Justin Stoddart
Hello, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart, and I’m fired up about today’s episode. It is so relevant in this era of iBuyers, this era of fast technology in service based industries and we’re going to talk all about how to build and maintain relationships amidst the technological world in which we live. And before I introduce today’s guest, who is amazing, by the way, let me start by reminding you the purpose of this show, which is to help you think bigger. By putting you in contact with people like today’s guests, your thoughts, start to expand your actions, follow your results, follow that and even more importantly, your impact follows. And my passion is to help inspire you to live a life of greater impact. So if you’re looking for show notes, including from today’s episode, as well as this week’s things that you may have missed and may not want to miss, go to thinkbigger.real estate and there you will find the ability to sign up for a weekly summary. It hits your inbox every Saturday morning, when you can be sitting in an open house, reviewing best practices and helping expand your own thinking. So with that, let me introduce today’s guest, Greg Gale, he’s out of Scottsdale, Arizona, he’s with mobile home loans. He’s also a core coach. For those of you that are familiar with the core, those guys don’t screw around, they get after it. They help consumers in really big way. And they they build an amazing businesses. So Greg, thank you for coming on the show today. It’s a total pleasure to have you here.
Greg Gale
Hey, thanks for having me. I love the title. First of all, just think bigger. It’s just a great way to stay growth minded. But I appreciate your time and appreciate being invited on the show.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, for sure. So Greg and I are fortunate to have a common connection, Stacey dearth with whom I get to work. She was in Arizona did some great things down there. And now she’s up here doing some great things. So thanks to you, Stacy, for making the introduction, Greg. And I didn’t realize it at the time. But we were at an event in Dallas in early August, learning from a gentleman who’s who’s very intense. And he’s intense about helping people build great businesses. And one of the things that stood out to me in that meeting is he said, If you as professionals are doing so everything through technology, then you deserve to be replaced by these online companies, that it requires you to be face to face and voice to voice with your customers. Otherwise, why do they need you? Greg, talk to us a little bit about how you’ve done that in your business. In this like leveraging technology as opposed to completely outsourcing these relationships to technology.
Unknown Speaker
I love how you put that you know a lot of people miss misconstrue that where technology is bad because if you outsource it, you disconnect yourself from the consumer. Yet if you embrace it and leverage it, you can actually make more connections with the consumer. So an outsourcing to me is you know, a here’s a list and we’re going to automate it and this company will take care of it. Or they’re going to get calls from some of the text messages from a bot of some sort. Versus you picking up the phone you texting them, you engaging with a call to action to stay in front of your clientele your consumers. But yeah, so the event we did in Dallas the mega same, I was up on stage coaching the elbows wide open houses and going to open houses to visit the realtors. Because a lot of time realtors are virtual, they’re not in offices anymore. So you got to get face to face and belly to belly with them. And just like Rick said, Man, to have an impact on people, you’ve got to be face to face with them. Now a way to leverage technology might be like this, like you shoot a, a webinar of some sort or a podcast or a video out to your database to stay connected with them, you pick up the phone and call them and you have a system to stay in touch with them very much a process driven, you know, you have to have it as a process where it’s like a checklist. And it’s I’m reaching out to them four times a year, here’s how I’m doing it. Maybe you leverage a mail house to send out a mailer to have, but you’re following up with a phone call to check in with them, invite them to some big client party.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, unless it gets personal, I think people are quick to dismiss it. I know I had a real kind of rude awakening here. You know, one of my very favorite clients told me she said, Look, we see you all the time digitally. But we don’t see you as often as we’d like to see you in person. And it’s caused me to make some adjustments. And I’m in the process of hiring an assistant to where all the post production work of this show can be done by somebody else. So that I have the ability to take the valuable network and connections that I have with people like you the knowledge that I’ll get from this episode, and then go be super valuable to them in a one on one. Consult with them. And I think you know, the air that I had made is that thinking that that by simply broadcasting to people that that was enough, and it’s not. There has to be a personal component. You have to, like connect with people in person or the stuff that you do digitally. People are quick to dismiss, have you found something similar to that great,
