Latest / Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew / Scaling a $250M NYC Real Estate Team w/ Ashley Reidy Quinn
Transcript
- 0:00A broker who's already closed $69 million this year just admitted
- 0:05her team doesn't use a CRM. Ashley Reedy Quinn has closed over
- 0:09a quarter billion dollars across Manhattan,
- 0:12Brooklyn, and the Hamptons. And in this episode,
- 0:16she breaks down why saying no might be her best business skill.
- 0:20Why Psychology beats spreadsheets in New York City real estate and where
- 0:25AI is quietly working against agents right now.
- 0:29Check out realdealcrew dot com for more information.
- 0:33Let's get started.
- 0:38Ashley Reedy Quinn joins me here today.
- 0:41You can learn what she's up to at head over to Instagram.
- 0:44It's Ash Reedy. And I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes,
- 0:50but it's A S H R E I D Y. Again,
- 0:53that'll be clickable. really appreciate your time today,
- 0:56Ashley.
- 0:58Thank you. It's such a pleasure to chat with you.
- 1:02You know, at at a pretty young age you you moved from Connecticut to
- 1:05New York and you quickly kind of gotten a name for yourself.
- 1:10You even won an award like your first year.
- 1:13Like let's talk about that initial move fr and how you found your
- 1:18way into real estate.
- 1:19Yeah, you know, it wasn't a straight path.
- 1:22There were definitely moments my parents were probably a little concerned.
- 1:25So I left Connecticut to attend NYU for undergraduate studies.
- 1:29And while I was at NYU, I was on a pre-med path.
- 1:33I had big dreams to be a dermatologist.
- 1:36And
- 1:36I decided to take advantage of everything that the city had at my fingertips,
- 1:40decided med school wasn't for me,
- 1:42and I was studying everything from psychology to nutrition,
- 1:45working in fashion. And then of course I got the real estate itch.
- 1:49And I was like, you know what?
- 1:50Let me go to the New York Real Estate Institute at night,
- 1:53because NYU didn't have an undergrad program at the time.
- 1:55Let me get my real estate license.
- 1:57I found a firm to sponsor my license.
- 2:00Called my parents and I said, you know what?
- 2:01Psychology is amazing, but let's do real estate.
- 2:05And they're like, you know, just stay focused.
- 2:07Can you do something? I said, give me one year.
- 2:10And it's a commission-based industry.
- 2:12So of course, no parent, after just so graciously paying
- 2:15for my undergraduate studies, wants to hear commission-based at age of 22.
- 2:19But they said, try one year. And here we are,
- 2:2112 years later. and that first year was a whirlwind.
- 2:24I did. I got the Revni, which is the real estate board.
- 2:26New York Deal of the Year. It was a hustle from the day that I started,
- 2:31and I've never looked back. It's been fabulous.
- 2:35Yeah, I th I think you're you probably gonna have to touch base with my daughter.
- 2:40She has a podcast as well, and she's she's about that age at this point,
- 2:46and she's decided to start her own business and go her own route route instead
- 2:51of you know, punching that nine to five clock.
- 2:55I love it. I love it. That is it's so exciting.
- 2:58You know, there are definitely moments.
- 2:59There are several days. I,
- 3:02you know, in this business, the highs are high,
- 3:04the lows are low. On those low days,
- 3:06I'm like, would I have to be do would I do this if I was a dermatologist right now?
- 3:10And then and then I'm like, snap out of it.
- 3:12Like, don't think about that. because it would have been a de very different route
- 3:15if I stayed on that path. but I would love to chat with her.
- 3:19That is I love
- 3:20that.
- 3:20you know,
- 3:21th one of the questions that I have,
- 3:22you know, because you you get got into this at such a young age,
- 3:26what did you do regarding, you know,
- 3:28motivation, training, picking that direction and making sure you're doing
- 3:32the necessary money generating activities on a daily basis to get to
- 3:38the point of even winning an award like that?
- 3:40There was a lot of self talk, from an early,
- 3:43early that literally from the day I joined.
- 3:46I was a competitive swimmer when I was in
- 3:49Starting in elementary school through high school.
- 3:51And my event was a long-distance event.
- 3:53I really thrived at the mile. So if you can imagine that,
- 3:56that's about 17 to 20 minutes,
- 3:59depending on how fast you go, with your head underwater.
- 4:01So I have a background with a lot of time to myself and just talking to myself.
- 4:06And I carried that through the second that I transitioned to real estate.
- 4:10It's hard. This industry is hard.
