Mastering Database Marketing with Kelley Skar

In this engaging episode of Total Agent Access, we sit down with Kelley Skar, a seasoned real estate agent with a unique journey. Kelley shares his inspiring story of moving from Prince George to Alberta and back to British Columbia, transitioning from a pressure welder to a successful real estate agent. He opens up about the challenges he faced along the way and how he overcame them.

Kelley emphasizes the importance of database marketing and how YouTube has become a powerful lead generation tool for him. He delves into real estate strategy, database management, and the utilization of AI to streamline content creation. His insights on building rapport with clients and the significance of maintaining strong values in business are invaluable.

Throughout the episode, Kelley highlights the impact of technology, the benefits of masterminds, and the crucial role of personal values in achieving success in real estate. He also touches on his legacy focus, emphasizing the positive impact he strives to have on others and the importance of family time.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Kelley Skar, filled with practical advice and inspiring stories that can help any real estate agent enhance their practice and achieve their goals.

Links
Website: www.kelleyskar.ca
Instagram: @kellyskar

Takeaways

🔥Kelley Skar's journey from Prince George to Alberta and back to British Columbia highlights the impact of personal experiences on his career path.
🔥The transition from a pressure welder to a real estate agent showcases the challenges and decisions involved in making a career change.
🔥The importance of database marketing, YouTube as a lead generation tool, and the rewarding aspects of helping others succeed are key insights from Kelley Skar's experience in the real estate industry. 
🔥Developing a clear strategy and utilizing CRM and AI tools are crucial for real estate success.
🔥Building rapport and managing a database through email, text messages, and handwritten notes are effective relationship-building strategies.
🔥Legacy in real estate is defined by the impact on others and the ability to balance work with family time.
🔥Masterminds, technology, and personal values play a significant role in achieving success in the real estate industry.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the podcast today. We have none other and he's a Packers fan and I won't hold this against him. None other than Kelly Scar. Kelly, how are you today, man? Good, thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it. Man, this is this is really actually long overdue. You and I have known each other in our careers and gone back and forth a lot and never had a real good time to sit down and chat. So this is long overdue. Now, tell our audience a little bit about your background and how you started in real estate. Yeah. Well, you know, we're a couple of PG boys just sitting down, having a conversation here today. Right. So, that's right. Yeah. So I was, I was born in Richmond, actually, moved to Prince George when I was about two years old. I spent a large part of my life there. I, you know, grew up there, went to, went to school there, went to, went to college there and then left in 1998 and, moved to Alberta. And I moved to Edmonton first. I spent five years in Edmonton and then saw the light and decided to make the move to Calgary. Actually it was a, I had a girlfriend, girlfriend broke up with me. My brother called me up one day. He was living in Calgary. He lived down in the Southeast in, in Mackenzie Lake. And he's like, Hey, what do you do still doing in Edmonton? I said, I, I don't know. He's like, there's nothing there for you anymore. Like what I'll come up next weekend, grab you like a movie down here. You can come and live with me. you know, for as long as it takes to get you on your feet. So he did that. We packed up all of my stuff into the back of his trailer and I moved to Calgary and it turns out it was the best move I ever made. Cause I wound up meeting my wife, you know, about six months later, you know, married met no four married, no six twins and wait. And finally made the move back to British Columbia here at the height of COVID 2021 height of the crazy ass, you know, real estate market and wind up wound up making a move back to British Columbia. So that's kind of, you know, a little bit about my, my history, I guess, you know, moving back and forth between provinces. I got into real estate 17 years ago, back in 2007. my dad was a realtor in Prince George for about 25 years and, started out in residential. My mom was actually a realtor for five of those 25 years. they had a little partnership that they had put together. There was scar and scar the home team. whatever. I, yeah, I know it was, it was great. Like they did some really interesting marketing stuff. Even back in the day, I like go to my parents place and still have like the, the notepads, the Canada trust notepads. They still have kicking around cause they had like thousands of them, right? Good old Canada trust. Yeah. And, there's a whole story there too, but, you know, so my dad was in real estate for 25 years. my sister in law has been in real estate for Gosh, it's gotta be, she's gotta be about 26, 27 years in Edmonton. And I was a bee pressure welder. I was in the trades and I was getting kind of sick and tired of being sick and tired and needed to get a change rolling in my life. And I didn't want to go back to university, just newly married at this point. And I know that my wife wanted to finish her graduate degree. And so... you know, I ultimately had to make a decision as to which direction I was going to go in and always kind of knew that I had this, kind of gift of the gab is my grade nine science teacher put it on my report card. you know, Kelly's got the gift of the gal was always the class clown. I was that kid that was always acting up in class. And, now I'm kind of seeing that in my son as well. Like you kind of takes after me a little bit in that regard, but, I think that actually is something that you could look back at and say, you know, judge whether somebody is going to be successful in this business is ask them, did you get in trouble for talking class a lot? You know, I did. My wife did. And I think most real estate agents that I know have all gotten in trouble when they were in high school for talking out. Yeah, for sure. It wasn't crazy outbursts or anything like that. It was just chatting with my buddies and the teachers. It was a standard thing. It was almost like a copy and paste back in the day when they didn't have copy and paste. If Kelly would just apply himself and pay more attention in class, he wouldn't have a C or a C minus. He'd probably have an A. And that was just kind of a standard thing throughout my... Little did they know. you were practicing. You're building relationships in order to exploit them later on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you know, so I, you know, wound up in, in, you know, following this path and got licensed in seven, I started as a part time agent, you know, had my Blackberry, I'd be in my in my welding booth, I'd be on the phone making calls, my boss would come in, he'd be like, Hey, what are you doing? How come you're, you know, how come you're on your phone? I was a really, I was really good at my job. And I had I had like the lowest repair rate on the shop floor. And so I was very cocky and I knew I could walk across the street the next day if I ever got fired and get a job like that, no problem. and so I was, I would just tell him to get out of my booth and not so nice of terms. And so I could finish making my sales calls. And anyways, long story short, I wound up in 2008, the market kind of corrected and in, in Alberta, you know, obviously the, the big crash in the United States happened. Oil dropped. on a massive scale. And I was working in a shop that was producing vessels and piping for the oil field. And so, you know, we went through about five or six rounds of layoffs, the company that I was at, I got caught in, I think the fourth or the fifth round of layoffs. My lead hand came into my booth and he