All right, so it's up everybody here again on another episode of Eli and Mike and we have an amazing guest here from the state of Alabama We have Ricky Carew. What's going on? Hold on what did you say? Bama, okay, so it's a short for Alabama I guess Alabama's are the only ones that can say that right Which is so crazy because I we never knew that you're from Alabama, I don't know if you get this a lot Right no, yeah, Cali. I was either California or New York. I was like he's from one of these like Maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, where are you from and what do you do? Alabama so it's like there's Florida and then like the beaches of Florida extending to Alabama Uh-huh miles of white sandy beaches that look exactly like Florida, right? So there's like Destin Panama City for Walton, Pensacola, Florida, and it goes right into Orange Beach and Gulf Shores It's just like beautiful and people don't know about it, right? Because it's like Alabama and you think Alabama and you think like, you know Redneck like Country, you know, that's what you think of okay, okay I didn't think of beaches right when you said it. No, no, nobody does right But like we have seven million visitors every year, which is more than Hawaii. Wow It's insane and what's a good place to visit in Alabama? Is there is there even a gold shores, Alabama Gulf Shores, Alabama is the place to go Yeah, that's okay because it's on the beach like the food's amazing. It's spread out Like Destin is an island. That's very compressed. Okay. It's very compact like it's it gets jammed up Right Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Bully is north of there and it's like you can breathe Okay, okay Like this little island that you're kind of like locked into when you go down there and you're born and raised here born and raised there Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I was actually born in Huntsville, which is the very top of the state Okay, right. That's my mom and dad are from right and then they moved we lived in Birmingham Which is in the middle of the state will live for a while I actually lived in Oklahoma City for a while when I was really little and we're in Birmingham Till I was in about fourth grade. Okay, and then we moved down to the beach and when I was in fifth grade is when When I was we moved down to the beach.  What was your perspective coming out here to Kelly? As far as what as far as it are you looking to are you surveying the area to buy more real estate? I get like I travel two to three times a month Speaking all over the country to just okay agents Every event I guess so I'm a real estate agent like I have one of the largest followings of real estate agents, right? Fantastic, and it's very It's a very niche following right right. It's real estate agents All right Here's a real estate agent saying Mary do you have any children? Yep, Mary for five years. I have a four-year-old. Yeah, and so and so we we travel two to three times a month They come with me everywhere. Okay, right? so they come with me everywhere and We when we've seen it all like we've been everywhere like we like when I say two to three times I want to work in a different city That's fascinating country. Wow. And so we've seen everywhere and in my four-year-old I never went to Disney till I was like 32. Okay. My parents didn't take me to Disney Same here, right? Yeah, your old daughter has been there like 10 times Yeah, world She should be there.  California and Alabama what are the differences between each other state in terms of the just like for real estate agents or the market More like the market in general is there is there a difference in how things appreciate there? How the market is stimulated by how the economics of the state are yeah, yeah, so In where I'm at in Bama. It's it's the lowest property taxes in the country. Okay, okay So like I live in a $2 million home our property taxes are like Five G's Ain't that something okay Your property taxes be what for $2 million probably one and a quarter percent so that's going to be right about 30,000 30,000 So right so like we're so like it's like five six thousand a year right for my property taxes So it's it's literally six times lower. Wow. So when you think about investment properties That's why I invest in my market because I'm just so lucky to be in Like the the cost of living is probably not the lowest, okay Like our average price of a house in my market is about four 500,000 okay, okay condos on the beach are like 750, okay, right average run on the beach, right and so Like there are definitely cheaper places like you go other places in Bama that you know the average price is like 250 I even have places in other in other states like Ohio and different places that I've talked to agents were like their average price Is literally under 200 and I'm like wow, I didn't know that wow That's insane. Oh, wow Wow You got something We're literally pushing clients off into get me a co-signer Figure out how to increase your income because we're getting buyers that don't qualify for anything out here They don't make enough money I think that's why a lot of people out Which which is not it's it's better, but it's right It's not like property taxes there are maybe two to three times higher than Alabama Florida and their insurance went through the roof, right? And so it's not that much better. It's better than Cali, but it's not yeah, it's not a huge, you know difference But um Yeah, the cost living I was telling my wife because like went to this real estate events all these people and like I'm looking at the people and I'm like I'm thinking how do you guys afford to live out here because It costs like for what like my house Dude, that is definitely a ten million dollar or right million dollar house. I there's no doubt I'm a foreign place concrete house. I've got a lifetime warranty roof like this is a smart house like yeah This is a this is a 10 to 15 million dollars in Cali. Yeah, wow 2020 it's worth two today gosh Congratulations, wow, we'll never move amazing and right when you said two million I knew like it was a 10 50 million Exactly, you know like here like my buddy. I want to do a podcast with him yesterday morning And he lives in this house, and he played he shot in his house, which it was amazing shot, right? Like the way he has a set up and everything is cool and um the Ferrari right the Ferrari Yeah, yes, I love his podcast a dude It was it was a great shot right and like I'm looking at his house and stuff. He's like this is 2.5 million.  That's right That's that's right. Yeah, you know for me like I've been like privacy is what I'm paying for Right, I'm gonna pay two and a half million, and I'm like like Mm-hmm Right, right. Honestly that house is like five six hundred Thousand right Exactly, and so I think that's I think that's one of the biggest differences in here and there Living is so low. Yeah, and I feel like the I feel personally that I would rather live about an hour away from Beverly Hills Los Angeles because everything's so expensive But I wouldn't mind investing because obviously the appreciation factors here in this area go up a lot faster because of just the Permanencies of what's surrounding this area. I mean you got I mean Orange County Disneyland But here you have everything very local obviously the traffic doesn't really help but versus where we live We're what about an hour away, and you can get houses for that might be two million dollars That are about 10 million out here, but you got to commute you got to drive a little bit further But I think that's fascinating because a lot of people don't they'd rather just strictly stay in the LA County area There's a lot to be said about Being able to literally be where you want to go in a matter of seconds, right like where we live We we take our golf cart Okay, a mile in our subdivision like we go through our subdivision and when we hit out of our subdivision We're literally in this huge shopping center, right with like ten restaurants movie theaters like Targets Starbucks like steak houses Yeah, well the beach isn't right there, right? We're about ten minutes from the beach Right, but like the golf cart ride, right to get your golf cart and go shopping for anything You want to go to the movies to get ice cream to get a coffee to go to Target to do whatever you want to do, right? Like I would pay more for where we are just because of that Yeah, I stayed with my buddy in st. Pete, Florida one time And he stays in this building he rents this apartment, right? And it's downtown and never really like Experienced the whole living in downtown or staying in downtown thing until then this was years and years back And like we'd literally go downstairs and we're downtown like we go We're walking a coffee shop, and then we went over here and did this listen to a little band over here, right? And like when we walked in Publix and got some stuff for it and then went back and I was like I Could live like this. Yeah down stairs and this everything I need is literally right there My car right and so I think that's what a lot of people pay for is like the convenience of literally being right there And I know this will sound funny because me and you are real estate agent So but I've been telling us a lot to my buyers sellers investors, whatever it may be that it sounds funny But location location location it's truly really really what it is and it sounds funny because that's what you hear in movies Or on TV or wherever, but when you really really break it down That's what it's all about is location location location And what's so cool with now with the world today is I can live in Alabama and everybody thinks I'm from Cali So I don't have to live in Cali People think I'm already living in Cali. That's right You're coming here to L.A. Yeah, we're blessed to have you thank you But I do have a question to ask you about real estate So you had a real recently and I it was so intriguing to watch because for myself I was not in that group of real estate agents, but you stated that you know 49% of real estate agents in the last year have only closed one or yeah transactions Yeah, so what is your mindset on this because you're somebody who can list a hundred properties in one year Yeah, and a real estate agent that could be sitting right next to you Probably only co-zero or one transaction like well, there's a one of two chances, right? There's it's it's 50% chance of this person next to me Close one or none Well, well, it's it's exaggerated right now because everybody got in because of COVID That was a flood of agents. So there were two things that happened There was there was COVID to have so the pandemic happened where people are like, okay Maybe my job isn't secure as I thought it was You know and I'm sitting in my house doing nothing the real estate course is 400 bucks People are making millions. Let me dive in here. That was that was one part of it The other part of it was the market exploded What as soon as the economy reopened so then they were like really like well I'm really gonna do this now because the market's so good and people are just you know prices are shooting up and everything So that rush that we had 2020 to 22 until interest rate started coming up I think inspired him pushed a lot of people to try to get into real estate That's what happens every time we get a rush in the market We have a lot of people a lot of new agents flood the market. I think it's gonna be easy money They get in and realize it's not right and then we have these stats like this, you know where you know You know like the transaction per agent was like is like way down. It's like under two per agent or whatever it is Yeah, which which is which is a lot lower than the average, right? That like say the ten year average or whatever But that's just because so many that doesn't mean that that's what it what it truly is is okay What are the agents that are producing and what how many transactions per producing agents are we at the ones that aren't doing any Transactions shouldn't be considered in the stats, right?  