, right?
- 0:56And then there's the post marriage, that was a divorce time and that hit in 2000.
- 1:01And there's that chunk of time when I got into real estate.
- 1:04And then there's the chunk right now after I got married again, which has now been 14 and a half years, right?
- 1:10So to get to when I got in business and how
- 1:14Living overseas, my ex-husband was in the oil industry with ARCO, for people who may remember that company, and everywhere we went, the company would let couples come and take
- 1:24a look at it before they committed to living there.
- 1:26And I frequently got asked to show the wife around, right, to the country, tell the schools are, what the medical is like, how we shop.
- 1:34Because you can imagine, Alaska, Jakarta, Indonesia, Tunis, Tunisia.
- 1:40Those are, different places.
- 1:42It's not just like moving to Plano, right?
- 1:45And so anyway, they had asked me to kind of show the wife around.
- 1:48So I did a lot of the stuff that realtors kind of do without actually having to buy a house.
- 1:53And I was even introducing them to realtors saying, Hey, we've driven around.
- 1:56really liked this neighborhood.
- 1:57They liked the school district, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing.
- 1:59Right.
- 2:00Okay.
- 2:00So fast forward to getting a divorce in 2000 and moving back to the country.
- 2:05You know, I said, you know, kind of did real estate.
- 2:07How hard could it be?
- 2:08Right.
- 2:09And so I can joke and say I kind of uh fell into it.
- 2:12And I think it's funny because I don't know that God lets you just fall into things, right?
- 2:17I think that God had the plan all along and we kind of go through life thinking we're making decisions and we are, but there's that providential care that goes all the way
- 2:27through it.
- 2:28So I got into real estate not knowing really what I was doing and hardly knowing anybody.
- 2:32knew like five people in the town I came to.
- 2:35Got in with Keller Williams and what attracted me to them is that Keller Williams is a God first, family second, business third company.
- 2:44That starts from Gary Keller at the top.
- 2:46And so it was an easy alignment with what I believed, you know, how a business should be run.
- 2:53And you talk about the word entrepreneur.
- 2:55I mean, I don't think I even knew that word really and what the concept was in 2000.
- 3:01You know, it didn't come into vogue until I think, you know, more after that.
- 3:05And so I didn't know what that really meant.
- 3:06know, run your own business.
- 3:07I'm like, how hard can it be?
- 3:09You know, and then people start talking.
- 3:11You have systems, you know, and I'm like, what's what's a system?
- 3:13Right.
- 3:14All I'm doing is knocking on doors and say, do you want to sell your house or hey, you've got a for sale by owner sign.
- 3:21I sell houses too.
- 3:22Right.
- 3:22How cool.
- 3:23So that's really how I got into it.
- 3:25And I just felt very fortunate because I was a single mom and I just felt fortunate that I met people who believed in me.
- 3:34entrusted me with this very expensive thing that they were doing and let me help them sell their house or buy a house.
- 3:40That's cool.
- 3:40It's cool how you had the errors in your life.
- 3:42I look at that also.
- 3:43tell my wife sometimes I'm like, well, that was a different Lyle.
- 3:47That was the other Lyle.
- 3:48You're different in different categories of your life.
- 3:50And it's interesting how God started peppering that skill set in your life and just aligned you right where you needed to be.
- 3:56Cause you're, I'm not going to brag too much, but I love the way you treat people in your business.
- 4:01I love the way you talk about what you do.
- 4:03That's why one of reasons I asked you to be on this podcast.
- 4:05Cause I love the way you do business.
- 4:07It's cool to me.
- 4:09Thank you.
- 4:10Thank you, Lyle.
- 4:13You know, I have to give credit to my mother and my father.
- 4:16My father was amazing.
- 4:18My mother is just one of those angel people that everybody loved, right?
- 4:23You know, and I just watched her and watched how people responded to her and how she responded to them.
- 4:30you know, it just really, guess it stuck with me and it's in my blood, right?
- 4:34And so I, uh it's...
- 4:37People are fabulous, aren't they?
- 4:39I mean, people are wonderful.
- 4:41And so if I can help them, that's just a double blessing for me.
- 4:45I've been looking at social media, know, you get scrolling on there, you see all the negativity.
- 4:50But when you have somebody and I just, the podcast before this one, we talked to Sandra Taylor Moore and she's a heart person, that's what I call her.
- 4:57It's just when you have the heart people, when they see beyond the drama and they see into people's lives and how powerful God's working in other people's lives and just share that
- 5:06love with others, you can tell a big difference.
- 5:08It's huge.