said, Hey, listen, you know, I've saved you for the last three or four rounds. There's nothing I can do. Marion's out for blood. You're next. I said, okay, well, how long have I got? He said, you've got probably about three weeks. I said, okay. I go home, have a chat with my wife and I said, listen, you know, I, I sold her, you know, this is what I do. I'm in sales, right? And so I sold her. I said, listen, I think I can, I can make it go with this thing. Like I'm busy enough right now. I've got enough clients coming through the door. I feel like, you know, I'm doing everything right. I've got the open houses going. I've got leads rolling. I'm doing everything that I possibly can to generate business. And I feel like I could be a success at this, but the only way for me to be able to do this is I gotta be full time in it. And by the way, I'm probably going to get fired in three weeks anyways. And so exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So I dropped the bombshell and she's like, geez. Okay. And she's like, okay, well you better make it work. And so, you know, here I am 17 years later, I went in a couple of days later and gave him my two weeks notice and decided that I wanted to go out on my terms instead of theirs. And I went full time into commission sales, left my very good six figure year job with overtime and you know, benefits and all the rest of it to. basically be unemployed every single day of my life. So, but you know, it's 17 years later, we're always, we're unemployed. That's right. going to get paid. So what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced that first year of full -time sales? Well, not knowing what the hell I was doing. you know, I think it, man, I'll tell you over the course of my career, I've had these varying opinions of, real estate companies, brokerages, you know, leadership inside of those brokerages. you know, I, I had started out my career saying, you know, I am the brand. I'm going to be the one that dictates who I'm going to work with. I don't need. I don't need the big brokerage. I don't need the big name. I don't need any of that stuff. I'm going to build what I'm going to build and people, people are going to do business with me as a result of that. And where I, where I was short sighted in that is, is if you can find a great office with great leadership and amazing training and mentorship, man, you, you can't, there's no amount of money that I would, that I would trade today in order to be able to get that. I mean, I, I would, I would pay for that. you know, out my nose, just to, to go be able to go back and say, listen, you need to choose a little bit more wisely here. You know, understand the company that you keep is, is likely to dictate that the success that you wind up having in this business. And the importance of that is, is it's paramount to everything that you're going to be doing for the next, you know, 16, 17 years. And so that was, that was something that I learned the hard way. I didn't really realize it. I kind of attached myself to a couple of, of, you know, quote unquote mentors that weren't the right people. I'd listened to a couple of people that just, I should not have gotten advice from and, and wound up having to course correct. And you know, at the end of the day, it was, I didn't really have the, the, the support that I, that I ultimately needed. I didn't have somebody to sit me down and say, listen, you need to have a plan. you need to understand, where leads in this business actually come from and how to actually go out and get them. Right. So that was, that was probably the most difficult thing was just, you know, kind of good doing it old school. you know, basically what my broker had taught me, you know, the broker was like, well, you got to go out and door knock. I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to tour. This is something that I'm really super interested in. Right. I said, okay, well what else? Well, open houses. I said, okay, I'll go and do open houses. And again, you know, I just kind of failed forward with that. I, I, you know, attached myself to a guy that in Calgary that was doing, you know, he was listing these, these builders product. Again, this is 2008, the market had course corrected. And, you know, this guy was, he was listing houses through builders at 1 .1, 1.2, 1 .5 million. And I thought, man, you know, I'll be really smart here. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to play this game, but I'm going to play it way smarter and I'm not going to have to work as hard. So I'll get into the seven figure market. I'll break in there. I'll sell a bunch of million dollar properties. I'll make a bunch of money. And, and then what I quickly realized was in doing these open houses, a lot of these people that would walk through the property already had an agent. Right. So, so then again, it was, okay, well, I need to, I need to understand where the actual business is going to come from and doing these open houses. It was, again, it was picking the right property, you know, picking the right price point, you know, and, and finding somebody that would allow me to, to do open houses until I was able to actually get my own product. So that was, that was really how I built my business over the course of the first three to five years that I was licensed was, was truly through getting really, really good at open houses. developing a stellar system where I would, you know, people would come through. My wife would, you know, she started, she would start out with, I would come home at the end of the end of the weekend or the end of the Saturday, end of the Saturday, end of the Sunday. And she, she would start out with, so did you sell the house? And then, you know, her, the whole thing shifted. And it was like, so how many leads did you get? Right. And it's like, there we go. Right. And, and you know, the, the crazy thing is, so this is a crazy story. I had, this was 2000 and 18 2019. I got it was 2019. I got contacted by this couple who lived in ranch lands, which is in Northwest Calgary. And they're like, Hey, listen, we've been on your email list for a long, long time. I think we're ready to make our move. Now. I, you know, my wife's getting ready to retire. I'm a cop. I've been retired. And I'm like, Hey, listen, I know exactly who you guys are. They're like, what you do. I'm like, yeah, you came through one of the very first open houses that I did up in, in Rocky Ridge. It was an attached home. I know the exact property. I know when I met you guys, the thing was her, her email address was so unique that I could never forget it. Right. It was Banshee consulting. I'm like Banshee, like who would ever forget that. Right. So when, when, like when it was time to actually list the property and I told them, like, I know exactly who you guys are. And they're like, how did, This is this we're talking like 2008. This is like literally how many years later, nine, 10 years later, and you know exactly who we are, but that's the type of memory I've got. I remember things. I remember relationships. I remember conversations might not always remember your name, John, but I do. It's John, right? I do. Right. I may not always remember the name, but I definitely can remember the situation and the conversations in a lot of times. So. That was a very long answer to your short question. Hey, I love it. I love it. And it's so true. You know, when you when you're doing things, it's really important. And I like how your wife put it. You know, how many leads did you get? Because I'm always talking to my team about going further up the funnel, getting into more relationships with home sellers, not necessarily people or homeowners, not necessarily home sellers go farther up, develop those relationships up front. And like you just said, Those people were 10 years old, but they still sold and who doesn't like future business? I love knowing that I'm getting future business, right? Let's you sleep at night. So what is your current role right now and what market do you primarily operate in? Yeah. So I'm, I'm actually, so I'm, like I said, I made the move in 2021. I'm still licensed in Calgary, Alberta, have been, I it's, it's