In this episode, Pres and Linda McKissack discuss seven important things to consider in the new real estate era.
Summary
In this episode, Pres and Linda McKissack discuss seven important things to consider in the new real estate era. They emphasize the opportunities that arise from change and the importance of focusing on what remains constant. They also highlight the significance of relationships, training, and leadership in navigating the changing landscape. The McKissacks encourage agents to connect with new agents and productive agents, as well as consolidate relationships with independent brokerages. They conclude by reminding listeners that their success is determined by their response to change and their ability to build passive income.
Sound Bites
Pres McKissack
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Profit Share Mastery podcast. We're your host, Pres and Linda McKissack. And on today's episode, we're excited to dive deep into talking specifically around seven important things as it relates to profit share in the new real estate era. So Linda, let's go ahead and get started. How are you doing today?
Linda McKissack
I'm doing fantastic. Super excited. I'm going to be headed your direction Monday to have a great week with new opportunities we're providing for teams. So looking forward to that.
Pres McKissack
I know I love it. We're going to have a good productive week and I'm looking forward to our conversation today. You know, as we've had a conversation quite a few times now talking about just the new real estate era. It's the conversation that everyone's talking about. We had a meeting last week with a lot of the leadership inside of Keller Williams. And one of the things that stood out to me was we had Steve Murray come and he talked specifically around the changes that are going on in our industry, how it's impacting real estate agents and brokerages from all across the industry. And what was interesting is something he said that hadn't struck me before. We've experienced change in our industry many, many times. The difference is that change wasn't permanent. And we're moving into an era where we've got some permanent change that's looking to happen at the end of the summer. And that is causing a lot of stress, conflict, chaos, if you will, right?
AKA we're just experiencing change in a way we haven't in a long time, if not ever. So let's kind of talk about that today. Give me your first take on the new real estate era we're all moving into.
Linda McKissack
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, well, what comes to mind immediately is, first of all, Jeff Bezos, and I think Warren Buffett has said this before too, don't focus on the things that are going to be different, but focus on what's not going to change, right? And we know still people want to buy homes and all of those things. But I think, and I was talking the other day on my other podcast, Everything Life in Real Estate, we talked about scary times, and we kind of went through what do most leaders tell you during scary times.
And one of the things, that we have to do as leaders is we have to forget about the difficulties and focus on progress. We also have to don't think about what's gonna change, think about what's still gonna be the same and what those opportunities are. And there's always opportunity. So I think it's a huge opportunity for recruiting, probably never a better time, because the other thing Steve said is the one secret weapon we have that we always have and we just keep making better is our training. And I think, you know, people, they're going to look for training because they need training around how to handle the new normal.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, absolutely. So if you're following along at home, right, we said we have have seven important things, right? So the number one you nailed it, Linda, is that change creates opportunity. So when you when you, you know, you you're privy to a lot of really smart people. Dan Sullivan, John Maxwell, give me their take on what they what's their advice to you, because I know you've had a couple of conversations with them about changes in our industry and just change in general.
What's your best advice around how to handle change?
Linda McKissack
Well, I think, number one, you do this for yourself, these things, but you also, in doing them for yourself, you model them for other people. And I think in scary times or changing times, people look for leaders. They look for people who they can feel, make them feel hopeful and make them look at the positive and not the negative. And, you know, again, you know, one of the things, and I think it was Dan that said, Dan Sullivan said this, forget about...who you were and focus on who you can become. And so as you do this yourself, it's a great opportunity to help other people. When you're having a conversation with a potential recruit, the last thing you want to do is go on and on and on about what's different and how it's changing and all those things, but help them see and focus on the future. And what I'm excited about is these new tools that we have at KW.
What I'm excited about is the opportunity we're gonna have in a very complex subject of real estate to help people navigate these new opportunities and new changes. And I think when one door closes and others always open. So I think there's gonna be opportunities that none of us can see right now because the change hasn't happened, but when it does, it's gonna force us to look outside the box and create more and different opportunities that may wind up being a lot better for us in the long run. And we're gonna definitely get really good at sharing our value.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, I love that. Let's talk about number two. Number two is the importance of relationships. As I think about that, Linda, I go back to when you and I first started teaching around profit share, we taught what you did, right? When you built your profit share inside of this company, you did that through the influential agent formula, right? Which we teach, which is relationships plus validity, plus value gaps over time. That is the formula of how you do that. And...in this change, one of the things you and I've talked about is that relationships are not going to become less important. They're going to become more important. So give me your thoughts on that.
