Justin Stoddart
At a time when the industry and the world is really going through uncharted territory, there has never been a better time for those of us that are in sales roles and or in leadership roles to truly do just that, which is to step up and lead. However, we can’t lead other people unless we’re properly leading ourselves. Today’s episode with Bev Blume goes into exactly that. What do we need to be doing right now on a mindset level and on a tactical level that will allow us to be the leaders that we need to be that our clients that our fellow teammates that our brokerages that our industry, that our community leaders need us to be enjoy this episode. You’re gonna get a lot from it. And we’re live.

Welcome back to The think bigger real estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddard. So excited to be here today with Bev Blume. Let me get back really quick about introducing her more fully because those that know her love her, see her has a highly respected leader. In our industry, so let me give you a full bio on on her here just a minute, here’s what you’re gonna get by listening to this episode. We are in unprecedented times economically, and our industry and industry wide. And it’s now’s the time for leaders to step up. Now’s the time for and I’ll add this that anyone and all of us are leaders. Even if you just lead your clients, you are still a leader. So I would encourage you to think through the through the kind of those years as you listen to this episode that you are a leader and we need you to step up. And that’s exactly why we’ve had a true leaders leader step up today. Her name is Bev Blume. She actually got into the business in 2007. What an ideal time to get into the real estate industry, learn to work hard and experience success despite what was happening in the industry. She now has a very successful real estate team and also leads a brokerage of Keller Williams office out of Clackamas Oregon. So Bev, thank you so much for coming on The Think Bigger Real Estate Show I am thrilled to have you on today.

Bev Blume
Good morning, Justin, I am thrilled to be here this morning. And I always enjoy my conversations with you. And, you know, we are in really crazy times right now. And, you know, I’m just kind of hoping to come to people on their level. And, you know, just try to give them some hope and, you know, some, you know, go to work, and you know, just how we’re gonna, you know, get through this together. So that’s kind of the goal for today.

Justin Stoddart
You know, it’s, all of us are now being forced to really work from home, aren’t we? Like, we’re being forced to do things very differently than what we, you know, then maybe what we’re used to doing. Let’s talk a little bit about keeping some normalcy, some very kind of initial tips at the beginning of this episode. How do we get it to where our life feels somewhat normal to where we can still be productive and be in the right mindset. What tips would you have for us?

Bev Blume
Sure, well, I feel like you know, a lot of people need to go to the office to have that need to go to work and so this is a really abrupt change to their habit, which, you know, people that are realtors, anybody, anybody in our industry, you know, gets up every day has the same routine and they’ve worked years on, you know, creating that schedule and perfecting it. They get up in the morning at 5 or 5:30. They go to the gym, they come home, they eat breakfast, they shower, they get ready to go to work, and they drive to the office and they arrive at eight o’clock and they go to work. Well, now that we can’t go to work, and we can’t, we have to go to work inside of our house. So one of the things that I hear and, you know, over the course of this week, I’ve just talked to a lot of people, a lot of agents a ot of leaders. I’ve attended a lot of live training in streaming. And what I hear a lot is that people they’ve lost that vibe, they’ve watched that habit abruptly got broken and they just can’t find it inside themselves to create a new normal. And we hear that we hear that phrase a lot creating a new normal. So my biggest tip, you know for that is keep your same schedule. Get up at 5:30. Yes, you can’t go to the gym. But there’s plenty of, you know, apps. I see plenty of people doing short workout videos, friends that own cascade Athletic Clubs, they have livestream videos for short workouts. One of my PT friends has a short workout on her Facebook page. So you know, get your gym workout in, go take a shower, get dressed, do your hair, put your lipstick on and go to your desk and go to work. You might actually be a little more productive, but it’s creating that new habit that a lot of people struggle with. But if you you know, if you set your mind to it, you know, you’re kind of unstoppable.

