SHOW NOTES
A nationally-recognized expert in local real estate, Kenny Klaus has dedicated himself to serving the East Valley community since 1999. He also specializes in HUD homes, Short Sales/REOs, as well as New Build and Traditional transactions. Kenny is a Certified Residential Specialist, a Certified Distressed Property Specialist, and an Accredited Buyer Representative
Known as “The FedEx Guy” for 13 years, his understanding of the efficiency of having your own route made him a firm advocate of Geographic Farming. Currently, he serves as the Lead Listing Specialist to the Kenny Klaus Team and provides its strategic direction at the same time.
Join us as Kenny shares why he is a firm believer of going small to go big and what his thoughts are on having what it takes to build a successful team.
In this episode, we talk about...
(05:11) How big should the area be for geographic farming?
(08:23) What software does Kenny recommend for farming?
(10:06) What are the most important activities to make sure you have marketing success?
(20:14) The one thing Kenny loves about Farming
(22:09) What’s the most important thing in building a successful team
(28:07) Kenny’s resources for growth
(35:02) Why being “well-rounded” is a must to achieve success in this business.
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
All right, here we are back at the GRIT podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Brian Charlesworth, the founder of Sisu and your host of the show, and today we are here with Kenny Klaus who is one of the top teams over at KW. Kenny is on Gary Keller's Mastermind. He's a branch manager and a team leader in Mesa, Arizona and Kenny I still have not figured out how so much business gets done in Arizona. I mean, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of teams down there that do, you know, several hundred transactions a year. So it's just, it's an amazing market down there. I see here that you've specialized as well, and Hud and short sells. So I don't know if that's something you're still doing. But if it is, I want to dig into that. And then you're also a speaker of a lot of kW events. Anything else you want to add to your background?
Kenny Klaus 1:28
No, I mean, I think my story was kind I was the FedEx guy for 13 years. And so you know, kind of learning that model and the efficiencies of kind of having your own route. You know, you went from either a swing driver or you were a you got your own route. I mean, a swing drivers, vacation, sick days, things like that, or, you know, once you got your own route, what I really saw was the efficiencies in the difference when you had your own route versus when you were a swing driver. It was like starting over every day, but when you had your own route, so you know, Gary, I didn't Give me in 2010 up on stage and I'd say well I just kind of run my realtor route which you know, for me was just hitting the businesses, the houses and, and in 2001 started geographic farming in a neighborhood with that idea of I just want to be like, I want that to be my route, I want to know everything about it, I want people to know me. And then if I can make it work for 10 years, then I've probably got a some business in that area. And I'm not running all over town in the valley is very spread out. So your, your The idea was, you know, how can I just do more business in this area, instead of being scattered all over. And I quickly found, you know, doing cmas, your commute, all those things, you just got so much more efficiency by going small to go big. In the benefit, you know, farming, you're doing a lot of the same activities you do regularly, you're just focusing them on an area so you know, you're still hunting while you're farming to build that foundation. So that's been kind of one of my Big things that we've taught on you know, we have a little certification course around it to teach other agents just because it's been a game changer for me and provided such consistency in a in a really inconsistent business, if you will for a lot of agents.
Brian Charlesworth 3:16
Yeah. So if you teach on that, are you teaching on farming? Are you teaching a bigger strategy than farming which is more around this route?
Kenny Klaus 3:25
It both there and it's all integrated together because you're teaching first of all the concept and understanding why it's so important what it does for you to create this predictable, repeatable business. Like if I know, January 1 of 2021, I'm gonna have 250 to 300 listing appointments next year in a geographic area, you can start to build around that foundationally and invest and do things in your business. So it's a combination and then you know me I'm still doing it so I we teach all the practical stuff, what are the activities that we are doing in the farm to create the religion In the connection with the community, so very specific. And then we've created a group around that where we're gonna try to get everyone to share too because there's so many great ideas agents are doing throughout the country that you know, we can spend and figure out how to do it here or vice versa, they can take it and learn there. But it's really like I said, it's really been a great way for me to do business in Omaha I and my disc profiles are very relational. And the idea of, you get to know all the models you get to know of the neighborhoods, the schools, the sports, the shops, just your confidence level as an agent goes up when they open that front door. If you've never been in that house or that model, when you know so much about the area. You know, NAR says 93% of consumers polled, you know want to local market expert and 77 one a local area expert, and I'm going well if three out of four want those two things, and that's what I should give them That kind of division between behind farming
Brian Charlesworth 5:02
Yeah, makes total sense. So I want to dig a little deeper into that since you brought up farming. I was even planning on going there, but I'm glad I'm glad you're going there. So how big should an area be?
