FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MARC ELLIS
Unedited Transcript
Morning folks I'm Claude Delgado and uh I'm sitting beside Mark Ellis and uh I asked Mark if he's if he's a prompt guy or is he if he wants to give people some Grace and uh happily for me Mark said I'm a prompt guy that's going right at kind of place all right let's get started so uh Welcome to our fireside chat this is the first one via zoom and um uh for those of you out there if you've got a question go ahead and pipe in because we
are quite a ways from the monitor I can't see any chat questions so we've got to just a question go ahead and chime in so I I first met Mark Ellis when he returned to our brokerage oh about three and a half years ago can you imagine it's been that long since time is flying you know he was immediately kind and friendly to me and we had uh some really nice conversations in his office door Mark is a favorite son of Pasadena attending Muir High School where he excelled in academics instead of Athletics and he went out to study at
Xavier University of Louisiana where he met the love of his life Robin correct and they live in Pasadena where Mark and his dog Ace are the only males in a household of Robin and four daughters I can't imagine what that's like how is that it's a handful all right so I want to thank Mark for his willingness to share with us today and I've observed Mark as a man of service primarily to those who are willing and eager to help themselves so Mark is one of the leaders in our brokerage setting the standard the focus
and professionalism those two gifts alone are examples of what we can all learn from him something I think we can all agree upon is that there's more than just one way to build a successful real estate business there are all kinds of ways and Mark will share a unique way he's built the business he has today so here we go Mark talk to us about how long you have been in real estate uh since 2004 2004 yeah so almost 20 years almost I started as a loan officer and then I started in real estate sales in 2008 with Keller Williams okay so
um how did you decide on Keller Williams being your first brokerage and what Drew you to Keller votes great question um I actually had a chance to evaluate a few companies um and what instantly drew me to Keller Williams was the business models and the systems uh the energy the millionaire real estate agent book um the first Keller Williams office I walked into similar to this one I saw books on the wall I saw quotes I saw symptoms and it was very impressive that was at the Pasadena brokerage no actually it was a brokerage in Chino
Hills and uh it was just different than every other brokerage and then I visited the Pasadena office because that's where I wanted to I wanted my home base to be right and the team leader at the time gave me the millionaire real estate agent book and he said I want you to read this in three days and get back to me and let me know if you want to join us and I said three days and he says yeah and he says you can't do it and I thought about it and I realized that I had never tried to read a book in three days right so I didn't know what
my capacity was but my initial thought was oh I can't do that I've never read a book in three days that was the first thought that came to my mind what I learned over time is that we don't know what our capacity is until we actually tried right and so sure enough I read the book in three days I cut out TV I got up earlier I stayed up later I found ways to focus and get that done and I was enjoying the book I'm highlighting highlight and highlight and highlighting and I finished the book and I came in I said I want to join
very cool yeah you know that's that's a great story because right away you were you were exampled how Keller Williams sets itself apart from probably all other brokerages and you were challenged in a way that you never thought of challenges yourself before and the cool thing for you or about you is that you owned up to that challenge and you said well let's you know if I can't do it let's see how far I can do it yeah and you learned that um that you could do it yeah how many pages is that book or how to play this yeah so
very cool so aside from that what else is it about the Keller Williams culture that that uh has contributed to your success um the model the god family business model um just learning about Gary Keller's story and how he started the company um and seeing the success of other agents and you know recognizing that I was in a place where I had an opportunity to learn and grow and it wasn't easy it was very challenging right to be in a space that I didn't feel comfortable in um but I knew that there was a place where I could grow and
I wanted to learn everything that I could right and so I had to stay the course there was times I wanted to quit right right um for various reasons um but I knew that there was something for me to gain and so I just had to stay focused now talk to us about the times you thought you wanted to quit and compare those sort of times that you felt maybe there weren't these times that you felt that you couldn't succeed you know what we do is a very solitary business right you know and it's very easy to get in your head yeah you know
so can you talk about that a little bit yeah for sure um I can get right to the for the core of this thing but you you learn over a period of time that it really is you versus you right right you realize that it's you that has to get past the limiting beliefs it's you that has to make it happen and yes there are challenges that you're facing and it could be that your skill sets need to improve it could be that you're you know learning to adapt in an environment that you're you've never experienced before
right you're learning how to interact with different people in the marketplace that come from different ethnic backgrounds right different cultures and you have to figure out how to convey the message that I can help you achieve your goal of buying or selling real estate and that's a process that we all have to go through right how do we make the connection how do we appeal to other people how do you keep going when you're getting all the no's right right no no no no no no no no no no no and that sells you've got to get through
the nose to get to the yeses right that's correct yeah but a lot of that is is improving yourself so that there are fewer nodes between the messes yes exactly you know and um I went to college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and one of the models of Cal Poly is you learn by doing and that's a lot of what we're doing here is is we're learning to improve by just doing the things that we're doing and it doesn't mean that you have to be exceptional at calling people on the phone or knocking
