Matthew Rathbun Hello everybody and welcome. I am Matthew Rathbun and my co-host is Kimberly Allard/ And we have a great guest today. So let's go ahead and get into it. Kimberly, how are you today?

Kimberly [00:00:35] I'm fabulous. Thank you so much. And even if I wasn't, I'd probably say I was fabulous.

Matthew [00:00:41] You know, I mean, we do have to put up a front, right? Nobody wants to listen to us talking about our woes on a podcast.

Kimberly [00:00:46] I will tell you though I look fabulous today. I'm just going to say that because nobody will ever know. I'm just going to say I look fabulous.

Matthew [00:00:56] You are. You're sporting a trucker baseball cap and very chill where you are right now. So I know we're holding you up from getting back out on the boat. We were talking a bit about the before we started recording about things just going on in the world and conversations that we have very often over a couple of drinks in between conference meetings as we're traveling. I really feel like a lot of my learning development has come from those conversations. So we want to continue that here. 

We have, as I said, a great guest today, Adorna Carroll, the one and only is with us today for our inaugural episode here. Adorna and Kimberly and I are all part of Dynamic Directions where Adorna is the co-founder and president and a ringleader of the crazy monkeys and clown show that we are. We have the great conversations and we are all also instructors with the Real Estate Business Institute. And Adorna is a past president and very, very active in the leadership role even now. 

So, Adorna, how are you?

Adorna [00:02:04] Doing great. This is going to be fun.

Matthew [00:02:08] For what we'll be allowed to leave in the podcast. It'll be great. It will be great.

Kimberly [00:02:13] Right, right. It'll be interesting to see what makes the final cut here. 

Matthew [00:02:18]: So you're fresh back from a trip. You just, you and a couple other folks just were in in Italy, right? How'd that go?

Kimberly [00:02:24]
Right. Yeah. You know what I am in in.
00:02:29 Kimberly
I believe you need to smell the roses. I like to work hard and play hard and so I give 110% to everything I'm doing at that moment and I built in some trips this year specifically so that I could enjoy friends, family, different places.
00:02:50 Kimberly
And he just gained some, not only some different perspective on life and living, but, you know, also, you know, seeing how folks, you know, manage their lives and manage their work life balance on top of it as well.
00:03:06 Matthew
I find it interesting that you go on trips to connect with your family. I go on trips to get away from my family.
00:03:15 Kimberly
They send you on trips.
00:03:18 Matthew
Yeah, my years ago my I was on travel and the Bahamas Association Realtors call and said, hey, can you can you teach this date in November for him? And I quickly said yes because I realized it was the week of Thanksgiving. So I call my wife and like, hey, we're going to be in the Bahamas the week of Thanksgiving.
00:03:19 Kimberly
Ohh God.
00:03:36 Matthew
About then the association director down there June, she called me up and she said I just realized that's the things giving holiday in America. I'm so sorry. We booked it. I'm like, no. Why do you think I said yes so readily? Like, so Jennifer and I got to go and spend Thanksgiving Day eating.
00:03:52 Matthew
At an all inclusive resort in the Bahamas, while I worked very hard teaching during the day and and eating at night. And it was the best Thanksgiving ever. No politics, no, no diplomacy. And you know, oh, gosh, work took me.
00:03:56 Kimberly
On.
00:03:58 Kimberly
Aye.
00:04:06 Matthew
Away. I'm so sorry.
00:04:08 Matthew
All right. Well, let's get into the question. So this is, you know again, you and Kimberly both have an extensive level of experience as leadership where we all have been brokers in our firms, too much lesser level. I've been involved my state, local national committee work and and leadership the the two of you have.
00:04:26 Matthew
And past state presidents and Kimberly, you were regional vice president for AR. I mean we, we have a lot of experience and leadership across the board and a big core value of of the real estate business institute is that we support brokers and team leaders and and we all support association leaders. But before we get into those questions, I have one really important question.
00:04:48 Matthew
For you, I want you to settle a debate.
00:04:51 Matthew
If you're an instructor, teaching virtually, and a student is from another country in your class, does that make you an international instructor?
00:04:59 Kimberly
No. See, I told you that you needed to be eating ethnic food to be an international instructor during your class. See, Matthew, I told you.
00:05:13
Why?
00:05:14 Kimberly
Oh my God. Who would say something ridiculous like that?
00:05:18 Matthew
There are no rules in this. Yeah, no.
00:05:23 Matthew
Well, no. You've got instructors advertising their international instructors because they left Kentucky to go to Georgia and they think I think a globetrotter.
00:05:30 Kimberly
Right.
00:05:34 Kimberly
Facts matter. OK, that's all I'm going to say. Facts matter.
00:05:38 Matthew
Right. So your position is and I think this is Kimberly's position is you actually have to step foot on foreign soil and do it for a fee in order to get to be titled in a national instructor. Is there a number of times you have to go another?
00:05:44 Kimberly
Correct.
00:05:51 Matthew
Truth.
00:05:52 Kimberly
No, not necessarily. I don't really kind of look at it that way. You know, I'm going to say be careful what you wish for because that is very intensive and it your fee if you're looking at your fee on an hourly basis or a daily.
00:06:12 Kimberly
Basis or something like?
00:06:14 Kimberly
And then you're not going to use that opportunity to do any personal travel over there. That really cuts into the, you know, fee that you thought you were getting. And most of the international groups are selling their location more than they are ponying up for money, so.
00:06:34 Kimberly
You know, if you kind of put all that in perspective, you could be working for, you know, literally 2, you know, 2 chickens and a nickel here and not make any money at all. But, you know, claim you're an international trainer, so.
00:06:48 Kimberly
You know, I think that's the only thing when I say be careful what you wish for. I think the experience is wonderful, but the travel can, you know, the commute can be a real killer and it really eats into the amount of business that you can do if in fact that's how you want to earn your money.
00:07:05 Matthew
Yeah, well, I I won't fold transparency. I don't make money when I go internationally because I want to cover my wife's travel expenses to go with me. And you know, right off the difference. So.
00:07:14 Kimberly
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:16 Kimberly
Yeah, totally.
00:07:17 Matthew
Yeah. Alright. Well thank you for that. Alright, so let's jump in there. Just just to think about this for a minute. You know, we are at this very transitional period in, in the industry. You know we we've been around for a very, very long time and it's not simply about the DNR settlement or buyer.
