All right, and I believe my friend. We are live. We’ll see how many people join in this time. We’re going to see the hunger of the real estate industry to get amazing content because this is when Aaron Heard is going to deliver it. Welcome everybody to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Bright and early. You can tell that there’s not a whole lot of natural sunlight coming in. Nevertheless, ballers like Aaron Heard are up and add it and making things happen. So, Aaron Heard for those that don’t know him, and kind of what maybe more importantly, we’re going to get from this episode are critical choices that you need to make right now, as a business owner coming into a downturn coming into some really uncertain times, there are some things that you can be certain about, despite the uncertainty, there’s some things that you can absolutely choose to do that will, that will guarantee that you’re going to have a better outcome than if you don’t do them. And that’s the guarantee that we can have even in uncertain times. So Aaron Heard this gentleman is a MAPS coach, coaches, literally some of the top real estate professionals in the country. He’s phenomenal. In addition to that, he has his own very successful team here in Portland, Oregon. And this is really cool. He was a big part of helping sell 1000 homes in less than a year, so expanded across the country. Just very much a visionary, very much somebody who understands business. I mean to do that you have to really understand business and so I’m thrilled Today, Aaron Heard, thank you for coming on to the think bigger real estate show and sharing with us some key wisdom we all need right now.
Aaron Heard
The pleasure is absolutely mine, Justin, and you are a brave man, when you invited me to come on the show and you said, Hey, can we come on board? I said, Sure. 6am You didn’t blink an eye. You got six little ones upstairs sleeping. Causing disruption in your household? Hmm.
Justin Stoddart
You know, absolutely. There’s a, you know, there’s absolutely some a little bit of risk of going live during the day. There’s also a little bit of risk in going live early in the morning, right? Because it’s a little less certain. Yep. And you know, and obviously, this whole topic is all about how do we gain certainty in an uncertain time and so probably actually going live at 6am is probably more certain than not. It was everyone’s quiet around here.
Aaron Heard
All my East Coast friends are going to be joining us. What’s up everybody?
Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Very funny, man. What Um Let’s let’s jump into this again for you know for for those that are again maybe just tuning in now, let me just say this what you’re going to get from this episode is that you are going to walk away with some absolute certain things that you can do in uncertain times coming from a guy who again has hold sold over 1000 homes in less than a year across the country. And coaches some of the brightest of the bright so excited again to have you here, Aaron, let’s go ahead jump in what are you know, what’s maybe the first thing that comes to mind that you can do to make a critical choice in an uncertain time?
Aaron Heard
Justin, I think the first thing is just simply face reality. Right? We got to identify what is really happening in our in our worlds in our businesses in our in our economies locally, nationally and understand what impact is being made for what we have to control like there’s things that you just can’t control. Get over it. Yesterday is yesterday. Yeah, a year ago was a year ago, you ain’t getting it back. It’s gone. Right? So understand. Here’s your reality today and ask yourself, who do I choose to be tomorrow? Based on what I know is to be true right now, who do I choose to be and have show up in my world tomorrow or the next day, based on the decisions that I make today? You see, so many people right now are stuck in, in a quarantine mindset. You know, the reality is we are quarantined across the country, in many cities in many states, many counties, right. And we are right now we’re at home. This is okay. Just pivot. Change your expectations for the day. You’ll see one of the things that we’re doing Justin right now is there’s some key performance indicators that you can measure across any business that by hitting those numbers, you’ll be able to place a bet on if that business is going to win or lose. Would you agree?
Justin Stoddart
Totally.