Justin Stoddart
You know, I love that Bev. Just because you’re working at home doesn’t mean you need to treat it like a Lazy Sunday. Morning, right? That you can get up early, you can get dressed work out. In fact, all of that should change and real estate agents for the most part are, are probably better than most at working from home because your job doesn’t necessarily stay contained within the eight to five hours. Right. In fact, it rarely does. And so having, I would even say even if you’ve been accustomed to working from home in your pajamas, I might encourage you to get up and get showered. Right now we need you to be a leader, we need you to be stronger than you’ve ever been before. We need you to take this more seriously than probably you ever have before because more people are needing your help. And those that I believe that stand up as leaders in this environment, this economy are not only going to survive, they’re going to thrive people are going to be are going to flock to you because they need your confidence to help them solve their problems and navigate these waters. And if you can show up like a professional and that may mean even doing more of a morning routine than what you’ve ever done before. So I really appreciate you saying that

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think that’s a really important piece. I mean, we’re, they’re trusted, you know, people, our clients already trust us and look up to us. And if we falter or, you know, kind of get in our own way, you know, that’s gonna, that’s gonna come through when you call them and talk to them that insecurity or, you know, telling them, Hey, I’m just, you know, I’m just hanging out sitting in my jammies and you know, being unproductive or whatever. That’s that’s not what they I don’t think that’s the message you want to give and the message they want to hear. It is it is a time of definite servant leadership. For you know, it’s, it’s the epitome, not the epitome, but it is the true time where coming from contribution is a perfect example of how we’re, you know, we’re gonna come out on the other side of this thriving

Justin Stoddart
it’s a great point. And I mean, part of what you’ve recommended Bev is we’ve discussed, you know, today’s show in advance, is to be sure what’s going in your mind is positive. Right? We’ve even talked about some of the sacrifices I know, we, we tend to think at times we get in our own our own little islands and think that, you know, we’re the only like, we’re the only only individuals suffering from this and of course, widespread pandemic around the world causes us to think differently about things but you look at even some of the smaller sacrifices, you know, even beyond our health care workers, etc. of people you mentioned, you know, the story of the Oregon duck, basketball women, right? kind of share that and how that ties in here.

Unknown Speaker
Well, I like to anytime I am trying to kind of work through an issue or a strategy. It a lot of my strategies tie back to sports because I live in a very athletic family and, you know, I hear a lot of people, you know, even the high school that my kids went to, you know, that that basketball team was slated to go to state which is a huge endeavor for them. But, you know, the big on a bigger scale, the big battle cry and the big thing that people are sad about is, you know, the duck women were slated to take it all and then all of a sudden, there’s just all this Whoa, they don’t they don’t get to do this. And they don’t get to do that. And, you know, I think, I don’t know if the actual players are actually making that kind of, you know, sadness around that or if it’s the parents or the fans or whatever. But if you look at other tragedy, and yeah, I think canceling the big NCAA Tournament I was I was in Vegas to go see it and it canceled all right in front of my eyes. It is a big deal is a big deal for a lot of people. But if you look back and some of the extremes that I kind of outlined, there, they are extremes. You look at war veterans that you know, gave up their lives. You look at the last recession where people actually lost their homes, you know, we, we rallied, and we didn’t die. We survived from that. And there’s just there’s sacrifice and with every kind of sacrifice, if you don’t let the doom and gloom consume you and eat you, you, you can actually get stronger from it. I mean, the recession, you know, kicked my butt in my previous career, you know, I had to reinvent, I joined real estate at the, at the depths of the recession. And, you know, I close 20 transactions in my first six months, I had great help, I was on a great team, but we took over the short sale industry and we helped we were helping people. So if you know you, you can be sad in the moment, but don’t let it don’t let it define you and don’t let it consume you.

Justin Stoddart
That’s such a great mindset. You know, Bev, you know, it’s interesting. I was a homebuilder as were you, you know, in 2008 2009, hit and I look back And I’m really grateful that I’m not a homebuilder. I don’t know how you feel about it. But that wasn’t my calling in life,

Bev Blume
I would never go back and I won’t go back.

