Win Bidding Wars | Ken Pozek

The real estate market has entered some uncharted and uncertain waters.

With demand still far outpacing supply, learning how to win bidding wars is a critical skill set to be sure your buyers get the home they want and you get the compensation you’ve been working for.

Ken Pozek is the founder/CEO of The Pozek Group, a real estate firm based in Orlando, Florida. An industry veteran with more than 15 years of experience, Ken and his team help Orlando natives and out-of-towners alike settle on their dream home.

Due to Ken’s leadership and expertise, The Pozek Group is on track to generate $300 million in sales in 2022.

A Disney enthusiast, Ken believes Orlando is the real estate hot spot that everyone is missing. In order to keep clients up to date on recent news happening throughout the area, Ken created The Orlando Real, a newsletter that provides insights into all things theme parks, real estate, and daily life in Orlando.

Since launching in November 2021, The Orlando Real has grown to more than 14,000 subscribers (organically). Ken also has more than 23,000 followers on YouTube, where he shares tips and tricks regarding the current real estate trends, developments in Orlando, and more.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Justin Stoddart 0:01
So the big question is this. How do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously see success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddart. And this is the Think bigger real estate Show. Today, I have a very special treat for you, we’re going to be talking about winning bidding wars. So if you’re interested in how in a highly competitive market that by the way, inventory is not going to go up quickly. And by the way, it’s going to be a bit of a battle to get owners in homes for a while you better learn this skill set. I have foremost expert on that today. Stay with us.

All right. Welcome back to the thick of it. Your real estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart, for those that are listening to me for the first time. Know that inside of the Facebook group, successful real estate agents, we go deep on this topic, we help you actually apply and you’ll learn what it means to be a part of things bigger real estate. So if you’re gonna if you’re not there with us join us there. We get excited about today’s guest. His name is Ken Bozek. He is out of the Orlando Florida market and he is an expert. They they are going to close over $200 million in volume this year. He is somebody that absolutely knows how to get how to get deals done. Ken, such a pleasure to have you on the show today,

Ken Pozek 1:24
man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Justin Stoddart 1:26
Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty fun to hear the success that you’ve had in your business. Some that’s come from great success on YouTube and other places. thrilled to have you here. Let’s dig into it. Man. Tell us a little bit about your story. How did you get a real estate and kind of tell the journey up to this point?

Ken Pozek 1:41
Yeah, so. So real quick, I didn’t grow up in real estate. But I’ve always done real estate. I don’t know if you remember. Remember Carlton sheets on the like, the late night infomercial guy. I bought some of this stuff. It’s somewhere. Yeah, so my parents also did and they were like, we’re gonna get rich in real estate. And then they put it on a shelf and never watched it. But I came across this stuff for like, 15. And I was like, just absolutely hooked and like, you can get rich in real estate. Like, that’s gonna be me. So. So I got into real estates flipping houses right out of high school. That was when like, anybody could get a mortgage. Right? So I just, you know, applied No, no income, no credit, and they gave me a mortgage. It was the the reason why there was a recession. But so I flipped a bunch of houses. And then eventually the market kind of tanked. And I decided, hey, I’m gonna pivot over into sales. And so this was all up in Michigan, and lived outside of Detroit. We built up a team there, just a small team up until about 2000 2016. And my wife and I were like, I can do real estate anywhere. Why do we live in Detroit. And so we completely just upped our life and moved to Orlando, huge Disney fans, Florida fans in general. And so he’s built up this team now over the past five, six years, and predominantly through content creation, which is then bringing us a ton of buyers from all over the world. And so I know we’re gonna talk about winning multiple offers and that kind of competitive landscape today. But yeah, so we built up this YouTube channel, this team went to about $200 million in business this year. 80% of that is buyers, which can be like really tough in a market like it is today. But we’re having some pretty cool success. So over

Justin Stoddart 3:08
$200 million in volume, you’ll close this year 80% buyers, folks, if I didn’t tell you that we have an expert on how to win bidding horse? We absolutely do. Can you you’ve said a number right there about about how credible you are in this space. So do you mind if we just jump right into that and give the folks that came before which is let’s figure out how do you win repeatedly, consistently, predictably, in such a competitive environment?