- 4:12Real estate in New York City is tough.
- 4:14The people are tough. The product is tough.
- 4:16So it's a lot of self-motivation.
- 4:18In addition, I have that competitive spirit in me.
- 4:21So I always wanted to be the best.
- 4:23I always wanted to hit these marks.
- 4:25So of course, the firm that you work for may give you benchmarks of target goals,
- 4:30close X amount of deals, close X amount of business.
- 4:32But then I also always have my own.
- 4:34And so staying true to that and staying really committed to hitting those goals.
- 4:37goals, I think that's that's been my driving force.
- 4:40And and of course it's changed.
- 4:42Now I also have a family. I have a daughter.
- 4:43So there's there I have different influences now that I want to show up for
- 4:48and be a good example for.
- 4:51If you don't mind me asking, you know,
- 4:52and we won't spend any more time after this,
- 4:54but when you started a basically in this type of role at such a young age,
- 4:59did you find it difficult for people to take you serious?
- 5:03And if so, how did you overcome that?
- 5:04100%. Absolutely. how did I overcome it?
- 5:07I didn't put too much mind to it.
- 5:09I just kept going. I think no matter what age you are or where you
- 5:12are in your business, you can be at the very top of your business.
- 5:14And oftentimes maybe at the top of your business,
- 5:17you have more people doubting you or questioning you.
- 5:19If you put too much time into that,
- 5:21you're not focusing on the path forward.
- 5:23At least that was my experience.
- 5:25So
- 5:25Anyone who doubted me, I said,
- 5:26you know what? Maybe you're not the client for me.
- 5:28Let me refer you. Let me find someone else for you to work with.
- 5:31or let me prove you wrong. If you don't think I can do this,
- 5:35I will get this done. And so either of those paths always worked out for me.
- 5:39It almost sounds like your attitude then eventually became infectious and
- 5:43It treat it treated you well in that regard.
- 5:46I hope so. I hope it continues to.
- 5:48So
- 5:48talk a little bit about this award that you won and where your business
- 5:52is today and and maybe we'll go into like the goals that you have for
- 5:57the rest of the year.
- 6:00Absolutely. So when I first started in the industry,
- 6:02I was working by myself. you start,
- 6:04everyone for the most part, starts independently or you join a team.
- 6:08I was working on my own. I was doing almost exclusively rental transactions,
- 6:13and it was fabulous. It was a grind.
- 6:16I won this award for a rental transaction.
- 6:18It was just a crazy experience.
- 6:20I was representing the tenant.
- 6:22Long story short, rented an apartment that ultimately had
- 6:26People that were living there that were not supposed to be living there.
- 6:28So having to get them out of the apartment,
- 6:30getting the condo board to agree to this new lease term,
- 6:33it was total chaos. It was very fun.
- 6:35But in that span, that transaction took a little bit longer than anticipated,
- 6:40I was tapped by someone in the office that said,
- 6:42you know, you seem to be working really well.
- 6:45You have a very organized desk,
- 6:47your business is doing well. We'd love to have you join the team as a junior agent.
- 6:51See if you want to expand.
- 6:53And I saw it as an amazing opportunity to really fast pace my learning curve.
- 6:58It's a really steep learning curve when you first joined New York City real estate.
- 7:02And I wanted to learn more. I wanted to do more.
- 7:05And I wanted to excel much faster than I thought I could on my own.
- 7:09And it was an incredible position.
- 7:11Eventually I worked my way through the team.
- 7:13I got a full position on the team.
- 7:15And now I'm a partner of the team.
- 7:17and so my business partner, Nick Montebano,
- 7:19and I, we've moved different firms,
- 7:21we've built a team. There are now six of us.
- 7:24And I think learning from the very entry point of this team and learning
- 7:29how to scale.
- 7:31in each position on the team, as well as how to scale the business coming in,
- 7:35was incredibly useful. And I'm still learning.
- 7:38Don't get me wrong. There's a lot that I still need to learn.
- 7:41But it was very, very important for me to start in the like bottom of the pile,
- 7:45for lack of a better term, and work my way up.
- 7:48Well let's talk a little bit about that partnership.
- 7:50You you founded asset advisory team.
- 7:53Talk a little bit about what you do
- 7:55Yeah.
- 7:55there and and d do you how how do you help people with with their assets?
- 8:01You know, that's that is such a big question because how I help people changes every
- 8:06day. Sometimes I like to describe my role as a firefighter.
- 8:09I spend some most of my days just putting out fires.
