SHOW NOTES
Tom Ferry is the #1 ranked Real Estate Educator by Swanepoel Power 200 and the best-selling author of “Life! By Design” and “Mindset, Model, and Marketing!”
As founder and CEO of Ferry International, the real estate industry’s leading coaching and training company, Tom’s ever-growing influence impacts professionals in a wide variety of ways – including rigorous accountability coaching, the popular #TomFerryShow delivering free, fresh and relevant real estate tips weekly, highly engaging training events, two best-selling books, and his legendary keynote speeches.
Brian and Tom discuss the mindset of the current real estate industry and where it’s headed, his journey to where he is today, and how his approach to using Social Media has catapulted his business!
In this episode, we talk about...
- 3:45 - How social media has played a huge part in not only Tom’s business but his happiness as well.
- 9:20 - Gary Vaynerchuk provided early mentor strategy to Tom and it’s paid off big. Tom explains what he said!
- 13:19 - In a time where we are between the review economy and the trust economy, delivering trust with premium FREE content catapulted Tom’s business.
- 18:20 - Tom explains how being in a family business proved to have challenging tests right out of the gate and how he had to earn his respect.
- 21:45 - Are you thinking about attending college? You’ll want to hear Tom’s thoughts on a better alternative first.
- 25:40 - Tom shares one of the biggest reasons Agents struggle in Real Estate, see if his insight can help you succeed going forward.
- 34:18 - Similarities between Tom’s business and real estate. Here’s what they are and how you can use tom’s strategy to gain success in the future.
- 49:17 - The Tom Ferry Success Summit this is going to shock the industry and more, here is what you can expect from it!
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth 0:34
Welcome back to the Grit podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, I'm the founder of Sisu, the Growth Automation Software for Real Estate and your host of the show. Today, I'm honored to have Tom Ferry with me. I am super grateful to have you here today. I would call you the Tony Robbins of Real Estate. That's kind of how I view you. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tony, I know you do, too. I actually saw you at a Tony event before I knew. I didn't really know. I mean, I knew who you were, but I didn't. I didn't like I didn't know you.
Tom Ferry 0:42
Which event was that? Was I there was one of my kids? Was it the firewall?
Brian Charlesworth 0:48
I don't recall but spring my wife spring pointed out "Hey, there's a there's Tom Ferry right up there." So we were just behind the front section. We were in the VIP on the front row. And you were there.
Tom Ferry 1:00
Probably I took I had, like, I want to say over the course of three summers, both of my now adult sons one now 19 one 21. You know, both came to be like, I'm in a little bit of a funk. And what do I do? And I'm like, you do know what I do for a living right like that. I just can't listen to you like, it's just different, right? So I'm like, Okay, I know, I know where we can go. And I can both to to go experience that which is hysterical, because his same production company is the same production company that I use. Right, a lot of a lot of crossover. So you've been to my summit's where, like, we'll find that occasional person who's got a funny looking on their face, and then they'll throw it up on the big screen and make everybody laugh, and I did that. They did that to me every time.
Brian Charlesworth 1:38
I love it. Anyway, it's always great to get those refreshers, but seeing you there, just and a lot of what you say I actually, I just you guys are a lot. You're very similar in a lot of ways. So I'm also your social presence is really bigger than anybody else's in the real estate industry that I'm aware of, so, I want to dive into that a little bit because I think most people think, "Hey, you know what, that's Tom Ferry, his dad's Mike Ferry and this is all just easy for him." But what people don't get is the dedication required to really have that kind of success. And, personally, I think I mean, obviously, you know more about real estate probably than anybody. I don't know how I don't know if you actually ever sold homes or not, did you?
Tom Ferry 2:30
I started working my dad's company 18 years old. I've been doing this ever since.
Brian Charlesworth 2:35
Okay, so, so never sold a home. Which, but still really, in my opinion, you're the icon of the industry. You're really the most respected person in the real estate industry. So congratulations for that. I see that everywhere I go.
Tom Ferry 2:52
Yeah. And I you know, I could make the argument that I'm not also you have made that you know, like, like everybody else, like we all find our tribe like it's So funny for me when I'll see someone who's a friend or an advocate of they'll post Oh, hey, you know, Tom and I just did this and someone will say, Oh, you know that guy you know, blah blah, blah. But here's the thing, like, I actually kind of thrive on the haters. You with me like because it just you know for me like it doesn't it doesn't bruise my ego what it does it says, alright Tom, you got to do better. Do you know what I mean? Just keeping it very real, like it just tells me I got to do better. I got to do a better job of reaching more people getting you know, maybe delivering a different type of value for people you don't I mean, I don't know. I'm stoked by like the swamp pull stuff. But at the end of the day, like you and I've talked before, like I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a friend. I'm a, you know, occasional golfer. You're an amazing like, we're all humans just doing our thing. I'm just very blessed that things like social media became available, and I jumped into it early and figured out like, Hey, this is like, this is no different from when I used to send out direct mail or early email, but now Like, I can actually exchange conversation with people. And you know, for me like, that's what it's all about. It's like, how many more connections can I make I would get on airplanes flying from, you know, wherever to wherever the longer the better. And you know, would open up Facebook and say, I'm free for three and a half hours, how can I help got any questions? And I would literally fly from you know, New York to LA and I would answer 700 questions in you know, three hours, and not even understanding like the study of Harvard about sustainable happiness. I got that only later on, like, just in the last three years that if you want to create sustainable happiness, it's about learning and contribution. I would get off the airplane more lit up then the seminar that I just finished. Right. So you know, social for me is it's just that it's just a it's a place to express yourself and a place to connect and contribute.
Brian Charlesworth 4:49
Great. I don't see you as one of those people that ever is like, "oh, I feel like I've made it."
Tom Ferry 4:55
Yeah, no.
Brian Charlesworth 4:56
You seem to constantly be in growth mode. And contribution mode like you said, so….
