Justin Stoddart 0:00
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart, where my mission and my passion are to help you think bigger, bring people in front of you that expand your thinking. Because when that happens, a marvelous thing also follows, which is your business starts to grow. as your business grows, your life gets more options, and you are able to create a greater impact in the world. And that is my, again, mission and passion. I’m very excited today to talk about the friction factor. We live in a digital world. And it’s all too often. There are lots of connections. We’ve got lots of friends through all kinds of social networks, but not very much, not very many deep connections. And I’ve got truly an expert here with me today to talk about this. Let me introduce Jim Remley first before I kind of give a full bio on you, Jim, thanks for being on the show today.
Jim Remley 0:47
Hey, my pleasure. I’m excited to be here. Thank you so much.
Justin Stoddart 0:50
You bet you are a big thinker. And let me validate that to all those who are hearing about Jim for the first time. So Jim actually lives in a small town in Oregon called Medford, Oregon and you’d never believe
so much success that he’s created would come out of a small town. He’s a 30-year real estate veteran, he grew a company to 17 offices here in Oregon, sold that he now runs one of the largest brokerages in Oregon. He’s got 160 agents doing about a billion dollars in volume. A pretty impressive little group of producers out of Medford, Oregon, I love it. His company is the top 500 company in America according to real trends. And he now runs a platform, a coaching platform in addition to his robust brokerage and business, erealestatecoach.com. We’re going to get more into that here in a minute. But thank you again, Jim, for being on the show and a super excited about today’s topic.
Jim Remley 1:42
I’m excited to be here. I got a reputation down in Southern Oregon, my friend.
Justin Stoddart 1:46
So hopefully it’s a good one.
So let’s get into this, Jim. You know, I grew up in an era where the internet was introduced to my high school. And I thought to myself, that’s so weird, weirdest thing ever. Like this is odd, right? Whereas we have a generation that’s coming up that like does not know what life would be like without the internet. Like when I tell my kids Hey, guess what kids dad’s older than the internet. And they’re like, dinosaur dad. And but now it’s so common all of us are really reliance upon it, aren’t we like entirely our lives revolve around internet connection.
Jim Remley 2:21
It’s absolutely true. You know, I grew up I’m older than you. So I grew up when we had Apple to computers before the internet. You know, the lab school program on this little tiny apple. I just read an interesting article. It was by David Brian at MIT review. And he said this, that what’s happening right now with technology is that we are being we’re seeing less and less human interaction within all technology. So technology is being built with humans being less and less and less a part of the technology itself. Because human friction is where most systems break down. And it’s very interesting when you look at it. I mean, if you look at all lot of the things that we’re probably all using, I’m sure you’re using and I’m using my wife and I just signed up for Blue Apron. Right. So that’s a delivery service for meals. And the idea here is that we don’t have to go to the restaurant with wants to talk to a waitress, we don’t have to build the grocery store. It’s literally just sent to us arrives on our doorstep, we go out we open it up, we make the meal, right. So yeah, like Uber and Lyft. Before you know I’m old enough to remember when you get in a cab. When you get the cab you have to tell the cab driver where you’re going to have a conversation. You’d have to tip the cab driver at the end. But now you get into an Uber you literally don’t have to have a conversation because the system is built to have no conversation interesting already have already put it in there you open the door get in open the door get out you don’t even have to talk to the systems like that. Captain Marvel a few weeks ago at the movie theater, and they had this scene where the main characters in a blockbuster video and you like Oh, that’s so cute. I remember going to Blockbuster Video. But now everything’s streaming. So we don’t have to go talk to people at the video store. We don’t even have to go to the movies, we just remember our phones and our devices. So you’re saying there are this natural and kind of insistent move towards less and less and less and less human interaction. This morning in bed my wife was doing. She was shopping, put her whole grocery cart and the instacart. And it’s going to be delivered at six o’clock. We don’t- it’s all being delivered to us.
Justin Stoddart 4:27
It’s crazy, isn’t it?
Jim Remley 4:28
Interesting world, right?
Justin Stoddart 4:29
It is an interesting world. You know, and a lot of these things are very convenient. I mean, every one of those things you just described Uber to Blue Apron to like grocery delivery. I’m all like, that’s awesome. Like that sounds like right. And that’s I think we’re really technology can benefit what’s the double it? What’s the other side of that sword? Like if this is a double edged sword, right? Like, what’s the problem with this?