Ken Pozek 3:32
Yeah. So I think a big piece of it is just, you know, setting those expectations up front with the buyers, right? So so many of them have this goal of homeownership, or maybe buying a second home here locally, or getting out of renting whatever that might be. And it can be frustrating, right? I mean, there’s plenty of buyers, not enough listings, like there is everywhere in the country. But that being said, here in Orlando, there’s over 1500 people moving here every week. And so it’s a problem. Really, every one of our listings we get we’re getting still 20 to 30 buyers offers for each one. It’s rates ticking frequently, I think big a big piece of it is it has pushed a lot of people off the fence like listen, I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting and now like it’s go time it’s either now or never for a lot of people and so I think that yeah, it’s it’s gotten even worse over the past month as rates have continued to pick up. Okay, so

Justin Stoddart 4:19
take us to, you’re submitting an offer on a house and even though it’s competitive, right, and your buyers may not have the ability to go $100,000 Over asking no contingency No, no, you know, pest inspections, appraisers all that right now sometimes you get somebody who can and I don’t know if you’d realize it or not. But talk to us through kind of your process of saying okay, how do we position ourselves here? I think the number

Ken Pozek 4:41
one thing that it starts with is talking to the listing agent and building rapport. Now the one thing that a lot of my agents have a hard time doing is getting a hold of the agents right so it’s like we’re trying to stalk them everywhere on Facebook on Instagram like getting to be buddy buddy, just say hey, let’s have a conversation to help me guide somewhere in the process and What’s important to the seller’s? That’s I think the number one question that every agent should be asking. So is it just the highest price? Is it an appraisal gap is an appraisal waiver? Is it closing but then renting back free for a couple months? Do they need to close quickly and move out right away? Like there’s there’s a lot of questions that you can have help you with the process? Because it’s, it’s not always the highest offer that wins. And so you ask them, you know, how are you going to be handling highest and best? Are you taking escalation clauses or not? There’s just like, all of these kinds of questions that we’re going to do to a show that we’re credible, that we’re going to be an easy clients to work or agent, easy agent to work with, and then sort of get on their side of the table, right? It’s not this like this kind of war about who’s gonna win here, it’s like, let’s get on the same side of the table. Let’s win this together for two great clients and, and make that work. And so sometimes, it gets crazy, right? We don’t win every offer. And we don’t, you know, it’s not 100% of the offers that we write, we get accepted, but we kind of trained our agents to where we just can win more often than not, and that’s kind of where the place we’re trying to be

Justin Stoddart 5:58
interesting how you say that right? Because I hear the other side of it right? Oftentimes listing agents to like, man, all encompassing, because you got agents coming at me from every angle, wanting to talk wanting to talk and wanting to talk again, right? And and like your advice is 100% accurate? Like if you could make a compelling offer that would get you the deal with one client and would not get you the deal with the other client, right? You have to get some more information than what is posted, right, then what’s available on what matters getting to them, you got to get creative. I love that, like trying all different social mediums, like how do you get in front of this agent in a way that makes them like you not despise?

Ken Pozek 6:32
And it’s not, it’s so easy to get confrontational right now, you know, like, buyers are freaking out, they’re pushing you as a buyer’s agent, or they’re looking at you like, it’s your fault that they’re missing out. And that’s not always the case. Right? And, and then listing agents are like, I’m so sick of talking to other agents about this listing, I just want to hurry up and accept one many times. And so if you can come across as like just likeable, and you’re like, Hey, listen, you know, I just want to, you know, hopefully get something quick for you to where you don’t have to put this back on the market. And all those kinds of things to where we get to the closing together, and your sellers win. And if you kind of come about it from that like sort of buddy buddy scenario, I think you got a better chance of winning,

Justin Stoddart 7:06
is there anything that you do outside of just the transaction side to kind of build relationships with agents, right, it’s hard to do when you when you’re doing such a big business to be involved in these associations and networks and all that I’m sure all of that would work? Is there anything that you would advise that actually helps you get to the table to have that conversation that almost help you kind of win before you ever get in a situation because you have relationships in place that you strategically do or teach agents to do?