- 5:10Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
- 5:12So tell me, what is God doing right now in your business?
- 5:17So, kind of you did a nice segue into that because it's, real estate is not about houses.
- 5:25Yes, houses are one of the things, right, that we touch in this.
- 5:29It's a tangible piece of it, but it's about people.
- 5:32It's about what is going on in their world, what is happening in their lives right now, what is God doing in their lives right now?
- 5:39And there are big triggers for real estate decisions.
- 5:42You know, you've got divorce, you've got uh a marriage, you've got
- 5:46a birth of a baby, you've got a new job, you've got a parent that passes or is moving in.
- 5:50You know, there's big reasons why people are making a real estate decision.
- 5:56And so there's so much stuff going on in their worlds and in their minds and in their emotions, right?
- 6:03And so I look at it as I get this opportunity to come in, they're gonna give me a peek at what's most important to them.
- 6:09What are they most afraid of right now?
- 6:11What are they most concerned is going to go badly in this transaction?
- 6:16his thoughts versus what are her thoughts.
- 6:17Because sometimes those aren't the same.
- 6:20It's talking with people, spending enough time with them on the front side to see how is it that I can best, how can our services best serve them?
- 6:30What is it that they need from us?
- 6:32Okay, they need our advice.
- 6:35They also need our encouragement.
- 6:38They need our peacefulness.
- 6:40They need to know that we've got all the systems in place.
- 6:44They need to know that we care about them, that we're going to take care of the details, that they don't need to stress about that, and that we've got the solutions.
- 6:51We've got answers to the problems that they've got.
- 6:53And handholding.
- 6:55Some people need a lot of handholding, right?
- 6:57And uh it's a blessing to me if I get to be that person.
- 7:04someone asked me recently, um you've been doing this 25 years, Lisa.
- 7:08I mean, are you tired of it?
- 7:10And I'm like, I still love looking at homes.
- 7:13I still love seeing rehab projects.
- 7:15I still love watching the home shows and seeing befores and afters and all that.
- 7:20But I really love the people and protecting them.
- 7:23mean, like we talked about, they're making a, this is a really expensive decision.
- 7:28Probably the most expensive thing they're doing this year.
- 7:31Involves a lot of money.
- 7:33I need to be up to par to make sure that they trust me, that they feel comfortable with me, that I'm gonna give them some really good advice.
- 7:40And I want to protect them.
- 7:41mean, gosh, you hear a lot of horror stories about real estate transactions out there, and it just breaks my heart.
- 7:47And so I just, you you meet these people and you care about them.
- 7:50I'm like, please let me work with you.
- 7:53Please let me take care of you and get you through this.
- 7:55Yeah, clicked Sandra on the previous one.
- 7:57says, I collect people.
- 8:00That's kind of what you do.
- 8:00You kind of make people part of your family.
- 8:02They're almost like, and you, and I want to ask.
- 8:06was one of our, that was one of our vision statements is that we, um we want to, I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it exactly word for word, serving families throughout the
- 8:16Dallas Metroplex so well that they become raving fans and part of our family, right?
- 8:23We want them to be part of
- 8:25story, you can leave names out of something, where you saw somebody's life directly impacted through them transitioning from one house to another?
- 8:34Kind of put you on the spot there, but I'm sure you have many.
- 8:38about which one to tell.
- 8:40um Well, we're dealing with these people right now.
- 8:43This will be uh transaction number four with them.
- 8:48They found me online back 21 years ago, right?
- 8:52And they were moving from out of state.
- 8:54They were in Maryland and they were moving this direction and they found me because my profile.
- 8:59back in the day, even before there was a lot of Google searches and stuff, said something about relocating internationally and I knew what it was like to move pets and kids across
- 9:07state lines and stuff.
- 9:08So anyway, that's how they kind of picked me, right?
- 9:11And the husband came first and we're walking through houses and he's videoing so he can show his wife, things like that, right?
- 9:20And so they had one little girl when they came here.
- 9:22Okay, so this little girl then.
- 9:25They didn't have a babysitter because they didn't know anyone and I haven't had daughters at that time who were babysitter ages, right?
- 9:30So my daughter starts babysitting her.
- 9:32My daughter's name was Ariel, right?
- 9:34And so of course their little girl loved Ariel the mermaid, right?
- 9:37So that was an instant match, right?
- 9:39So Ariel babysat their daughter, Annika, during closing time, right?
- 9:44And now Annika, and then we've helped them move twice since then they had one more baby, right?
- 9:48And now we're helping them move because their kids Annika and Akil are off at college.
- 9:54Right?