on doors or introducing yourself to somebody you don't know at a networking event but by the process of actually doing those things you get better on your own yeah that's right all right so if I recall correctly you left coloring blinks for a while I did and and talk to us about that experience very interesting um I did not leave Keller Williams Because of Keller Williams I actually took Keller Williams with me and um I realized that I was implementing Keller Williams models methods and everything in a place that
didn't really understand the values some values were definitely the same others were not um and it was a unique opportunity that was actually presented to me that was not available at Keller Williams right which is why I pursued it and it was a learning experience I was able to help someone who's actually a friend of mine he said let's put our heads together and let's figure out a way to build a sales team right here at my office and so we did do that and there was an opportunity to grow that even burden
um but I realized that I wanted something different right um I wasn't comfortable with the environment as much as I was at Keller Williams and so I had to make a decision do I want to keep going in this direction or do I want to go back to Kyle Williams and that's what I kept tossing around back and forth and so I finally made that decision to come back to take care of you so how long were you in that other position um three years it's a good long time yeah and how did that experience contribute to the success you've enjoyed
since you've returned um the big difference was I was in a recruiting capacity right um so I was interviewing uh newbie license agents and understand what their interest was in terms of real estate sales and that was a perspective that I didn't have was clear before um and I remember just being excited about onboarding somebody right but then the next step is you've got to be careful about who you're onboarding right um and so increasing that skill set of knowing how to interview people evaluate who they
are help them on board and then help them actually get to a place where they can be succeed in real estate right by helping them set up their business model and so that was something I had not done before and so it was a good experience I've definitely grew from it um which is why I enjoy being a mentor here at KW now all right yeah good for you so can you talk to us about last year's volume and and how you're tracking so far this year is that something you I wanted to share just started well you know
um I've had I think two closings this year mark no a little warm this year's um last year I closed nine I had um some referral fees that trickled in from agents in other cities um I've got some of those going right now and then of course helping the mentees that I hope right so that volume is definitely down from 2021.
I think obviously we know in 2022 we saw a shift in the market right um I had a couple of good transactions or I shouldn't say transactions they were scheduled to hit the market and they've been they've been delayed and so some of that business and everybody will learn this in time um you'll have some business that will actually roll into the following year right so that happens the the year by year period that we assign to our business there are things that we assign right right the life of our transaction occurs
regardless of what the amount of weeks or whatever right right yeah so so Aqua sparked a little bit about why you believe you're as successful As You Are um just being consistent with the system um what I have is a very organic database right um most of the comprised of sphere of influence and that's been something that I appreciated right it's just having that organic growth that's um based on repeat and referral business uh and to be honest I've got I've got room to grow I mean we know how to scale
the model right right um and that's just a matter of making that commitment to say Okay I want to invest more time and money to scale that model um but it's being consistent with being in touch with the database that's as simple as it is so you said something that the very start of that answered that I think is really important in the light team for you to expand on that and and how you apply it and its consistency talk about that for a bit please yeah so it's prospecting and marketing um it's always been
prospecting that's enhanced with marketing right right and so it's in the millionaire real estate agent book um we have different ways that we communicate with people right any company does right do you go to Target yeah do you think everybody knows about Target yeah just target continue to advertise right they continue to do that they continue to make offers I went to Target yesterday and man I mean they just kicked it up a notch this I went to self-checkout and before I could pay a pop-up on the screen says grab a gift card and scan it
for five dollar gift card I said what and the lady says grab a gift card right there grab a gift card I scanned it and I said what is this she says that's for your next visit I thought that was a brilliant marketing right great marketing that's why it's like one of my first goggles was at McDonald's you know and you're working in the at the window of McDonald's and they always talk to you about whatever we did talk to you about upselling you know somebody comes and orders uh uh a Big Mac and Fries you
know you're trained to say well would you like enough buy with that the upsell you know and and nine times out of ten they'll say yeah I'll take the yellow part and it's the exact same thing yeah yeah so um it's being consistent with staying in touch phone call text message email direct mail and then some of those people are actually on social media as well right not all of them are you know um and that's not my door I think there's some people in my database that are really not active on social
um but for those who are like to be connected with them and it's just staying in touch and those are the different mediums that we use to stay connected with people right and it's about creating value so every time I'm calling or sending something no matter what it is there's something of value there's some information or some tips there's some results there's a client review um that I'll share and so it's really about being top of mind right right we say when you have my share with people
you have market share correct right so um talk to us a bit about what you define as a client review um so I used to before social media days I feel all saying that um I used to all right Mark you're much younger than me so there's no reason for you to feel old at all people who got new agents and and social media is their lifestyle that's right and we lived a life without social um and so when it came to client reviews I actually this is before there's no signature I would send people a client review sheet in the mail
