Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I am thrilled to bring back a fan favorite guest Jennie Wolek out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I specifically had people request “Can you get her back on she was amazing?” So I’m super excited to have her here. Jennie, thank you for coming on the show today. I love what you have to share.
Jennie Wolek
I am so excited. And thank you I need to know who my my fans are. So I can thank them personally because that’s really cool.
Justin Stoddart
Yes, you have a following in Portland, Oregon. I want to remind those of you that are maybe tuning into the Think Bigger Real Estate Show for the first time or maybe haven’t been here for a little bit. The purpose behind this is I know that when you are around people like Jenni, people that are big thinkers that are doing great things, your thinking starts to expand as well. As your thinking expands, you start to do different things that you hadn’t done before. And as you do things you haven’t done before you start to get different results. And pretty soon the impact starts to follow. My passion is to help you live a life of great impact. Therefore we have the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. So Jennie, let’s let’s get into this. Jennie and I were having this conversation and we’re so much aligned about how we like to do business. Obviously, in similar, not similar industries, but my industry serves your industry, right? I come out of the title and escrow industry, I’m trying to do things very differently, hence the show, but add value to my, you know, to my customers and prospective customers and to a bigger audience, with the intent of helping them to think bigger, but going deep with them, is critical to me. This is kind of like top of the funnel stuff, right? But for me, really, the value in my business is how much can I get to know about about them and about their challenges in particular, so that I could help them go to work on solving those challenges. And I know your business is very, very similar. Would you agree?
Jennie Wolek
Yeah, absolutely. Being in the real estate industry for 18 years now. If you don’t think bigger and have coaching and accountability and a positive mindset if this business could really eat you up and so you have to be very purposeful about knowing why you were doing this business and having a mission around that having a culture as part of your your team and what you do every day and really a database business is the best way to do that. Repeat and referral clients are the easiest to work with the nicest, and then it just becomes fun. That’s what it’s about for me.
Justin Stoddart
Well, I think you know, I was in one of my early mentors in this industry back when I was a home builder, you know, kind of referenced it as the good life you know, the good life is a is a life that’s really built via relationships, it’s not transactional, it’s relational and I think when you can have work, be in fact I remember this like you and I were talking before about the the incredible business that that my mom built. She said, it doesn’t feel like work. I just to go I get to go have lunch with my friends. I get to go hang out with my friends. To her it was very relational and therefore she was able to, again, scale a business with over, you know, 1000 employees, and I don’t say that boastly, I say it like, remarkably like, how did she do that. And then it goes back to the same principles that you’re teaching Jennie, which is, it really comes down to the people it comes down to having, at your very core, a business that’s centered on deepening relationships with other people.
Unknown Speaker
100% 100% there were years when I had my breakdown, and I didn’t like people and in this real estate business, we’re a people business, we’re a relationship business, and that’s not good. I had to figure out pretty quickly how to adjust this. In order. This is all I got. This is my one shot like this is my backup plan. So I didn’t have somewhere else to go or something else to do. And so just by getting clear on my personal mission statement, I do an exercise and I teach a class on how to come up with that. And then really on having systems around, loving on your database because once I was once I realized that I didn’t need to be all things to all people. And that’s specifically for me my behavioral style did not love calling the for sale by owners and expired that wasn’t my gig, I was more of a relationship person. And so when I was set free of that and told, well don’t do that, do what you’re good at. Just be better at it. Oh, okay, thank you. And that’s where really everything is changed. And then finding team members to come into my world that buy into that as well that deliver on that customer experience is really what it’s about.
Justin Stoddart
You know, for those, I realized that I skipped over letting people know who you are, there’s a group of people who absolutely know who you are. But Jennie actually runs a small team out of Tulsa, Oklahoma 80% referral based, and then she has actually the she’s been asked to actually speak like go travel around the country and speak some of these principles we’re going to be talking about today. So we’re very, very fortunate to have her on here. And and again, for those that don’t Don’t know Jennie, there’s actually a way that you can get closer to Jennie, which is Journey with Jennie. Right? Tell us a little bit about that. In case people don’t catch this all the way to the end, they can at least stay connected with you.