- 8:12but no, most of my business is it's a balance.
- 8:15We we have our clients that we've been working with long term,
- 8:1912 plus years, that want to exclusively work with Nick and I.
- 8:22So
- 8:24we take on that business and we scale.
- 8:26However, now we have a team. So sometimes my job is also telling our clients that
- 8:32we can't do it all. And I have a teammate that's really best suited
- 8:35for this exact transaction type.
- 8:37So allocating deal flow is a huge part of my job now.
- 8:40It's also looking after my teammates.
- 8:42I remember someone telling me,
- 8:43I forget who, but you're only as strong as your weakest link.
- 8:46And so
- 8:48A weak link in this industry can mean it can mean many different things.
- 8:52It could be a teammate just having a tough day.
- 8:54It could have a client that is just relentless on something and working them through
- 9:00that. So my day is always evolving.
- 9:03It's always very different. The best part about this industry is no day is the same.
- 9:06but it's client management for the most part.
- 9:08It's managing deal flow and looking after the team.
- 9:11I'd say those are the three big parts of my day.
- 9:14Hm. You know, one of the things like let's talk a little bit about your education
- 9:19because I unless I'm wrong here,
- 9:21I I believe you have a degree in psychology and a background in pricing analytics.
- 9:25This these two disciplines, they don't usually travel together.
- 9:29How do they actually combine in your day to day?
- 9:32So my degree is in psychology,
- 9:34and then I have three minors. I have a minor in nutrition,
- 9:38I have a minor in child and adolescent psychopathology,
- 9:41and I have a minor in sign language.
- 9:43So how do I incorporate all three of those into my day-to-day business?
- 9:46The sign language part, not so much,
- 9:48but the psychology degree has been monumental in my day-to-day.
- 9:53I
- 9:54I'll never forget when I was getting my j when I was switching paths
- 9:57a little bit and I called my parents and I said,
- 9:58I'm I'm moving to a psychology major.
- 10:01And my mom was like, Are you sure that can take you far?
- 10:05And then I remember thinking, my mom has a major in psychology,
- 10:09my sister has a major in psychology.
- 10:12And they both do very different things and they're both incredibly successful
- 10:15at what they do. So I said, you know what,
- 10:17this psychology degree will take me far.
- 10:19And it has been so monumental.
- 10:21While the basis when you think of real estate,
- 10:24you think numbers, you think transaction flow.
- 10:27And that's a huge part of the day-to-day.
- 10:30But we're a people's first industry.
- 10:33And I think that's often missed.
- 10:34It isn't
- 10:36imperative that we always put our clients first.
- 10:39If we don't have a happy client,
- 10:41the transaction's not going through.
- 10:43So we can spend hours talking about numbers,
- 10:46data analysis, comps in New York City.
- 10:49But if we don't have the relationship and the strong relationship with our client,
- 10:53those numbers don't matter. They're not transacting with us.
- 10:56So the ch the psychology piece is imperative.
- 10:59So d what's your primary focus now as a team?
- 11:02Are you still doing the rental thing or is it like actual sales?
- 11:06What what tell give us a picture?
- 11:08We do it all. We do it all. I'd say majority of our business is the sales.
- 11:13I have a team right now, and I've everyone on the team is excellent with rentals,
- 11:17but a lot of our rental business is pumping through right now.
- 11:20Some of my teammates. The rental market in New York City is a wild beast
- 11:25at the moment. It is moving very fast.
- 11:27It's very competitive. And
- 11:29A lot of my clients are investors.
- 11:31So they come to us with a number,
- 11:33they want to purchase an apartment for X amount of dollars,
- 11:36and then they immediately want to fill it with a tenant in place.
- 11:38So I oversee with my business partner,
- 11:41Nick, that entire transaction loop.
- 11:43And most of our business now is repeat business,
- 11:47which is fabulous, and referrals.
- 11:49So
- 11:50That investment branch of our business is ongoing.
- 11:52It's moving very quickly. But we also have,
- 11:54because of the referral business,
- 11:56a lot of new clients that are purchasing for themselves.
- 11:59So thankfully business is booming and we're allocating it appropriately amongst
- 12:02the teammates.
- 12:04Wi with the political landscape,
- 12:06especially in New York the way it is,
- 12:08is y are you seeing any kind of significant changes there or is it just kind
- 12:12of still status quo as to what you've experienced before?
- 12:15I
- 12:15have to be honest, it's it's status quo.