Justin Stoddart
And it was interesting for me is that when you’re in a profession that’s paying you well, and there’s tons of opportunity, you get in the middle of a series of projects, it’s like, I don’t know how I could ever unweave this thing and get out, you got 2 year warranties after that, like how do you ever get out of a builder, I get some joy. And and for me, it was, it really solidified a quote that I heard several years later, which is sometimes life’s greatest disappointments, turn into God’s greatest appointments, that we actually the stuff that seems like it’s awful end up being, like our pathway to what we were supposed to do. And I would say that that I think highly likely and should not be a real estate agents path to say, oh, maybe I shouldn’t be a real estate agent. No, it should be the fact that you need to be a leader within the real estate industry, that it’s actually your call to step up and produce at a level you haven’t take care of your clients at a level you haven’t, and really even lead other agents in the industry like maybe you haven’t maybe just been going along and taking care of a few clients here and there, and it’s time not necessarily need to be this some massive producer, right, that may or may not be your calling, but it may be the fact that you just take care of people better than you ever have. I don’t know what that looks like. But I would encourage you that during these times, it’s a great opportunity to do some soul searching to find out like, maybe this is an opportunity for me to step up my game and even be something more than I have been in the past.

Bev Blume
Right? I think a lot of it too, is has a lot to do with who you surround yourself with. And who you who you collaborate with, not who you commiserate with, who you collaborate, you know, in in these deep dark times, or if you find yourself in a, you know, a deep, deep, dark place, like you know, coming out of construction. That was a very deep, dark place. I surrounded myself voluntarily and involuntarily because actually my good friends actually came to me. But it’s a lot of it’s about who you surround yourself with and who you collaborate with on what are you doing? Hey, what are you doing? Hey, what are you doing? To keep my head up. I was talking to an agent the other day and I just said, you know, put your put your power words in your favorite shade of lipstick on your mirror, and walk up to that thing every day and read it to yourself. And you have to shout it at yourself because this will pass. We’re very resilient. Everybody, you know, by and large people are behaving. But if you take if you take the time to do what you need to do now, when the gate opens, we could actually potentially have the best third and fourth quarter we’ve ever had.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, it’s a great perspective. I love that and you may find yourself resituated better and differently than you ever had before. Let’s talk about point number two that you had mentioned, in addition to having a great morning routine and really looking around around the people around you. Let’s talk about reading. Obviously, that’s something that most of us typically say I don’t have enough time to read. I’d love to read more. I’ve got a I’ve got a reading list this big. Let’s talk about maybe this It’s been a great time to realign maybe some of those priorities and find time to read and you agree with that?

Bev Blume
Absolutely. It’s a great time to read. You know, and if you don’t like to read, get an audiobook. I mean, there’s so many books that are going to be that are offered for free. And, you know, in your industry, there’s, you know, whether you’re, you know, a KWer or you know, and you’re reading shift or you like Brian Buffini or, you know, Tom Ferry or any of those great leaders, you know, now’s the time to actually get back in it and read it and get your highlighter out because the messages that you read, if you read those books many years ago, you highlighted them, you highlighted them, then go highlight those books, get your Bible out, do do read what you need to read, read whatever, you know, you have time now, read it, highlight it. Take notes, internalize it. You No, it’s just a great time to, you know, put good food in your brain.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, I know for me if I don’t do that stuff before my tribe wakes up around here, it doesn’t happen very well, right? I would encourage you that if you have good aspirations to read, but you haven’t been reading, you might need to get up an extra 15 or 30 minutes earlier and dedicate that time to reading. Because if it’s not happening, and now you’ve got more distractions at home, right, most of us do, I happen to have six little distractions. Seven if you count my beautiful wife, it’s not an easy thing to find quiet time to read. And so I would encourage you to it’s time to get up a little bit earlier. This isn’t to brag by any means, but my alarm went off at 415 today, and then Friday, this, actually my first call really was at eight o’clock, but I needed time for myself. I’m working on final edits of a book, there’s just so much it can be done first thing in the morning, and I would encourage you to not let this turn into a late Netflix until midnight or one and then you get up and roll out of bed at eight or nine, I think you’re really missing a huge opportunity for doing that. Right, right. Let’s talk about dumb reinventing your business. Right. There’s some things tactically, that we’re having to do differently as a result of not being able to be face to face with people. What does it look like for you, Bev what tips can you give to people when it comes to reinventing their business and it’s the circumstances?

