Beyond the Sale: Sam Ennis's Insights on Health, Community, and Real Estate

In this episode of Total Agent Access, Colin chats with Sam Ennis, whose unique journey from the hotel industry to real estate reveals the profound connection between service sectors. Sam opens up about the initial hurdles he encountered, such as handling challenging tenants and managing sensitive client interactions, emphasizing the critical role of emotional intelligence in real estate.

He shares invaluable insights into the importance of self-care and maintaining mental clarity, drawing a direct line between personal well-being and professional efficacy. Reflecting on the evolution of marketing tools, Sam discusses his transition from traditional methods to leveraging modern online platforms to enhance client engagement and outreach.

A passionate advocate for community involvement, Sam highlights how volunteering and supporting local organizations have not only enriched his career but also strengthened his community ties. He underscores the significance of building lasting relationships and the impact of giving back.

Furthermore, Sam offers practical advice for real estate agents, including the strategic use of video marketing and the benefits of specializing in niche markets. He also contemplates the future landscape of real estate, stressing the need for agents to adapt to changing industry dynamics.

This episode is packed with actionable strategies and heartfelt stories, providing a roadmap for agents eager to deepen their impact both professionally and in their communities.

Links:
Website: AlpineToOcean.com
Instagram: @samuel.ennis.exprealty

Takeaways

🔥Taking care of oneself and maintaining a clear mind and energy is crucial for success in the real estate industry.
🔥Dealing with difficult tenants and navigating personal and emotional situations with clients is part of the job.
🔥Health and fitness can have a positive impact on business success.
🔥Utilizing online platforms is essential for marketing and connecting with clients in today's real estate industry. 
🔥Volunteering and being involved in the community is a powerful way to build relationships and make a difference.
🔥Self-care and time management are crucial for real estate agents to maintain balance and avoid burnout.
🔥Using video to connect with clients and showcasing authenticity and vulnerability can be highly effective.
🔥Finding a niche market and focusing on providing value in that area can lead to success.
🔥The future of organized real estate will require adaptation to changing commission structures and regulations.
🔥Realtors have a natural inclination to give back to their communities and make a positive impact.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to the podcast. We are here today with none other than Sam Ennis. Sam, how are you, pal? What's going on, Colin? How you doing, buddy? I'm really, really good. Now, Sam and I have a bit of a history. We sort of started at the same time. We like to think that we're brothers in arms here and our career paths have gone very, very similar to each other. I'm up in Northern British Columbia. Sam is on Vancouver Island. What area of Vancouver Island do you cover, Sam? You and your team. Yeah, we're on the eastern seaboard of the island here. So we're our office space is in the Comox Valley, but we go down to Parksville, Nanaimo up to Kelmba River. So they're all populations of Guelman and I'm over 100000. Parksville, you're sitting about 60 and Qualcomm 30. They added to the other kind of Qualcomm and Parksville together. And then Comox Valley, about 80000 and Wow. So quite a bit of space now. That is heck of a beautiful area of the world. And I don't blame you for ever, ever leaving. Did you grow up there? No, I didn't actually. I grew up in Vancouver. Family is from here. Well, it's old history. My grandparents owned an old hotel here called the Elk Hotel in the Comots Marina. My dad grew up here with my mom as teenagers. They fell in love here. raised to my two older siblings and then they moved to Vancouver and had me there. And then one after another my oldest sister moved back here and then my Mom moved back and then my other sister moved back. Then my dad moved back and they came back together with different spouses, obviously. And I was never wanting to move here. It was, I was like, oh, that's a crazy small town. I'm a city slicker. I live downtown Vancouver, Cole Harbor, overlooking the landscape bridge, beautiful condo and you know, bachelor life, right? And I went to Starbucks to meet a lady network marketing company and uh it's just now my wife. And so yeah I was never expecting it and so my family's begging me for a couple years to get up here and uh there's no hope that I was ever going to get up here and uh just uh love drove my way up yeah. I hear you. Now was Justina, your wife, was she from that area? Yeah. No, she's from Edmonton. So, yeah, she moved over here. I think she was like 13 years old or something like that. And moved to Tofino, which is in the west coast of Vancouver Island helping her sister run a business, an Airbnb over there and taking care of her nephews. And then her mom moved over here from Edmonton and she came over here to finish up high school. Yeah. and now how many years later and how many kids later. Well, 20 years later, we've been together now. Well, 20 years I moved here, and so 20 a bit, just over that. And three kids. I moved into a ready-made family, so she already had two children. So I came in from a bachelor to a ready-made family of a year and a half-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. Ha ha. Terrific and the bachelor life ended for you. What do you guys like to do as a family in