Jennie Wolek
Yeah. So a few years back, I realized that my my passion and purpose is to empower and get back to my agent, friends and community because at my age and my life in this industry, I still see agents not succeeding. And that makes me sad because this industry is full of opportunity. No matter your behavioral style, no matter your background, no matter of anything that has ever happened in your life. We all have the same opportunity. And so when I was so blessed to receive lots of agent referrals that would come my way I started figuring out that there’s just no way I could repay all these people that are so generous and sharing their clients with us. So what can I do that I love to do anyway, and that is to train to coach to teach to share. The systems that we use in our business, I mean, at least at my company, Keller Williams Realty, we are an open book company, we share all of our systems and tools and everything that we use in our business anyway. So why wouldn’t I just open that up and allow people to have that. So that’s where you get me a lot, and you get me the most is inside of my closed Facebook group. It’s called Your Journey with Jennie and then also if you don’t want to get too intimate and come into the closed group, you can even just go to your keeping, I’m sorry, let me start over because I just changed the name. It is real estate in the real world.com and that’s my agent blog so you can see all the videos and all the tools there as well.
Justin Stoddart
I love it. You know you and I are kind of very similar mind that I had somebody at some point come to me and say you give away too much information you to put this on lockdown and not let people have access to start charging it charging for it. And I said you know i’m not against making money. I’m not against monetizing but this is isn’t about that, right? This is about giving. One thing happens for me. And I’m sure this happens for you as well Jennie is it? Like, the more you give, the more you grow? Right? Like every time I get to do an interview and share this with my audience, like, even if like that could have been paid for material, the fact that I get to spend some time with you and have you pour into into me and then share that with other people it just it makes me a lot better person so that when I go sit down with my clients, they’ve got somebody way better, right? And my kids at home have somebody way better because I’ve been around big thinkers.
Jennie Wolek
You know, that reminds me to couple two things recently that have that I’ve realized is that I was talking with an agent in our market, she’s in a different company, and I was just giving her a gratitude call because she has been a top agent in our area and always so nice. She shared with me she’s been in the real estate business for 43 years. I am 46 years old, and it blew my mind that she’s created a life in this business for that long and she still was optimistic, happy, pleasant and a giving caring person. I said, let me just ask you, what do you think is your you know your secret for success in longevity in this business? And she said, You know, I’ve had so many people not so many friends come and go in this business. And for me anytime I get in a rut or get down or cranky, whatever it is, I go take a class, I sit in a training class, and I hear and learn one thing new that I could put into my business. And that was like, Wow, that is amazing wisdom and the gear and Gary Keller of Keller Williams Realty recently shared that in a small group that I was in. He said the answer to all things is training. All things and I just that is why I love training and sharing and empowering other agents is because today they may just hear one little thing that transforms their life. Their business in a positive way. And that is what sets my soul on fire when I can see their eyeballs just light up and get so excited or have tears because they’ve had a breakthrough. That is what does it for me.
Justin Stoddart
I love that that’s so powerful. Let’s get into kind of our next topic kind of the planned one, that first one was just kind of came in just because you and I are passionate about speaking, teaching and giving and educating and growing. The second one really is is about being more relational. And we kind of started off that way. But let’s go deep into this. I know there’s a concept, you know, that I’ve learned before that ever like your next transaction is embedded in your current transaction. I know you believe that strongly. Talk to us a little bit about some of the training that you gave recently down in Florida. That really went into depth on this topic.
