Shoshana Socher used to be a stay at home mom until her family went through bankruptcy in 2005. This motivated her to find ways to put money into their lives which is why she decided to get a license and start her career in real estate. Five years later, her son, Cody became her business partner and grew the Socher Team from there.
Currently, the Socher Team is made up of 6 real estate agents and last year, they brought in $42.5M in sales with 166 transactions, marking 2020 as their most productive year to date. They attribute their growth and success mostly to having systems in place such as SISU and by doing activities that encourage agents to produce more.
In this episode, Shoshana Socher, the Operations Manager of Socher Team, Alex Ryb, and I talked about:
(05:28) How the team produced at a higher level despite having the same number of agents from the previous year
(09:01) Managing numbers vs. managing emotions
(11:26) How working with spreadsheets compare to having SISU?
(15:02) How morning meetings can shift your business
(17:25) How to motivate agents through 1 on 1 meetings
(19:28) The advantage of having an in-house Marketing person
(22:26) The importance of market updates
(25:50) What is Concierge Level Services?
(27:54) What technology does The Socher Team use in their business?
(31:23) The one thing that sets The Socher Team apart
(33:56) What advice can they give for someone starting to build their own team?
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:34
Alright, Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the Grit podcast today. I'm super excited. I have one of our Sisu team owners and her operations manager. I guess that's what you are Alex. So I'm here today with Shoshana. So sure, and Alex Ryb and they are from the social care team in I guess, well, what cities are you guys actually in? In the Cleveland area? So I know you guys have certain cities that you were like the number one producer in so I actually want to dive into that today. But Geez, you guys have been working with Sisu now for how long?
Alex Ryb 1:14
almost two years? I'd say close to two years.
Brian Charlesworth 1:17
Okay, year and a half of it. So they've been with us for almost two years at Sisu. And just excited to have them on. For those of you who don't know, I am the founder and CEO of Sisu, which is the real estate growth automation software. And welcome back to this week's episode of the grit podcast, everyone. So starting off, why don't you guys just give us a little bit of the background on your team? I mean, how long has your team even been around?
Shoshana Socher 1:44
So I've been licensed for pushing 15 years. My son who's not on this podcast today is my business partner. He's been working with me for about 10 years. He's 29 he started when he was 19. Like a lot of people who are in real estate came right out of high school decided he wanted to go into business in a year after he was out just got his real estate license and Dove right in. So we've been business partners ever since in this business and other businesses that we run as well. And I could say that we really started to grow a team, probably Alex, we've been working together for
Alex Ryb 2:22
2017 2018
Shoshana Socher 2:24
and really started to grow the team around then. And we're at six licenses at the moment.
Brian Charlesworth 2:30
So you really just started a team maybe two and a half, maybe three years ago. So about three years ago, and you said you have six agents today? Uh-huh. Okay. All right. Great. So maybe let's talk about your production a little bit. I know you guys had your number one year last year, I know you did over 150 transactions. What was the exact amount? I know you know, your exact counts? Shoshana
Shoshana Socher 2:54
so I'll jump in. Okay, we were at 166 transactions 73 of those for seller sides. So we're a little bit buyer heavy. And we were at 42 point 5 million give or take. So that puts us at our average price point of about $250,000.
Brian Charlesworth 3:11
Okay, so congratulations on your top here. I and six agents. How many agents Did you have before this year? Did you recruit this year? Or did you just really focus on the business this year?
Shoshana Socher 3:22
You know, I'm the agent count has ebbed and flowed a little bit with, um, with some different things. And I'm going to say we did that, that volume with six agents just because of some people that came from people that left Yes. Would you agree with that about?
Alex Ryb 3:38
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I mean, the bulk of the year was with six agents in production.
Brian Charlesworth 3:44
Yeah. And I know that area very well. When I started working in real estate with my wife, she was at about that same size. I think she had five agents so
Alex Ryb 3:56
And I think is that a carry cast jersey behind you? Exactly.
Brian Charlesworth 4:00
That Yes. That is a Kyrie I have it signed, he gave it to my son and along with his little wristband and his arm sleeve and you know, whatever else. So
Alex Ryb 4:09
I've always thought it was I just had to check
Brian Charlesworth 4:13
it. Absolutely it is. So yeah, I used to be able to, I used to take my son to a lot of the jazz games, and we'd always sit right next to the visitors bench. And so anyway, he was able to get all kinds of jerseys because he would always wear the point guards jersey from the other team. So anyway, fun story and not to divert, but they actually called him down. They actually said What's your name? And he goes, Duke and they said, Oh well, Kyrie went to Duke. He goes, Yeah, I know that and they go, why don't you come down here and sit on the bench during warmups. I brought him down and he was sitting, just sitting there on the bench next to Tristan Thompson. And anyway, it was kind of it was kind of a fun story. I've got I've got pictures But just jumping back into real estate, I know the stage that you're in, and it's fun to watch. You're just exceeding your growth where you've gone from, you know, 100, to now 160 transactions. And I think you're going to experience tremendous growth over the next few years. And part of that is going to be that you're going to start recruiting, and realize that that's going to make a big difference in your business. But just on the production side, what have you guys been doing to produce at a higher level? Because you've had the same number of agents? Is it just that the market was up this year in 2020? I mean, everyone was everyone was going into depression in March and April. But since then, the market I think, has been up as that how it's been in Cleveland as well.