Kenny Klaus 5:13
You know, that's a that's it's always those questions right? And I always tell people like you have to start with you know, what can you budget monthly and then kind of work backwards out of that because to me, it's not something you can do for three months or six months, you've got to have at least a 12 month commitment to really see that return. Now, depending on the amount of activities that you're doing in a farm, you could obviously you know, make that a lot faster if your door knocking and doing open houses you know, meeting more people, but I always say give it 12 months so if you got 1000 bucks, you can set aside a month. Well then you got to work from there. So you can go on, you know USPS you know, the United States Postal service.com backslash eddm which is Every Door Direct or mailing and then you can pick areas and you can See how many homes are there? What the postage will cost? And then you add a little bit, you know, double that plus a little. And that'll give you an idea of what it'll cost per per house to, to print and mail to. So you can go well, you know, I can start with 450 homes, for example, but I'm going to do it for the next 12 months. And then beyond that, of course, you want to look at turnover rates, you know, is there 567 percent turnover in a neighborhood meeting? Are homes actually selling are people moving?
Brian Charlesworth 6:30
Where are you going to get turnover rates?
Kenny Klaus 6:33
Just MLS so you just you just drive around it and you can just kind of find out, hey, there's thousand homes in here and there was, you know, 200 sales last year, okay, this is a good turnover rate. But, you know, if you're in a neighborhood where people aren't moving and it's, you know, you only got 15 homes that sell a year in there, depending on the price point, right. And if they're million dollars, that's a different conversation. But and then you look at you know, is there a dominant agent? Is there an agent has, you know, maybe 1015 20% market share, which I know doesn't sound like a lot, but in a given area, people feel like that's the only signs they see is that that agent? Yeah, I'm certainly not saying to not compete. But I wouldn't necessarily start there. I would probably start maybe near there and grow towards it. And I think you got to really love your farm. I mean, I still live in the farm that I started, you know, in 2000. And I just felt like I want to build a business here. You know, my kids were young at the time starting Elementary in high school. Of course, now my last one just graduated, but the idea was like, I want to make this a business. Not you know, a lot of agents like my financial planners, like you're like the only agent I have that actually has a sellable real estate business, not just a database, like you actually have a brand in a repeatable business that doesn't isn't dependent on you anymore in a geographic area. And that was one of the things I just didn't want to spend 20 30 years doing this and then walk away with with nothing and try to, you know, sell or give away a database. It was really to build a business within a community and be the go to, you know, when people think real estate, you know, we know how many they're interviewing these days and it's, you know, one or two, maybe we're starting to see a few more here and there, depending on the platform, but we want to be top of mind.
Brian Charlesworth 8:22
Yeah. So I know there are some software companies out there geared around farming, but it sounds like you went to USPS. And tell us that address again. USPS.
Kenny Klaus 8:34
Yeah, so usps.com/eddm - Every Door Direct Mail. Okay, just um, you know, we just make our own newsletter every month. And I'm not saying that's for every agent, but but we make a custom eight page booklet basically. But I'm not saying that's where everybody's budget can start. I mean, honestly, if you got to start with, you know, a colored piece of paper and you know, print black and white on it, and get it delivered. I mean, just do something consistently. And that's the word you know, right. consistent. I mean, that's, you could say that about everything in life, you know, the, you eat right? consistently, you have these results, if you work out consistently, if you call your database, if you mail to people and you bring value consistently over time, people end up trying you, you know, you just get connected and then you do a good job for them. And, you know, they hope they tell the neighbors and start doing reviews, you know, people are looking at reviews. And you know, if you've got 50 reviews in your business, you know, let's just say Brian, you sold 50 homes last year, two were in this neighborhood, one over here, there's maybe three over here over here. You don't have dominance anywhere, but if you pull up like my zip codes on Zillow, like we dominate the zip codes with reviews, and we know people are looking at that even though they may see our newsletter and think we're good. They still go online just to kind of see what consumers say to a degree Right, not all of them, but I mean a percentage.