Tom Ferry 5:02
yeah, I mean, somebody once said to me, it was Darren Hardy Darren Hardy. I don't know if he got the actual if it was his quote, but I he said it and I was like, Yes. He said, "Tom, the reason why you're gonna win is because dissatisfaction is a symptom of ambition." And I was like, Yes. I said, does that is that why I'm angry all the time? Like, it doesn't doesn't matter how many clients I help. I just feel like I get pissed about the ones that didn't help you. And I mean, like, there's just something I think every agent listening to this or watching this any any successful person knows what I'm talking about. Like, there's always another level to get to it doesn't mean that I'm not happy. It doesn't mean that I'm not grateful. It doesn't mean that I don't you know, go home and kiss my wife and say, I love you. Right. I'm not kicking my dog. But it's the recognition that there's just always more to do. How do I prioritize it and get after it, you know?
Brian Charlesworth 5:54
Yeah. And for those of you who are not watching, Tom actually has his own bobble head on his desk and you know, I had my own bobble head, I would probably think I had made it.
Tom Ferry 6:03
Okay, by the way this was sent to me I did it. Remember the guys there's the the two guys in in the insurance business, I'm spacing on there, if you're listening, you're watching, I apologize. And literally, they made one of these for me and sent it to me. And then my team thought it was hysterical. They made these and I think they like sent it to all my coaches as some way to torture me. Right? Because I'm sure these have been kicked in the head many times, just saying!
Brian Charlesworth 6:25
I absolutely love it. So let's dig in for a minute onto social so I looked up this morning you have 212,000 followers or likes on Facebook. You have 154,000 followers on Instagram. And you are verified by the way what does that mean? How do you get verified? How do you get the checkmark next to your name on Instagram?
Tom Ferry 6:52
I'm looking at I'm looking at Tristan right now who's like my world famous videographer. He seems like this. We have no idea.
Brian Charlesworth 7:00
So you're not responsible for that. What's up with that?
Tom Ferry 7:03
No, you know, I bet I bet Marnie who used to work with us probably reached out, we were very lucky. You know, having having good relationships with people like we're looking Monday at Google or now spacing out his name. I'm terribly embarrassed. Keith, who is in charge of all things, real estate for Facebook, you start meeting all these people, and then you Hey, what what do we have to do? And how do we do it? You know, it's funny, like I have it. I think I think I have it on Facebook. And I think I have it on Instagram. I don't know if I have it on Twitter. Do I have it on Twitter? They removed I don't think I don't know. Because I wasn't active. Yeah. Yeah, I stopped being active on Twitter. Now. I'm super active on Twitter. So you know, I'll share…
Brian Charlesworth 7:43
Your Twitter & Linkedin. Obviously I can't I all I know is you have 500 plus followers. But yeah, your your LinkedIn is huge. And then you have Twitter at 52,000 followers.
Tom Ferry 7:54
You're missing the the one that I'm actually the most proud of which is like, I think we're almost at 380,000 subscribers now on youtube, because video is my thing, right? So like, that should be my biggest.
Brian Charlesworth 8:04
Yep. And YouTube is where all the money's made. That's part of what I wanted to get to as well. I don't know, I don't know if that's an income stream for you?
Tom Ferry 8:11
No, not at all.
Brian Charlesworth 8:13
Not at all. Okay?
Tom Ferry 8:14
I mean, in so directly or indirectly, right so directly do I, you know, do I take advertising dollars from YouTube? Never. Never have it's just not my thing. Do I run ads on YouTube? Of course, yeah. Does video like it does for every person listening? Does it validate consumers decisions? Does it scale your trust? Does it attract more of your tribe? Does it also identify who are your deflectors? The answer is yes. To all the above. And you know, funny like, I'm actually just I'm doing an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk. Next week, and you know, like reflecting back on 2009 I was already two years into YouTube, and he had started Wine Library I think in like 2007 Right. And the first time we actually met, we were backstage at my summit. And we were like, you know, your show my show? What do you think? What are you doing? How's this working? And it's gonna be fun to like, you know, now do probably my 11th interview with him, you know, 11 years later, to talk about how much it's evolved, like YouTube
Brian Charlesworth 9:16
is he interviewing you, Tom?
Tom Ferry 9:20
I'm interviewing him, okay. I'm interviewing I, you know, he and I were chatting about something like, we need to do a show. So I was on my YouTube channel yesterday, I think I've interviewed him, I don't know, legitimately under like five or six times on YouTube. Right or, or in the form of video, but, you know, Gary, like him or not, you know, he was right in a lot of ways about how important it was to be active in social. And, you know, I give him a lot of a lot of kudos a lot of sort of early mentor in strategy, where he really pushed me and said, Hey, man, like beyond everything. You don't know a Beluga is going to be the next one. Just like I you know, I was on Friendster. Before I was on Facebook. I was on MySpace, right? Like it just made sense, right? Go play everywhere see what you can do. Okay, see which one's gonna hit and then where you can deliver the most value. I'm
Brian Charlesworth 10:07
glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask you, Gary Vee has 4.3 million followers. He's posted 1200 and 80 videos on tik tok. Yeah, you haven't jumped into tik tok yet you have one video there. Yes. Someone playing tennis? Yes. Oh, tell us what when are you going to dive into Tick Tock because I think that's a huge opportunity for you.
Tom Ferry 10:28
Do I just I'm looking at do I tell them the truth? Yeah, right. Sara, when is 12
year old kid who owns My name finally sells it to me. We need to follow up on that kid and see where we're at with the offer.
Brian Charlesworth 10:39
I'm Petty. Somebody owns your name. I'm
Tom Ferry 10:41
12 year old kid owns Tom Ferry. And I'm like, you know like I am a I'm a brand fanatic as I hope everyone out there listening is that you know, you want to own your name. Right. Like I did a lot to make sure I had Tom Ferry on Twitter. Facebook, obviously right on, you know, right on down the line. I think it's super important. So You know, I, you know, I've done a lot of videos I've not I'm so excited to be
you know on Tick Tock when I oh my name, but until then not gonna happen.
