According to Google, the most searched job in the US today is a real estate agent. Becoming your own boss and earning substantially through commissions are just some of the things that make real estate an attractive profession to many people.
Yet, if a career in real estate is that good, then why do almost 90% of agents end up leaving the industry after being in it for just 5 years or less?
Finding success as a real estate agent is easier said than done. It takes a lot of hard work, discipline, and above all, you have to love what you’re doing in order to overcome challenges. And when you have that passion, and a coach who believes in you and will help keep you on track, you can excel at the highest possible level.
Brian Charlesworth joins Monica Reynolds, Vice President of KW MAPS Coaching, as she shares her journey from being a teacher to running the largest real estate coaching company in the world, her insights on what’s currently going on in the real estate industry, and some valuable tips for real estate professionals today.
Top Takeaways:
(04:04) How Monica got into real estate
(08:17) Why do the most successful agents and team owners all have coaches?
(14:07) What is the key to success for someone moving into this market?
(15:49) The value of time-blocked lead generation
(16:26) How Sisu can help your business thrive
(16:46) The most important thing that team owners should consider
(19:08) How does someone decide which is the best way for them to go about building a team?
(20:45) How to build a sellable database
(22:33) How Monica is helping other coaches net a million dollars
(31:12) With interest rates rising, what will happen to the industry over the next few years?
(33:15) Monica’s thoughts on the whole “getting rid of the agent’s commission” situation
(35:05) Monica's one piece of advice
(36:02) Why you need to fall in love with what you do
Connect with Monica Reynolds
Email: monica@monicareynolds.com
About the guest:
Monica Reynolds has a background in teaching. However, she didn't last long as a teacher because she felt that it just wasn't her thing. After getting married, she went looking for a house to buy and met a real estate agent. He wasn’t really a great agent, yet he was making a lot of money and has a nice car. She thought that if that agent can do it, so can she.
She then went on to become a successful real estate agent with Century 21 and worked for Mike Ferry’s coaching company for years. She also became the President of the Heller Real Estate Group, one of the most successful real estate teams in the US.
Monica also got the reputation of being the only agent at that time to delegate tasks she wasn’t particularly fond of doing to several assistants. She ended up writing a book on how to multiply your success through the use of assistants. That’s when she caught the attention of Gary Keller who invited her to be a part of the kW MAPS Coaching.
Today, Monica Reynolds is the Vice President at kW MAPS Coaching. She has garnered national recognition as a real estate seminar and convention speaker, trainer, and author. She is regarded in the industry as the leader of innovative real estate systems and effective team-building strategies that sustain successful real estate careers.
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 00:35
Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the Grit Podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the founder of Sisu and your host of the show. And for those of you who are watching today, you'll notice I have a different background because I'm actually in my office office instead of my home office where I usually record, but my Wi-Fi is down, and my internet is down at home. So anyway, happy to be here today with Monica Reynolds, who is the vice president of kW MAPS Coaching, one of the largest, if not the largest coaching companies in the world, and kW being I believe, the largest, what I say real estate brokerage specific brokerage in the world. So anyway, Monica, super excited to dive in with you today. Thanks for joining me on the show.
Monica Reynolds 01:22
No, I'm excited to chat with you. So it’ll be fun.
Brian Charlesworth 01:26
Yeah, I got to meet Monica a few months ago, because Sisu's doing a few things with kW today. And I got an introduction and just been super impressed and just really wanted to have her on the show. So you can all hear and learn some of the things that I've already heard from her. So, Monica, anything you want to share to start off maybe a little bit more of your background, even though I'm gonna dive into that a little bit here in the near future.
Monica Reynolds 01:49
Gosh, you know, I started in real estate over 40 years ago. And that's when dinosaurs walked around. We had no cell phones, we didn't have cars, we had no fax machines, it was the biggest invention in the world I thought it was. So things have changed dramatically over the last 40 years. It's been an exciting career, I think it's the world's best-kept secret. Till I heard that the Google number one search is to be a real estate agent for job searches now. You call your own hours, you make as much money as you want to make based on you know, work in the system and your talent and the effort you put in for learning and, and developing a great client base. You can make as much money as you want, name a number, go make it.
Brian Charlesworth 02:30
It's true. I mean, I see people making $10 million-plus a year in real estate. So that's the absolute truth. So you've been coaching as I know, Mike Ferry was kind of the godfather of coaching in real estate, right?