just difficult for me to give up my license there, man. I've, you know, started my career there. I still have clients there. I'm still servicing the area. you know, obviously I refer, I refer buyers out. I've got a couple of people that I really, really trust in, in the community that I refer my buyer business to. If, you know, if that comes up. I'm sellers. I still I'm able to service. It's not that difficult to really help a seller out and making sure that I've got the right people on the ground to help out with that if needed as well. And then I'm also in Kelowna, British Columbia. And so I'm kind of there's two two roles here. You know, I've been working in this market since again, 2021. I'm also a coach. So I'm a real estate coach. So I've been coaching officially unofficially since about 2013. I say unofficially because like you, I had a team and, and used to coach my agents all the time. from there, I became a partner in a, in a boutique style brokerage and we ran as a team based brokerage for about a year. I got, you know, helped to get the conversion rates, up, you know, kind of skyrocketed. We like tripled the conversion rates after I came aboard. you know, and then we, we kind of switched gears and turn that into a, into a more of a traditional style brokerage. where we, you know, we're out to recruit agents and whatnot, but you know, real estate coach, so officially unofficially since about 2013, a lot of my focus is now with brokers, team leaders, managers, recruiters, although I do still, you know, offer services to agents on top of that, if that wasn't enough already, I'm very involved politically here in the province of British Columbia as well. So I'm involved with the conservative party of BC. I'm a regional director for Okanagan Shoe Swap, which essentially means that I'm, you know, kind of the guy that goes around and sets up the writing associations and then helps to support the RAs and, you know, the candidates and everything that they need with the selection that's impending here in the province in the next five months or so. Do you specialize in any type of specific properties? Like do you luxury? Just residential? just residential. Yeah. And I don't discriminate. There's no price point that is too low or too high, right? Like I've got clients right now that are looking for a mobile home. One of the first deal that I did here in the Okanagan was on $155 ,000 mobile home out in Lake country, right? So I'm not gonna, I'm not going to discriminate, right? Money's money. I'm gonna, I'm gonna help people as much as I possibly can, right? Somebody wants to buy a house. That's yeah. A hundred percent. that's what I love. I love helping people. So what is the most rewarding aspects of your job, right? Or of your many jobs? The many hats that you wear. Yeah. So, you know, this was something that, that took me a long time to figure out. and I'll, I'll just kind of take you back to the very first time that I had a coach. I, it was 2013. I had just come back from a Boomtown conference. I'm sure you're familiar with the Boomtown product, right? I used to have a Boomtown website. you know, that's basically how I kind of started and started to build my team. you know, we're generating about 400 leads a month on about a thousand dollar us ad spend. Like the, the, the volume that was coming through is absolutely ridiculous. I obviously could not handle it. Yeah. And this is the glory days, like 2013, like 2010 to like 2016, 2017, Google leads were relatively inexpensive and somewhere around 2017, 2018, they just got like super expensive. It almost doesn't make sense for free to actually spend money on, on those leads anymore. just, just because the ROI just isn't there. And, and not to get too off topic here, I'll answer the question that you asked, but you know, at the end of the day, that the incubation period for an online lead is actually jumped up. It used to be six to 12 months. Now it's like 12 to 18 months. Right? So not only has the incubation period jumped up, but your cost per lead has jumped up. And which means you're not going to get that return on investment as, as quickly as you thought that you did. So you're shelling out a lot of cash. I think if you're going to take that capital investment and put it towards something else, That would yield a much stronger return like your database or geo farming or something along those lines. so, so just remind me what the original question was again, cause I went down that rabbit hole really quickly. most, I don't know, I was getting into what you were talking about because we're big on lead generation. The most rewarding aspects of your job. But be prepared because we're gonna come right back to lead generation. Yeah, absolutely. So, so the most rewarding aspect. So 2013 go to Spumetown conference, everybody at this conference, anybody that has a team, anybody that's a top producer, anybody that's doing like significant volume, they all had coaches and I did not have a coach. I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants and there was a lot of churn and burn happening in my business. I could not get agents to stay with me because I did not know what the hell I was doing. And so I go down there and, you know, talk to a bunch of people and, you know, everybody's kind of, you know, talking about this coach or that coach, that coach. So I made a list and I came back, you know, to Calgary and, and, you know, I had about a list of about five different companies. I included Richard Robbins international on that list that was not on the original list that I had. And so I started calling these companies and, you know, one after one, after one, after the other, it was like, well, we'll customize your, your coaching strategy and coaching plan for, for you. And I'm like, okay, well, how are you going to do that? Well, you know, we've got the book and you know, we've got all these systems and everything. I'm like, so what are you going to do for the startup fee? That's going to cost me, you know, $5 ,000 startup fee. What are you going to do for, for, for me? Like, how are you going to personalize it? we'll put your name on the book. It's like, come on, this is, this is getting ridiculous. Right? So it was like one after the other, after the other. Yeah. Everybody wanted to shoehorn you, put you into a box and say, this is the plan. There's no holistic anything. It's, it's none of that. Right. until I called up RRI, Richard Roberts International and had a conversation with them. I wound up hiring them. They're obviously, they're a Canadian company. So that was important to me. They had to understand that the market that I was in, there was no, you know, we're not talking about, you know, attorneys and, and escrow and all of the FISBOS and all of that kind of stuff. Right. I needed somebody that was, that knew the laws and knew about the Canadian market. And so I hired a coach. And the very first coaching call that we had, she's still actually coaching with them. The very first coaching call that she had, she said, well, why do you want to start a team? And my answer was simply put, I wanted, I want to hire other human beings to, to leverage them to go out and, and close more deals so that I can make more money. And her response to that was that's the wrong answer. And I'm going to give you some time to go out and do some soul searching and figure out what the right answer is. And when you figure it out, Give me a call back and we'll resume our coaching calls. That was my first coaching call. And I was like, Holy crap. Okay. So I tore everything kind of apart. My mind. I'm like, okay, really, truly. What is it that I want to do? What, like, what is it that gets me up in the morning? What are the conversations that I'm having? Like what, what does it really drives me here? And why do I want to actually build this team? Was it, was, was money important? Yeah. A hundred percent. I'm not talking about being, you know, all kind of, you know, holistic and airy fairy. And it's like, I'm going to do this for all the right reasons. No money. Obviously was a driver had to be a driver, had to make money. Right. But at the same time, if I can make money, but