your area? Well, as a family now, like it's we're. growing older as a family. So our oldest one's 23, so he's out of the house, bought his own place, he's in concrete. But we try to get together as much as we can. Maybe it's even just once a month, unfortunately. I'd like to be doing it more often, but life gets in the way and the kids are busy. Our middle child, our daughter there, she's 21 and she's got three jobs. So, you get us all together, it's next to impossible. But my youngest guy here, he's 15. We hit the gym together pretty much five days a week. He's pretty jacked 15-year-old kids. And... though that he gets to learn that from you and you guys get that time together though. Yeah, well, it was mental health, right? It was a... Not for me, but for him, where he is in school. And I caught him just gaming all the time, sitting in his room, not socializing, not getting out there. And we built a gym in our house, quite a high-end gym. And I was the only one ever using it. Justina was using it for the cardio side. And I got him in there, tried to start doing some TRX. And before you know it, he got hooked onto it. Now he's got weight belts, as heavy as I am, which is not the greatest thing because he's still young and his joints are still fragile, but he's very dedicated and now his life goals are to be a bodybuilder, personal trainer. Amazing. That's great. So before real estate, what did you do? Um, well... pretty much always had real estate in my blood. My dad was in construction, we had a restoration company in Vancouver. So that 1990s leaky condo pandemic that we had there in Kitsilano and all of the west side of downtown Vancouver, we pretty much tarped up all those buildings. And I was 14 at that time and been hammering out nails out of boards and buildings from 14 till about 20. I got into the hotel industry and worked at the Fairmont hotels for three years in downtown Vancouver and still stuck around with the construction with my father so I did the two jobs there. And then yeah about 22 I packed up and went to Australia for a year, came back, got back into the hotel industry, met my wife, moved up here and from Fairmont to for me. That was a little bit of a hotel snob at that time so I was like... the Fairmont has a way of doing that to you. We have a hard time staying at anything that's not a Fairmont. Exactly, yeah. So it's, yeah, it was. So the hotel industry wasn't really something that I wanted to get into up here, but my wife and I did meet through network marketing, so we hammered that out together as a team in sales and marketing and health and wellness, and went through a couple businesses doing that, and so our niche was in sales and marketing together, but while doing that, I had to work in a restaurant just to get the bills paid and that kind of thing, and worked at a restaurant here for five years while doing that, going on the side job, It paid its way through, made us a living, right? But obviously Justina had a job as well, and raising three kids and doing two jobs, it was a lot. So that's why this is all gone. That's right, I can hear you. The hair starts disappearing. Absolutely. hurricane years. I've heard the term before. But yeah, we just give her as much as we can. We work way too hard and inefficiently and stress ourselves out. We gain our weight and we lose our hair. And a lot of men will have our attacks. Yeah, exactly. We're both in the same boat. let's double back onto the Fairmont. What do you think that you learnt at the Fairmont because their service is so high that has helped you in the real estate business? Well, really being very personal and professional really at the end of the day. I can't really put it in relations, but... being in front of people, because I was in every industry in the hotel there, not everybody, I went through quite a few of them. And my main goal was to be a hotel manager with Paramount and drop of the world. That was my end goal with them, right. And they had a great in-house transfer program, right. So if you wanted to go to Bermuda and work down there for a summer, you could, or whatever. So all those, my goals were to cover every aspect of the hotel. And the last ones were really was banquets and a front desk was the last two off but I was mostly in the in-room dining and restaurants side of things and then also a pool boy. I was which was yeah my hotmail address was pool boy back in the day but it was uh anyways I back in the day yeah that email account's dead just saying. Now. yeah, we, end of the day, you know, I was dealing with a lot of high-end people, lots of big money coming through there. We were downtown Vancouver where a lot of the businessmen would come in and for their lunches and stuff like that. And, you know, they, you know, I think Gwen Sanford would come in once in a while as well because he just worked around the block. So I'm sure he was one of those guys that I was serving. But at the end of the day, it was just being professionalism, right? And having that in your pocket and knowing how to. be a chameleon and fit in with every different kind of crowd because there would be rock stars coming through there, movie stars, hockey players, businessmen, ladies, and just people there for a good time. So you have to really fit in with that crowd and just to get the right tips and that's what it was all about, is making tips and having relationships with these right guys. you to becoming a real estate agent? Well, continuing on when I was up here with Justina, moving up to Comox Valley, gotten sales and marketing. So we were pretty good at doing that and making the cold calls and all that, and trying to get people into the network marketing side, which is a very hard