There's no way I can make it I mean 50% of people aren't making any way miles. We'll just get out of the business, right? And that's what we're seeing We saw a big drop in agents so far this year and we normally do in January because that's when do's come up Mm-hmm, you know and like these agents that like the numbers you see that drop down They have been out of real estate for a year It just hasn't come to fruition yet in the data because they're still officially on board until those dudes are due That's right the dues and then they take them off the roster, right? That's right So what we're seeing as far as the drop in membership Right now was really agents that have really been out of the game for a long time you know even more than a year and So you've got you've got just the market this just just eat an agent's away right now then you've got The fact that a lot of these bigger brokerages with the the lawsuits happening have said Oh, you know, we're not making a mandatory that you guys have a part of our That's right That's gonna skew the numbers because you're gonna see what you're gonna see is the NAR membership go down, right? but But then you've got people that are not members of NAR that are still in the game So like right now I feel like, you know, there's like 1.5 members of NAR and you know agents that are part of the National Association of Realtors Then you got like another million that aren't that are active agents, right? And so for me, it's like are we gonna go to a million members of our but still be at 2.5 total We just have 1.5 that that aren't members of NAR, you know, it's like I want to see the data on the people that aren't part of NAR You know like I don't I don't see that day I don't know where to find that data like how many active agents are there that aren't part of NAR because I'm just guessing a million I've heard 1.5. So I've heard I've heard 1.5 and we got 3 million total in the US Those are hypothetical like right real data behind agents that are Active and not part of NAR and then out of those agents how many are actually productive because then and I talked to large About this the NAR's chief economist And it was like I was like what about this, you know, what about this stat here like right? How do we what are those agents? You know, they're not part of NAR. What are they right? And he was like well most of them are just kind of inactive Oh, wow, and they're still like with a brokerage per se So they're so I they still have a license, but they're not really selling and they quit paying their membership So they're not part of NAR, but they're not really in the game So I think most of those agents are either a not in the game or be commercial agents Right because commercial rights. They're not a part of NAR. That's already NAR is residential, right, right? So they're the commercial agents. They don't they don't do MLS That's residential. That's right. They do co-star. They do look at they do all these off-market deals Correct, and so, you know, it's interesting to think about the whole thing the podcast today one of the panels I sat on today The guy was bringing up Zillow AI and the replacement of agents, right? And it was it was it was very interesting, right, you know to hear his side of like where all that could go You know and like how far AI could really take You know the transaction process right and how much Responsibility could it take off of the agents to the point that you barely need an agent, right? That's right. I know there's a lot of changes. I believe like not necessarily like Agents becoming obsolete, but could be right.  You have these commission lawsuits. You have the technology advancing so fast, right? You've got companies that literally want to create something where Agents necessarily maybe don't even exist. You have companies that are gunning for that scenario So that they can capitalize. Yes, right. There's so much going on in the industry right now Literally you have no idea where we're gonna stand in five years Even five years ago. Yeah, that's how we felt. Maybe it wasn't that long ago, but it was purple bricks And you know, it was like a lot of agents were getting like paranoid that their job is gonna get taken away Yeah, yeah, and why not all it was was a discount broker that went out of that's right You know the discount brokers have not cracked the code on how to be profitable, right?  No, no, no AI wasn't even hardly even around right right, right? So like the thing about discount brokers is it's like traditional people don't realize this part of it You know true public things. Oh my god. You made $30,000, right? I gotta pay my broker. I gotta pay tax That's right. Hey All my expenses, I gotta pay my marketing. I gotta pay my admin I gotta pay all I run a business by the way, right, you know, these people are used to W2 checks where they get to spend every dollar They get I don't get to spend every dollar. I get I have to pay all these business expenses I'm a 1099 guy. I'm an independent contractor, bro. Right, right? You don't understand, right? And so like what what happens is it's like, oh my god, you know 3% well I probably made like one maybe yeah, right exactly Maybe yeah, and and so when you when you went when a discount broker comes along and they're charging one total Well, they're losing money. Absolutely. It costs 2% to run. Let's just say hypothetical here It costs 2% to do the transaction with taxes and insurance and expenses and marketing and all stuff that we do That's right, right? So say it takes you 2% and they're charging one. Yeah They're discount broker Well, they're losing a percent on every deal and that in that hype this hypothetical scenario We're talking about me that that we're saying hypothetical But that's literally the reality of what happens with discount brokers and why they go out of business right two or three of them Come along try to go big right and went out of business, right? And I think this is where This is why traditional agents still exists and 90% of people use real estate agents, right? Even though they don't have to is their choice right and 90% of buyers or sellers use real estate agents as a choice Because they can't find that service anywhere for any cheaper the discount guys have come and went Right, there's still there's some discount people out there You think you can do some things, right? They don't have great service, right? Absolutely people are giving you discount service, right? Yeah, and they're like my clients, you know when I used when this kind of came up and they would want to go use a discount broker I'd be like awesome go use them, right? Yeah, because I knew it was gonna happen They're right on that deal, but never again. They come right back and happen every time they come right back to me Right use me every time and pay me whatever I want, right?  I mean you want a family. I'll try to tell them anymore. I'm like knock yourself out That's right. Yeah, right here if you need me exactly, you know, right? We're gonna come right back. Yes, maybe whatever I want right level service. They got exactly And so that's the thing discount broker just haven't cracked the code on how to be profitable at a discount Because it doesn't exist yet, right? Maybe AI changes that landscape where you can do discount and give good service and be profitable See that's there's so many unknowns with all this. That's right But that's that's the code. They haven't cracked like how to be profitable at a discount And that's why traditional agents that charge the three percent per side two and a half per side Right per side still exist 90% of people use us still right even though we've had all these Advancements and technology, you know information like consumers have more information now at the in the palm of their hands than they've ever had But the usage of real estate agents is at an all-time high right now So so we're at an all-time high with the amount of people that use agents And we're at an all-time high with the amount of information those people have most people are like What if they have all the information like we're at an all-time high, but they're still they're using us even more Well, it's because the more information they have it just becomes more and more Chinese to them right like information overload They don't know what they're like. Oh my god. There's all this too much access here You just handle it professional right so the more Result in agents being used less right it has it has resulted this this isn't a fact It has resulted in agents being used more right So these are all things that I think about you know No, it's fascinating What's your thought on you know, there's I feel like a lot of agents and lenders are very desperate nowadays They I feel like some of them do each other's job. I'll give you the perfect example is how do you feel? There's an agent that has both licenses. Yeah, just for the fact of hey, I want to be educated I want to have both licenses, but they start dipping into each transaction. Well, they just want to be educated That's one thing right right if they're handling both. I haven't I Dabbled in this right? I've had so many companies try to pitch me on the whole You know agent get a law and law officer license make a cut of the thing. Yes, and your people So many companies right and I went down the rabbit hole Okay, trying to understand is this an opportunity? The problem is is that how much are these agents making per deal on the mortgage side when they do this? Right, it's not much. Not much.  Yes So you got to do the 20-hour course you got to go take the test which is like I did it all Yeah, I had the same thing like I did it, right and And then it's like now you got to do the training for the company there with now You got it like it's a lot of time To try to make an extra 500 to a thousand bucks per deal Thanks, but no thanks And so You know when these companies go down to go down that road of trying to build a business model around getting agents licensed as loan Officers to make a cut of their own deals What they find is that? Agents say oh, yeah, let me make money off mortgages Right, okay. Go take your class go take your test and you never hear from again, right? They're being they're out there being a real estate agent That's right time to do a 20-hour court like very few agents are in a position like myself where I can actually decide okay I want to do the whole month invest some time here Most agents are in a position where they have to invest every second into trying to make another commission So they continue to build their business, you know, and so I don't know if that answers your question No, it does because I feel like agents should be fully committed to doing their exact work Versus and lenders the same thing like mixing each other. It's difficult now when this buyer lawsuit thing comes to fruition and The landscape changes, you know, and this is what I tell all of these mortgage companies that try to get into this Getting agents licenses L. O.'s Panama split. I say, you know what I This could be the future But it's too early You you could be way ahead of your time, you know, that's what I tell these guys when they come at me I'm like, I'm like this could be actually the future, right, but we're wait. There's Right now. There's no opportunity for me to go out and try to get thousands of agents license Well, I'll be banging my head against the wall because none of them would do it, right? Right. Yeah, and so it doesn't make any sense right now but later on when there's no buyer agent commission figured into the deal and the buyer is like If the buyer is like I can't pay for my commission, right? I can't I can't pay then a dual license Prince money has the real estate license and their loan officer license Maybe at that point that becomes a thing