Ken Pozek 7:29
Yeah, very much. So. So early, even on when I moved here, I started reaching out to all the top listing agents and not knowing that the market would be crazy like this, but I just wanted to know who the players were. And that ended up becoming very beneficial for myself and my team. So reaching out to the listing agents on these other big teams and say, Hey, listen, I know you got a listing at 123 Main Street, one of my agents is writing an offer or sometimes it’s two or three of my agents writing an offer. Can you call them back or have your agent call them back? So that way we can get this deal done? Sometimes that has been the difference. And so yeah, I teach a ton I local offices, our or our local board, I’m trying to be as more more present. So that way that our name actually hold some weight for my clients when they’re trying to kind of get those deals

Justin Stoddart 8:09
done. Yeah, I think at any time, if we try and convince ourselves that real estate is going all tech and that relationships don’t matter as much as they used to, I think we’re just missing out on how that that’s not the case. I think technology is becoming a bigger, bigger part. But I do think that those that couple that with the ability to make great relationships with the right people will serve you more than most anything else.

Ken Pozek 8:31
That’s right, I think it’s it’s relationship based technology enhanced is the way that I put it. And so any way you can get a little bit deeper with somebody and then it’s not just you know, taking them out to coffee, but it is being present on social media and like, you know, when they have their, you know, their kids going off to college or you know, their grandkids just were born, you know, being part of the community, your local agent community. I think that that goes really far away. Like we’re not, you know, it’s not always a zero sum game, you know, which I think is where most agents come from their perspective in our sales world. But if you’re creating other relationships, man, it makes everything better.

Justin Stoddart 9:03
What’s your take on inspection waivers, appraisal waivers, you advise not advise what’s what are your thoughts on it?

Ken Pozek 9:09
So appraisal waivers, which we do often, we usually during an appraisal gap, though, it’s like, Hey, we’re willing to pay $100,000 over over list or over appraisal not to exceed the purchase price waivers in general, I used to be an appraiser. Like as I was being an investor I was I was my day job was as an appraiser. And I know that if you line up five appraisals, appraisers you’re gonna get five different values. And so you could have one guy like it’s very commonplace for here. We’re Orlando mortgage, people are bringing in people from Tampa for their appraisals, which is like an hour away they have no idea what values are locally and so I just can’t in good conscience say like, I’m gonna waive an entire appraisal unless they’re putting down like 50% or something like that. But so on the inspection side, we have not gotten into our local industry where that’s become commonplace to waive inspection. But what we found success in is that we have our inspectors a couple of them on standby. And we say, Hey, listen, we’re going under contract or trying to go under contract on 123 Main Street, how fast could you get out there to do an inspection, and then whatever they tell us, they know that they need to get the report back the same day, we’ll match that. So if it’s like two days, three days, we try to get that as short as possible. Whereas I’m still even as like when I do listings, I’m getting offers with 15 Day inspections and 10 day inspections. I’m like, This is not 2018. What are you guys doing? So, so yeah, the shortening and as quick as possible is what we will try to do. And then also, we’ll write in there sometimes that will, hey, listen, we’re only to come back to you. If there’s health and safety, that’s also over $500. So if we find some mold, riddled, attic, we’re going to come back and try to negotiate, but it’s not something big like that, then we’re going to be just taking it as is.