Brian Charlesworth 10:02
Yeah. So back to farming for a minute. And then we'll jump out of farming what what are the most important activities that you do in farming? Kenny, because I've seen a lot of people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they've done it for a year with maybe one or two conversions. And we're like, I'm, I'm out of here. I'm done with this. So what are the activities that you need to do to make sure that you're having success as you're spending that marketing dollar?
Kenny Klaus 10:27
You know, it's like, it's a contact sport, right? So you have to go out and contact, you can't just mail just a newsletter, and hope for the response. I'm not saying that doesn't work as it can for some, depending on what you're doing. But for us, you know, it's running the route. So I've got 40-43 businesses that right now it's been different because of COVID that we have to run the route every month and take our extra newsletters and put them in their businesses. So that creates contact with the business owners, where you're walking in or bringing value to you. We hosted local neighborhood network meeting every month. So it gives me content to go to business owners and like Wells Fargo is one of the banks in our neighborhood. You know, they give our little flyer to all their new business customers, right because they want to add value to their business customers. So they there's this little local, you know, business and our goal is to keep dollars in the community to do some business videos, right. So you showcase the business in the community, which depends on many views and what you get you get this relationship with this business owner that you've given to receive and what I've realized is most of these business owners, everybody they're talking to her all the people that I'm trying to talk to and see if I can build goodwill with them. You know, then of course you've got you know, your open houses and then we door knock the open houses. We have our charity, we have like a brown paper bag as our charity real big on it. And we put a nice flyer on it. When we go door knock 100 homes are more around the open house, which is a you know, the Johnsons asked us to sell their home. We're going to be there Saturday 11 to three. We're also doing a food drive for the local shelter, you know, would love if you have time to fill this bag up and drop it off at my open house. And the idea for that was, you know, when you're staying at the door if they do answer and that it's not awkward, you're bringing value. And then more importantly is because for me, I always have to bring value like I go is this junk, you know what makes them want to interact? But then what you're getting is in our open houses in our farms, we're actually getting seller leads because sellers are bringing the bags down or coming and seeing it which is really the seeds that I'm planting is that we're out doing something we're taking action. We're goodwill to the community. We're not just taking from the community in any of all your social media stuff Of course, you know, your Facebook pages and, and all of that. But I do a lot of donations within schools. We've done water bottles, the terrible towel idea the jag rags like is our jaguars, the team gave those to the band they sold them. So, but all this is over time, right and we have our, you know, our moving truck, you know, being the FedEx guy had to have a big billboard running around the neighborhood because we've got three wrapped vehicles, the little ad dividers at the grocery store. So the idea is all of our marketing is really spent on the foundation. And once we got the foundation built, then it started really spread out throughout the valley, because people move out of the area, but now we've already met them and they know what we do and so it's just been a you know, nice nice process and and don't you said earlier, the amount of competition in Arizona is unbelievable. There's so many agents and then everybody comes out to Arizona to try out all their tech toys so you know your eye buyers and all your discount brokerage stuff and all these and we get hit with every one of them. It's like they come tested here first because you know the amount of track communities we have It's there's not a lot of, you know, like, subdivisions will be you'll have 800 homes 1700 homes, and we have one that's they're building out 15,000 homes in one subdivision. And so you've got, you know, track and they're very much more predictable property. So they're easier for a lot of these tech companies to value if you will.
Brian Charlesworth 14:22
Yeah. So tell us about your team and you think, did you have 25 or 26 people on your team? Tell us about your team and what your role is, are you still active in the business as far as working in the business? Are you only working on the business, those types of things,
Kenny Klaus 14:40
so a little bit of both, like I can't never not kind of be involved because it's just, I love it still. But we've got, you know, my Scott who really basically runs the team at this point, and then we have one VA that kind of helps on the listing side and listing manager to transaction coordinator As a full time runner, and then a director of sales, and everybody else is, you know, agents at that point. And so I'm involved with a degree, actually waiting on confirmation of a closing right now. For me, it'll be my biggest one ever. And they were at two and a half million. So I'm hoping to be able to tell him, he can get the keys and go here in a few minutes
Brian Charlesworth 15:24
Congrats
Kenny Klaus 15:26
yeah, thank you and I and I do and that was a buyer side, but I am. I've got like four flips on right now. I love the flip side of the business. And I started a construction company two, so we're licensed contractor, so we can do all like the home inspection, repairs, labs, remodels, you know, all that to try to keep the client like in our ecosystem, if you will, on all these different services and touch points.