because now you're doing your services for free to the buyer But you're getting paid on the mortgage side So go out there and represent them and help them and everything else that they use you as the mortgage side, right? And now you're getting compensated. You see what I'm saying, right? Maybe you're getting caught now you're getting compensated something, right? And if you're in that scenario, you're you are the loan officer You're not just an agent getting paid a split Maybe you get a full point a full, you know point a half or whatever whatever it is And it makes it a little bit more interesting on that side. So I think about these things, right? Okay, right a lot of people are pushing this What you're saying a lot of people are pushing this dual license mortgage and agent and nobody's really cracked the code on it per Say and I think because it's a little early and it may not never come to fruition But I think this buyer agent lawsuit thing could be something that makes that a reality where you may see that as a new norm Yes, where people are saying don't worry about the commission I'll get it on the mortgage side if you use me and I'll make sure you get the best deal and represent you There you go. I'm saying yeah, and it'd be a thing later, right? And if they tie in the AI possibly that'll even make it easier for the agent You know whatever they can do to tie in the AI to make the job easier for the agent And then they could help out with the mortgage side, but again, it's too soon for that Like you say talk about yeah Yeah, and what's it gonna do and I'm like it's gonna it's gonna create a scenario where you sell more properties at less time Same thing Zillow did for us right same thing for sell by order different same thing MLS did for us Same thing social media did for us. So you're not like you're not like scared of like the The lock that's gonna be on the door that any buyer could you know go put in their code and go into the property I don't think a lot of sellers will like that. It's not up to me I don't think a lot of property owners there. There's gonna be property owners that are okay with that And I don't I don't think there's gonna be property owners who want Supervisioned by somebody who's looking out for their best interest absolutely in the house with unknown individuals, right? I feel the same. I don't think you're gonna you know I don't think that you know that could turn into a thing and listen We're this generation the next generation they love strangers walking through their house Yeah, there's a lot of unknowns with this industry, right? It's so crazy because you know travel agents got taken out That's right. All these other industries bookstores and that's right now by technology Yeah, you know innovation and everything else, but here we are still sitting strong. We're still getting five six percent We're still here even though all these technological advances have happened That's so interesting about we have a very unique strange industry that we're in that we're still standing and not only that We really haven't got hurt at all basically as far as our pay Right you look at like the commissions But then like it's a percentage Prices are of what like a hundred percent since 2010 So like so think about it our commissions the percentage hasn't really changed But prices have went up a hundred percent. We are so our pay per house is literally doubled since 2010 Right, and like we're still getting it. Yeah, right. So it's such a unique Strange animal real estate agent industry and like where it goes from here. Nobody knows It's one of those spin the bottle things you don't know what it's gonna land on And and to say scared, right?  I go I go I get into the next one fantastic Another one door closes another one open. That's right. You know, that's the position I put myself in did I go out there and focus only on calling property owners to help them buy and sell follow By a weekly email to make a million dollars a year. Yeah, I did it for 15 years until I'm making a million bucks Absolutely, and you brought up that you brought up the key point personal brand I think a lot of agents fell at that they they just go over I'm a real estate agent This is what I do instead of building a brand kind of like what you got going on We have a brand. I think what they're not doing is thinking about the future, right, right? They're thinking about now, right? They're thinking about now. I mean that you know, it's like Set yourself up for the future. Okay, so like if you're an agent, yes Do social media to get some leads to do some stuff But also do it to learn social media Also do it to learn how how that system works how that machine actually works to actually drive traffic and get eyeballs And build businesses on it because once you understand how to do that you can go building any kind of business you want Social media, right? That's right. So I mean, it's like that's the game. Honestly. That's the game I play Right, right. Yeah, you know, you believe in investing right now in this market space So what if you were to pick a location as to where it would be the niche area to invest your money And where would you look in anywhere? So there's no there's nothing off limits. It could be Cali. It could be Alabama I mean, I don't like Cali because their eviction laws. They are very strange Tough to get somebody out of a house here, right? Yeah like that and where I'm at I can get somebody out in 45 days They're going okay comes by like literally moves them out of the house physically, right, right? They're not out by then. Yeah, so Like wherever you find a deal, you might want to take it, right? Okay, so like what kind of investment we're talking about buying and holding flipping wholesaling Commercial multifamily, right that kind of depends right right any flip you could flip in any markets wholesale in any market The game there is buying way lower than what it's worth. Absolutely. Yeah You're not gonna buy retail and flip something, you know, the people that buy retail hoping to flip it in a year There's a lot of risk there. It could be worth the same It could be worth a little more could be worth less when you sell you have costs and selling with commissions and closing costs and title And escrow and all this stuff, you know, you it's got to appreciate quite a bit just to get into the positive and then But if you're a flipper you have to have a process of getting leads or properties that are way under market Whatever reason right? I'm on the courthouse steps. I pay cash for properties on the courthouse steps And then when I find one that fits my rental portfolio my buy-and-hold I'll keep it You know, and if I don't like it, you know, I got it under value to fix it I flip it. I make a little money that I pay taxes. I don't like flipping. I like buying and holding. I made way Yes, I was telling somebody on a podcast this I realized this I've I flipped a Third of the number of properties I've flipped. I've made probably 20 or 30 times more money on So let me say it again. I flipped about 150 properties, okay I have 40 doors that I own Okay, out of the 40 doors, which is about a third of how many houses I've flipped I've made about 20 or 30 more times money times more money on those Wow, then I did all the flips Right because flips is just short-term then you pay taxes and then you're done You don't really that's right I'm really squeezing the juice for everything you could have got on that property in terms of cash flow Appreciation you just turn it and burn it which is good if you need money, right? I don't need money, right? I need wealth. Yeah, don't worry to be billed. Well, that's right to bill It's a buy cash flowing assets and keep them right and watch them appreciate and are your cash flowing assets Are they like multi-units? Yeah, it's everything commercial multi-single family you damage to the short-term rental soon Well, I I don't I don't like to hold those especially on the beach because we have hurricanes And we have assessments and there's all kinds of different variables that I might that are a little more volatile than Then a single-family home, you know, or a duplex or four-plex, right? so I yeah, I bought plenty of beach front condos and rented them for two years and then sold them and did really well what I wanted to hold on to those Maybe because they've went up so much in value. Yes, you know, maybe but at the end of the day There were some massive assessments that came in some buildings and you never know what you're gonna get popped with like $150,000 Yeah, I mean, you know, you just never know could come out of nowhere and it could happen Yeah, and it's just a little too. I don't like I like sleeping at night, right? Yeah Security of more long-term rentals And not so risky areas. I like that. You're definitely obviously a buyer, you know for yourself But as an agent you One of your reels also that went viral is that you are able to do a hundred listings per year or more Yeah, do you have a secret to this? You know, how do you get these hundred listings per year for again these agents that are only closing zero or one Transactions in one year you're doing a hundred Well, I mean that's a long story, right? But the short of it is is that closings happen will happen have happened every single day of your life And we'll happen every day for the rest of your life, and there's more business than you can ever handle So there's the national market. There's your local market, and then there's your the market of your business buyers and sellers within your business that you're working with and trying to connect the dots with and The way that you build up to a hundred listings a year is not from cold leads year one Right, it's the cold leads year one to become warm leads year two because you stay in touch with them That's right, and then add more cold leads that create a bigger database for your three They've got two years of cold leads that are now really warm because they don't need for one or two years Yeah, you have more cold leads that add on top of that So every year your business does this yeah in terms of the amount of people that know who you are And your brand expands then how do you make sure people never forget who you are a Weekly email the same day of the week forever that you write yourself with your opinions on the market and that that's how you stand out by bringing real value every week and Email is a social media platform you do this when you open your email right and you're looking for interesting things to engage with So you're looking for interesting stuff. Okay, that's social email is social Yeah, that's right. It's place where you post original consistent content And so for me that's the platform because you own it you own the data and now every person in the database There's a 90% chance. They're gonna see it at least in their inbox They may not open it, but they're gonna see it. You're gonna get the impression versus social media is like a 1 2 3 4 5 percent Organic reach you can't ensure that you're that your database Seven years from now is still seeing you on social media, right? You can't oh my god The algorithm tells you tells you what it wants to do. You don't tell it You don't put your database on social media and say I want a hundred percent of these people to see my content every time I post doesn't happen not gonna happen ever gonna happen That's right However when you get their data and you send a weekly email on the same day of the week forever now They're like oh my god, that's the most consistent dependable hard-working agent I've ever said it gives me real value and their opinions on the market. Oh my god Yeah, that's right information. It's like it's this week. Gonna be like hey, you know, here's the market stats Here's the new listings and by the way, I showed three buyers in the last week one made an offer We're still looking for properties for the other. We're still trying to negotiate this thing But anyway, I'm busy over here. If you need something, let me know that's information They're not gonna find on Google Zillow on the news. No where yeah You're giving them inside information on the market that they can get nowhere else but you and now they're locked into you They're opening that email every single week because they want to see the new listings That's right. They want to see what you think about what's going on They want to see the new restaurants or whatever you're promoting That's so like when it's on the same day of the week now They're like this is the most dependable consistent hard-working knowledgeable professional agent I've ever seen it does all the heavy lifting for you you met on your one year four is when they want to buy And you didn't call them in between they just got to know you through this email That's right lifting for you all of a sudden your for they never they opened it like seven times in four years, right? They didn't open it all your four happens They open it three weeks on a road call you on the fourth and say hey Rick you remember me.  