- 9:55And so they're moving from the big family home, which is a second home they've lived in here, down to a smaller home, right?
- 10:01And so I got to see them over the holidays, the kids, right?
- 10:04And spend some time with them.
- 10:06And so it's just, it is such a treat to be able to watch that happen, watch children grow up, right?
- 10:12And tell me what they loved about this house.
- 10:14I'm so glad you helped mommy and daddy find this house.
- 10:17You know, it's thrilled.
- 10:19Is that kind of what you wanted to hear?
- 10:20I can tell 10 minutes.
- 10:22through their entire life cycle almost.
- 10:24It's kind of neat.
- 10:25That's powerful.
- 10:27You know, we joke about that people, em some of the top 10 reasons people move, one of them is to get closer to family.
- 10:34Another one is to move further away from family, right?
- 10:38And we had this one family, that's exactly what they did there.
- 10:41The grandparents, want to move closer to their kids.
- 10:43And so they sold their house in Grand Prairie and moved and they were a little too close.
- 10:49And the grandkids were coming over all the time.
- 10:51So then we move them a little further away.
- 10:57Yeah, so those things happen.
- 10:59And one of reasons I brought you on here is because the way you build your business is that same concept.
- 11:03You love gathering people and doing those things.
- 11:06So one of the things you do in your business growth, the way you grow your business is use events.
- 11:11And I told my wife that she uses events and my wife's like, Oh yeah.
- 11:14Like tell them how to buy a house.
- 11:15I'm like, no, no, no.
- 11:16She does stuff like act and she's like, what really?
- 11:21So talk about that business concept there.
- 11:23It's unique.
- 11:25So uh we had one year, uh what do you call it?
- 11:31An audit, a tax audit.
- 11:32What is that called?
- 11:33When they come and, yeah, okay, the scary thing, right?
- 11:35Yeah, okay.
- 11:36So when he's going through our expenses, now just see why I'm bringing this up.
- 11:40We're going through the expenses and he's like looking at it going, oh, this is a lot for this event.
- 11:44This is a lot for this party.
- 11:46This is a lot for this dinner or whatever.
- 11:47And he goes, my realtor never did any of this for me.
- 11:51And we're like.
- 11:52I thought that was gonna, you know, really trip us up, right?
- 11:55And we're like, you're maybe working with the wrong realtor then because we believe that our people have done a lot for us and we want to give back to them and we want to
- 12:07celebrate them and everybody wants to be treated like a VIP.
- 12:11So we have VIP events throughout the year.
- 12:14We have a movie night, date night, right?
- 12:16Where we ran out of theater and have everybody come and do that.
- 12:19We have back to school moms and margaritas, right?
- 12:22The first day of school, those moms are ready for their kids to get back.
- 12:25We come and we take those ladies to lunch, right?
- 12:27We do axe throwing.
- 12:29We did, and we just, our Christmas parties every year have become amazingly big.
- 12:36And we were at that point of having to decide what we're gonna do.
- 12:39I think it was 123 people this year that came for our Dolly party.
- 12:43had Dolly Parton here and I actually had someone say, do you have the real Dolly coming?
- 12:47like.
- 12:48No!
- 12:50That's fun though.
- 12:51So last year we had Elvis, you know, and so our parties have become just, you know, kind of legendary.
- 12:58And it's a time for those people to come, feel like VIPs, make connections with us, with the other people.
- 13:05We people, clients that never knew each other, but have met at our events, right?
- 13:09And they're like having these social gatherings and I'll get a text saying, hey, we're having dinner with someone, say you want to join us?
- 13:14like, wait, those are my friends, right?
- 13:17And so.
- 13:18which is a beautiful, lovely thing.
- 13:20Now they're networking, now they're forming a connection, right?
- 13:24It's greatness.
- 13:25this is just a unique concept and I love the concept because like I said, most people are like their sales events.
- 13:31They're not true relationship building events.
- 13:34So are you allowing them to bring their friends?
- 13:36Are you meeting new clients that way or is it just something to talk about and share about?
- 13:39How does that work?
- 13:40when they say, can I bring my friend?
- 13:42I'm like, absolutely.
- 13:43Do they want to be a VIP?
- 13:45OK, sure.
- 13:45Let's bring them in.
- 13:46Now, I am going to market to them now.
- 13:49They're going to become my person, right?
- 13:51And I am, you bet, I'm going to be hitting them up.
- 13:54So that's not cool with them.
- 13:57Sure.
- 13:58Do we have people that come to the party that have never done a transaction?
- 14:01That happens sometimes.
- 14:02That's OK.
- 14:03Guess what?