Bev Blume
Well, now is the time to actually grasp technology. I know a lot of people are fearful because they’re afraid they might break it or do something wrong and there’s always a way to get back out but I’ll bet zoom has had more paid subscriptions in the last week or two than ever, ever before. You know, I finally migrated over to an iPhone. And it was the best thing I ever did because I have, you know, FaceTime appointments with my clients. Use the technology you know, before we had to run to their house and sit down and have an appointment and you ran to their house because you had to have a face to face with them. Well, now we have tools, we have great tools and technology to use. If you want to use a zoom call, you can have your own free account. And if you want to record it, and you need to have long meetings or whatever, then obviously you have to pay but it’s still super affordable. If you don’t have an iPhone, get one and learn how to teach the other person how to have a FaceTime video with you. But it’s the same as being there and just think of how many more people or appointments, you can go on leveraging technology. I thoroughly believe that how we’ve, for example, I was on a call yesterday with about 120 people across the country with a great trainer that we didn’t actually have to fly out here to talk to us about the market of the moment. We actually just got on a zoom call. We all broke out little breakout rooms with 10 people and you know had to open conversation. You know, technology is fabulous right now. And if you embrace it today, just think about how how much easier your life is going to be. When we do get to the other side of this, it might become your new norm, I might actually stay here in my office and have, you know, a zoom call or a FaceTime call every 15 minutes, whereas, so, so every 15 minutes is four calls per hour. If I did that for two hours, that’s eight calls, three hours, that’s 12 calls, can I in 12, appointments in three hours driving around. So if you feel like they still need to see you, you need to see their facial expression on how they’re receiving the information that they’re given. You can email them documents, you can go through all that stuff together, it could actually really streamline our business when we get to the other side.

Justin Stoddart
You know, think about that Bev. I think what you’ve said there’s more more profound that I think most people recognize is that you If at the end of the day you get paid on, on on how well you serve people, and then how many people you can serve, I think this technology thing i think i think i really think you’re onto something is that there’s going to be a group of agents that say, No way, Jose, I’m not doing it. Face to face matters, right. And I think they’re gonna, like really lose out during this technology time because they’re not going to be face to face with anybody for the next, you know, several weeks, who knows how long. Meanwhile, other agents are saying I’m gonna pivot in my business. And right now, I’m going to see how many people I can get face to face. I mean, I feel the same way. I’m in my home office, I leave here I go out, I hug my little squishy two year olds cheeks, and I come right back in and I made another appointment. And it’s like, that’s a phenomenal opportunity. My I’m happier, right, my quality, life’s better. And I’m actually serving more people. And so again, I think that they’re going to be agents that are actually in the business because they hibernate during this time. whereas others that are going to say, this is the new norm. I’m gonna go on one listing appointment, get face to face, and then I’m going to be able to have face to facetime with those clients, you know, once a week or you know, however, you know, often you think is most appropriate. But what much more deep and meaningful and rich client experience that is when you’re face to face with people. In fact, I know one of my favorite people, Morgan Davis said me at one point, he said, you know, the challenge that we have with this DocuSign world is we just don’t have a lot of face tme with people anymore. And so it’s hard to create such an impact that they would would then want to refer us afterwards. And his business is built entirely upon referrals. And so it’s, it’s interesting when you think of that challenge, and now we have this technology, you can actually be face to face with people and people are happy to learn how to use it, even your clients, to where it really is going to open up all kinds of opportunity for us to kind of rehumanize if you will, our brand in our business and bring people back together even if it is electronically.