Yeah See this to make an offer that's how it works. So that's how you scale to a hundred listings That's right is by the compounding of the relationships over the years But there's nothing else, you know SMS is interesting right text messaging It's it's it's interesting.  I have SMS. I have email. I have all the social media platforms Everything yeah, but for an agent you can't do everything. I mean I'm this social media is my job now I don't sell real estate social media right job So I can do all the platforms as an agent that runs a business you've got to kind of pick and choose Okay, what's my three platforms or two platforms or even one platform that I'm really gonna like really go all in on But that's how you get to a hundred deals a year. It's not from like oh, there's this magical thing I can when I talk to somebody they're gonna list right then right hundred of these a year. No Compounding its trust compounding the rapport and the trust and those relationships and it's so easy to do It's just people are lazy anybody can do it. Yeah, if you made five new friends a day Property owners, okay, 250 working days a year and you put them all in this weekly email, right after five years That's 6,000 people now. How big is your business? Okay, and how big is your business if you've got 6,000 property owners that you chose Right, you picked them out and said I want to sell this house I'm gonna sell that house and you talk to the owner made friends with them Yeah, right that's the number one reason why somebody chooses an agent because they had a friend in the market, right? That with a great reputation And you made friends with them Doesn't matter that's the same when I talk to prospect I don't care if they buy or sell because I'm gonna get them now or later Right, I'm just trying to like let them know I care right and like you do what you want to do But I'm here to help you when you do it I'll stay in touch to be email bam and now five years later 6,000 people property owners of your choice How big is your business, right? You're probably the number you're probably the number one agent in your market at that point And it goes back to what you said Anybody This is so easy caveman Absolutely, yeah, okay, right and what's even more crazy is that if you're watching obvious you obviously you are I know you know that you've seen that email in your email where you just can't get it out of your head Because you have been getting it for like four or five years because I have one of those emails from like agents And because their name has shown so many times in the last five years I look at it and my eye even will catch that Yeah, because I've seen it so many times.  Yes, right? It's a piece of the personal puzzle. Yeah, right and it all plays together to create that picture for them That you are the one right and have you always been into personal branding is this something dude It was so crazy because in 2007 is when I got back in the business, right? He's like I made a meal lost it on the crash. I was homeless sleeping in my car Wow got back in 2008. Yeah, okay, like I was literally eating out of my friends refrigerators and stuff And you were married at the time. No, I didn't get married till five years ago Okay, so that so this was five years ago when I got married After all this as well got it and so before all that I'm in my 20s I got a real estate when I was 20, okay, and made a million bucks quick, okay By the time I'm 23 is when the market started, you know acting weird right 324 by 25. I was done I was bankrupt. I was like somebody gave me their car. It was beat up for tourists. It was crazy, dude It was the bedroom door wouldn't open. I had a boombox in the back so I could listen stuff I don't ride the bike I had to ride the brakes when cops pass by so that lights because the running lights wouldn't work Okay, so I had to ride the brakes had to like tap on the brake a little bit to get the running light to come on Wow, wouldn't see that my back lights my tail lights would work got it And like like like that's how I was living. I was sleeping in that car And so like at the time like I was partying Wow and so like a Lot of people they're like, how did you make it through that? Here's the thing, bro I was in my mid 20s. There were guys that were 40 50 and 60 years old right next to me Mm-hmm The exact same thing they lost everything right and I at the time was like Thank You Jesus I'm learning all these lessons in my 20s instead of my 40s 50s and 60s. That's right partners Mm-hmm, and I was like, thank you God.  That's right houses. Let me party Let me do my thing That's right Yeah, enjoy this moment of lack of responsibility. No bills. I had no bills. Yeah. Yeah, dude I had no bills right and but I still was like Okay, like I was like this and I got out to the bottom.  I was making five G's a mile away every other week in Mississippi I would drive to this old rig live on the rig work there. It was it was wild I saw people lived on a rig like in the middle of the ocean. It wasn't an ocean Mississippi, okay, there's land rigs that go for natural gas. Of course. Oh, it's insane. Wow It was like huge ones like big huge ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I was out there working on those and I Got laid off from that in 2008 and I'd already been dabbling back in the real estate and so like In 2008 The branding thing so like mm-hmm. I was it was so crazy bro I bought a million email addresses I filtered them down to people in the southeast that might vacation now to go shores and just emailed everybody instead The beaches are just as nice, but condos are 50% off, okay? I had a thousand people respond back and 20 people bought something Yeah, and it was in that whole realm. You can't do that now. Yeah spam walls, of course Like those shut your account down right and do that. This is the wall on West. We're talking, okay, okay? It's so amazing through that process. I had so many people say send me a weekly list of foreclosures, right? Because there was like 50-50 foreclosures 2008 yeah Right. Yes the easiest time in the world to sell real estate, dude There were so many listings and no agents but buyers were just like no way. I'm so jealous That's right. So easy things are so cheap. It wasn't a hard sell like hey Like this property you love. Yeah is actually 40% off from where that's right two years ago, and they're like I'm buying it. It was so easy. Yeah I'll talk about the prices coming down. You know like these bears talking about 40% price reduction That's right. What happened to the Airbnb bus that shadow even toward foreclosures. Yes interest rates You know, what's the new one like there's always Right And they say it like it's gonna be a problem for me Yeah, I'm like, bro properties I would sell if things went down 40% that's right every time I'm from in front of a group of Agents, I'm like how many of you guys have buyers that are waiting on prices to go down. Everybody's like, I got 50 of them Yeah, so what do you think's gonna happen if prices go down your business going to explode exactly, right? Exactly. And so like people need to quit, you know acting like we as real estate agents actually care what the market does because we don't They were telling me to do a weekly list of foreclosures, and that's where the weekly email originated from. I've been doing it every Wednesday since 2007 Wow And it originated from me listening to my clients say I want a weekly list of foreclosures And I started doing it then I turned it I was like These hundred people want this but I'll just open it up to all 300 and I'll keep growing the list I'm sure everybody wants to see this and then as foreclosures went away It morphed into just a market report wow with my opinions on stuff, but you were doing this on your own. Yeah, like I still do my weekly email right now. Oh my god. Yeah, because like AI back there is no AI back then Like it has to come out of my brain, right? Okay, I don't like AI doesn't know I showed three buyers in the last week or what the inside information is on the market You can't get this information anywhere else right right here. That's right. That's right. This is where the value is in here Yeah, not a computer that knows history exactly, right exactly So anyway, the point was is that I started in this email and I didn't realize that email was a social media platform Right, I didn't realize I was building a personal brand I had no idea like the people I was putting in there is the same thing as followers Yes, and I did not realize that that's what I was doing until years and years later when I got into social media I was like wow. This is what I did in real estate not knowing it Mm-hmm. I never used social media from a real estate business at all ever Right, it was just phone calls direct mail weekly email to stay in touch build the million-dollar business, right?  Yeah, I did. It's called email Right. It is social media Building my brand online Through this email. Wow. And so and so yeah, like I didn't know I was building a personal brand But I was That's how powerful it is and like I developed these skills through that Did it for 10 years before I touched social media Wow I did from 07 to 17s when I started posting on social media 10 years of that and then I and then I built this million-dollar real estate business off of it Mm-hmm And then I literally took those skills and moved right over to social media to become one of the most well-known Real estate agents in the world So the skill set that I used to build the real estate business I used to build the coaching business and and following Oh, and following that right there and following that you said that you're building this huge business as a real estate agent And you have a hundred listings so for a lot of people that are trying to build the business So it's just like yourself How do you how do you control the fact that people want to work with you? They want to work with Ricky crew's not with your team is how do you move it?  