Shoshana Socher 5:47
Definitely, the market is up. One thing that really changed our business, really, really change our business for much better, actually was COVID. And, you know, like, a lot of people have spent the first two weeks pretty freaked out. Not sure you know, during lockdown, oh, my God, what are we going to do? And, you know, we just made it very, very, very, very firm. And when I say we, I'm talking about my son, and myself as kind of decision-makers, ultimately, with a lot of input from Alex as well. Not only are we on our morning calls every morning at 830. And funny thing when you're home, nobody misses. And, you know, unlike when we were in the office before in our stand up meetings, oh, so and so it's in here, somebody's running late of traffic, blah, blah, nobody was ever late or missed. And we set a firm standard of 100 dials a day, we use commission things. So through our Commission's like database, and notice a tremendous, tremendous change, not that there's any magic around 100 dials, because obviously, one needs to have the conversations in order to talk to people on dialing in and of itself is not sufficient. However, by setting a team standard of $100 a day, which then equals the following week, let's say if you put your 500 dials equals two hours of triple line dialing in Mojo, we just stopped the trajectory of every agent really grow because their pipeline grew. You know who that was more substantial.
Brian Charlesworth 7:13
So everyone made the commitment, I'm going to prospect on the Mojo dialer for two hours a day.
Shoshana Socher 7:18
And for them, it was a single line dialer. And it's in commission inc saying really clear, super clear in our pond. So there's a really currently probably I think about 11,000 leads in the pond. And there needs to dial 100 dials a day in the pond. And there were other agents that left. And since that time, you know, I had people interview for me, and I explained the standard of our team. And they'd be like, Oh, so several people have said, Oh, I'm just really not into that. And I said, That's okay. No hard feelings.
Alex Ryb 7:53
Yeah. So I think you could attribute the growth of our team from 2019 to 20. Really, it boils down to having systems and doing the activities that the agents need to be doing in order to produce more. Okay, everything every single day.
Brian Charlesworth 8:12
So that's the biggest change. As you guys, you guys really said, hey, these are our systems, this is what you need to do. Prior to that, you were just letting people make whatever daily activities they chose to Is that right?
Shoshana Socher 8:26
So we were working. I will also say this year in 2020. We were working with Julie Youngblood at metrics, coaching, um, which was our second goal, and we've been with metrics for quite a while. But it was our second goal where I said we needed actually implementation coaching a second time. And yes, we were running much more of a brokerage model before, which is to say, like, all run fast, you want to run fast, you can run next to me, but you know, most people didn't really choose to run next to me, they just watched me run.
Brian Charlesworth 8:53
Right. So that was kind of frustrating. So you're, you're still in production?
Shoshana Socher 8:58
I am.
Brian Charlesworth 8:59
Alright, great. So looking at that, so people started making these dials every day. And obviously dials In my opinion, what that does is number one, it gives people they get off to a morning routine. It gets them in production early starts their day off, right? And it also gives them consistency and is you consistently make dials. If you're not scheduling appointments, that's really what it's about is the appointments. But if you're not making appointments, you're going to know I need to work on my scripts, you're going to know, you know, if you're going on appointments, and you're not getting listings, or you're not getting buyers under contract, okay, there's a problem there. What's the disconnect? So how have you guys been able to define those disconnects? How has this impacted the way you take it to the next level and actually coach your team to improve their skills as they go down this road?
Shoshana Socher 9:51
So I should say that with our morning meeting, we have a script right after. So typically we're doing our morning meeting, we're staying on and you know, I could said 1000 times, but only the people that want to be successful will stay on for scripting, which means that not everybody stays on the call. And I'm gonna be completely, you know, completely straight about that. And I wish they would, you know, I wish they would. And then everybody has a one on one with me once a week. So every Thursday, I'm digging into their numbers, and I was using and I don't know why I did this really, honestly, I had created a Google form, where I was asking all the same questions that we have in Sisu, which was so silly that I was like, kind of go through this, like, how many buyer appointments Did you set this week kind of thing like that? When when we got everybody's 2021 goals in, set up and see, so then it was so obvious, the one on one is super clear. I just pulled their thing up, and oh, you needed to go in for appointments this month. And you've been on to let's talk about that.
Brian Charlesworth 10:51
So there's no more managing emotions, you're basically managing their numbers. And when I say that, it's not like you're saying, hey, these are the numbers you have to hit. These are numbers that they're coming up with as agents, you're just helping them meet their goals. Right.
