Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. My name is Justin Stoddart, I’m your host. And my goal and my mission really is to help you think bigger, and grow yourself so that your business can follow suit. I know that when that happens, you’re gonna have more options, including the ability to have a greater impact, which is, I think, fundamental for any of us who want to have a great life. And I’m excited today to have a fellow big thinker with me today, actually from Nashville, Tennessee. Let me tell you about him here in just a second. But the topic we’re going to cover is housewarming parties and what a goldmine they can be if done right. So I’m, I’m excited to have Josh Anderson of Josh Anderson Real Estate Group with me today. Josh actually started his business in 2006, which is probably what some would see as an opportune time to get into the real estate industry. But he’s thrived. He’s 86 million in volume last year between four agents they did about 250 transit 215 transactions, and his business is 75%. referral, past clients. So he obviously does some things He’s very, very, right and well, and Josh, I’m excited to have you here pouring value into the thing bigger real estate audience. Thank you for your time today.
Josh Anderson 01:08
Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity.
Justin Stoddart 01:10
Yeah, yeah, I know, Josh came highly recommended from a friend of mine. And Josh has let me just kind of lead with this. Josh has a great business that services a lot of referrals from agents gives and receives. So if you ever have business in Nashville, and you need a great agent, Josh is your guy. So kind of get that out the way So Josh, you aside from being a dad of, of two young boys, which I’m sure keeps you on your toes at home? A very robust real estate team. Tell me how do you keep balance between the two that’s a passion of mine is home life, being a great leader in the home and outside of the home? So tell us kind of how you how you how you found balance among the two.
Josh Anderson 01:51
Yeah, you know, I don’t know that I, I believe in balance, but I think that there’s a lot of counterbalance that goes on and on and on. It’s one of those things that you just work around I work our schedule very rarely do I work after hours. I don’t do a whole lot of weekends. One of it’s just it’s it’s just doing it and there’s times when we have to be in really good communication with husband and wife and and as far as who’s grabbing the kids are.
Justin Stoddart 02:23
I love it. That helps sounds like youhave got a great partner in crime.
Josh Anderson 02:25
We’re going back and forth and we’ve got the NFL draft is in town this week. And we’ve got lots going on in Nashville and lots going on in the family part of it. So it’s, it’s really just kind of counterbalancing there’s times when the kids come up to the office with me, if it’s on a weekend or after hours and there’s just, it helps them office and my house are 300 yards apart. So yeah, it’s just a lot of counterbalancing of making it work.
Justin Stoddart 02:55
Okay, awesome stuff, man. I think great leaders like you are going to create the next generation of great leaders. So thank you for sharing that. Let’s get into this concept of housewarming parties I’m an avid enamored with what you’re doing. I hear too few agents doing this right that’s and I really think there’s a gold mine walk us through kind of this concept of a housewarming party Do you do it for all of your clients or just those that that asked for it? Or those that agree to it? Like what does this look like?
Josh Anderson 03:27
Yeah, so so we offer it to all of our clients. There’s a pretty decent amount that don’t take us up on it you know, for whatever reason, they’re like we’re too busy kids, whatever. But you know, we end up doing and we’ve done them for a long time and we go in and out of doing them at very high levels are doing big volumes up on burse not and we just did one this past weekend. So it’s really great timing on talking about it and you know, it’s one of those things that it because so much of our businesses past client and and Some type of referral, it’s the perfect piece for us to like, finish the transaction, thank them for allowing us the opportunity to work with them, and also getting to meet all their friends or their family or whoever’s at that housewarming party. So it’s, you know, we really kind of take it and run with it the whole way and do everything for so. Yeah, go ahead.
Justin Stoddart 04:22
So um, paint this picture, you’ve got a past client or an existing client, I should say, I’m actually trying to eliminate the word past client because you want to service them in the future. But this client, right, who’s now happy with your service, they’re in their home, and how many people for example, this one you had this past weekend, how many of their friends and family were at the event?
