Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to Coffee is for Closers. I'm your host, Tim Brigham. And today I have a special guest, Corey Tanzer. Thank you so much for joining us, brother. I'm so excited for this interview because I know a little bit about you. Please tell our audience who you are and what you're about.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Well, first off, thanks for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity to share my story and share my passion for real estate with everyone. So I'm Corey Tanzer, owner of Option Realty Group. I'm the founder of the Corey Tanzer group and team leader of Option Realty Group as well. For that team, my background is I grew up in the western suburbs, so you might have heard of Elmhurst, Lombard, Villa park. That's where I spent most of my days on the playground growing up. From there, I went into retail and I worked for Target and I ran Target stores. At Target I had eleven direct reports, 5500 people indirectly reporting for me, and then about a billion dollars in sales I was responsible for. So I was at Target and I loved it and I loved the people, right. And I love the community aspect of it because Target does a bunch of community events. But I hated the nonstop work and I was only as good as my last visit.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Right?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: And what I mean by that is when my boss would come in if my store was messed up, well, I was getting my ass handed to me, right? So after that I went to Ross dress for less because a lot of my target bosses had gone there, my mentors, and they're like, come work for this company. So I spent a little bit of time there running Ross dress for less stores. And I realized it wasn't for me again, it was that retail environment. So I wanted to work for a company that had a focus on community, giving back, conscious of the environment. And I found this little place that sells burritos, their small boutique place called Chipotle.
And I went and worked for them. And I had stores in the downtown and at that .1 of my stores would do about 350 to 400 burritos an hour and I'd have to sometimes be on the line to help them out. And I'm the best burrito roller in the real estate game. Anyone out there that wants to challenge me to rolling burritos, that's a real skill.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: I grew up in Tucson. That is a real skill. You really have to know what you're doing to be able to have that claim to fame. That's amazing.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: So after that I was at Chipotle and it still wasn't for me, right. I was missing something. I wasn't able to give back enough. I felt at Chipotle, even though they were about just their events, were cooking at exclusive, certain food events, right, at Wrigley Field or wherever, right. And to me, community is building a community, right? Like, I grew up and I knew my neighbors and giving back to that community. So I decided I want to do real estate. And my parents, when I called them and told them, told me I was a moron and don't do it. It's not consistent income. And to give people a background, my parents were in it, my in laws are in it. They're also owners of option realty group. So my whole family is in it. And both of them were like, no, do not do it.
It's not consistent, right. And I don't know if they didn't believe I could be a top producer. I don't know if they believed that retail didn't equate to being a top producer in real estate. But I did it, and I jumped ship. And in 2015, I started out with them, had no database, no idea what I was doing. Wrote a five year business plan with a lot of bold ideas and activities I was going to do. And fortunately, I knew Nick Nassos at the 77 group. And at that point, his website was blowing up. He was getting so many rental leads, but his clients didn't want this little neighborhood called University Village, where I live.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: What's a lot of rental leads? What was that back then?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Still, I'd get anywhere from, like 90 to 100 a month.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Oh, wow. That's a lot.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Just for my little pocket, right? So my father told me professionals wear suits, right? So I was like, I'm going to go get me some suits. And my suit game wasn't as good as math, not even close to as good as Laracy's. But at the time, the men's warehouse was my best friend, and I got some suits started, take out these rental leads, and I was converting, like, anywhere from five to ten a month. And they weren't the highest price points like other people were getting, but it was a good living, right? But the most important thing that did for me was people saw me on 15th, which is the major street, walking down the street in a suit with groups of people every single day, right. And their perception was, those are buyers, right. Because the consumer believes everyone's a buyer.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: They don't think of you doing rentals.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: So after 15 and renting probably close to 100 apartments, I started getting my first listing, right? And that was exciting. And then my business just doubled and doubled and grew from there individually because of everything I was doing in the community. So in 16, I started farming. So I started really focusing on my community. And it's funny because, and I think, you know, at that point, I got a listing in 17 after I'd been farming for about a year. And someone told me, why would you waste your time on that shit neighborhood, right?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: So let's pause, as you say. Shit neighborhood.
What is it and what are your numbers in that neighborhood?
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Okay, so the realtor who did downtown condos only, who called it a shit neighborhood, the neighborhood that I love, and I own four condos in and two townhouses in is university village. And it's a little pocket just south of UiC. It's got multiple hoas in it. It's a great neighborhood. It feels like a little bit of suburban living in an urban. So, like, when I'm in my yard, because I have a yard, when I'm in my backyard, I feel like I'm back in Elmhurst, right? But then I look up and I'm like, oh, there's the fucking Willis Tower, but Sears Tower to me, let's be clear on that. And there it is.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: Right?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: So that little pocket is basically from the highway, 1994 all the way to racing, right? So that neighborhood, I basically do right now as of like yesterday when I checked broker Metrics and the Mls with closed and pending 48% of all activity in that area.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Wait, hold on. You have 48% of University Village is attributed to you and your team.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And what's really crazy is we only advertise as one in three because we know that eventually we'll go down a little bit. Wow. But right now, yeah, we're at 48% and it pisses me off. We're not at 50 because I want to be at 50. And I'm a realist.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Okay?
[00:06:14] Speaker B: I know, never going to be at 100%. There's always going to be people that don't want to work with us.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Or perceive us as too busy, which is fine. But yeah, one in three homes. And currently it's at 48% of closed and pending homes we have, which is amazing.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: That's incredible. I don't know many agents that can say numbers like that, that have that much market share of a specific area.
And I find that, man, when you talk to an agent and they say, oh, well, where do you focus on? And they'll say, oh, I'll pretty much go anywhere in my head. I'm thinking, wow, it's not a knock to you in any way, shape, or form. I'm sure you could. I just think that sometimes having a niche or a special focus of being in that community and focusing really on that one specific area that you're passionate about as a realtor, getting involved with the community is really a path to success, and you're a perfect example of it. That's incredible. You said a couple of times the farm. Can you explain what the farm is or what that looks like?