Shoshana Socher 11:05
Exactly. And in fact, to that point, I mean, really, it's a recruitment issue on our own issue, but recruitment goal on our team, so that those agents can hit their numbers that they established for themselves, I'll hit mine that I set for myself, self and, you know, if we don't recruit, then there's a huge gap there.
Brian Charlesworth 11:25
So I know you guys were in the spreadsheet world for a long, long time before you adopted Sisu, can you tell us a little bit about what that was like and what the changes there? And this is the I mean, this is not something I typically get into in a podcast. But I know that you told me before this, that that made a major difference in your business. So I'd love to hear it.
Shoshana Socher 11:43
Alex, I'm gonna let you talk about that. Okay.
Alex Ryb 11:45
Yeah. So I mean, I, when I joined in 2017, we were still on the spreadsheet. Like I said, we didn't start see soon till really is decent till 2019. So there was, at least for me two years of spreadsheets. And it like I said, it was fine. It was all we knew. And all we had, and it worked. It basically it was a large spreadsheet with every single, it's all it's everything that's on the transaction form in Sisu, what's the address, the sales price, the GCI, the, you know, when you're under contract, closing date, yeah, all the details. And then, you know, it had, it had a bunch of other tabs that I have, they don't even remember what they were, but I had, you know, total units sort of volume. So it was in a sense, what Sisu is, but I'm much more manual and not as appealing way to do it.
Shoshana Socher 12:38
I'm gonna say rudimentary, also.
Brian Charlesworth 12:40
Yeah.
Shoshana Socher 12:41
Okay. It was it would be like, it would be like, if you looked at a prototype of something, and then you wish that you had this beautiful visual. And like, I was also saying it was inherently unstable. Because one slip of something and all of a sudden, your calculations that were supposed to pull into some other tab or something, were gone. And so then there was like that freak attack?
Brian Charlesworth 13:06
Well, I told you guys, I mean, the way Sisu was born, is I jumped in to help spring with her real estate business, when she had five agents, she's now over 30 on our team, and she has a brokerage. But yeah, I went through the same nightmares, right? Spending time trying to get agents to log trying to turn that into a visual that was valuable, that would show monthly and yearly numbers and goals. And it was extremely, extremely difficult, which is how we got started. That was before we did any of the tasks. Before we did any of the transaction to close process that was just we really started with an app that tracks your numbers, and it's evolved from there. So great. And
Alex Ryb 13:47
I was gonna say to just that, I think, especially with teams, when it comes to Sisu it's just so important to be able to go in and look at any specific data point, whether that's how many appointments an agent said, or how many units throughout your day, or their volume, year to date. And it's just so easy to, you know, identify, like you were saying earlier that disconnect of you know, or is it urine, you do not have enough business? Does it go back to dials, you're not seeing appointments, you can really find where they're breaking the chain is through Sisu.
Brian Charlesworth 14:19
Yeah, it's, it's amazing to me, and I still hold a few of my wife's agents accountable. And when I pull up that dashboard, immediately, I can just look at it. And I can ask them, okay, what's the problem? They can usually identify the problem now, but if not, I have it right in front of me. And I can identify it instantly.
Alex Ryb 14:38
Right.
Brian Charlesworth 14:40
I just met with somebody today that said, Yeah, I just want notifications letting me know when each of my agents is below this conversion ratio. And so anyway, that's something we're rolling out here very shortly. Ooh, banded about that thing, then then you can do it without looking at a dashboard. Right? Right.
Alex Ryb 14:59
There's no fun anymore.
Brian Charlesworth 15:01
So, your morning meeting? What do you guys do in that? Because I think that's a big thing that shifted your business. My take is that's a big thing that shifted your business this year is that every morning at 830, you were having a morning meeting, what did you do in that meeting?
Shoshana Socher 15:18
So our meetings tend to have kind of a rhythm. And Monday is a kind of weekend definitely weekend wrap up really just likes to kind of chime in with you know, what's new, and they and talk about some kind of, for lack of a better phrase, motivation. Tuesday's Alex rolls out the numbers where we are this week, in comparison to goals. And that's just for the team as a whole, not individuals are this month, I should say, or a year depending on, you know, where we are in the place of the year. And typically, I will talk about some aspect of lead generation, and we often bring it back to the team. Like if we had somebody new that started, I consider you Brian, can you give me one piece of advice, because someone so over here is new, when one piece of advice that you'd say, you know, in terms of lead generation, and then we got the most amazing list from our team, you know, get outside of your comfort zone, get your sphere, you know, all these things. And I was like, Okay, great. Now that we have six amazing pieces of advice, now let's I'll turn them on ourselves and use them. So will you do a lot sometime usually, once a week, some kind of round robin? Like that. And then Wednesdays, Wednesdays, we always cover our hottest hot. So I'm just going to say to you, Alex, who's your hottest hot?