Brian Charlesworth 15:51
That's great. Now, are you more of a listing specialist? Or are you just when you do when you're out selling, you're doing whatever
Kenny Klaus 16:01
So for me personally, I mean, I, for the last all these last years, up until the last four or five years, I did all the listings, you know, gave away buyers pretty early on just that's how you build the team, right? Yep, more leads than you can handle. And so you hire agents to help with that side. So, but I don't do much of that anymore. I I've got maybe one or two listings under me right now, but everything else goes to the team. And those are just usually personal deals or friends or that kind of thing.
Brian Charlesworth 16:37
Okay. I'm getting a little backup noise. I don't know if that's you or me. So, let's talk a minute about Zillow premier agent because seems like that's something that not all but most of the big teams are a part of, I believe you're a part of that. Are you? Are you a Zillow premier agent team?
Kenny Klaus 16:53
Yeah, we spend the bare minimum to have the premier status. You know, we tried flex out for a little bit. And it just didn't, didn't work out for us. And we're still toying with it, but we don't spend any money. Let's put it that way on Zillow.
Brian Charlesworth 17:13
So to be a premier agent, what does that mean? And when you say you spend the bare minimum for the I think,
Kenny Klaus 17:19
Honestly, I couldn't even tell you, I think it's maybe 100 or 200 bucks a month to like, keep your premiere status. You know, once you've earned it, I don't even know what it was to earn it, because we've done different things with them over the years, but it just helps our listings show up a little bit more and that kind of thing. But I'm saying it's like 100 200 bucks. I couldn't be wrong on that. But it's not it's not much. It's not like we're spending, you know
Brian Charlesworth 17:42
You're not buying you're not buying 10s of thousands of dollars of Zillow leads every month.
Kenny Klaus 17:47
No, we used to do all that like a lot of people and we realized as long as we have enough listings, we're still getting the leads. Now I'm sure that'll change at some point. But we get enough organic off of it compared to the paid it just wasn't, it wasn't worth it. Okay. In my now other markets I hear it's great. People do well just here. We just haven't, you know, they rotate it through and they sell so much in this zip code now. It's pretty crazy.
Brian Charlesworth 18:16
Okay, so I know you were doing REOs and stuff like that. Are you still doing that today? Or? I mean, it seems like now might be the time to start prepping for what came in 2008. And so like, if you were an expert, then are you preparing to be that expert now? Or what's what's happening with that?
Kenny Klaus 18:36
Yeah, I kind of it's one thing I kind of missed was the early steps of the reo side, and then really even short sale like because farming you get, yeah, this audience of trusted people. And so we're like, I don't know it's, you owe more than what the house is worth. Like. You have to write a check. We didn't really know. And then when CDP came along, certified distressed property experts That designation, it really changed it. And then we became over time, like, big short sale, and we did a lot of them. And then reo. I kinda was behind the curve on that. But I did get in sometime in 2010, the HUD account for Phoenix, one of the one of about nine or 10 agents throughout the valley. And that produced a lot. I mean, I would get 3040 a month sometimes assignments. And I keep in mind at one point that our average sales price was like 89,001 of the months like it was absolutely scary to even think about that. It was awful in the requirements to you and the speed to do all this. And then to get agents don't want to go show one of these properties. It was a lot. But, you know, overall, we met a lot of people through it. I was looking at the big picture. And yeah, you know, we're, I'm active on a few of those sites, but it could come You know, in forbearance and some of the things we're hearing. I just, we're so far under inventory right now. That Even if it does, though, why people wouldn't just try to sell or it'll get. I don't expect us to see a lot of bank owned properties here in the next couple years. But again, who knows, right? I don't know that for sure. But yeah, it's part of it. And the thing with farming is, the one thing I've loved about farming is that whatever happens in your market, you have a shot at and can adapt to with the exception of RTL, because that was a sign, but like short sale, we just started holding classes in the community, you know, avoid foreclosure, no, your option, we had an attorney, a CPA and myself, I didn't know if people would come or not. And I was amazed how many people would come out on an evening to kind of hear from a trusted advisor, the truth about the tax side and all these things. And then we adapted shortly after that to road back home, which is a program we put together of how to get on the road back home. And then now we do a homeowner workshops, investor workshops, because the thing is, I send about 21,000 newsletters a month. So you start to build over time you build this audience, and so the audience is listening, and you just have to keep adapting to the market. And then and then giving them that you know, the correct information because they want to hear the truth because the internet's scary. You don't know what's for real or what's not on a lot of this stuff.