Josh Anderson 04:41
So that was the one this past weekend, they had 44 people that are refeed, and I think 100% of them showed up. So it was really awesome. You know, most of them are somewhere. We’ve always kind of said it. We’ve looked at it and said it’s about 250 or $300 marketing dollars that we spend about 20 to 25 people usually show up, this one was a little bit different. He’s one of our top top referral sources and clients. And so we spent a little bit more with this particular housewarming party. So we had more people, more food, more drinks, more everything. But it was it, we usually do real invitations. We also do a paper post or an invite. But our goal is we’re capturing all of their contact information, because that’s who we want to work with. And we do all of it to make it really simple. If it becomes a big chore for the client, they’re not going to do it. The whole idea is we’re selling it as you know, and we sell it throughout the transaction, we kind of tell them, Hey, you know, halfway through the transaction is going to be so great. Once you guys get settled in, we’re going to do the housewarming party party for you guys. You’re gonna have to do it thing. So we kind of talked throughout from start to finish and after, and so this person Particular housewarming party was, it was probably two to two and a half months post close. So at them plenty of time to, they did a couple of things after closing and so it gave them time to do that and get really get settled in. And the house is really where they wanted it to be, to entertain and have people over. So um, but yeah, we do invitations, we do the email, invite. We call them, we text them, we just want to make sure that everybody shows up that is supposed to be showing up. So it’s a good, it’s a win for everybody.
Justin Stoddart 06:32
So you get from them kind of a client list or guest list. Then you guys reach out and say hey, on behalf of our client, we’re hosting a housewarming party for them. They’ve requested that you be there. We’d love to have you and then follow up with of course phone calls and emails, just like to remind them I’m assuming that’s kind of what that looks like logistics.
Josh Anderson 06:54
Yeah, and it’s nothing about real estate. It’s literally just reminding them and making sure they’re it’s On their calendar, and, you know, there were three of us that were there from the team. And that’s partly key also, as somebody from the team has to be there. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be me. I happened to be at that one because it was a friend. And you know, it was it was during the day on a Saturday, it was from 12 to four and it was just awesome. We had it catered, we had cheese. So we do. It first started out people were throwing out all kinds of crazy ideas. So we do themed parties, so it’s Mexican barbecue, or pizza, just to make it really and from there, that kind of creates the whole theme of the party. So Mexican food, Mexican beer Margarita is all of those things. So
Justin Stoddart 07:50
compare that Josh with four hours that people spend in an open house where you’re hoping to get a few people to come in and potentially have some buyer leads. But again, these are cold leads that I’m not, I’m not doubting the open house strategy. I think it’s it’s a good one, right? But now you’re like, there’s proof of concept all around you, you’re standing inside what you did for this client. And you’re with them. Like, typically when people come in an open house, they come in for a few minutes, right? Maybe they see 30 minutes that they love the place and there’s really an engaging conversation. We don’t get a lot of time with them. You’re saying that there’s a several hour period of time that you have a chance to interact with these people? What typically comes from that?
Josh Anderson 08:30
Yeah, we pretty much always get at least a couple of referrals out of it. Because like you said, it’s proof of concept. We’re, we’re inviting their friends. So it’s a really easy conversation. And we probably had, you know, at least 10 Real Estate conversations, and those were all woven kind of into other conversations. But you know, the natural conversation was like, Oh, well, how do you know so and so who happened to be the homeowner it’s like, oh, well, we help them find this place and we help them sell their last Place, and they’re like, Oh my god, we’re looking right now No, we don’t have an agent or we have an agent, but we were not committed to what you know, whatever it is. So it makes the conversation really easy.
Justin Stoddart 09:11
Man and and, again, very different, it’s very warm.