Unknown Speaker
Absolutely. And sometimes they feel that since they’re not seeing you, they just assume you’re so busy, because they’ll see your podcast and they see your posts, and then they see you checking in somewhere and then you’re traveling and like they’re so busy in that they don’t want to send your business, oh, they’re, they’re good enough. They’re doing well, let me just give it to the new guy that keeps coming face to face and seeing me and offering me value. So you got to stay in touch. And to keep that loyal connection. The challenge that I find is that you have a lot of these relationships, you’ve got to leverage it a little bit too. So to have maybe a Hangout at your house really like guys, we’re having Monday Night Football at my house who wants to come? Right? Or, hey, we’re going to have cooking classes, and we’re going to rotate through a chain of houses, we have a bunch of people that we just rotate houses. Or like when I do my client stuff, it’s big client parties, we have November 22 is the frozen premiere. So we rent out a movie theater, it’s 280 people, and I’ll have my past clients invited to come and let’s just hang out watch movie, we’ll hang up before we’ll hang out after. And then they’ll appreciate it as we roll into these holiday season I giveaway. Last year, I think we were at a couple hundred pumpkin and apple pies the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. And they come to the office and they set a time to come in and the teams here we just hang out and just talk with them.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, I think when you couple those kinds of touches both one on one small groups, as well as even large events like you’ve described, it just gives impacts, all of a sudden your email comes through or your video comes across their social media thread. If there has been no personal contact, they’ll swipe right by it right, they’ll delete the email, because because they don’t feel that that they matter to you. Right, you’re speaking to the masses, not to them. I know for me, I clean out my inbox very, very quickly doesn’t matter how beautiful somebody drip campaign has been crafted how how beautiful the HTML features are in that drip campaign. If I haven’t heard from that person, or or that email isn’t laser specific to what I’m looking for that day, it gets deleted, sorry, friends, if you’re in that grew, whereas if somebody if I’ve had a personal contact with somebody, their email doesn’t even necessarily need to be that relevant, I still open it and at least keep it longer and interact with it. Because of the fact that now there’s a personal relationship. So because I know that that person cares about me, and there’s a personal relationship, I’m more inclined to hear what they have to say. And I think that’s where, again, where a lot of us make a mistake, it sounds like you’ve you’ve taken steps to not only do that in your own business, but to coach other people to do the same. So that you keep from falling into that same trap where it’s all digital, and it’s no, it’s no, you know, face to face,
Unknown Speaker
One hundred percent. And you know, look, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a happy medium in there too. But you got to use the phone calls, like the number one leveraged activity is literally the phone because I can make way more phone calls than I can make face to faces. But you have to do both. And a very simple system that we teach at the core and it’s in other coaching systems to it’s called the letter of the week. So if there’s 26 letters and how many weeks in a year, Justin 52 equals 26 times I can hit them twice. And I’ve had that question where someone’s like, 50 and I’m like, okay, it’s okay, it’s it’s 50. Right? So you have 26 letters, 52 weeks, so if I call all the eight clients the first week of January, pick a time block out an hour or to call everyone with the last name a the apple woods, right the Apache Hey, and then be Burberry Blackberry. Hey, Mister, mister Boston guy, right? And that’s the day right. But by the end by June 30, you’ve called everyone in your database, and you’ve made a connection with them, whether it’s voicemail, or you’ve actually got to talk with them. And it could be someone you you helped get a house three years ago? Hey, it’s been like three years. So I haven’t been in touch How you been? Yeah, me? How’s the kids? Right? How’s the job? What are you doing these days, I just make a connection with it. But if I do it, and then do it again, July 1, that whole week, you gotta block out two hours, hit all the A’s again, how you been, it’s been like six months. If you have a good CRM, or just an Excel spreadsheet, you keep really good notes. But that’s two guaranteed touches. If you throw in their birthday, and you throw in the anniversary date that they closed on the house that you got them the house, that’s four touches a year to your entire database, I guarantee you will increase your closings now, I’ll give you a statistic because I tracked it. I went from 16 closings in one year 84 closings The next year, just by doing the letter of the week with the anniversary and the birthday call.