00:07:38 Matthew
Agency. So tell me a little bit about your experience as a leader. So what you know, I I looked a little bit of the just a real brush stroker, but what has been your experience as a leader and and even you coach leaders right you you work with them and associations?
00:07:49
Mm-hmm.
00:07:51 Kimberly
Right. You know, I, I, I loved my leadership experience at all levels because I was a local President 3 * 2 times too many. As far as I'm concerned, I was a state president like, you know, in the late 90s.
00:08:13 Kimberly
Regional vice president in the early 2000s and then started, you know, I was a liaison 3 times and kind of like a VP 2 times. So I served at the pleasure of five ending our presidents. I think the value.
00:08:30 Kimberly
In all of that is that you, you know, each of those presidents chooses different teams, and even on my state level, I was working with different people. So my goal in leadership is to be in a room with people that are way smarter than me because I look at it.
00:08:49 Kimberly
As an opportunity to expand my.
00:08:56 Kimberly
Background perceptions of what reality are, and to listen to different points of view and then assess what is going to make the best decision or the best position for whatever we need to go for. And wherever you know whatever level I'm on.
00:09:16 Kimberly
And that's really been the key as I've developed leaders coming up, some people deserve an opportunity. Everybody deserves an opportunity, whether they.
00:09:28 Kimberly
You know, grab at the brass ring, however, is a different question altogether. So when we're doing leadership academies, for example.
00:09:38 Kimberly
We're doing those to vet.
00:09:42 Kimberly
The people who say they want to be leaders, some of them never will be, and some have the talent to move on and you know, leadership is so much about character and integrity, something that is missing in today's society to a great deal and.
00:10:02 Kimberly
Not everyone has those tools in their bag.
00:10:06 Matthew
Yeah.
00:10:08 Matthew
Kimberly, what are you seeing? And you're we're, you know, we're all kind of traveling all over the place and a lot of people are looking for direction right now. Are you seeing the same things that the door is?
00:10:18 Kimberly
Well, you know, leadership is 24/7, but it it also has a season and the season typically being the fall and preparing leadership for their next year. Sometimes it moves into January and February for the year.
00:10:35 Kimberly
But for the most part, you know, doing a we all do a lot of that leadership type of training and preparing in the fall. So you know I'm I can't tell you I even remember what happened yesterday. Never mind last fall. But for the most part. And Matthew, you and I had discussed earlier that, you know, there is no playbook.
00:10:55 Kimberly
For this.
00:10:56 Kimberly
It's a we have so many members and we're trying to appeal to as many of them as we can, which is a whole different skill set. We're trying to look respectful and knowledgeable and set the good example, and that's a whole other skill set. And then we're trying not to mess up as leaders. And I think that.
00:11:19 Kimberly
Any insight to how to make this year the best it can possibly be is just is embraced by the folks, at least the ones that I've bumped into, because as I've said and I usually start out every class.
00:11:36 Kimberly
Most of my content here comes from all the mistakes that I've made. I'm no better and I'm no worse than any one of you. I just am here to share my experiences and hope that you don't make some of the same mistakes and maybe you can learn from some of the successes so you know what an opportunity we have. We've got so many leaders in our organization.
00:11:57 Kimberly
So many members, and really so many different ways to accomplish.
00:12:03 Kimberly
What it is that we need to do so I I feel like you know, we give them the basics and then.
00:12:09 Kimberly
You know where they choose to go from there is really up to them.
00:12:13 Matthew
I love that you guys are sharing your own failures experiences. I like to share your failures as learning experience with my class too.
00:12:13 Kimberly
Well.
00:12:14 Kimberly
Know part of the.
00:12:22 Kimberly
Part of the problem in all of that is you can have a best plan in the world and you know, map everything out and then something comes from left field and then you have to deal with a critical issue.
00:12:33 Kimberly
And that's when you see whether you have the right leader at the right time for the right reason, for the right thing, you know, and not everyone can rise to that level. And that leadership is hard. Anybody can do it when it's easy and everything flows. It's when that there's controversy in a marketplace.
00:12:53 Kimberly
When there is dissension of opinion, when you know people are, you know, like I will say with the settlement, the rug pulled out from under them, you know, do they inspire, do they guide, do they are they have a command of the facts you know are there are they just making this crap up as they go along.
00:13:11 Kimberly
Long and, you know, do they have a full spectrum of information that will allow them to free flow as they go through this stuff because you know, as we know, the answers aren't crystal clear.
00:13:30 Matthew
You know the the thing that that really has dawned on me, all this is, is and it's always been the case, but the importance of your association staff being good leaders too, not just supporting characters in the.
00:13:39 Kimberly
Yes.
00:13:40 Matthew
Story and you know like at our BI we have, Jenny Sharpe is unbelievably good. I I am a true believer that she could fix anything that she was given the responsibility to fix. She's absolutely amazing.
00:13:51 Kimberly
She's a brilliant leader.
00:13:53 Matthew
Yeah, unbelievably good. And and a good template that I wish all staff, you know, association CEO's would be my local association. I was on the search committee for that. We replaced someone been there for decades who was phenomenal.
00:14:05 Matthew
Later, it was time she retired. We found a really, really good replacement for, but incredibly different personality and skill set to still lead us through at a nonprofit. I was on the search committee for our CEO there, who just turned the entire organization around within months by a different philosophy. Even though we the volunteers are giving the direction and supporting them.
00:14:27 Matthew
It's important from the top down and I feel like sometimes so much of our focus and leadership training is on the volunteers who will be there for two years at the table, not necessarily on our staff, who is the constant and it makes a huge difference.
00:14:40 Matthew
And we've seen, you know, national and local. We've had some not so great and some great leaders. And I think they stand out in times like this it and really kind of migrating to another conversation topic here is that the NPR settlement has been what a lot of people are focused on, but it really it is not the only thing that's a problem.
00:14:46
Right.
00:15:00 Matthew
Like I just got done cutting for my company. You know, we we have.
00:15:03 Matthew
11 locations over three States and and 250 to a little bit more than that with staff and agents, and so I can't do a one time class for one topic. And so we were doing our forms committee well, the forms, the new forms are clearly being modified because of the NPR settlement. But they're also being modified for a long list of regulatory changes have been in the works for years.
00:15:24 Matthew
Before you know, finally man.