business. It's, you know, it's got all its names that you can possibly think of. Ponzi scheme, scam, you know, MLS scams, all that stuff, right? So, um, MLM scam, sorry. And everyone just has a great feeling about it. they'd always just think it's a Ponzi scheme. You're going to get that free TV if you give them two grand every month or whatever. So we got into that, hammered that through, did quite well with it. Justina actually was making a really good living when I met her on it. So we did sales and marketing. Then I got into interior design while I was working in the restaurant as well and did a year of online into flipping houses up here in Count River and Comox. And so him and I went through a couple and he gave me my first two projects to design the houses that we flipped. And we flipped them and then the mill crashed, the mill closed down, everyone foreclosed or sold off their houses and moved away to Alberta where the oil money was. And so those were in the transitions of us in the middle of flipping these houses. And then before you know it, everyone on the block had a for sale sign. And we lost money. way. Yeah, I was going to say it would have been a very difficult time to flip when the market is descending, right? Yeah, so then I put it all together, you know, I have a trades. background in construction, doing restoration, knowing about leaky condos, knowing about where to look for rock molds and all that kind of issue. They come up in our home inspections daily in sales and marketing and interior design. But you know, we had our third kid coming and I was like, you know, we got to make, you know, excuse my language, make shit happen. And that it was, supported me and said get to it get into the real estate side of things and let's start selling houses and so that earth it honestly seems like it's the culmination of everything that you have done before, all of course coming together and the natural process, right? You had all the skills already. You just needed to go and do it. Yeah, exactly. It was, and that's what brought it to me. I was like, you know what, we're great at sales and marketing. Justina can coach me on a lot of that stuff and how she's handled things. for objections and stuff like that. You know, we had a great support. Her mother took us in so we didn't have to pay rent or mortgage. So we stayed in there for a year and a half. It was not easy, you know, living with the in-laws and for a year and a half in a small three bedroom rancher with three kids and Stine and I were jammed in a 10 by 10 room and we had to make it happen then. And it was a do or die kind of situation for us at that point, right? Because having the three kids, I just didn't want my children to go through what I went through as a child where I couldn't get everything I wanted. There was a lot of no's, you can't do that. I had a great life growing up, don't get me wrong. There was times like hot dog day, no hot dogs this time. milk day in school. No, we can't get the milk for today. It wasn't, we were poor, but my mom really had to manage her funds. So I just want to make sure our kids didn't go through that, you know, lifestyle that I went through and want to make sure that they got everything they needed to have a great upbringing. Really. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so just to shift gears and have some fun here. Why don't you share with our listeners your worst real estate moment. Tell us that story and tell us what you learned from it. Oh boy. Ah. The worst one was probably the tenant that would never leave. We've all heard these ones before. Ha ha. We had cops brought in, we had the tenants screaming and getting dragged out of the sliding glass door on the ground floor of the apartment. They had everything against all bylaw rules in this apartment. They had bare, bare old rats running around. And we called those minks and dogs and cats and birds and everything. In an apartment. So, and we tried to get in, but they put a barbell, or a barbell across the door, jammed over, so we couldn't even get through the front door, so they had to go through the sliding glass door. Fortunately, it would not lock, it was broken lock, so they couldn't stop us from getting in. I was on the phone, so I'm hearing this with my owner, and screaming and hollering and all of that. So, you know, they were good, they let us have showings during the process, right? And we got in the door, you know the pet thing I don't know I didn't realize how many they were from when we got the deal sold to going to completion and I think it started really filling up the place I have no idea this is what I was hearing from the police report there but end of the day never guarantee the deals gonna close smoothly till the keys are handed over and even afterwards. Even afterwards you could dishwash or break down the food. one. Yeah, I had one where it was a foreclosure and I think there was some unfortunately some mental issues, but young guy with his pitbull and it was a big pitbull being foreclosed on and he basically never let the pitbull out of the house. So you can probably figure out I'm being nice to everybody. What the inside of the house was. like and it was him living in there with this big pit bull and try to get showings when people open up a door and there's big pit bull standing on the other side. So yeah. been other, you know, other situations. There's always like, I was just telling Justina the other day there that I was like, man, you know what, I'm not sleeping this last three nights. And like, I've got some weight dumped on me this week. And it wasn't anything bad that I did or anything like that. It's the things that came to me for counseling. Um, we're