Josh Anderson 09:15
And for this amount of time and energy, maybe a little bit more money, but for the same amount of time and energy as an open house. I mean, they’re talking, I’m already talking to people that are my ideal clients, because I already know who my current client hangs out with. And it’s just a built in network of these are leads and even if they’re not now business, it’s still the type of clientele that I want to work with. Because you’ve mailed them something, you’ve got their name, like both spouses, you’ve got the email address, you’ve got the mailing address, like you’ve got everything you need, and like you said, their peers have somebody who’s been a good client already. So you’ve already qualified them as in the right demographic of people that you relate well with and you serve well with like there’s so many reasons why this makes so much sense. Yeah, and I think nobody does it. And I’m happy to provide whoever wants it. At the end of the show, we’ve got a housewarming checklist. Cool. So it’s pretty simple. But it’s, it’s one of those things that it just helps kind of hit all those checkboxes are making sure you know, when we go to these events, we do everything we bring everything, whether it’s, you know, like, this client in particular really wanted Sonic eyes, like that’s, that was one of those things. He doesn’t like red solo cups, so we didn’t get red solo cups. He’s in our music industry. And there’s a song about red solo cup. So anyway, you know, it’s stuff like that knowing all of those things. And we bring koozies that are branded and we bring you know, our cornhole boards that are branded and just, you know, we attempt that has our name on it. So it’s all like little pieces that are branding us.
Justin Stoddart 10:49
And that’d be golden. If you could share that. I’ll put that for those that are listening in the think bigger real estate Facebook group. I’ll upload that in there. So everyone have access to that. Really, really valuable stuff? is there is there? When you say agents typically, like don’t do this or don’t do it consistently? Is there some of the reason why they don’t some of the reason why you guys had to overcome something that made this easy Other than that, and maybe it’s just the checklist, you just had to figure out the system so that you could do it. But is there is there anything else that people might be missing? They might run into a wall and be like, Oh, this is harder than I thought that you guys were able to work? Yeah,
Josh Anderson 11:24
I think it’s just a system and a process. And we have the leverage of doing it. So being on being a team and having administrative people that can help us in the background, set it all up, makes a big difference. So one of our one of our my listing coordinator was the bartender for that that’s what she used to do. So like that. Then she helped bring some things overnight. I went over there Saturday morning at 9am to make sure certain things were there. And so it’s all those things help and I think that that’s overwhelming for an individual agent, and the idea of putting it all together when they could be lead generating what Really they don’t understand is, is we were lead generating. And we get the lead follow up. And we already we knew we knew some of them. Now we know all of them. And it’s easier to send out an email and a thank you from that. So I just think that a lot of agents individually don’t have the time or energy to do it, or they don’t think that it would be a good use of their time. Just something we stumbled on. Because early on, I was helping a lot of first time buyers, and they happen to be friends of mine. And I was like, Hey, man, you know what we should do? Once you move in and get settled in? We should just have a party over here. And then and then it kind of turned into a housewarming party of like being strategic about it. Yeah. So
Justin Stoddart 12:39
yeah, such great wisdom. I really, really appreciate it. Josh, this has been been awesome. And I know, there’s a number of topics that that we could talk about that we could extract from you, it’d be wildly valuable for the audience. So I’m gonna extend here Do I have all kinds of witnesses, I’m gonna invite you back to be on the show at a later time. Because I like there’s tons of value that you can offer people and again, super grateful for this. Bit of nuggets that you’ve given us on housewarming parties. It’s fantastic. So, again, I’m gonna put up here on the screen. If I haven’t already. I don’t think I have yet how to get ahold of Joshua’s team so info at Josh Anderson real estate com, is that right? That put that up, right? Looks like Okay, awesome. So please reach out to Josh, if you have any business in and around Nashville, what a what a tribute to the level of service that you offer, right, your clients will obviously have a good experience if you’re willing to throw a party for them afterwards and they’re willing to put all their friends in front of you. So it’s a good testament to the kind of service and business that you guys have. So again, want to thank everybody today for tuning into the this episode of think bigger real estate show. Having people like Josh just cements the value that I could bring to all of you. So thank you again, Josh, for your time and attention today. And connecting with you again soon. Thanks. Have a great day.