Monica Reynolds 02:44
Yeah, Mike ferry is a true inspiration. And that, you know, he started me in my career, I had the luck of my first week in real estate, I was with Century 21. And I'm sitting in a seminar. This is a hilarious story. And there was a set of tapes for $45 cassette tapes. I wanted them so bad. So I asked the two guys that I came with from my office, and I said, Let's split this. So we each came up with a $15 and bought those tapes, and I've worn them out. And then of course I worked for Mike for years. And when I left their company to move on to kW at the time for an opportunity. I had logged in 70,000 one-on-one calls at that time. 12 years ago
Brian Charlesworth 03:27
70,000 calls so how many do you know how many people you've actually coached in real estate?
Monica Reynolds 03:33
You know, I'm going to add that up to one of these days, but it's over been over 100,000 agents and assistants and some of the mega-events that I've done with them. And on the coaching that I do. Every single month I probably coach about 800 real estate assistants, but that is separate from the one on ones and now I think I'm over 80,000 one on one calls now. Because that number was from 2009 to 2010. So I think I hold a pretty strong record against anyone that the thing that I love about coaching is that I come from being a teacher background, I didn't last long as a teacher because it wasn't my gig I figured out. But in the old days, someone like me, you're programmed no matter what by your parents to go to college and you're going to be a nurse or a teacher. So I did what I was supposed to do got my teaching degree right then you get married, right? And so and I thought okay, teaching is not for me, was buying a house read an agent. He really wasn't a great agent. I thought he was making that kind of money driving that kind of car. I can do this. So that's how I got into real estate. I wanted to buy a couch.
Brian Charlesworth 04:40
Okay, so you saw that same thing, right? The money is unlimited in real estate. Why am I going to be a teacher when I can go over here and teach and enjoy and yeah, the money.
Monica Reynolds 04:53
I love houses. I love people. I love negotiating. I've always had you know, as a kid I had a lemonade stand In are babysitting, making money. So I always had a kind of an entrepreneurial spirit about that. And I, gosh, this is totally entrepreneurial. But I need to take a week off and take a week off. And I'll ask anybody. So it's a great career if you have the discipline and structure to achieve the goals, and then you have the time off that you need for family and friends and whatever else you need. It's a great, great career.
Brian Charlesworth 05:23
Okay, so you were involved kind of in the early days of when you say this is a great career, of changing it from where Realtors made the transition. And this falls in line with Gary Keller as well. Right in 2003. He wrote the book, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, I believe most people in real estate have read that book. But I'm not sure about the timing of the book you wrote called How to Find, Hire and Train the Perfect Real Estate Assistant. But maybe you could. You just said something about real estate assistants. I don't think anyone's ever thought of coaching a real estate assistant outside of you that I know. Tell us about
Monica Reynolds 06:03
oh, enter it. Yeah, interesting story. In the 90s. I was speaking at an event and this guy came up to me, he goes, you wrote this book on assistants, you wrote this book on teams, the professional system, multiply your success through the use of an assistant, I go Yeah, I wrote those books. This is the early 90s. And I was surprised someone even read it. And so he asked me a bunch of questions as he walked out and go, who's that guy? And they said all oh, that's Gary Keller. He's building a franchise and I go well, good luck with that. Because if you know, the early 90s, it was a rough ride through the early 90s. And you know, I've, I've always been passionate about knowing my job description as an agent, I lead generate, I lead follow up, I go on appointments or write contracts, I roleplay. Those are dollar signs in my schedule, everything else is stuff. And being a Triple D personality. I'm not great at crossing the t's dot the i's, I need someone to clean my messes up. I am a great salesperson, I'm a great person to be able to talk to a seller to make the right decision to a buyer to make the right decision. I study the market all the time. And yet I'm not great at the other stuff that bothers me. So I knew that the assistant was the right thing. And so I got a reputation and NAR contacted me, I guess the early 90s, had heard I was doing 300 transactions in Long Beach. And I had four assistants. And most of them were licensed in at the time, no one was doing this, they'd go open doors for me because I didn't want to go open the door for a buyer. So they'd go open doors for me too. So they were basically showing assistants,
Brian Charlesworth 07:36
You're essentially running a team back then a team of showing assistants Yeah, no. Our listing agent. Oh yeah, no, we're selling and they were doing all your back office stuff, right? Yeah,
Monica Reynolds 07:46
No, from 1990 to 2000 I had four assistants as a rule and at least four we call them telemarketers at the time ISAs. And I and another agent did the business. Okay, we were rockin it hard.