Linda McKissack
Yeah, so true, so true. And by helping yourself by focusing on others, you're gonna build that validity and you're gonna be able to recruit people. But a really good example of that, press, I still do that today. I went to a Realtor function, I very seldom go in my hometown anymore, because I'm usually always traveling to Ohio or somewhere. But I went to a board function, they were raising money for Habitat for Humanity and went to the board function and ran into a girl that I actually started my real estate career with, and I always tell the story about how affiliate paid for me to go to a Mike Ferry seminar and it was a game changer for me. Because we were $600 ,000 in debt. I didn't know how to sell real estate. There wasn't a lick of training anywhere. And I was desperate. I mean, because I'd only made about $3 ,000 gross. And so I went with this friend.
Pres McKissack
Jimmy always reminds us that that was real gross.
Linda McKissack
Yeah, it was gross because he spent about $15,000 for me to make $3,000 while we were $600,000 in debt. He wasn't like in the direction I was helping us get to. That math wasn't working well. So anyway, Shelly went with me to the seminar and we made a pinky promise and I was reminding her of this at lunch the other day because after I saw her at the board function, I invited her to lunch. But we pinky promised we would go out to the desert to Mike's event.
Pres McKissack
Math wasn't working well.
Linda McKissack
And I always tell the story that she gave up because the times were scary and they were changing. And she went and did what we call, she got a real job. And that left me to go to the seminar by myself. But the good news is I made Jimmy go with me because she wasn't going. And it was a game changer. It totally changed the trajectory of our life when we got out there and met Tony DiCello and met other very high producing people and showed us a vision or a hope that if these people can do it in scary times, surely to God we can too. And so, but the point of this is, is, you know, she went on to do, do REO property because we had a great relationship. She passed one to me that was the $15 ,000 one that we talk about in the hold book. And we always tell the story of that we still own today. And then later, because she stayed at the competing company I was at and I went on to do Kelli Williams.
You know, later she became like, right now she's a manager of an office right across the street from the office we own in Denton. So her and I went to lunch and because I have the tool of the KPA, she's gonna retire from that job and she's gonna look for something else someday. And so I said, well, what better way for me to help you figure out what you would love to do? And so we are doing the KPA. Just got it back yesterday.
I'm doing a Kolbe Assessment. I already had my assistant set the next appointment with her. But I've kept those relationships. And I don't know where it's going to go. I don't know if we're ever going to work together. I don't know. But I do know this, that number one, me helping her is not me thinking about what's changing, right? And me focusing on that relationship and using the tools of a KPA and the career visioning process.
You know, I have great tools to help a person who needs to try to figure out if I don't do this in my life someday, what would I do? So, I mean, honestly, it just works like a charm. She's got a value gap. I got a tool. I've got validity. You know, it's just making the system work all the time. I never stop doing it, and it never stops working.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that's so good. Well, let's talk about the third one. The third one is the importance of training and leadership. It's interesting, you know, when it's funny how some sometimes I feel like when, you know, being an original director, I'm privy to a lot of conversations about people trying to recruit our agents, us trying to attract and bring over agents who aren't with us. And inevitably you hear from some of our competition that they devalue the leadership of our company.
And I've just, it's so interesting. I've, I watch the most successful companies out there. I've watched Keller Williams being just a juggernaut of a company. I just don't understand how you can not value leadership leadership. Now, when it doesn't, when leadership's not good, it hurts, but when leadership is strong, it makes all the difference in the world. So give me your perspective and take Linda on the importance of leadership. And then let's talk a little bit about training.
Linda McKissack
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Okay, well, I think especially in scary times, leadership is important. People are gonna look for leaders, and they're gonna look for people who actually can make them feel hopeful, can see the opportunities, can help them navigate the change. So there may be times when people don't feel like leadership is as important, but I think it always comes back to people will look for leadership when they don't know what else to do or they need help in making the change. And change is scary, but the good news about change is when it happens, it makes other change easier. So you want to take advantage of an opportunity that is changing because it's easier to go ahead and change something else. So if the whole market's going to change, I might as well change what brokerage I'm with. So it really creates a big opportunity.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, well, I think about as it relates to leadership, Bob Kalinske in our meeting last week said a manager lights a fire underneath someone and a leader lights a fire inside of someone. And it makes it makes all the difference in the right time, right? Whether people do what they need to do in order to get what they want to get, right? As Gary teaches us. All right, let's talk about number four, which is leaning into relationships with new agents. You know, when I think about
Linda McKissack
Mmm. I loved that. That was beautiful. Yeah.