Brian Charlesworth 11:12
Well, you know, let's just let's just run with it Tom and go with the real Tom Ferry. Oh yeah, I could probably
Tom Ferry 11:19
could do that. I'm being interviewed by Brian but I'm talking to Tristan.
Brian Charlesworth 11:24
And then, you know once you're certified everyone knows it is the real Tom Ferry. Yes.
Tom Ferry 11:29
Okay. All right. We tell Courtney to get that today. I'm coachable. I'm coachable brother. I'm good.
Brian Charlesworth 11:35
I would love to see your stuff out there. I listen to your stuff all the time. And that's I guess that's what I wanted to bring up. I think, not only for people who said, I don't actively sell real estate today. But I listened to your stuff. And that goes to the next item you have is your podcast you're interviewing Gary Vee? I was fortunate enough to get to have you on your show. But you have this podcast. I don't know what you're subscribers are there your listeners, but I'm sure it's it's a very big number. but just the podcast as well. I mean, that's a that's a big deal. That takes a tremendous amount of commitment.
Tom Ferry 12:13
Well, so I will tell you… I can't share that. This thought of an email I just sent to my team and I apologize guys, I'm not like not not revealing something extraordinary. But I'm about to make a change in that today. I actually have Mindset Monday, Tuesday is the Tom Ferry show. Wednesday is my podcast Thursday is my written blog. And then Friday, Saturday is something that Tristan and I do, which is sort of the vlog like the, you know, here's just the things that we've been up to and the things that we're learning. And and then in the middle of all that, I think we're at probably, I don't want to misquote this because I can kind of think of it by Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, probably in the range of 500 original pieces of content that are going out every single month. And that's before I go into Instagram and I say got a question. I'm here to help you know what to share, like, how can I make a difference? Right? Yeah. So, you know, I don't say that to impress you, I say it to to stress to you, that everybody's on their phone. And the whole game, I'm gonna say it again is all I'm committed to is delivering value. I want to scale trust. So when you think of my name, I don't care if you say hate them or love them. But you're going to know my name like that. That was part of the play, like I'm going to make sure that I am recognizable. And if you're thinking about doing something that I might just be on the consideration set for what it is you want to do, which is the same thing I tell my agent clients sending us all my broker clients. Same thing. I'll tell all the tech companies that I work with, like you just want to be on the consideration set. So I'm willing to constantly reinvent myself, learn new things, share new things. Take the old rearrange it in a creative way, bring it back out to the marketplace for new listeners for old parole listeners. And do it at scale and help But with a team build an army of people around me supporting that, because I know at the end of the day, we're in somewhere between the review economy and the trust economy. Right? Like, like we've never been before. Right? Like we've never been before. And, and if you're not vocal today, if you're not out and about, one could argue that you're not there. Right. And I have contemporaries that, you know, used to yell at me, like, friends, family, you know, you're giving away all of our content for free, you know, you're sharing all the best stuff that we charge $300,000 $200,000 for and my response was, yeah, but you know what, like, there might just be, you know, some kid in Detroit right now who can't afford any of this stuff. And he's 25 and he's like, how do I do this? And if I can help that guy today, that guy or that gal might be the CEO of REMAX in 30 years, and if I touched him there, I might be able to be a friend or someone that he turns to or someone that I could turn to for the next couple decades. And that was always my mindset. Yeah. So give it all away, give it all away for free. And you know, it actually catapulted my business to a totally different level because I did so starting 13 years ago.
Brian Charlesworth 15:18
Yes. Yeah. I mean, everything you're doing is is providing value and you are making a difference. You are touching the lives of those agents. I mean, you brought up Gary Vee, if you listen to Gary B's interviews, he actually just brings his people on the show. Hey, tell me what's going on right now. Yeah, but if you were to do the same thing, you would find people all the time that are like, Tom, you touched me this way. This is what you did. This impacted my life. So I just love that. One of the things you just said, reminded me of Grant Cardone, one of my favorite quotes from Grant Cardone is Hey, you love me or you hate me, at least you know me, right? At least you know my name.
Tom Ferry 15:58
It's totally uncle G. And you know it and he, that statement for him is very true, right? For me it's true. I mean, I'll take it personally, if somebody like, you know, like, says you don't actually, I don't think a person has heard about me. But when I started this business 16-17 years ago, people would say things about my dad. And I would like almost go apeshit on him. You already mean? So I met your father and he's done it. And I'm like, you do know you're talking about my dad? Well, you left his company and like, it doesn't mean I love him. Yeah, you bring me like, people would say stuff to me. And I looked at him like, how's your mom the bitch like, what do you like? What do you like? doing? Right? Like, this is my family that I take a little personal?
Brian Charlesworth 16:42
Well, I think I mean, you have people assume because Mike is your dad. Yeah, that you have this unfair advantage. And I would say, you have worked your ass off for this. Right? I mean It's not It's not your dad that gave you the success. It's you. So, that being said, I was in the car driving home from the lake last night we were out on the lake boating, and my 14 year old said to my 19 year, old my 19 year old is a professional photographer has 125,000 followers on Instagram. And he just did something on tik tok, where he now has 1.5 million followers over the last 30 days. Wow. And my 14 year old said, Well, for you, it's automatic. And I'm like, automatic. Like, and it reminded me of how people think about you. It's like, No, do you know that he spends six hours a day on that account? He know the creativity that you have to come up with? Do you know how to consistency all those things? So anyway, I just congratulate you Tom for all of your success there.