- 12:18There's a lot more noise with the political landscape right now.
- 12:22We hear a lot, I see a lot, I read a lot.
- 12:24But in terms of business and activity,
- 12:26it's actually increased for us.
- 12:28I don't think that has to do with the politics per se,
- 12:31but
- 12:32Right now, I mean it's almost mid July.
- 12:34We're almost sixty-nine million in sales for this year.
- 12:37We've done about four hundred thousand dollars in rentals,
- 12:40have about a little over ten million in contract and two million with contracts out.
- 12:44So business is booming for us.
- 12:46I think that is more a sentiment to New York City though.
- 12:48The political landscape changes here frequently.
- 12:51New York is incredibly resilient and people want to be here.
- 12:54So I think I think our business flow is a testament to New York City
- 12:58and to our amazing team.
- 13:00Yeah, it it looks like you closed over like a over a quarter of a billion dollars
- 13:06in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Hamptons.
- 13:08Could you talk about the difference between those three markets operationally
- 13:13and do you run them differently?
- 13:15Totally. they operationally are very different.
- 13:18We run them the exact same. I will say from a business standpoint they run the same,
- 13:22but we approach the transactions a little differently.
- 13:25I find the client transaction process out east,
- 13:28as we call it, so out in Long Island,
- 13:30so South Fork the Hamptons.
- 13:32It takes a little bit longer. And that business for us right now seems
- 13:36to be more focused on off-market inventory.
- 13:38So the approach to get a client into those opportunities is very different.
- 13:43That's a lot more facilitating your network with other agents versus
- 13:48in Brooklyn and New York City.
- 13:50This market is so competitive right now that there's really no reason
- 13:54not to list your apartment on the active market.
- 13:56So it's less so navigating the relationships with other agents,
- 14:00while that is important, and more so really tapping into the online databases.
- 14:05It's ensuring that our client,
- 14:07when we're representing a buyer,
- 14:08is prepared to make a move quickly.
- 14:11And as far as the rental business,
- 14:12it's really the prepping the client and doing the due diligence on
- 14:16the client before bringing them to the listings is incredibly important.
- 14:19We have great success because we really vet our clients and we ensure that they
- 14:24are set and prepared for success.
- 14:25What that looks like is having all your supplemental documents ready.
- 14:29making sure that they're educated on the market landscape as well as the product,
- 14:33what's available. We spend a lot of time doing that.
- 14:35So the
- 14:37the approach to the business varies drastically with those different locations.
- 14:43Yeah, I was gonna ask you about your work with investors when it comes
- 14:46to this this type of thing. Do you you you mentioned getting
- 14:50the individual prepared, but what type of feedback or information or stress test
- 14:55do you provide regarding the property itself?
- 14:58So the the stress test in regard to the due diligence excuse me,
- 15:02due diligence of finding the property itself r has remained very consistent since
- 15:06I started, really, for the past 12 years.
- 15:08When I first started working with these investors,
- 15:10it was a very, I I would for lack of a better term,
- 15:13like a very black and white process.
- 15:15Like it was very numbers-based.
- 15:17We were doing a lot more new development.
- 15:19That has slowed down and I have found that our buyers,
- 15:23both investors and purchasing for themselves,
- 15:25are much more selective. They're much more in tune with the process.
- 15:29Most of our investors wouldn't even come look at the property before they bought it.
- 15:33We'd find an opportunity that looked great on paper.
- 15:35My business partner and I would go look at the property.
- 15:37We'd say checks all the boxes,
- 15:39and they'd buy it.
- 15:41We've we've really we've had clients buy sight unseen is what we'd call
- 15:44it in that situation. They're not doing that as much anymore.
- 15:47And the length of time that our investors want to hold a property
- 15:50has become much longer. I think a lot of that is also has to do with
- 15:54the rental landscape. We are achieving rental numbers that we've never seen before.
- 15:57So clients that are investors are having great success.
- 16:00There are a line of potential renters out the door.
- 16:04They're achieving higher rents than ever before.
- 16:06They're happy. so th the the investor landscape has changed a little bit though,
- 16:10that in that sense. How we approach it and that taps more into the psychology.
- 16:14How do I handle the conversations with them?
- 16:16Just
- 16:17to remind everybody, we're talking to Ashley Reedy Quinn,
- 16:20and you can learn more by following her on Instagram,
- 16:23Ash Reedy. I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
- 16:27If you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
- 16:30do us a favor. Share this with one of your friends.