Aaron Heard
Almost every business breaks down to a math formula. Right? So when we look at it, we have to understand what’s the math behind your, your goals. So your goal isn’t just to have abundance. What does that mean? Your goal isn’t to have success Well, what’s your definition of success? So we have to change the reality of our identify what those numbers are. So we can change the activities that we’re choosing to do to be in alignment with having those goals show up or not show up, no matter where we’re at, no matter how we feel. So we’re living these quarantine mindsets. When we have these. I get the luxury of coaching some of the best agents like you said, and, and some of the agents on my team are world class. And I had the opportunity to talk to them every day and sometimes it’s talking them off the ledge. Like right now. It’s tough man, mentally, physically, you’re out of you’re out of your routine. There’s no clear order of chaos in our world, right Right now, everybody is adjusting and getting uncomfortable, which I’m so excited for. I mean, right now the shift, let’s get really freaking uncomfortable because people get afraid. And when people are fearful people run, right? Fear is, is an amazing thing. It keeps people alive. Like, embrace the fear, though understand what changes must be met so you don’t die. That’s the reality here. Don’t be afraid of it. So I get the luxury of coaching these people and talking to them and sometimes off the ledge, because they’re faced with things that they’d never thought that they’d be faced with their spouses losing their employment, shutting down their, their stores that they’ve had for 15 years. I mean, these hit these things hit true, like hard, really, really fast. And so understand, like, what is it that you wanted out of your business and based on where you’re at today, what are the key performance measurements or indicators that you need to be in alignment with to hit those goals based on your circumstances today? And, you know, push comes to shove Justin, in the real estate industry, which we live and breathe personally, you know, we know that it’s a person to person, eyeball to eyeball business. We focus our energy right now on creating an engaging relationships with people that we either know or don’t know, that have an interest in buying, selling or choosing to invest in the real estate space. Right? It’s just the the performance measurements used to be a certain amount of conversations would lead to a certain amount of results. Well, today we’re seeing that those numbers are drastically changing. Right? So we have to look at it and say, if those numbers are changing your activities got to change for the better in that area, which means we need to be more focused on our time management. That’s really the second thing, we’re going to face reality, learn what the new performance measurements are, what are the new numbers? And then we’re going to face reality or identify a new time management schedule.
Justin Stoddart
Let me let me go back, let me unpack a little bit because you’ve shared so much wisdom, there’s such a short period of time, I want to slow it down to make sure everybody heard it. So this quarantine mindset, right, I want everyone to think about that. I’ve had this thought, Aaron that you know, oftentimes, especially newer agents, they’ll come into an industry and they’re like, I can never catch up with all these people that are selling, you know, 50,60, 70, 100 plus homes a year. And I think right now is a gift. It’s a gift for anybody that recognizes that they were in a it wasn’t a race, right. It’s always been a like a one man race. It’s always you against you, right. However, I do think that when it comes To market share when it comes to really establishing yourself as a real player, there’s a lot of people even that are established players that are live in a quarantine lifestyle, like they’re posting non stop, but all the things they’re watching on Netflix, I’m not saying Netflix is bad. But what I am saying is that if you’re not, like increasing the amount of people that you’re contacting right now, and if you’re not increasing the amount of good that you’re putting into your brain, and it’s pure entertainment, you’re going to slip behind those that are seeing this as a huge opportunity that you were in, you know, in competition with with with agents, and even a competition for for mindshare. And all of a sudden, most people like during the middle of the race have sat down in the middle of the track. And are you going to sit down and also be with them? Right? Are you also going to be in this quarantine mindset? Are you going to keep running? Like you’re telling us to do right? Because the second thing that I heard you say is like all of us have certain metrics for our business that we need to hit right as far as you know, whether it be transactions, whether it be revenue, like whatever it may be, and the reality is what we were going to do may not get us there but I hear you saying is that We actually probably need to double down and be sure that we still hit those same metrics, which might mean we need to have more conversations. Is that what I heard you say?