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: So for the realtors watching at home, you guys all know about farming. You read about it and what farming really is, it's more than just hosting a couple of community events, right? My farm and my farming is community events. So let me be clear. Community events like book exchanges, clothing exchanges, toy exchanges, community cleanups.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Those are community events.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: That's charity.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: I want to give back, make my community better.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: So there's the community aspect of the farming, and then there's also the events to thank people for buying homes with us, right. So we have that farming events that we do over there would be, like, our ice cream truck, where we just thanked everybody because we sell one in three homes, right? Like, and we did ice cream truck, and we had 500 people come out to the ice cream truck. Right? So it cost me a good amount of money.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: When you're paying $5 an ice cream bar, don't tell my father in law, who's the CEO of option, but you're paying $5 an ice cream bar, and you have that experience, but you get 500 people out.
[00:08:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: And it's really those events that thank people. We do an Easter egg hunt, we do a Halloween party, we do a Santa Claus experience. We do a fall fest, we do a pumpkin patch. So we do all the stuff that the suburban agents do, right, in the city, right? And I think that's key, because when I go back to what I grew up with, and I think of all the events that I saw happening in Elmhurst, right, and in ville park, it was like, oh, this event sponsored by this realtor, right, who some of them are still out there and still doing a great job. I said, why can't you do that downtown? Why can't you have that, right? And where agents fail is, it's the lack of consistency. It's the lack of when you fail an event. And I failed at many events, and I've gotten back up and made them better. But where they fail is, like, perfect example. My zip code is six six, eight. And my particular house where it's in, if you look at the demographics, it says the average household makes more than 250,000.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: Right?
[00:09:07] Speaker B: And so I get random mailers all the time because the house is in my wife's name so they don't take me off if it's in my name. The properties I own that are in my name, I never get those flyers. So realtors are smart enough to not mail to another realtor usually, but it's in my wife's name, right. And I see it and I go, okay, Tim, I'm just going to use your name. You just sent me a flyer. You told me that you just sold this property. What the fuck does a property that's 2 miles away have to do with this zip code?
[00:09:35] Speaker C: Right?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Like nothing.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Right?
[00:09:37] Speaker B: But you just wasted one $200 because some company sold you. Hey, every listing you have, you need to farm to a certain demographic and people that make x number of dollars.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: On paper.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Well, that's just a waste of money. And then, Tim, usually you only send me one postcard a year. That ain't worth shit.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: All I'm going to do with your postcard is I'm going to give it to my son who's five. He's going to draw on it, we're going to have some fun with it. He's going to mess you up in the face and then that's garbage.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: But the reality is to be successful in farming, you have to be consistent. And you know what? You could come in and farm my neighborhood. I hope you do.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: I hope everyone watching this comes and tries to farm University Village. I challenge you to do that.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: But with that first.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: But with that said, I know they're never going to be consistent. They're never going to have lead follow up, and they're not going to know how to plan.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: It doesn't matter what market you go into. Right. And I love what you're talking about because I get calls like this on a regular basis on, hey, Tim, I want to draw up a new business, right? And I coach on a regular basis on how to create more leads and how to build a real consistent business. Not just, I'm going to try this and see if it works. It takes time. You have to market yourself. You have to consistently continue to put things out into your sphere. But also you need to focus. You need to get this to where it's in one area so that you're known as the guy that's there. You're in that market, you matter to them because for you, you live there, right? I mean, this is your community. You care about it. Right?
Something you said that I thought was really interesting is that you did community cleanups. Why do you do community cleanups? That's incredible. Why do you do that?
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Well, we do it for a few reasons, but most importantly, pride in your neighborhood, right.
You think about it, and the reality of the situation is, even though these hoas have staff that clean up trash that falls on the ground, right, there's still an opportunity where trash is missed, and we need to beautify the neighborhood, and we need to beautify our neighbors, right? So going back to community cleanups, that was in my business plan in 16, I started it. I hosted my first spring community cleanup, and it was an epic failure. I had five or six people out, right? And most people at that point, when you're farming, you give up, right? You try an event, it doesn't work, right. It's just like, people who work open houses, they don't work well, they do work if you know what you're doing. So that event was an epic failure, right? And so I went and talked to the CEO. My father in law, we call him that, and he is a former CEO, so that's why he has the title.
But I asked him for business advice, because in my life, I realized I have to have mentors, right? And I have to have people that I can sound ideas off of. And my wife, God bless her soul, she'll never give me honest feedback. She always says I look good, even though I know I have to lose some weight, right.
She'll be kind. But my father in law is very direct. And so we had a recap meeting after our spring cleanup is around my mother's birthday. I think it was like March 20.
And he goes, did you get any photos? And I said, what do you mean photos? What are photos for? And he goes, you got to get photos. And I said, why do I need photos? I did a community cleanup. He goes, but how do people know you did it? And I said, I only had five people there. Who am I going to take photos of? He goes, it's all about the angle, man. He goes, you got to make it look like more people came out, because if people see people at an event the second time, they're more willing to come out, right? So he goes, I want you to do a favor. He goes, call your uncle Larry. Which is actually my wife's, but. And he's a marketing guru, founder of Weber Shanwick right. The marketing company. And I call him and I said, larry, I need some help. And this is a man that at this point, I've been married to my wife five years in her life for eight years, right? And I've talked to him a few times and I said, I really need your help.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: You're a marketing guru. I did this event. I failed. And really, community events are marketing in some form, right? And he goes, we kind of dissected and went over it, and I learned a lot from him. But he said, you're in the background of a major university. Why are you not asking them to join you?
