Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart and my passion is helping you to think bigger, because I know that when you think bigger your life, your business, everything improves. And I do that by bringing on amazing guests and today I have another one. His name’s Matt Bonelli. He is a certified ninja selling coach. And we’re going to get into more of everything that he can bring to your business and to the table. excited to introduce him. First and foremost, let me say, Matt, thank you for coming on the show today.
Justin, thanks so much for having me. Man. I’m looking forward to chatting with you and just talking real estate with you today.
Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome from one had a real estate coach slash podcaster to another, this is gonna be a fun episode. Yeah, absolutely. For those that are interested in the content that I create on a, on a regular basis, you can go to think bigger dot real estate. And there, you can actually sign up for a summary, to get this week’s episodes with a couple highlights and a couple of action steps. So that you can be in the know, I know, there’s a lot of content that comes from this site, this channel. So I’d love to have you go there so that you get in your ear inbox each week. And update of amazing things like we’re going to hear today. So with that being said, you know, it was interesting. Several years ago, I was invited to attend and even help, kind of facilitate, facilitate, but but be present for a ninja selling class. A couple friends of mine said you’d really love this. I had been coach when I had my general contracting company, how to go about, like building a business by referral. So I said, Great, I’ll go and I was absolutely blown away by ninja selling by what it is. And again, what a great solution. It is so excited to really go deep on that. Let me tell you little bit more about Matt Bonelli, and I’m going to have him describe what ninja selling is all about. So again, Matt is actually out of Charleston, South Carolina, like that just sounds dreamy, my friend.
It’s a beautiful place for sure.
Oh, but I’m gonna visit we’re gonna have lunch. I don’t know when but we’re going to
come on down, man.
So um, he’s a certified coach, begin with ninja selling ninja coast to coast podcasts encourage you to go find that. Add that to your favorites list. He’s also a business owner, entrepreneur, outside of having been a very successful real estate agent. And now coaches all the everyday real estate agents around the country on these on these amazing topics, but he also owns businesses outside of this business. So anyway, the pleasure to have you on again, Matt, thank you for coming here. Let me let me jump into again, this thing bigger back here stands for more than just thinking bigger with real estate. You tell me that you’re a father now have a young daughter two and a half months old. Congratulations. Thank you to help my audience is really kind of paradigm and and vantage point, extend beyond just business and realize what like why we do business why we do all of this talk to us really quickly. What’s your favorite part about being a new Dad?
Man? Well, thanks again, Justin, for having me on and really appreciate it. And I appreciate that question too. Because I think you’re right, you know, thinking bigger win, it comes to business is more than just the business. It’s all about what that allows us to do in life. And I will say the best part about being a dad is just, I mean, for the past two and a half months, holding my little girl and just watching her grow. It’s so it’s incredible, you know, having this little being in your world, it gives you a new sense of encouragement, you know, new things that you want to do and kind of makes you want to, you know, everybody’s kind of says the cliche of, you know, you make me want to be a better person, well, she definitely want makes me want to be a better person better at so many different areas, because she’s got a long life to live. And I want to be there for as, as long as I can. I mean, I’m a young guy. But when I think about what she’s going to be doing, getting married, and all that other stuff, I’m going to be there for that. And I want to be at my my highest level when I’m there. So that’s
good stuff. That’s, that’s great. I also am a dad. And I’d have to agree with everything you’ve said there is that just the miracle of watching children grow and realize how impressionable they are, and how much we can we can impact their life, right their life, which then can go on to impact other lives. So very, very cool. Thanks for sharing that. All right, let’s jump into give us kind of a brief synopsis about what is ninja selling for those that maybe are unfamiliar with it. And or those who maybe have been away from it help just kind of catch us up to speed. What is ninja selling?