unless I was meeting with them like after closing or something but I usually would do it after the closing send it in the mail with a return envelope stamped and they would write in their review and they would sign it right and so I still have those records to this day and I used to post those on my website right because there were no social media accounts there were no Google reviews there was no Yelp at the time there was no Zillow at the time right there was no you know so uh and our our new or young agents have no concept of life without
that I have no concept of that so you know obviously with those new platforms coming to the space it became the wage to capture that review because now you know people know for sure that it's legitimate because somebody else posted it on this platform and it's in public platform for people to see right right and one thing that's key about this is I learned this years ago I can't even from who now but it says other people talking about you is much more powerful than you talking about you exactly right yeah exactly right so
um you do a great job of social media promotion you think so oh yeah yeah and I think I think your presence on Facebook it is exceptional okay and the same thing with Instagram uh are you on LinkedIn as well and if you are not why not I am on LinkedIn I think LinkedIn for me when I'm first meeting people that's the platform that I first looked for them on right and that's because when you're meeting someone for the first time especially if it's another business professional or if it's someone
who's a prospective client that's a business relationship right at least admit initially so I don't want to be the one who's like oh I want to be your friend on Facebook now they send me a request I'm okay with that but I feel like LinkedIn is that professional platform and it's an introductory platform right um and then later down the road after I nurture that relationship then maybe there's a connection on these other platforms right because I feel like those are much more friendly as opposed
to just business much more casual more casual for sure um but I also know there's agents out there that are like I mean they're they're killing it when it comes to Facebook and Instagram they're using that as their primary source for leads which I'm not doing that when I do organically generate leads from it just because of the spirit of influence see but that's that's a really important point that you just shared with us right now because we have to put it in our heads that what we're doing uh is a
professional business you know we're all we're all really business owners of what we're doing here we're we're running our own business but we need to do it professionally and a lot of ways to expand our our presence on marketing is to conduct connect with Professionals in a professional way right right and so that professional have become a client but more importantly they can become a referral source yeah and and that is almost better than being a client because you have one contact on LinkedIn that you
may get three or four referrals from you know and that's really how we um how we grow our business right oh one other part to make about social is be careful with topics like politics and religion right you know um you could be missing business opportunities because of that so that's something that I was taught and um oh wow there we go there we go that was fun um I'm scared of the Guard so I'm glad are you ready um but yeah those two topics are tough and you can definitely miss in business if you're happy on those topics right yeah
right now stay on this topic um a little bit longer you also said something at the very beginning that it's that it's Market enhanced marketing enhanced lead generation right marketing experience prospecting yeah really prospecting is is the core right it's the core you know and that's the hardest part of the business right that's what keeps everybody from succeeding especially the newer agent because they don't know they don't know their rate of questions they don't feel like they can have a conversation and so
it's let me give you my business card and they hope somebody calls that they're not going to call you right um they're hoping someone visits their website and goes oh I have to call this person they're not going to call you right um now if you have landing pages and you have a very strategic approach to generating online leads that's different right but just directing people to a general website I'm hoping they call you is like passing out the business cards exactly so where people really connect
with you is that that that live contact right um belly to belly is what we call it right face to face basically spell it to belly um the following conversation the now today it's even easier because we have video chat video chat is a better connection because now we're engaging the the senses right right and so it's a visual sense that people get a better impression of you you have social media where your here's what's even different this is prospecting and marketing to me kind of like just perfectly aligned is video
content that you have out there on social media because now people can hide so to speak behind their camera behind their laptop or their phone and they don't have to talk to you and engage with you so they feel the comfort of being private if you will but they get a chance to evaluate you and they're listening to you and they can see you and they're paying attention to this content right and what does it cost and cost some of them right if you have a device and an internet connection you can create a colorful exciting valuable
video that could cause someone to say I want to be in touch with this person which can be very powerful but it's never ever as powerful as face-to-face it has to get there right right so even with the internet leads that a lot of Agents like to go for the whole focus is to give that inner lead the internet lead to a phone call right get that phone call to a face-to-face appointment that's where the business happens that's where you get the agreement signed and then after that what happens exactly you get the
paycheck right yeah but you've got to have that live connection and people are more inclined to open your email and open your direct mail or look at anything that you've shared on social media or YouTube or whatever it is because they feel that personal connection with you right right if you're just sending direct mail out to people who don't know you right and I get it all the time you do too right this business professionals that all they do is send email all they do is send text right and they expect me to
respond to that and my feeling is if you don't have the whatever it takes the engagement right give me a call and give me a personal introduction ask me for coffee let's go to lunch like really engage me and then your text or your email are more likely to open it up right so it's it's you know we all since I've been here I've always heard you know you want to be talking about money but it's not just top of mind it's intentional top of mind you know it's the they need to have a reason to