Alex Ryb 16:34
Bob Smith. Yeah. So
Shoshana Socher 16:36
okay, and where's the lead from?
Alex Ryb 16:37
From sync
Shoshana Socher 16:39
I'm sick? Okay, great. So that's a paid lead. Yep. Great. So Brian, when I'm doing that, I'm asking who the who their hottest hot is I don't want to hear 10. I have 10 people in my pipeline, who their hottest hot is that they might close this week. And I want to know where that lead is from. I'm happy for them if it's their sphere, but I also really want people to know that there's a lot of paid leads in the system. And it's important to me, for people to know that I'm paying my money for leads for them. So I want you know, those lead sources to be front and center that that's where those leads come from.
Alex Ryb 17:12
So we do that call as a team Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays were off. And then
Shoshana Socher 17:20
a one on one with me. Sorry, there's
Alex Ryb 17:21
Yes. Sorry. There's
Brian Charlesworth 17:22
there's one on one on one days. Yeah. So let's dive into one on one. While we're at that. I know you said it's pretty much numbers based. But how long do you meet with each of your agents.
Shoshana Socher 17:32
So I have planned for 15 minute meetings. But I also have a 10 minute buffer because I still need time in between people. And it usually ends up taking about 20 minutes. I'm typically asking each person what they're reading or into or listening to podcasts or listening to or whatever, in order to self educate. And if it's nothing, then I'm like, Okay, well, let's think of something that might be really cool to look at this week.
Brian Charlesworth 17:56
I like you're promoting growth first and foremost.
Shoshana Socher 18:00
Yeah, that's my first one of my very first questions is what are you reading or listening to watching? Listen, I don't care. If you told me you're watching, whatever the newest Netflix series is, that's not the point. The point is just that you're into something, you know, I want people to have, you know, be into something and, you know, in order to self educate, then we'll get into their numbers pendings this that I always ask, and this is a Julian good, Brian. Good question for sure. On a scale of one to 10, with seven being average, or let me back up over that question. I was asked this question like this. Our team standards is 100 dials a day, with seven being average on a scale of one to 10. Where would you place yourself? Oh, seven, okay.
Brian Charlesworth 18:43
You can't say seven.
Shoshana Socher 18:45
You can say seven. You can if you do more than 500 people this week, then awesome. You're more than you're more than seven. But if you give yourself a five, I want to know why. And then I'm going to tell you I'm you know, I would probably say that you're and I usually give more. Unless it's something really epic. Like if somebody says I'm a seven, I'm gonna go look, you know, I know you worked really hard on scripts this week. So I'm probably gonna put you at any, like I'm trying to bolster not to beat people down. Right, you know, and then after we've talked about lead generation, I always, always close with, you know, I'm here. How can I support you in your efforts? What do you need from us?
Brian Charlesworth 19:22
Yeah that's great. Okay. Geez, I have a lot of stuff. I want to ask you guys. I want to talk about marketing for a minute. Because when I looked at your materials online, you you talk about marketing quite a bit. Like, do you have an in house person that does marketing, and that's why you guys have this niche marketing going on? Or
Shoshana Socher 19:43
When you see me? Well, you tell me what you're referring to specifically in little?
Brian Charlesworth 19:48
Well, I just, you know, I bounced around the internet looking at different things about your team prior to coming online with you guys. And I saw several things that talked about marketing and so on. I assume that you have your own marketing person that sets you apart as far as what you're doing for your customer for your clients.
Shoshana Socher 20:08
Got it? So the answer is yes. And this was also a huge another reason I actually believe that we grew in terms of literal dollars and cents, is that I personally really like the marketing side, I think a lot of realtors do. I just think it's cool. And I think it's interesting. And I would find myself running off down these rabbit holes of various things. I mean, now we're all have to figure out what clubhouses, for instance, you know, like, what, whatever it is, right? So you're like, Oh, my God, another one. So, so what I realized is that I needed to bring somebody on, that I could literally hand every single project over to, and it took a little while he will, he will tell you the same thing that the person brought on, he and I took a little while to figure out how to communicate best together. And then I really felt he was I was able to just offload almost every single aspect of just like brand awareness.
Brian Charlesworth 21:06
So he's focusing on getting your brand out there, which is
Shoshana Socher 21:09
brand awareness, and also making sure just the consistency, just the consistency is there. And that's, that's hard, you know, sphere marketing, marketing toward database, making sure there's a COVID appropriate, but whatever events per database and making, you know, just
Brian Charlesworth 21:25
Most small businesses do not have consistent branding and branding guidelines. So right, he's making sure you're hitting on that.