Pres McKissack
This, Linda, the new agent coming in is not going to know the difference between how things used to be or how things are going to be in a couple months. And they're just going to adapt and they're going to work. And there will be people who have great careers after all this change. And there'll be some who choose not to, but the new agents are not going to anything different. So talk a little bit about your thoughts on new agents coming into the industry and how do you think they're going to fare in the new environment?
Linda McKissack
Yep. Yeah, well I just told you the story. I got in and it was 18 % interest rates headed to 21. You had to talk sellers into paying 10 points. And houses didn't sell for a year to two years. So you had to keep sellers happy for that period of time. And Shelly had been in longer. So what Shelly did is she bailed and went and got a real job.
And what I did was I figured out... What do you do in real estate? How do you work real estate? So it'll be exactly like that now. New agents don't know what it was and they don't care what it was. They just want to know how do I do what I need to do now so that I make money? A good example of this is using KScore, I recruited a girl from my stretch lab recently and she said some people, consumers started saying to her, well, aren't you afraid? What about this new change? Whatever she goes, I don't know what it is and I don't care. You know, so, you know, it's just irrelevant because she didn't know how it was.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that's really good. Gosh, there's something I was gonna, I wanted to say for perspective, what's the most listings you ever carried at one time?
Linda McKissack
100 listings, 100 listings, 100 listings, yeah. Yeah.
Pres McKissack
Can you imagine that an agent today with a hundred active listings? I mean, there's a few in the country who sell a whole lot of homes, but vast majority active listing. That's crazy.
Linda McKissack
Well, here's the thing, but I usually go against what everybody else is doing. And I learned that a long time ago. I don't even know who taught it to me. But you hear Warren Buffett, you hear a lot of really smart people say it. When everybody else is selling, you should be buying. Well, and when the listings are tough and some of the instructors were telling everybody, hey, talk to them on the phone. If they can't afford to sell, don't go.
Well, that didn't match who I was. I would just always go in just a lot, a little less time because I knew if I could get in front of people and meet people, they might, and even if I had to say, hey, we're not gonna be able to get you out of this house. We got a couple options. We can rent it. You can bring money to the table or you can stay here and wait this out or do whatever. And those people appreciated so much.
that I was willing to be there with whatever the solution needed to be that later they just began to list and list and list and list. And when it's hard to sell listings, you're gonna have plenty of them if you work it. And I just always work the listings. I'm always about freedom and leverage. And when I figured out that listings were more leveraged than buyers, I just focused on listings, yeah. You have to get really good at your conversations though, because you have to have them every week with people.
Pres McKissack
Really good.
Linda McKissack
And every week they want to figure out a reason that it's your fault their house isn't selling. And you got to figure out how to have this conversation with them, explain the market and explain how to get, you know, we need to, the market's speaking to us so we need to lower the price or whatever. And you just figure it out, you know, it was the market we were in and I just learned how to work it just like the new agents of today will do.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that's really good. And I think you, not to get too far off, you know, talking down this side, I just, it's so interesting to me because we're moving into a new market and a lot of people who are listening to us either work with real estate agents or are real estate agents. So I think it's still relevant as it relates to profit share, but a lot of that has to do with positioning. It's how you positioned yourself. If you position yourself like you're the one giving them the price, you're in trouble. But if you position it like it's the market and you're the... you're helping them navigate the market, then you're on the same side of the fence as they are. And you're helping try to get them to the best outcome. And it's not your fault if the house is not selling. Where I think a lot of people go wrong as they make it. It's like, this was the price I gave you.
Linda McKissack
Mm -hmm.
Well, it is your fault if you don't try to get them to reduce the price and get to a price where people feel like it's, yeah, it is your fault. And matter of fact, there's so much opportunity when the market, and you know, it may never go back there. We may always have a shortage, but I am noticing, and we just, Brad, I was talking to Brad the other day, we were at a closing together, and he said that it's really funny, the really good houses are flying off the market, still with multiple offers, and then you got houses that if they're not like perfect,
Pres McKissack
That's a good point. That is a good point. Yeah.