Bev Blume
Right, right. I mean, it’s a huge opportunity. And you know, it’s it’s not the rule you can you can do this business any way you want. I guess my main goal is that I feel like a lot of people are suffering, and they don’t know what to do. So just, you know, coming to them from a place of contribution on their playing field. Because, you know, we listen to a lot of training I was I was listening to thing yesterday and it was so far over my head, it didn’t apply to me. So I was kind of upset that I was spending the time listening to it. But you know, so that’s kind of why, you know, I poked you and I said, let’s do this, because let’s talk to people where they’re at, because that, you know, the big high level conversations might not appeal to them. If we just bring it back down to the ground and give them a few tips and things and just some, you know, outlooks and positive outlook on you know, what you can be doing today and feed your brain and, you know, choose what you put in it. I do want to talk a little bit about the news and you know, things that you put in into your brain and some self talk, but I mean, there’s just You know, just just some tips just you know, to help, you know, pull others along. I’ve always kind of described my, my quest in life as if you’re familiar with a wakeboarding boat. If you’ve ever wake surfed you there’s a there’s a time and a place in that week where you can throw the rope back into the boat. And you can actually be on that surfboard and you’re actually following the boat just from the propulsion of the way the wave spins itself. And that’s the vacuum that you know that’s my battle cries to create that back that vacuum so people can throw the rope back in the boat and ride that surfboard by themselves.

Justin Stoddart
That’s a powerful analogy. I actually tried to wake surfing for the first time. This past summer with my family. And it was it was a thrill. I’ll say this my my 10 year old. I guess he was 11 at the time, or he was 10 at a time he’s 11. Now he was way better than that. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I was just an off like how good he was. I was like, that is unbelievable.

But yeah, what what a way to live your life right where you have you create this force moving forward that others can can draft off you. That’s awesome. I love that. Thanks. Let’s talk about that that final point. You said this self talk this What are you saying to yourself? When no one else is talking to you, right? what’s actually going on inside your brain? How do you control that? And how important is it to control it?

Unknown Speaker
It’s very important to control it, and it takes a certain amount of focus. And so it also stems from what you put in your brain and what time of day you put it in your brain. I actually have two coaches and my one, coach coaches more about brain activity and you know, how you speak to people and how you show up and things like that. And we talked a lot about what you put in your brain and when and so you know, if you liked the news, You can stay in the news. But the biggest thing is so here’s the analogy. You watch a horror movie at night, you likely will have nightmares, right? You watch war movies, violent movies, things like that at night, it’s going to affect how you sleep and the quality of your sleep. And when you wake up in the morning, you might not be rested because your brain was having this combat during the night, right? So that just kind of stems back to the things that you’re going to put in your brain during the day. So if you’re a huge news, huge news watcher, you might want to limit how much news you’re putting in your head because it’s sensationalism. It’s, you know, a much bigger view and it sticks in your brain it can cause you to, you know, have negative outward appearances and you can also slow down or stop or prevent The good things are coming into your brain like that we’re talking about. So, which leads to self talk, it’s so if your brain is so busy processing all this negative stuff that you’ve just put in through your eyes and your ears, from watching the news or horror movies or shoot ’em ups or whatever, I love shoot ’em ups, but I don’t have that. That’s a different story. Find out the things that you say to yourself and whatever career you’re in, if you’re listening to the voices in your head and the voices in your head, say, go ahead and sleep into eight or nine. I’ll get around to it when I get around to it or whatever. Stop it. Fill your brain with positive affirmations. If you don’t know what affirmations are or what they sound like, you can Google it, there’s a million of them online. And just like I told my friend the other day, put your favorite affirmations in your favorite shade of lipstick on your mirror. And when you walk by that mirror, you look in the mirror and tell yourself I am a great real estate agent. I’m worthy Do this wake up anything that you need to tell yourself, when you shout it yourself or you chant it yourself or you talk to yourself like that, those are the things that fill your soul with positivity and the energy to actually be able to move forward. And right now we have to find a way to move forward.