understand what sets you apart from everybody else you know and and what sets you apart is a personal connection yeah you know and and those aren't done through social media marketing have not done through mail marketing and um they've done my actual conversations right you know the the social media and the mail it enhances that but it doesn't do it doesn't it doesn't do the job in lieu of that conversation that's true you know so yeah true yet and still there are some agents who are hyper focused on Instagram or
Tick Tock and it really is the lead generating resource so they don't have to have the personal call in the beginning but that's social media content creates the call right right and then from there that's where the business happens so let's talk about your consistency with your sphere um how many touches of your spear would you say you have a model well when it comes to social media it's hard to count that right right um but the direct mail which includes a regular scheduled letter right and
there's a coaching company that does assist with that right and so that saves me a lot of time because they put together some very professional content right that goes out um so that's on schedule and that usually goes out eight to 12 times a year sometimes I'll be honest sometimes I skip a month um and that shouldn't happen but sometimes it does um then I also have the handwritten cards that go out right right and so my focus on that is by handwritten cards um five days a week okay right so five
times five is twenty five I'm doing this because this is a part of the budget model right so 25 um let's say it's a dollar a piece right that's 25 right and so in a four week period that would be a hundred dollars a month just in handwritten cards right right so that's a part of our budget model how much does it cost for me to send a direct mailer to handle it the cards um and then am I getting a return on investment right so are you following up everybody with that handwritten letter with the letter
oh yeah yeah every single person that gets the letter oh yeah you're talking to them on the phone I want to call them too and check in with them okay so you send out 100 cards a month um and how many how many people do you have in your sphere that's a great question so I've got what I consider a small database right it's about 300 people and that's broken down into ABCD right it's also broken uh between seller and buyer it's also broken down um based on geographic location and I don't track all the geographic locations
but I do consider a certain areas like my Hub right and so I want to make sure I know how many people are in my database that are in this in this region right which is typically San Diego Valley right right um and then there's the email the email that I do is typically twice a month okay so so your your sphere gets two emails a month and a letter and a follow-up phone call so that's that's four times a month that's 48 times a year on average okay and then they get a note card once a quarter you have a
handwritten card about every month yeah yeah so they might get two or three of those a year yeah okay so so that is that's a well-oiled machine it is you know and it's just part of your part of your daily weekly process exactly you know it's just something you do on a regular basis anyway anybody help you with that uh my daughters all of them yeah no no no not the young as well some songs but no uh the three oldest ones will help uh especially with the direct mail pieces and they do get paid um they want to be paid for that and
they should but I want people to know that you know what we just talked about you can scale that to whatever degree you desire right um so you can say I want to build a database of a thousand people or 2 000 people right the main real estate agent book still relevant today talks about a database of 2000 people right it talks about building a business model that goes seven levels deep so you take that same model and you just decide to scale it right this is how much Direct Mail is going out this is how many emails is how many calls is how
we're standing in touch and then that's going to set your appointments maybe your appointments turn into contracts so so if if for example you send down a thousand letters you know there's nowhere you could talk you're going to talk to a thousand people a month right so the people that you talk to of that thousand they're your as and B's definitely A's and B's um and when we're talking about a database of a thousand you probably want to get an Avenue in person involved at
that point right which is that second level right right where you've got someone who's assisting with these phone calls right right to make those personal connections um then getting to a point where you burn in a buyer's agent right um and so on and so forth right so let's let's back up a little bit uh talking less about scaling the business up let's talk about the origins of the business so we started selling real estate back in 2014 I mean after being uh property manager right no no a mortgager
yeah 2004. yeah yeah loan officer Okay so so but you're actually selling real estate was in 2014 karate 2008 2008 right okay so uh at what year after 2008 did you get to a volume that you thought okay um I mentioned in this business that you felt confident that this is this is your business yeah it's a great question well I'll say this first when I came in to Keller Williams in 2008 I thought that um I was continuing something that I had already started when it comes to a database and a business I quickly realized that I was
actually starting all over the infrastructure the long business and the real estate world are very different and so I actually had to share a lot of the database because when you're originating loans don't care where these borrowers are right right you don't even have to do a site visit right you order an appraisal appraisal comes in otherwise everything is done in-house loan gets funded you don't care where people are but you quickly learn on the real estate side that real estate sales is a local
business and so you have to get hyper focused with you know establishing a base especially at that time right again we have social media we didn't have all this technology and all this leverage that we do today right um and so to answer your question I think it was the fourth year and it was about 2012 that I actually felt like I was establishing myself so um what was it that click for you that between year three and year four um you just have to keep going you have to learn how to be the thermostat and not the thermometer okay