Jennie Wolek
Yeah, so there you know, nothing that I ever share or say is my original thought, by the way. I always I always like to give credit where it’s due and you years ago at one of our big Keller Williams events, it’s called family reunion. There was this guy on stage, his name is Mike Hicks, and he’s from Idaho Falls, which you shared is your birthplace. How weird is that small? Well, he is in a very, very small town, as you know. And Gary, he was in Gary Keller’s top 100. mastermind. And in Gary’s, it is realizing how are you getting all this repeat referral business like 75% of his business comes from his local repeat and referral people? And and he just says, well, quite simply, I, you know, I share our promise with them. And he said, Tell me more. And so you can actually find this online if you just want to Google it. Or if you want to, you know, ask to join my group and know that I have shared the script in there as well. And it’s called the promise you could Google Mike Hicks, or Gary Keller, YouTube, and there’s a video and all it is here’s the gist of it and of course, there’s a script and there’s words and it’s just quite simply sharing that with your clients as the time of listing appointment or buyer consultation, after you’ve gone over everything, you just say:
Jennie Wolek
Here’s the deal. It is our promise, our team has this promise that we’re going to deliver an amazing client experience for you. And our hope is that through our time together, you’re going to hear of some friends who may need some real estate help, they may have real estate questions, or they just want to know about refinancing. When you have any of this, when they share these things, reach out to me….” You know, here’s how you do that. And he goes through the details of it.
Jennie Wolek
He says, “Because it’s our goal, that by the time we get to the closing table, that you will have shared a name with us and if you haven’t, then that tells me that we didn’t do our job, that we did not deliver this amazing experience and that is our goal.”
Jennie Wolek
And what’s cool about this is that if you just think about it, Justin, if you have 50 families that you get to help in a year, how cool is that? And if you got one referral, even out of half of those, how much more fun and big could your business be from that referral business? And here’s the deal, you got to believe that you’re going to give a great experience right? So let’s back it up. You need to have a successful business and a plan of how you’re going to stay in touch with your people you’re going to have, you know, set expectations and and keep them updated along the way and in the end, you’re going to really work to achieve a referral if not a great review, an online review. And so along with this you said you were taking BOLD 2.0 which has just launched and I your words, your think bigger TB my friend Tony Baroni is actually now I’m gonna give I’m giving him a plug because I was teaching this with him and him and his team are doing this at a really big level. He had already been operating at this with reviews, and they just thought wow, okay, let me think bigger instead of just reviews what if we also got referrals as well? So he’s a great role model for it as well. He’ll be featured in that BOLD class.
Justin Stoddart
So funny story, my my kids have been wanting to dog for a while my wife and I like we have way too many living organisms in this house to keep alive to keep and so we like we set the standard out there we said, okay, two things. Maisey is our baby will be two, she needs to be potty trained by her second birthday and you guys have to make our life really easy. Like you need to get really helpful around the house because mom and I do too much work compared to how many people there are compared to how many workers there in the house. We do too much work. It was amazing as we started to set the expectation like Maisey is like this close to being potty trained before the age of two. And like the point I want to make with that and now they’re getting really clear on dad like what do I need to do? Like we really want this dog like the dog they wants not a cheap dog. I’m like gulp. I think they might actually pull this off, which I’m kind of excited about but the point is like oftentimes people don’t do what you want them to do until you either A incentivize them and or just create a clear expectation of me just like, you know what Mike Hicks said is that like, you know, “This is our expectation. And here’s here’s the incentive that we’re just going to pour into you during the entire transaction. And here’s what we expect from you.” And just by this by leading people and to me, I don’t know if you knew this, but I’m in the process of writing a book that’s really… it’s called The Upstream Model. And the concept behind it is helping sales people become more advisors and more leaders, than customer service representatives. And I think the future of well-paid salespeople is that we are leaders. And as I hear what you just described there, you’re leading and teaching and training people, going back to what Gary Keller said, right, everything’s about training, training people how to reciprocate. It’s not just enough to be friendly, and thank you. Like, that’s nice, we appreciate that, but our expectation is that it’s sometime during this process, you’re going to find somebody and you’re going to pass that referral to us. That just gets really clear and people know what you expect of them. It’s super powerful.