Brian Charlesworth 08:02
So from going to there to then coming to today. I mean, there's been a lot of change today. And one thing that I know, and I've only been in this industry now probably seven years, eight, seven, about seven years. So everywhere I look the most successful agents, and I almost say team owners, because the most successful are team owners, but they all have coaches. Why is that?
Monica Reynolds 08:28
Wow, why not have someone you can partner with in a business that's non-judgmental, and yet keeps you on track and takes you out of the learning curve. Because the coaches that we have, at MAPS are highly trained, they go through a redshirt program. And then they have training every single week. There are certain programs that are required to take and understand and models that we follow. And so that coach is high there is kind of like they fly over and they see what's going on and they go okay, let's talk about the trajectory of your business. If you want to double your income, who are the missing people? What are the missing systems? What's the lead generation that we need to add or beef up? And so it's great to have that partner that you can I always call it the safe harbor. So for once a week for 30 minutes you have a safe harbor someone who is the cheerleader, the encouraged encouraging courage that believes in you and sometimes as real estate agents. No one believes in us. Even our family doubts us Why do you have a job in real estate hidden especially now that's so volatile, you should get a real job, right? And yet, this is the most incredible job it's such a secret. And just think about having someone who has the knowledge to say to you, let's discuss this and make sure this is the right decision instead of saying you're wrong. Let's discuss this and let me share some things that I've seen happen with other teams or happened in the industry. So when you coach a lot of people as I have I have a lot of resources in my head that I can draw from and I go, Well, this sounds like the time when I was coaching someone, and this is what they did. Oh, that's a great idea, I'd love to do that. So you want that person, especially in this market, we're going into, to kind of lead you down the right paths, where you're spending your time where you're spending your energy, where the lead generation is how you're dealing with your database, you got to start locking arms with that database right now.
Brian Charlesworth 10:25
Yeah. So it seems to me that most of your coaches, most coaches in the industry, not all but most charge, I would say the average is probably $1,000 a month. And for that $1,000 a month, and I know there are some that are much higher than that. But for that $1,000 a month, I just look at it and say, I mean, if you're willing to spend $1,000 a month, you're usually going to get a 10x return at least right? So it's sometimes you know, I look at some people, and I don't see a lot of this in real estate anymore. I think most people have realized if I'm going to be the most successful, I need to hire a coach. And so it's become kind of an easy thing to do today. But you just talked about, we're moving into this new industry, it's more important than ever to have a coach,
Monica Reynolds 11:12
why don't you know, well, first of all, the majority of the Realtors, I would venture to guess I was at a conducting a large seminar a few months ago. And I said, please stand up in the room if you've been in real estate, 12 years or less. And I said, Whoa, it was more than half the room. And I said, Okay, fasten your seat belt. We're going on a rodeo right now. So it's going to be bumpy. They don't know, they haven't experienced this. And yet, the old dogs like me go, come on, bring it on, we got this. Because there are going to be massive opportunities for agents who have systems in place who have lead generation systems in place to dominate the market and take market share, there will be agents who leave because they're not proactive, and they don't have the systems to facilitate and grow their business. This is a great opportunity to lock arms with your clients. You know, I've been coaching the last couple of weeks to, you know, the baby boomers, a lot of them are on a fixed income. This is the wealthiest group of people that we have. And they may be on a fixed income sitting in a house, that's they've got massive equity, or they're free and clear. And yet, they might be thinking about their fixed income with the changing prices of gas to food and everything taxes doubled in Austin, there they're going maybe we just need to pull our equity out and downsize, maybe we just need to move to Arizona, maybe we just need to move to Florida, whatever they're doing, right. And so there are some great opportunities there. I mean, there is a need for housing. And we're still I think four or 5 million homes less of inventory that we currently have buyers for. So it'll be a while before things start to settle down. However, things are changing in different markets, like the inventory from February to now in Las Vegas is up 85% price reductions, like four or 500 last week. So things are starting to shift in different areas. Some still have a bubble, Austin still has a bubble and probably will be because Tesla and Samsung have moved here headquarters. So things are kind of goofy here. But in most areas, you're going to have some challenges.