I cannot sleep at night I had this conversation with one of my agents yesterday, and I said the exact same here's the thing team leaders, right? Team members as they come in their objective is to learn what they need to learn so they could be their own agent one day Right, yeah, right team leaders objectivist to retain that agent forever. I have money off them forever Exactly, so the goal of the agent and the team leader are complete opposite. That's right That's why the whole thing is broken of a traditional team model so broken period of story exactly And then you have the agents so the ambitious the ambitious agents come in they learn everything from you leave quickly Right, and so they come and go so the ones you really want to keep leave the team leader makes them feel like shit And then like the non-ambitious ones stay forever That's right We know we've known a few of those yeah for sure So it's so broken that I literally have not talked to another agent That has just said what you just said yeah, like it's it's so broken every single team lead wants that Agent forever, and it's like are you kidding me after two or three deals after they learn out? You know what you're really gonna take 50% of my money. It's like yeah robbing them You know well the other part of it is that they make the agents dependent on them for admin marketing and Legion They don't teach them how to Legion they don't teach them how to do contract They don't teach them how to do marketing that's right do it Yeah, they just give them bunch of shit leads and say sit in a room of column I go show them property hopefully sell something give me half the money Right, so the agent show it goes shows up there to learn how to be an agent But then they don't teach them how to be an agent they just teach them what they need to to make team money That's right right and so now that the agent leaves the team a year later And you now you're starting up at right me yeah You learned a couple of sales skills you showed some property, but you're still we're trying to figure out how to ride a Country right how to do marketing yeah, where to get leads you didn't learn any of that right right? This is general traditional team model stuff. Yeah, right? What's what's the best CRM you used to be able to keep everybody online? You don't okay. Oh my god. I Okay, the thing is do bro is my clients your clients no clients care if you remember what their dog's birthday is Okay, and when and when if you take 30 minutes a week yeah and multiply that times 52 is 26 hours Okay While all all the agents are out there filling up their CRM with information that their clients don't even care if they remember It's been a third just let's say they're spending 30 minutes spending more than that But 26 hours working man hours a year that's a difference in them doubling their business and not and they talk about oh It's just 30 minutes a week right no It's 26 hours a year that could be the difference you doubling your business or not while you're inputting information That doesn't matter right it doesn't move the needle Yes, and you're using it to hide behind so that you don't have to do the things that actually the needle right And this is why you're gonna be an average agent forever Cuz you because you sit around inputting something to a serial that doesn't matter when those minutes could have been calls or could have been Can in front of people in front of people may buy or sell right that turn into more relationships the repeats referrals or pros over pearls It's like I have to go My business has to move the needle has to move. Yes if the needle is not moving. I'm not doing it, right? So like there's a sacrifice right right because you want quality and you want these clients to know that they that you really care About so you want to remember their birthdays and their home aversaries and and all that stuff. I Sacrificed all that to say And the way that I you know say to myself about it is okay Yeah, I'd love to remember what day they bought their house and cinema and a home aversary car and all that stuff That would be cute But I'm gonna sacrifice that for the sake of doing more business Yes, and the way that I repay them for doing business with me is giving them the very best service during the deal deal goes so smooth I go above and beyond when fires pop up Then we didn't know about it because I just handled it. Yeah, you know answer my phone every single time I give them updates like they're just like the experience to have during the deal They're like never using another agent ever Wow I don't care if I tell them if I'm like, oh happy home aversary That's not gonna be what wins them over that next time. Yeah The fact that the deal went so great during the deal Is why they're gonna come back to me. So I sacrifice things. Yeah, yes, they're good like social media sacrifice Social media. I knew that I was losing deals not doing social media as a real estate agent I knew that right, but I was sacrificing that for what was working Talking to more property owners creating more relationships doing more putting getting people in my weekly email. Yes Yes, I could use social media to do that as well But the thing is is everybody has to forget what works best for them and go all in Yeah, that's right best for them and what works best for me doesn't work best for somebody else and on and on and on That's right. So then going back to you ask question How do you control the masses because again if somebody can't even control one or zil zero transactions in a full year? It's not that they can't handle it, right? They just have a nurse to the process of lead generation Right, they just don't have enough leads coming in to convert into business. It's not that they can't handle it It's just that they're not that nobody has sat down and said Here's how you get people that might want to buy or sell so then this is like a no-brainer for you a hundred listings in one year It doesn't overwhelm you with me and my assistant Christie. We were literally at the at our peak We're closing a hundred deals a year. Mm-hmm. I stepped out of production two years ago Yes, and we were doing a hundred deals a year literally in our sleep like when it was literally nothing I was spending like 10 15 hours a week on my real estate business because at that point when you build the weekly email list up to a Certain point you don't have to prospect anymore, right just coming in. That's right It's not like I'm chasing business business is chasing me So I'm not going after anything when you build it right right build the way I teach agents to build it Then you don't you don't have to go look for business business coming to you You know all your hours are just focused on your I'm just servicing now. They're calling me saying this is what I'm Do I'm like, okay? Why do you want to do it? Okay? Cool? This is this is the game plan, okay? Send you the paper. Yeah, I'll go look at the property or we're gonna look at the property Whatever it was just it was just closed I was just converting converting converting converting and just servicing so fascinating because it all comes up to just service Yeah, like it all comes on to service industry. A lot of people think we're in sales. Yeah, but we're not You know and also I don't even have sales or sales. I think sales and service because yeah You're selling yourself, right? You're trying to sell the fact that you are the best choice out of all the other agents That's I guess is the extent of the sales part of this business But we're more in like what do you want to do, right? Why do you want to do it? Okay, this is what the game plan like you figure out what they want to do Why they want to do it when they want to do it how they want to do it and then you help them do it Whether it's the buyer so now our cell So make sure about so two years. It doesn't matter. Yeah, we're not trying to oh you want to sell two years Well, what if we do this now? I'm not trying to get them to fast for the process to close a deal today Right I'm just listening to them because once I start going against what they want to do now I don't think that they're gonna feel like I'm on their team. That's right And now they're gonna go find an agent who actually is on their team in a line. That's right What their timeline is instead of trying to force the issue earlier? I never liked that I feel like I want a lot of business because You know, I was okay with whatever they wanted to do I'm just here to help them do it whatever their timeline is because they're gonna do a deal Right. I want them to do it with me Yes, if I try to force it I may lose the deal. Of course, right exactly. Well, Ricky You have a ton of knowledge I mean, what what's something that you have considered for your future? So you have 40 you 40 doors Okay, you were asking about the hundred people. I wanted to get to the root of that like I have a hundred people What were you going with that? So the question was how do you if somebody wants to work with you? And you have a hundred listings. Yeah How do you have a hundred listings? See this is a thing. I got a hundred listings within a year within a year Got it. I don't understand a hundred listings. Okay. Got it sweet spot wise Everybody has a different benchmark of what they can hear. That's right So like mine was always I wanted 20 to 30 active listings and 10 to 20 pending deals Got that was like my happy place like that.  Yeah, there's some weird stuff is going on like the other 19 are good to go like all good. That was my happy place. Yeah, 20 to 30 actors 10 to 20 pendings and So like it wasn't a hundred, right? It's right listings. It's just like Yeah, I'm gonna I'll reach out. I'll take a half a day and reach out to all the sellers twice a month every other week, right? Give an update how many times it's been shown people are saying any market changes around the property and stuff like that That's easy. That's a half a day. I've blocked out every other week. That's done the pending deals I would just look at the list of pending deals every day Yes, okay, wherever I'm on this one. Do I need to do something to call this person and check on the title company to Where's the inspection on this one? Where did we get the pre-qual like arms money in like and I would just go through And that would take me like an hour every day to just go through the deals make a couple calls Make sure everything's cool and moving forward. So just think about it I spent about an hour down my pending deals and then like a half a day every other week on my active listings So now I'm at you know, basically six and a half Five and a half hours per week Basically servicing the pendings and the and the active so now I'm at five and a half hours now What am I doing on top of that? Well going to show property Maybe going to a closing going to a listing appointment, you know, maybe an inspection here and there like that So it wasn't it wasn't really demanding. Got it. Yeah, love that Yeah, when you have it when you have a lot of experience and you know how to do deals and you understand the intricate details of the process It's like breathing. I guess it's just easy and I can't agree with you more So I've been in mortgages for 22 years and you've been in real estate for 22. So it's very Common for me to get a standard phone call. Hey, I want to do a loan. I want to do a loan So it's very simple. I do have a system around because it loans. It's very paper paperwork Yeah, there's just so much numbers and it changes ongoing changes, right? Right, right. I mean I had a great assistant. She's still with this. She's been with this 10 years She still works with us, you know Dad handles all the listings and sales now my father and She still handles everything and she handles all that paperwork side. Yeah, that was a good thing that that was how I Was able to do all that Little effort, it's because she's doing all the paperwork side and all the MLS work and set them showings with them You know when you have 30 active listings, you got a lot of agents trying to show your properties Mm-hmm. She takes all those calls. She sends them all those showings, you know So she's handling all that stuff for me. It's where I can breathe. I can think I can just deal with what moves the needle That's right. The pinnings the listings and any Hot prospects that are looking to buy or sell You have no idea how many agents that are in their circle that want to do everything And the reality is they should just know how to build the system by having that assistant that can do the paperwork Yeah, and I think that's smart because a lot of people don't they don't know how to trust Someone to do those little steps when the reality they should be the face Well, the reason they don't trust anybody is because they haven't done it yourself. Yeah, that