00:15:25 Matthew
Best thing we have, we're writing policies as broker for AI, which is I think a much bigger deal. It's both a blessing and a curse to our industry and that brokers are not paying attention that associations are not paying attention to that. What are some things, how how do you both think leaders should be prioritizing?
00:15:32
Yeah.
00:15:46 Matthew
Some of the changes going on right now and and what?
00:15:48 Matthew
What?
00:15:49 Matthew
If you were.
00:15:51 Matthew
You know King for a day or queen for a day as the.
00:15:54 Matthew
Case may be.
00:15:54 Kimberly
Wait a minute. I'm not.
00:15:58 Kimberly
Wait, wait a minute, please. Got the bus up here.
00:16:00
I need this.
00:16:02 Matthew
The second that analogy came out of my mouth and like ship, Kimberly is gonna be all those things. So impress, impress for the day. Queen Kimberly here. Yeah. I mean, what? What, what? What direction should we going? How do we decide what we should be attacking?
00:16:07
Right.
00:16:18 Matthew
Right now? Well, you know, I just.
00:16:22 Kimberly
It's a great question and if I had the answer, I might be queen.
00:16:25 Kimberly
For the day.
00:16:27 Kimberly
I really think that there's so many people working with our leadership and and I think that's great. We can always improve our leadership.
00:16:36
Skills.
00:16:37 Kimberly
I think we need to see where is the.
00:16:40 Kimberly
Biggest impact going to happen if we have 1.5 million members.
00:16:48 Kimberly
If we can get to those Members and get them.
00:16:53 Kimberly
20-30 forty 50% more information than they currently have. Imagine how fast.
00:17:01 Kimberly
The industry changes the knowledge changes the professionalism changes. You know there's an expression I used to work in the hospitality industry and it said.
00:17:11 Kimberly
You've got to serve the masses to dine with the classes and I think you know that said a lot of things and it may not even be relevant here because I'm full of useless references. But you know it just reminds me that it's really important. It's really important to reach the masses.
00:17:31 Kimberly
To have a tremendous impact.
00:17:33 Kimberly
Act so although I know that there's a tremendous amount of leadership training and we do a good portion of it, you know, we also have to be mindful of what messages and how do we get to our masses.
00:17:47 Matthew
I'm willing to be wrong here, but I I have this mentality that I can't shake and and I've we've all been through tons of drought planning. We've led through planning sessions in different.
00:17:55 Matthew
Areas.
00:17:56 Matthew
I think one of the biggest mistakes I personally see is this desire to reach the 1.5 million and I think that sometimes we leave that 20% who really get it are there for the right reasons behind because we're trying to.
00:18:07 Matthew
Each everybody. I don't know. What do you think of?
00:18:09 Kimberly
Well, I think that, you know, never let a good controversy get in the way of what you're trying to accomplish. And so I have always used, you know, like a controversial topic as the mechanism to.
00:18:29 Kimberly
Atra.
00:18:30 Kimberly
Act the interest of the basic practitioner that's out there in the field. That's not really paying attention. So you know we have a singular opportunity. And what I'm going to call an event level extinction that is happening with this, you know, settlement.
00:18:50 Kimberly
And you know, depending on the state and your business practices.
00:18:54 Kimberly
This truly is the opportunity to not only utilize this controversy to communicate with people in your membership at all levels. OK, but now to have a value proposition package to bring to their attention.
00:19:14 Kimberly
Because you finally got their attention. So you know whether it's through training, whether it is through seminars or workshops or, you know, general member forums or whatever.
00:19:27 Kimberly
This is the opportunity to because that you have their attention to now bring in the other things. The association actually does for them and to highlight some of the other.
00:19:41 Kimberly
Issues that are at hand that may not be, you know in neon lights like the settlement really is.
00:19:50 Matthew
You know, it's funny. You're talking about the extinction level events that happen, and I I find that I'm segmenting that on the different parts of of who I have to be, who, who? Each of you have to be. So as an instructor, we're trying to save the people who are in front of us. Right. Here's the best path. Here's how you save your business. Here's how you serve the consumer well as an association leader.
00:20:00
Right.
00:20:10 Matthew
My work at the RBI borders and and my local association and committee work. I'm trying to help the industry, but really my, you know my day-to-day is trying to help the agents of my company and those are very different.
00:20:23
Right.
00:20:24 Matthew
Print extinction level events because we could do a great job of moving our industry into a very new, very positive future that's going to be profitable and and that person, an agent who didn't have a fighting chance because of their position in life at this very moment, didn't survive to see it because we as brokers weren't focusing on.
00:20:45 Matthew
On how to run our company. And so I don't know, I think I think both of you probably share that same division of mindset about what an extinction level event actually looks like for that. It's a very strong language and you know, it's talk to us a bit more about what what you mean by that, what do you see happening? What if we don't do X?
00:21:02 Matthew
We don't survive this.
00:21:04 Kimberly
Right. Well, if if we don't learn, you either adapt or die in this business. And I have seen a wide variety of changes in the market environment, especially since I'm teaching in all you know, 50 states. So I go state by state, by state and everyone's got their.
00:21:24 Kimberly
You know, state regulatory issues and you know their business concerns and things like that, but we're faced with.
00:21:35 Kimberly
A business change like no other, and you know I'm going to say the fish stinks from the head in leadership. You have to get from the top down to your largest brokers to your smallest brokerages. And if you are not putting that on your front burner.
00:21:56 Kimberly
As a strategy, you completely missed the point. And so when we're looking at the largest brokers down.
00:22:05 Kimberly
If they don't get it, no one's going to get it. OK, so I have been dealing with large brokers that are putting their head in the sand. They're a bunch of flipping ostriches running around right now, thinking that the sky is not falling and that nothing's going to change. And they're going to continue to do business.
00:22:27 Kimberly
The way they did back in 1960, well, you know what? Knock yourself out. You're an idiot. Good luck to you. Bye. Bye. OK. And I feel really bad for the agents that are in your firm because I can train those agents all day long. How to do?
00:22:35 Matthew
But it's not like.
00:22:42 Kimberly
Use today's skills for tomorrow's business, but you're still wrapped up in, you know, backroom deals, and you know, office exclusives and pocket listings. Well, you know, when that market changes, you're going to be Sol. Now do I care?
00:23:02 Kimberly
No, couldn't care less. But you know what? That's what's going to start to thin the herd is people who have the inability to look at the reality of business in front of them.