not just realtors. We hear it all. Right. We don't just put signs in the ground and sell houses. We hear their issues of why they have to sell a house or what the situation is to get their house sold sooner than later. And, uh, You know, I got into one where we're going to foreclose. This is our dream. We always thought we could do this. And this property was for, you know, for our future use for our children. But we can't afford it now. And, you know, the wife's quite upset. And it was that. And then there was a divorce and just had a baby. And I'm dealing with the wife and she's a friend of mine. And she's splitting up with her husband and she's already had two kids with another guy. And I was like, no one's ever going to love me and this stuff. Right. You know, that kind of feeling and then there's death, right? And I was ready to sell the guy's house and he was going to an old folks home and he got COVID and heart failure, congestive heart failure and passed away. I just found this out three days ago through an obituary sent to me via email. So you get thrown in the wringer, man. It's tough, right? And you know, so, as they can console, but I'm not a counselor. You know, but... sometimes you get that though. And I've been there on several different occasions where, you know, you're stepping outside of the realtor role. And maybe it is part of our role that you're working with these people through the biggest decisions in their lives. And, you know, I had one similar to you where the people were going into an old folks home. They had lived in their house for over 50. years and how hard that was for them to sign the paperwork. You know, it was tough. I had to sit with them. I held hands with them. I helped with tears and just talking to them and letting them know that none of their memories are being sold, that they're all coming with them. Yeah, no exactly. Yeah, that's the tough one. There's been a lot of those, obviously, we go through that yearly, really, with those. Three generations have gone through houses, some of them, right? And they have to let it go eventually. You know, it was the grandfathers and the great grandfathers. I'm dealing with one guy right now as a new lead talking to, and he's fourth generation in this property. It's like a hundred acres of land that he's got. Um, and it's right in like not far from town here. Um, let's not let this out right yet, just cause I have to get the listing first. Absolutely. So, you know, if you could look back at when you first started, what advice would you give to yourself? Give advice to myself, I'd be making sure I'm keeping myself in check. If you don't have a well-oiled machine, you're not gonna run it properly. The ship will sink. And like when I got into it, I didn't take care of myself at all. I was tunnel vision. I was ignoring the family. I was focused on just deals, deals. Completely just looking at the paychecks down the street, that kind of thing, and not really looking at what's around me. So I felt, you know, now we're, you know, I do catch myself still Not very often, but I check myself pretty quickly when it happens or Justina checks me in and says, hey where are you gonna feel you know in other words sometimes but Health taking care of yourself meditation Having your own space making sure you can defrag every day like what I do now is hit the gym after work, well not after work, but during those 12 hours I'll hit the gym in the time I have available. That doesn't matter if it's morning, evening, whatever. And really making sure my mind's clear and focused. And I have my space, I have my spot, I go to almost every night. Yeah, you and I have both gone down that journey this year, where focusing on health. And I can say without a doubt that it has improved my business. And you don't think about it, but it has. So like you said, you would tell yourself that to take care of yourself and your systems and your family and stuff like that, All rebounds on your work and it makes it really better, honestly. And we're having real great success this year in business. And a lot of my focus has been on just taking care of myself. Have you found the same with you? know, oh, totally, 100%. Like fully focused, ready to go, wake up every morning, refreshed, not groggy. You know, I really do have to say it's something to do with probably the wheat that I was eating. It was a lot of bread in my diets before. And then you and I are on the same training program where we were with the Shepplacks there. Shout out to those boys and girls. Yeah, you got to, you got to make sure you give Shannon a shout out. Shannon's awesome. But, you know, I found that his accountability was huge in this, where... I made myself very vulnerable in the process right from the beginning. Like I worked out since I was 14, 15 years old. I go up and down the roller coaster ride, right? I'd get into it, get out of it. As soon as I got in shape, I started, you know, just doing whatever. Not really focused, not thinking. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, after about a year with my son in the gym, we were hitting it up pretty hard, but I was getting big. I was turning into like the Swedish meatball guy. where you're. You know, I can barely, you know, keep my arms to the sides of my body. Like I was throwing propane tanks over my head kind of stuff, right? It's just, I was a tough man. And I just got bigger and bigger and you know, I can barely put my shoes on, right? It was just like a so big everywhere that it was strong strength. I had it, but it was not really there. And then going through the proper diet and nutrition and supplements into my body since last August. It's been a complete game changer. So as soon as I put that in, I put myself vulnerable. So this is what I'm doing. Follow my vision and follow my story. I need you guys for support. I put a two-minute video out there on Instagram and Facebook and called out the Shepplacks on it. And for you to know, you know, you got about 2000 people watching you. Right? So and then I did another selfie in the bathroom of like my first month of transition. And the changes and the comments I was getting off of it was amazing. And then seeing John Ceplak in Vegas in the conference and he's called me out on the diet and everything and called me out on Facebook and his, you know, he posts every week or whatever or every day actually, John, but called me out on it. I was like, okay, now I've got like 10,000 people watching me. So it's like, I can't fail now. There's no going back, right? And you know just making that goal happen right and just it's been a game-changer for me. Our whole family's now in the gym. We're all working out. Like my oldest boy and I work out in one gym together. It's an adult gym and then my youngest goes we go to the rec center because he's not 19 yet so. How do you think that has directly affected your real estate business? Just having a clear mind, man, and energy, and not dragging and having full focus on what's around me. I mean, you know, being that leader, you have to have that leadership role. You have to be there. You have to be on top of everything that's going on in your team. You know, there's lots of eyes we have in this office right now, we've got a team of seven agents and an admin and it's, it's lots to control. It's not even controlling it. It's just making sure that they're getting what they need. And you gotta be there and you gotta be present for it. If you're not, and you're just dragging around and saying, yeah, I'll get back to you tomorrow. They're gonna be like, well, we have here where he's not even getting back to me. You know, so like having the energy, the focus, the drive, and to help everyone succeed, you need to be there. You need to be a well-oiled machine to be making that happen. Now, can you open up your toolbox and share with our listeners what are your marketing secrets, what has worked for you when you first started, and what is working for you right now? When I first started, this is going back almost 15 years now, so there wasn't a lot of online tools. 14. Sorry, my wife always bugs me by this, I'd say sometimes. Did you hit 18? But weren't we in the remax orientation together? Yeah, we sure were. I had been in it. I'd been selling real estate for three years previous when I joined Remax. Yeah. So at the beginning there was open houses was like the thing that you do to get your client drive, right? Door knocking, but I didn't do that. I was too nervous about the shutdowns and get losts and you know, the objections, right? So I never did the door knocking part, but door knocking and being part of the community and being out there and volunteering your time. I think that's huge, especially in a smaller town where half my business came from that. with the young professionals group here. I was a sponsor to the SPCA at the beginning. Just finished up with the hospice society. I was part of the Comox Valley Hospice. Board of Directors with them. Always been involved. There's multiple, the Rotary Group was in there for four years as well, so it's always been an involvement with the community and giving back and volunteering time. I don't think that's, I don't do it just to get business. I've been doing it because actually it's a feel good and I like to be part of it and to help things grow what's around you and surrounding you and making sure your community thrives to what they do. So there's that. team members in our team here that are from out of here, not from here, and they're getting involved with the city volunteering. It doesn't matter what it is, being a flag girl for the parades or whatever, just putting their time in. That's really the quickest way to get your business going is just through volunteering and being a good steward of your community. Yeah, exactly. So I never really, never stopped volunteering and never stopped giving back. Like we give a lot back to the community. Actually, you know. you know, it's, it's really that, that feel good stuff. After a while, you get into it maybe with intentions that, you know, you're going to do this to get your business up and running. But after I think you really get into volunteering, it just becomes a real bright spot, like in your day or your week or your month or however often you do it. And having that direct involvement in your community and you know, being one of the keepers of your community. I think it's really, really powerful. And it certainly over time will keep driving you and you'll really get into it and like it, especially as you have success in business as well. And maybe you transition like yourself and myself to a team leader role where you have a little, you can have a little bit more impact. You can have a little bit more time that you can spend inside your community, making a difference. It's really, really powerful, very, very life-changing. Yeah, like we just did one for Easter where I dressed up like the Easter bunny and we had an ice cream truck. That's one of the girls in our team's ice cream truck. She does this in the summer in our park here. They have a park for the summer and scooping ice cream. So we used it to it around the old folks homes and went there because they don't get ice cream like once a month or something. I was hearing I was like, oh my gosh. So we went there with all the bubble gum flavors and the crunchy caramels and all the stuff they would never get there. unless