- 16:32If you're watching us on YouTube,
- 16:34give us a like and subscribe. So,
- 16:37Ashley, I was hoping we could spend a little time on building a team and scaling.
- 16:41could you talk a
- 16:42Yeah.
- 16:43little bit about like what was the
- 16:46your first hire and what was your most recent hire?
- 16:49Yes. So the first hire, let's think about that,
- 16:53was someone who came in and stepped in as an admin role with our team.
- 16:56And she was fabulous. she was very,
- 16:59very helpful. We were in a stage where I think we were really all learning together.
- 17:03We had never had an admin before.
- 17:05so it was honestly probably the biggest learning curve for me was letting
- 17:09go of some of the responsibilities.
- 17:10and
- 17:11Teaching someone, guiding someone,
- 17:13kind of had to mimic my flow and what I was doing,
- 17:17but at the same time, I needed to learn from them because maybe what I
- 17:20was doing was not the most productive.
- 17:22it she was fabulous. the only reason she's no longer with the team is
- 17:25she moved out of state. so the most recent hire has also been fabulous.
- 17:30She has more experience in the industry,
- 17:32she's an agent, background.
- 17:34And she has stepped into the role of she's doing agent work.
- 17:37She's also our director of operations for the team.
- 17:40So she's doing a lot of what we did with our first hire,
- 17:43but in a different capacity. so it's been fabulous to really learn from them because
- 17:48when you're working solo, you have such a flow.
- 17:51But when you're growing a team and you're scaling your business,
- 17:53you have to change that. And it's important to learn from other people
- 17:58how to best cater to the team.
- 18:00Well you you have built a team that you're you're dealing likely with some pretty
- 18:05high end individuals. As such you're gonna have to have like some pretty
- 18:10top notch players on your team.
- 18:12Like how do you attract those individuals and how do you keep them motivated?
- 18:18How I attract them? I, you know,
- 18:20I don't know how I attract them.
- 18:21I think truthfully, everyone that's on our team has been
- 18:25a connection through someone we know.
- 18:27So like a friend of a friend, if we want to put it very socially.
- 18:30And I think that in itself is already the first step in vetting someone.
- 18:33if you refer someone
- 18:35Whether it's on a friend basis,
- 18:37a professional basis, it's because you like them,
- 18:39you see positive qualities in them,
- 18:41you respect the individual. So I already have people coming to us that have passed
- 18:46that first check mark, for lack of a better term.
- 18:48And then how do I keep them motivated?
- 18:50I hope the business keeps them motivated.
- 18:53I hope we have bi-weekly meetings where we try to not only review the business,
- 18:57talk about what's happening, but I also try to implement an educational piece
- 19:01to each meeting. I hope that learning more and learning from me,
- 19:05I a huge part of when I was starting was
- 19:07I was so impressed by my business partner,
- 19:10Nick Maltubano, and we had another business partner,
- 19:12Jason Thomas, at the time. I was so impressed with what they were doing that
- 19:15I wanted to do it as well.
- 19:17In order to have success in real estate,
- 19:19you have to have I always laugh that it's like you have to have like
- 19:21a little screw loose. Like you have to you have to really wanna be in this.
- 19:25Otherwise you're not going to stay.
- 19:27So you have to have a good balance of really wanting to be in this,
- 19:31but also really wanting to learn and continue to move with the market.
- 19:34So I hope
- 19:36I hope that stays with the team and that continues to motivate them.
- 19:38And and I hope we have fun at the end of the day.
- 19:40We're we are. We're doing big things and we're helping clients make really
- 19:43big financial decisions. But there's also some joy in this.
- 19:47There's a lot to celebrate in this industry.
- 19:49So I hope that carries the motivation forward.
- 19:51You know, when you're as an entrepreneur,
- 19:54I think we have these blind spots associated with what we do.
- 19:58And sometimes when we bring on a team member,
- 20:02it's more that they are people we like to be around.
- 20:06They might co compliment each other or we have similar interests.
- 20:10Have you found a way in which to kind of s break out of your
- 20:16your echo chamber when it comes to that and hire people that you might
- 20:20not have thought about and then turned out to be a great asset to the team.
- 20:25That's such a great point. I there are definitely I wanna make it very clear,
- 20:30everyone on our team I want on the team.
- 20:33I I felt very passionate about them.
- 20:35I was very confident. I a lot of my decision making,
- 20:39I go with my gut instinct, and it has steered me right most of the time.
- 20:43There have definitely been moments though where I have seen teammates handle
- 20:49situations.