Brian Charlesworth 21:17
So if there ends up being a ton of people who haven't been making their house payments due to not being able to get paid due to COVID, you guys could easily rapidly adapt and start rolling out this new short sell program, showing them how to get rid of their home without losing it.
Kenny Klaus 21:35
Yeah, and that's the benefit of having an audience already is you're just changing the newsletter doesn't change every month, meaning the consistency and the format, just the messages and it changes over time with with the market. Then we had to know the eye buyer market was massive here for a while. And so we had to change to that and hit that head on and explain what that was losing so many people going direct To those guys, you know, we had to get in between that and helps to guide the client through all their different options.
Brian Charlesworth 22:06
Yeah. Okay. Great. What's been the most important thing you've done to build a successful team? I mean, I'd love our listeners who, who are all out there, you know, building teams and brokerages. What's been like the biggest thing other than farming, I mean, you've told us a lot about farming. But is there something else that you want to really share that has made a big difference for you guys.
Kenny Klaus 22:41
But one of the things that you tend to see and this is you see it with contractors too. And in agents, they're really good at their craft. They're good salespeople, but when it comes to being a business owner, they're kind of lost sometimes because you have to have so many pieces to be a quality business owner and all of a sudden it takes your time away from what got you there, which was Production and making the money you're counting on other people you're having to truly succeed through other people. And in all fairness, not a selling point or anything, but in 2010 you know, I moved my business I was with the balloon before I moved over to Keller Williams and it took me a long time to make that decision. But what I really needed was truthfully models and systems and edge more education about how to become really a better a better business owner. So hiring processes, you know, systems around onboarding people, you know, before if I, man you met and it sounded good, so I get to join my team and then you'd show up and I'd be like, Alright, let's go figure it out. That's what I did. And and you realize that's not scalable, it's not value. And then you know, we just kept I kept adding pieces to it over time. But I think systems and models that are duplicatable and repeatable are key to you know, growing a large business, which is why franchises work. They got a good model, they teach other people how to follow the model, and they can get similar results. And so, you know, for us, it was a lot of accountability. You know, having a director of sales is by two and a half years now we've had that, that was a game changer for me to kind of get some of my time back and give that dedication to the sales team. But really, you know, sitting down with them and figuring out what what their goals are for the year and then working backwards, we call it a GPS. So your goal priority and strategies, it's a one page business plan, and then following that up with the weekly 411, which is your four weeks, one month, one year and going okay, are you on track? And you know, it's a it's mathematics at that point, right? You put in a spreadsheet, it's like, okay, here's how many you want to do. 100,000 in GCI, average sales price, average fall out rate, how many listings how many buyer sides and you just back it down, and you go, Okay, here's how many people you need to contact per week. You want to hit that goal. And if you don't do that, then don't expect to necessarily hit your goal. And so it becomes a kind of a come to Jesus thing versus a. Let's hope this works out which I, I did that model for a long time. And that didn't work either
Brian Charlesworth 25:16
So I think you bring up a great point, and it's really close to home for me, since that's what Sisu it's a big part of what Sisu does, right? I mean, you see the dashboards behind me here, knowing every number of every person and yeah, I think it's a matter of leading through really knowing numbers and having having business one on ones with your team members versus having emotional conversations with your team members. Because if you're not talking numbers in business and where they need to be and how to help them meet their goals, which is, which is that culture of accountability, then, having spent time with a lot of agents, I know that if you're not talking about those things, you're usually talking about their personal life. Which there's no productivity and talking about their personal life.