Aaron Heard
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And that’s why I was gonna just lean into is, look, what used to get you where you wanted to go ain’t gonna happen, for the most part for most people, right. So in the law of averages, you’re going to have to have more conversations to find the motivated people that are interested in doing the business, the new way that you’re choosing to do business today. My mentor and a friend of yours I believe, Gary Keller has spent some time pouring into the MAPS coach community. And one of the things he said when we first entered into this new time with a quarantine, he said, you know, people will tolerate doing things different in times that are different. People will tolerate doing different things differently when times are different. Well, times are very different right now, my friend. And so when you tell me that Oh, Nobody would, nobody would list their home without me coming out and sitting at their kitchen table. And you know, not getting to know them face to face well, phooey. They will accept it. They will tolerate it. It’s different times right now, as long as you have a, a service and you believe that is the right thing that’s going to move them forward and achieving their goals. And they believe it. Why wouldn’t they not? Same with buyers right? Just three weeks ago, even or this time last year, the odds of somebody buying something sight on physically seen in the real estate space is almost absurd. Right? You wouldn’t go and buy your home one of your biggest investments without physically touring the space. Well, I’ll tell you, my friend this week, I’m living proof that more than one people have purchased real estate without physically seeing it and negotiating and writing multiple offers and competing and having bidding wars, and we’re helping sellers sell their properties well over the listed price without having any physical tours to the property. Are you hearing me? times are different? Yeah.
Justin Stoddart
You know, it’s a great point, Aaron, is that, you know, all of us who thought that we needed an office to work and figured out the technology to be able to work remotely we have escrow officers that are now working from home. Yeah. And it’s like, who would ever ever thought that that was like at scale right, not just on a one off basis because you know, they’re taking care of you know, some some some personal circumstances like, like even as a title and escrow industry we’ve stretched limits of what we thought was possible, right? There are very few people coming into our offices closed to the public and and you realize like that would never work well, it’s working. Right, it’s absolutely working. And you know, we had a record month last month as far as opens, which means that we’ll probably have a record month as far as closes like, I think all of us have to realize that just because there’s like the sky is falling when it comes to you know, health in certain parts of the world doesn’t mean that your situation has to follow suit. Right? I mean, I think that’s, you know, a key thing that I hear kind of you point out to all of us is that change doesn’t mean that it’s like the world is over. Right? Change just means it’s change.
Aaron Heard
Yeah. Better change. Get on the bandwagon.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, it’s a, it’s a powerful thing to see. You say that right? That people are buying homes sight unseen. I attended a virtual open house never never attended one of those I’ve seen people walk through with their phone, but actually to have somebody sit and walk through a home with a link that I could then go to a virtual tour and listen to what they were saying. It was phenomenal. Like there’s so many adaptations that are happening right now. You know, that I was actually listening to a kind of spiritual discourse this morning about the three major things we need physically, are shelter, food and clothing, right? And it’s like shelter is one of those three things if you’re in the real estate industry, like good, good decision, right. That’s one of the like one of the three things that people absolutely have to have. You know, people are not going to stop needing it. It’s not like it’s going to go out of fashion to have shelter.
Aaron Heard
Let me talk about shelter for a second. In our world, in the real estate space, we’re all accustomed to going to an office space and setting up an environment that we can do our work within. And so I want to urge everybody to do the same thing in your own personal homes, right? There’s many people that don’t have the luxury of having great office spaces in their own living space. And that’s okay, there’s no judgement. But one thing you might choose to do is can consider taking a coat closet, pulling all of the stuff out of it, setting up a little picnic table and make a makeshift little office space where you choose to perform at your highest level, or go into your garage. If you have, if you have a garage make it slightly uncomfortable for you, because it’s different. It’s going to force you out of a habit in your habit. You look around you Where are you sitting right now? Are you where are you doing work your kitchen table your your recliner in front of the TV like change your space right just because it’s it’s different. So get in this this cubicle or your your closet space consider it like Superman’s phone booth and you’re gonna walk in with a clear goal and you’re going to pick up the phone you’re going to have 40 conversations when you would have had maybe eight or 10 in a normal day, you’re going to just do this one thing so you can get out of the closet and and stay out of there for the rest of the day feeling really accomplished change your space and set some goals the environment needs to be supportive of it
Justin Stoddart
You know it’s interesting and people have talked about for years I never since I’ve been in business about the need to time block yet with the immediate follow up is I’m really bad at. I think it’s interesting how how those those go together. I mean people say that like oh I know I need to time block but I’m really bad at that like what you just shared right there was a total nugget of wisdom is that if you’re not loving your work situation because the office was perfect this is a great opportunity right to be like good let’s get in and get out. I don’t want to hang out here it’s not very comfortable in here. Like let’s let’s get it done and those you know I would even add those that are working from home you’ve got kids around right I’ve got six right it’s not the most conducive work environment but I thought that when they told me like, okay, all people in my position need to be working from home. I thought like, you realize I’ve got six kids and they’re all home right now. Like, yep, probably okay, this is gonna be interesting. It was it was it was fascinating to me. How we like we have the conversation as a family. We drew the line in the sand and said okay, this is dad’s workspace. We need to respect that right yet we still are a family that you know we have to live here that like how I know that when people are upstairs it’s go time like I got to get my work done. Because As you know, once the chaos comes downstairs like it’s going to be much more challenging to get that done. So, again, what do you find yourself in the not ideal work situation, it might be exactly what you needed to really focus and really get things done. Again, work expands to fill the time that we give it. And if you give yourself an hour, as opposed to where you used to give yourself four hours, you might get more done in an hour than you ever would have dreamed of getting in four because you have to now.