impact people's lives in a positive direction and show them how to actually run an effective real estate business and make sure that they are in business five years from now, 10 years from now. that ultimately that's, that's the mindset shift that I wound up having. And so I came back to her. I had this conversation and she's like, okay, now I can work with you. Now you understand. Now we're going to talk about leadership. Now we're going to talk about mission, vision and values. Now we're going to go through this whole thing and we're going to help you craft a mission statement, a vision statement. We're going to get help you to get clear on what your values are. And then I'm going to help you to build out what your compensation schedule should be your compensation plans. I'm going to help you craft your value proposition. So she helped me with all of these things, right? So, so what gets me charged up? It's, it's conversations like this, Colin is conversations like the conversations that I have every Wednesday and every Thursday with, you know, my coaching clients, those coaching calls that start at 7am Pacific time and, and, you know, run straight through the entire day. It's those calls that I really, that really get me fired up. It's the calls that I have with a buyer or a seller. And I'm talking about different strategy, a first time buyer or first time seller. I get to kind of walk them through, educate them all the way through the path and what that looks like and answer any questions that they may have. Right? So it's, it's, it's coming purely from an educational standpoint and being able to take the experience that I have and give that to somebody else because there, I know what's going to happen with that. A couple of things. Number one, the buyer and the seller, they're going to have a positive experience. I know that full well. I've got a proven track record with that. Right? Number two, the agent is also going to the agent, the broker, the manager, the leader of the recruiter, whomever it is that I'm speaking to her that I'm coaching. They're going to have a positive experience as well. They're going to learn what they need to learn in order to be better. Right. And that's the conversation that I, that I really enjoy having. I love it, man. I love it. That's I always call that, you know, like that nebulous thing that you're talking about there that it's very hard to put a name on. I always call it the juice. I always get the juice. You know, you drink the juice when you help other people and and see them succeed. And I love that. And that's why I love having a team is helping them and see them succeed. You know, one of my agents, she's has wanted to. put a new kitchen in forever and she's been living like she tore her kitchen apart and she just didn't have the money to go and buy a new one and she's been just living with you know hot pots and stuff like that she's got two boys and she started this week putting in the cabinets and I was like you know what that's the juice right there knowing that I had a hand to play in that showing her and helping her better her own life, you know, like teaching them how to fish. It's been amazing. So just before this, you opened a can of worms that I really want to get into because it's one of my favorite thing and it's lead generation and marketing. So what are the top three strategies you have for generating leads right now? database, database and database. Well, seriously, you know, database, absolutely a hundred percent. you know, if you're in this business for any amount of time, I, for me personally, it was about five to seven years where I started to see that turnover turnover ratio start to happen. I would, I was started getting repeat referral, repeat clients. And then, you know, my clients just continually referring me to other people. Right. So it was that five to seven year timeframe, which actually coincided with, you know, the typical house, a homeowner in Calgary was, you know, anywhere from five to seven years, they were looking at upgrading or downsizing or whatever it was. Right. So I started to see that. So focusing in on my database, you know, email marketing was huge video, marketing inside of the database was absolutely huge. Events were always huge. Handwritten note cards, doing all of kind of like those old school things that, you know, the buffinis and the Mike fairies and everything, they always coach around and talk about. They still work. they absolutely still work and we can't get away from that. You know, technology, yeah, technology is great and everything and technology can certainly help us, but listen, AI cannot write a handwritten note. They just can't, right? You know, much bigger impact of a handwritten note than there is a text message or an email. Yeah. How many people like getting bills in the mail? I know I don't, but I'll tell you, I love getting that handwritten note card, right? There's something there's like you're talking about the juice. Like did you get some, my juices flowing when I get something from something like, my goodness, this is awesome. Right. Need you tear it open. It's like, man, I haven't heard from this person in so long. Right. So database marketing, absolutely a key to, to any strategy for me here in Kelowna. It's been YouTube. so I've really focused in on, on building a YouTube channel and you know, just generating leads from that, from that channel has been phenomenal. I've got, you know, my follow -up boss. thank you. I appreciate it. I've actually, I've got two, I've got my coaching channel and now that which I've actually started, you know, put together content strategy around that. It says something that I've learned over the last year or so, and just kind of reviving that channel. about a week or so ago, I had her like 725 subscribers. I think I'm up to 740 now. And so people are finding that coaching channel. It's, you know, something I've had, I've had that YouTube channel since 2011, man. I've been on YouTube for that long. I've been on that platform that long. And you're laughing, you're laughing right now because you're like only a hundred, 740 subscribers. And I'm like, know how hard it is to get subscribers on YouTube. What I'm laughing at is when you say 2013, to me and probably to you, it seems like yesterday. That's why I'm laughing. I'm like, that wasn't too long ago. Then I'm like, crap, that's 11 years ago. That's what happens. 2011. It was actually 13 years ago, man. Right. So I, yeah. So yeah, for me, it was, it was Gary Vaynerchuk. It was like, you know, he'd already been on the platform for five years at that point. And, you know, I read his book and, you know, started digging into a lot of the stuff that he was doing. So kind of took that whole vibe, that energy and, you know, develop my own vlog and, you know, so I've taken that channel and kind of shifted gears. I've pulled a lot of the old content down, you know, kept some of the newer stuff up there. Now I'm starting to kind of replenish the other channel that the Colona channel has solely a Colona focus. It's just focused on buyers. It's focused on sellers. And again, it comes back to having a strategy, utilizing certain AI elements to help me with, with ideas, you know, writing of scripting, you know, breaking down those videos, like the raw video into clips, you know, 10 second clips that I can put up onto TikTok and Instagram reels and Facebook reels and and YouTube shorts and, you know, really leveraging that. But, you know, at the end of the day, if, if with anything, if you don't have a strategy around it, you're just kind of throwing darts at the wall and hopefully, hopefully something's going to stick. Right. So those. strategy to stay in touch with the people that are in your database? And also, on that note, how do you build on your database? Yeah, so mostly for me, it's been email, email and text messages. So I, again, I use follow up boss as a CRM. And so I send a lot of text messages through the CRM. I love that, that product, that platform, because it allows me to track everything. Yeah. Follow up boss is great. up boss and it's it's phenomenal. We've been using it for six months now and it's completely changed our team. Yeah, for sure. It's, it's, you know, anybody, you know, the, the, the most famous question in real estate, right? What CRM are using, right? It's the one that you, or which CRM is the best. It's the one that you're actually using. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, anybody that's, that's not using our CRM, I think is, is you're making a huge mistake in your business. So at scale email is definitely what I've been doing. it's, you know, again, handwritten note cards, just taking the time to send out, you know, happy birthdays and, and, you know, what do you call it? you know, anniversary, anniversaries as well. There was a product that we used to use years ago when we had the team called send out cards .com. And so we would, we actually built out, built out a, a touch point plan for the client. And so, you know, for, I think it was like a hundred dollars or something, you could wind up opting into the plan. So we did this from a brokerage level. And so any agent could, could opt into this plan. And so, at 30 days, they got a card. And it was, again, it was like that AI type hand, like you would actually have to put your, like, it would get you to go AB like a through to Z and actually write in uppercase and lowercase. And then you'd have to send it off to them or scan it and email it. And then they would take that and run that through their system. And so then it, whenever they would send out a card, it looked like it was in your handwriting, but it obviously wasn't anyway. So we, we developed a touch point plan. It was over the course of one year. So at 30 days, they got a card at six months, they got a card. And then at one year, they got a really big card that was like, you know, 12 inches by like eight inches, like a really big card and then a box of brownies. And then you could opt in for year two if you wanted to do that. And then again, it was like a six month, you know, six months after that. And then on your two sort of thing, right? So just, you know, utilizing some of this stuff to kind of automate it and you know, I think that it actually, it truly did work. It was such a great program at the one year Mark. I would always have clients calling me as opposed to me having to call them. And that's, you know, ultimately that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to, I'm trying to create enough value and enough touch points where the client calls me and says, or they text me and they say, Hey, you did that thing for me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Right. I think if we can really start to, do we have to go on offense? 100%. I think. Offense is, is, is what wins football games. A lot of people say, well, no, it's the defense and we can fight about offense and defense and the Raiders and the Packers all day long. Right. But if you look, if you're constantly going out on offense and you're, you're sitting down intentionally and writing those five handwritten notes, man, I'll tell you what happens is, is truly remarkable when somebody actually texts you back and says, Hey, I got your card. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I appreciate you. Right. I mean, that's, that's the type of reaction that we want to get because you are ultimately in the relationship building game. That's what this business is all about. Yeah, and how do you build trust and rapport with new clients? that's, that's such a huge question. Such a huge question. I mean, so, I mean, you, I'm sure that you've, you've heard of a neuro, neuro linguistic programming, right? Right. Okay. So there's, so for your listeners, if you haven't heard of NLP, there's certain, there's a strategy inside of NLP is called mirror and matching. And then there's something else that we call pace, pace lead. And this really helps to get you into report a very, very short amount of time. And I, and I use this. actually I was using this without knowing that I was actually using it like years ago, right? I must've read an NLP book or listen to a podcast or something, but this is what really helped me at open houses to build rapport relatively, relatively quickly. So mirroring would be, if you know, if we're on this video and, and Colin, you know, he kind of leans in and he puts his hand on his face. Okay. And exactly. So we're there and maybe I'm going to do, you know, something, a variation of that. I'm going to use the same hand. I'm, Maybe I'm not going to do the exact same thing, but I'm going to at least raise my hand up to my face. Right. And then he's going to put his hand down. And so I'm mirroring him. Okay. And so he's probably going to do something else. Maybe he crosses his legs or he scratches his leg or something like that. And I'm going to do the same thing. Okay. So I'm mirroring what, what he's doing. I'm matching what he's doing, but I'm also pacing him. Okay. So pace, pace lead. So what I'm doing is I'm pacing him. So, so he does something and then I do something. Right? So I'm mirroring him and then I wait for, I wait, I basically, wait for him to now mirror me. Okay. So he's touched his face. He scratched his leg. Now I'm going to sit back and cross my arms. Okay. And if Colin winds up sitting back and crossing his arms or some sort of variation, we're now in rapport. And if we're, if we're in rapport, that allows me to take the conversation potentially in a lot more targeted direction that I would. have been able to previously. Does that make sense? So pace, pace, lead mirror match. It is, it's so interesting. So I'm driving with my daughter the other day and I'm talking to her about this because she has an extreme interest in psychology. My wife's a psychologist. So my daughter has this extreme interest in psychology. So I started talking to her about neuro-linguistic programming. So we're talking about, she's like, there's no way, there's no way that that actually happened. Serious Google it. like pace, pace, lead mirror match, just Google that and see exactly what happens. Right. And then I, and then I said, you know, try this when you get to school, don't make it over like overt or totally obvious, but just try it out and see what happens. Now. I never got the report back. So I don't know if she actually ever did it, but that was one of those things where, you know, do that with intention. So that was one strategy. Another strategy that I love to use during open houses was asking the right questions and not asking questions that were, you know, hard yes and hard no. questions. It was, you know, and not even what brings you into the open house today. I mean, come on, that's pretty obvious. Like they're out shopping for a house, right? So typically what I would do is I would, you know, invite them in, give them my package. They would walk around the property. They, they always went upstairs first, and then they would come go downstairs and they went up back on the main floor. And then my duty then at my job at that point was try to get them into the kitchen where my laptop was set up. so that I could walk them through a different, a couple of different properties that were available in the area. And my goal at that point was to build rapport, get their name, get their phone number, get their email address so that I could continually build my database. Right? We hear this in recruitment all the time. They say, make a great big list. You got to make a big list so that you can start to make those calls and build those relationships. It's no different in real estate, whether you're out there on the doorstep and you're knocking doors. Man, you've got to have an infrastructure in place where you can actually start to build a list of people, names, phone numbers, email addresses. So then you have someone to market to. I had a call with an agent. I give out a free 30 minute consultation call for, for any, anybody that's interested in coaching. And so I had this person, I met her at, at our big, you know, national real estate conference there a few months ago. And so she opted in and we connected and we had a conversation and. she's, she's like, yeah, well, you know what, we were out, I was with a partner, we're out door knocking in this neighborhood. And, you know, it was