Alex Ryb 21:32
Yes. And I'll add to you know, before we had our in house marketing guy, you know, Shoshana loves marketing, she was, you know, doing Facebook Live, and all these kinds of stuff. And the one thing I hear more than anything else with agents, when you know, you start producing more and more as you start losing time, and that's what you know, Shoshana has, her biggest problem is that she's producing so much last year, she accounted for 48, I want to say homes out of the 166. So that falls into the consistency, she wanted to be doing the marketing, but she doesn't have the time for it. And that's why we've grown and has marketing, on top of, you know, managing the website, managing social media managing, I mean, all these different branding, all these different aspects that an agent that's producing at that level, just can't do consistently.
Brian Charlesworth 22:24
Okay, make sense. So I also see Shoshana that you do market updates. Tell me about the importance of market updates. One of the things I want to know is you were the top producer if you will top team top agent in two different cities, suburbs. How did you do that? Where you farming? Is it the market updates? Is it the marketing? How are you getting these areas that you're, you know, focused on instead of driving, you know, I don't know two hours to some of your, you know, meetings.
Shoshana Socher 23:07
Okay, first of all, Cleveland is a funny thing. We have a city of Cleveland, right? It's not that big geographically. And we have a million little cities that make up greater Cleveland. So I'm sure there's other cities I'm sure there's other Metropolis is like that in America 100%. So every single little city here has its own really its own little mayor, its own little school district, its own little everything. It's just really something. So the niche market, I started out working in a very niche market, I'm Jewish, and I ended up working with a lot of Orthodox Jewish clients. And that was a niche market that I really was really strong in and there's a geographic center there so that you know, fair housing laws aside just ended up being a some areas I personally ended up working in, it's also read live. Now that having been said, there's my special little Facebook hacks that I love. So that when I do market updates, if I'm doing a market update, and it's too long to get into here, but whatever, I can push them out just to that market. Now you might say to me, Well, how limited if you're only going to market to city a and push yourself up to city a well the number of messages I get back from people saying, I always see you or see you everywhere. And I just call it like jokingly the I see you everywhere effect. They don't see me every words because I've made sure that they see me everywhere. You know, so
Brian Charlesworth 24:33
by drilling down and just doing it in a smaller community, people are more likely to see it.
Shoshana Socher 24:40
I mean, I will find anybody in those cities, like literally go on their, their Facebook groups of those cities and you know, friendly people, friendly people, friendly people, they're like, dude, I know you want to say I saw a lot of real estate in the area, and I like to keep in touch with people I tell the truth, you know, and then that equals a lot of business. So a lot of my team agents will drive and drive and drive and that's okay. You know, some people don't mind that. And I, you know, we make jokes self people on our team are like, Oh my God, we let her shine out of the city limits, you know, like, like
Brian Charlesworth 25:09
the you're not sending any mailers out to their address or postcards you are 100% doing that via Facebook.
Shoshana Socher 25:17
Yeah, Facebook and Instagram as well. But my Instagram thing for me personally has been a longer term game, but it's something I like continually chipping away at.
Brian Charlesworth 25:28
Yeah. Is it harder to target? I mean, there's so you
Shoshana Socher 25:30
Right click back up and say that in terms of mailers in my specific neighborhood where I saw a lot, I do send out just old cards, but that's it. Okay, I'm not farming, farming, but I am sending out 50 you know, 50 radius cards?
Brian Charlesworth 25:45
Just solds. Okay, only 50. Okay, great. I also noticed that you guys have you call it concierge level services? Tell me what you mean by that? Because something I want to know what that means to you guys. Because you have those,
Alex Ryb 26:03
We'll have to update that. No, I'm kidding. I think when you say concierge is the first thing that came to mind is when I started on the team, in 2017, I was hired on and my title was listing concierge was my title when they hired me. So I was working with sellers from the time they listed the home to selling the home. And that just came with getting the level of service unlike anyone else in the area, you know, coming up with such plans, making sure sellers were informed. And you know, keeping up to date. Yeah, just doing whatever it takes to accommodate and to, you know, that you would expect from you hear the stories about nordstroms. And, you know, Ritz Carlton like that level of service from a real estate perspective that not a lot of other agents or teams provide.
Brian Charlesworth 26:54
So making sure that just all along the way they know what to expect. They know, they know they're taking care of they know after the fact you're doing a survey or something after, after the fact to see how their experience was all that kind of stuff.
Alex Ryb 27:06
Yeah, always asking for Yeah, go ahead.
Shoshana Socher 27:09
No, I was just gonna say besides that, also, we have pretty strict systems of city violations in our area. And Alex has been literally magical getting tradesmen to come out to take care of city violations that, you know, sellers, like there's nobody that will come out right now it's winter and nobody will come. So Allison's on like, two minutes later, he's got some, you know, three quotes, and people actually showing up at the door actually running the business,
Brian Charlesworth 27:35
Oh, that's great.
Alex Ryb 27:38
It's just, you know, it's just customer service. And, you know, if you provide a high level of service, people are gonna want to use you again, they're gonna refer you and that's, you know, bringing more business to the team. And so that's what the concierge level service came from.