Kenny Klaus 26:04
Right. I think, you know, John Maxwell said, you know, you can't take someone somewhere you've never been. And so for me, it's really been the personal growth journey. I read a lot, a lot of podcasts and really, in, in 2005, I kind of started down that road and got real serious with that just because, you know, I knew my world couldn't grow you know, without me growing, right? So I had to become a better leader. I had to be willing to, you know, be humble and Yep, yep, I screwed that up and own it and then work to make the change. I didn't keep repeating it. But for me, a lot of people you think about whether it's high school or college that's like their last formal education and they just kind of go wing it through life and and hope it works out. Which if you're just responsible for you, that's one thing but when you're trying to help other people succeed and achieve their goals, which is, you know, Zig Ziglar thing right? help enough other people get what they want, and you'll get what you want. And that is not just a quote. I mean, it's it's reality, if you truly pour into people and help them become, you know better, we kind of look at our team, like, there's the Navy out there, right? That's all the agents and then we just want to, we want to get in business with the seals like the navy seal. So how do we put a process in place to try to get with the best? And, you know, we don't always I mean, a lot of times we're hiring new to, but with the right mindset to, to grow and learn so, so anyway, we're, we're, it's a lot of growth. I mean, it's been a lot of changes in the last, you know, 10 years from when I came over to kw, but it's been completely different. And the model works because I use it. I own three restaurants here locally, I have a construction business, we use the same model across the board, as far as how to scale things and how to how to create models and systems so that you can plug people into those models and systems and get consistent results.
Brian Charlesworth 28:00
So I know you're a part of Gary's mastermind. And I know you're, you're a big reader and you listen to a lot of podcasts. Are there any other sources that you go to for for your growth? Like, do you do you pay anybody a coach or anybody like that to? to coach you above and beyond what you're gaining? Over there?
Kenny Klaus 28:21
Yeah, I have a coach that had for years. We had our call yesterday, you know, he's not a yes person. He doesn't always tell me what I want to hear. But he tells me the truth and but you know, when you get to the when you're the leader, sometimes you don't have anybody challenging you or holding you accountable. So having a coach who, you know, I have to send my p&l to him that holds me accountable. You know, I review all my different decisions with him now I don't make decisions typically without him and Scott and I have one other mentor that I go to for for advice. But yeah, I mean, having a coach has been been a huge plus, you know, you always hear about it, but actually diving in and allowing them you know, being coachable is important because it it, like I said, Sometimes there's things I didn't see it that way. Or, you know, and he's teaching a lot of the other top agents and so he sees other things and really moves things much faster, I think for me and helps me avoid some, some dumb stuff that I probably would have done without having that guidance. And you mentioned it early in the emotions, right? And we tend to make emotional decisions. And I've really learned the communication, how to communicate better with people and get my you know what I was calling my RPMs back down. So when your gauges like your car, right, well, it's like winding out you got to let your foot off the gas sometimes and sounds so easy, but when you're in the heat of it, and so learning to be a better communicator, a better listener, you know, ask more questions and sales that's a challenge for a lot of us is to shut up and not just, you know, ask better questions because we know the answers. Typically, we just don't know the questions that are important to that person. And so you're just continue to try to adapt my skill set for my team for my family for my clients, you know, for everyone, I'm around. And it's been, you know, really big for me. And it's been fun to kind of see the kids adapt some of this stuff now and my man, you guys can learn some of this sooner, save you a lot. I know you can't, because that's just part of the growing up process. You still got to try to try things even though you know, but it's been fun. It's been a fun journey, because at the end of the day, as long as I keep getting better every day, a little bit, then my world keeps growing to creating more opportunities.
Brian Charlesworth 30:38
Awesome. Okay, Kenny. Just we just have a few minutes left. So I just want to share some of the questions that I typically asked which just some quick, quick answers for you here. But what's your favorite book or your favorite source of learning may not be a book, maybe a certain podcast or something like that?