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Right?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: They care about the community. Right? So, no joke, I had moved some renters because I was walking down 15th and had moved people that worked for the university. I called them and I said, who do you know that I can get to come out for our fall cleanup?
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Right?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: And people are like, well, we have to participate. But not that many people will come out because people don't want to pick up trash on a Saturday morning at 09:00 a.m.?
[00:14:01] Speaker C: Right?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So I called UIC and I called Ignatius, and I reached out to both of them. And the Ignatius principal, who is now retired, who I just actually sold her place, she was a client of mine, too. And I said, hey, can I get some kids out? She said, absolutely. Whatever you need, we'll promote it.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Right?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: And then I went really bold. And what I mean by that is I knew UIC had a partnership at that time with Connie's pizza. And I just called Connie's Pizza up, and I said, can I talk to the owner? They probably thought, who the fuck is this guy calling, right? And I call and, hey, Mike, I'm Corey Tanzer. You probably don't know me, but I'm going to do community cleanup in three months, and I would really appreciate if I could have your pizza there. And he was like, where is this at and what is it for? And I told him, he goes, I actually live in the neighborhood. And at that time, he had lived in the neighborhood. Yeah. So he goes, I really appreciate that. So we got a good deal on it. And part of the reason we brought pizza was I talked to UIC and I said, what motivates your kids to come out for stuff, right? And they're like, free shit. And I was like, who doesn't love free shit, right? Let's get some free shit for them, right? So we strategically got them shirts and pizza.
[00:15:04] Speaker C: Pizza.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: The incentive for doing the work, right? Shirts to really brand it up right. So we went bold, and we had a sign up, and so we did the fall community cleanup in 16, and we ended up having about 350 people come out.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Pretty crazy.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: That's huge. That's huge. 350 people on a Saturday to come and pick up trash.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: And we had the alderman there. We had the unofficial mayor, me, of University village there.
And what was really impressive was everybody branded in the shirts. And Tracy, my mother in law, came up with this great marketing slogan that we still use, and it's option realty changing lives through real estate. And that's what we're really all about.
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Right?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: So we had those shirts. You have these pictures of all these kids picking up trash. I hired a videographer, hired a photographer, made a video. Right? Made it a big deal.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Right?
[00:15:51] Speaker B: From that event until Covid came, we would consistently get. And weekends vary between 153 hundred people coming out to do these community cleanups, right? Because once people saw that many people at an event, they were like, oh, this is worth my time.
[00:16:07] Speaker C: Right?
[00:16:07] Speaker B: And the 350, to be clear, in the beginning, there was maybe seven or eight neighbors, tops, maybe that. Including my God bless my in laws, who came out. So that's really two. Not that off my brother in law. So that's three.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: His girlfriend at the time. So maybe we had two other people.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Right? Yeah.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: But once people saw those photos and they saw the branding of that, they started to come out. And then I would start getting emails, like, when are you doing another community cleanup? This is amazing. And it really spread. And it's funny because my alderman literally said to me, he's like, you know, cleaning greens usually get, like, five to seven people. He's like, what did you do? And I was like, I just went and figured out what the pinch points were to get people to come out, and I got them to come out.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: Right?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: It's amazing what free pizza does and then what a shirt does, right? But that boomed my business from that event in 17, I started getting listings. And that's actually. It's really funny. That realtor who told me it's a shit neighborhood, right?
That realtor, her client saw that on Facebook, in the Facebook group. And my wife had become friends with her. And she invites me over in the spring of 2017 and goes, we want to list our place. We want to move. She's pregnant. My wife's pregnant. So I said, we'd love to help you. So we're over there cleaning up, getting her house ready, because she's further along than my wife, and I don't want a pregnant woman cleaning up the house, right, for photos. So my wife's over there and we're all helping. And my wife goes, I'm hungry. And she goes, I'm hungry too. And I said, let's get some portillos. Because there are two things I love in Chicago. Portillos, right? That's like one that you have to have, right? The cheesy fries. It's how I stay in good shape, right? So I said, let's go get some portillos. And they go, yeah. And it's funny because I had told her as a courtesy, you should tell your previous agent that you're listing with me because I just don't want them to feel like any weird way because I know you have a relationship with them, right? And I think it's nice to be courteous to professionals.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: That says a lot about you, honestly, many agents would do that.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: And I just think it's the best way to go.
[00:18:03] Speaker C: Right?
[00:18:03] Speaker B: And I also had to sign listing agreement, so they weren't going to go anywhere, right, fair enough.
[00:18:06] Speaker C: Right?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Fair enough. But I didn't want it to come on the market and that broker to call her and be like, what happened?
[00:18:12] Speaker C: Right?
[00:18:12] Speaker B: So she had called her while we were there and gave her some reasons. And we get in the car, we go to Portillo's, which is like a few blocks away, and my phone rings and it's that realtor. And I'm like, hello? And she's like, this is so and so from at properties. And you stole my client. And I'm like, what do you mean I stole your client? Like, what are you talking about? I'm thinking, did somebody come through an open house? I wrote an offer for them and they had a relationship. And I don't want to steal anyone's client. My goal is not to steal your client, right? And she's like, you stole that listing in Saigamon. And I said, I didn't steal anything there. And I said, the seller reached out to me, I went through it. And now at this moment, how you creep in the portillo's line, right? So at that moment, the guy walks up with the. At that point, I think it was handwritten. And then they have to call it in. But he walks up and I'm like, hold on 1 second. So I tell her to hold and she's on hold. And she thinks I got another call. But the seller, my wife, are in the car, they're ordering their food, and this agent goes talking to her teammate because she's on a team. She goes, I can't believe he stole that listing, that shit listing in that shit neighborhood.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Whoa.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: And I just was like, did I just hear that correctly? And my wife and the seller look with jaws drawn fully open, and they go, did she just say that? And I was like, yeah, I think she said shit neighborhood. So then she starts talking shit about the house because she's on mute. But she thinks she's on hold, right? So she thinks that she's on hold.