Jennie Wolek
Well, and if it’s a team, if you have a team like us a small team, we, you know, the agents are presenting the promise that the listing or the buyer consultation, then the the administrative person, whether it’s a transaction coordinator, or the listing manager is calling introducing themselves and say, “Hey, I’m certain that Nate shared our promise with you, that we have this goal of delivering…” and then it’s carried on that way and then it gets to where you know, closing happens and I call and I thank them again for allowing us. So how much accountability and checks and balances are inside of that, to ensure that we’re sharing with them our promise of some of the other things that I have written down that we talked about is surpassing expectations. So inside of a transaction, whether it’s a buyer or seller, there are lots of little opportunities for surprising and delighting them. Right? We know the goal is to get them the closing table. Can there be challenges inside of a transaction? Can there be stresses? Yes, yes and yes. And so why not surprise and delight them so something we just rolled out, which is super fun, is now we have an under contract gift. So whether you are a buyer that’s now under contract to purchase or seller who’s now got your home under contract and moved to closing, we take out five moving boxes and a little thing of some bubbly champagne to celebrate and we say: “Start packin. It’s time to start packing.” And so think of little ways inside of your current systems to add some fun and to surprise and delight.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, just do little things, right, that just absolutely. People are not expecting. I’d say it’s expected that you’re going to deliver the keys, right, it’s expected that you’re going to someone’s going to call the schedule closing but one of the things that they’ve never experienced before and they probably wouldn’t if they’re working with you and sometimes like you said, it’s not overly difficult things to wow people. Some of our best customer service experiences, somebody just went a little bit further. They didn’t go crazy. They just went a little bit further.
Jennie Wolek
Yeah, and I think something that comes up a lot are people’s concerns about a closing gift at the closing table and we do have some systemized gifts to grab and go. I really am a systems person. So I want it to be you know, easy and duplicatable. And of course, we can always plus that if needed when the client, you know, is needing of that. And then what we know though is that our life after closing goes on and on forever with them. We really focus on having database events, exclusive events for our top referring people. We know that we’re going to be paying them forever because we’re so grateful that they allowed us to help them so whether it’s you know, in then another thing that we do is we give back. I created a nonprofit that goes back to the community. So after closing, Justin, I call and say thanks so much for allowing us to help you sell your house. Something that really matters to us is giving back to our community. So who’s your favorite nonprofit that we may donate to on your behalf? And this surprises them and and of course, we’d mentioned it on the front end. They probably forgot. And so it’s just another way to be different from the average agent. How can you stand out and show that you care because it’s more than just a commission check to us. Whenever we help you buy and sell. We also get to give back to our community to give back to who you care about, and that makes us feel good and we appreciate you.
Justin Stoddart
You know, in the research that I’ve done, as I’m as I’m writing this book, I have been interviewing financial advisors, and others that have a more advisor type relationship with their clients. And I was actually interviewing a lender of friend of mine, who does a lot of work with financial advisors, and I said, What do you think the breakdown is between financial advisors being willing to refer real estate agents? And he uncovered something I think was was really interesting. He said, one thing that I found is that to a financial advisor, he said, he says this about real estate agents is that they have past clients. I don’t have past clients, you think about like the role of an advisor, they work with that client for for their entire life. Whereas in the eyes of a financial advisor, and as I interviewed over a dozen financial advisors, now, I found the same thing as like, yeah, like, real estate agents have a relationship with someone for three to six months when they need them. But afterwards, they put them on a past client list, think about the terminology, and they hope to stay in contact and add just enough value to where they use them again, as opposed to what you’re saying, which is you actually build a relationship with these people for life. These are my clients, right? Yeah like they use me once, they’re going to use me again. I’m their, like Ben Kinney said, I think it was last year’s Family Reunion where he said, we should be Wealth Advisors for people’s real estate portfolios. That’s not a transactional deal. That’s an ongoing relationship of helping people preserve and grow wealth through real estate. It’s a relationship.
Jennie Wolek
Wow. Yeah. And another piece that I’ll add is that, you know, how can we continue to add value to them. So you’re right. So if they were just a past client, we were transactional, and now we’re done. They stay in our database, and we’re still sending a market updates on what’s happening in real estate. Well, they don’t care about that anymore. So we’ve just really switched our videos, I send out two videos a month I use Vyral Marketing is the company that helps me with that and these videos are strategic and knowing what people care about. So I’ll interview local nonprofits and share how they’re giving back to the community and what they’re doing all interview local business owners I just didn’t want with the holistic finance planner here just recently that went out. And it was great because he thinks like we do, and we love giving back as well. We’ll Oh, the fun ones videos that I’ll do is I’ll interview a restaurant owner and or a chef, and people love food. So they’re gonna watch and care about that kind of stuff. And of course, every now and then we’ll do videos about real estate. And again, I’m with you, it’s like, if it has to be relevant and something that they care about, because otherwise they’re just going to tune us out.