kind of frustrating because somebody else's sign wound up in this person's, you know, front lawn that we had, we had door knocked like two months before I said, okay, well walk me through what happened. She said, well, we knocked on their door and they said that they would be interested in selling their house in a couple of months. And then we said that we would follow up with them in a couple of months. And I said, okay, So did you get their name, their phone number and their email address? No. Okay. How would, how did you propose that you were going to follow up with them? Well, we had plans to go out and knock their door, but then we saw the sign in the front yard. I said, okay, here's the thing. The next time you decide to go out door knocking, go out with two things. Number one, bring your phone, make sure that you've got follow -up boss or some sort of CRM or even your notes app. If you've got an iPhone, have your notes app open. Okay. So that's number one. You want to have that open so that you can record name, phone number, email address. Number one, number two, have an item of value. You have something that's valuable that you can get in exchange for the value that they are going to be giving to you. What are they going to be giving to you? That's valuable. Their contact information. So you've got to have something of value to be able to give an exchange. And if somebody says to you, man, I'm thinking about selling my house and I'm going to do it in two months. Don't tell them that you're going to follow up in two months. Tell them that you're going to follow up next week. Tell them that you want to have a conversation. Tell them that, Hey, listen, I'd love to be able to come in and do a consultation for you. I'd love to be able to have an opportunity to talk about a market evaluation on your property, right? Have your scripts dialed and ready to go. If somebody tells you that they're going to sell their house, that that is intention, right? Take them seriously. Don't think for one second that they're just, it's hyperbolic that they're just going to say, well, you know, I'm thinking about it. Well, if they're thinking about it, it's probably, they're probably going to take action at some point. right? So if you're going to door knock, if you're going to build that database, make sure that you go out with intention. And again, you know, the he, he or she who has the biggest database is going to win, right? At the end of the day. And so making sure that every time that you're at an event, making sure that you've got some way to collect information. If somebody says to you, Hey Kelly, how's the market? I'm not going to go on this big diatribe about, you know, how the market and the organ organ is completely turned. And this is the reason why, and 70 ,000 people have left British Columbia and they're moved. They're all moving to Alberta and No. And I'm not going to say, Hey, listen, the market is crap right now. I'm also not going to say, well, the market's fantastic, right? I'm going to have a script. I'm going to have something dialed in and I'm going to, you know, close with a question. Like if you want, Hey, listen, are you interested in more information? I'm not trying to pitch you here. I know we're at a party, but give me your email and I'll put you on my monthly email newsletter, right? At least then you can have, you got a way to, especially in a market like this. that's saturated with real estate agents, dude, there's like 2000 agents in our, in our association down here in the Okanagan. If you think for one second that you don't have to stand out, you're mistaken, right? You absolutely have to figure out a way to stand out and be able to build that database. There's probably five other agents at that party. 100 % there is 100 % there is yeah. you touched on a little bit about, you know, some tools and technology while you're outdoor knocking. What tools and technology do you use on a daily basis? AI is, is big for me, chat GPT. I've got the paid version of chat GPT. I don't know how many of your listeners have it, but, there's so much more that you can do with, with, chat GPT. If you've got the paid version, you know, if you go to my YouTube channel and you look at my thumbnails, the thumbnails, the backgrounds are all AI generated. Right. obviously my, my photo is, is not like I've got lights and stuff in my office. And so I'll take a photo for, for the main, you know, for the main person personality on the video, but all of the backgrounds is it's all AI generated. I utilize Canva as well. That's a piece of technology that I seem to be on, on the daily as well. I've got another piece of, of AI called Harpa, that I use quite a bit. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Harpa.ai. Not too sure, no. Okay. So Harpa, what Harpa will do is if you go, if you've got the plugin into your Chrome, you can, you can actually open it up when, when you're on a website and you can ask Harpa to summarize the website for you, which they'll do right there in, in the, in the chat box, which, you know, basically pops up on the side of your screen. So it will summarize the website for you. And then you can tell the AI to actually build out a video script for you based off of that website. Right. So it's, so it's, it's got to, it's got to tie into, to chat GPT. And so it utilizes that AI inside of Harpa to summarize and then to type out a, an actual, you know, video script. And, you know, I mean, that's using AI for this stuff. Like I don't have AI write my things. Like I have it write my script, but I'll tell you, I go through the script and sometimes they're garbage and I just, I don't even use them. Sometimes it's like a half rewrite. Sometimes it's a quarter rewrite. I just put a script together today. It's a video that I'm going to shoot a little bit later this afternoon. It was almost perfect. I had to go in and add a few things to it, but for the most part, I'm just going to, I'm going to set it up on my teleprompter app and boom, I'm going to bang out the video. I'm going to send it off to my editor and you know, we'll have another, another piece of content ready to go up on the channel later this week. So AI tools are probably the things and then Canva are probably the things that I'm into daily for sure. Yeah, how how do you being so busy? How do you stay up on all of this real estate tech like how? How do you stay updated on? Yeah. Well, a big part of it is masterminds, man. So I'm, you know, I'm part of a mastermind group. A friend of mine, Nolan Mathias has got a mastermind that he's put together specifically for people that are wanting to deploy video as part of their marketing strategy inside of their business. He's, he's just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to video. The guy has built a couple of really successful channels. He's, you know, he's in a mastermind group with Darrell leaves. If you don't know who Darrell leaves is Darrell leaves wrote the book on YouTube marketing. He also is the guy that advises Mr. Beast. you know, so, so, you know, you know, paying $50 ,000 a year to be a part of that mastermind. He's able to glean a lot of really great information to bring that into our mastermind group. The guy speaks for great Craig Ballantine. He's helping Craig with his YouTube strategy. I know he's got a lot of higher end clients now as well. And you know, I was, I was fortunate enough to be able to get into that mastermind. And so that's one of the, one of the ways. And then, you know, I'm, dude, I'm up at like four or 35 o 'clock in the morning. And so part of my daily regimen is I like to, I like to go through my Twitter feed. I like to go through my Facebook feed. I like to check out Instagram. I'll check out, you know, my data from Tik TOK, you know, the video views and that sort of stuff. And then I get into an app called Flipboard and one of the, one of my favorite boards inside of Flipboard is has to do with technology. And so I'll go through that board, you know, fairly consistently every single day. And I look for new tech and look for new other new ideas. this is interesting. How can, how could this apply to a real estate? How can I actually deploy this