Brian Charlesworth 13:23
So when you talk about going back in time, it seems I mean, even when I first got into the industry, expireds and FSBO's, like you could dominate by being a listing agent. And moving into the industry today, I see a lot of changes happening around that, especially with this market. There were no expireds. But I think they'll come back,
Monica Reynolds 13:46
They are coming back.
Brian Charlesworth 13:48
But that being said, like for these agents, a lot of these agents today have never really prospected a lot of them are getting fed leads from companies like Zillow or Opcity or, you know, there's a number of programs out there like that. So, like what do you think is the real key to success for somebody moving into this market? Whether you're a team, maybe you could address it for a team and a solo agent? Like what are the keys to really making sure that you're growing and not dying in the upcoming years?
Monica Reynolds 14:23
You know, it's so simple people will roll their eyes. If you make 20 contacts a day. And you have a conscious effort of adding three people to your database every single day with complete name, address, phone number and emails. You will win. And if you're not hitting your goals, make more contacts. Is it a skills issue or is it a contact issue? When the market shifted like in 2010 I had to make 150 contacts to take one listing. And so you've learned your numbers, you know real estate's a math equation, that's all it is just a math equation. How many contacts to an appointment how many appointments to a contract You know how many days on the market I mean, all of that is so important to keep track of. And yet the bottom line is, is that you're a salesperson. And when you look at a definition of a salesperson, it doesn't say you wait for the lead, you know, you're proactively looking for a business. If you have the mindset that you don't wait for business, that you go look for business, you will always win. And every single day, you're checking off to talk to 20 people and keeping track of your numbers, and being purposeful, that you know, going on the appointment is great, but the most important appointment you have is lead generation every day. And every time you don't go on that appointment of lead generation every day, you've now moved your goalpost, you keep moving it, keep moving it, you do 20 A day you win, you totally win. And I know you agree with that, Brian, you've been in real estate enough to see all the success people have. It's all about the time blocking of looking for business, don't you agree whether it's going out for coffee with 10 people a week or whenever it is time-blocked lead generation?
Brian Charlesworth 15:59
Well, I actually told our sales team this morning in a meeting that today is with the direction things are going it's more important than ever since Sisu was founded, that people use Sisu. Because we were founded really on knowing your numbers. And now it's moved to streamlining and automating your processes as well. And anyway, yes, absolutely. I agree with that.
Monica Reynolds 16:26
It's automation, its database. And it keeps you on track with your lead generation and you know your numbers. There are no secrets. And as you build your team, there are no secrets with Sisu you have to have those kinds of systems. Right now in order to thrive, your business can survive, but you won't Thrive unless you have something like Sisu.
Brian Charlesworth 16:45
So from a team owner's perspective, what do you think's the most important thing? Is it having the right systems? Or is it? I mean,
Monica Reynolds 16:54
first, you have to go back to having the right people, right. Yeah, you have the right people systems don't matter. Right? Yeah, you have to I think it always goes back to putting the right people on the bus, having a system of hiring, making sure you do your due diligence on checking references, checking their skills before they show up for the job. And you know, don't settle. You know, when you hear something that doesn't sound right, you got to explore that and ask, you're going to spend more time with these people than you do with your family, unfortunately. And so you really want to make sure that those are the right people, when you get that right person, wow, do the trains move down the track faster, that wheel spin, everything clicks. And it's just so great when you have the right people. And then, of course, the database is probably the very, very most important thing that you can look at, I always say your database is your only asset. It's not your car, or Louis Vuitton bag, or whatever you carry. It's the asset of your database, name, address, phone number, and email having completes. So a lot of times out coach a team, and I'll find out that they're only putting the husband or the wife, you know, when there's a couple on a listing, and they go, well, where's the rest of it? Well, this is the person we're talking to, and they go, Well, let's get the other spouse, let's get the other partners. You know, and so it's really critical to be conscious about that. So when you're tracking numbers, you should be tracking who's in your database that are completed and who are incomplete. And those are the ones you work to make complete.