Linda McKissack
The buyers are being very unrealistic and walking from the house. So that's a whole new skill and technique. But here's the beautiful thing, whatever the market is, is if you learn how to work it, that's a great tool to offer to help somebody else with so that you help them with their value gap and build that relationship. And that's the beginning of how you bring them over to Keller Williams.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, love that. All right, number five, get in relationship with productive agents, right? We talked about new, now let's talk about producers. When, when, I love Gary says change is inevitable. Participation is optional, right? When, when stuff happens, when change happens, it, it causes the foundation to shake a little bit and it causes agents to look around and reevaluate if they're getting what they need in order to navigate the new reality or if they need to make a change. And so there's never a better time than when change is occurring in our industry to have those relationships and be investing in those.
Linda McKissack
Yeah, and you could just do care calls right now. You could just say, hey, press, this is Linda. You and I did a deal six months ago, whatever. I'm just kind of, I love this industry, and I love what we do and what we stand for. And I know that there's a lot going on and a lot of probably changes coming down the pipeline. I'm just wondering, how are you doing with it all? And you know what? Let them talk. They're going to tell you where they are. Well, honestly, I'm a little nervous because.
My brokers not spoke a bit about what we're supposed to be doing. Now you got a value gap. You know how you can drop something into it. Or you may just, they may just feel better talking to somebody else about it. So I wouldn't hesitate to do care calls and not expect a thing from it. But I'm gonna learn a lot from making those care calls to people. And one of the things that it was either John (Maxwell) or Dan (Sullivan) said, I think it was John, be careful on, be easy on the predictions, but high on the hope.
You know what I mean? So don't even let them stay in that spot of, you know, it's gonna, you know, the sky's falling in, it's gonna be terrible. No, no, no, look, here's some opportunity that we're probably gonna see, you know. At least have some hope to point them towards.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that's really good. All right, so let's move to number six, consolidation of big brokerages. We're going to see Indies and a lot of agent, big mega team agent movement. So give me after hearing Steve Murray last week, what are your thoughts on that?
Linda McKissack
Yeah, I love it. Well, one of the things he said is he's never been busier. He actually had to come out of retirement and Steve. For those of you don't know, Steve Murray is the guy that independents call when they want to make a change, either with their brokerage, merge it, sell it, do whatever. And so he's had to come out of retirement because he's gotten so many calls. And this is what I'm talking about with change. So who do you know that's an independent that you can have a relationship with? Start those relationships right now. He said probably third, fourth quarters when it's going to really get two people and independence and so he said start those relationships now and that's what I would say is, hey, do a care call to independence because they're making, I think he said what 18 to 20 a month is he's getting calls from.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, he said, but in independence between 25 and 150 agents are struggling to make money in this market. They don't have a good model. They don't have a good system. They're missing what we have at KW, which is an amazing network and also model in order to allow them to survive and thrive through the changing times. And I thought that was.
Linda McKissack
You know, and I used to have three things that I was always looking for when I made calls to my database. Business, referral, or at the very least, I wanted to strengthen relationships. So if you made calls to realtors, one of the benefits that you might get if you don't get them as a recruit is you might get somebody who's willing to is get and get out of the business and they might either refer you to their database or maybe come over and work with you for a couple years to eventually have you work their database.
There's so much opportunity and I wouldn't be attached to what I think it is with each person. I'd just make the conversation start and then I'd learn from each person what the opportunity is.
Pres McKissack
Love that and Steve gave a great rule of thumb. Don't call an independent brokerage owner and tell them, Hey, do you want to sell your business? Do you want to merge your business? That's probably not a good start to a conversation and or relationship. Make it about, make it about them, make it about help, make it about support or pick. It's what you say, Linda. The two best ways to start a conversation or what? A compliment or ask them their opinion, right?
Linda McKissack
Mm -mm. Yeah, yeah, compliment the genuine and real, because people can see through made up. And ask their input and thoughts. That's what I would do. Hey, crazy stuff going on in the market right now. You and I did a deal, or I was just thinking about the industry as a whole, and I'm just kind of making random care calls, because I want people's thoughts on what's going on and what they're struggling with and what's going on. Because I wouldn't say, hey, somebody said Steve Murray said you are going to all want to sell. I wouldn't do that.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that's right. That won't work. All right. The last, but certainly not least is it's not the market. It's you. And this was something that, someone who's in our industry, I respect a lot said on Facebook the other day, and it's just stuck with me ever since, you know, again, there's a lot of conversations right now, a lot of fear, you know, people frustrated about what's going on. And at the end of the day, what the market does does not have to determine your outcome. You determine your outcome based on how you respond and how you show up. And this is true for profit share. This is true for, you know, helping build relationships with agents. If you think it's all doom and gloom, you're going to shy away from continuing to build your profit share. You know, when times are of change, like you're going to have people, if you've added people to your downline, you're going to have some get out.