So I clicked back over after I ordered, of course, and clicked back over, and I was like, hey, how's it going? Like, polite, right? I'm not going to call her out. I don't want her to know. And she goes, I just want to talk about this beautiful listing again. It's so amazing. Blah, blah, blah. They're my friends. I'm willing to give you 50%. Why don't you list it? But I want a 50% cut.
And the wife behind the seller's wife looks like she's ready to strangle her through the phone. And I'm looking the revere mirror, and my wife's like, no, don't give it to her. And I just was like, you know what? I'm going to do you a courtesy. I'm going to give you nothing. Because who wants a shit listing in a shit neighborhood?
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: So I just totally shut her down, right? But that drove me. That moment drove me because that woman was a top producer, high rise condo specialist, and she was talking shit about a place that I love. At that point, I only owned two properties in the neighborhood, wasn't a top producer. And I said, how can you claim that you love real estate and love helping people when you just basically are in it for the money and not the community?
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Right?
[00:20:48] Speaker B: So that event changed my entire trajectory when it came to what I wanted to do and what my focus was and what I really respected about my seller was in that moment was she was like, you know what? I really appreciate it, because this reaffirmed you're the right agent, because you truly believe that my unit is beautiful. You truly believe that this is a great neighborhood, right?
[00:21:10] Speaker A: You're bringing out all these people to help clean up your neighborhood.
Yeah. It's a marketing opportunity. Sure. People struggle with this. I've had conversations on it. It's one of those things that, yeah, it's better than the postcard. Yes. You're giving back to the community. You deserve to be marketed right. You're doing it for the right reason, with good intentions. And, yeah, you're a part of that community. Right. I can't think of a better person to work with than somebody understands not only the property, the neighborhood, the people, what's required to be. And you also care. Right.
I love what you said, that you actually liked this listing. You actually liked this neighborhood versus somebody else looks at it and they compare it to wherever they're coming from, and it's just not their cup of tea.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Which is, you shouldn't be listing it.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Then, because you're not going to talk about it the same way as somebody else.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: And I say, I'm a very numbers driven guy.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Like, we talked about 48% of everything sold in the neighborhood, and pending is us.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: But I look at numbers all the time, and one of the biggest things that I found, and I've started to share this with sellers over the last three years, is on average option realty group, because it's not just me, it's my team, right? And some of it went under their names before we did the team structure. On average, we sell for 6% more than everybody else.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Why do you sell for 6% more than everybody else? It's because I can explain the neighborhood. I can explain the lifestyle. I tell people I'm invested. And one of the coolest ideas, again, back to the CEO. He had it, not me, because I got to admit, when I don't have great ideas, sure. But it was his idea. He said, why don't we put your brain on the Internet? And I said, what do you mean, put my brain on the Internet? He goes, if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, who knows all this stuff? I mean, you've trained the brokers that work for us, right? But let's put your brand on the Internet. So we went on a journey to build a website. And it's universityvillagechicago.com for anyone watching. And it is the least real estate website you will ever find out there. It is completely community. It is why you should be living there. It's everything that, again, we're breaking no rules. So don't report me to the National association of Realtors, but it is literally all about why you should live there. So when someone comes through an open house and meets my agent Drew or Serena, and they say, why should I live in University village?
[00:23:25] Speaker C: Right?
[00:23:26] Speaker B: This goes back to the farming, because all those events, the community cleanup, the easter egg hunt, all that stuff we do is on that website. And guess what? When they go to that website, they're like, I love this neighborhood. I had a couple from Arizona in for one day working with the top producer. The top producer didn't know the neighborhood. They only do really Roscoe Village and those areas up there, Lincoln park. And they saw it. They saw that we had open houses and they just popped in before they were going out of midway. And I start talking to the woman. I go check out the website, look at the interviews, meet the neighbors, right? Because we have a meet the neighbors section, right? And 20 minutes later, I get a call from a broker. He goes, I got to come see this place because actually they're interested and they really like the neighborhood. And I said, oh, great. So broker drives down, show them it. And then the woman calls me and she goes, your website is amazing. She goes, I feel like I'm moving because they're moving from suburbia and that was their fear, right. Where to live in the city, right? She goes, but I feel like I'm moving from suburbia to suburbia but into a community, right. Because all this stuff you're doing, right? And my seller, when I told her that story, was so appreciative, one that an open house because I told her, I said, you got to get butts in the door, right. You got to get feet boots through the door.
[00:24:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: To sell your place, right. And she was so appreciative. That was the community aspect and all of that. That sold it because that's why she had hired me to begin with, right? And she was actually the seller that said to me, because she had bought her place with not a competitor of mine, I don't consider anyone, we work together, right. It's cooperative industry. But she had bought her place with the number two guy in the neighborhood. But she picked me to list her place. And she said to me, she said, corey, because I said, why am I being selected? What's the reason? I want to know, what did we do? And she goes, Corey, if you can get 350 people out on a Saturday to pick up trash, what can you do for my property, right. What kind of marketing can you do?
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Right?
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Because anyone can put it in, right? And it's funny, when we closed a transaction, she literally said that, I am so glad I went with you because your website sold it to the potential buyer who now owns it.
[00:25:31] Speaker C: Right?
[00:25:31] Speaker A: But I want to pause there. And for anybody who's listening to this, right, listen to what he's saying. He's talking about a genuine give back to the community and he's marketing it. Some people struggle with this. They don't want to market it that way, they feel, like, guilty, almost like you're only doing this for attention.