Absolutely. And I will say anybody who’s interested in Ninja selling, maybe you’ve heard about it, go by and Larry candles book titled ninja selling, it has everything in there that you need to know about what ninja selling is. And basically ninja selling is a system. It’s a philosophy to basically not sell, it’s really interesting that the title of ninja selling is ninja selling. But the whole philosophy is about not selling but helping clients find solutions. So it’s a relationship based approach to attracting customers. And then a solutions based approach to helping people find real estate to buy or to sell their real estate, the 10 step buyer process and the 16 step seller process are proven to work extremely well to help create clarity among customers so that they can actually get from point A to point B in the timeframe that they want to do it. You know, a lot of real estate agents, a lot of programs out there designed towards this is how you can just get more transactions. And then just selling is designed to create more relationships and help more people get to where they want to go on time. And that’s kind of the foundation and the core philosophy around it.
super powerful. You know, I think a friend of mine yesterday, we did an episode a lot I buyers yesterday, I had a friend post something on there talking about this, the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested in real estate tech right now, the amount of tech that’s been developed to, to cultivate the relationship after the transaction is is almost entirely No. That’s not their focus, right? It’s to simply sell, serve people during the transaction and then be done right, collect the commission be gone. And I think, to you know, to a degree agent falling into that trap, as well as like, it’s very transactional. I’ve gotten in the habit of actually interviewing other financial professions that are advisors so that I can better help real estate agents step into that role of being advisors, I think that’s where the future’s at, is to be more of a consultant, more of an advisor. And it is interesting how their perspective of real estate agents is that they’re transactional, they have past clients, right? They serve them for a while, and then they’re done with them. And I don’t mean that in any bad way, like they have any any any, you know, ill feelings toward people, or that they’re, you know, are mistreating people. But the the focus, I think, is not relational always. And I think as a result, these tech companies are are thriving, because they don’t have much to compete against. Whereas when you compete against someone who is is a ninja selling agent, for example, right, that is really focused on relationships. That’s a whole different competition, and one that I think technology has a really hard time beating. Would you agree?
I agree, 100%. And you just stats prove everything that all the tech companies need to know about doing the whole lead generation stuff, right? I mean, the national home buyers and sellers report shows that an overwhelming majority 85% plus of buyers and sellers would use their agent again, but less than 25% actually do. And it’s all and it’s not because the agents didn’t do a good job, or you know, they don’t like the the client, it’s that they just didn’t stay in communication with them, or what we call flow. And so 710 years down the road, that person kind of forgets about them. And then they go on some website and click on a link, and they get connected with a different agent. And the what I always tell people about all the technology, I buyers, all this stuff, they’re like, Oh, no, it’s gonna, it’s gonna take all of our clients and kill the industry is, you know, what comes first what’s before somebody goes and clicks on a button to say I need to be connected with a with a real estate agent. That’s a relationship, if all of those leads that are being generated by the big companies that are selling them, if those people had relationships with a real estate agent, first, they wouldn’t become leads, because they would call their trusted advisor, I love the fact that you call it becoming an advisor, because that’s what we teach people to do is become a trusted real estate advisor and get rid of that term past client, you just have clients that are actively in the business looking to buy and sell real estate, and you have clients that are currently holding their real estate. There’s no past or present about it.
I love that it was interesting. A friend of mine, Trevor Hammond, who’s kind of a very innovative lender here in the area, I had a conversation with him because he runs his business that way very much an advisor type role. And he said one of the key things that he’s learned as he’s spoken with financial advisors is their concern is that agents have past clients. And he said, they don’t write you think of like an a financial advisor, if you’re an advisor or consultant, there’s not necessarily a start and an end, right, there’s like we have a relationship until you don’t need those services anymore. Maybe at the end of your life at the end of your career, right. I think real estate agents will be well advised to be similar. Like, I don’t have past clients, I’ve had clients and I’m going to serve them, you know, four or five, six transactions along the way and take care of their friends and peers around them. And it’s it’s a different, it’s a different paradigm, right, then going from one deal to the next deal.