Brian Charlesworth 18:25
Okay, great. So you talked about the importance of the people you're with, I notice a lot of as the businesses that I work with, as we work with about 3000 teams, now I see that there are some that have this mindset of, okay, I need to have the best of the best. And I'm only gonna have five to 10 agents on my team. And then there are these other ones who, in my world, I see them succeeding at a much higher level, which is the best of the best, those people want to be me. I want the people who are like, they don't want to be me, they're never going to think as I do, but I want 50 of them or I want 100 of them on my team. So what are your thoughts on that? How does someone decide which is the best way for them to go about building a team?
Monica Reynolds 19:12
Well, okay, so you gotta know that I got a whole different way of looking at this. So when I left Mike Ferry, I took over a team for Chris Heller, who then became the CEO of Keller Williams at the time. And I said, don't ask me what I'm doing. Don't come back to the office and you'll get a million dollars every year. That was with three agents and four assistants and three ISAs. So he wanted to net a million dollars every year and he did he never stepped back in there. So I think you have to know what your what is your goal? Why do you want to build this big team? You do love contributing and giving people opportunities now I think that's wonderful too, or is it that you want to streamline business and you want to net this amount. So for someone who wants 50 to 200 to 300 Kristin Cole is one of my dear friends and you know, she has a fantastic Kristin Cole network, fantastic business, and hundreds and hundreds of agents. That's not for me. That's not for a lot of people. And so you have to know what you want. What is your talent? What is your passion? What is your goal? And I don't think everybody needs to be a Christian Cole or anyone that has hundreds and hundreds of agents. And yet, what do you want to have with a team? Now I've looked at building a team for a legacy, I look at building a team for having a retirement income come from that, as I stepped to the side or step back or step out, I've got something that I'm building that saleable. I mean, that's why I would build a team. And the database is going to be critical. Let me give you one tip. Nobody ever does this. But maybe Brian, somebody will. I have said from day one when the computers came out that we need to put $1 sign in a field. And every time we sell bad guy, something, that guy was $7,200 in commission. Oh, he got divorced, I sold them another house now and it was 5000. So now he's worth 12,000. Can you imagine if I sold my database to you with a dollar sign and every single client what they were worth to me? How would that sale go?
Brian Charlesworth 21:15
Yeah, makes sense.
Monica Reynolds 21:17
That's what I do to my database. If I was going to look at the future and bring on someone and so many agents never get out of real estate, you're always in real estate no matter what. And so at some point, you have to look at the big picture. What's the end picture? In you know, I highly respect these huge networks like Kristin Cole's, I highly respect her work ethic and what she's built and how she's changed so many lives in what is the end result for most people who are not going to do that? Where do you want to go with your business and get clarity about that? And obviously, Sisu is going to help you have those kinds of systems in place that organize your business, you can't sell a business, it's not organized, you can't sell a business that you can't spout out the numbers, that's critical. It's critical.
Brian Charlesworth 22:15
So you mentioned Kristin a few times Kristin was on the podcast probably a year ago or something. So for those of you who want to hear more about that side of growing a business, go back and listen to that podcast. And I think I don't remember how many expansion teams she has. But it's extremely large. So
Monica Reynolds 22:32
Huge, large.
Brian Charlesworth 22:33
Yeah, I know one of the things you focus on since you moved into KW is getting coaches to where they're netting a million dollars as a coach. Can you tell me more about that?
Monica Reynolds 22:46
When I took the job with Gary Keller, three years ago, I came because in I accepted the job because I was the first coach probably in real estate history to make a million dollars coaching. And so I said to Gary, I said, I'll come. But I want to change the opportunities. And I want to put this back into an entrepreneurial business for coaches. And he goes, I love that he goes, Okay, let's do it. How do we do it, we talked about it. And so if you have a niche, or you have a strength, you know, we'll have four or five coaches this year that will hit a million, probably have 10 coaches, maybe more than do over 500,000, maybe 20 or 30 coaches that will do that. So what we do is, we want you to come to us with what you think is a great idea. We have a couple of boot camps that are coming up in the fall from a team leader to assistant boot camps. And basically their two-day, three-day boot camps. And people have come to us with the ideas of them and we go great, let's put it together. So the entrepreneur is thinking about ideas all the time, aren't they? And in most coaching companies, you don't get to have your ideas be voiced very much, or heard because there's a leader there. And there's a certain platform and certain system and certain amount of money you can make. So I said to the coaches, I said what I'm going to do in the next three years is what my want anyone to say what my legacy was that I built opportunities, and I built ways for you to be incredibly successful and build an incredible business because when you think about what the overhead is sometimes for a coach, it's very little, it's their office, your phone and they may have a cyber backer or virtual assistant, most of them do maybe one or two, but that's it.