Aaron Heard
Yeah. And that’s I think, that’s how we’re facing challenges is you you’ve you forecast, what do I want out of out of this day, this week, this month, and with with an abundant change that we have no control over, right? Woohoo, we can’t change this. What do you want to get out of it? You want to end what happens if in the next 30 days, everything is relieved? You know, there’s a cure and everything’s perfect and everything’s business as usual. If you focus whole heartedly and on lead generation and filling up the front end of your business pipeline right now, one you’ll find motivated that want to do business right now, though, even if you didn’t, you filled up your funnel, and then we get released and opened up back to normal here on the back end. The good thing is you’re going to have an abundance here. Okay? So the worst thing that happens right now is that you fill up and you create abundance in the future. If you choose to do nothing, then you’re you’re saying I want nothing then, in our world, if we can only control what we bring into the front end, everything else on the back end is out of our control. Right. So focus everything on, create new relationships. Finally, find the motivated, you know, continue to consult with them and come from a fiduciary responsibility of helping them achieve their goals and finding the best home values are netting them the most amount of money so that they can hit their goals. Just come from contribution and work your butt off, you know, get in front of everybody you can and ask, How can I help you right now? How can I serve you? I mean, I’m a great real estate specialist. This is what I do. What are your needs, man?
Justin Stoddart
And I think, again, in due time this will pass, right? These aren’t permanent circumstances. And I think at some point I was gonna look back and be like, Man, that coven 19 situation that was a real opportunity to either get systems in place that I didn’t either maybe spend time with family, maybe you’re again, a mom at home being like, I can’t give you the extra done You told me to get extra stuff done. Like I’m having a hard time I saw the funniest meme it was, hey, let’s play a game. Or let’s play a drinking game. Every time somebody says mom, take a drink and I said no, don’t do that, you’ll die.Like this concept of of of getting more done. Some people are like, Are you kidding me? Right? But maybe this is time for you to like really like dig down and enjoy being a mom. Write enjoy being a parent during this time, like whatever it is that your situation is. And I think you can probably have both. I believe that you can probably get work done even amidst the chaos. If you set boundaries and give kids once I get done with this, then we’ll go do this right.