- 14:03I'm going to love them.
- 14:05I'm going to love them.
- 14:05And they're going to become a client one day.
- 14:07We're going to spill.
- 14:10Yeah.
- 14:11And I'm kind of curious, you know, me and the marketing guy, uh are you, I know you're posting pictures of the social media, but are you capturing when people are posting other
- 14:20things or using hashtags or anything to kind of collect those pictures in one location?
- 14:24Are you doing anything like that?
- 14:25I think you're pretty smart about that, Lyle.
- 14:27That sounds like something we should be doing.
- 14:29Maybe you teach me how to do that.
- 14:32Alicia on the shoulder.
- 14:32Hey, Alicia, reminder about this.
- 14:36Yeah, because the follow-up is the power of that.
- 14:39And social media, if they started sharing on social media, everybody's showing these pictures.
- 14:43Where'd you get that?
- 14:44I was with my real estate agent.
- 14:46I was with Lisa or whatever they're saying, know, whatever that concept is and everything.
- 14:50But talk about your follow-up.
- 14:51How are you following up?
- 14:53Yeah, I am so glad that you said that, Lyle, because that's, I tell other people that when I'm talking about doing events.
- 14:59The event itself, let's say, you know, it was on a terrible weather night and it just was tons of rain and maybe there's a tornado alert or something else going on, right?
- 15:09And instead of 100 people show up, you had 22 or something, right?
- 15:13Or 12, right?
- 15:15Guess what?
- 15:16No one else knows that.
- 15:18No one else out there knows that that was only 12 people that were there.
- 15:22You take some good group shots of that, right?
- 15:24And you post that out.
- 15:25They got the, you know, the save the date.
- 15:28They got the, it's coming in two weeks.
- 15:30They got our text.
- 15:31They got our calls.
- 15:32Are you coming?
- 15:32Are you coming?
- 15:33They got all the pre-stuff.
- 15:35And afterwards they got the, hey, I'm so sorry you couldn't make it, right?
- 15:38Here's some pictures from it.
- 15:39Hope you can make it next year.
- 15:41our next event is this.
- 15:42oh to see you there, right?
- 15:44So.
- 15:45The power is not the event itself.
- 15:47The power is not all the touches and the context that you're making before and after.
- 15:51Your opportunity to find out what's going on.
- 15:53This year we had a gal whose sister had just passed away.
- 15:57So she comes to every one of our parties and she goes, I'm so sorry to miss.
- 16:00And I'm like, this is your time, right?
- 16:02That's OK, right?
- 16:03But I didn't know that if I wouldn't have been calling her and staying in touch with her, right?
- 16:08So we try and have about six events a year.
- 16:12Some of them are
- 16:13Big, some of them are smaller, some of them are ladies, maybe men or whatever.
- 16:17But that gives that opportunity to talk to them more frequently before, right before and then afterwards, right?
- 16:23So, yeah.
- 16:26you said something there.
- 16:28I was listening, trying not to get involved.
- 16:30You were talking about the events and how you follow up with the people.
- 16:33there was a research recently, they said you have to have six touches before somebody really will make a decision to work with you.
- 16:40But new statistics are saying that the cells don't happen till seven, eight, nine, or even 10 touches.
- 16:47And people don't realize that.
- 16:48People think I'll just sell them one time and I'll tell them one time that's what I do and that's what it is.
- 16:52But no, that's not how it works.
- 16:55You know, yeah.
- 16:56they just miss that connection, that contact.
- 17:00Yeah, I think you're right.
- 17:01think it's, you know, it's not a one and done kind of thing, right?
- 17:06um And it's not like a restaurant where they may come in once a week or once a month, right?
- 17:11And you're going to be able to build that rapport with them.
- 17:13No, and it's not up to them to remember me, right?
- 17:17I mean, you know, they may have really loved us during the transaction set weird things.
- 17:21So we're in the middle of a transaction, maybe 30 days when I know everything.
- 17:25I know their dog got sick the other day, right?
- 17:27I know their daughter had a play at school.
- 17:29I know everything about what's happening in their family for that 30 days.
- 17:32We go to closing, oh, I love you, it's great, it's wonderful, whatever, okay, we'll be in touch, see ya, right?
- 17:38And then a month or two goes by and they don't hear from me and all of sudden it's like, did she really mean that?
- 17:43Right, so close, now I'm embarrassed to call her and say, hey, let's have lunch, right?
- 17:48And so that's on me to make sure they know I care about you still, you're still my VIP, you know?
- 17:55Well, I'm not buying another house, Mike, it doesn't matter.