so it's it's we hear this all the time as well trust the process right right trust the process yeah and uh you know I learned that many many years ago when I first started selling and uh I was calling for dental clients and my sales manager said you know Claude do this and in about six months time it'll be like a life is a light switch is slick yeah and you're going to get all this business right and that's exactly what happened yeah you know and it's the same thing with what we're doing here yeah you
maintain the consistent contact with your people yeah and at some point in the not too distant future yeah things will clear that's right and the answer is you've got to keep going meaning for every coach every colleague of mine that I was absorbing valuable information from you know every time I had a setback in terms of that appointment didn't get set or that appointment didn't win the contract or that deal didn't close it actually canceled and we have to remember that 2008 about 2009 2010
because I'm a very tough economic time in this country and so we had a lot of short sales and we had a lot of foreclosures um and so the time in which transactions closed right if you weren't if you weren't selling standard sale which you know standard sale was present but that was people who were very influent and very well off right so they had the ability to sell out of profit there were a lot of people who wanted to sell and they couldn't because there was no equity didn't make sense right but so it
was a very tough time and with every setback the answer was to talk to more people right so if you didn't set the appointment or if you didn't get the contract or if the deal canceled what was the answer the answer was always more volume right and you realize you can soak in this pity all day long or you just get up you brush it off and you just keep going and keep going and keep going and that's what you learned that's the key to success that's right you know and and experiencing those setbacks experiencing deals that
fall through appointments that are no shows amongst that are canceled it it thickens your skin and and helps you learn how to keep going yeah and and you know there's that saying there's a quality or quantity and really in our business the quality is the quantity you know and that's that's really important so when you did start recognizing and appreciating that times Economic Times are a significantly different than uh what what lead generation models did you use and why um the main erosion in the world right
so it was definitely sphere of influence I spent a good deal of time um literally going door-to-door and I created a model behind that right and that's what I tell a lot of mentees today or all of them they're going to decide to farm it's an investment of time and you have to be consistent with that and so I realized that if I chose a geographic area and I actually tried the previous year's sales that I had a good idea of what the sales volume would look like right then it's a matter of how
many you know sales cannot go and capture out of this Market space and creating a system for knowing how long it takes to rotate through this geographic area consistently right literally tapping on the door right you're going direct whether you're having a face-to-face and you're offering something of value and then if you're hosting open houses in the same area right and you're asking the simple questions who do you know that we're going to move into your area how long have you lived here have you thought
about relocating right and some people will tell you I'll go out of this house in a box yes and so we respond and say I understand guess what this is a great neighborhood to be in right I wouldn't want to leave either but let's just say you came into an extreme amount of money where would you go right right that's one of the ways we lead people into actually thinking about right where they would go and then you say hey tell me more about that and that may turn into a listing appointment down through it the other question is are you
interested in investing in any real estate right passive income opportunities we have the millionaire real estate investor book I think they're about ten dollars a piece so you've got these different ways where you create value for people and then you've got to follow up so I did have some farming um I did call um what was it I would make calls through uh Craigslist uh-huh right that was a source um reaching out to expires um hosting the open houses these were the ways that we had to generate business right yeah but everything that
you said there for all your new agents for all you agents that aren't happy this is exactly what you need to employ it's very foundational yeah it's very simple it's just not easy right but you know it's what Mark is saying here is exactly what we're hoping to do yeah so that's okay one other point is um the spirit of influence I just want to break that down a little bit it's different for everybody right so uh it all depends on your lifestyle and so we all have different circles that we live
in so to speak right if you have a gym that you attend on a regular basis if you have a place of worship that you attend if you're a parent and have kids at a school that's right if there's non-profits in the area that you volunteer at whatever your lifestyle is that's going to have a big impact on how you generate business right which means me to one story I'll just share this one there's a ton of them out there that's what I love about this business it really is about lifestyle everybody can
create the the model that they want right exactly so one agent um she and she like Ken Parsons she enjoys wine she's a Monica and she said in one session there was a panel and she said about 40 of my business is from my wine Adventures she goes to wineries right she may set up a event where she does some sort of one piece of Paint and Sip or wine tasting and she's literally having fun socializing enjoying wine and that is how she builds her database so she said 40 of the database in the business comes from that lifestyle
there we go all right so that's what we have to be focused on we will um you've got to find your Niche or niches right I love to hike as you know right and so being able to interact with people who enjoy hiking that's a natural way for us to connect and nurture a relationship and the beautiful thing about real estate sales or any sales right or any business owners that I know um I know dentists I know people that offer different businesses right attorneys right their interactions in these spaces are just for fun right but because
someone knows right that this is your your profession they already like you they probably already trust you and then what comes after that is hey I got a real estate question for you exactly and that's how it happens yeah good spot Mark good spot so talk to us about your daily routine and how that drives your business okay what do you do today to generate leads you know we we have our sphere that they are our Elites yeah okay but we continually have to see that machine yeah New Leads yeah so what do you what