00:23:17 Kimberly
And deal with today's realities, not yesterday's realities. And that's part of leadership, too. Do you see the handwriting on the wall? And do you have the intelligence and the fortitude and the flexibility to now reinvent what needs to be reinvented?
00:23:38 Kimberly
To do tomorrow's business instead of yesterday's business.
00:23:43 Kimberly
That's it for me. It's kind of simple.
00:23:48 Kimberly
We're not going to be able to save them all.
00:23:51 Kimberly
No.
00:23:52 Kimberly
Some of them can't save themselves.
00:23:54 Kimberly
Exactly. Kimberly, they can't do it. And you know what? Now I'm not going to shed a tear because the reality here is if we thin the herd, that's not really going to be.
00:24:05 Kimberly
A bad thing?
00:24:07 Kimberly
You know, I realize that all the budgets for local States and the national are built on numbers, but there is a mindset out there that says, you know what, we don't need 1.6 million Realtors. You know, we could deal and do business effectively and ethically.
00:24:26 Kimberly
And more productively with less and not have to deal with the driftwood that we need to Co broke with. I was reading something that's a shock for you, but I was reading something. I I was going.
00:24:42 Kimberly
To quote the.
00:24:43 Kimberly
Author. But then I know I just do it wrong. So you.
00:24:45 Kimberly
Know one of the.
00:24:47 Kimberly
You know somebody that's in the know.
00:24:49 Kimberly
They said that you know, a third of our Members and probably not our Members, but our licensees nationwide don't even sell a house and a third of them sell a couple of houses and a third of them make a living.
00:25:04 Kimberly
And for the most part, it's the 2/3 that don't really sell much that are willing to take risks that put this entire industry at risk. Whereas the folks that are.
00:25:19 Kimberly
Making a living are not going to take risks for one sale or or just risk their entire license in their career, so they're practicing ethically. They're practicing legally, and they're doing the right thing and there's a lot of them, but there is a certain group of of licensees that just say, look, I I.
00:25:38 Kimberly
Need that one sale and I will do anything to get it. And you know, describe what do anything means is probably differs from scenario to scenario. But you know you hate to see anybody.
00:25:52 Kimberly
Not succeed, but there are just like you said, there are just some people that are not willing to do this to be successful. They any industry for that matter, any industry. But there's going to, you know, let's face it, there's going to be a lot of backlash to anyone in our industry saying that we could do without the driftwood.
00:26:14 Kimberly
Because they're going to say it's self-serving.
00:26:16 Kimberly
And we sound like we're just trying to get a bigger piece of the pie.
00:26:19 Kimberly
And you know.
00:26:20 Kimberly
Let's just let's just put it on the record now. I don't need a bigger piece of the pie. I don't need to eat anymore than I already do. But what I do need is to make sure that anybody else that's eating pie, you know, their pie isn't rancid.
00:26:35 Kimberly
And it's it's it's a big issue and I think any industry, but especially ours, you know we may we may see some fallout and.
00:26:45 Kimberly
We hope it's not the good ones, but who knows? We'll see.
00:26:49 Kimberly
You can't call it a profession if the people don't behave professionally.
00:26:55
Yeah.
00:26:55 Kimberly
And when you start to look at that, you know you can identify as we all can people in our market environment that.
00:27:06 Kimberly
You know would do anything to clock in a sale and and they don't cooperate on even on a human level with other people. And it makes it very difficult because they are not highly skilled at all.
00:27:26 Kimberly
And that makes it very difficult because you can't do business with people that don't know what they don't know. And that is part of the role of leadership in making sure that the people that are in that association have actual knowledge instead of making stuff up as they run around.
00:27:45 Matthew
Well, and I I do think some of our NRA NR, NR settlement and other issues are going to help with some of this. You know, you're you're giving out some numbers there, Kimberly. We were talking.
00:27:54 Matthew
About, you know, success rates, I think somebody said 43% of agents completed fewer than one sales last year and this industry for good or for bad is something that the on the job training is how you learn to develop skills.
00:28:06 Matthew
And if you're following kind of that mindset, you know, we have 1.5 million members give or take. I hear different numbers every day. There are 1.4 million active duty military people protecting the country. So I don't know that we need 1.5 million Realtors protecting there's there's, you know, there's just not enough business to go around. But this comes back to the broker position, you know, recently.
00:28:24
Mm-hmm.
00:28:28 Matthew
Was watching his company. They launched a new branch and the broker that they appointed has zero production and has been a dual career agent for a long time. May have exceptional leadership skills, but I would be very cautious as a brokerage owner at this incredibly pivotal moment.
00:28:48 Matthew
To put people in a leadership role because have good leadership skills without the talent and experience to guide agents through what comes next and and what's happened here is, you know, we could talk about the non producing agents and that and there is an influence of them in the marketplace that I think has a negative impact impact on the consumer.
00:29:07 Matthew
But this our settlement stuff this now that I've got to go to a buyer and say this is my service fee, this is what I'm worth and there's going to be cheaper people and you're free to go work with that. You get what you pay for.
00:29:17 Kimberly
Right.
00:29:18 Matthew
Changes something. I've always had an issue with in our industry, which is no matter how good or bad you were as a buyer agent, the compensation was the same.
00:29:26 Matthew
And now we're going to be able to articulate value over experience and skill set and designations and training. And you know, to impress that person at the table to justify a better fee than perhaps someone who doesn't, doesn't have that same resume.
00:29:41 Matthew
But really, to me it's the the brokers level that that we're app we've misclassified.
00:29:48 Matthew
Leadership at firms and we've called them brokers or managers or leaders when really all they did well was recruit. They didn't do anything after the agent signed, they weren't doing the training, they weren't doing the, the coaching, they weren't doing the follow up, they weren't equipping, they were good recruiters and we've called them brokers and lead.
00:30:07 Matthew
And then we try to hold them accountable for the behavior of the person that they brought on, when really that's an entirely different skill set that is rarely held by the same person. Being a good recruiter is not very often the same thing as being a good a good person. Investing in the agents. And so yes, I think we're probably going to see a decline in membership.
00:30:28 Matthew
And we do when the market changes and and and any big change, this one significant.
00:30:33 Matthew
But I'm hoping we're going to see a change in the mentality of both association leaders, you know, people who are stepping up and saying, I want to lead an industry.
00:30:41 Matthew
We've had a lot of people who just wanted another social gathering and a title. Yes, I'm on the board of directors. My association. You're step if you're stepping up right now to to run for board. And I we're in June as we're recording this. So we're about a month away from most associations looking for the next year's leadership.