Brian Charlesworth 27:52
Okay. So Alex, you're the systems guy. What technologies do you think what technologies do you use in your business?
Alex Ryb 27:59
Yeah, so we've been really hyper-focused even just in the last few weeks on limiting our systems, we had spreadsheets with, you know, we were using a bunch of things. And there's a lot of duplication and repetition in our system. So now, we've really gotten it down to sync for lead generation and lead follow up, that's where everything starts. As for dials and contacts come from, then we're using Sisu it's almost, if you think about it as you elevate or graduate from sync to Sisu as soon as you set the appointment, and that takes you through closing. So we have sync. And then we have Sisu and then we have dotloop for you know, document management. Those are like the big three.
Shoshana Socher 28:42
I was looking at our past clients are living in command. And we're using a Mojo dialer. If you've earned the right to dial in Mojo, then you can you can use the triple line dialer the next week.
Brian Charlesworth 28:53
Okay, and so Mojo largest part of same thing, right? No. Okay, so Mojo flowing into sync flowing into Sisu flowing into dot loop. So you said sync is everything up to the appointment? I mean, that's a good way to look at it. Yeah. Use sync, is that what you tell your agents use sync up until the appointment gets set? And then from the setting of the appointment to closing? You use Sisu?
Alex Ryb 29:19
Yeah, so we actually just had a new agent start with the team last Monday and just yesterday, I was teaching her a systems and that's how I'm I'm gonna be doing it as long as you know, for the foreseeable future, at least is, you know, all of our leads our entire database, they're coming in through sync. That's how people are finding us. That's how they're inquiring about homes, so we capture them through sync. Once peak, our agents are dialing them, contacting them, and so on. Eventually, they're going to set an appointment once they set the appointment. They add we have an integration through Zapier with sync and Sisu where they add the Sisu label appointment set. So that transfers from sync to Sisu and then they'll live in Sisu from that point on. So once you set the appointment it's almost like this feeling like I got this client to Sisu. You know, I set the appointment there in Sisu now it's almost like a gratifying feeling.
Brian Charlesworth 30:14
Yeah, it's a graduation basically. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if you guys know this. We're working on a direct integration with sync right now to be completed in the next 30 days. So excited about that. Just out of curiosity, what are you guys actually pulling in? Are you pulling in the activities they're tracking or just the client information?
Shoshana Socher 30:36
We are pulling in dials and conversations. Yeah, yeah. We're pulling in
Brian Charlesworth 30:41
You are pulling in activities. And your
Shoshana Socher 30:43
Although I will put in a little plug that I don't know. I've been around and around and around about this with you have a wonderful young man who works for you whose name I can't remember. I know in verse does that give you that? Zac?
Brian Charlesworth 30:57
Zac
Shoshana Socher 30:57
Yep. And he and I've had a lot of conversations about getting sick and cease to dial numbers to line up, because we can't quite figure out why numbers in one system aren't the same as in the other that
Brian Charlesworth 31:08
yeah, that's I know, you've been working on that and Zapier, you will be able to forget about that in the very near future. They all will be done through direct integration and will live. Okay. So anyway, okay, what would you say Shoshana? is the one thing that really sets you guys apart?
Shoshana Socher 31:29
Us
Brian Charlesworth 31:31
Yes, tell me more. Tell me more.
Shoshana Socher 31:34
Okay, so what sets us apart? Oh, God, okay, what sets us apart? We're family-based. I mean, I work with my son, we are in our own office outside of the brokerage. And we are a really awesome, amazing place for agents to come to work, and be for clients to do business with. I mean, to just say like, our reviews speak for themselves, people. We love people. And people then in effect love working with us. And I don't mean to say that. That's not an ego piece. That's just like really, truly I love working with people. I just love pulling people apart and figuring out what they're about. And I feel like to get back from the clients is that that's really appreciated. Okay,
Brian Charlesworth 32:13
Awesome. Are you guys back in the office now? Have you been in the office? So some people are in the office summer home? Is that what they want to do?
Shoshana Socher 32:24
I was just looking for my mask. That's one of our desks where mask with our office. But normally not in most, a lot of people are not in office.
Brian Charlesworth 32:32
I mean, I've found with real estate, a lot of people are in the office, because you already know.
Alex Ryb 32:38
Right.
Brian Charlesworth 32:40
Yeah. Okay.
Alex Ryb 32:42
And I was saying,
Shoshana Socher 32:43
I don't know if you have time, I just want to say one second before, you know, as we're starting to wrap it, walk over here and show you and don't have to flip the camp. The thing here. This is our offices, a converted warehouse. And if you can see behind me over my shoulder, I'm walking towards the dashboards, there are so much for us to have it hanging on our wall like that.
Brian Charlesworth 33:10
Yeah, I love it.
Shoshana Socher 33:11
So just super cool.