But guess what? Like this is, you're playing the long game. This is the long game. And so you keep at it. And I promise better days will come. There'll be a bigger, brighter future. And if you stay focused, remember Keller Williams ads between 50 to 60 ,000 people every single year. And Linda, all of them have one common denominator. And that is that they pick a sponsor. The question is, are you going to be the person who introduced them to the company or not? Cause they're coming one way or the other. And I think that's an important reminder because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what's going on in the market, your ability to go produce, to build your wealth through this company, it's on you and it's your decision whether you choose to or not.
Linda McKissack
Mm -hmm. Yeah. So true. And you know, Pres, I think it would be good. I think paralysis follows fear. And so change your state. If you're frozen and panicked and you can only see bad of what you think is going to happen, either get around to other people who are thriving in it or read something or watch something motivational. I was saying the other day, Martha Stewart is my new girl crush.
I've been watching her master class. I mean, there's just so much hope everywhere when you look around. Gosh, look at all the opportunity that she created twice, once after going to jail. So I mean, it's like, there's always opportunity, but we're not gonna see it if we just keep our eyes to the floor. We gotta look up, we gotta look around, we gotta get around other people, we gotta watch motivational stuff, we gotta read motivational books. And I'm not talking about just motivational, I'm talking about stories where you hear that other people had adversity. I mean, when I talk about this in my strategic coach, which is all entrepreneurs, not a single person acts surprised by it. Their industry has been here too. And they said, we just figured it out and we survived. So we gotta stop thinking that this only happens to us. It happens to lots of big industries.
Pres McKissack
And a lot of them say they came out on the other side better.
Linda McKissack
Yeah, and I think we will too. And I think we will too.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, absolutely. So again, I hope you've enjoyed today as Linda and I have talked through these are seven important things that we think matter as it relates to the new real estate era that we're all moving into. Today's a message of hope. It's a message of participation in the change and realizing that it doesn't have to define the end of your career. It actually could be the start of a new beginning.
And, so a couple of things real quick as we wrap up here, Linda, number one, if you like this podcast, please go and share it with another KW agent. and, or, anyone that you think would benefit from it, we, Linda and I do this because we love it. We are going to continue to beat the drum of building wealth of this amazing company, because we believe. Profit sharing KW is the best, best wealth building vehicle in the real estate industry. also, if you wouldn't mind, we would, love for.
for you to go to profitsharesites.com. If you want to learn more about how we help those in KW get serious about building their downlines, we have an amazing system that Linda myself...
Linda McKissack
Which by the way, someone just hit us up at Mega Leadership and said someone in their office just started using it and got their 27th person already. So this system works, so congratulations Perez and Josh for putting that together.
Pres McKissack
Yeah, that was pretty cool. We had Mr. Mark Wise came up to me and just thanked us for what we've built. One of his agents in his office, Adam Nye, I think was who was he's added his 27th person into his downline, which is so cool. Like just to think about how people are growing their profit share today at such a fast pace, much faster than then growing their downline, much faster than a lot of people have in the past. So it's exciting. It's fun. If you want to learn more about how to do that, profitsharesites.com.
Linda McKissack
Exciting.
Pres McKissack
And Linda, in closing, what do you want to share?
Linda McKissack
You know, I just want to say it's passive income makes everything better. Everything better. I used to tell agents, if you've got 10 pendings and one falls out, it's not that big a deal. But if you got one pending and it falls, it's a big deal. Well, you could look at the same thing with passive income. If I've got multiple streams of income and one of them dips down for a few years until we figure things out or whatever. So what? So there's never been a more important time for you to understand the importance of passive income. And we have the greatest tool and the greatest opportunity on the planet. All you gotta do is join the movement and let's go change lives, build wells, and leave a legacy.
Pres McKissack
All right, Linda, we'll see you next month.
Linda McKissack
Well, I'll see you next week.
Pres McKissack
We'll talk to everyone else next month. All right. See you. See ya.
Linda McKissack
Yep, see you next month.