- 20:50In ways that I wouldn't have done.
- 20:51And so those are the moments that I'm I'm thinking of what you're you're speaking
- 20:55of. And I'm like, hmm, not so sure about that.
- 20:57But it's been very helpful to see them work through those moments.
- 21:01And one of the biggest lessons for me with a team is you can't do it all.
- 21:05You don't have a team and then still do it all.
- 21:07There's reason why you have a team.
- 21:09You have to allocate things appropriately.
- 21:10You have to ensure that each teammate is in the right seat for this entire system
- 21:15to work efficiently. And it's allowing people in those positions
- 21:18to also make mistakes and to learn from them.
- 21:20I think there's it's really hard in this industry to
- 21:23sit and watch someone do something and you're like,
- 21:26ooh, I think there's a better way to do that.
- 21:28I don't think this is going to be right.
- 21:29But if I step in and correct it every single time,
- 21:32the individuals may not necessarily learn and grow.
- 21:34my biggest lessons are for one,
- 21:37I have made mistakes when I first started in the industry and I
- 21:39was absolutely sure never to make that mistake again.
- 21:42So you have to let people do that.
- 21:44So it's more so i i it's a little tweak of what you just said,
- 21:47but I hope that makes sense.
- 21:48Yeah, it sure does. would you mind sharing that biggest lesson that
- 21:51you exper you've had? Might have been painful at the time,
- 21:55but in the end it might prove to been valuable.
- 21:58I I can't think of one big lesson.
- 22:00I can think of so many different little items that there are so many steps
- 22:05to a deal flow process in New York City,
- 22:07whether it's a rental or a sale or a listing.
- 22:09It's anything from
- 22:12keeping really organized records.
- 22:14When I first started, things were happening so fast.
- 22:16I wasn't taking the extra 20 minutes at the end of every day to file everything,
- 22:20to update my notes on each client in the CRM.
- 22:23I was like, I'll remember this tomorrow.
- 22:26Well, surprise, tomorrow's a brand new day with new challenges,
- 22:29new hurdles, and I forgot to do that.
- 22:31So I would, it's catching up on those items.
- 22:33That was one item. Another big lesson was learning to overcommunicate.
- 22:37Even on days when I have absolutely no update for a client,
- 22:40reach out to them and communicate.
- 22:42It's a big item that I'm really harping to my team right now.
- 22:44Like communication is everything.
- 22:46It's it's the foundation of every relationship.
- 22:48So
- 22:49That was my biggest, and I just keep reminding myself that.
- 22:52There are d definitely days that a client will send me a text and like,
- 22:55haven't heard from you, what's wrong?
- 22:56And I'm like, my God, nothing's wrong.
- 22:58But that was a good reminder for myself.
- 23:00Like, I need to just continue to over-communicate.
- 23:03It's little things like that that really add to the entire deal flow process.
- 23:08Yeah, that's it's especially important.
- 23:10I I really wanted to echo what you just said there because two things.
- 23:16Silence is where the deals die.
- 23:18When you do when there's opportunities there and you're not following
- 23:22up and almost being a you might even consider s yourself being a pest,
- 23:26th that's that's where things will start to fall apart.
- 23:30But it's it's amazing and maybe your s psychology background could probably
- 23:36reinforce this is the for some weird reason when there's silence people will
- 23:43put a negative spin on it almost every time.
- 23:46So it's always going to be in their mind something tragic is happening.
- 23:50Totally.
- 23:51Totally. You know, real estate,
- 23:53a transaction flow is a lot like dating.
- 23:56So when you're first when you first start dating someone and you don't hear from
- 23:59them for a few days, you start to think like,
- 24:01did I say something? Did I do something?
- 24:03Maybe they're not interested. You start you can start creating this narrative
- 24:07in your head that's usually skews negative.
- 24:10The same thing happens with real estate.
- 24:12So
- 24:14As the trusted advisor, as the real estate agent,
- 24:16it's my responsibility to manage that conversation,
- 24:20whether it's a back-and-forth conversation or the conversation that
- 24:24may be happening in my client's head.
- 24:26I just need to ensure that that stays productive,
- 24:29positive, and in the correct direction.
- 24:31Yeah, that's a good point. You know,
- 24:33the the concept that y early when we started co this chat,
- 24:37you mentioned that you were, you know,
- 24:40s talking to yourself. You had a lot of time to yourself,
- 24:42you getting yourself in the right mindset.