Tom Ferry 17:49
Yeah, I mean, I love it. You know, the everyone's got the overnight success story look and be clear, right? If I look back and say, you know, did I have an unfair advantage? You know, sure. You know, my parents got divorced, I stepped into a leadership role with my mom and my three siblings and older brother and two younger. And then, you know, did I have an advantage when I was like kicked out of all four high schools? sure my parents didn't shoot me, right. But I still finally landed on my feet got an apartment. When I worked for my dad in the very beginning, like he was like, anyone that knows my dad, like you can imagine like, what you see on stage is exactly what you get. Like, he's tough. He's got that old sort of driver D personality. And, you know, the last name was an advantage and it was a disadvantage when you work inside a family business in the beginning, like, you know, he just it was like, here's your desk, there's your phone. Good luck, kid. You're on your own, figure it out. Right, which was awesome, right? Because then I had to become battle tested. You're I mean, and then you know, working through and up the ranks and finally earning his trust to build the ultimate take his business from seven to you know, 45 million bucks. like doing that, like I had to earn a lot of respect and trust. Nothing was handed to me but no one gives a shit about that. Here's the thing you ready? I'm 31 years into this. I average even today 12 hours of work, right? My wife who you know said to me just you know last night she's like, you know what's going on this weekend? Like, I know you got your Saturday CEO calls and you got this on Sunday. You know? Like, I'm kind of into this and that's how you become successful like these these people out there that tell people man, you can get rich fast you can make money easy. Brian, like that shit existed like, I think I'd be offering it. Yeah, do you already mean like, like, being gritty, being consistent, delivering value, pivoting adjusting, innovating, changing your marketing message, figured out, trial and error test all the time. And if all fails, roll up your sleeves and work and most importantly, listen to your customer, understand what their issues are, understand what their challenges are, and then if you can help solve that, whether it's for free or for a fee. Awesome, do it all day. Long and then do it for like three decades and see what happens. That's what I tell these like these young 18,19,20,21 how do I become? They call me Mr. Ferry, which in itself is weird, right? Like, very how do we become successful and like, find something you're super inspired about that either there's already an existing market so you can play in it or it's a brand new market. If it's brand new market, be very mindful of that, right? And then come out and see how much you can make a difference in there. How many problems you can solve and do it at scale. And by the way, don't talk about it. Just go do it for a decade. You're 18 You don't know anything yet. You're 22 you don't have enough life experience. I'm going to be 50 in 52 days as we sit here and shoot this. And I still feel like a dumb ass most of the time. Right? There's still so much of this planet that I do not understand. You know what I mean?
Brian Charlesworth 20:48
Absolutely. So you gave us a little bit of your background and thank you for that. I think so many people and Gary Vee is obviously a big one about this. You know, what's the value of college I know I don't think you went to college. Did you? You just straight our of high school and worked with your dad?
Tom Ferry 21:06
Well, no. So I actually did do one semester at a junior college code, Orange Coast College right here locally where I'm from. And I went there because I was single. And I was working midnight tonight at a grocery store. And it was basically the only place that I could like, socialize and meet people. Right, so I was trying to disengage from sort of the, the Mohawk crazy, you know, punk rock, skate surf group that I was hanging out with. And I was trying to, like, find new friends. And you know, I went there for like, I don't know, three or four months. I'm like, this is stupid. Just left. Yeah, you know, figured out there's other ways to meet friends. So yeah, that was my total college experience. Both my boys go to college. So it's not that I'm anti college. But I have to tell you, and you know, not to be you know, too crazy. I think college is the biggest scam on the planet. I think if you if you truly, like if you fundamentally are saying hey, I I want to become a doctor. I want to be a lawyer, right? Like those are trades, right? But when I look at, you know that because we do so many interviews with these young kids that are coming out of college and I'm like, you have no life experience, and you're completely full of shit on what you think the world is like, and I know where all that came from. Yeah, right. So I, I don't like it. I am a giant advocate of education. I mean, it is it is the cornerstone, it's one of the most important values I have, which is growth mindset, keep learning keep getting better. But I wish in our country, we would go back to trade schools. I wish we would go back to like, Hey, what do you really want to do? And if you don't know him and join the military, yeah, go be of service. Go, you know, go do something and figure out your life because the expectation for young people today is really gnarly. And the expectation a lot of parents put on their kids is even more insane. But I know that's not where you're going. But it's just what
Brian Charlesworth 22:54
I mean, I think it's what you bring up is a great point, Tom. And the thing is so many kids now The difference has gotten so much larger, so many kids go to school, they come out not knowing what they're going to do. Right? That's your point on trade school, whereas with the social media today, like, if what you want to be is in marketing, you can't learn that at school, you can't learn that at a university, my 19 year old, older went to college, my 19 year old is not going to college. He's already a better marketer than anybody could in college could teach him right.
Tom Ferry 23:28
Yeah, there actually are, you know, I actually spoke at my, my younger son's college. So we did that last year, right at Chapman Chapman University in Orange County. And the guy that actually asked me to speak teaches MBA students social and digital marketing. So it exists, but it was super fun. He's like, why don't you come in and explain your business and I talked about Facebook ads and I talked about creating trust and creating content, like kind of laid out my entire plan. And you know, super fun afterwards because you know, so many people work at Disney right now and they're back getting their MBA so there is stuff like that but you know one could argue that you know YouTube and some adult education courses, some mentorship, you know going to work for your dad's business for a little bit and figuring out and letting them be effective or a friend's business or starting your own business. There's just there's just nothing better though than like I mentor Mike Vance. it's really hard to talk about experiences you're not having you already mean like you know i'd say to my boys, because you know, raising two boys is you know, you know as a father right and I'm not knocking anybody out there doesn't have kids you know, get some it's it's super entertaining. raising these two insane to them like I've got this mixed between "Hey, I want you to go to college because you can" right you got you have the grades, you're getting a degree you know, yada yada yada. But at the same time, I want you to start side hustle businesses, I want you to figure stuff out. I want you to explore everything I want you to try everything not drugs and all that stuff. But you know their kids, right? But Try everything. Because man, if you can find what you can get passionate about, then anything is possible. But until you find that passion, you know, there's just there's just too many stupid things to be doing all the time right now, especially for young people.
Brian Charlesworth 25:14
Right? I like sitting in front of a computer screen gaming all day.