00:30:48
Right.
00:30:58 Matthew
You need to know, it's highly likely you're going to be part of a lawsuit. It's highly likely you're going to be hated by some of the members. It's not like it used to be where being on the board was just a nice thing to put in your e-mail signature. It's real work and and we need to be equipped for being real broker. Real real leaders, not just having a brokers license, not being recruited. Real leaders in our company.
00:31:11
OK.
00:31:19 Matthew
And.
00:31:20 Matthew
Doing the hard work of managing change. What are you guys doing? What are you teaching and what are you actually doing in your companies you know, either as the founder and President of of dynamic Directions, or Kimberly as a broker at your firm? What are you doing to equip the agents for what's coming next?
00:31:40 Kimberly
Well, I I think there's just, you know, there's so much, it's endless. I mean, first of all, sharing resources that NPR has already created at facts aren't real. Tour is, you know, why reinvent the wheel? You know, whether you're a broker in a large brokerage or a small one, those facts are are appropriate for everyone, I think.
00:32:01 Kimberly
The big idea or what's important?
00:32:05 Kimberly
Is to stop the fear.
00:32:07 Kimberly
Let them know this is serious. These are practice changes.
00:32:12 Kimberly
The the other message I've been trying to tell people is that you've been doing this for years. You have the skill set right now to do what you what you've done with sellers for decades. You just need to do it with buyers now, Matthew, you just said.
00:32:30 Kimberly
You know, we and I forget what you just said, honestly, but it was something that was it, it was going to tie into what? Where I was going with this. But we have had to, oh, I think it was compensation compensation for buyers agents, you know, for years you might have just taken what some other brokerage told you you were worth in the MLS.
00:32:50 Kimberly
Now, if you really provide exceptional services.
00:32:54 Kimberly
You can charge for those, or you cannot. I mean every, you know, compensation is negotiable as it has always been. But if you are an outstanding sellers agent working for an outstanding brokerage, providing outstanding services, you, you literally can set your own fee and you are always could.
00:33:15 Kimberly
But now, as a buyer agent.
00:33:18 Kimberly
You're able to go in with that same philosophy, that same set of ideas and goals and say, look, here's what I bring to the table and here's what I deserve. So the fact that this is good for the consumer and good for buyer agency, you know that's what I'm trying to practice. And then when people start to panic, I say look.
00:33:39 Kimberly
You've been negotiating your fee with sellers for years. You can do this. So just trying to, you know, talk them off the ledge and remind them that they already have the skills.
00:33:52 Kimberly
I think that's a really good point because you know Kimberly's correct in the fact that the objective right now is to take the fear out of it. But you know, if you are in a state in which you have not practiced, you know, contractual by your representation with a number in that agreement.
00:34:13 Kimberly
Prior to showing property.
00:34:15 Kimberly
You know you have a great deal of fear because obviously you've never experienced it, so you imagine all the monsters coming out of the closet when in reality you just need to look at the states that have been doing it forever. And, you know, they have already dealt with all of the problems that you would be concerned about.
00:34:35 Kimberly
And no one should be teaching you.
00:34:39 Kimberly
To how to do contractual buyer agency if they haven't done contractual buyer agency? I mean I think that's the thing that irritates me more than anything else is that you got a lot of folks running around telling people how to do business when they haven't done that business at all and how can you really learn from them?
00:34:59 Kimberly
Because they can't tell you that. What they're where what you're worried about really is a non issue and that other States and other people have already figured that out.
00:35:10 Matthew
You know, I we're talking about value here and I've seen as if you a lot of information, a lot of people who you've never heard of before, who are all of a sudden all of a sudden value gurus and they're just like you just have to be able to communicate your value at the table at the meeting. And I just want to say I that's not.
00:35:26
Right.
00:35:30 Matthew
Where the value point is being one.
00:35:33 Matthew
We have 74% of knowledge workers in the US are now using AI to for marketing, content, for promotion or whatever, and they're out cranking out content. They're cranking out better BIOS and good SEO and to be found, I don't think 73% is likely real estate agents, but it is in knowledge workers, marketing firms that you've hired, they're flooding the.
00:35:53 Matthew
The Internet.
00:35:55 Kimberly
Mm-hmm.
00:35:55 Matthew
With answers to questions for buyers and and and the pace that they've never wanted to before, the consumer has a ton of of data. They need a guide.
00:36:07 Matthew
As part of the buyer process, we look at consumer journeys, we we know Google and and they are partnered a couple years ago to do a report and back then and I think the number is higher now this a few years back, 63% of consumers said they googled their agent even if they knew them before the appointment. What that consumer sees about you and I online how what information we're providing that is unique.
00:36:28 Matthew
Outside of all the noise from all these other content generation machines out there, the professionalism, the fit and finish of your your website, your because we know 71% of consumers judge a business by their website, another 69% of consumers.
00:36:45 Matthew
We look at reviews of a product or service before they they hire all this is what Google calls the 0 moment of truth. In other words, that interview isn't at the table. That interview was before you got there. When they googled you and looked you up and and saw what you're putting out in the marketplace to help guide them through the next process. Giving market statistics doesn't make you a marketer because everybody's doing that.
00:36:55
Right.
00:37:05 Matthew
And I think those are some of the things that we're kind of as we're looking at this transitional period.
00:37:10 Matthew
Agents have always felt they had value because they had a license and the buyers were like, hey, I'll meet you at the house and let's just go look at a property and and then the buyer tripped into a buyer agency agreement into a contract into a closing. Now that's come out of their pocket. They're going to be far more discerning.
00:37:29 Matthew
And that, that, that battle is going to be won online or in the responsiveness of your e-mail and the quality of content you said to have before the meeting.
00:37:38 Matthew
And those are the things that very practical things that I think are being left behind by these, you know, again, just communicate your value and and then they are published. It's a good helpful list for your marketing or content. But it's like I don't know 184 things.
00:37:52 Matthew
Or.
00:37:52 Matthew
Something that agent does, a listing Agent 110. I don't. I'm making those numbers up.
00:37:56 Kimberly
179 for the seller, 105 for the buyer.
00:38:00 Matthew
OK. Yeah. So there you go.
00:38:05 Matthew
The buyer and seller, if we are all checking that list, see this all the same and they're looking for that 10% difference between me and the other agent they're talking to, right. And it could be the the swiftness and by which you responded to them, the knowledge you, you displayed it before that meeting, all the rest.