Yeah. You should do it for attention.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: You should inspire others to do something. That's why we're talking about it right now. We're hoping we inspire you to get involved in your community. Right. I don't get a vibe from Corey at all of any type of trying to hold the secret sauce. It's that we are a community. Lenders, realtors, all of us. We have an obligation to the people that we serve to make our community better. Right. The true top producers.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: The people who are in this every single day that aren't part time, that when you talk to them, they can rattle off some data points. They know and they care about this industry at the core of it.
They want to make a difference. They want to actually help the people that they're surrounded by. Their customers, their clients. We become friends with these people.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: What we do for a living is we put people in housing sometimes this is the most important thing they're ever going to do in their entire life. Right. This is where you put your kids to sleep. Right.
People like this care about. But people like me, we care about that act so much. We don't want to get it wrong, want to make sure that you understand exactly where you're going to live, what the school is going to look like, what the community looks like, and where you can make a difference is so incredible. The fact that you could say, okay, well, some people think this is a shit neighborhood. I'm going to get 350 people to come through here and prove to you that it's not. And we're actually a community and we're going to get together and they're damn right. If you can get 350 people together on a Saturday, can you imagine what you can do with an open house or with marketing? I want to shift gears. I find a common thread with top producers. I find that I've never spoken to somebody who's on the level that you're on and gotten into the weeds a little bit of how they got to where they are.
There's always a story there.
Was it always easy for you? How did you get into real estate and what is your story?
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: So it wasn't easy.
I share this with all my clients and I want to be vulnerable with my clients. Right. One of the biggest things is you want to connect to them.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: And I share it with everybody. Like, I'm adopted and this is really important to me to share. And the adoption is what changed my life. It completely changed my trajectory in life. So for those of you at home, I share it with people, so I'm totally fine talking about it. But my father and mother were drug addicts, right?
It's unfortunate because their addiction ultimately took my father's life. And that is something that if I wasn't adopted, I wouldn't have the opportunities I have today. And the thing is, when I think about and I tell people this story, I usually get pretty emotional about it, because when my father was dying in 2020 of cancer, he told me I was the greatest gift he ever got.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: And I was like, wow.
I think about it gives me chills, right?
Because my parents couldn't have kids, my adoptive parents, they tried. My father says, I'm a million dollar baby. And I would say, what do you mean by that? And in the 70s, when they were trying to have kids, they spent a million dollars on fertility treatments and all these revolutionary treatments to get to have a kid. Couldn't have a kid, unfortunately. So when I was adopted out of that. That potential, right? And my family's from Pilsen. My mother's from Pilsen originally. And ancestry.com is an amazing thing. I found many of my relatives, but my cousins are not upstanding citizens, right? Like, some of them are in jail, some are in gangs. They friended me on Facebook. And I'm like, that's a pretty crazy, like, we've all been there. It's kind of like, yeah, but you're my family, right? And you don't get to pick your family. But fortunately, I was put into an environment of loving parents who raised me. And the reason I'm so good at Community is because my father felt I was a gift, right? And then that gift, his whole goal was to inspire me to give back, right? And I do it to my son. People think I'm crazy. My five year old son comes with us to community events, and they're like, he's going to pick up trash. I was like, hell, yeah, he is. And he's the pizza server, and he's the ice cream distributor. And it's important because I always say to him, you have more than many people, right? And you need to appreciate what you have. So if you go back to my youth, when I was as far back as I can remember, so five, maybe six years old, every thanksgiving, we went and volunteered at the church, did the food pantry, right? Did the soup kitchen for Christmas, every Easter, my mom put baskets together. We dropped off 20 to 30 baskets to kids that weren't going to get an Easter basket.
[00:30:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: That community is what drives me today to give back.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: And those events, because, again, I was the greatest gift they ever had. And when that gift was given to me, I have to use this opportunity for better.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Because I think about all the time, if I grew up in Pilsen in the, as a little kid, right. It's a tough neighborhood.
Who's to say that I would be where I'm at today? I am Corey Tanzer. I am the same person. I care about people. I put everybody first before me. But opportunity wouldn't have been there for me. And that's part of why I left target, because opportunity wasn't given to people from those neighborhoods. And it was a shame because I want every kid to look up and say, I can go and do more in life, man.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: It's so powerful what you just said and unpacking a little bit of it, I find that, again, it's true, right.
You're so passionate and committed to making a difference, not only with people in their business lives, right. Being a leader, you have a team. You want to coach them to be a better version of themselves, but you're beyond involved in your community in ways that is rare and it should be the norm. And you're setting that precedent of sharing it today, of being vulnerable and sharing that you kind of had some things in your past that for anybody watching this, Corey's talking about some things that, again, as we talk to these top producers, it's incredible.
You have a story that could have been your excuse as to why you didn't become a success. And let's be honest, it would have been okay. It's a valid excuse. You come from some stuff that's hard. It's a hard topic, right? But then you find these rare people like yourself that instead of using that excuse, they use it as their fuel. And you take that energy and you focus on the important things. You have an incredible family, it sounds like.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: Right?
[00:32:25] Speaker A: And you're very proud of them. And you don't use being adopted or addiction or those things as a reason as to why it's okay or validates you making poor decisions. Instead, you use that as fuel to get you where you're going to go and say, look, I know what that feels like. I know what's there. I don't want that. And so anybody that's going through something that you're thinking about as like, well, this isn't why I'm successful. Here's the removal of that excuse is that you can choose that to be why you became a success versus whatever your brain naturally tells you, right? These places of pain, you can take them and turn them into something and say, you know what? That's why I'm going to succeed. I'm going to show all of you what I'm capable of. And it sounds like you're even making a difference in your community, which is incredible. It's not just about you. It's about you and your son and you and your neighborhood. Right?