you get the whippin' vanilla stuff, right? And it was a hit. And we weren't going there to expect to get any listings out of it or anything like that, obviously. It's an old folks home. They're there, they're not out there investing properties. They're there for the rest of their lives pretty much, right? So, and it was a field that I'll tell you, man, that there's, there are some of these ladies where they, if they haven't seen an Easter bunny ever in their lives, it was crazy. I walked into the one old folks home and it was, they were lined up in the lobby a pile of like there's probably 30 people in wheelchairs sitting there waiting for me to get there. I had no idea. I thought I was just going there to give some ice cream out to like the nurses and staff but it was actually the whole lodge came out to see us and I was like okay so we had a lineup of like 50 people I think that came through the ice cream. It was awesome and that's such a field. come I haven't seen any pictures of you dressed up as an Easter Bunny? I'm feeling like I'm getting ripped off here. It's out there man, it's been on Instagram and everything, but you'll see it's out there. everybody that's listening to this podcast right now, rush to Sam's Instagram and have a look at him dressed up as a bunny. That's comic relief right there. and he named it, I was doing all the dance moves in there. So we talked a little bit about, you know, having the tunnel vision and not taking care of ourselves. And we touched on it a little bit, but you know, for a lot of us that success, it doesn't come easy. And we, as real estate agents have, you know, we sacrifice our time for success. How do you work it? How do you keep that balance within yourself and within your family? And what advice could you share for somebody that's maybe struggling in that department where they're, where they got that tunnel vision? How do you get out of that? Yeah, well, you gotta schedule your time. You gotta have a schedule. Like, I guess about four years ago since I joined EXP here, my sponsor, Jason. got us into scheduling our times, right? And talking to your sphere, talking to your data or your Facebook leads, going on a date night with your wife, all this kind of stuff gets scheduled, and or else it will not happen. If you don't make it happen, if it's not written down, it's not going to happen. So time blocks. contracts, if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist, right? Exactly, right? So it's a, I highly suggest for people that are struggling to get it time blocked and to make sure that you have yourself in there as a priority. If you don't love yourself, then it's gonna be hard to love anything else around you, right? So. think that's Sam, where you have to start. If you're gonna sit down and you're gonna be a person that's gonna make their ultimate schedule, you have to start with yourself. Block those times in for yourself. And that means with your significant other and your family as well. Then you start plugging in for work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I have my schedule down, just in the mornings right now, let's read a book. Well, it's more podcasting for me than anything. I read, but I don't read a lot. I'm more of a podcaster, and my wife's into audiobooks and that kind of thing. But... Doing that and then reaching out to your social media for about half an hour. Just commenting, getting involved with a little bit of social media. Wipe it out and be done with it for the day. Don't be scrolling throughout the day or else it's going to take hours away from you. yeah, it's super important to set a timer. If you're going to go and do some, you know, the 30 minute, uh, dive into your social media and commenting on that stuff, cause that is a freaking rabbit hole. Oh, it is. It is. And I catch myself quite often and they go in overtime, right? But it's an addiction and it's hard for anyone to really put that phone down and not look at it. And I'm one of those. I'm going to completely admit. in the other hand, it's also a very, very good way to connect with people that you know, and in your community and stuff like that by for 30 minutes, commenting positively on their posts and stuff like that. And it's a really good way to get in engagement with people. I agree. is, yeah, 100% because that's how they engage back to you. Because everyone's addicted. It's out there in your head. and when the 30 minutes goes up, you shut your phone or your computer screen off and get off there and get to work. Start prospecting other ways. What's the one thing? Sorry, go ahead. I cut you off there. I just do that then it's, you make sure you get my nutritious smoothie in the morning. If you're still happy or haven't had a chance to drink it yet, then it's power packed of berries, peanut butter, spinach, probiotics, prebiotics, ashwagandha, spirulina, the Omega Oils 369, flaxseed oil. So you have their almond milk is our milk I use. And then the protein powder, two scoops at 60 grams of protein. I do it twice a day. Yeah. Protein stack is on. Yeah. That's good for the morning cleanse. And then off to a hearty chicken breast and 100 grams of rice for lunch. Ha ha. I'm a chicken breast and a cup of vegetables. I need the veggies. I'm doing the brown rice right now just to get the carbs for the gym. Nice, nice. So what's the one thing that has you most excited about the future of your real estate business? Really the collaboration with the team. Really excited how we're building this team up and getting everything organized. This is pretty fresh for us right now because we were in another team before that we just merged out of. So now Justine and I are the leaders in the team and we have full