Justin Stoddart
super powerful, Bev. You know, it’s interesting when you look at the role of a real estate agent, and those obviously that that know me know that I’m not one, but I serve, you know, this this community. I think if if you were looking at the typical person that works, you know, for wages, having months or even weeks without income would be devastating. In the end, the chance of them catching up and ever getting back to where they were and their goals gets gets more and more difficult. And I think the beauty of being a real estate agent, is the ability that that you can catch up and catch up quickly if you’re on your game, right? Is that just because it’s a slow down doesn’t mean it’s permanent, you know, if anything, it’s, you know, there’s going to be a catapult effect, because there’s going to be this pent up demand. And so again, I would encourage especially if you’re a real estate agent and have the you know, influence over your, your career like real estate agents do that the only thing that’s going to keep you from having what you want is your mindset. And I agree with you hundred percent about the news. You know, I put something out a little controversial this week, I got some feedback that not everybody appreciated it, but my intentions were really good. And the and the comment was this is that like, first of all, the news is a business right? And its job is to get our attention number one, it’s Its job is to, is to inform us. But it’s business is to keep our attention. And the best way to keep attention is through drama. And there’s plenty of drama in the world right now. But that doesn’t mean all of that drama is happening in your household. Like they’re telling the people in this the epicenter of Italy in New York to do the same things that they’re telling us right now. Stay inside, wash, your hands only come out of it’s absolutely necessary. Like there’s really nothing more that you need to be doing like my guess is if you’re listening to this and Heaven forbid if there’s somebody that you love that suffering this is meant in no way to diminish that genuinely my heart my prayers go out to those people that are suffering yet if that’s not you please don’t take that upon you as if it were you We need you to lead we need you to stand up and if you’re having the mentality as if you’re on the ventilator in Italy then how can you help people that really are how can you help people that are that are just you know have have poor mindset. So again, I might get some some pushback from that but again, my intentions are good is to say no wake up, like we need you to lead right it’s kind of like being in war. And you’re over there acting as if you got shot and it’s like, No, no, you will get shot if you stay down. Like get up like we need you to lead. We need your confidence at this time right now. And we can’t have that if you’re watching the news 24 seven and parlaying everything that’s happening in the worst parts of the world right now. into your life. Right?

Bev Blume
Right. Right. Totally agree.

Justin Stoddart
Final question here, Bev, always learn so much from you. And I love the fact that you’re leading, you know, you’ve always been a leader in the fact to see that transpire now in the form of not just your own extremely successful team, but also, you know, your own market center, where other agents are looking to you to lead. I think those agents are in such a good place to have such a strong leader as you. I’d love to hear from you. And have you teach me and those that are listening. What is it that Bev Blume does, to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your own possibilities, even amidst uncertainty?