- 24:45We we have to that we have that obligation,
- 24:47right, with our clients that we have to be that positive voice,
- 24:51that affirmations, if you will,
- 24:52to ~ to
- 24:54Mm-hmm.
- 24:54let them know that things are all right.
- 24:56I also think it's interesting the C R
- 24:59When operationally that's one of the most vital tools that anybody can use,
- 25:05but I also consistently find that it's also the one of the most hated.
- 25:09People just hate stopping what they're doing and doing this necessity
- 25:14to just stay on top of this information and and like how have you made
- 25:21it just a part of the habit of updating your CRM,
- 25:24keeping those processes in place,
- 25:26or do you have somebody that helps you with that?
- 25:28What does that look like?
- 25:30So I'll let you in on a little secret.
- 25:33We're not using a CRM right now,
- 25:35and I think it's actually the weakest link of our team.
- 25:38a CRM is oftentimes always chatted about,
- 25:41like it's so annoying, it's so much extra work,
- 25:44but that extra work is imperative because I think it keeps you organized.
- 25:49It's a tool that the entire team can utilize.
- 25:51It keeps everything in one central location.
- 25:54I feel very passionately about a CRM and it is something that I need
- 25:58to transition my team back to in time.
- 26:00Because I understand the workings of a CRM,
- 26:03I've created like a piecemeal system within our team.
- 26:06It's not great. It's not working effectively,
- 26:08but it's okay for the time being.
- 26:10And I have a teammate, Abigail,
- 26:12who's absolutely fabulous with helping me manage this and keep up to date on this.
- 26:16But it's using tools like a CRM.
- 26:19I think is vital for a business.
- 26:21I think it's vital for when you're scaling a team.
- 26:23And we'll get back there. Don't worry.
- 26:26I I'm learning from this experience that we need to be back in the CRM world.
- 26:31Sure. Well, everybody is im implementing AI in a variety of ways.
- 26:37Could you talk a little bit how your team might be leveraging it or what what does
- 26:42that look like right now?
- 26:43Totally. AI are it's AI is such a hot topic at the moment.
- 26:46so the way our team's implementing it is really from an administrative standpoint.
- 26:50It's also been incredibly helpful as we're tweaking.
- 26:53I have a fabulous social media coordinator and he's doing really cool things with
- 26:58AI to take some of our
- 26:59I'm not gonna call them bland,
- 27:01but just a static photo, which can sometimes you can only use a static photo
- 27:04so many times on social media,
- 27:06and then it's like, okay, cool,
- 27:07we've seen this photo before. But he's taking AI to enhance the photo,
- 27:12and I'm not saying like add trees,
- 27:14like he's turning it into a video.
- 27:16Super cool, way above my pay grade.
- 27:18He's much better suited at it.
- 27:20But we're using AI for admin stuff.
- 27:22I although, you know, the other day we're working on a a deal
- 27:26and it's very emotional and
- 27:28I find myself sometimes getting caught up in the emotions.
- 27:31I took the email I wrote, I put it into an AI tool and I said,
- 27:34help remove some of the emotion from this.
- 27:37And that was it spit back a response.
- 27:40And I was like, excellent. So,
- 27:43you know, we're using it in that capacity.
- 27:45it's funny though, we have clients that also are using AI.
- 27:48and so there's a little bit of this.
- 27:50balance of now I'm also in a different capacity working against AI because
- 27:55I have a client coming to me and they're like,
- 27:57your valuation is great. However,
- 27:59chat said it's X. And so I have to work through that.
- 28:02so you know we're we're using AI from every angle at the moment and we're we're also
- 28:08defending ourselves against AI.
- 28:09It's a fun world we're living in in 2026.
- 28:12Yeah, it's and it's evolving so blasted fast.
- 28:15I you you talk about the video thing.
- 28:17I I recently I'm I'm helping a local event center with with some stuff
- 28:22and I have some photos of the interior and I combined a couple of them
- 28:27and created a video and it looks like a drone is spinning a around in this space.
- 28:32It's it's it's it's crazy. It took a bit.
- 28:36It it
- 28:37It's incredible.
- 28:37The the prompting it it had to figure that out,
- 28:40but when in the in the end that was it was it became the the centerpiece
- 28:46of the of the website.
- 28:47It's really cool and and it's so important to utilize those features.
- 28:51I mean, they're they're literally at our fingertips.
- 28:53Why not use them? It's I think it's pretty amazing what we can do.
- 28:57And and especially in this industry,
- 28:59we have clients all over the world.
- 29:01They can't always be here. Oftentimes they're not here.