00:38:23 Matthew
And I I really feel that that's where leadership both as association leadership.
00:38:28 Matthew
And as broker leadership could really be shining more than we are by equipping them to be 10% different to win that business.
00:38:35 Kimberly
I think what you what you said about you know we've always known that our online presence is important and you know that could be a an episode in itself. But you know what you're saying is extends to these chat groups and these mastermind.
00:38:55 Kimberly
Groups and all these other things that people are out there making comments and they don't.
00:39:01 Kimberly
I don't know if they understand the gravity of being in these groups and making statements or being in the group. Even with people you may know what you're saying, but if the people you're surrounding yourselves with, don't you know there's a huge problem with that and that's just contributing to the problem we have in our industry so.
00:39:21 Kimberly
You know, I just wanted to throw that in there. I mean, these are just such big problems for us and for brokers, you know, if your agent is going out to the Internet to ask a group of licensees that they've never met.
00:39:34 Kimberly
And have no idea of their background, skill or qualifications for ideas. You know, we've got some problems.
00:39:41 Kimberly
Right, the crowdsourcing is only as good as the quality of the crowd. And when you're in some of those groups, I mean, like they're they're just. Aside from the fact that a lot of the comments are being used in court against us, there's a lot of inaccurate.
00:40:01 Kimberly
Information there and no good leader gives out.
00:40:05 Kimberly
Bad information or inaccurate information so you know it can be a real time suck when you go in there because you can't argue with an idiot and a lot of them have no context whatsoever on what they're talking about. None. There's. They're not rooted in law. Their comments are not rooted in code. They're not even half the time rooted in reality.
00:40:28 Kimberly
So if that's a problem, I don't know, whoever runs those groups, I mean, that's got to be a full time job.
00:40:36 Matthew
Yeah, I look, I there is no masterminds in this mastermind group. That's true. I mean, there's probably some smart people in there, but they're typically people who have the entire day to sit around in Facebook message or not people out producing and selling and and building a script. But you know, recently there was a conversation, it was about diversity on Facebook and somebody posted, you know, that's the the saying that you hear.
00:40:47 Kimberly
Right.
00:40:57 Matthew
Go woke and go broke and I looked up their production because they're in my MLS and they haven't produced anything in two years, so my presumption is they're the most woke person that's ever practiced real estate. But I.
00:41:09
Like.
00:41:10 Matthew
I just cringe when I see an agent now asking what a good CRM recommendation or what is some of your lead generation tools all day long Crowdsource the hell out of that.
00:41:20 Kimberly
Right.
00:41:20 Matthew
Well, when I see them ask a question about a transaction, there's like 3 things to come to mind. One, you don't do enough business for me not to figure out who you're asking about at some point. #2.
00:41:30 Matthew
Where the hell is your broker? Because the second you've asked that question be Crowdsource.
00:41:35 Matthew
The the anybody with a good legal mind is going, that is going to be a contributing, evidential element in a court case, to your negligence that that that is something you or your broker should have known and clearly you didn't have the the availability of the broker to ask them. Therefore you ask competitors and the agent in Texas who's trying to help help you in Virginia handle.
00:41:55 Matthew
Their escrow issue is not going to be liable for the information they give, but you're liable for the practice that you enacted because.
00:42:02 Matthew
Of it, none of it's good. And as you alluded to it or now we're seeing some of those, those social media posts being used as evidence in some of these court cases, but but.
00:42:12 Kimberly
Right.
00:42:13 Matthew
How can you go? I I I left these groups and and I think we've all talked about this, you know.
00:42:17 Matthew
Get over drinks.
00:42:18
Mm-hmm.
00:42:18 Matthew
You leave and you leave loudly because not one of these groups have I not been the one identify just.
00:42:24 Matthew
In cursory view, antitrust issues the second someone says I hate this online company or I hate this broker and the second person agrees or says I don't use them. You've started down the antitrust path and it doesn't help your business to do that. It doesn't change the need on anything. It takes away from going out, finding consumers who you should be talking to.
00:42:37 Kimberly
That's right.
00:42:45 Matthew
So anyways, I have a. You're right, Kimberly. We could do a whole episode on this, but I think I just did the summary of that episode is.
00:42:53 Matthew
Talk to consumers that makes you money talking to other agents creates liability.
00:42:59 Kimberly
Or talk to, you know, talk and with the exception of, you know, your own brokerage might have their own network or your own association might have their own online network that's monitored for these types of infractions. And you know, that's a safer environment and likely a group of like minded professional knowledgeable.
00:43:19 Kimberly
Ethical Realtors. But yeah, you're not going out on social media and and.
00:43:25 Kimberly
Getting crazy ideas from people that have reckless behavior and don't even know how reckless it is.
00:43:32 Kimberly
Right. Well, even the associations when we're doing the leadership training, we're advising against any.
00:43:39 Kimberly
Groups group Convos because it it goes sideways in a heartbeat and and and you don't even realize it, so everything has to be delayed just to be vetted to see whether it's legally appropriate or not.
00:43:53 Kimberly
Otherwise you're just creating another platform and exposure and and that's what's really problematic. Now you want to talk about your networking events and everything else. You know, that's all fine. But the minute you start having topical conversations that are with business competitors, all bets are off.
00:44:14 Matthew
Yeah. Umm, so other than obviously listening to us because we're freaking amazing.
00:44:25
Right.
00:44:26 Matthew
Just keep pushing replay on this podcast. What what should association leaders, brokers where? Right now? Where's a good place for them to get more information to, to to know what's going on with, like, a reliable source and to be able to get resources to help run better associations or brokerages?
00:44:44 Kimberly
If we're looking at where people get all their information, you get them from.
00:44:49 Kimberly
All of the pundits, all of the periodicals within and association from your regulatory body and your licensing Bureau, OK. And then you have some municipal.
00:45:08 Kimberly
Ordinances that pop up that affect all things real estate. So when you start looking at all of those lanes of information, all those lanes of information have a different perspective. They have a different content, they have different relevance.
00:45:25 Kimberly
And it's important for us to be on top, honestly, of all of that and then to know what reality really is and clearly the mothership, you know, has all their platform laid out, as does the state associations when it comes to.
00:45:46 Kimberly
Land use regulatory issues.