Justin Stoddart 10:45
I’m gonna ask this question to anybody that’s watching live. If you have questions for Ken, on this particular topic, please speak up, put them in the chat, I’ll see them. And we’ll be sure that they get answered here. If you’re watching this after the fact, no problem, I’m sure we’ll make sure that Ken is available to you that we you know, get you his contact info. So you can continue to learn from him. I know he has a very robust YouTube channel. So the places where I’m sure you can learn a lot. So, Ken, great, great stuff. What other secrets do you have for us when it comes to winning? Right? I think what you’ve shared so far is absolute gold, anything else that you would share on escalation on anything else that’s really helping you guys stand out from others in your marketplace, I would say that

Ken Pozek 11:20
it goes all the way back to the buyer consult as well. So slowing down. And like I mean, there’s so many times that you’ll grab, you know, we don’t do Zillow or realtor.com, or any of that kind of stuff. But like I know a lot of agents do. And it’s like, so much of the agents out there have been trained to be reactionary, to hurry up and meet the Meet the buyer at the first house. And then you’re just kind of after that you’re just a door opener, right? But if you slow down and you’re like, let me let me okay, maybe we go show you one house. But after that, we need to go grab Starbucks and just talk a little bit about the market and your motivation and your approval and where we’re at as a market and what it’s going to take to win because I find that many agents are just writing whatever their their buyers want them to write where you gotta like, slow down and realize you’re a consultant, you’re there to help them with the path of homeownership. If you’re not going to take the reins and through experience, tell them, hey, here’s what the markets doing, and are you going to be willing to step up to the plate to win. If you don’t have those conversations early and often, then you’re just going to be out there spinning your wheels and not getting offers accepted. So we’ve done a really good job of slowing down, understanding the motivation, understanding the finances, getting them approved with our local lender, all of those kinds of things to make sure that they’re in the best position to win. And I think that that’s another reason why when it comes to it, after I’ve built rapport with the listing agent, the buyers like whatever you say at that point within reason we’re willing to do

Justin Stoddart 12:35
it is interesting how the and I would say some of the big tech firms have have moved the industry in this direction of minimizing the value of agents making them all peer alike to a company like red fin right? No judgment on on them. It’s a powerful business model. But agents you can’t they don’t market their agents, right. They’re all the same. Like most robots right now. You might have your Redfin agent, don’t be offended. I’m just saying that their value proposition is not the fact that you’re fantastic. It’s the fact that their technology is fantastic. And you will be there quickly, right? So for you to be really teaching your agents can how to move into more of an advisor role. This is a lot about what I talked about my book, The upstream model, which is there is a place for well paid professionals that will continue to thrive even as things get more commoditized. But they have to move into a role where they’re more valuable. It’s really an advisor, not just a door opener, so I absolutely love what you’re saying and completely coincides with what I teach and believe. And that’s awesome. It’s more of

Ken Pozek 13:26
that, that fiduciary instead of functionary like like anybody can open a door, but to actually help somebody through the path of homeownership or selling a home or, you know, hitting their actual goals. That’s what matters to us. So yeah,

Justin Stoddart 13:38
yeah, we live in the knowledge economy, right? Attention, economy, knowledge economy, first gotta get their attention. At that point, you have to add real knowledge. And it’s real knowledge is very valuable. And, you know, again, the competitors that are saying otherwise are not promoting this necessarily. But again, if you as an agent can be not just an advisor that have unique knowledge that positions that client to where, like, let’s not even waste our time on that one. Let’s go to this one. And you’re saying this one because of what you’ve learned about the person and what you’ve learned about that particular home for sale, now, all of a sudden, you’re in a position to match demand with supply, which is where we get paid.