[00:33:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: And I think, too, going back to that, I was telling another broker I eat last. So I had friends that owned restaurants growing up. And again, everybody impacts your life.
[00:33:27] Speaker C: Right?
[00:33:27] Speaker B: I can go to my 7th grade english teacher impacted my life. There were different people who put thoughts into your brain that really resonate with you.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: Right?
[00:33:35] Speaker B: And I had a friend whose family owned restaurants, right?
[00:33:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: And they said, we eat last. And when you're 1112 years old, you go, what the hell does we eat last mean? Right, but then when you're older and you understand that the cooks got paid first, the hostess got paid first, the last person, if there was any money left from the restaurant from that day, goes to the owner's pocket, right? And that's how I run my team. Like my team. Full disclosure, I have not paid myself a dollar this year. A single dollar. Right? We're really good savers. My wife has a great job, which helps, right. But I've not paid myself a dollar. But my team's been paid.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Right?
[00:34:13] Speaker B: And so what I would normally take as a salary, I'm reinvesting in them. In this down market, I'm basically doubling down on advertising, doubling down on events, going bigger, going bold, reaching for broke, right. And so I might not take a salary at all this year. I might take no money, right? But they're going to eat.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: I want to make sure that my team eats before I eat. And that mentality is what I always get feedback from them, we appreciate.
[00:34:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: And they know I'm very transparent with them. I'm very honest. I run my team like a business. They know what we're spending money on. They know what we're doing. And in good years, yeah, they see make good money.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: But this is the time to double down and invest in them. And when it's tough and invest in marketing and grow the community piece, because when it gets good, and it was easy the last five years. So anyone that joined five years ago, it's been easy.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: Right?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: This is the time that's going to make us stronger so that, you know what, in two years, let's say it gets easier again.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Our market share might not be at 50%.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: I have to be realistic.
[00:35:18] Speaker C: Right?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: I'd love it to be there. Our market share might shrink to 25%, but the market just expanded huge.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: So now instead of selling 80 homes, we're selling 160 homes.
[00:35:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: So they're doing better. I'm doing better. But it's about them eating before me. And I think that that resonates with people. When you self sacrifice and you tell people it's not about me, it's about you. And again, it goes back to the farming piece. People ask me, why do you do so much stuff in the neighborhood?
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: It's not about me. I want the neighborhood to be a great place for all of my neighbors. I want my son to grow up with what I grew up with, which was a strong family, a great community impact, and I want him to appreciate what he has.
[00:35:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: And that is the legacy I want to leave. And then with that said, I want my son to be self sufficient and again, give back. So we do a back to school drive community event as well. And we really focus on giving backpacks to kids at a school that's close to know those kids, they don't have anything. A backpack makes them cry. They appreciate, you know, and that's powerful.
[00:36:21] Speaker C: Right?
[00:36:22] Speaker B: And my son who's asking me, should I take Mario backpack or Luigi backpack, right? Like he's got both, right? But when he goes there and he gives that back and he sees that, he's like, daddy, God has blessed us. This is great, right? And he goes to a catholic school for you guys. So that's where he gets that from. But it's really good that he's already getting in and grasping it. And I hope and I tell everybody this, we want to change lives through real estate. That's our phrase, right? My goal is when I'm 6ft under or maybe I'm cremated, who knows what they'll allow us to do, right?
But my goal is that everything we have left and my wife's on board and that's a big thing. You got to be on board.
[00:36:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: My goal is that when we're done, that the kids that go to Smith by us because that school is going to be here, the neighborhood's not changing. Those kids are going to have opportunities to go to UIC.
[00:37:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: It's literally a half a block from them and most of them will never have an opportunity to go there. So again, going back to me being adopted, if I wasn't adopted, might not have had the opportunities I had. So I want those kids to have an opportunity. Right now we pay for some kids books at UIC that are from the south side and west side and we don't brag about that. I don't make Facebook posts about that. I do it because it's the right thing to do.
[00:37:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Like if you could barely afford to eat, guess what? I'm going to pay for your meals. And nobody needs to know it was me. It's anonymous donor. Because that's more important because that kid could be the next president of the United States, could be something great, could be a great realtor, but without opportunity, and if they're hunger, you got to help them. And that's what I'm all about.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Those little things. You have no idea what ripples you're creating, right. Sometimes I've run into people where they've never had a break. Nobody's ever been nice to them. And so when you're that one person to show them what's possible, the smallest, simplest little things that are nothing to you, right. Meaning that it's your day to day, it's a normalcy is so od to this person that you actually could be the person that affects change. That's some powerful stuff. Some really powerful stuff.
Shifting back to markets, because you talked about a couple of these things, right? And I love what you're talking about where you're not taking know, I see Facebook posts or I see things of finally a realtor got a closing or a loan officer got a closing, and so now they're going on vacation, which they're exhausted because they've been working so hard to just get this one thing done. And now that they're done, they almost need to feed themselves some type of reward, right? Because of what am I doing here? What am I working so hard, which is okay, but sometimes you see it, it's more of a luxury lifestyle that they're trying to put out there and maybe overspending and now they're broke, not able to get back into. Now they're worried about getting another job or something like that because they're not feeding their business.
The last five years have been super easy. Right? And I've been doing this over 20 years. And it's something that is really interesting to see show up right now where this is probably one of the hardest markets we've ever seen, right?
[00:39:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: And I'm reminded of the old school of the grit. Right. Of stepping out there and doing what's needed to be successful.
What do you say to the agent right now that just doesn't know what to do, that is listening to your farming and is going to start affecting some change in this. What is your expectation of what happens next in the market? What do you see happening next?
[00:39:46] Speaker B: So I think we're going to lose a lot of people over the next year.
[00:39:49] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: There's no listings. Right.