Justin Stoddart
And that’s powerful. So let’s talk about that mean, if if the only thing that people took away from this episode, were was that they’re going to start doing this, let’s talk about step number one is that they need to have some database where they can at least alphabetically sorted, right, even if it’s an Excel spreadsheet, even if it’s in your phone folks, like there’s really no excuse to not be doing this. Your phone is the lowest common denominator of a database. I hope you have something a little more complex than that. But if you don’t, you can still apply this right, open up your phone this week is going right call the A’s and B’s this week, right? I mean, is it that simple.
Greg Gale
It’s that simple, I’ll tell you, you know, you can plug in your phone and put it in Excel or just open up Excel and export the database in there. But somehow get it to excel because that’s the easiest one. later on. We can talk CRM and that kind of stuff. But it was it’s in there. It’s sort by last name. And now I just start called the next step. So step one, get it somewhere, get it into Excel, or sort your database by last letter. Now, step number two is to block out one hour in your calendar, maybe to just to get going and have that as one day a week. At the core we pick Thursday is past client day. So on Thursday, you bought two hours. That way, every Thursday, you’re coming and going, I’m going to call my past clients today. It’s this letter of the Week today.
Justin Stoddart
Super simple, right? And I think a lot of times people think well, I’ll start doing that as soon as I get my new CRM setup. And I’m not sure which CRM I’m going to use it I’m researching them is they’re just excuses. Right? I mean, the I think if we recognize the opportunity cost of delaying, it would make us probably throw up. I mean, if we realized like by not making those calls, how many people you’re not helping how many people are ending up in the hands of either a bad loan officer or a bad real estate agent and you’re missing out on a sizable commission by not helping those people you’d probably like quickly be like I cannot afford to not start today.
Unknown Speaker
Well every one of those calls you make between now and the end of the year and when you get someone that says oh yeah, I do need to move between before the end of the year yeah, we do want to do something the beginning of 2020 that’s someone that was going to call somebody else go online get grabbed by somebody else little pixels and get pounded with retargeting, and they were going to call them
Justin Stoddart
Whereas it could have been you could have been very relational could have been a great experience you could have been impacted their life in other ways beyond just the transaction. But we all put myself in that category we missed out because we were procrastinating the delay and that will will start that soon as we get this in place and guess what? This is like Anjana never comes yeah well
Unknown Speaker
Look if you’re in real estate, you know a lot of people so when I’m making these calls, okay, Do you need anything around the house landscaper housekeeper roofer we just had a bunch of rain the other desert Hey, you need the roof guy. I was literally in my yard picking up nails and little pieces of tile because the rain like pounded on my roof. Hey, did you have anything like that happen? I’m good. Are you? Oh my god. Yeah. Do you have a good guy? No. Do you have a landscaper though? Because mine’s a little flooded in the back? Yeah, sure. Like, you know, a handyman, you know, housekeeper you know house cleaner. Like you know, all those people offer it to them. Nothing in it for me, they know what I do. So if I’m just coming, like you said, there’s a value void out there. I’m going to bring the value by being the connector.