Ken Pozek 14:09
That’s right now, that’s huge. That’s huge. The knowledge economy is a big thing. Like that’s, that’s what we do on YouTube. It’s like we teach people about the area, we teach people about the builders, we’re talking about build quality, the build path, we have a lot of new construction here. So most people are reaching out, they’re usually starting with the new construction piece, and then maybe they pivot to resale once they can’t find something that they want, or they don’t want to wait around. And so yeah, we just kind of were like the humble concierge, if you will. And like we’re just hey, we’ve ever been to like a great hotel in New York and their concierge knows everything. You’re like, Hey, I’m looking for the best XY and Z restaurant. They’re like, you know, where you want to go is way up, down, you know, on the east side, go to this little Downton thing, and you’re gonna love talk to Carlos there. He’s amazing, right? And so you feel like Gosh, this guy knows knows everything. And if I need anything, I’m gonna reach out to him. That’s who we are on on on our YouTube journey. And then we also have a newsletter that we do. I’m trying to just kind of be that knowledge broker. And then through that we’re building rapport with people before they even meet us in real life. And then that’s been that’s an I think our kind of competitive advantage, at least locally is that our clients are not just again, looking at us as that functionary to open the door, but they’re bought into kind of what we do.

Justin Stoddart 15:13
And I believe, very strongly what you’ve said that there’s and I think there’s two major ways that we differentiate in our world. And it leads to i Well, I think one that I’m not going to mention, which is about building actual personal rapport with people, which I think is minimize in in many circles, which as we discussed, the via the call is critical. But beyond that knowledge and the network, right, I heard you say with this concierge, the fancy hotel in New York said and talk to Carlos think the more that we can build our knowledge and our network, we create such value for people because we speed up their path to get from where they are to where they want to be at. And this creates a very unique offer that’s very different than the functionary, as you described, right? The person is just out there, going through the motions of doing what the clients asked us to do, and what our profession tells us we should do, yeah, we’ll

Ken Pozek 15:56
give you will give you a $500 rebate, if you buy with us, like that’s the path of least resistance, like anybody can chip that. And at that point, it’s a race to the bottom, and we just who can who can, you know, give me the most money back. And like, if you’re setting up the relationship that way, at the beginning, it’s gonna go that way, the whole time. And then think about who you’re going to get a referral from as well, like their friends are only going to come to you because you kick them back something right. It’s a big difference than actually providing real value.

Justin Stoddart 16:20
Yeah. And in all honesty, if you actually look at how much a discount discount broker fee nets the consumer, versus somebody who is a true fiduciary that has unique knowledge and unique network, like that value absolutely dwarfs any discount, right. And that’s a part of what I believe that we as an industry are failing we need to improve upon is number one being better and different, and then being able to communicate it right. And in that arena. We are we are going up against billion dollar companies, right?

Ken Pozek 16:51
Like can go in the red for a really long time. Yes, right. But I got a mortgage today. And so like I can’t, I can’t go years and years and years without making a profit. So I had to I had to pivot a different way.

Justin Stoddart 17:02
Let’s talk about that. I think this is a great place for us to pivot to really talk about what you’ve done in the YouTube space, right? I think everybody that’s listening to this should go follow you on YouTube. Because what you’ve done is you’ve created your own network, right, you’ve created your own ability to speak and demonstrate your value demonstrate your network that maybe isn’t as powerful as zillow.com, but in your neighborhood, in your circles of the people that are following and subscribing to you. It’s way more powerful than anything Zillow can do at scale. Right? So talk to us a little bit about how you decided to go that route, and how it’s going.