are you doing today as a as a realtor that's in substantial production you know what you do to generate links um same thing we just talked about it's the database right so it's a certain number of of calls a day it's getting the handwritten bar set um they're on my desk ready to go uh I've got a tracker sheet like a cheat sheet yeah that's on my desk next to my laptop and it's actually tracking how many people I talk to today right and keeping track of how many appointments and keeping track
of um the contracts and keeping track of you know the email so at the end of the month I can look at what those numbers go into expression right and I can look at what my activity is and it took me a couple of years to get to that point because you have to train yourself to do it and I used to in the beginning feel like that's a little too tedious I just need to get out here and talk to people and I would sit down with a coach and she would say show me your numbers you know and I was saying doing all these
activities I've got all this stuff I've been doing the last two or three weeks and I'm just I just have to set an appointment and she said show me your numbers I said well I didn't I didn't try them right so when you actually discipline yourself to start tracking your numbers what happened to me is I realized I wasn't really doing as much as I thought I was that's a harder lesson to learn isn't the hard unless it's a lot so you realize you've got to hit these numbers and they're very important so to this
day it's at least 20 people or more per day five days a week if you're talking to 100 people a day I don't care if it's a cold call that hey this is Mark Ellis trusted real estate advice I was wondering click right I've introduced myself as a real estate professional that's a lot of contact some conversations will go further than that they might last five or ten minutes the ones that last longer are usually follow-up calls right right so uh tracking those numbers making those calls getting that mail out
um you know everything's on the schedule so you know that for me if it's an email every couple of weeks I know that this needs to go out right and so some will use uh some Marketing Systems where maybe a third-party marketing company is sending I actually will uh create that content right so it is specific when I send it out um but I will use some marketing content for one of the one of the marketing companies but what Mark shared with us there goes back to what I talked about in at the very beginning his focus and his
professionalism a lot of us go into real estate thinking well I'm running my own business I can run however I will but if you if you want to be successful you need to be professional about what you're doing you need to be focused on the things that you do and the only way to be focused is to measure what it is you're doing and that that tally sheet that Mark talked about is really important it's it's very very important so you know exactly what you're doing that'll enable you to build up a history
and you can you can track your rations so you learn okay I see that it takes me 30 calls to set an appointment so if I want two appointments this week I gotta make 60 calls you know and those numbers vary for every different person depending on your Effectiveness on the phone that's right but the more you call the more doors you knock on the more people you talk to the better you'll get at that and and the shorter your ratios will become that's right we felt our way to success correct when you're actually
live talking to people in the face-to-face or voice to voice you that's where you master the dialogue right and you won't have you know an answer for everything sometimes that conversation is just casual conversation but then you have to find the pocket so to speak where you can throw the qualifying question in there that you can start throwing those lead generation questions in there where you can say something that's going to create us some value or some interest um finding that pocket to ask somebody
for their phone number asking them for their email address right right ordinarily address um you learn how to do that by actually getting out there we fail our way to success right and I remember one coach he simplified it for me so well he says I I can tell you exactly what's happening Mark he says you're either talking to a bunch of people and you're not saying the right things if you're not really setting appointments right right he says or you're saying the right things you've got your scripts and dialogues down but
you're just not talking to enough people right and then I guess the third one could be both along with saying the right things uh it's important to really hear what the person's saying it's important to listen to what they're saying bill you know and and you listening to what people say oftentimes will give you an opportunity to say what you need to say yeah you know and and so you've you've got to when you go into a conversation or when you go into a networking event you've got to go into those with the intent of
really listening to what they're saying all right yeah so let's talk about um probably doing today talk to us about some of the things that you might be struggling with in today's market and what you're doing to overcome those struggles uh well as we all should know by now volume is down compared to early last year right in those previous years and so while you our volume of lead generation has to increase right you may even have to expand um your territory to make up the difference I wish I could show that pie
chart that they mentioned earlier right because that's perfect for for today why don't you describe it can you describe it I think I can describe it I'll try to uh so let's see so if we take if we say this is today's market right you guys can imagine this big circle and you're you've got your slice of that pie in a very robust Market but then that market shrinks right the volume shrinks you have to generate more leads and so your share of the pie instead of it being this slice of pie you have to get a wider slice of
the pie because the volume um is less so that Pi is smaller but if you've got a wider slice of that pie because you're adding more and more people to your database then what happens is as the market starts to increase in volume again your slice of the pie actually gets bigger as the volume in the market um gets bigger so it just comes down to what I've recognized is I've got above the lead generation I've got room I've got opportunity to do that and I know that I'm going to have to do that um in
2023 there's no question about it we've all got to do that and let me let me take a stab at illustrating your your description um so there's there's more than one there's more than one way is that okay so imagine that you've got a higher that's that's six inches in diameter and maybe your slice of that pie is 1 6 of that pie so that's a certain size but if that pie suddenly becomes four inches in diameter and that same 1 6 of The Pie is much smaller than it was when it was a