Aaron Heard
Thank you for saying that one of my great coaching clients that I love her to death. She’s amazing. She has two little his four year old twins running under and running between her feet every day. And so she’s looking at me going, how is it? You’re expecting me to double down on activities right now when I have this chaos in my world, it’s like, great, this is gonna be a really fun challenge to hit head on. Right? And we know that we need to meet or have this many conversations. It’s just the fundamental exercise that we need to exhaust to be successful for the day. So if we choose to succeed in our days, we’re gonna have these numbers of activities being done right. So we have two little children. This is great. Where can we time block for 30 minute chunks, we’re going to run into intervals here, and you’re going to put on a schedule where it’s mom time and 30 minutes on 10 minutes off 30 minutes on 10 minutes off and every 10 minutes, you’re going to go be supermom, you’re going to go do what you need to do to, you know, create control and you feed them cookies or whatever we got to do. And then you’re going to get back on the phone, you’re going to get back into your routine, and you’re going to create a new calendar that has clear expectations and boundaries of this is what I’m on. This is when I’m off and you’re going to do everything you can to meet that schedule.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, well, that’s powerful. Aaron. You know, I think there’s, again, so much opportunity right now, and I hope people see it that way. You know, another opportunity that I see that I’ve heard you alluding to here is that of building relationships, and I think most of us are too busy to really stop oftentimes to really kind of take care of people and most people are pretty good. Like we live in a pretty prosperous society. Most people kind of have what they need. Keep in mind that there’s there’s a lot of people that are disadvantaged. Don’t be wrong. I’m not glossing over that fact. But the people that are kind of our immediate friendships, our immediate relationships, most people are pretty good. Like when we get together, we get together to, to see each other to catch up and to be entertained, right? We don’t really, we don’t really have a need, in most cases to go check on people, right? barring some, you know, life altering, you know, disease or illness, for the most part, like people don’t need a lot in our society. And right now, people need a lot. And I’m not saying that, like, not everyone has a virus, but but some do. Right. But like, the reality is that like, everybody has some some emotional needs right now. There’s some stuff going on in everyone’s head right now. Yeah, just having a voice show up to say, Hey, I was just thinking about you. How are you? I know, there’s a lot going on out there. Just that alone will not only lift your own soul, right, but it will, but it will also lift their soul and I would encourage you like put business aside. This is just a great exercise in life. And right now, leadership is needed, leaders are needed, and what an opportunity for you to actually go care for people that absolutely We’ll come back on the business side of things. Like just fold. It’s gonna come back.
Aaron Heard
You nailed it. That’s the that’s the script, essentially, that we’re sharing with our team to pick up the phones to have more conversations is I don’t want you calling say, Hey, thanks for taking my call. I promise I’ll be brief. I saw you on my website. I want to see how soon you want to buy a home. Like, no, no, that’s not what we’re doing right now. Right now. It’s Hi. Is this Justin? Yeah. Hey, Justin. This is Aaron over here at Realtor Property Group. And I just wanted to call and see how you’re doing. I saw you on our website looking at homes. Were you just browsing out of boredom being locked up in quarantine? Or is there another reason that you’re looking at homes online?
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, no, I mean, we’re, we’re kind of in our you know, we don’t love what we’re quarantined in. Let’s be honest.
Aaron Heard
I get it. Man. Do you have the luxury of working from home? I do. Congratulations. So good to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help you?
Justin Stoddart
You know, I don’t know. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now. Right? We do want to buy I don’t know if now’s The right time to buy. But you know, we’re definitely interested in getting getting into a different place. Being home as often as we have been, you know, kind of just reminds us that we don’t want to be here for forever.
Aaron Heard
Yeah, you don’t want to be there forever. I get that. I get that. So talk to me for a second. I mean, I’m a real estate specialist. I don’t know anything a lot. What’s going to happen with the whole coronavirus thing though? What is your dream home look like? Right? And then obviously, we’re not going to roleplay it for the whole thing though. That’s what we’re going to get into it starts with a sense of like, empathy versus, you know, I’m a prospect I’m, you’re a prospect and I’m going to convert you. This is just we’re just two dudes to human beings having a conversation now about what are you doing? Like you’re locked in your home having a conversation with me about buying or selling? Okay, Is it urgent? Is it important than I’m not gonna pressure you to take action right now?
Justin Stoddart
Yeah. The part that I loved about that is that you brought up the reality of like, Hey, hey, you’re in quarantine like it was very unscripted, it was very, very natural and timely, right? kind of very relevant to the situation that we’re in. Hey, like, you know, you probably locked up in quarantine like everybody else. Yeah, what’s up?
Aaron Heard
You know? Yeah, help you, sir. So many of you have the luxury of working man. That’s, that’s amazing. What a blessing. Great stuff.
Justin Stoddart
What have we missed Aaron, if people were to say critical choices, right now? Do you have any? Is there something that we’ve missed reflect? we’ve pretty much covered it.