makes so much sense Yeah, right if you don't understand the process you can't teach somebody else to do the process, right? That's it right. So like I didn't get an assistant till I had 30 active listings Wow, so I mean I was doing I was cranking deals closing deals doing all the paperwork doing all everything MLS doing the whole thing and then and then the cloud-based Platforms came along where all the documents started to become updated into the cloud I mean before that we were given our given the office secretary hard copies like a printed paper I don't know how you did. Yeah, we were handing them So we would go to a listing appointment get the contract signed like in person Oh my god, and then and then literally hand that off to somebody and you're done Did they put it in the following cabinet they process it like wow worry about it Okay, but then when they switched to it was a lone wolf at the time. Okay, the cloud-based filing cabinet, right? So every broker's now is putting all the documents in the cloud. That's right This first came out it added a whole nother task to my job Or now I'm not handing it off to that now. I have to upload all this stuff to a cloud Name the file after do all this stuff. That's right, and I was like I'm not doing Listings I was getting bombarded by agents Trying to show my listings and then this guy thrown into the mix. I was like boom I hired somebody right then to take over a flooding stuff to the cloud and handling showings for other agents trying to show my listings Take those two tasks off my shoulders and now I can continue to grow a little bit, right? And then as the assistant got that down, then I just added more tasks You know to take more off my shoulders until her whole role got filled so New agents like want to go out and hire an assistant, but they have no idea what to tell them to do Right, well sell some properties and get some listings. That's right Then you hire them to do that right everybody has a different bottleneck in the business for me It was 30 listings and have an agent trying to show my listings. I had to get that taken off my shoulders Fantastic for y'all it may be something different. It may be just put stuff in the ls or right, you know doing this thing or email Yes, everybody runs into a bottleneck got it work till you find the bottleneck then hire somebody to do to take over That's right. That's the process And when you do it yourself for a long time you do all the paperwork yourself, you know how to do it, right?  Well, I don't need to know how to write how to not write a contract But like process everything And I'm thinking you trying to make agents dependent on you Real estate is so crazy right now. Well, you know, we've I appreciate you being on this podcast I know you've been on a couple of them and honestly like I'm sure everybody that's going to be watching these reels and the full podcast is Going to start going out there in hustling. I hope right.  That's very credible You're seeing to me right now is owners that are sitting on 4% rates They don't they a lot of them want to move but they can't because they can't afford 7% rates Right. And so there's kind of a stalemate. We're starting to see it thought out a little bit But for the most part people are still sitting still so back when I was building my business My bread and butter was calling property owners Just randomly and saying hey a property in your mark in your area sold Just calling to see if there's something I could do to help you. That was my bread and butter I built my entire business off that it worked like a charm because people were always thinking about moving And interest rates weren't or were about the same as they were when they bought and so they were just trading Even for even can't do that now, right? You have to call with urgency. You have to call with situations. You have to call with Something to offer sir. So just want to leave you guys in the audience with with this with the Greatest strategy that I've ever seen I did this last week. I made live calls last week. It's on my YouTube But the last video I posted it Literally I was on a zoom call and I said okay guys, you know, it was like 4 500 agents I was like you guys vote on what property you want me to sell today So I was on my MLS our screenshare literally voted they picked up this house for 1.7 on the water I was like, okay, I went I did a circle around the subdivision and pulled all the non-waterfront houses In the same subdivision right 250 of them boom hit dial started calling them. I said hey I see you've got this house. It's not on the water in this subdivision. I've got a really nice waterfront one Have you thought about being on the water? Oh my god So you can literally do this with any listing so say you got a 20 million dollar five bedroom Yes, right you call all the four bedrooms around it. Hey, I see you're on sunset and you've got a four-bedroom Do you need a five? I got a really nice one. I'd love to show you Wow And so now I'm calling not to try to get them to do something like give me a listing I'm not trying to take something from them This is why agents are scared to make all I see that they're scared to make calls because the perception is is that they're Calling to convince them to give them something So do you need a cell? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah selling right sir selling out of our free house, right stuff Right, and the sellers heard it all. Yeah, you know what they say. I might sell in six months Yeah, that's a cop out. I have no no intentions to sell in six months But they know it works because I know when they say that the agent goes away never calls it back That's right follow-up. That's right. That's right. So somebody says I'll sell in six months. I'm like, what's going on in six months? Which you got going on six months. You're thinking about selling six months You want to start the process in six months? You want to close in six months because that's two different timelines That's right. Tell me more about what's going on. So I can help you sir. So I dig dig dig dig dig I don't just say, oh, okay. I'll say I'll call I'll call you six I gotta know why I'm calling when we're calling what the game plan is you tell me go sell six months That's like that To get started today, right? Let's me right, but my point is is that I can take any listing I don't care what it is and I find the owners around it to have a lesser property And I say hey, I see you've got this house. I've got a newer one right here Are you looking for a better quality? You need a bigger house. I'm trying to make your life better I'm now. I'm not mister. I'm trying to get a listing mister I want to give you a better quality of life.  I want to give you a better view and this is what I'm teaching right now Fantastic how does target those owners around these properties of any property you want to sell You can do this with anything and this is how commercial real estate agents work This is how they operate and they've been doing this This is how they operate for years and years and years and I'm like I put it all together and I'm like wow This is the greatest strategy. I've ever heard because when they don't want to buy that $20 million five bedroom But you called offering them something instead of just trying to take now. They're like I like this person You know what I'm gonna open up and tell them what I really want to do Now they want to buy this investment property over here sell the strip center or do something else The conversation started Wow, but you can literally find a buyer for any listing in one day Wow any leads you want the exact leave that you want in a day Well, you got you got a $500,000 home the cash flows. Oh, hey, listen. I see you got a house over here I don't know if you buy rental properties or investment properties, but I got one over here. It's it's 500k at cash flows about whatever You know, is that something you might be interested in you could do it with anything But taking listings and targeting the property owners who are the most most highly Probable buyers for that property. Oh god, you can get into luxury like this You can do commercial you can do any kind of residential Gulf front condo anything you want And you you get these owners for a penny And so what I'm saying is it's like when you wake up in the morning as a real estate agent with a strategy You're like What listing am I gonna sell today? Wow, and you just pick out whatever you want and that's your job for the day Selling that listing you literally make 200 calls You know in a couple hours and try to sell that listing and guess what you talk to 18 people and 11 of them loved you weren't ready to do anything But gave you their email had a great conversation and we're gonna do 10 to 20 deals with each of them over the over the Life of our career because that's right when I think about it. I'm like an agent wants to be an agent for like 20 30 years So when I'm talking to a prospect I'm not thinking what can I get them to buy or sell or if they're gonna buy or sell today or not I'm thinking about how many deals are they gonna do over the next 30 years and be responsible for referring out to an agent over The next 30 years because I'm trying to jam as many transactions as I can into a 30-year period Shit about 2024. That's right. Me doing my job to fill up the pipeline for my career. Yes makes me, you know Organically right as a byproduct crush 2024 right you know saying now I'm building my short-term business and my long-term business at the same time Mm-hmm as I'm literally becoming the number one agent in my market and everybody's like how'd you do it? Oh, this dude from Alabama. He told me just pick out any listing call the owners around and do a weekly email Right, so he's right. It's so Okay Come on Do it Agents only do you have their job 50% they find the seller they wait on another agent to find the buyer They put on MLS they went on another agent to find the bar they find the buyer they went on another agent to list the property Our job is to connect buyers and sellers. That's right. The whole thing. That's all we're only doing half our job Right, and you're and I'm like wow you have the Nash back back to what I said you've got the national market You've got the local market. Yes, then you've got your business market within your business Yeah, your buyers and sellers Amazing and I'm not scared to go make calls now because your concept is so no, no, no This is what's so powerful about like I'm the easiest call in the world After I said this whole stage through this whole thing in this new agent had a question and she's like I just don't feel confident You know with convincing a seller to sell her eight million our home and I said did you hear anything? Right, this is how brainwashed we are as agents We're brainwashed into thinking we have to call sellers to see if they'll sell their property exactly when in reality If we're calling to offer them value If they don't want to buy but they want to sell guess who they're gonna go with that's right. We just listed a property Right, I made I made 12. I called 12 homes. It was 27 numbers because it's multiple numbers for some homes It was 12 homes I talked to three of them all three of them were leads the first one wanted to sell and buy not the house I was calling about but they wanted to 1031 into another investment. It was a second home for them Got it. The second person is selling she has a bum knee. She has to be back to Birmingham I'm sure he had an agent but she's selling there's a live prospect I mean the third one not selling time soon had a great conversation all these conversations are on my YouTube You can hear the phone calls. Oh my gosh And and like you the third one long conversation nice Come you know very nice lady got her email gonna do business later, right? I had no intention anytime to sell now But all three of those we're great conversations and it's so easy, but this is