Jim Remley 4:54
People say to me, Well, that’s all great. I love it, I use it but does it real estate and it absolutely applies to real estate, there are pieces of the real estate, what’s called puzzle or supply chain or, or, or the way we work that are being webbed eyes, chunk by chunk we all watched as Zillow and realtor.com. And as the market now buyers can do all sorts of themselves. But now showings are starting to go that direction. in large cities systems like Tour, which is a lockbox, you can put it on the house and can be remotely accessed, so that there doesn’t need to be an agent president at the showing. Think of it like when you go to do an Airbnb vacation rental, and they put a keyless entry in the virus when qualified. They hit a button, and that lets them into the house. Of course, the seller has to sign off on it. But this is us right now. So imagine now you have showings, you can go search and you can show yourself the house. Every time one of these little things is taken out of our plate and made frictionless, it takes a proposition away from us. So what happens is we become a commodity. And we become one of many I just saw a study about the number of agents in the business right now we’re at another peak, we had a peak in 2005. with about a million for agents, we’re back up to that number. And some people would say that’s more like 2.4 because not everybody’s a realtor. But transactions are showing it about 5 million transactions. So you think about 2 million realtors or 2 million agents in the country. And as 5 million transactions, the number of people Zoomer has to choose from is massive. So in any market like in Portland, I’m sure there’s 10,000 agents or more,
Justin Stoddart 6:32
Let’s do 8500
in the probably metro area, but that doesn’t include Vancouver, right, which is a whole, which is kind of Portland area, and there’s a whole you know,
Jim Remley 6:40
so that means the consumer can just have all these massive choices. And when we get to monetize, it becomes an issue for us, we have to find a value back in the transaction. And that’s my focus with agents, you know,
Justin Stoddart 6:53
you’re speaking my language, I see the writing on the wall, right with all the technology that’s happening. Even the insurance industry, like the financial advising industry, these industries have kind of hit it before us. You can see everything from robot advisors, again, to flow and the lizard on, you know, TV selling insurance. It’s I actually had a friend of mine talking to me like so. So if I, before I show the story, let me kind of share, there could be a bit of a doom and gloom about this could there be like, like, we are an endangered species, as you know, like in the real estate industry, extinction is coming, consumers will have no need for us. I believe that is true if your value proposition remains what it’s always been.
Jim Remley 7:38
I agree 100% 100%.
And travel, if you look at the travel industry, where travel agents were completely discriminated, that was friction for us. 15 years ago, as I said, all is going to happen to real estate. The difference between us and travel is that we provide a high-level interpretation and consultation with our clients that can’t be easily revised. All the pieces of it might be wise, wise, right up until we get consultation and interpretation and provide trusted guidance through the transaction. And that’s the key is trust, and people trusting what we’re giving them. And I think that’s the difference. It’s very similar to the medical profession, I think our parallel is more medical than it is travel, medical you and I bet you’ve done this, your wife’s done this I’ve done this morning, we’ve all gone to Web MD. And we’ve all self diagnose ourselves. And we were all dying of cancer right or some huge ailment we thought we had really wrong because we self diagnoses herself. But that’s the difference is that we are still going to be that doctor that’s going to actually come in and interpret the real issue and real pain point and really provide real solutions. And I think what we have to sell.