into a real estate business? How could I, you know, help a client deploy this into a real estate business? So it's just a matter of being able to get up early enough and read the right, you know, read the right, right pieces, a corner, find the right corners of the internet and read the right things and, and, you know, do some little bit of discovery and figure out whether it's actually a piece of technology that would, that would actually help to scale your business. Now, if somebody is coming into the real estate business or maybe isn't not too techie as it would be, what do you think are the essential tools that somebody should start with? Like if they're, if they were just starting their career today. Okay. I love this question because I wish I could go back to 2008, sit myself down. Okay, dude, listen, this is what you need to do. Okay. Number one, first and foremost, got to have a plan. Got to build out your business plan, right? If you're brand new in the business and you have no idea where, where you can get your leads from, here's a few ideas, right? A geo farming online leads, social media, you know, paid leads versus organic leads, your database, your sphere of influence. A lot of people may not think that, that they don't have a big database. I, you know, if you're in business right now, not for yourself, but working for somebody else, that is your database. One of the biggest mistakes that I made when I left that job, all of these trades guys, they all had money and they all own their own homes and they all had rental properties. Right. And one of the biggest mistakes that I made was not going out and firing their vehicles. handing out my business cards and building my database, getting all of their contact information before I left that, that job, right? That was a big mistake. And so if you're looking at making that move and leaving, actually had a conversation with an agent. I was with him down in Seattle this past weekend for a football tournament that my son was involved in. He's been in real estate since 2006. And so we had this conversation. He's like, yeah, I used to work for, in the HR department for the city of Regina. And he's like, I totally made the same mistake. I got into real estate and when I left, I didn't get anybody's contact information. Right? So if you, if you're, if you're part -time right now, that's a, that's a built in database right there. So understand where all of your leads are going to come from. How much work, how much time, how much effort, how much money do you have? Right? That's the other thing. A lot of people don't realize it takes money in this business to actually make money. So two things, number one, if you're going to run, if you're going to be in this business, run it like a business. Look, if, if, if you owned a coffee shop, Okay. Would you have a budget for the coffee shop? Yes. Would you know how much the cups cost that house the coffee when you're selling it to the customer? Yes. Would you know how much the lid costs? Would you know how much the coffee or the sugar, the milk and the cream? Would you know all of those costs 100 %? Yes, of course you would. Right. So then why is it that most real estate agents don't have any concept or understanding of profit and loss? They don't have an understanding of budgeting. They don't have an understanding of I've got to actually run this business like a business. So make sure that you're running this like a business. Don't go and spend wildly. Don't be crazy. Don't go out and you know, somebody's trying to sell you a shiny penny, which there are many of those people out there, right? Don't so many too many, right? Do not jump on, on every single bandwagon that's out there, right? Make sure that you're putting your money in the right spots. And if you don't know where to put your money, then find a mentor inside of your company and choose wisely there. So definitely planning, making sure that you've got a really robust business plan to describe the system that you're going to develop inside of let's say open houses, right? And then go and deploy that system. secondary to that tracking, tracking, tracking everything, right? CRMs follow up boss, KB core, brilliant for this type of thing, right? If you're not tracking the stuff, open up a spreadsheet, you know, all you really need is the person's name, the closing date. the amount of money that you made or the closing date, the, the possession date, the amount of money that you made. So the, the GCI amount and then the net net, your brokerage amount, I wouldn't say net taxes amount, just net your brokerage amount. the date that you sold the property and if I didn't already see that, and then were they buyer, were they a seller and then where did the business come from? Like I've got a spreadsheet that I've been using since 2013 that has all of that information. And every time I plug in, you know, this person came from my sphere or they came from open houses or they came from online leads or they came from Kelly's car .com, right? I know exactly where they came from at the end of the year. In October, when I go to business plan again, I can open up that spreadsheet and I know where to put all of my time, money, money, energy, and effort in order to be able to yield the type of result that I want to yield. Right. And so tracking and measuring is absolutely the key. The third thing, what I would be focusing on is. making sure that we're providing constant and consistent value to our database. And so, you know, what does that look like? Well, I think email at scale, I think is, is absolutely key. two emails that I would send right off the hop. If I were, you know, counseling myself, going back to 2008, number one email is going to be stats, right? Don't get too crazy with it. Keep it to three key stats, right? So, days on market benchmark price. And you can, you can use like a sold to list, price sales ratios, or just the number of sales that are happening. The reason why we want to keep it to three is because we don't want to overwhelm people. And three, those three stats will paint enough of a picture that it will prompt somebody to actually return the email or actually make the call. Right. Inside of that, tell a story. Don't just be crazy analytical. Like some realtors can, can be and be like, you know, my God, you know, all of these different metrics and here's a chart, here's a graph and. You know, you need a, you know, economics degree to understand what I'm talking about. No, don't do that. Right. Just keep it simple. Keep it zeroed in, tell a story, three metrics. That's it. The second email that I would send would be focused on community. What's happening in Prince George right now. What's happening this way? Is there a car show that's happening coming up in the middle of the month? Is there, you know, what, what's hazard charity golf tournament? Like what is it, you know, in a lot of the, a lot of cities actually have smaller centers, you know, especially have like a community calendar. So just going to the community calendar, and talking about what's happening in the community and being that community resource. So if for anything else, if you, if all you're doing is just sending emails, those are two emails that you could be sending on a monthly basis. And I get pushed back on this a lot and people will say, well, two emails is too much. And I'm like, two emails is not enough. Like realistically, you should be sending for a month. That's what you should be doing. As long as they're value packed, people will not unsubscribe. As long as they continue to open your email, and they see that there's value there, they will continue to consume. As soon as they feel like they're not connecting with the value anymore, they will start to tune you up. Yeah, that's we send one a week. And that seems to be a pretty good sweet spot, so what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Well, I'll go back to the, you know, kind of the back to the beginning of the podcast and that, that was, you know, getting clear on my mission, vision, values. That was, that was probably that had the most impact on me kind of, you know, not, not really midway through my career, kind