And then the buyers are freaked out by interest rates.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: And people who have, there was 100 million dollar producer that I was talking to that was telling me that they're stressed because they have not run it like a business, they've run it like a charity organization.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: They've given to everybody else, but they haven't taken the time to really focus on the nitty gritty, the numbers.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: And I was talking to him and I said, I understand that. I totally understand the stress.
[00:40:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: But you got to understand this is going to thin the herd.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: This is going to thin out this toughness. Right. And maybe your team doesn't survive. Maybe it's just you starting over again.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: I think what's going to happen is it's going to thin out the herd and then what's going to happen is when rates do drop at some point, right.
We talked about during the reo crisis or shadow inventory, right. Banks had all this shadow inventory.
I have just in University Village right now about 60 sellers that we photograph their place. We have matterports ready. We have listing descriptions.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: To be clear for every, there's 2000 homes. So that's a good, that's huge, right?
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: But every one of those sellers is like, I am not listing until rates drop to 5.5 or 5.75 or I outgrow my space because right now they got a little one and maybe they got two to three years that can do it.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: So I think that there's a lot of people that are holding back so that if you survive this and you put the energy and effort in to survive this, the inventory is going to grow. But we're going to be in a weird bidding war again because now you're going to have all these renters come out and all these buyers that have been on the fence come out and it's going to be like, oh, great, now we got a bunch of listings, but there's way more demand than there is actual inventory.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: You're going to have those people that are selling their property are going to become buyers.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: So everybody's waiting for inventory to show up, but they're not looking at the fact that that's great. Rates came down. Not only are you going to have those people list their house and sell, they're going to become a buyer. And if you're up against it and you don't have the cash that they're about to have, you're not going to win. But also, do you know how many consumers out there that are sitting here going, I'm waiting for rates to come down, too. And so all those people are going to show up.
Begs a question of what's going to happen to pricing at that point. What do you think happens to prices once we start to have what we think is a perfect storm?
[00:42:17] Speaker B: I actually think they go up and I really do believe that they're going to go up. And the reason being is right now the condo market has been so beat up downtown, right? Townhouses, single families in the suburbs or in the city, high demand, right?
[00:42:32] Speaker C: Condos.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: And a lot of my business is condos, right? It's been decimated, right.
And yet the last year, even with these higher rates, we're seeing the same prices on a lot of these condos are even up, right? And if a condo is updated, renovated, it's like that. It goes multiple offers and people always be like, you're full of shit. You don't have multiple offers. I'm like, cool, give us a bad offer and you won't get it. Right? There's no point in me lying. I always tell the brokers and very few brokers call, which also annoys me. It's like, don't just fucking email me.
[00:43:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: So explain that. I love this because I coach on this pretty regularly.
If you just get the offer and you don't get a phone call, that.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Probably leaves a nine out of ten brokers. And no offense to compass, but most of your emails go to my spam. Nine out of ten brokers end up in spam, right. Because it's crazy. They have all these attachments to their email that are like, top performer, 2020 top performer. And you're like, dude, listen, that's great. But all those images make you go to my spam, right?
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: So a lot of times their thing goes to my spam and I have to go in my spam. So I'm in the routine of checking my spam every day. But what happens is they don't call me, right? So then they're like, how's my client's offer? And I'm like, dude, I got four offers. No, you don't. There's no way. No, I just called you to let you know that because I'm going to be nice and call you and tell you. And they're just like, there's no way. So then they don't put a competitive offer in, and the other three people take me seriously, and then next thing we know, it's over. List as is. No contingencies, et cetera. But what frustrates me in the industry is the lack of follow up. And again, those are the people that are going to be out of this industry.
[00:44:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Because the reality of the situation is if you don't follow up for your clients, your clients are going to fire you at some point, right. And they're going to say, why did you lose? And I cannot tell you how many people call me because it's wild. When you control university village like we do, I will get a showing request on one, two, 3422. Just thrown out numbers, right. And I'll have seven listings. And they see all of my listings.
[00:44:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: A buyer comes through, sees all my listings, and then they'll call me after they lose out on a multiple offer. And they're like, did my agent present the offer? And I'm like, yeah, they presented it. Why didn't we win? I can't talk about that. Sorry.
[00:44:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: But they'll call me because they believe that their agent has. They'll be like, well, we've lost out on four places. Well, the reason you lost out is because your agent didn't pick up the fucking phone. They didn't call me and talk through it. I had to call them. Then they gave me attitude. They told me how they were a top producer. Titles don't mean anything. I don't care you're top producer or not. You pick up the phone, you call somebody, you present the offer, we talk. Because this is a partnership here. We're going to work together. And if you can't call me after you send an offer over, it's going to be a shit show all the way through.
[00:45:10] Speaker C: Right?
[00:45:11] Speaker B: And I know there's some brokers are probably like, man, Corey's an asshole for saying that, but it's a.
It is when you can't pick up the phone. And I get it. Sometimes you're busy. Shoot me a fucking text. I sent an offer. Great. I'll call you when free.
[00:45:25] Speaker C: Right?
[00:45:25] Speaker B: But those agents will get worked out of this industry, or they'll join teams and they'll be problem performers on teams.
[00:45:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: I fire people all the time, right? And I've really weeded my team down. And people interview and be like, dude, you got one in three homes sold in University Village. I'm a part time realtor. I want to join your team. And I'm like, well, why do you want to join? Yeah, why?