- 29:04So how can I using these tools to help the client feel like they are here
- 29:09and they are interacting with the product as best as they can?
- 29:13It's very important. So it's very cool that you're doing that.
- 29:16I love that.
- 29:17Well, Ashley, this has been such a fun conversation.
- 29:20Before we dive into the rapid fire,
- 29:22is there anything else we should have tried to hit on here?
- 29:24You know what we haven't hit on is the importance of no.
- 29:27When scaling a team, when growing a business,
- 29:31the biggest lesson that I'm still learning is when to say no.
- 29:34And whether that's no to a teammate,
- 29:36whether it's no to a client, whether it's no to representing a property.
- 29:40I've executed no in all those positions so far,
- 29:45and it's probably been some of my most productive steps.
- 29:50to continuing to grow the business,
- 29:51if that makes sense. I know it sounds counterproductive,
- 29:54but there's a lot of power in the word no.
- 29:57And I think it's important to remember that.
- 30:00You know, it's interesting you bring that up because I recently took
- 30:03one of those self assessments.
- 30:04this one was it's
- 30:05Mm-hmm.
- 30:06called Working Genius. I don't know if you've seen this one.
- 30:08And
- 30:09I haven't.
- 30:11so the this one is is like you it it kind of it's more team based.
- 30:15So you can have your whole team and then you can each see which and then
- 30:19the acronym spells out
- 30:19I need to do that.
- 30:20widget and you can see how you all work together and how each one of those
- 30:23Everything. Yes.
- 30:25and then how each one will like it's
- 30:29Like so it'll tell you which part of the widget actually is an annoyance to you.
- 30:33And that's actually where my my
- 30:35Hm. Ready.
- 30:37so it's it's kind it was kind of interesting,
- 30:39but one of them is is that I I have the I'm the E in the in the widget which
- 30:44is enablement and I have a hard time saying no.
- 30:48So that it was kind of interesting there.
- 30:50So it's it's it kind of calls those type of things out.
- 30:54It's it's so important.
- 30:56Well, Ashley, if you're ready,
- 30:57we'll jump into the rapid fire and close out this episode.
- 30:59But before we do, again, find Ashley on Instagram,
- 31:04Ash Reedy, and it's R E I I D Y.
- 31:07I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
- 31:10But if you're ready, Ashley, we'll jump into the rapid fire and close
- 31:13out this episode.
- 31:15Let's do it. I'm excited.
- 31:18What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
- 31:22Well now you can put me on the spot,
- 31:23it's not that rapid. what lie do they often tell themselves?
- 31:25That
- 31:26Buying quickly, filling a tenant quickly is the best path forward.
- 31:31it's often not. sometimes we need to slow down the process and we need
- 31:34to ensure that the apartment is really the best suited for the client.
- 31:38And then is the tenant, that the first tenant that comes to you and offers
- 31:42you full ask is not always the best tenant.
- 31:44So sometimes we really need to slow down this process,
- 31:46ensure that the due diligence is really thorough and thoughtfully done.
- 31:49If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
- 31:52what would it be?
- 31:53Sorry, cut out at the end. What was that?
- 31:55If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
- 31:59what would it be?
- 31:59Just keep going. Always always talk
- 32:00Do you have a book?
- 32:01to yourself and keep going.
- 32:02Do you have a book recommendation or what are you reading right now?
- 32:06Yes, I just finished Atmosphere by what was it?
- 32:10Jenkins Reed is her last name.
- 32:12It was incredible. It blends two of my favorite things,
- 32:14love and space. It was fabulous.
- 32:16Highly recommend.
- 32:18And then finally, what single tool or process have you implemented that
- 32:22has had the biggest time saving impact?
- 32:24Not necessarily a tool, but investing in my team.
- 32:26taking the time to slow down and really focus on each team member,
- 32:30their business and our collective business as a team has been monumental
- 32:35in continuing our overall business growth.
- 32:38Well, I really appreciate this time,
- 32:40Ashley. One last time. You can find her on Instagram,
- 32:43Ash Reedl Reedly. Reedy. Ash Re Reedy.
- 32:47Reedy, yes, you got it.
- 32:48Yes, Ash Reedy. And I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes
- 32:51so of my mispronunciation you still can find her at Ash Reedy.
- 32:55thanks again, Ashley. This was fantastic and hope you'll consider coming back again
- 33:00sometime. This was great.
- 33:02I would love to. This has been so much fun.
- 33:04Thank you.