Kenny Klaus 30:56
I mean, I'm a big Brian Buffini guy. So I listen to his podcast. I've been going to his masterminds, me and my wife for years now, he's all about personal growth and and high touch with referrals. And his podcast is just so real to me, it comes out every Tuesday. And I really enjoy that in our book club in our team, and we went back and read. We're finishing it next Wednesday is the finale of that one. And that was how to win friends and influence people. And I can't say enough about how relevant that's been right now, especially with all the emotions with COVID. And we've been breaking heatwave records out here and just everybody's emotions are at an all time high and learning how to take interest in other people. But I've got just a library of books. I have a little Facebook page called positive hub that I post something positive every day, because you may find what you're looking for. So I'm always looking for what's positive and, and trying to share it with other people so that you know, hopefully they can share it. And it's a lot of just quotes, things. I see You know, being out there, but try to share it all in one place so that, you know, people can work on that because you want to surround yourself by people who are growing too and looking, looking to get better. Positive hub, is that just positive
Brian Charlesworth 32:14
Is it positivehub.com?
Kenny Klaus 32:16
Just positive hub on Facebook, I was on Facebook, just sent me my daughter started several years ago, just as an introduction of how to, you know, start looking for the positive stuff because it's easy to find the negative stuff. That's everywhere. In India, you throw the election year on top of this, and you're like, Oh, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's crazy out there. You know, but I think you know, for me right now, mindset is, is probably the number one thing that you have to really, you know, get straight, sometimes multiple times throughout the day to get back on track, you know, but you can only focus on what you can control and if you can't control certain elements of the market, interest rates, stock market, whatever it is, then you can only dedicate so much time to it. But if you could control how many more clients you call today, how many more handwritten notes you did? How many you know how prepared you are for an open house? The results follow that, you know, and for a lot of people right now, this election is like overwhelming and I'm going, you know, hey, Brian, do you know who you're gonna vote for already? The answer is yes. Then let's just turn it all off because you don't need it. Because you already know there's no reason to keep, you know, taking all that negativity, if you will, in and that might even been some I heard what Tom mentioned, or something one time was about the election, because it's so funny to me that people get so hung up and I just don't pay attention to it. Like if you know, where you want to vote, then just get back to your life because it's your life, if so many people counting on you. Yeah, just simplifying a little bit.
Brian Charlesworth 33:48
Yeah. great advice. What's your favorite place to visit?
Kenny Klaus 33:52
So we've got Vacation Rentals down in Puerto penasco Rocky Point, Mexico. So from Arizona, it's about a four hour drive. So that's one of our favorites because we can just hop in the car like I could leave right now and be there for happy hour, it's fantastic. And then we've got a place up in the mountains, our cabin we bought about 16 years ago our family were me and my wife bought it for our family and we've been going up there like every weekend just to get out of this heat and we like the outdoors we ride razors, like you know, the off road vehicles and I'd say between those two places, and then just randomness a couple weeks ago, we just got in a car and drove up to Durango Colorado and spent a week up there you know, it booked two nights before we left and just kind of winged it from there we like adventure and, and, you know, essentially we get caught in the same routine sometimes which consistency is good. But the other side as soon as you got to try new stuff, you know whether it's take a different way home from work or you just see the world sometimes they're a little bit different lens and and it kind of opens up your mind to other ways of doing things and so we try to keep fresh with that. Love it. What's like the most important piece of advice you would give? And you've given a lot of great advice today? Maybe if there's something else you want to share, Kenny, you could do that. Just a finishing note here. You know, for me, I've been through so many cycles now a year and when I first started building the business, you're having success. And what happens is your whole world becomes just business. And, you know, I've had four kids, we have five grandkids now like, and I miss some things along that journey, because I was so one sided and not on purpose necessarily, but when you're growing a business, you know, it's exciting, but all your eggs are in that kind of in that basket and Buffini really talks about the five circles are kind of, you know, spiritual, physical. So are you working on your, you know, getting to the gym or doing some push ups and then you know, your your, how are you eating? Are you taking care of that, and he kind of does like gears if you will. So if you think about one gear is kind of gunked up, it throws the whole thing off. So you got to put a little bit each and so You know, we