Tom Ferry 25:20
Video game, I mean, look, you know, there's some gamers and make a lot of money, but, you know, but it's like, there's, there's, like, you know, 25 golfers and make a lot of money. And then there's, you know, 10s of millions that don't make anything. Yeah, right. So, find that thing that you can be super passionate about and just go all in on it, which is, I'm gonna just make the statement. I think it's, it's a big reason why so many agents that you know, I don't mean to be rude in any way, shape, or form, but it's a big reason why so many agents, like struggle in this business. Right? It's because they're not like 100% all in on it. Right? There's always like this plan B in their mind, like if there's something better or they're looking for the easy way there is no easy way. Yeah. Right, there's no easy way in business. Right, I'm writing my fourth book right now. 30,200,000 small businesses 30,200,000 total businesses in the US, right 99.7 of them 99.7 do less than $10 million a year in revenue. 30M $200,000 businesses 99.7 do less than $10 million a year in revenue. Like 0.3% make up the mid cap and the large cap of businesses in the US private and publicly traded and have the balance. It's like 90% of the balance do less than a million dollars a year in revenue. Now I'm not saying any of those people are bad or they're bad operators in their business, but one could argue they may not be as committed as they need to be that they started their restaurant because they like food. You think that's really different from you know, talking to you know, Mr. Public. Or, you know, thinking of Nobu, who I met recently, right? You know, they had a vision they were really into their passion, but they also have a passion for growing their business and doing something remarkable as you have dealt with Sisu.
Brian Charlesworth 27:13
Well Real Estate's the same way right. I mean, yeah. So many people come into real estate I think because they think that you know, the, the what's the network that the one they watched about the homes getting remodeled on TV?
Tom Ferry 27:27
Oh, yeah. HGTV or…
Brian Charlesworth 27:29
HGTV. They fall in love with HGTV and think oh, so I'm gonna go be in real estate part time. Well, real estate is not showing homes, those people that come in and think showing homes it's about, it's about prospecting and growing a business and marketing yourself, right. So
Tom Ferry 27:44
Yep, I'm looking at these stats right now. This is for me, it's always interesting, right? More than 63% of all realtors are women. I think that's a really good thing. I just you know, nothing against the men but the women just consistently out produce and it's deeper empathy levels better on Standing people not not razzing all my male clients, only 43% of all realtors completed a bachelor's degree or higher. That's interesting to me I'm gonna actually do a survey with our wall street journal on the Americas back because I want to ask that same question. But just just looking at all these stats on this, this industry that we both care so much for 20% of all realtors had their license for a year or less. Right. And as it says, you know, 87% fail every five years. Like, it's not because the business is impossible. Right? And it certainly isn't a lack of exposure and training anymore because everything is available for free online and YouTube. I think it just comes down to like, Are you interested or committed? Yeah, and there's just a lot of people out there I know for the people that are listening, they're like, Ah, man, man, like fair, you know, come on, Brian. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing man like let's go right and and I love you and thank you and keep going. But the world would be a better place if a half a million agents left.
You with me? Good luck on port 4 million agents. What do we really need 600,000 And
Brian Charlesworth 29:00
maybe what we need is that top 20%
Tom Ferry 29:03
Yeah, yeah, who continue to outshine out produce out market out innovate out negotiate serve clients do it better, do it faster, do it more efficiently. You're gonna mean, it's like Do we really need another attorney right now in the U.S, really?
Brian Charlesworth 29:17
Do it? Do we really need another? Do we really need another family member that selling home so that they're all competing for my business?
Tom Ferry 29:23
Oh my goodness. Yes. Oh, but we love them now. We love we love them all. We love them all. We just I just I if I if I died tomorrow, and I certainly don't want to what I would wish for people is that they really they gave such a shit about their business the way they do about their family the way they do about everything else. Because this business can provide so much not just for you, but for your family for your legacy and for all the people that you touch.
Brian Charlesworth 29:48
Yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna jump out of social in a second time I have one last thing I want to leave and talking about social is no, but this is your social profile on Twitter. I wanted to come back to this Okay, what's it say? Tom Ferry number one real estate coaching company, entrepreneur, speaker, investor, New York Times bestseller. And then it says, This is what I wanted to get to text me. And there's your cell phone number. Yeah. So that's a different way of thinking. There are not many people in your shoes that are just handing out your cell phone number on Twitter. So tell me.
Tom Ferry 30:23
So, again, I'll give a shout out to Gary Vee. You know, he and I were texting one day and I'm like, okay, man, like, I know, I know, your cell phone. You're not giving out your cell phone. You're giving out a different cell phone like what is that? And he turned me on to it. It's funny. Like I'm literally looking at Tristan right now who has my cell phone across his hoodie 949-216-5466. And, and for me, when I when I he and I were texting about it. I'm like, Oh, I get it. This is just another way to connect with people. He's like, right, and like how many text messages and he's like a lot. And I was like, hmm, I didn't ask him any follow up questions. I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna like, I'm gonna go do the same exact thing. So, you know, I don't know. I mean, I get 300 to 500 text messages a week. And it's not like like I'm looking right now like, so here's a good example. So I send out a happy birthday to every person when it's their birthday. I think that's just a that's an easy thing to do. Right? Yeah. And then occasionally, I've been on this now I think for we think like maybe since the last September Tristen so less than in less than a year I've sent two messages to my entire list only two right so i don't i don't spam I'm not marketing to it right. You know, I said like I think I said Happy New Year that was one right and I did one recently because that you know during COVID there were some things like hey just heads up like you might want to consider this but here's a guy. So Brian Bentley just text me and said "Hey Tom, I'm any advice for a Title Rep on how to grow their business during these times." Like That's the kind of text message I get. So like, I can answer this question for you right now live, but it probably wouldn't be appropriate for the, you know, for the listeners, but that kind of stuff all day long. In the beginning, I got a lot of these texts "is this really Tom?" And I would just go like, "Hey, Ella, it's really me" and I just shoot him a video. Like, "holy shit, okay, hey, I'm thinking about buying a brokerage right now. And this is what's going on.." like, and then they go into these, like, really deep questions like, I don't get light stuff. I mean, I do get the occasion like, how do I grow my business, which is kind of vanilla, right? But I do get things like, my wife's having an affair. And she's my number one agent on my team. What do I do? Like I get those kind of questions text to me.