- 17:58It doesn't matter.
- 17:58I still care about you, right?
- 18:00Because you have things that come up.
- 18:02I think that's the other thing that we've worked hard to do is make sure they know it, whatever your need is, right?
- 18:08If you are looking for a pediatric dentist, give me a call because I'm gonna find you the best pediatric dentist, right?
- 18:16We're here for everything.
- 18:17We've got the handyman, we got the ceiling fan guy, we got the people who can take care of whatever's going on in your world and in your house.
- 18:25that's cool.
- 18:25And I love that because so many people, like you said, they do business with somebody and they just drop them and they forget about them.
- 18:29They don't contact them or anything.
- 18:31Maybe that text message for Christmas, Merry Christmas.
- 18:35I'm like, I don't remember this guy.
- 18:36Right.
- 18:37You know, and maybe it's not their fault because you do you get busy in the next transaction, right?
- 18:42And you just keep moving on down the road.
- 18:44So it becomes intentional and having a system in place to make sure that you're not forgetting about somebody, right?
- 18:53And we could have a whole conversation.
- 18:55We can almost have a whole other episode about the system and the follow up and all that process.
- 18:59we're going to cut this short a little bit.
- 19:00Number one, tell us how somebody can get in touch with you.
- 19:05And number two, leave us with one little word of wisdom you would tell someone that was a new entrepreneur trying to get their business in line.
- 19:12Yeah, yeah, okay, so there are two things that I have to say about if you're going to, if you're working on your business.
- 19:21It is hard to be an entrepreneur.
- 19:23I had no idea.
- 19:24It is hard and sacrifices are required.
- 19:27You know, as a single mom, there was stuff I did, and I'm not saying I did it all the right way or the best way, right?
- 19:33I look back and I know I could have done things differently, but so you have to, you have to find your support system.
- 19:41You have to find the other people.
- 19:44You don't have to be the expert in everything.
- 19:46You don't have to have knowledge about everything.
- 19:49You do need to find somebody who is.
- 19:51And that may be finding that babysitter who has got more time than you do and can watch your kids in the afternoon while you go show a house, open the restaurant, run a shift,
- 20:02whatever it is in your business, right?
- 20:04It's not being afraid, not thinking, I gotta do it all, I gotta do it all, right?
- 20:08Your sacrifices are going to have to be made somewhere, but find the good people that can support you in that, right?
- 20:14Networking group, mean, Lyle, that's how we connected was in a networking group, right?
- 20:18Finding people, you know, I've got a financial, I don't have to know everything about finances.
- 20:22I don't have to know everything about mortgages, right?
- 20:24I don't even have to know everything about interior design.
- 20:27I've got people who are my experts in some of those areas, right?
- 20:31So that's one of them is building that support system and leveraging people, other people and their skills and their time.
- 20:37The second thing is getting a business coach.
- 20:41my gosh, when we got a coach, know, here we are, some houses and we're doing things and stuff, right?
- 20:48And we got a coach and he's like, okay, you need to treat this more like a business, right?
- 20:53He saw a bigger picture.
- 20:55He saw a bigger us and he helped us to expand our vision of what do we need to do?
- 21:01Who do we need to become?
- 21:03Right?
- 21:04Build that team.
- 21:05And that's what I was going to talk about that is that's one of the blessings of my life is that I have this team of people that are Christians who we have found accidentally.
- 21:16Thank you God, right?
- 21:17For bringing those people to our world, right?
- 21:20Who are believers that have the same culture and the same belief system that we do, right?
- 21:25And just being able to um help us to see that big picture and they take on some of those tasks so that I can focus more on the things that I'm really good at.
- 21:35But without a business coach motivating me, pushing me, helping me to make bigger goals for my life, I would not have done all of this.
- 21:43So it is critically, critically important to get that support system.
- 21:47you for that.
- 21:48So how can we get in touch with you if somebody's watching?
- 21:50right, so accesshomegroup.com.
- 21:53Thank you, Lyle.
- 21:54That is our website and our Instagram.
- 21:58I just asked Alicia while ago, did text this to me?
- 22:01I had it all ready and my phone shut down.
- 22:03um Instagram is accesshomegrouptx.
- 22:09Facebook is accesshomegroupofkellerwilliamsrealtee.
- 22:12That's us.
- 22:13Go check us out.
- 22:14Yeah.
- 22:15on CBG podcast comm we'll have links to all those so you can find her Thanks, Lisa for being with us.
- 22:20Good to see you again
- 22:22Thanks a lot.
- 22:23Good to see you too.
- 22:24Bye.