It really is and, and there’s simple ways to make sure that you don’t end up with past clients. I mean, one thing that is in the ninja selling system is the annual real estate review, if you just meet with your clients, once per year, sit down and talk about what’s happened in the market, how that could be impacting the value of their real estate. Because with financial advisors, the reason why they’re not past clients is every year they’re reviewing their holdings, like say they put all their money in a mutual fund, and they don’t change the allocation for years, they’re still every year or more often sitting down and checking out, Hey, what’s going on with that? What’s the progress is it you know, increasing in value as a decreasing in value. Same thing with your health, I mean, people go see a dentist or a physician on a regular basis to make sure their health is in good shape. As a real estate advisor agents should be meeting with their clients once you to advise them on the health of their real estate. Yeah, that’s that’s a very simple way to to show up as an advisor just once per year.
I love that I got a text actually just yesterday from my primary care physician saying hey, it’s time for your physical. And like I didn’t reach out to him, he reached out to me right to say, hey, our record show it’s time that we’ve you know, for us to meet. Yeah. And it’s preventative right? And it’s going to take a look like how you feeling like let’s check your heart rate. Let’s check all these things. And I think that’s why he gets paid like a doctor, right is because he’s preventative Lee taking care of me, as opposed to running to the emergency room, right, which is a different issue. But having having, like a real estate advisor move into that type of role saying, hey, it’s time for us to meet to evaluate your real estate portfolio, and act as a wealth advisor for their real estate portfolio, I think is a really powerful place to be let’s, let’s talk, Matt, about kind of how you got in, like in touch with, with ninja selling, and then even some of the key activities to stay in flow, right, for those that are familiar with this term and flow. That’s like how you stay in contact and not lose track of people. Right? Maybe you can even kind of expound upon that. So number of different questions here. Everyone, how did you contact this? Let’s start with that. And then and then let’s jump to kind of what are some of the key activities that keep people in flow that people could could walk away from today, and put this into practice and get value just from our from our conversation today?
Absolutely. So I first discovered ninja. Actually, unfortunately, it was on the tail end of me being a solo listing and selling agent and in the transition of becoming an assistant sales manager was when I was introduced to ninja selling and it was through the brokers that I was with Turpin, real estate in New Jersey, great brokerage, small five office company. And they sent a few people out to Colorado to go to this ninja selling installation thing. And they sent all the managers so I gotta go, which was amazing. And it was just for me, the experience was more than just business changing. I was like, wow, this is giving me a different perspective on on kind of life. I mean, I hadn’t been to trainings like that before. My background was finance. And so you know, coming out of working on Wall Street and stuff. I mean, there was no trainings like that. So it was a whole new experience. For me, I was like, this is amazing, we got to definitely implement this and back in our company. And so when I moved into becoming a full time non selling manager, my focus was trying to get people on the ninja path and get them because I can see this works. I implemented as an assistant sales manager when I was still selling and I saw great results from it, I saw a bigger impact and kind of how I was able to manage my time, which was incredible. And the best part about it was is it gave me the comfort in knowing that I could build a business around people I enjoy spending time with versus trying to hunt down leads. So the activities that anybody everybody can start with right now is one just getting in flow with at least 50 different people a week. That’s kind of our baseline and call it the one point business plan if you could talk to 50 different people a week. And what we mean by that is communicating over the phone or face to face and ask people questions. We call them Ford questions, fo rd, family and friends, occupation, recreation, and dreams. Those are the four categories that we can really learn good things about people. So we want to talk to people, ask them questions, learn things, and then follow up about those things. The rule with these conversations is is we’re not allowed to talk about real estate, unless they bring it up, a lot of systems will say a great, you’re going to have conversations, make sure at the end of that conversation, you remind that person that you’re in real estate, and you can help them out or anybody else out that they know and that you appreciate the referrals. There are systems that do that. And I’m not saying they don’t work they do. There’s a lot of people that have success with them. The Ninja way is to not talk talk about real estate unless they bring it up. So