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Oh, I want to make money. Well, then you're not joining my team.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a good enough reason.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: No, you want to be on my team because you care about community, you care about giving back, and then the rest will come. And whenever I hear money, you're out the door.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: I love what you said, that you fire people all the time. Right? I think that one of my mentors in the business taught me something. He says, work until you get to the point where you don't have to work with everybody. Right? That's a compliment. I fire agents all the time. All the time. Because if. I love what you're talking about with making the phone call. What I say to agents is, listen, if you submit an offer, I need you to send me a text message with the address, the name of the seller's agent and the client. I don't care where I am. I don't care where I am. I will hit that phone number. I will call and explain. I verified income, I verified assets, all this stuff. Now, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people that do this, but the majority do not. The majority do not. And I'm not going to have my client lose out on a deal because of me. And so if you're an agent and you're not making a phone call, why did they even hire you? You just dial the damn phone number and say, hi, it's me. Yeah, there's an offer in your inbox. Just want to make sure, and really, what it's doing for somebody like you is that you're showing that you're part of the club, you're part of the group, right? You can only imagine doing a deal with somebody that if they're not willing to pick up the phone, what happens if there's a challenge? Right? Are you not going to call me? Are we not going to talk about this? We're not going to figure this out? You don't have the courage to dial the phone number.
I think that's kind of like what we were talking about is the old school 20 years ago. I dare you not to make a phone call. You'd get made fun of publicly in front of everybody. You'd be told to stand on your desk and make phone calls.
[00:47:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: It's the grit part of this industry.
Corey, this has been an incredible conversation. Like, listening to you reinstills what I feel about real estate and the professionals behind it. You are the picture perfect person who understands what this is really about and not just commission checks and showing your clients that you drive a Ferrari or whatever.
That's so gross and weird. You are the absolute example of community, of giving back to your team, giving back to your neighborhood.
This show is all about giving value back to agents. Right. And showing them what else is possible. Maybe their broker owner hasn't coached them or taught them, or maybe they need somebody in their you speaking to them. What would you give them as advice to be successful moving forward in this market?
[00:48:23] Speaker B: So a couple things. One, anyone can call me anytime. Pick up the phone, call me. When I started, I called you guys. Probably heard of him, Tommy Choi. Yeah, I called Tommy Choi.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Tommy's great.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: I was like, I'm a new broker, and I want to talk to you. And then he didn't try to recruit me into his agency. He just answered my questions.
[00:48:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: So I'm more than willing, and I even tell people that view me as their competition. I'll sit down all day with you and talk about community. Like, what can we do to make it a better place, right? So, with that said, I think my advice to most agents would be, you got to really focus on in this tough market, being that local expert and giving back to that.
You know I run a Facebook group for two different Facebook groups for my neighborhood, right? I don't post any real estate in it. It's all about answering questions. Who's the best carpenter, who has the best pizza, who has this, right. It's being a resource.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: And people post questions and I always answer them.
[00:49:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: And then the other piece of that is really living three months out. Like, you need to stop brokers, stop living today and worrying about what closings you have today, worry about down the road.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: What listings do I have coming? What am I working on and what events am I going to host and learn how to capture data from those events, right? So it's not good enough just to host an event, right? Oh, I hosted a movie theater event. Okay, great. What did you get from it?
[00:49:44] Speaker C: Right?
[00:49:45] Speaker B: You got a 20 x. People talk about ten xing. You need a 20 x your spend. You need to make 20 times what you spend on event to really make it worth your time.
[00:49:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: Because you could be doing other things. If you have an activity that makes ten to 20 times what you're spending. Why wouldn't you do that?
[00:50:00] Speaker C: Right?
[00:50:00] Speaker B: But the reason you guys don't capture that money right now is because you don't follow up and you don't have a plan. And when I host an event, there are five touches before the event. I send out five communications before the event. The day of the event, I even post on the Facebook group, hey, reminder, I go live at the event, right? Hey, we're here.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: Right?
[00:50:19] Speaker B: And then afterwards, I post a thank you and people appreciate the thank you.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: Right?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: People appreciate that. I'm saying thank you for coming out to clean up trash with me. Right, on a Saturday, or thank you for coming to the Easter egg hunt, or thank you for coming to the pumpkin patch.
[00:50:33] Speaker C: Right?
[00:50:34] Speaker B: So I would say it's now time to start living and planning, and that's going to make you successful. Understand, this is hard. This is not easy. This is a tough year. And real estate could be hard for a little bit of time.
[00:50:45] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: That's okay, right? Run it like a business and you'll be fine. And I think be inspired by others. You need to use mentors. You need to have mentors in the industry. You need to have people that aren't in the industry get their advice. I ask all the time. I ask my father in law for advice. He is one of the owners of option, but I ask him for advice all the time. Ask my mother in law. I ask other brokers in the industry. And then I think of my dad. And my dad said to me, my adoptive father, he said, you're not living unless you're giving.
And as a kid, I was like, what does he mean by that?
[00:51:19] Speaker C: Right?
[00:51:19] Speaker B: I was like, what does that mean? You're not living unless you're giving.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Right?
[00:51:23] Speaker B: But now, as an adult, I understand it. There are two types of people in this world. There are the people that consume and take. Take, or they're the people that give back.
[00:51:31] Speaker C: Right?
[00:51:32] Speaker B: And in my world, I only want people that are living by giving. That's it, right? So those people are the people I want to associate with. Those are the people I want to hang my shingle with, because those are the people that are going to make positive change in the community. And that little bit of community change, no matter how silly it is. And if nobody shows up to your event, do it again and get more people out and keep doing it. Don't give up. That little bit of change is what's going to lead you to be a top performer. And I think that that's where people fail, they give up after one time. You could strike out 2030 times, but that one time, that where you hit success. Then you learn from that. And you do that on repeat over and over and over and you'll get there.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. Corey, you heard it here first. He's sharing some real knowledge. This is real genuine no holds bar. How to be successful in real estate. And I thank you so much for being on the show. This is coffee is for closers. If you get a chance, please click the subscribe button. If you think you got some value out of this. Would love any comments. If you want me to connect you with Corey, please reach out. Thanks so much.