six inch pot right so what you have to do is you have to talk to more people to make sure that you're 1 6 of the pi grows to maybe one fourth of the pie right all right so I hope that help complement what Mark said to better illustrate that okay so um you answered the next question so let me say this we've got a lot of newer solo agents hopefully listening in what words of caution or encouragement or inspiration can you share with them um be consistent you have to you have to be confident you have to trust that
the activities that you're doing will give you a return on investment and it's similar to working out right you want a certain uh level of strength or if you want a certain um weights or certain physique um it takes time right and so you have to recognize that this is a business where there's a delayed gratification you can be at this for a week or two or three or four or eight that's an extended period of time if you haven't earned a check yet and so you'll quickly find yourself saying what am I
doing why am I doing this this isn't working and you'll stop planting those seeds and say well maybe I should try this over here and instead of staying consistent here we just have to know that this soil is good right we definitely want to move our seeds somewhere else if we are not planting in good soil and what that means is if you choose let's say a geographic area to farm there and there's eight sales a year in that area not the place to invest you know um in terms of geographic farming so
it's about staying consistent it's about having a big why because as we say all the time your Big Y is going to pull you through the difficult time right because you will get to that place where you say why am I doing this and it's the big why and the goal that you set and that you have to believe right you really have to believe that this is going to work if you don't believe it no one else is going to feel that energy you're not going to be consistent and you won't give the results that you want you're
going to have to make the investment of time and money and you're going to have to trust that there's a return on investment and I'll leave it with the story of Jessica Romero right okay um let people know who Jessica is yes she is one of our top producers she's a phenomenal real estate professional and I remember when she started I can remember quite a few people started and Jessica was very consistent in the Bible remember her story correctly she was consistent with mostly open houses for about six months
and she was doing her follow-up she was doing the database and she's like I'm not you know getting people under contract I'm not out here showing homes like I would like to be in writing offers and getting people and asking like I want to what's happening and we all kept saying you're doing the right things and all of a sudden like popcorn it happened for her and she never looked back and Jessica just kept going to the next level and so uh she stayed consistent yeah she's our perennial top
individual league in this channel that's correct ever since I've been here she's been the top individual agent of that is correct you know and so you talked about belief and when you start this business it's hard to have that thumbs and where you can find that belief is in the mrea book right because it gives you uh the process and I listened to a lot of podcasts and a lot of Keller Williams agents are interviewed on these podcasts and to a person they all say they followed the mrea you know so you do
that and and you can believe that you'll be successful yeah I want to say one understand that everyone can look at we have so many examples in this office that uh and this is what I love about Kevin Williams poker too is whoever you see then is attractive to you in terms of like man I would love to build something like that that's who you go to we have a culture where when we go to them they will tell you exactly what they're doing how they got to this point right and so you have the model one other point that I want to make
about that now that I'm saying it this was something that was a light bulb for me a few years back when all this was being shared and so many other companies don't take the time out that Keller Williams does right so share these models in this culture of giving and sharing that we have is truth like one other right right I think some other companies have adopted a lot of the values from Keller Williams but for so long we just have this culture of sharing and I got to the point where I said why would someone
share all of these secrets why and this is why it's uh what's the sign about the candle no no not the candle um but the reason why the models and systems are shared is because uh you have to put the work in so you can give the model to somebody but if they don't put the work in right right then they're not going to get the result and so we have the models right in front of us we just have to make the decision to say this is the direction I'm going to go and what going back once again to Mark's
focus and he mentioned it a little bit when we're doing our job of generating liens and prospecting is um sticking with a process and staying with it and working it not flitting around from one to the other but just staying with the one true thing and following it and that one true thing is whatever you decided to be you know okay so Mark talk to us about where you get your inspiration uh are there are the books or authors you read or podcasts to listen to or what what gets you going it's a great question
um over the years it has become quite a few things the old school is as Jim Rome right um Zig Ziglar um Earl Nightingale you know right and I mean that stuff is still resonance oh man it's still quality to this day um present day is more of a Brian defuni right phenomenal person that I I definitely admire we've got quite a few other people that are um coaches in our industry um I just finished a book this morning actually by Eric Thomas okay right yeah his book is titled you owe you but he's a motivational speaker tremendous amount
of success um Garrett Keller right and everything that we see Gary Keller um put out there and then there's other associates that I follow that are within Keller Williams and they're throughout the country right and going to Mega Camp you start to learn about people in different regions a lot of our social media groups now you learn about different people and other regions that you wouldn't know anything about because that that Powerhouse that social media is um yeah I follow people that way and then going to