somebody says, you know, Hey, Justin, how’s the market? You can go ahead and obviously talk about it. Don’t be like, Oh, no, no, sorry, we’re not going to talk about real estate, you know, don’t block the flow. But that’s the first thing is getting communication with 50 people a week, start with the people that are closest to you. And just do that regularly. The people who you see the most, you should be talking to them at least once a month, your friends, your family, people who are part of your situational relationships, meaning maybe the people you see at the gym every day, if you’re a gym person, or if you’re going to your rotary club meeting or Chamber of Commerce meeting, talk to people, get to know them, ask those questions that will build relationships, and eventually they’re going to reciprocate and ask you questions, which is how you get started talking about real estate. Oh, man, what do you do? Oh, well, I sell real estate. Oh, interesting. How’s the market? That leads into a whole nother path? So that’s the first time activity to do you mentioned flow. And I want to kind of define that a little bit for people. Because it is communication. Basically, the frequency of interaction that we have with people and being in flow is different than being in touch because I think some people will set in their CRM. Okay, great. Justin, you’re going to my database, I’m going to set a reminder to call you every 30 days. Well, if I’m just calling you Justin every 30 days and saying, Hey, Justin, it’s Matt, how you doing? You’re like, doing great, like, awesome. Well, hey, just calling to say hi. Like, that has some benefit. But that’s just simply staying in touch. But if I call you learn something and say, you know, how’s it going with your kids? And you tell me something interesting about them. And then the next time I call I follow up on that, you know, hey, I was that latest podcast interview that you did that was really interesting. I saw it was amazing. Like, how did you get connected with that person? That’s going to be staying in flow, because my calls have purpose, they have purpose for you, and they bring value to the conversation. So we have a productive time together. I hope that make sense with the difference between flow and staying in touch?
Yeah, no, I think it’s it’s powerful. You know, at the end of the day, you’ve got to be in, in conversations with people, right? And I love there’s a lot of agents who don’t even do that, because they’re afraid of the selling part. Like, how many calls have you made this week, or how many contacts you’ve made? Maybe five, tell me like what, what’s unlocking, I just don’t want to be salesy. And so I love how the fact that you guys say like you actually it’s prohibited for you to bring it up, right, don’t bring it up. Because I think that’s the, that’s the sticking point for a lot of people is that they don’t want all of the relationships that have turned into transactions, where they’re trying to sell to all their friends, and I get it, like none of us want to be treated that way either. But if you can take a different approach of like, I actually have a big opportunity now to just take care of a lot of people. And I’m going to bring up real estate unless the opportunity presents itself, right. And and they bring it up and they if that’s part of taking care of them. Great. I think that’s maybe the big disconnect that people have is that they’ve been don’t want to call because they feel like it’s self serving, right. Whereas what you’re saying is, you call not to be self serving you call to take care of them, if part of taking care of them involves real estate, then of course, because this is about them, it’s not about you. And I think that hopefully will unlock a lot of a lot of, of the of the reasons that are keeping people from having contact with people, right and being in flow with people.
Yeah, hundred percent, it is all about the person you’re calling in. And I tell people, the intent has to be there to make it to make the call to help them to bring some value to the person on the other end. And I know that’s hard to do. Especially if you just wake up and your CRM pops up five names, and you’re like, Oh, I gotta call these five people today. Plan ahead, you know, think about these people in advance, you know, don’t wait until the day of and just start, you know, I’ll call Justin today, I don’t really know what to call them about. But I’m supposed to, if you if you plan ahead, if you set up like every week, sit down and look through your data based on say, Who are the people that I can communicate with this week, who are the people that I know have important things going on, right those names down on a list, give yourself a day or two to think about those people then make the call now you’re going to have great intent, you’re gonna have a good reason to call, it’s going to be a lot easier to have that conversation because you can pick up the phone with purpose versus just picking up the phone for me, if you’re doing it for you. They’re going to know people’s bs meters are way, way up right now. And so they know if you’re calling to try to sell them something. They’re like, Oh, here’s Matt again, trying to sell me real estate, like they know. So just prepare a little bit and the intent will be pure.