Justin Stoddart 8:51
So let’s unpack this a little bit. Because of in fact, the story that I was going to share, and I stopped myself was about the travel industry because people like that’s an industry that gets picked on often and as actually having a conversation with a friend of mine who’s in insurance. And he said, you know, we were booking a lifetime trip to Europe. And he said I got this right. There are tons of resources online, there are reviews everywhere. But he said it got to the point to be overwhelming. You know this is a like a once in a lifetime trip. But he said Finally, I was feeling overwhelmed. Because who do I trust? Who do I who do I know? You know, like who do I like know is going to actually give me the right advice. And so he said finally said, this is a big enough travel or trip that I’m going to hire a professional, I’m going to hire a travel agency who can just decide for me because they’ve been there before. And I think to your point, the booking a trip to San Jose, we don’t need travel agents anymore, right? However, something that’s going to actually be like, life-determining meaning, you know, in real estate, it’s because it’s such a wealth determiner. People need advisors, right? And I think exactly what you’re saying is that the value proposition of a real estate agent has to move beyond the, you know, functionary tasks, and into the fiduciary tasks, and like you said, position themselves as a doctor, which means that there’s a whole group of people that aren’t willing to put in the work, or give it a coaching, or become an advisor to where they’re not going to be in a spot to be able to advise people like a doctor would advise on health, right? And those people are going to be the ones that are going to be overtaken by technology, those that are going to rise, just like a well-paid travel agent. Now, yes, they do exist for people, just like I just described, right? agents are going to need to become that in order to be well paid, or I like to say they’ll become, you know, technology operators, like a barista at running a cappuccino machine. And getting paid similarly. Right,
Jim Remley 10:54
exactly. The interesting thing about that, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about life change, when you life-changing decisions, you want a trusted advisor. And so that’s the differentiation point, I think, with realtors is we’re at a life-changing moment. And people want a consultation, they want their handheld, that life-changing moment, they want advice, as well as the difference. I think what happens is happening right now is that we had this huge kind of shift in the industry of years ago. And it’s been a shift towards transactional real estate, where you see people completely focused on, you know, the numbers, the numbers, the numbers, every transaction is just a number to them. And what happens is your business falls apart, eventually, because that’s the same way that the client looks at you like a number as one of many people that could serve it, we’ve got to move away from that we got to move from transactional real estate to relational real estate. And that’s the only way we can win in this business. But the good news is I don’t think it’s doom and gloom, I think it’s an advantage, there’s going to be new agents that are willing to go relational. They just don’t want to invest the time, effort, you know, and the resources to go completely relational. But I just had an interview myself, a couple of days ago with one of the guys that I just bought in the company, Steve Thomas, he did $17 million in his second year in the business in the small record. That’s awesome. I mean, I’m sure it’s one of the number one agents in the country to in the second year in this business. I mean, and I interviewed him, I said, Steve, what was your secret? I said you must be doing social media, you must be doing Google ads, you must be doing all the things that all these agents are being told to do. No, I’m terrible at all that, here’s what I do. I call 60 people a week that is in my 15. VIP, those are people that already have heard referred to me and like me, and trust me. And my goal is to set four to five networking meetings a week. That means I’m going to coffee or lunch or dinner or drinks with someone every single day. And that’s it. That’s his complete, you know, plan for success. And it’s all relationship, relationship, just building relationships with
people,
Justin Stoddart 12:52
which is Yeah, becoming a lost art, like we started off, right. Talking about is that most agents spend that same amount of time trying to figure out how to automate a drip campaign so that they can stay in front of people. And it’s at the end of the day, when people have that wealth determining decision to make like that, sifting through their email to see who dripped on them last is not going to even stand a chance against the person who sat down with them for 30 to 45 to 60 minutes to find out what like where they’re at, where they’re headed, what their plan is not even necessarily about real estate just about life. But in that of, course Real Estate’s going to come up. I agree with you, I see agents that that are dominating, that are just willing to go sit and eat and eat with people. Because it’s so uncommon in today’s world.
Jim Remley 13:38
It’s a different mindset. And what I tell my agents is your number one job, your number one job is real estate professional, from drip campaigns and mailings and all that we’re doing videos and blog, website, your number one goal of all of that activity is to be sitting across the table from someone, it’s an interaction, we get that and we just think it’s about touch. It’s not about touch. It’s about the human physical conversation. I just saw a study that said that for every 30 conversations, live conversations, the agent has the average one close transaction. And that’s a sort of based measurement of everything we do. We’re always trying to move away from a conversation and find some technology that will replace that. But nothing, nothing replaces human interaction.
Justin Stoddart 14:25
So once people get into those conversations, kind of in our last few minutes here, Jim, let’s talk a little bit about that consultative conversation. What do you think are the key points that an agent needs to be bringing up in addition to what’s happening in that person’s life? Right? Like, once they know what’s happening with that person, where they’re headed? What are key things you think that a real estate advisor should be asking, should be knowing to where they can really deliver value in today’s world?