Ken Pozek 17:33
Yeah. So I think we, you know, unknowingly, I’m looking at looking backwards hindsight being 2020, we fill the gap of doing the things that Zillow can’t do at scale. So that’s knowing that, you know, Carlos down at the restaurant, right? It’s the it’s the knowing the ins and outs of our neighborhoods, and what makes different neighborhoods different the community tours, the gated communities, what homeowners associations offer. It’s not just the square footage, the bedrooms, that you know, the location, it’s, it’s all of those deeper things that people want to know that they can’t find on a national portal. That’s why they come to us. And so everyone who’s watching this can become that in their local market to where people kind of look at you for resource, but they’re almost like you’re like a local celebrity. And it puts you at a different tier of agents that, again, that could just it changed everything. I think, you know, Jay, and Gary, you know, the one thing they talk about, what’s the one thing that you could do that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. And for us, that’s been YouTube, because it’s now helped us with our clients, our local database already, it’s helped us attract new clients. And it’s helped us with Agent referrals. And so like our lead generation problem has been completely solved our conversions better and all that stuff. So what we did was we looked at, okay, where’s the where are the eyeballs looking Google, like anytime moving, somebody’s moving to Orlando or they’re looking to buy here, they’re going to Google and really Zillow and realtor.com kind of dominate typically the first two things, but then down below where all the video is, while YouTube is owned by Google. And so we just shot video that corresponded to what really great keywords were in our local market. And so we’re shooting like the top things to know about moving to Florida, the top five neighborhoods in Orlando, the top three builders in Orlando, and people when they search for those kind of things, we come up organically. And so the cool thing about it is we can shoot one video that’s going to be a lead gen lever for us for years to come. So instead of me having to show up every day and cold call, I show up a couple times a week, shoot some video, we edit it looks fantastic, and then that’s working for us. 24/7. So that’s kind of our strategy and so far it’s been paying off.

Justin Stoddart 19:34
I love it. I have some friends that do a lot in the YouTube Space love to chat about this after the call. But the thing that’s really interesting about that is it with YouTube, unlike other social mediums, there’s oftentimes the views grow over time, right? Whereas that’s on Facebook and after the first few hours, maybe days, sometimes minutes. It’s gone. It’s so far down on the newsfeed whereas with YouTube, they continue to optimize that and based on what people are searching for your video can become wildly popular way down the road right And you said it continues to live for a long, long time. Yeah.

Ken Pozek 20:03
And that’s what’s different between like, say Tik Tok and Facebook and Instagram, right? It’s very much. So short form video there. It’s entertainment. And that’s typically it. Whereas YouTube people are like, I don’t know, you like the first time you go to like change a tire, or like, you’ve got a plumbing leak, and you’re like, dammit, why is this I gotta figure this out, like, you go to YouTube, and you figure it out. And so YouTube’s kind of this library where people can go in and learn. And so yeah, it just it stays there. It’s evergreen content that’s going to continue to grow over time.

Justin Stoddart 20:30
It’s great stuff, man. I love it. Anything else that you want to share? I’ve got one more question I want to ask you. But anything else you want to share it you feel like would be a great secret for people to know either about winning bidding wars, or kind of your presence on YouTube? Yeah, I

Ken Pozek 20:41
think the other thing about winning bidding wars is that once an offers accepted, it’s not always going to sale. So I don’t want you in our air, our market or 18% of all homes that go pending, come back on the market. And so one of the strategies that we implemented this past year was that all of my agents will keep in touch with that agent all the way through inspection, and usually even maybe a week or two afterwards. So they just put it in their account their calendar to do a follow up. Hey, how’s it going? It’s your favorite realtor over at the poser Group at Keller Williams. So we just wanted to see how’s 123 Main Street coming along? Did it make it through inspection did the buyers actually put through the deposit. And what we find is that agents on the listing side, they don’t want to have to call their seller and say, Hey, we fell apart or a we couldn’t get through inspection, we have to go back on the market and then go through that crazy circus again. So we reach back out consistently. And we put we’re putting deals together every week through this strategy, where it’s like, hey, we were fourth, fifth, sixth down the line. But then the listing agent says, Hey, here’s why you lost if you’re willing to do this, I think I could pivot over to you guys, we would cancel out the other contract and go with you. And that right there. That’s worth the price of admission.

Justin Stoddart 21:47
I absolutely love that. And again, it kinda goes back to oftentimes we forget about leads and referrals that didn’t convert right away. It’s same concept, right? It is, is it we’re treating these agents as if they were a leader referral that didn’t convert right away. And I think that there’s when you look at it that way, there’s probably agents that are deep inside of a negotiation, right? Where the people had said, like, you know, no inspection contingencies, and all of a sudden come back. And they kind of went kind of funny on you, where they’re like, Well, this is a safety hazard. You’re like, that’s not a safety hazard, right? And it’s like, wait a minute, and this agent is like, how do I get out of this? I can now, right, but if you were staying in contact, they would say, Hey, we got to, like, we have another option. We don’t have to, like you said, go back to the whole circus again. So absolutely brilliant idea. I think everybody that’s listening to this, I’m going to get some love here from you know, from people that are listening. So good stuff, Ken, great stuff. Let me ask you this final question. As we’re running out of time here. Final question is you are a big thinker, no doubt. And my question to you is, what does Ken Bozak continued to do to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your possibilities? What’s it look like can teach us?