how programmed we are We're programmed to think two things one We have to call sellers to see if they'll sell right and that's scary Now we're trying to take something. Yes. That's right and be we have to make social media to try to get buyers to call us That's right, right. Wow. Listen. Would you rather have 30 active listings or 30 active buyers? Listings, okay, absolutely, you know what I would want buyers really. Yeah, who also have to sell. Oh Mr.. Real estate agent, let me continue to blow your mind When I do that when I do the business like I just told you to do it Yeah, guess what I'm setting myself up to do two deals today Because when they buy they're gonna sell that yes, I did two deals today now I'm let's see like as amazing as you were before I said that yeah now what what's up? Like now you now I just said you're doing two deals with this now because a lot of people like Oh, I'll take a buyer all day because they're gonna buy and then later on they'll sell I'm like I'm trying to get you to have the buyer that's selling now. That's right Oh my god, just get the property owner that wants to buy and sell you got a $20 million home They're gonna sell their $12 million home to buy it. You just did 32 million. You can literally Watching could literally be working on 30 million dollars worth of deals tomorrow every single agent Right. It's like a high luxury market that has 20 million our home You can literally there was a guy going to show rental property in Brickle in Miami, you know, I called him Like I call agents randomly sometimes and say hey, they're like oh my god You like is this AI? Yeah, and I'm right and sometimes I mess with them and I'll say hey, it's Rickie They're like, oh, yeah, I was like no, it's really a it's a really AI Rick Yeah, when you called me earlier, I was like But anyway, he was going to show this rental property, which I'm sure they'll make like he'll make like a thousand bucks or something I said dude, right I said aren't there 11 million dollar condos for sale there He's like, yeah I said you know you can get the five million dollar condo owners around it for a penny and call them to see if They want the 11 million dollar one, right? He was like what I was like Yeah, you can call the five million dollar property owners to see if they want to buy the 11 million dollar Whatever the sales pitches is it bigger is it nicer is it better be whatever it is, right? You can literally pitch them on the 11 million dollar one You could do you could be doing that right now instead of driving to show a rental a rental property to a rent He was just like mind blown. He was like you just changed my whole life.  So true Yeah, so true and I and I'm gonna be very honest with you My mind has been brainwashed to be scared to call sellers But it's because I'm asking them for something and I'm right now. That's right. I give them. Yes My mind is blown. Yes something so simple. I've been doing this for eight This isn't a new concept by the way. Yeah, this isn't new. This is a new concept, right? It just Nobody is putting it out there. Nobody is like Framed up this way or explain it in this manner. Yes, and I think it's the most powerful thing I've ever heard I literally in my mind of throwing everything else away direct mail Circle prospecting expires for some other I'm throwing it all on the garbage because I literally can create any lead I want to out of thin air. It's like it's putty in your hand I was like paying like eight thousand dollars a month for Zillow and I can be paying pennies So red X right red X for like 250 bucks, okay? You can pick out in your market 7,500 property owners per month for 250 bucks You can pick 7,500 of your choice, right of your choice. Wow, okay? Red X discount comm okay, right? That's where you can get the best red X right. I got it Red X discount.com.com gives you the best deal on Geo leads plus which is be the email Cell phone of any property owners literally pennies and then and then and then and then it has an auto dialer, right?  It it boom within a matter of seconds downloads the list of data, right? Then you go to this thing says search filters or filters right or more filters right you hit that and you say I want three bedrooms and less Okay, it can even it has a lot of filters like age where footage okay, but let's just say you got a four-bedroom Yeah, and you pull up 400 owners around it and you literally filter out all the four bedrooms or more You get three bedrooms a lower and it takes up for 400 to say 250 Right this thing is concentrated.  It doesn't matter because you know They've got a three bedroom. Yeah, that's right You're just like hey mr. You look at the name on there, right? Yeah, how you doing today? Yeah, you know Yeah, I'm whoever will say company and right here Beverly Hills, right?  Isn't it gorgeous out there right nice in it? That's right last week, huh? That's right. Yeah, that's right. I see you've got three bedroom there on Like you need a four bedroom. Yes, I got a really nice one right down the road I'd love to show you I need to see what they say and then we know what happens But the thing is the technology you can let her go boop boop three bedrooms bam auto dial boom Dude in in one hour this zoom call was one hour last week. Mm-hmm within one hour I had time within the hour to explain to them what I was gonna do Let them vote on the property that I was gonna call about did research on the property to look at comps and look Through pictures and like become a little familiar with it right then look up the owners around it Then filter them down to the non-waterfronts then hit dial and had enough time within the hour to call 27 numbers and talk to three people which were three leads all that happened within one hour Right now as a real estate agent, you're not gonna explain what you're doing have people vote You're just gonna be like I'm gonna sell that listing here's that you can literally find everybody right five You can find the listing and all the people are gonna call in five minutes. That's right. Yeah, and start calling and these are the most The It's two deals when they do like what other situation is there where you literally pick out your credit Get them for a penny They have the possibility of two deals happening. You know for sure. Where where is this? Then why are we doing anything else? That's right Call all morning to try to sell that listing and do social media all afternoon do a weekly email.  Where else can they find you? Yeah, at the top Google you top YouTube and everything Alabama No, no, no my coaching program.  I do a weekly call There's 600 agents in there. I just started two months ago, right? That's how fast it's grown zero diamond.com You're the diamond.com. Okay, but what gave you the idea of that name? Well diamond is a million bucks a year in the rematch system. Okay, so at the time I was hitting diamond I was making a million bucks a year. It's like, you know what? I went from zero to diamond I like at the zero one time at one point love everything. I was literally zero less than zero I should have been like less than zero Zero to diamond and that's what I named the first book there Fantastic, so it's just something that I just I don't know how or why I came up with it and the domain was available There you go. Somehow and it just kind of all came to be but yeah, you'll see us on the zero to diamond So y'all got to be diamonds for sure. Yeah, you could you can join the platform for free and for free You can get all my scripts my phone Screams that are just unique to me. I'm selling my email. You know the weekly email. I have a weekly email templates Okay, so you'll be in my email to make the weekly email. So he's signing up. It's already happening. Yeah I'm so there weekly email very easy to do Because like I just kind of get lost in the sauce. Yeah, what do I put in stuff? So I made it really easy with this four-week template system. Fantastic. Wow Yeah, so outside of that man. I'm traveling. I'm always on tour, you know between September and now Like yesterday was my first one back since September So I take the winter off great and just kind of regroup and then from like February to September It's like three, you know two or three cities a month. Fantastic around a speaking agents all over Well, you're you're having an event soon, right? Yeah, so Every week I have one. I'm gonna I'm in Montgomery, Alabama next week And then I'm in New York for the gold bar live the week after which all men right sir Loves it tell Alexander fantastic, you know all the highest biggest luxury, you know agents out there That's gonna be incredible. My guy is one is actually, you know, put it all together He's my partner on the zero-to-diamond. Yeah, and the coaching program Oh, wow, and then I'll be in Houston the week after that So I've got you know four weeks here back-to-back traveling I'll be home for one week and then I've got two more back-to-back So I'm always on the road just trying to Help these agents understand how easy this business actually is because I break it down for him really simple And my goal is is where I leave an event for people to have listened and be like I can't unhear what I just heard That's me right now. That's me right now There's no like now for you like now. There's no excuse Like you're either gonna go crush it like literally gave you everything you gave me Like if I don't go and have a hundred listings, I don't know what I'm doing Like you like that, right? Quantified not to the number of listings quantified to how much work you're going to put in True. We get so caught up in the results and the goals and we want to hit these numbers You're never gonna hit the number you're they're gonna way past it or you're gonna get way lower than it I mean everyone's and the people they hit it they hit it and then and then let off because they hit it They're right a lot further, of course, right for me. It's not about It's not about expectations. I've traded my expectations for standards a long time ago It's not about the expectations that I'm gonna achieve this or achieve that It's about the standards that I set for myself And I'm gonna I'll work everybody every single day and I'm gonna continue to look for hacks in the system Like I just explained you like this. This is what I think about all the time How can I hack the system of getting more listings? How can I hack the system of getting more followers? How can I get in front of more people? How can I hack hack hack hack hack the system? Yes, to achieve and achieve and achieve because that's what it is. It's cheat codes. Yeah, right? It's cheat codes to the algorithms. Yeah, it's thinking of things like I just explained we're calling property owners. They could upgrade That's a cheat code. Yeah, that's right, right? That weekly email is a cheat code Yes, and so that's what I think about all the time and and I'm always on the search for the next cheat code That I can use to advance my position in the world as somebody who influences agents and people to just Keep chasing their dreams amazing Fascinating Ricky. Thank you so much for being on our podcast really appreciate you and you guys know where to find them and You guys will see them of the reels that we're gonna be releasing really soon. So Actually diamonds Another platform Guys, thank you so much appreciate you guys you guys have a good one


Hi, this is Rick Breckenridge, Commander Submarine Group 2, standing here in the port of Pascagoula, Mississippi. This is the Pascagoula River behind me, and in just two short weeks from this Saturday, the PCU Mississippi is going to moor here at this pier. We'll have over 7,500 Mississippians here to watch the commissioning of their namesake ship. And I got to tell you, the excitement level is at fever pitch down here in Mississippi as the proud people of this great state look forward to this event. Mississippi does have a great history of support of the defense of our country. They're true patriots, and this is going to become the event of the summer. So we're very excited with this opportunity to get Mississippi to its namesake state and have this commissioning event on the 2nd of June as we turn into summer. Thanks very much.