Brian Charlesworth 32:40
And you respond?
Tom Ferry 32:42
1,000%.
Brian Charlesworth 32:45
Exactly. That's 1,000%. What impresses me so much.
Tom Ferry 32:48
Yeah, I mean, it's like Twitter. It's somewhat limited in terms of like texts. You can only go so far in terms of like, really communicate with people. Like I mean, really, really, but sometimes I just go like, "hey, if I called you right now will you answer". You know, because when you hear something like that, like that's… [Speaker] who's an amazing speaker back in the 90s she had this line "big stuff you're born, big stuff you die. Everything else in the middle is pretty small stuff. Right? And I know she was saying she's like, don't let everything be so massive for you all the time. Right? Like, have some emotional sense and emotional control. But when I get a text like that, like that's real. My spouse is having an affair. And she works on my team. What do I do? What do you text that person? Yeah. Hey, you should go see a counselor and have some therapy. I'm like, Yeah, tell me what's going on. Like, what? What happened? How are you the cause of this.. Never met that person. Yeah, like, you know, I just think like, I don't know that's a if you ever met my biological mom and I have quite a few moms and love them all. My biological mom worked for Walt Disney. She was a mouseketeer. You know, like, worked at Disneyland. My dad, by the way, also worked at Disneyland. He was like a Think like pushing a broom. My mom's like the one that implanted in my head a million years ago again, just do good by people just do good if you just do good by people like good things happen, right? She was very, like, you know, 60s, karma hippie, you know, just do good things. And that's why I give out myself on good things.
Brian Charlesworth 34:18
Yeah, it's great. So I think it's the coolest thing ever. I love it. So let's talk about the similarities between running your business, this huge coaching company and running a real estate business.
Tom Ferry 34:32
It's the same. It's so the same, it's nuts.
Brian Charlesworth 34:36
So are you telling us that if we all duplicated if everyone in real estate, not me, but if everyone in real estate duplicated what you're doing and apply that to real estate, they would be the number one agent in their market? Um, I could, I could argue emphatically with case studies and examples and names of people that have done exactly what you just said and that now they Maybe they don't put out four original pieces of content shows the way I do, but they do their house, the market show they do their behind the scenes show they they do their version, right? The same way. But let's talk about business ready? So number one thing in business is what is the total addressable market? Right? How many clients can I serve? Right? Then how ambitious Am I right? How many people do I want to serve? Then do I have the budget and the means and the team necessary to go do that? So I got to start building all that stuff in the beginning, sweat equity, right? And then ultimately, you you, you leverage yourself and you hire one. And people say, Well, I don't want to hire salespeople. They're horrible. And I'm like, Look, if you were to go hire five salespeople on your team, that were 50% as effective as you 50% times five is 250% greater output than you get on your own. Go do that. Right. That's why I've got 187 business coaches. That's why I have you know, so many speakers and trainers and internal teammates because I understand the power. That's the force multiplier, right? So does the same thing apply to a real estate agent 1,000% Yes, does it same thing apply to what is the highest and best use of your time, do that and only do that and then find really good talented people around you that are really good at doing everything else that needs to be done. Real estate is is a simple but extremely complex business right complex because there's a lot of moving parts there's the emotion the buyers emotion that sellers you got, you know that the mortgage side you have no control of the title side, you have no control, but it's relatively easy closing services through COVID in the middle of all of that right search to close there's 75 different pieces of software you could you should use and don't use right like it gets a little complex. And when I tell people is like I think about my client, Tim Smith, right and I say Timmy, what do you love to do more than anything else? He's like, I love going on listing presentations, like why goes I love going into people's houses and saying how can I market this? How could I sell this? What can I do? And he goes in the truth is I love getting into My clients because every human being you need has an extraordinary story in them. And he's like, half my listing presentation. If I don't already know that our past client or sphere, like even a referral, he says, it's just talking about you guys like, how did you get here? How did you get to the situation? What do you guys want to accomplish? Why do you want to go there? What about what have you considered? He's like, I love it. And Brian, like, That's his listing presentation. Oh, by the way, and I saw a lot of houses and I'm the number, you know, 10 team in the world, right? And number one in Orange County, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, but he doesn't have to say all that stuff. Right. So So when he said to me, 11 years ago, we started working together now think back to what year it was 11 years ago. 2009, my friends, You with me? The market and the high end was decimated, right. It was an reo, short sale environment. And 2008 actually when we started together, and you know, so, Hey, you got one assistant. Let's get a second assistant. Let's bring in a marketing coordinator. Let's outsource all of our stuff to the transaction coordinator at your company. They have it all paid the 250 350 bucks Don't do that. Now let's only have you focus on how do we get more listings. Then we started building repeatable and scalable listing attraction processes, processes for open houses process for geographic farm process for digital advertising process for videos, prospect for past past clients and sphere. That's all I've done in my business. It's the same that's that's what every business in my in my limited experience of business, that's what everybody should do. That makes sense. Absolutely. Same thing, find that attract talent and scale like crazy.
So everyone I know in real estate that is ultra successful as a coach.
Tom Ferry 38:42
Yeah. Or, or mentor or, you know, like a friend or someone that they turned to…
Brian Charlesworth 38:48
Could be a team leader. It could be something like that as well. So tell us why is that so important?