Alex Ryb 33:14
And for me, what sets us apart, I would say is, number one, our culture, we have a very specific culture and two would be our team standards. You know, we've talked to a lot of people like Shoshana said in terms of trying to recruit agents. And we have you know, standards, we have time blocking, we have things in place to try to help people achieve their goals. And it's kind of like you're with us or you're not. But we set that standard upfront. And we have the systems in place to just that's our value to agents.
Brian Charlesworth 33:47
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You have the systems in place. So before we jump into I have a couple just personal questions for you guys. Is there anything else you want to share? Like one piece of advice you would give to anybody trying to build a team?
Shoshana Socher 34:03
Don't ignore your database.
Brian Charlesworth 34:04
Know your database?
Shoshana Socher 34:06
Don't ignore it. Yeah. Don't ignore your database
Brian Charlesworth 34:08
Don't ignore it.
Shoshana Socher 34:08
That's my biggest piece of advice.
Alex Ryb 34:11
I would say don't try to do everything. Try to do a few things really well. Good.
Brian Charlesworth 34:19
Just switching gears a little bit something you said Shoshana. You know you want to find out what are they listening to what podcasts what shows? are they watching? What books are they reading? What is like the thing that you would want to share that people should be out listening to as far as a podcast or reading is?
Shoshana Socher 34:37
There are so many. Okay,
Brian Charlesworth 34:39
so I mean, just maybe what's your favorite source of learning for our people out?
Shoshana Socher 34:43
Oh, my favorite personal source is podcasts.
Brian Charlesworth 34:47
And what are some of your favorite podcasts?
Shoshana Socher 34:50
Well, there was a time I totally dug into, you know, Tom Ferry and those kinds of kind of leading real estate podcasts. The one thing I will say As I came in probably every day and said, I know what we should really be doing, and then want to switch gears, you know, into something else. So there is this fine line. But I mean, you know, for entertainment, the rewatchable, for which as long as could be the long form podcast is fun. I've been listening to a podcast called food psychology that I love. I love some of the vegan chef podcasts. I like books meat, I love Oh my gosh, wait the podcasts into pop music. There's, you know, reviews of music, all kinds of good things. There are a million things to learn the problem is not enough time to learn everything.
Brian Charlesworth 35:37
I know, I love hearing things. I actually spoke with somebody on the last podcast who said, you know, they actually listened to Harvard Business Review, and all these you know, Ivy League schools have these podcasts. I was unaware of
Shoshana Socher 35:54
The BBC, it's like, you know, forget that you ever went to school because you weren't listening when you were a kid. But now, you can go back and listen to the BBC on all these like world events, you know? Oh, that's what that was.
Brian Charlesworth 36:05
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Alex, anything you want to share on that.
Alex Ryb 36:10
I don't do a ton of podcasts or reading or TV. But I really enjoy webinars, you know, especially since COVID, all these zoom things that it can be difficult, especially if they're like all day things. But you know, there was a KW fall mastermind, there was a Sisu call mastermind over the course of a couple of days that I listened in done, I think it's just I don't want to what's nice about COVID but it allowed me to kind of expand, you know, expand my world and learn from all these different agents and get all these different perspectives I like labcoat agents, I watched some of their videos, I get all their emails and just learning with different agents in different cities are doing and growing their business and different opportunities. And you know, a lot of systems because that's, you know, where I'm at, in the business, learning about different systems that are out there and what people are using, and always trying to apply that to our business to grow,
Shoshana Socher 37:01
I'm going to throw out one of the things before I interrupt you is to say that I also mean us what's special about our team, I'm gonna say that like really, truly on the team mom. And like every single respect, I have a really young team and on the whole, and I'm personally a mom of six kids. And I have a lot of grandkids as well. And very, very blessed in that way. And so I really, I feel like that you didn't kind of also bring that mom energy to the team and like it or not like it, you guys have to listen to mom. So
Brian Charlesworth 37:32
Great. So you have a bunch of young just go-getters that want to conquer the world. And you're there for them.
Shoshana Socher 37:40
Yes
Brian Charlesworth 37:41
that's great. Last thing I really wanted to ask you guys, wait, I have two more questions. One is, I never did find out from you guys. Are you actually using Sisu for task management?
Alex Ryb 37:52
Yes, I meant the main one using it for task management. I was using folio biometry, if you're familiar with that, for the longest time, which got us by but now with Sisu, I put all my tests in there. And that's how I'm getting through every transaction. It's much more automated, I love being able to do you know to check off is it to do in progress or done being able to change dates around super easy. And really it keeps me on track. It's much more efficient
Shoshana Socher 38:22
Keeps when he worked with the VA was that too?
Alex Ryb 38:25
Sure. So we do have a virtual assistant. And so there's some tasks, I have the bulk of the tasks in terms of like what happens in a transaction with title companies and lenders and touching base with clients. And our virtual assistant, she has some other you know, miscellaneous tasks, like make sure you close it out and Zillow, and some of the more the third party type stuff. But she doesn't really have much interaction with the transaction itself. She's just more of a support to the team to me.