Justin Stoddart
I was listening to a great interview earlier this morning between Tim Sanders who wrote the book, Love Is the Killer App, great book, by the way. And Todd Duncan, who’s kind of a famous mortgage trainer, who owns a company called High Trust Sales. Tim Sanders said, you know, as I ask real estate agents, what’s their biggest fear right now? He said, their biggest fear is everything is going automated, everything’s going technology. And they said, my follow up question to them is, well, how are you communicating with your clients. “Well, everything’s automated.” And he’s like, “Do you see the problem here? Is that the like what you most fear you’re actually competing at their level.
Jennie Wolek
You won’t win that!
Justin Stoddart
Right! Like you have the perfect home court advantage in that you are a human yet, all of your systems are designed to eliminate that from your system. Don’t do that, and you will win.
Jennie Wolek
Right? I mean, that’s when it comes to even implementing events. We just really started doing purposeful focused events over the past few years. And we’ve just grown them because we’ve kind of tested them with small groups and then grown and grown them and they have to be diversified. We have a family event at a local baseball field where that one’s really easy to talk with people and it’s family friendly. We’ve had more adult type happy hour events where you’re going to get a different crowd because your database and your people aren’t one size fits all. You’ve got families, you’ve got young families, you’ve got older, you’ve got all the different diverse groups inside of that so you need to be moving to fit their lifestyle and welcoming them and inviting them as well.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, really showing up as a human one of my agent friends here in Portland, he says, “While the world is doubling down on artificial intelligence, I’m doubling down on human intelligence.” You know, I like…
Jennie Wolek
Yeah, yeah…
Justin Stoddart
I love like how technology when it first, like 1.0 was like, let’s automate everything so that we can set it and forget it. That’s a great way to be forgotten but now I feel like, and in part because of the leadership of your company, it’s how do we create technology that takes care of the minutia, so that our people can go be people. I think it’s so powerful what’s happening with Command and I’m sure many more going to follow the lead. No, the goal is not to eliminate the people from the contact, it’s to get the people back into the contact. So we’ll use technology to get people out more, not in more.
Jennie Wolek
Yeah, data is key and we want to be collectors of that data. So if you’re a real estate agent watching right now I have a simple Facebook exercise that you can use as a way to collect data from your people that you’re already friends with. And so I just think that we think that we need to get creative or crazy or wild or weird and we know from The Millionaire Real Estate Agent that we just need to have a foundation for success and then we can sprinkle in some creativity along the way. And at the end of the day, people are like I don’t have anybody to call. Well, you’ve got 5000 Facebook friends, but somehow you need to find a way to connect with them on a more personal level and take your online relationship offline and that’s very simple, very simple to do.
Justin Stoddart
It’s interesting on on our birthdays, right, we all get like 100, 200 like how many ever birthday wishes. How many people call and sing Happy Birthday like I can count on one hand, and which ones do I remember? And I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for every one of you that wishes me happy birthday and I’m sure you are as well, Jennie. It’s just a marketing principle if your goal is to stand out, if you push a little ‘Like’ on someone’s Happy birthday, you’re one of 50, of 100. Right? The goal marketing is to standout, what’s something you could do again, by doing just a little bit more, like sending a text message or a quick video? It doesn’t take a lot to enhance relationships?
Jennie Wolek
Oh, yeah, that Facebook birthdays are the best opportunity to connect with people and you call them they’re shocked, that I mean, when they answer the phone and you say, “Hey, it’s Jennie with the Wolek Group. I’m just calling to tell you Happy Birthday. I hope you have the most amazing day ever.” They’re like “Huh, what? Wow. Okay.” But here’s the deal, you don’t ask for business. Right? You don’t ask for a referral.