Hello and welcome to yet another episode of Yes, I'm going to give some examples on why it might seems like GNOME is trying to ignore its users. And to be clear, to some extent, I do think that's true and healthy, actually, which is the whole point of the video. But let's get to the examples first. And then I'm going to talk about also what Kiri is doing instead, and some actual criticism towards GNOME. So lots of stuff. Let's start off from this discussion, which is the icon view sizes. So there has been a refactor on the grid view of Nautilus. And as part of this refactor, some view sizes of the icons were simply removed. And apparently there's one size that prompted a lot of discussion, which you can now see. And it has been a long lasting discussion that was eventually kind of integrated towards the next update of Nautilus, actually. Or there's also this discussion regarding mount points that goes on for quite a while with discussions on how to implement this with eventually a developer just saying, at the end, it comes to the fact on whether it's actually worth it or not implemented. And in my opinion, it isn't. Or take this one from one update to another. It was no longer possible to customize what the power button did, which sounds like an interesting change. And that, again, has sparked a lot of comments that go on and go on and go on with always this discussion on whether it's actually worth it to implement this or not with even a GNOME developer asking, what is the use cases for this, which is an interesting question. Or as a last one, there's this bug that has been in GNOME for ages, which is more of a feature request, actually, which is implementing previews on the file chooser, which has been now implemented and actually has this article goes through nicely. It talks about the fact that the missing piece to actually implement this arrived with a refactor of how the grid for the file chooser was implemented, and that maybe it could have been implemented before as well, but it would have been in a much more hacky way. But of course, there's even more examples that you could do as an example, icons on the desktop, these kind of things. It's all things were some features that previously existed were removed or some long standing feature requests were not implemented. So it is somewhat unsurprising that very often I see people complaining about GNOME, just ignoring users and saying stuff like, you know, my way or the highway. And you know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to present you some examples of KDE doing the same exact thing. The first one is the refactor of the QNFX that recently was done and that took off the desktop cube, which is no longer in KDE. And there has been a lot of requests to actually bring this feature back, which is understandable. And the developers are trying to say, you know, it's not something we're against. It's simply that it requires a fort and nobody has managed to put it in yet. However, it was a feature that was there before. And then one version later later, it wasn't anymore. Or what about myself? Actually, this is just me a couple of videos ago, explaining to you why no, I'm not going to implement a lot of features that were asked for floating panels, such as an option not to deflate the panel or an option to customize the margins around the floating panel, but also the level of transparency of the panel. I'm not going to implement that either through a slider. I mean, and there's even more examples that could be done. So what's up with that? Why are two important open source projects that follow the Linux philosophy, the free and open source philosophy, just ignoring feature quest or taking away existing features or not fixing very long standing bugs? Well, there is an interesting answer in this article, which is written by the Evel Skeleton, which is also a developer for battles and a member of the GNOME Foundation. And what this article explains behind the other things is that, you know, GNOME has a philosophy as a goal as a target and has an idea on how that should be implemented. And it's not just GNOME actually take Linux as an example. If I propose Linux to switch to a microkernel, they're not going to accept that. Linux has its own philosophy and Linux, Torvalds, is quite known for, you know, getting quite hangry when that philosophy is ignored. In the very next example, Kiri does the same thing. If I try to implement in Kiri something that goes against Kiri's philosophy, then that's not going to be implemented either. And this article really explains the fact that yes, project have philosophies and even Kiri is not like they can just accept any feature quest. And if they do see a feature that goes against their philosophy, even an existing one, then that feature is going to be taken off. But it's not that simple is it? Because there are a lot of other factors. This very article talks about why does this happen to GNOME so frequently? And dancers vary between, you know, GNOME is the most used desktop and stuff like that. Personally, I disagree. I think it's pretty obvious that when comparing GNOME to other desktop environments, GNOME is very opinionated, has a philosophy that is much more strict compared to other desktops. And to be clear, I'm a big fan, actually. I do think it's a great philosophy that works very well for, in my opinion, most people and even me, even though I personally prefer Kiri. But at the same time, yes, it's more opinionated. More people are going to complain about that compared to Kiri, even though, yes, you do also get that same things on Kiri as well. Part of what is particularly important in conveying the fact that you're trying to achieve a philosophy, even though users are sometimes asking something different is, you know, actually explaining that. Take this example, which I went through very quickly before, which is the icon sizes. So I presented it as, you know, lots of discussion and that was it. But that wasn't quite it actually. If you go through the comments, there's various posts by GNOME developers explaining the reasons. This is the first one, but there's even more that go more in depth. And they explain the reasons in a way that's pretty understandable. And they even link to parts of the human interface guidelines that GNOME has on how to deal with users. Even more interestingly, inside of this topic, there is a subtopic which had the goal to be more constructive asking for mockups and experiments on how to even better deal with this. And as I said, in the next version of Nautilus, if I understood this correctly, that size was either added back or that was being considered. So in this case, in this particular example, the reaction from GNOME has been pretty good, in my opinion, reading through the comments all that was written by a developer seemed very respectful and very constructive. So thumbs up because here is the most important take, I think. That's very often not easy because users, most users are kind and happy about the project, but there are always a few users who are super noisy and super entitled. Let me get to another article which is called toxicity in open source discussions, which goes through exactly that entitlement. And again, it's not to say that all users are like that, not at all, but if you just take the users that complain about some changes and that actively search for the bug reports to comment there, then there's a lot of these people. And even if you have like the best intentions, what is going to happen as soon as you meet a user that just insults you is that you're going to get angry, maybe insult back the user, maybe just burn out. Getting back to at this point my case study, the icon sizes of GNOME, there is one comment that is particularly interesting to see this, which is this one. It says, first of all, I apologize if any of my comments insulted you. By the way, this is a terrible way to apologize. You don't apologize like this. You never apologize. I apologize if something happened. You apologize that something happened, not here. But anyway, this is a beautiful sentence. No offense, but saying that you were considering to bring back blah blah blah, now you want because of users comments is a little childish. Anyway, good night. And then immediately in the next comment, also what you said about feeding the toxic mindset looks childish. But even if you take the very first comment, it's actually an intentional design change, Facebook. So if you approach developers who hear me out are devolving their free time into doing this kind of things and they do it because they have reasons and they put work and thought and you just make fun of them. Not only that's not going to get you anywhere, obviously, but it makes them even less likely to actually work on this kind of things. And there's a lot of discussions where you can see this kind of things happening. And then the developer just stopped responding. And this is, in my opinion, the exact example of when you should be ignoring users.   And you do have to ignore users like that. But even like it has happened to me many times, if you have a user that is very kind and kindly asks for a feature that is not for the philosophy of the project you're in, you also kind of have to ignore the user request, but not the user themselves and try your best to explain why what they're asking for is not feasible. This is how I try to approach things. And it's seriously hard. Another suggested reading is this one, what it feels like to be an open source maintainer. I'm not an open source maintainer. I don't maintain anything, maybe a bit of the panel, but I don't think I do enough to be a maintainer and it's just the case panel, not much. But I still can relate to some of the things he's saying. As an example, he talks about the fact that there is just so many requests to go through and you often don't have the actual time to go through all of them. It makes various examples of various kind of users that might leave some bug reports and many are in very good intention and will, but don't know how to use a bug report tracker or don't know how to embed the code on or don't know how to provide another stupid example, crash information, which is super important. And then there's all the people who are like intentionally insulting to the developer. And often it's not very easy to be able to walk through that and keep a smile on like seriously. So yes, the philosophy is kind of ignoring users, but also more of a ignoring users that are intentionally harmful and ignoring some user's request that don't go towards the project goal and try to explain them why they don't. That's the whole point. Not to say that I don't not to say that I fully agree with every single decision that GNOME has made. As an example, I would like if they were more open to collaboration within the Linux world, especially in terms of specifications, but also to make a very stupid example. As always, GNOME applications in KDE look very good because there's active effort on making GNOME applications look good and consistent on KDE Plasma. Whereas QT applications on GNOME don't or I don't know, the idea of just ditching the system tray that would require I think some curve in making sure that all of the specs that were previously in the system tray like are still respected because there's like free desktop. But I'm going out of the topic with this one. So this is just what I wanted to say. I know that most users are kind, but the annoying kind of user are overrepresented in the daily life of a developer. So if you ever see a developer who's like not replying in a bug report as kindly as they could have, keep that in mind as far as I know, they're trying their best.