I always teach that you know that with social media, people always think about like, again, they don’t engage with it, because they there they get caught up on what am I going to say? Well, don’t say anything, just go listen, right? If you’re if you’re, if you just go on social media to start, right, and to see what other people are posting about, right? Is there some tragedy in their family? Is there some total victory in their family, like,
call and talk about that they’ve put it out there that this is meaningful to them? It’s, I think it creates a great opportunity for people to be very relevant, and talk about them, meaning the other person as opposed to themselves, oh, Facebook is filled with pain and pleasure, people, they pretty much exclusively post about things that make them super happy, or things that make them really upset. There’s almost no in between there on social media. So you could easily go there spend five minutes and say, Oh, this is what’s lighting Justin up today. Oh, this is what’s upsetting that today, you can instead of only just hitting like or the little angry face or putting a comment and pick up the phone and call the person and say, Hey, are you doing okay? Or Hey, Justin, I saw you had an amazing trip. Tell me more about it. Are there more pictures than you shared online? You know, how was it you know, watching your son fly fish for the first time? Or whatever it is? That I mean, the power of just picking up the phone and going offline with some of these things there. People are going to be lit up about it in a good way.
And how and how, what a profession, right, your job is to go take care of lots of people. Yeah, like go take care of lots of people. And when one of those things that they need help with happens to be real estate, then great. You’re an expert at that right now. I love it rather than the alternative, which is let’s, let’s jam the phones for four hours a day chasing people who, frankly are mad at you for calling them out. And again, being harsh. Right. I think that there’s a strategy for that. But I think there’s also a lot of people that think that that that maybe that’s the only way. And what you’re here to say is that you can be a Top Producing agent. I’ve seen it I’m friends with those that are that that follow the ninja selling pattern. And they do great business, right? Because they just take care of a lot of people, they don’t take care of five people who care of like you said 50 plus a week like they’re getting after it out meeting people, but their emphasis is on them not themselves.
Right. Exactly. You’re 100% right. And and yeah, all systems do work for sure. There’s plenty of people out there who do the fizz bows, the expires, and they work. And I will even say that people who who are working those really well are most likely also taking care of the relationship end of things. Are there some people out there that just turned out transactions? And that’s what they do? Sure. Yeah, they are definitely the exception, not the rule. I guarantee you that.
That’s a really great point, Matt. And I’ll stand corrected there that every method out there, you could take the ninja selling mindset into whether you’re going and talking to family and friends, or whether you’re calling people cold, that if your intent is how can I take care of this person today? Oh, they have a real estate need? Great. I can help you with that as well. But it really is it’s a mindset and kind of like the way you feel your intent coming into this conversation. Am I here to get or am I here to give?
Yeah, exactly. You and every now you can put some structure around it too, because people say well, then how do I know when I’m talking to the right people who might need to buy and sell real estate. Because if we just have 50 conversations every week, and we have great friendships, like when does the business come? Because we do have to have those macro level goals. I mean, we are in business to make money so we can take care, we were talking about the beginning like being inspired by our kids, right? Like I want to be a better a better dad, which means I want to bring in more income, there’s a lot of things that I want to do for myself too. When you get into the micro playing field, that’s when the intent shifts to the other people and you look for bringing value to other folks. So when you’re setting up your, your database, so to speak, we have an selling hotlist and a warm list. And hot list is basically all your active people, people who are buying and selling the warm list is really the powerful thing that a lot of people don’t utilize. And what that is, is a list of people who are going through life change, because who are the people that are most likely to buy and sell real estate, people going through life change, you have a kid, you might need more space, you get married, you may want to buy a house together, you have unfortunate things going on, like you get divorced or lose your job, you may need to sell the house and get a different one. All those life changes create potential need for real estate. So when we’re having conversations, and we learn about life change, let’s put those people on our warm list and talk to them a little bit more frequently about them, not about real estate. And eventually they’ll bring it up, they’ll say, you know, Justin, how’s the market doing? You know, we’re having our third kid and you know, three bedrooms just doesn’t work an hour, we’re going to need more space. And that’s when you have the opportunity to step in as their advisor and help them with that transaction. So you can have that focus on people who might be buying and selling. And by the way, those people are great sources for referrals, because people with life change tend to hang out with other people with life change. It’s all part of the particular activating system, which we could spend probably an hour talking about. I’ve kind of stopped short of really diving into that. But the warm list just becomes this powerful list of people that you can focus on with great intent. And that’s how you can then kind of merge this, I want to focus on other people first bring value to them. And also make sure that I’m in the space to do some business. I heard Garrett actually mentioned in our podcast, I forget where he said he heard this. But he said if you want things to fall into your lap, put your lap in the right place. Having a warm list created is putting your lap in the right place.