Aaron Heard
I mean, there’s a world of things that we continue to do, though, I believe wholeheartedly. Just kind of want to recap that if you face the reality, if you look at the numbers in your business, if you understand, you know, clearly what’s happening in your market, what are those key performance indicators that you need to adjust and what is adjusting, and you can speak intelligently to it, it’s going to, it’s going to uplift your confidence level to know what needs to be done for you to be in alignment with still achieving your goals. And then you focus and you manage your time and you just you just lock down, you do everything you can to engage with the consumer, or with people for that matter, and you just come from contribution, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be wildly successful, just got to do more today than you have in the past. That’s all.
Justin Stoddart
I love it, I think, a script that I want to be sure that people know also, your script was beautiful for people that are actively buying and selling right on your website. There’s a whole group of people that you’ve either served before that or just friends, family, neighbors, you know, and I think for me, and I’d love to hear you add anything to this Aaron, which is, you know, how are you? How’s your family? Is there anything I can do for you? Right? Yeah. If you didn’t like being let go pick up medication, like anything like what do you need? And I think those those three questions are ones that have given me You know, a lot of courage just to pick up and just check in on people and it’s got nothing to do with with my business. Yet they know at the same time that like what I do for a living, you know, and it might very well be that they do need something that I do for a living or it might be something that I don’t do for a living either way, my intent and my absolute commitment to help them is the same.
Aaron Heard
Yep. How are you mentally, physically and emotionally?
Justin Stoddart
I like that.
Aaron Heard
Fundamentals
Justin Stoddart
I like that almost like identifying like, Hey, you might have all the food that you need, but how you doing? like really? How you doing? Doing okay? You know I think that really kind of peeling the onion a little bit and just getting to the heart of like this is this is the farthest thing from a sales call you can ever imagine like I’m genuinely here human to human check it in on you. There’s a lot going on out there right now. You’re doing okay? I think that speaks volumes. powerful man. I love it buddy. This has been a remarkable episode. I’m so excited to have other people share this and find this and and really kind of digest all of this because it’s it’s super powerful, what you’ve shared with us. I want to remind everybody that they can get the full episode on YouTube and on their favorite podcast app. So please go find that listen to this, again, the stuff that Aaron has shared with us today, again, with his experience in coaching some of the top agents in the country from his experience and selling over 1000 homes across the country in less than a year. Like there’s just some phenomenal wisdom in this guy. That I hope that you recognize that the stuff that you’re have heard here today come from some some absolute wealth of experience. So Aaron, thank you for being not only a business, Yoda, but also being a great man. I know you’re a man of faith, I know that husband and your your role as a father of two beautiful children is is essential in your life. And you You are the kind of person that you know that we want to learn from the want to follow. So thank you for being a big thinker. Let me ask just this final question as we wrap up. Now you are a big thinker. You you work with other big thinkers, high achievers, what does a guy like you do to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your possibilities, teach us.
Aaron Heard
I continue to talk and think with big thinkers, surround yourself with people that are growing and are where you want to be. If you don’t know who they are, pick up some books read other people that are big thinkers that came before you. Right? There’s some amazing wisdom that you can unpack from some amazing books lean into it.
Justin Stoddart
So powerful man. And now what a great time right to re establish new habits. So we’re gonna say like, Oh, I’d love to read, I don’t have time to read. Or, you know, I don’t have time to have, you know, coffee with people. You can have a zoom call right now with pretty powerful people
Aaron Heard
Anywhere across the country who are home,
right? They’re home, and they’re available. So I would encourage you to take the center, establish habits do what Aaron just taught us, which is be around big thinkers, even if it’s reading their words. So Aaron, thank you so much for helping us really fulfill the mission of this show. Right, which is help people think bigger. It’s to help people wake up and recognize the potential inside of them, and then do inspire and help them to live in pursuit of that. You’ve absolutely done that today. I want to thank you for that. I want thank you For all those that were up at six o’clock in the morning and tuning into this, thank you so much. We’re so glad that you’ve been with us and would encourage you if this has been helpful to you tag somebody in the comments. Share this with somebody. Again, the wisdom Aaron shared has been tremendous. So thank you again, my friend and my final request of everybody. listening in today are three simple words and they are GO THINK BIGGER!