00:45:50 Kimberly
Licensing issues and other things like that. So what do leaders need to know? They need to know everything, otherwise you don't know anything at all and you have to be able to identify what will be blowing up and on fire that you're going to have to pay attention to. With all that said on any given day.
00:46:09 Kimberly
When you make decisions, you're going to **** somebody off. And so if you're an individual that needs to be liked, probably board work is not for you.
00:46:19 Matthew
Yeah, I'm someone who nobody likes. So board work is clearly the right gig for me. But no, no, there is a there's you have, you know, we all have our fans and detractors. I assume you know, there has been and we have to be honest about this. There's been some broken trust between associations and several different levels.
00:46:36 Kimberly
Yep.
00:46:39 Matthew
As I've said, you know as much value as I found in the association, I feel like been historically great at communicating. You know, the list of best practices and tools and resources. It's a lot of other things that kind of.
00:46:51 Matthew
Like that. So I don't know what do you guys think? What, how do we as brokers you know we have to we have to be able to engage those resources until you're talking about how do we amend the trust issue that's been breached here.
00:47:06 Kimberly
Well, you know, life sometimes is difficult.
00:47:10 Kimberly
You know I.
00:47:12 Kimberly
I don't know. I mean, I think our Members have a lot on their plates to navigate and you know, it's like life when somebody has done something to betray your trust, you decide whether you move on or you try to mend that relationship. And a lot of how you react is based upon what's happened to you.
00:47:32 Kimberly
Some people are great at forgiving, forgetting and trusting again and giving second chances.
00:47:37 Kimberly
You know, some people will just, you know, put you in cement shoes and you'll never be heard from again, you know. And I think there's everything in between and every single person is going to handle this differently, I guess what I look at is what can I control and what I can't control. And I do want to believe people, and I do want to believe that they're doing the right thing and I guess.
00:47:57 Kimberly
At the end of the day, am I better off without my trade association, or am I better off with them? And that's a question everybody has to answer and I know there are some very strong opinions out there. I I have described it this way, you do not.
00:48:16 Kimberly
Find out that a tree fell on your roof. Run outside. Look up at your roof and see the tree is crashed through your second floor. You know there's sparks flying from the electricity. There's water pouring in from a leak, and then you don't run into the house and cancel your homeowners insurance. You know, you survey the landscape. You make sure that you do whatever.
00:48:38 Kimberly
Literally, and make sure you do so whatever you can to make sure it never happens again.
00:48:45 Matthew
Very descriptive.
00:48:47 Kimberly
Yeah, very descriptive for sure. You know, I the trust thing is losing trust, gaining trust, etcetera. I just want to kind of take a step back because some people don't deserve any trust at all. And when I look at, you know, the.
00:49:06 Kimberly
Chronic complainers. OK, they have a self-serving motivation.
00:49:14 Kimberly
It's all about them. It's whatever serves their purpose, and if there's a narrative or there's a policy or there's a procedure that doesn't float their boat, you know, now they're the squeaky wheel and I do not believe in bending to the will.
00:49:33 Kimberly
Of a vocal minority.
00:49:36 Matthew
Yeah.
00:49:37 Kimberly
I have to look at as a leader where my Members are.
00:49:42 Kimberly
What the what is best for the common good? And if someones pisssed off and aggravated on a particular day and wants to claim that I've breached their trust, we'll screw them because the reality is you just didn't get your way. Now you're acting like a 2 year old and you're expecting me.
00:50:03 Kimberly
To like feel bad for you. Well, I don't. So this is the part of leadership that's hard and that is realizing that integrity matters. Character matters.
00:50:16 Kimberly
Issues do matter. What serves the masses? What is going to be the path of least resistance? What has you know, ramifications that are not going to open up an entire new can of worms and create a whole nother area of problems? It's all unintended consequences.
00:50:36 Kimberly
And a leader has the ability to realize there's a lot of ways to solve a problem, but only one of those solutions is going to create the least damage.
00:50:47 Kimberly
And if that person is not looking through that lens, then we might be better off with someone else at the.
00:50:55 Matthew
Helm. So you know one of.
00:50:58 Matthew
My.
00:50:59 Matthew
Personal traits that I'm not a fan of, but I I have no interest in in changing is that I am very quick to forgive and I I have a hard time.
00:51:07 Matthew
Holding a grudge. I just. It's just not something that's in me. But I also try to look at the totality of that person. I know I have failed people in time. Over time, I have not been the best friend that I should be or the best brother or even husband or or parent or whatever.
00:51:21 Matthew
But I feel like those people closest to me have said OK, you know, if we're keeping score, he's better. We're better with him than without. And. And this goes back to an earlier statement. I said where I don't think associations, local, state and national have ever done a particularly compelling story about what their value is. You know, NPR state.
00:51:28 Kimberly
Right.
00:51:40 Matthew
Goals. They have protected consumer rights and and end our industry and created a path over 100 years that we have enjoyed up to this point and now it's time for a change. The consumer is changing because their behavior is changing. The media is telling a different story than the reality. You know, the courts are are siding with.
00:51:53
M.
00:52:01 Matthew
You know poorly executed agreement and some of them are actually. I mean, there's some legitimate beefs against the industry that that I think it was time for a change.
00:52:11 Matthew
All in all, you know I far find far more value in my membership in my association, in my franchise, in my brokerage, than I have failures. And so I tend to move on quickly from that and I understand some people can't because of other experiences in.
00:52:24 Matthew
Their.
00:52:24 Matthew
Life. I do think part of being a leader is helping guide people.
00:52:25 Kimberly
Right.
00:52:29 Matthew
To resources, tools and services that will make their careers better and and help them realize the long term goals that they have and short term goals that they have and. And I think those systems are there if we avail ourselves of them. So I appreciate you know both of you, you're inviting Kimberley's.
00:52:33
OK.
00:52:43 Matthew
Tree crashing through houses is a very violent and vivid analogy.
00:52:48 Kimberly
You're. You're welcome. You're welcome. Please.
00:52:52 Matthew
But it it it's meaningful, right? I I did not go out and go. I'm not at the insurance company because of the impact of the tree. I mean that's why I had that insurance there and that is a good resource there. So we want to wrap this up. You know we've we've been chatting about a lot of stuff. We've covered a lot of mileage here again. Donna, thank you for visiting us today.
00:53:12 Kimberly
My pleasure. Thank you.