Brian Charlesworth 24:39
So you guys are kW MAPS, you only coach kW teams and agents, right?
Monica Reynolds 24:46
We do but in our group calls, we do coach other company agents in our group calls.
Brian Charlesworth 24:53
Okay. So I mean, what was the main change that you made happen for these coaches to be able to say Okay, I'm gonna go from coaching part-time to now I'm going to coach full time, because some of these guys have made that transition, right?
Monica Reynolds 25:09
Yeah, they did? Well, first of all, only when you get hired as a coach, do you go through our red shirt program and agree to have at least 30 clients. And so in some worlds, all lot of coaches still have a business that they still operate in some sort. And so what I know after 25, 26 years of coaching is that if you have a big schedule, you're a better coach because you're not doing the onesie twosie there's a lot of coaching companies that will let coaches just have two or three clients, that's not who we are, we want this to be a business, then the next part is, well, how do I be a Millionaire Real Estate coach, you get to choose whatever you want to as your every month, the monthly obligation for each client. So at a certain point, when you've changed their lives and double their income, that's when you can say, okay, the charge for being in my schedule, because of these are the things that I do is 1500. And or it's 4000. We have some coaches that charge 4000. Now their expertise is off the charts. And so you know, it's just every coach is very, very well qualified. And yet, if you take someone's business from making 250,000 to a million, then that coach is probably going to move you up from 1000 to 1500.
Brian Charlesworth 26:31
Yeah, well deserved, right?
Monica Reynolds 26:33
And they get to choose, some coaches don't choose to do that. Some do, it's up to them. And yet, they've got to turn 60% of their schedule, not just part of it. So they have to have that expertise to where those clients say yes. So when I moved my schedule up the first time when we changed it to 1500. For some of the coaches, I had 100%, that turned, they didn't want out of my schedule, because they saw the benefit of that. So a lot of coaches coming in, you have to build that reputation, you have to build your clients and get them on the trajectory of doubling and tripling their business.
Brian Charlesworth 27:08
Yeah. Okay. So thanks for sharing that. I saw something about you coming up with the five steps for building a big business life. Tell me about that. You know,
Monica Reynolds 27:20
the key to all of that is I can spout out the steps. And then I'd say to you, what's important to you, Brian, you know, first of all, it's people, IT systems because you want to leverage in, and yet I was just reading a great book, and just this one, have you ever read this book? Subtract?
Brian Charlesworth 27:40
I have not. Yeah. Okay.
Monica Reynolds 27:41
So Kristin Cole won't read this book. But it's about working on less is more. So understand who you are, and what lifestyle you want for yourself and your family. when is enough, enough. And so many people don't understand how to embrace life along the way and say, Gosh, I met this milestone, this is great. You know, this is where I want to be, or I'm looking over the fence, I'm going to add to that. The bottom line on any of this is that you have to know who you are, and what you want. And you know, when people say well, what's your why, your why is what you want to provide for your life. And, you know, I'm above the dirt today. And this is what my life's about. This is what I want. This is where I want my life to go. And this is the impact I want to make. And so when you look at that, it's about obviously money, you have to understand that you have to have a healthy relationship with money. A lot of agents, unfortunately, don't, because they weren't taught in the beginning to you know, live on half your check and put the other half for savings in the IRS. Right. And so you have to understand money, the value of that you have to understand your schedule, and what's important in your life. I've got a 47-year-old son that's retired, da, he did everything I said to do, right. And he's on some massive amount of properties and the phone rings. So go sell somebody a house. If it doesn't, he's fine. He's totally set for life. But he started building his real estate career in his late 20s buying property like crazy.
Brian Charlesworth 29:15
He's set up for life. He owns the properties. But still, when you say retired, I'd like some clarity on that. Because I think there's a group of people that view retirement as now I can sit on the couch for the rest of my life and watch TV. Oh, no, but I don't think people from real estate think that way.