Bev Blume
That’s a great question. I, you know, that’s a great question. I spend a lot of time listening to I spent a lot of time listening. We have one mouth in two years. We should use them in that order. I can’t remember who told me that because they just said that last week and it just came out my mouth but spend a lot of time listening payinng attention staying in positive thought. I, I truly believe that our industry is going to lead us out of this and lead us into the recovery. As long as we’re there to seize the moment, we have to put things in place now to stay busy. Stay positive, stay prospecting, lead generating, lead follow up, you know, read, be careful what you put in your head. And if you know if you still find yourself so suffering, find somebody that you admire to talk to you. And that’s that’s been the focus of some people that I’ve been reaching out to today of people that are equal or, you know, that I admire, what are you doing and and the conversations are actually kind of short and slightly shallow, and then it quickly turns around to say, Well, what are you doing and that is a huge opportunity for me to open up my heart and my mind to them about what I’m doing. So I’m going to continue that I’m going to continue to you know, talk to other people and listen to what they’re talking about what they’re doing or not doing, and just collaborate. And you know, the biggest thing is, is keeping calm in in all of this, if we freak out, everybody around us is going to freak out if we get it. You know what I’m not saying, don’t freak out, because we all will, you know, the shortage of toilet paper is getting really real, but just stay calm, collaborate and calm. And, you know, we’ve been in this inventory short market for a long time. I think we’ve been in two months or less two and a half months or less of inventory for at least two years, maybe even longer. And so by practicing now, in staying in the right mindset, grabbing a hold of technology and leveraging that. Staying in the touch with your people and truly listening to them finding out, you know the source of their stress, empathizing with them just being there for them. They already know where realtor they already know. You know, our general prospecting call is, you know, who do you know that’s going to buy, sell or invest in real estate this year, but now it’s coming from a place of contribution that we care. So I feel like if you practice those things, we’re going to be like the thoroughbreds. And this is a big analogy. We’re going to be like the thoroughbreds behind the gate waiting for a race, right? So what are those? What are those thoroughbreds generally do, they’re standing back there and they’re super anxious. They’re pushing on that gate. They want it to open they’re ready to run. That when this if we’re if we’re setting ourselves up properly, right now to move ahead. We’re in the we’re in the gate. Soon we’ll be in the gate we’ll be able to push the gate and help it open help it open, that when the gate finally does open, we can go seize that moment and seize the opportunity help our buyers and sellers get where they need to go. And like I said before, we could have the third or fourth quarter of our entire career. But you know, it’s it’s getting, it’s getting ready now it’s getting your mind right. Get your soul right, getting your business set up right. And get ready to go. Yeah, we’ll come back.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, there’s no doubt there’s no doubt that it will buying and selling homes is not going out of style. Right? We obviously have a temporary pause here or slow down. But that doesn’t mean that you have to participate in that you’ve heard me say that before is that there’s, there’s so much you can be doing right now from the comfort of your own home to serve people and that you right, those people that do that and take advantage of that opportunity are going to be in such a great position. Because they’ll have the trust of people. You know, those that they genuinely reached out to and care and concern How are you? How is your family? It’s been like the only thing I’ve been telling people. How are you? How’s your family like genuinely? Okay about your title and escrow right now. Sure. That’s how we’re funded. Yeah, yes, we need that. Yes, we want that. But I’m more concerned. How’s your family? You guys, okay, you go and you need anything. And it just feels so good to just have that conversation all day long. And I know it’s gonna come back, right? I know it is. Both the economy as well as that’s gonna come back in the form of, of, you know, having an escrow and I’m sure it’s the same for agents, if you genuinely reach out to people and say, Look, how are you? How’s your family? Like, I’m here to serve you a small percentage of that maybe in real estate, it might be you need some toilet paper, look, we got some extra drop on your doorstep.

Bev Blume
Just talk to somebody you know, get on a FaceTime call and just, you know, we’re isolated right now just you know, get on a some type of face to face method to communicate with people. And I also feel like you know, we’ve been hearing for the last year don’t look at the market in the moment. Don’t look at the market as of today. And me and my analogies, so when you’re driving down the freeway, Look at the look at the market where it’s going to be, or where it’s going to go look at the market in the future. We didn’t see this coming. But we still you know, we call it building out our pipeline or whatever. But you know, when you’re driving on the freeway, and you’re going 55 or 65 miles an hour or 70 or 80, however fast you drive, do you only look down the road at the car in front of you know, you’re actually looking as far down the road as you possibly can because when you’re traveling at such a high rate of speed, you can’t react if the traffic a mile down the road suddenly stops and you’re suddenly come upon it, you’re gonna bash into the rear of it. So if we actually look at our businesses, or whatever line of business that you’re in, and we actually prepare for what is down the road, that’s why doing all this work up front, so we filled up our gas tank before we jumped on the freeway. We put our seatbelt on we were on the road for an hour. We got our bottle of water, we got our snacks and all that just like go into work at home in your office. Look down the road and just you know, now is the time to prepare. Because when the gate opens, we’re going to be doing 70 or 80 mile an hour down the road to pick up for what we’ve missed out on during this time.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, such a good analogy. I love it. And that perspective again, will carry people through as opposed to hibernating, they’ll be reaching out. And you truly are a wonderful leader Bev. And you’ve really helped all of us to think bigger today. Thank you for your time. always enjoy spending time with you. It was a pleasure. And

Bev Blume
Thanks Justin, I really appreciate that.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And my final request of everybody I want if this has been valuable, please tag somebody that needs to hear this. Bev’s words and her wisdom is are profound. So please just tag an agent in the comments to this. That would be helpful to get this out. And then if this has been valuable, so encourage you to go subscribe, whether it be on YouTube or your favorite podcast apps and subscribe, leave a review would be some love language for me. And and final request is simply this it’s go think bigger. Absolutely. We have so much for helping us do that today. All right everybody. Let’s go get a lot. Thanks friends bye bye