Jim Remley 14:52
So that’s an interesting question. And I think what it boils down to is you we always lead with what we think they need a real need to lead with is what they actually need. And the way you do that by asking great questions, but also studying what the markets telling us so NAR does a study this every year, they do the home buyer and seller study. And it’s a massive study, 10s of thousands of people are interviewed and they’re asked what are the top three things you want from a buyer’s agent? What are the top three things you want from a seller’s agent? And the answers are pretty much universally the same. Every year, there are slight changes with the seller, we know that the number one thing they want is help in finding the right buyer for their home. I’ll be purchasing the property correctly and helping with the terms negotiation. So two of those price in terms of investigations. Yeah, areas. And so speaking of that, are we talking about how I negotiate price, how I negotiate terms, how I market the house, in a way that’s unique? And I think it all boils down to the answer your question, differentiation, and how we differentiate ourselves, as opposed to every other agent that’s coming behind us. I’m Justin studying that was done recently, kind of to this point as well, was this idea of referrals, we always are training to referrals course. But you know, we’ve all heard nodes calls, pop Eyes, Nose calls, Popeyes, it’s kind of been answered for years, right? Study out that shows when we should be engaging people for referrals, what’s their highest point of sending us a referral, and people are four times more likely, more times more likely to send us the referral, in the experience itself. So within the let’s just like us, if we’re about to go to a restaurant, we’re much more likely to be texting people, Instagram at Facebook, and yet talking to our friends about it talking to our families, or during the meal. If we’re having a great experience, we’re much more likely to be talking about it, you go out 30 days, 60 days, 90 days from that experience, highly unlikely going to be talking about it again. So that’s the one I’m training agents. I’m talking about this magic kind of circle around every experience you’re having with a buyer and seller are only leveraging in that having conversations about referrals within that moment.
Justin Stoddart 16:58
Yeah, it’s brilliant. I love it. I would love to spend more time with you unfortunate. I’ve got a hard stop. But I do want to ask the last signature question, Jim. And I would I’m going to invite you to come back on the show again, because this has been a really great conversation. Before I go to that final question. Let me just put up here really quickly, a link to your really real estate coaching school I’ll call it right the real estate coach calm. Now, Jim, tell us really quickly, what would agents get from there that they won’t be able to get in other places.
Jim Remley 17:33
So one of the things that we provide, we provide mastery courses. So the mastery courses are me coaching people one on one, through live video, and through video. So in addition to that, they get what we call a paired download. So as I’m talking about for sale by owners, open houses, your business, the business prospecting, they can download the scripts, the texts, the emails, all the tools and systems we’re talking about. So it’s really one on one coaching, but at a super affordable level. In fact, I’m going to give your students your audience another discount off the price that’s on there. So anything you can’t bind us a webinar 25 coupon code, you get 25% off.
Justin Stoddart 18:14
Perfect. So five put into the coupon code.
Jim Remley 18:17
And you get that. So all of our classes are designed to be a rapid lot, a lot of classes take hours and hours and hours are focused nuts and bolts, right to get you out in the field work. I love it.
Justin Stoddart 18:28
I love it.
Yeah, instead of being a professional student, you want professional agents out in the field working. All right. So I appreciate that. Thank you again, for the kind offer to this audience. I would encourage anybody and everybody to go take a look at what Jim has created again with his bio that I read to you guys. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be learning from this guy. So I appreciate that very much, Jim. So the signature question, you’re a big thinker, no doubt. behind me here. I’ve got this logo to remind everybody what this show is about to think bigger. Tell me what something that you do on a regular basis to be sure that you continue to expand your own possibilities, right to be sure that you continue to be a big thinker, and don’t get stuck in kind of small thinking described to us. Coaches teach us what that looks like for you.
Jim Remley 19:13
Then there are two things that I do consistently that I think helped me on that front one is I’m listening to books as I’m driving, the average person in the car spends 597 hours a year in their car. It’s, you know, a university on wheels. So I’m listening to a bike every day, I’m probably going through two to three business books a week and from ideas all the time. If you want to be somebody that’s sharpening your ax Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly successful people says, you gotta sharpen the ax. And that’s not only learning but also rest and recharge. So you got to plan vacations, you gotta rest and recharge to stay on top of your game. You can’t be working 24/7, you got to take some time yourself.
Justin Stoddart 19:53
I love it. Great stuff, Jim, really appreciate that. Want to encourage the audience to go think bigger as a result of what Jim shared with us today? You’re truly learning from a master and feel honored to have you on the show, Jim. So if this has been valuable to those that are listening, whether you’re watching this life or whether you’re watching it in the future, do Jim and I a favor and comment that maybe even tag somebody or share it. There’s just bed some great nuggets of wisdom that Jim is brought to us. So again, as an appreciation for his time, please. Let’s get this out to more people. So Jim, thank you again for your time. And I would encourage again, the audience to go think bigger. All right, my friend. Talk to you soon.