of still at the beginning of my career, getting very, very clear on what it was, what my value was, what my value proposition was, truly what my values were. the single greatest piece of advice that I got. actually came to me in 2019 from a mentor of mine, a friend of mine. and that was never ever, ever compromise your values for anything or anyone. And I'll tell you, I wish you would have told me that in 2015 because it would have made the next four years a little bit different. Actually scratch that. You know what? I'm glad he told me when he told me, I'm glad that he dropped that nugget when he dropped it, because those four years between 2015 and 2019, I got a university education and a couple of different things. Number one, leadership, number two, how to treat and counsel and coach and mentor and train your agents. And number three, how not to run a real estate brokerage. So I won't discount those years for anything, but single greatest piece of advice was, Do not ever compromise your values for anyone or anything, because truly your values determine and dictate who it is that you're going to deal with in business and in life. How do you define success in real estate? so many metrics, so many metrics. I mean, is it the GCI? Is it the production level? I sold $10 million in, you know, in homes last year. Great. What market are you in? I'm in Los Angeles. okay. So you sold what four houses last year, five houses last year, right? I mean, there, and there's markets like that across Canada. Look at the GTA. That's a, you know, good example, right? So, you know, production, you could, you could measure it on, you know, families helped. You could, you know, look at the end of the day, this is what, this is why. I feel is a successful day. A successful day for me is coming home at the end of the day, being able to see my kids, take them to being able to take them to baseball, spend an entire weekend down in Seattle, Washington at a football tournament, not thinking about real estate, not thinking about coaching, not thinking about anything else that I've got going on, zeroing in and only focused on my family and my kids and making sure that they're happy. That to me is truly is what success is. That's success for me in my life. Is it tied to monetary gain? 100%. Do I get to do what I love every single day? 100%. So success for me is not measured really in monetary value. It's do I have the time to be able to spend with the people that I love the most? That's fantastic. That is so true. You know, too many people I think do hang their success on their GCI. And like you said, you get to be 100 % present with your family at the end of the day. So thank you very much. And I just have one more question before we wrap up this podcast. What legacy do you hope to leave in the state business. man, I, it's interesting that you asked this question because it's, it's something that I think about constantly. I was watching, it just popped up on my Instagram here today. It was Maria shark. Maria Shriver actually posted this on her Instagram and it was a, it was a video of, Sam Rubin's son and Sam Rubin was, I guess he was a, a broadcaster in the United States. He was on KTLA five and fairly well known throughout the broadcasting industry. Anyways, he passed away. I think it was from cancer or some other, maybe it was MS or something like that. anyways, his son was on there and his, his son was talking about, his father's legacy and talking about the impact that he made. And his son is only 16, very eloquent, very well spoken. the fact that he wasn't like just a puddle of tears was just, ridiculously impressive to me. What really stood out for me was the impact that his father made on his life. you know, and, and so I've thought a lot about this in, in terms of what is it that I want to leave behind? Like if I were to suddenly die tomorrow, what would people say about me? Right. And, and for me in this business, is it important to be an influencer? Was it important that I, I spoke on stages? Was it important that I impacted agents lives? arguably, right? I think what I would, the Mark that I would love to leave in this industry is how I made people feel when I was in the same room with them, right? Like, how did you feel around me? Right? Did you feel like I treated you with respect and kindness? Did you feel like I listened to you? Did you feel like I offered some sort of value to our conversation? Right? If we're talking specifically about the real estate industry, that's really my focus in, you know, in terms of what my legacy is going to be. And when, you know, again, coming, bring this back to, to legacy and, you know, talking about our kids and our family and the impact that we have on them, you know, truly, I, I, I want, I want to be best friends with my kids. I want them to, to learn from the past mistakes that I've had, you know, at this conversation with my son down and down, when we were headed down to Seattle, I said, you know, you, you are part of the greatest generation that is out there today. And the, the information that you have access to. that will help you be successful in your life is unparalleled, unparalleled. You could reach out to a guy like Andy Elliot or Ed Mylett or Andy Fersella or whomever, like pick somebody in that space. You could reach out to them and maybe bug them a little bit, but there could be a chance that they wind up getting back to you, right? I once had Tom Cruise retweet one of my tweets. Just a couple of months ago, I had Dr. Phil like one of my tweets. Right? My kids don't believe this. I'm like, dude, I, I screenshotted it. This is so cool. Right? The as absolutely the connectivity that we have this generation of kids right now, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old. This, the access that they have to the information that they have to be able to, to be able to get out and build a business very early on and be a millionaire by the time they're 25, 26, 27 years old is unparalleled. It's unlike any other time that we've seen. in our history, dude, when we were growing up, like what were we would, what were we doing? We were listening, we weren't listening to podcasts. We weren't listening to books. We do. We were reading books. We were going to seminars, paying thousands and thousands. Maybe there was a DVD set that we could buy for like 1999, right? Yeah. Like cassettes. Yeah, exactly. That's right. How to percent. So, you know, so in terms of legacy, man, that's, that's the impact that I want to have on my kids is look, Dad was always around. He was always there to support us. He was, you know, my always my number one fan and, and, you know, he supported me in everything that I wanted to do, you know, not financially, but, you know, tried to, you know, get me to see how I can be better and how I can be the best version of myself. And that's really my focus these days. Thank you so much. This has just been incredible amount of knowledge dump. You know, I'm sitting here and I feel like I need to listen to this again to pick all of this up. So, yeah, well, we all appreciate you and the vast amount of knowledge that you have is fantastic. And you certainly shared that with our listeners today. Now, one of the big things that we like to do on this. Podcast is we'd love to be a conduit for referrals So if anybody has anybody coming in or out of the Kelowna area What is the best way to get a hold of you? they can shoot me a text. I still got my Alberta number. It's, you know, I've got like three different phone numbers. I got my follow up boss number. I got my, I've got another number through an app called you mail that I've got, but this is the best, the easiest and best way to get ahold of me is through my Alberta number, which is four zero three eight two seven seven five two seven, or you can always shoot me an email at info at live, love Colona .ca. Brilliant. And again, thank you so much. And I look forward to, I'm sure we could squeeze out another podcast together here. So, you know, we just touched on a little bit of it and we could keep going. So thank you very, very much for being a guest and I wish you and your family all the best. Thanks, sir, I appreciate you.