Tom Ferry 38:58
You know, to code for really does it again, you got to remember, like, there's different, there's different. There's a different life cycle and a different place for people. So if you're new, what does a coach do? Do you ever? Were you ever in the military? No. Okay, so so Me neither. And God bless everybody that was and thank you for your service in the military. Going back to my days with Mike fans who, you know, worked with Walt Disney created the Disney University, you know, launched Epcot, like just an extraordinary, like just such a blessing to be a protege of his. He said we would study the military and one of their patterns was the x y theory of management, right? x is basically tell people exactly what to do. Right? load your gun this way. Shoot it that way. Do x and you live right like that was that's basically how they did their training. And it while Disney, there was a similar path, like if you were just coming in, it was like, hey, you're in charge this roller coaster. Do it like this exactly. or someone's gonna get hurt. Right. So that's x. Why is I'm talking to someone like Tim Smith or Jill Biggs or you know, your wife, right as an excellent example. She's at a different level with that person, they need a different style of coaching. They need like, okay, so tell me like, you know, during COVID you had one of the most, you know, extraordinary runs April May and into June, what did you do better? What worked? What didn't let's analyze it. Let's look at the data. Let's look at the numbers. What do we see together? And then let's craft a message in a story and a strategy around that both of those are coaching. Yes, You with me? So so what I find because I get a lot of phone calls from people that that technically I don't coach, but they call me anyway. And I'm not gonna name names because they would all be nothing would be embarrassed but it was just you know, whatever. Like, it's just, I just do it because they they tax fair. You got two minutes. I'm like, sure. Half an hour and a half. Let's go. Because no one has it. There's never two minutes, right. I'm like, No, no, no. What, what's your issue? Well, I'm up to 175 salespeople on my team, but I'm really struggling the fact that my bottom 50 percent really never sell a house and they eat of all my resources, what do I do? Right now that person is actually looking for some x. Right? But you have to honor the fact that they are at why they are almost like maybe take take x y and then put Maslow's hierarchy, right over the top of it is a way to look at it right? The bottom is like, Oh my God, help me get a deal. Right. And the top is how do I become more self? actualized? How do I become more recognizable? I want to start a charity. I want to take my business from, you know, 200 deals to 2000 deals. How do I do that? You with me? So, you know, to me? Men, it's mentorship, and it's and then coaching is like the differences is the accountability side of it. Right? It's the it's the two brains being better than one. I mean, obviously, I'm a fan. And I've also I'm coached. Right? You know, Jay Abraham was was working me for the last year. Right? I mean, you know, here's one of the greatest marketing minds on the planet like the last time you stopped tracking he was at like, $22 billion. Direct Sales not real estate, like he was selling pens. He was selling stuff like this. He was selling gold and diamonds back in the day. Like, you know, Tony Robbins says he's the greatest marketer ever, right ever. So So what is it worth it to spend time with him to trade a few shekels for his 40 years of wisdom? That's just a no brainer to me. I don't even like reading books. I really don't. I write books. Right. But like, I listen to blink lists, because I want it in 15 minutes or less. Do you like blink list? You know what I'm talking about?
Brian Charlesworth 42:33
Yeah, I do.
Tom Ferry 42:34
Right? I'm just ripping through like two to three books. And then like, you know, like, like, I just did that one on Jay Z. And his story, then I'm like, Okay, well, I'm more interested now. Now I want to go deeper actually want to read the book. I want to go beyond that. But you get a taste of what's possible. And I'll give all these cool little nuggets. You're like, I want more.
Brian Charlesworth 42:48
I actually got introduced to that by listening to one of your podcasts.
Tom Ferry 42:52
There you go. There you go. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of like, get it as fast as you can. Because I think you Serve. If I had a superpower be I'm pretty good at synthesizing a lot of information and then simplifying it into sort of a cohesive, easy to use strategy. Like that's kind of the way my brain just seems to work. Maybe Tom Perry needs some add medication. I don't know.
Brian Charlesworth 43:30
You know, none of the things that I sent you that I wanted to talk about, we've even gotten into, but I really want to get your take on the real estate industry and where it's Yeah, it's kind of a selfish question being the CEO of Sisu. Yeah. Where's the real estate industry go? Where should we be focused? You know, you talked about if your ideal world Yeah, the bottom 80% of realtors would be gone.
Tom Ferry 43:51
They're never gonna go away. They're never I mean, nor would never have it, you know, State Associations needed. And I guess to a certain degree we needed from the standpoint of You know, the governing body that can go rally 1.4 million, you know, potential votes to sort of swear away though, that didn't really work out too well with us with assault tax just saying, you know, I have a lot of opinions about where it's going to go. And I'm actually working on my summit right now. And one of the things I'm looking at is trying to synthesize what I think are the sort of next five, six most important trends for you know, my friends and clients to be you know, sort of pushing their way towards the last time I did this was probably seven years ago. And what if I told you like, the number one trend was teams will totally take over real estate. Right? And then I talked about there's going to be you know, multiple different types of teams right and and now when I look today, because back then we kind of, there was no measurement of it, but we thought there's about 30,000 teams in the US and that's husband and wife father son to you know, this you know, Stark and all these monster you know, you know, multiple state and regional teams. So, I I think that was obvious. I think the future though coming up is a little less obvious and I think be the digital transformation of our home and work life because of COVID, and please understand when I say this, there are always blessings in tragedy, right? There's always a, a silver lining something that comes out of this and and I think for a lot of us, and again, like, you know, I have friends that got very ill and I know a lot of people that have suffered through this, so I'm not, I'm not like an asshole, like, be really clear. But in business, you know, think think about just workspace. Like, will we ever really go back to the office? My team has been super productive. Now a lot of them, it's driving them nuts because they missed the social aspect. Right? So what's going to happen to real estate like offices? Are we really going to need offices? like really? Right? Is someone ever going to really figure out searched Search to close on one, one piece of software. A lot of people are talking about it, a lot of people