That’s awesome. Awesome. And let’s let’s talk a little bit about how people can learn more about you. In fact, we’ve got a website here that we’re going to put up here, Ninja coaching calm is that
that right? Your coaching com Yep, that’s that’s our website for for the coaching company. So you can go there and learn all about us and what we do, and you can click about us and see all of our different coaches, you can click on the podcast thing there. I mean, our podcast is also like on whatever podcast platform you like to listen to. So you’re listening to Justin’s podcast right now on your favorite platform, just go to the search ninja coaching coast to coast and you’ll find us, Tim,
awesome. Good stuff, Matt, I’m really, really excited to have had you on the show, and get people in contact with you. Again, I think what we’ve discussed today, and the ninja selling way, ought to unlock a lot of agents to start number one acting more relational Lee, and number two actually start to have those conversations that maybe they’ve got something inside of them has been telling them that that, you know, they shouldn’t write because it’s selfish or whatever, you know, like whatever other reason that they’ve gotten their head. Lastly, last question, this is the signature question of the show, which is, what does matter what led you obviously a big thinker, right? Like not only have you created success in your own business, but now you’re getting significance by coaching and teaching and training other people to do the same thing? What do you do on a regular basis to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your own possibilities teach us?
That is a that’s a great question. I like that. And while I’m kind of pondering that, I do want to thank you for having me on the show to Justin, and I appreciate what you’re doing with your mission and getting people to think bigger, particularly about real estate, because I think it’s important. So what do I do on a regular basis, I mean, so for me, it’s taking care of myself first, so that I can be at my best to serve others so that I can think in a clear way. So having a good morning routine with health, fitness, mindfulness, are the things that I do and experiment with every day to make sure that I can show up the best that I can I learned. Not long ago, I wish I learned it earlier. But if I’m not performing at my best, if I’m not feeling well enough, I’m not going to be able to show up the best that I can for others. There’s exceptions and short term variances to that, of course, but over the long term, if we’re not, we’re not taking care of ourselves, we’re not going to show up and be the best version of ourselves. So that’s what I do. And I highly recommend everybody. If you’re not taking care of yourself, start taking care of yourself every single day health, fitness, mindfulness, life and business and all the sudden you’re going to see some great results come out of that in terms of where your creativity goes and where your service goes.
powerful stuff. Man, I were joking at the beginning of the show he was in I’m sharing with me that he’s big into fitness. And we decided that next step he’s gonna he’s gonna be a American Ninja Warrior. Stay tuned for that. Like we’re announcing that on this show. Is it his his commitment to become not only a ninja when it comes to business, but also a ninja when it comes to being a true like Ninja Warrior? So I’m excited for that. Please let me know when it airs. Oh, yeah,
absolutely. Absolutely. Stay tuned. We’ll I’ll let you know. Probably it probably go live on it. Right.
Man, it’s been a total pleasure having on the show. Thank you for helping us think bigger. And thanks to the audience for tuning in. If this has been valuable, in any way, please give myself some love, by liking, sharing, subscribing, wherever, like whatever platform you listen to this on, give us some love that helps us get fuels us to want to keep pouring into you all. So again, thank you, man. Thanks everybody for tuning in and we will catch you