Brian Charlesworth 38:54
So just how Shawn is able to manage the sales team. Through Cesar, you're able to manage your VA team through the Sisu tasks
Alex Ryb 39:03
Right and it's so nice we have in Sisu we have I think five task lists so I have a buyer contract to close seller contract to close seller, pre listing, seller listing to under contract, buyer, post-closing and seller post-closing for our post-closing plan to get reviews and that kind of stuff. And what's really nice is within each of those task lists, I can assign tasks as a template to agents into RVA so that every transaction is the same. It gets the same treatment and gets the same task.
Brian Charlesworth 39:42
Great. I'm thrilled to hear you guys are using that and enjoying it. What do you guys back to the personal stuff? What do you guys like to do in your personal time? Like what's your favorite thing to do out there when you have some time?
Shoshana Socher 39:56
Oh Alex, you go first. You're younger.
Alex Ryb 39:59
I'm pre COVID you know, I like to travel and go to, you know, different cities and that kind of stuff and go out and you know, on the weekends and whatnot. I was gonna say the casino. I don't really, I like the casino. I'm not like a gambler, but I don't know. Just
Brian Charlesworth 40:17
if you don't like to gamble, what do you like the casino for is that I
Alex Ryb 40:20
know I shouldn't say like, I love gambling. I enjoy gambling, but it's not a frequent thing like ours, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm pretty lucky.
Brian Charlesworth 40:31
Shoshana, what about you?
Shoshana Socher 40:32
And me, I'm, I'm happy whenever those grandkids were over at my house. It's a big crazy hoopla and everything becomes a huge chaotic mess. That's my kind of, that's my kind of fun. Although I don't know what your climate is like Brian. But you know, it's we got the award in Cleveland being the fifth gloomiest city in America. So, literally, this weekend is a long weekend. And I was like, we should get on an airplane to Florida. Like, this COVID thing can really keep you in the gloomy city. But you know
Brian Charlesworth 41:01
That was my last question. Where is it? You love to travel? Where's your favorite place to go? And it sounds like it's Florida. me. I'm
Shoshana Socher 41:08
California. I'm from the west coast. So I actually we got to California last year family. And that's just some place. You could go to San Diego to see my mom and he did any day of the week.
Brian Charlesworth 41:18
So you said you went to UCLA. So what took you to Cleveland? My husband
Shoshana Socher 41:22
got a job here. Okay. Okay. And we've been here. We've been here for like 20 years now. So now Cleveland is home for us.
Brian Charlesworth 41:31
So I used to love to go to California as well. But now it shut down. So now I know. I know other places. What about you? You said you're not traveling now. But where do you like to go when you travel?
Alex Ryb 41:42
I like California. I have a sister in California. I like going to new cities I've never been before. in Austin, Texas, which is a really cool city. I had a layover in Salt Lake once. It looked really cool. But that's as much as I've been in Salt Lake
Brian Charlesworth 41:56
and you didn't get out of the airport?
Alex Ryb 41:57
I did not get I didn't even get out of the airplane.
Brian Charlesworth 41:59
Oh, wow. Okay,
Shoshana Socher 42:00
and we get we got Alex on an Airbnb gift card for his birthday because we're trying to get
Alex Ryb 42:07
I can't even use it right now though
Brian Charlesworth 42:08
You still can use it?
Alex Ryb 42:10
I guess I could.
Brian Charlesworth 42:12
I'll use it. Some people won't travel right now. I haven't traveled a ton since COVID. But I started traveling again a few months ago and tell you what, I've never seen the airport, the airplanes everything so clean. Yeah. And you know, in the plane there's a space between you and whoever sitting next to you. I mean, it's just it's better than it's ever been less risky than it's ever been in my opinion.
Alex Ryb 42:38
I was my other hobbies that failed to mention are just what I like I'm a huge Cleveland sports fan. So Cavs Indians and browns are love watching going to games that kind of stuff.
Brian Charlesworth 42:49
Well, good. I'll make sure and zoom in on that Kyrie
Alex Ryb 42:53
get to tell him I say hi.
Brian Charlesworth 42:56
Yeah, so anyway, you guys. Well, thank you so much for joining today. If people want to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get ahold of you? if people have questions for you and want to follow up with you?
Shoshana Socher 43:05
Can definitely find me on Instagram or Facebook or always call me 216-255-7377.
Brian Charlesworth 43:12
Okay. Well, you guys, thanks so much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed our time together. And for you listeners, don't forget to go hit the subscribe button that will allow you to get notified when these new shows come out every week, which are typically on Tuesdays. And in addition to that, if you could give us a review, we'd love to get a review. And that will help us get more great guests that you and I can learn from so thanks again, you guys. We'll catch up with you soon.
Shoshana Socher 43:41
Thank you, take it easy.