are pouring a ton of money into it. And VCs seem to be super enamored by it, they will put hundreds of millions of dollars towards that because it's such a massive, massive deal. But that that stuff's gonna sort itself out, right? We're gonna get there, right? Someone's gonna do that. I think the stuff that's far more interesting is you start looking now at the lead aggregators, right? And I use that tier, you know, you don't I'm talking about them. Yeah, Zillow, homelite, Trulia, realtor, etc. They've all figured out. Hmm, okay, we can only charge so much for a contact. Now let's all go to a transaction fee. You know that and before you get angry about this, as you hear this, you know, it's the same thing that loan depot is doing. It's the same thing that Quicken is doing. It's the realization my friends that there is an $86 billion GCI play at stake and the real estate industry out there. side of Realogy, REMAX Berkshire Hathaway Keller Williams, and a few up and comers and I'm not I'm not knocking eXp or compass or you know weichert, not like they're, you know, they're not at massive scale yet. Everybody's looking and saying this industry is still a cottage industry. It's still a cottage industry. It's still an industry with no standards, no guidelines, please don't kill anybody. Please don't you know, make any mistakes, don't sell the wrong address, like you know, all that stuff. That's just like common sense stuff. Right? I hope it's common sense. But I think that there is there is room for true disruption. Because whoever controls the consumer wins the game. Right? That's why you look at Zillow. You look at realtor you look at Trulia, you look at home light, you look at UpNas, you get all these companies. There's a reason why they're so well back financially. Yeah, so So the question is, what agent or brokerage is going to say, you know what, I'm going all in On this, because I think that's the massive play $86 billion in commissions. And oh, by the way, I'm talking to my friend Michael Polzer yesterday who has 27,000 agents in Europe. There's 700 million people in Europe, Brian. We only have like 330 or 340 million in the US like That's nothing. Yeah, right. There's 700 million people there, right? There's there's probably $200 billion. In commissionable income. You don't think somebody really smart is going to go after that? So I'm not I'm not totally answering the questions. I'm gonna save it for my summit. But I'll tell you, I am. I'm super bullish on real estate agents. I'm super bullish on brokerage, but I'm mostly bullish on how we're going to transform the transaction and the experience for the client, because that's where the action is, right? The play is, I open up an escrow or I start a pending sale. And it's no different from looking at my phone and seeing that my Uber driver is going to be here in 14 minutes. Like we're gonna get to that right. So was just a few of my thoughts.
Brian Charlesworth 49:01
Yeah, it's great, great feedback. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna text you tomorrow and say, Tom, you got a minute.
Tom Ferry 49:09
You have my cell phone, you can text me.
Brian Charlesworth 49:12
I know, we're out of time. Is there anything you want to share about the summit before we end?
Tom Ferry 49:17
Sure, if you're listening, first of all, thank you. And I don't know if this was a normal podcast, but you know, Brian, like you and I've gotten to know each other. So, you know, I feel very comfortable just just hanging in and having a conversation with you. So what I would say to people out there is, you know, I'm bummed because, you know, I launched this events, it'll be this is my 17th year of doing it. And every year, we get more and more people, and it's a place where all my friends get together and they hang out and, and we bring in World Class speakers, and it's like, it's an amazing experience. And now the whole thing is digital. So what I'm really excited about is I'm gonna make it the most extraordinary digital experience on the planet. And I also recognize that my clients right now like your clients, Are busier than they've ever been, like real estate is the tale of the two right now. You're either super busy and your only issue is oh my god fairy, how do I get more time because I'm getting that one nonstop. I'm so busy. I've got multiple offers, I'm launching listings, I'm doing inspections. Like I have an assistant, I need seven. And then you have people that that couldn't sell a house if it landed on him right now like that's, that's the like the the degree of separation, if you will, between the haves and the have nots in in our industry. So I'm mindful of who my client is. And I'm like, Look, this is everything we're going to cover minute by minute what's going to happen, be in it for as long as you can and get what you need. You already mean? Two and a half days. How about this, Brian? I'm asked 15 of the most remarkable agents on the planet, you know, 2 million to call it $14 million a year in revenue breakdown for me in 10 minutes or less. One part of your business, how you do it, why you do it, how it works, what you say what frequency, what do you send, what service providers. That the level of detail in call it 150 minutes from 15 different agents, one could argue it would be worth eight to $10 million in commission income. Like pretty easily right? I mean, I believe as you believe that success leaves clues. And the last thing you want to do is reinvent the obvious, right? I want to R&D the obvious I don't want to reinvent it. R&D is like rip off and duplicate. So just like just that little section of the summit I'm super pumped about and you'll be the first to hear it. Gary Vee just signed on and and he's gonna be a guest speaker, Joseph McClendon III, who is Tony Robbin's right hand, right, the longtime buddy of mine lives down the street. Right, Joseph is going to be there and I can't tell you the thoroughness. We haven't signed the agreement yet. But you know, my promise for people is, you know, if you truly want to have an exceptional business, if you want to stand out if you want to become the agent in your town, whether that is a town of 10 or a 10 of you know, 10 million. Like that's what the summit is all about this year. How do you scale trust and make sure that you're on the consideration set have a largest number of consumers in your area that don't know you and of course the ones that do. That's what it's about.
Brian Charlesworth 52:07
So everybody listening to this, I'm sure you're gonna end up going to the summit in your living room this year. Yeah. Are on your phone ever have Yeah. Yeah. So Tom, thank you so much. I know we're out of time. It's been amazing. Everyone knows how to reach you his cell phone. It's just on Twitter. Go find it. Yeah. And, Tom, thanks again. Look forward to catching up again soon.
Tom Ferry 52:28
Yeah, man. And I'll just say listen, Brian, thank you. It's been really cool getting to know you and and you know, learning more about your story in your life. So thank you for allowing me to just to chill and be me. And and thank you for creating Sisu you know, so many of my clients are using this now and our coaches get a get a really help make quantitative decisions, a little less, how do you feel and a lot more, let's look at the numbers. And that, my friend is a blessing. So thank you.
Brian Charlesworth 52:56
Yeah, thank you glad we can make a difference. Thanks, Tom.
Tom Ferry 52:59
All right, guys. See you soon