00:53:12 Matthew
And have like it's out there. I wanna. I wanna end all of our episodes with 11 tool or resource that you can direct members, brokers or agents.
00:53:22 Matthew
You.
00:53:24 Matthew
That can make their lives better. So we'll start with Kimberly. What's 1 tool resource? It could be app or service that will make careers better.
00:53:32 Kimberly
Hold on. I wrote it down.
00:53:35 Kimberly
Oh, OK.
00:53:37 Kimberly
Thank you for the question, Matthew.
00:53:42 Matthew
Because it wasn't scripted at all.
00:53:44 Kimberly
It wasn't scripted at all. Thank you for that question. Off the top of my head.
00:53:50
And.
00:53:50 Kimberly
I had. I knew you were going to ask this question. Let's not kid ourselves. So what I thought was really something that we all should have to help our.
00:53:59 Kimberly
Business is some type of mechanism to gather reviews. I know a lot of people send out emails and say review me here, review me there not a lot of people have control over their reviews. They have them on a third party website that they may not own or have any control over what's done with them. Grab control of your reviews.
00:54:21 Kimberly
Put a system in place. I like a formal system. I happen to use.
00:54:27 Kimberly
What do I use? Real satisfied. There you go. I use real satisfied. Whether you pay for it or whether you.
00:54:34 Kimberly
I think it's worth it. Puts all your reviews in one place. It shares your reviews to a number of different places and gives you your own agent slash broker website so that you know somebody you're out there trying to.
00:54:48 Kimberly
Discuss your your services and your value and you've got 120 testimonials online that's going to speak volume. So that's just my tip for the day. Everybody should have something that they can point their potential clients to to talk about what it is that they do and how many satisfied customers they have.
00:55:06 Matthew
That ties into what I was about earlier with, you know, that consumer is looking you up. Whether someone recommended you or they knew you and your reviews, especially on you know Google reviews and and Zillow and all the rest does make a big difference. How about you, adorna?
00:55:21 Kimberly
You know what? I'm going to be real basic here. You know, I I did write down real satisfied. I thought that was really awesome. But I think the the best tool that I can say that's important is actually know your own license law for real and actually know the real code of ethics instead of making that.
00:55:42 Kimberly
Crap up as you go along.
00:55:45 Kimberly
Everyone in business either knows what they're talking about or they don't, and those of us that know what we're really talking about know when the person across from us doesn't, and all they do is embarrass themselves. So, you know, I think in business you need to know what you know.
00:56:05 Kimberly
Instead of think you know what you know and and that to me is the most important thing in any business career. You need real facts. You need real information. You need a command to that real information. Otherwise you have 0 credibility.
00:56:23 Matthew
Yeah. Look, just to piggyback on that, the number of times someone has declared something unethical, that wasn't against the Code of Ethics or was actually actually a great, I'll use this real quick, you know, 113 and 115. The seller has a right to disclose it in some states, the contents and existence of other offers, I don't know this only in the seller's best interest, but it is in some situation they.
00:56:42
Right.
00:56:45 Matthew
Good negotiation.
00:56:46 Matthew
Tactic and listing agents will go. Oh, it's unethical to do that. Well, no, it serves the seller's interest better in the right scenario. So absolutely right. I do have just me. I do have on my phone and my iPad. Both our state law and the Code of ethics because we reference it so often. Right? And having that really available, those are. That's a great tool.
00:57:06 Kimberly
Highlighted.
00:57:10 Kimberly
Red pen. Blue pen. Yeah, I actually, I travel with the paper copy of the code because I interpret it to the language that resonates with me in the in the, in the borders. And then I do. Yeah. Same thing. Travel with license law as well in a Dropbox folder.
00:57:27 Matthew
I feel like you print it out on parchment paper and like just use a lighter on the edges to make it look all fancy pot and so you can pull it out in class.
00:57:35 Kimberly
It's actually a scroll God.
00:57:37 Kimberly
Alright.
00:57:38 Matthew
All right. Well, mine is perplexity dot AI. This it's kind of a new AI tool is a free version. It's very powerful.
00:57:46 Matthew
I feel like this is going to be the future of Internet search. What perplexity AI does is you can go and ask for a a topic. Recently I said, you know, I want to do something, I want to create content for buyers about what they need to know when buying a house that has solar panels. And I just asked perplexity dot AI, hey, what do you what should a buyer know about this topic?
00:58:06 Matthew
What perplexity does is.
00:58:08 Matthew
Go through all the Internet searches, bring back a like a conversational guide and it's bullet pointed. It's well formatted, but it cites each paragraph or element that it makes in there as to where it got that information. So historically, if I go to Google and say and ask the same question, I get a bunch of links. Some of them are.
00:58:22
That's awesome.
00:58:28 Matthew
Maybe knowledgeable. Some of them aren't. I gotta click on 10 links to get the content.
00:58:32 Matthew
I need this summarizes all that content and then gives me again the citations and if you do pay for it and I'm not quite, somebody needs to pay for it, yet I'm still playing with it. It'll actually start creating a document you can use for marketing. It uses AI to generate the graphics, then diagrams to go with what you're trying to do. I think as a broker, as an instructor, as an agent.
00:58:54 Matthew
There's a lot of value here. As a broker I can prepare for for my meeting on Monday and I can get some information about a given topic and then I have to vet it or anything with I I'm still liable for and you gotta check the work, right? You not always be the greatest content, but at least it gets me started as an agent. It's good for blog posts or buyer consultation guides to cover these things.
00:59:15 Matthew
And as an instructor, it's just really good research tool. You know, instead of clicking hours and hours clicking on Google and trying to vet whether they're recent or 30 years old or or accurate. So that's mine. It's the perplexity. dot AI is my favorite tool.
00:59:29 Matthew
This week. So.
00:59:32 Matthew
With a wrap up again, thank you Adorna for visiting with us. Thanks Kimberly for being an awesome co-host and for laughing both before and after the episode of We'll making fun of ourselves for weeks doing this the Be Ready Podcast is sponsored by the real Estate Business Institute and the phenomenal organization delivering exceptional education designations.
00:59:50 Matthew
And training. I hope if you are a member of RBI, you're availing yourself of the tools that you get after the class, including micro learning sessions.
00:59:57 Matthew
Downloadables and other content and that you will join us for our next episode. We'll be releasing these episodes basically on whenever we have something to talk about, so don't plan on seeing them every week. We'll just put them out there when there again. Thank you so much, everybody and we're done.