control of what's going on. And the stuff that we're implementing right now is exciting. And we're expecting everyone to do quite well in our business and our team here for what we're putting together here. still growing, we're still implementing things, but it's gonna be fruitful for all the agents on our team and I'm excited to see how well they do. That's my goal is I want to see others do well. I don't, I don't, they do well, I do well. I'm stepping out of production eventually one day. It's hard to let that go though. I do love being part of that, so I'll probably just take on my sphere of stuff like that will be like without any relationships to me, we'll be going to the team and then anything online like early generation systems that were put together are gonna be going to them as well. So exciting and that's what I'm excited for is to see how well they all do. Give our listeners three actionable takeaways that you think every agent should be doing right now in their business. Video, video is key. Being personal, being authentic, being vulnerable. On video, be your true self. Don't be salesy, don't be a pusher, don't have commission breath. Keep that all away from the camera. Just be authentic and be vulnerable and be personal. So that, video, then I'd say get out there, be part of the community. Find your niche. Focus on something that works best for you. If you wanna be a luxury agent, focus on the luxury side of things. If you wanna be the first home buyers, focus on that. Work towards those goals. But end of the day, get your niche, get your market, your local farming area is always a good thing to do. And be on video as much as possible. Get people that know you. What do you see in the future for organized real estate? What are our challenges? challenges coming up. I don't know about challenges, I think it's just gonna be adaptation really to be honest. Things are gonna shift. There's gonna be commissions, there's gonna be structures and brokerages. You know it's always something that's changing. Like our dual agency in BC is no longer. That's shifted but in Ontario you can do it. You know the commission structures aren't straight across Canada. They're different in every province. They're very similar, but I feel like the Canadian government will probably put it straight across the board eventually, and all rules and regulations will probably follow suit. No dual agency across Canada, I think might just be a thing. Is it going to be a challenge? No, I don't think so. Um, commission structures may change where, uh, what's going on in the States right now, I think is a good thing in a way, because some people look at it as a challenge, it's going to be, you know, something that's not going to go over very well up in Canada, but I feel like a lot of agents where they come to write an offer on a property, they just send an offer on the table, send you a little love letter on an email, but not even let you know they're writing an offer. I've had it numerous times where that's just, you got an offer sent to you. I'm like, okay, all right, well, I'll take a look at it. Thank you. Like, tell me about your buyer. Where I feel now as a buyer's agent, they're gonna be more engaged with the seller and what they're offering first off is what they're paying because that may not be something that's gonna be advertised. So it brings a relationship before the offer is presented and that you can, that buyer's agent's gonna be working a little bit harder on getting to know what the seller's doing, where they're going, their motivations are and you know figuring out what works best for both parties before the offers have been written. But challenges I really when I heard about that I just I don't know to be honest I don't think this can be enough just adapting. and it will always change. And it's always has been changing. And with a lot of changes comes new opportunity. As I was saying, more relationships with Realtor to Realtor before the offers are presented. I think it's a great thing. Absolutely. So we sort of touched on it a little bit Sam, but realtors I have found, and I didn't even know this until I got into real estate, realtors are just a general giving bunch. What do you do besides give out ice cream dressed as a bunny? What are you doing to give back to your community? Oh man, we give back to multiple societies here. Hospice is one of them, two to my heart. There's, You Are Not Alone is another big, non-profitable fundraiser here in the community. It's a huge one. It helps out with families that have birth defects with children and they need to go to Vancouver to the hospital and stay there for a week or two. And we fund that and we pay for their stay, their ferry rides, their transportation, gas, whatever they need to get there to be with their child that's in need. It's not like a birth defect. I shouldn't say that, Yeah, they are but just birthing issues. cancer, if a kid's diagnosed with cancer at a young age, that kind of thing for chemotherapy, that kind of stuff. So we donate to that quite a lot. Women's Transition Society. Rotary group, we help them out as, not too much, we don't get too involved with that one, but we do donate. And we also allow our clients as a give back. We can give you a gift of a certain amount of money, depending on what they're buying or selling, or we can give it back to the community, whatever you want. And they have their options and choices of what they want to donate their money to. That's pretty awesome. it's continuous give back. So you can almost every month you're getting at least a couple thousand bucks back to the community. Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for doing that to your community. You make a better world, right? Exactly. Yeah. One penny at a time. yeah, so one of my favorite parts of our podcast is the rapid fire round. Are you ready for it? I'm ready for it. Oh boy. Okay. It's funny because the rapid fire round usually turns into just another conversation. So don't worry about it. Excellent. Number one, what's the one piece of technology that you can't do without and why, and you can't see the MLS or your phone. Okay, my client retention management program, follow up boss. No way without it. Yeah, it's amazing. It keeps everything together, man. Yeah, definitely need that. What's the best book you've ever read and why? Um, you probably know this one. The Go Giver. I know it well, the Go Giver. Yes, I don't read a lot of books, but since I've been part of the EXP, I've gotten into a few. And I've got another one going on right now actually here called, let's just get that out, The Vivid Vision. It's a team leader book, you got to read it, especially if it's growing your team. It's really getting to know what each agent's vision is in your team. not just your vision of the team, what is their vision of the team? And what do they want out of this? team and the focus on each team member not just yourself and how your organization is rolling. Because everyone's on a different platform. They all got a different vision of where they want to go. Someone to retire in five years and make a hundred thousand dollars a year. Someone to make this a career of 20 years and have kids and make three hundred thousand dollars a year. Whatever it is, they're all on different platforms. Each member in our team, I told them to get their vision in an email so I can relate to what they want. I've gotten one back out of the seven, but highly suggest that book, especially for you since you're a team lead as well. Yeah, I've never heard of it, but I'm going to order it today. What is the best business advice you've ever received? Um, stay humble man. Yeah, be yourself, be true. Be authentic and be vulnerable. Yeah. From our main man, John. in a brand new world. Identical to earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have, your food and shelters taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500. What would you do to resurrect your real estate business in the next seven days? Door knocking, every block with the business cards. Spend that $500 to get business cards and start up a website, a very valuable page website. Costs 100 bucks to start. And then cost $200 to get cards. Door knock, get some notepads if you can get that on that budget as well. And just let everyone know you're here. just continually talk to people. talk, door knock, door knock, door knock. How do you get over it? You know, you said when you first started that you didn't door knock because you were afraid. How do you get over that? Well, it's the deck of cards way of looking things. You got the four aces out of the 54 cards, 52 cards. So you look at those four aces, that's gonna be feeding you for half a year possibly, depending on where you're knocking. Ha ha ha. Nice, that's a great way to look at it. Last question before we let you go, give us a quote that has guided you in your life. Quote. Shoot, I didn't get that. Oh man, there's so many, but honestly at the tip of my tongue, I can't really think of one, to be honest. You may have to let me go on this one. Still, I was. I missed that. that you needed to have a quote. Tell us what the GoGiver's about. That's a good quote about giving more. about value, giving value to everybody. that's around you. It doesn't matter where your goals are. It's about the value that you're giving out to people. You can be working in a hot dog stand. If you give the best hot dogs out there, you're going to have a hot dog franchise before you know it. You can be the ice cream girl, like our girl here with the ice cream truck. If she gave out the best service and offered that extra opportunity for someone else to have the same ice cream truck, she could have a franchise of ice cream trucks on the island before she died. you know, it's all about giving. than you receive in compensation. So Sam, one of the big things that we love to do on this podcast is we love for people that are listening to give referrals. So if anybody has anybody coming or going out of your area, how do they get ahold of you so that they can give you a referral? Well multiple ways. We have our Instagram and we've got our Facebook page through Alpine Ocean Real Estate Group. We've got a very high-end website that's very easy to get a hold of us on as well through alpineocean.com. And yeah, we're all over social media. Alpine Ocean Real Estate Group is everywhere out there. We're not shy. You'll like our social media content. my friend. The bunny suit's on there. You wanna see me in a bunny suit? It's the Hulk bunny. The suit's a little too tight for me, but it worked. Nice, nice showing up to the old folks home in a tight bunny suit. That's my man Sam. Anyways, I will have all of those links in the show notes for this podcast so anybody can just go to the show notes, click on there. If you got somebody in the Comox Valley, Sam and his team would love to take care of them. And I could tell you from experience because I have sent referrals take magnificent care of them for you. So thanks for being on the podcast today, Sam. It's always a pleasure to touch base, even though you and I text, it seems like weekly. It's always nice to get a little FaceTime and see your skinny face. We need the fit check, man. We need the fit check. Fit check, fit check, absolutely. All right, my friend, you take care of yourself. Give your wife a hug for me. All the best. Take care, guys.