Justin Stoddart
That cheapens it right.
Jennie Wolek
Oh, yeah. You are just telling them happy birthday. Same with your home anniversaries for your clients that you’ve worked with in the past. Call them on their home anniversary. They have maybe had just been thinking about making a move you never know.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah. I’ve heard it said that, like, make those phone calls. And you can’t talk about real estate unless they bring it up. Once they bring it up, absolutely if they have that need, but you’re calling to actually genuinely build a relationship with these people, like how are they doing? Interview them, like what’s going on your life? How are you? Or I’m calling to congratulate you. That’s it.
Jennie Wolek
Right? Well, I love it that you bring that up. And it’s so important because a lot of people get caught up on that. I don’t want to call people I know I feel weird. When you just call to say, “Hey, I was thinking about you and I’m checking in,” and now you’re going to learn in BOLD and there’s the thing called the FORD sandwich. That’s what FORD stands for. Family, occupation, recreation and dreams. All you have to do is go review their Facebook profile, see what they’ve been up to lately, and say, “Oh my gosh, that looks like so much fun when you guys went to the beach this summer,” you know, “How was that?”
Jennie Wolek
That’s it. That’s all it’s about. You’re about taking, you know, time to let them know that you care because you do care. This isn’t fake and cheap. You do care.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Yeah. And if you if you don’t, then maybe a different style of business would suit you better. But for those of you who care, actually love having deep relationships, and I would encourage anybody who’s been all in on the Internet lead gen, if you started doing these principles that Jennie’s teaching here, number one, I know your ROI would be a lot better and number two, I think your quality of life would would be better. You’d actually enjoy the work you’d be calling people who want to talk to you as opposed to those who don’t. That’s, that’s my take. So, Jennie, this has been so valuable. You are just such a wealth of information. I love the conversations that we have and and what you’re willing to share with people. It’s just phenomenal. I want to end with this question, which is the signature question of the show, which is, what does someone like you do, who is a big thinker, who spends their time helping other people think bigge, what do you do to continue to be a big thinker? What do you do to continue to grow and expand your own possibilities? Please teach us!
Jennie Wolek
I think it always goes back to that training, right, the training piece. So yesterday here in our local market, there was a Keller Williams, the all city event and I really hadn’t heard much about it maybe because I wasn’t paying attention. And so last minute, I chose to go and there were five different tables, six different tables of different topics on real estate, whether it was wealth building, or whether it was building a team or For Sale by Owners, farming neighborhoods. And I went as a student and I just went around and I learned new things and new ideas and I was fired up. And now I’ve got so many good new ideas to implement into my business. I just think that continuing to learn and grow is always key, and then have some kind of accountability around it. So now that I have these new ideas, I’m going to share them with my business coach, so that he can help me actually achieve them because sometimes as Realtors and our behavior style, we get excited and then we don’t follow through and have accountability.
Jennie Wolek
What a great idea because how many of us have and you look at my bookshelf pioneer like countless binders of notes, of good intentions. What a great idea though to say “Hey Coach…” have that accountability partner whether you have a formal coach or not. If you don’t I highly recommend one obviously you do as well Jennie. Or a mentor or a mastermind group, whatever that looks like for you say “Hey, here’s what I’m implementing. Here’s what I want some accountability on. Please follow up with me on this. Help me implement this.” It’s key.
Justin Stoddart
So good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Again I want to thank everybody for tuning in today. If you found value in this please do Jenny and I the favor of sharing this out. Let’s not keep this secret. Let’s not keep Jennie and her amazing gift to train and teach and share openly a secret so please, please help me join her group and share the stuff that she shares because it is it is gold. And then if you want show notes on this, you can go to my website, thinkbigger.realestate, where you can get a weekly update. summary of the shows that I’ve done and the amazing nuggets there, including amazing ones like Jennie’s. So Jennie, thank you again so much for your time and my final request of everybody listening today are three simple words and they are GO THINK BIGGER. Thank you so much, Jennie. It’s always so much fun to talk with you.
Jennie Wolek
Thank you so much, Justin. It was fun. Bye.