family reunion next month right that's going to be another phenomenal experience where you get a chance to to network and just hear from so many people and the models are different right but you you you you basically bear witness to all these successful business models and not just that but Lifestyles right quality Lifestyles what do we say it's a the business worth owning a life worth living a life worth living there a business somewhere in the world yeah so it's true you know but you know that those three men that you mentioned uh
Earl Nightingale Zig Ziegler Jim Rohn you know the people that are out there today Tony Robbins and Brian buffini they stand on the shoulders of those three men yeah you know and you find books by those three men and uh and you'll have a great Foundation great base on on how to make your business the business that you want I'll throw Mel Robbins in there too okay you know Robbins is a lady an S4 any of our Lady colleagues okay Mel Robbins is a phenomenal um coaching motivational speaker too so uh second last question from me what
do you think it takes for someone to succeed in real estate today um same answer to all these questions all right we've got to be consistent and we've got to talk to people uh myself and movement teams you know Apple will get you onboarded and get you set up with your tools and everything set up it's time to start feeding that database right you know and we may have to take baby steps depending on um their level of experience in terms of like what their past work experience has been what that skill set looks like
um you have to oh there we go you have to just start talking with people this is a people business right um even though we're selling real estate it's all about people and so talk to I was going to say talk to as many people as you can but because we're a company that's based on models we need to set we need to have that business plan right this is how many people we're going to talk to and based on that you'll start to know what your appointment ratio is right um and are you setting appointments and
if not we need to talk about what it is that you're saying right because there are things you can say that will definitely set an appointment um and I remember when I used to when I first started going after listing appointments a lot man I was scared I was very familiar with the buyer's side especially because I came from the loan side of the business so the buyer side was easy but when I started going after listings um I remember just getting I felt um that I had grew just from setting the listing appointment and then actually having the
listing appointment right and going back to my car driving away and finding somewhere to pull over to loosen my tire right and just relax and let my nerves relax right and then you start to replay everything that happened with that listing appointment from that I called to confirm I was on my way that I provide the pre-listing package was a pre-listing package correct um you just replay everything that happened during the appointment did I say anything wrong was there something that I missed I've felt a level of success just getting to that point right because it was such a learning experience and it was the best learning experience better than any coach sitting down with me and telling me this is what you should do right right um and then you get to a point where you're like okay I don't want to just go on these listing appointments I want to actually take a listing right and then that feeling of seeing your sign on that on that yard you know is a great feeling and so for me it's all about the client it's the fiduciary to the client and has nothing to do with me I want to do everything I can every single day to make sure this listing is a success for that client all right great answer you know you said something in there that I don't know if you still do it but we should do after every missing appointment maybe after every buyer's consultation you sit down and almost immediately after review what we did think about the things that we did right think about the things we'd like to do better next time you know and that's how you get better at those things all right so at this point uh I'll open it up to any questions anybody out there has we can't see anything that you put in the chat so if you've got a question just speak out no questions all right crickets right all right so last question are there any thoughts you'd like to share with us today uh no I think I think I put it out there um and I'll just saying for 2023 we just have to make the decision to commit to the business plan set the business plan have it sit down on your desk and focus on it and we're going to fail our way to success you're not going to hit that business plan like you want every single day there's gonna be some setbacks your car needs maintenance if you've got kids your kid's going to get sick your spouse is going to there are so many things that get in the way um so you're not going to hit the benchmarks every single day which is why Gary Kelly says aim high because the arrow actually you know does this right um and you mentioned Brian buffini he has that thing about winning a day and winning the week winning the month and it's not winning every day it's winning four days a week that's right winning four days a week means you won the week that's right you know winning three weeks a month means you won the month that's right and how many months for the year is it eight nine what's that when eight months nine months of the year to win the year oh right exactly so so that's what it is yeah okay well Mark thank you very much for your time well for your information it was great stuff yeah thank you so much all right you're welcome all right butAbout Marc Ellis.
ABOUT MARC ELLIS
Marc specializes in Residential Sales and Leasing at Keller Williams Pasadena. Becoming an expert consultant became a passion for Marc Ellis in 2004 when he helped clients finance new real estate investments. He also helped clients save money by refinancing existing mortgages. In October of 2008, Marc changed his focus to real estate sales and discovered the joy of helping homeowners and investors lease and sell the property and he's very happy hand-delivering keys to new homeowners and tenants. Marc's family lives works learns and plays in Pasadena. With the help of industry-leading coaches and successful business models, Marc is serving clients at a high level!
Marc Ellis now has 13 consecutive years of full-time experience in real estate. Marc enjoys helping homeowners and investors sell and lease property and he's very happy hand-delivering keys to new homeowners and tenants. Marc has a beautiful wife named Robyn and together they are the proud parents of four wonderful girls! Marc's family lives, works learns, and plays in Pasadena, CA. Marc was raised in Pasadena and attended local schools and was a member of a local Boy Scout Troop in Altadena, CA. With the help of industry-leading coaches and successful business models, Marc offers premier real estate services in Southern California!
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