Justin Stoddart
The way that we got on that topic for those that are wonder where that term came from. I said, you know, in my industry title and escrow industry feel like there’s been a severe value void, is that my industry shows up as customer service representatives. least they’re showing up, right? Which is a start, they’re showing up saying let me get you labels. Let me get you postcards. Let me get you lyst. Like I spoke with an agent yesterday, she said, Justin, it’s incessant still, even to this day, and I’m like still to this day. That’s what they’re talking about. Wow. Like that. There’s a value void there. And so I’m speaking to my industry. And this isn’t every rep buddy. Right? But But like, it’s right now we’re at a point in time when consumers are questioning the value of using a real estate agent. They’re there. As a result of the massive amounts of money that’s being spent by these tech behemoths. Right? consumers are having to ask themselves the question, is it a worthwhile investment to use a real estate agent? So in other words, real estate agents are having to raise the bar their own value? loan officers, the same thing? People are asking, should I just go online and do it? Right, ready, hit right mortgage more? Or is it worthwhile to go to a professional as those of us that support these industries, we have to raise the bar as well. We can’t be just pushing postcards and lists and friendly pop buys. Like it’s got to be more than that. We have to be knowledge workers. We all of us live in a knowledge economy right now. And if we’re leading with just friendliness, yes, friendliness needs to be a part of that. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we all need to be jerks. But in addition to being friendly, we actually have to bring real value that moves the needle. And I know you feel that way very much, Greg. Hence, the reason why you built a great business is built on value.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you make great points like and the thing is, is people are looking looking for the information. So they’re going to go online, they’re going to talk about it little Alexa is going to pick up on it and start retargeting again, that’s that technology out there. But you need to be putting out the content to your past clients, those leads that are in the system that haven’t connected, or maybe they’re just kind of warm. And yeah, beginning of 2020 with 13 people reply to my last video on Wednesday saying, Yeah, we’re going to wait till the beginning of the year. So great. So now I’m just giving them content like what to think about as you purchase in 2020. There’s a video about a wealth workshop, how to save money until you do that, how to increase your credit score before you would apply for a loan, like push out information, top six thing you should do before you list the house. If I’m a realtor, I’m thinking what are the questions that the consumers thinking that I need to just push out on video content, YouTube and Facebook and IG TV and have out there on the web. So when they do go out for Information Technology, it gets them. And then there’s a hard call that call for a complimentary consultation, I’ll walk you through what this looks like, no obligation. That’s what they want. They want convenience, they want no obligation, they want information.
Justin Stoddart
And again, circling back to where we started is that unless you’ve made a personal contact with these people, you likely won’t even show up in their feeds. Or if you do, they’ll score right on by it. So these phone calls that we’re making, to make the personal connection, right, this a reminder for me, and all of us we need to get better at this is that once we make that personal connection, all of a sudden people care what we’re talking about, right? Otherwise, if it’s just that, you know, I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way, if it’s just that people don’t listen, right, they’re not gonna listen to talk forever, because they don’t feel like you actually are invested in their success.
Unknown Speaker
Correct? Yeah. And that’s through you listening to them. That’s how they know that they feel cared for. And when you when they feel heard, and they deliver on whatever they needed. That’s where that connection really goes even deeper. Yeah,
Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Awesome stuff, man. Greg, it’s no wonder why you’re a coach, why you’re not only a top producer, but inspiring other people to do the same thing. It’s been a total pleasure having you here on the think bigger real estate show I want to end with, with this signature question that I asked everybody that comes on the show. And it’s, it’s frankly, it’s probably with my favorite part of the day because it helps expand my own thinking. And that’s this question, Greg. You’re a big thinker. That’s why you’re here. What do you What does? What does Greg do to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your own possibilities? What do you do? Please teach us?
Greg Gale
That’s a good one. So I hang out with bigger thinkers. So and I know it sounds like a really easy, yes, answer. But if I hang out with people that aren’t thinking bigger, that are just in the redundancy of everything they do every day, and not thinking like that, they have a five year vision that not only drives them, but pulls them there, and then that they’re planning towards that vision. And if they’re not, it’s not like I can’t hang out with the person that doesn’t have the big vision. But I purposely want to be around five to 10 people on a regular basis that have big visions, because that will fuel me to want to do even more like that guy’s thinking even bigger than I am. That guy was doing big things, because she has a 10 year vision, I need to now do a 10 year vision.
Justin Stoddart
I love it, it really doesn’t make an impact, doesn’t it that that phrase of, you’re the sum average of the five people you spend the most time with. It’s amazing how when you when you’re hanging around small thinkers, even just for a little bit, it impacts you. And, and you get around people me right now being around you is inspiring me to think bigger, and I’m sure I can speak on behalf of the audience. They feel the same way. So thank you been a great answer. Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for doing what you’re doing and making an impact in a lot of people’s lives. I’m excited to have the think bigger real estate audience be introduced to you.
Greg Gale
Appreciate it. Thank you very much. You bet
Justin Stoddart
And everybody. My final request, which you’re used to hearing are three simple words. And that they are Go Think Bigger. So appreciate it again, Greg, thanks for your time, and we’ll be in touch.