Monica Reynolds 29:33
Yeah, when I say retired, he's not doing that lead generation grind. He doesn't have an assistant. He doesn't do marketing. He's built his reputation over the years in Austin and is highly successful and he's looking for properties. He helps you know, he's always talking to somebody and got clients that refer in business like crazy. He paid a lot of dues to get there. And so I say to any agent in this day and age, it's about your relationships. It's about who the people you're in contact with just got off a call just recently, and I said to someone in Las Vegas, I said, Rick, you've got it, get your top 100 list. He's been in real estate for over 20 years, I said, who are the best people? Those are the people, you put your arms around, you take one of those people at least out to lunch once a week and another one out once a week so that you get in front of everybody, at least once a year. And those are your bird dogs. Those are your relationships, you wake up on January 1st, and 100 people are going to give you 100 deals, whether they buy it or they know someone because they care about you and you build a relationship. And they know most importantly you care about them. You care about them. And if you're not in contact like that real estate's easy. Once you figure out who are the 20 3040 people, I need to know, who am I staying in touch with every day? Who am I staying in touch with once a month? What's going on? Who are the best people to know? It's easy. It's that easy.
Brian Charlesworth 29:54
So what do you think Monica is going to happen with? I know there's still demand, we talked a little bit about this. But interest rates going up to 5%. I've heard a rumor that I'm going up to 8%.
Monica Reynolds 31:11
I believe it.
Brian Charlesworth 31:12
So a lot of the people who were buying houses a year ago had never seen a six or an 8% interest rate in their lifetime. And you know, these first-time homebuyers like what do you think happens to the industry as we move forward over the next few years,
Monica Reynolds 31:30
you're asking someone who's sold real estate when FHA was 17 and a half percent and prime was 21%. People still need to buy people still need to sell, you just need to get in the middle of them. And, you know, I just talked to a young gal the other day selling real estate, she's in her late 20s. And she bought her first investment property and I said what interest rates she gets, she goes six, and I go Good For You didn't faze her a bit. Now she's been in real estate for about three or four years, didn't faze her a bit. Now, if you'd asked me that, you know, 20 something years ago, I got a six I go, Oh my god, where'd you get that I gotta get one of those. It's all relative people still buy and sell real estate. Gary says it's gonna go to a percent. I'm on Gary's train. I agree. I don't think the federal government is going to stop raising the rates until they stop inflation. And one of the things that they're looking at is real estate inflation, real estate sales, and the values of homes, a lot of people have doubled the value of their home in two years by just sitting in it. So that's a clear path for a lot of people right now with how they've built wealth, however, be careful. Because when it goes up and comes down in the last 12 years, we've been on a ride. And usually, every seven to 10 years is a correction, we haven't had a correction for 12 years, and here comes a correction. But don't be afraid of the correction, embrace it. People still die, people still get divorced, people still move, they get transferred, and they have to sell their homes. And I don't anything under 10% single digit, go for it. You know, I had a mortgage at 16 and a half percent and I thought I'd died and went to heaven because it was 18 and a half. And I got it from a friend of mine and an insurance company. So it's all relative, isn't it?
Brian Charlesworth 33:13
Absolutely. It is. So what about the real estate commissions? What do you see happening there? I know there's work going on around trying to get rid of the buyer agent commission's I'd love to get your thoughts on that whole situation.
Monica Reynolds 33:27
You know, I'm so old school, somebody's just gonna roll their eyes, if you can show your value proposition and what you do, and how you do things to market a home and how you do things to protect the seller in negotiations and contracts. And your value proposition is marketing and your expertise. You know, I feel that the Commission's should be at 6%. If you can prove your value now, do some agents don't have that value? Of course. And I think that's mean, how do I answer this? It is what it is. And I think 6% is fair. And I challenge every agent to have a great value proposition. And the fact that the seller pays the buyer compensation. I think that's going to be a difficult one to change. I don't I think there's you know, obviously there's a court case pending are in the works anyway. And I just don't think it's going to change. It's our industry right now. The sellers don't have to agree to pay that. They can say I'm only going to pay four and the agent goes okay, let's do that. Or the agent, you know, says okay, for Well, what about five? I mean, it's all negotiable. We're not making a seller do anything. We tell them. Here's how it's done. They can say no. And I can say no as an agent and say, Okay, never mind, I'm not going to work with you because you only want to pay 1% It doesn't work for me. Yep. And I know
Brian Charlesworth 33:49
I've seen a lot of that happen with some of these discount brokerages coming out over the last few years. So now Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Before I jump into some of your personal life, can you just give like last words of advice?