try to be very on purpose, you know, with, like tonight we're gonna play disc golf with some buddies and then last Tuesday nights date night, we try to be very on purpose with balancing, you know, talking about our finances so we make sure that bucket is full and having attention. And that way, if your business is challenged right now, your whole world doesn't fall apart because you've got other things you're you're putting your time in. And then, but you know, if your business is is on fire, and you're only focusing on that items in your relationship with your spouse, or your family is challenged, so you've got to be time blocked to put all those pieces of the puzzle together, so that the whole thing is just spinning like it's supposed to be. And that's something I wished I would have learned sooner is how to be a little more well rounded and in play, go out and, you know, step out of the business sometimes and look at what you've done and kind of enjoy it instead of just, it's always more like real estate. There's never there's never a day That I there wasn't more I could do at the office one more this one more that. You just have to know it's going to be there tomorrow. And when you build a business the right way relationally for me farming, where I have a business with within a neighborhood, the business, keep doing the right thing comes it just you have to your faith has to be stronger than your fear. And I think by by putting a balance in those five buckets, it gives you that a little more balance, if you will in life. So if you're having a bad situation, but your family strong or your finances are okay, and you're eating Okay, and you're going to the gym, or working out or walking, whatever it is that the whole thing doesn't crash down because you've neglected everything else, and then your business takes a hit and the wheels come off. But if you have more of that balance, for me, there's an ebb and flow to it that that keeps me and don't get me wrong. I get plenty of challenging days. There's days where I'm like, the hell was I thinking I should just keep delivering packages. And I could go home at five o'clock. But you'll have big picture. And, you know, it's just, it's taking ownership of your actions. I always used the word choices, right? life's all about choices. And kind of my quote is, you make enough right choices, you earn the right for more choices, you make enough wrong choices, you run out of choices. So if you're, you're choosing the right things. Over time, it keeps opening more doors, you're making bad choices, they tend to close and all of a sudden, you're now working for this person or you're you've run out of options because you're not making right choices, whether it's physically, mentally, spiritually, financially or business. So to me that the choices word is real powerful. I have it on my near, you know, in my in my bathroom, because it's all about choice.
Brian Charlesworth 38:48
Yeah, well said great advice. Kenny, how do people best get ahold of you if they want to reach out to you just to hear more about some of these things you're doing
Kenny Klaus 38:59
Well for like agent to agent referral stuff we try to make it really easy. It's just referarizona.com and referral forms already loaded. If you know one of our agents specific you can pick them. But for agent agent refer Arizona is the best. And for me personally, you know, obviously people hit me through Facebook or just my first name is Kenny and then @Klausteam is my email.
Brian Charlesworth 39:26
Okay, great. Well Kenny, thanks for joining today. It's been great getting to learn more about your business especially about farming and thank you for sharing the your advice on just balance and really filling up those all five circles are all five buckets of our lives. So great getting to know you, Kenny. And feel free to reach out anytime I look forward to getting to know you more in the coming years.
Kenny Klaus 39:51
Yeah, and if anybody has questions on like farming, one of the things I kind of ask because I get kind of bombed sometimes with it. I kind of always want to get back to people. We do have a program called CLME, which is certified local market expert.com. So CLME.com those four letters, and that's the class that we built around what we're doing. And people can sign up for it and all the everything that I would talk to him about, and then some is all packaged right in there with samples, samples of the newsletter, how we run the route, and pretty much everything@clme.com we try to keep it very real because we're actually doing it today. It's not like something we're just trying to sell a system. The challenge for me was as you get off stage in front of 15,000 people and Gary interview and then everybody's calling your office and Facebook and I don't want to ever be that guy like it's too big for your own good. So we just kind of built a program so people, they go through that and answers most of their questions and gets them out of the gate with it and then then we're happy to talk to people because they've eliminates a lot of those simple questions that they just didn't put the effort in. And I believe you know, you got to invest in yourself. If you want results, you can't just keep trying all these different things without really committing to it, if you will.
Brian Charlesworth 41:14
Okay, so on that note, everyone go to clme.com I'm gonna go check that out right now. Kenny, thanks so much for your time today.
Kenny Klaus 41:22
Yeah, absolutely. Brian, thanks for the opportunity.