Ken Pozek 22:48
I mean, I think, for me, it comes down to the people that work with me, my partners on my team, I look at some of these specialties, like the younger ones that have the 20 3040 years ahead of them in their career. And I have to think bigger in order to give them opportunities, or they’re going to bounce. And so if I’m not thinking about what does the next generation look like, how can I make these people really wealthy? How do I create more opportunities on my team in order to see them succeed, so that they don’t need to leave and start their own thing. That’s what keeps me up at night, or at least gets me excited. And so we’re talking about, we’ve got investment arms, we’ve got this media company, we’re growing out, we’re growing as a team. So I need more leadership layers. And so giving people opportunities to earn in on that. And so for me that that’s how I think bigger, I could stop right now and do really well and still probably retire in four or five years and be good. But for me, it’s like, okay, I got to think bigger to keep things moving forward. And it’s, it’s exciting to figure out right, like it once you figure something out, like we all expect that you hit the pinnacle, and it’s gonna feel different than it actually does. And so we hit it, and then now it’s time to keep going. And so that’s just how I’m wired.

Justin Stoddart 23:54
i No, absolutely love that answer. I’ll tell you kind of a personal story here, that that kind of ties in with this. You know, oftentimes, we were told over and over that culture matters most in order to keep to get and keep great talent, you’ve got to have a great culture. And I believe that but I think there’s even something more that talent requires, which is more possibility, more opportunity, a path to fulfill their ambitious selves. I think if we if we only focus on quality, or people loving each other, but we don’t show them a path to get to their biggest dreams, then like we’re gonna lose them, you’re gonna have to bounce like you said, I absolutely love that is that we have to be yes, making it a very safe and fun and enjoyable, successful environment. Beyond that, we’d also be creating a path to help them uncover and identify themselves and then ultimately, know that this is the best path for them to get what they want. Right. So there’s

Ken Pozek 24:47
no I think that’s brilliant. What you just said, I think that you’re Yeah, going to escape games or out with the bar or like, you know, creating a fun environment is one thing, but like, I think most most leaders look at their people and they think oh, How can I just make them make more money? And what I found is that yeah, more money might be part of it. But it could be more time with our kids. It could be travel, it could be more recognition on an industry wide level. It could be, you know, just financial freedom there’s, there’s so many things that just selling another house doesn’t accomplish. And so if you don’t slow down and really get to know your people, you won’t know those things. And so, yeah, it’s that’s what to me what culture is on our team?

Justin Stoddart 25:28
Well, it’s back to the same principle that you taught us when getting an offer accepted, right? Is that you have to know what do the sellers want? And we have to go back and look at our talent to say what does my talent want? Is it in alignment with what I can give them and then deliver on that again, it’s it’s essentially getting a long term offer accepted right? Because Will you continue to work here day in and day out? So great principles, guys that were you know, learning from you can love it such a pleasure to now have you in my network. And thank you for teaching us what you’ve taught us. And for being a big thinker and inspiring so many people I’m sure, clients teammates, and now the Think bigger real estate community. So appreciate you, man. Thank you. And for everybody listening here today. You don’t my final request is these three simple words and they are go think bigger. Ken, thanks for helping us do that today. My friend. Awesome, man. If you enjoy this episode that I have a very special invitation for you. I have created a private Facebook community called successful real estate agents, where the focus is going beyond success having both a successful business and a significant life. If you’re not yet a member. Go sign up now.