Monica Reynolds 35:08
Oh, gosh, you know, this is an incredible career. And yet you have to have the expertise to study the market all the time to read books all the time being knowledgeable. There's, you know, if I said the word cost segregation, do you do you know what I'm talking about? How do you help your clients create wealth, that's a key thing. And so when you learn these things about investment properties, and being that expert that can handle everything, the key thing for me just words of advice is this is an incredible career, and fall in love with real estate. If you're doing something in real estate you don't like whether it's paperwork or making even calls, then delegate that to someone who's great on the phone to call your database and delegate the paperwork to a great real estate assistant. Fall in love with what you do. And for example, I love talking to people I love showing houses, I love going on listing appointments, I love getting contract signed, and I loved paperwork. I didn't love the processing, I didn't want to call a sign company, and I didn't want to call a home warranty company. I didn't love that part. So love what you do and figure out what that is because then you have the passion. And then you absolutely excel at the highest possible level, you will excel when you're passionate. You're in love with real estate.
Brian Charlesworth 36:33
Great advice. So I'm going to take that and take it to the next level. I want to learn about some of the things you love. What is your favorite book or favorite source of learning? I know you shared a book with us today. But like what is you would recommend for everybody.
Monica Reynolds 36:47
This one, fanatical prospecting, I've got books on my desk because there's like, Coach, I go, you need to buy this book. This is the book for you. Now, this book is great. The other one that I've got on my desk right now is who not how another great book. So I'm a business book junkie, I buy him, I usually have two or three going at the same time. And what I love is that it stimulates my thinking to go, Well, that doesn't work for me. I don't agree with that. But I like the thought of this. And so it's just fun to stay on top of that. And if you want to excel in real estate, you can't be a guru of information, a guru. You've got to know the market, you got to know the business. You got to know how to hire you got to have systems, you got to know how to track your numbers. It's just that simple. It's very simple. It really is.
Brian Charlesworth 37:41
Hey, thanks so many people, overcomplicate it right. And just even just make sure you're doing the basics. All the things you just said doing a great job of yeah,
Monica Reynolds 37:51
And you know, I don't really have a favorite book other than that MREA Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which Gary wrote in 2003. And it's still appropriate. There's nothing in there. That's really wrong. I love Pizza Tiger. I love The Wealthy Gardener. There are so many great books that I don't have like a favorite other than the Millionaire Real Estate Agent is a good basic one to start with. And then build your business books. I mean, just build them. And what I love is when I opened them up, this is a great tip, Brian, you open them up. And every time you have a page like page 17 you right in the front cover page 17 Blah, blah, blah, page 22 Blah, blah, blah. So when I open up the book, a year or two later, I look at it and go, Oh, that's the page I need to go look at. That's instead of turning the pages and flipping them over in the corners. I learned to write in front of the book. Now I own the book.
Brian Charlesworth 38:42
Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, what about your favorite place? Speaking of things you love.
Monica Reynolds 38:49
I have a beach place in San Diego. I don't get to go too often. I love that and have a place out at the lake here. I love water. So I guess it's I love water. I love just sitting and looking at the water. And nothing better in San Diego than to watch something school and dolphins go by. It's very fun.
Brian Charlesworth 39:06
Yeah, I would agree with that. And also the sound of the waves or the river.
Monica Reynolds 39:10
It's just it's this mesmerizing. I entertain myself for hours looking at the water.
Brian Charlesworth 39:15
Well, Monica, congratulations on your amazing journey through this real estate career of yours. And just from the, you know, early days of Mike to now you're running the coaching company for kW. And just congratulations on all of your success. It's been fun getting to know you. If somebody wants to reach out to you. What's the best way to get a hold of you?
Monica Reynolds 39:23
The easiest way is Monica M-O-N-I-C-A @ Monica Reynolds R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S.com. Monica@Monicareynolds.com. That's the easiest way.
Brian Charlesworth 39:45
Okay, everybody, Monica Reynolds. And thanks for joining us on the show today, Monica, everyone. Thanks for joining us as well and we'll catch you all next week. Have a great day.
