From the Car Industry to Real Estate: Tips to Success with Sammy DeStefano

Sammy DeStefano: The reality is, I love this, is so many clients will start, like when they first meet me, they go, “What do you really do? Agents all do the same thing.” It’s like, no, we should all be doing the same thing, but most of us aren’t. That’s actually what you’re looking for.

Lindsay Favazza: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another exciting episode of the Agents Who Crush It in Real Estate Podcast. I’m your host, Lindsay Favazza. Today, we’re diving into the world of a young, ambitious, and absolutely crushing it realtor, Sammy DeStefano. Sammy has quickly made a name for himself in the real estate industry with his dynamic approach and unwavering commitment to client satisfaction.

At the core of Sammy’s success is his dedication to effective communication. Whether through phone calls, emails, or group text, Sammy ensures his clients are always in the loop, answering their questions and addressing their concerns with promptness and precision. This level of connectivity has become a hallmark of his service, making the entire process smooth and stress-free for his clients.

Today, we’re going to unpack Sammy’s meticulous process, his commitment to excellence, and how he’s achieved such rapid success. Without further ado, welcome to the podcast today.

Lindsay: Sammy, I’m so excited to get to know you more, even though we’ve chatted a little bit now. I was, back and forth on scheduling, and we finally got to make this work. I’m so glad that we did, because I was reading through your bio and doing a little background information on you. It’s really really impressive. Why don’t you take us back to the beginning? How did you get into real estate? What were you doing before? What’s your origin story into the real estate business?

Sammy: I think going all the way back, it’s been sales for over 10 years now. It started in a BMW dealership, where I actually learned sales by selling BMWs. I’ve been doing sales for over a year. After a year, I was put into managing leads and salespeople, still selling at that point. Over six years, I sold, I managed, and I also was a finance manager for a time at that BMW dealership. Holy cow. If any of your listeners want to learn sales, starting the car business is a pretty good way to do it.

Lindsay: Yes, and you’ll get used to long hours, too.

Sammy: Very long hours, yes. It’s like my business coach these days, he calls it a muscle. He said you have to grow the muscle of actually working your entire day or two shifts, your morning and your evening shift. Back then, many times it was 9, 10, 11 hours a day at the BMW store.

Real estate is cyclical. During our busy seasons, it tends to be 10 to 12-hour days. On the off-season, maybe we go down to a normal work schedule, six, seven, eight hours. Yes, I started in BMW. The transition into real estate was, simply put, it was COVID. COVID caused a lot of the dealership that wasn’t paid on just commission to be fired or just let go because they couldn’t afford the expense. Then commission salespeople, don’t cost you any money unless they’re making you money, so we stayed.

Lindsay: You guys didn’t have inventory for a long time. You couldn’t get parts in. It was crazy.

Sammy: I left at the very beginning before they experienced any of that. I left just during the fear. The culture really slipped. They changed pay plans. They didn’t treat anyone really well because of fear. I got out pretty early.

Lindsay: You’re doing sales. Did you always want to get into sales? Did you always say, “You know what? I could be a salesman, I could do this”? Did you go out to college first and then decide you wanted to switch it? What was your past? What made you get into sales?

Sammy: I was in college when the thing that caused me to get into sales was actually just one guy. His name was Grady Mosby. Back then, I forgot how Grady and I met, but he was in his mid-50s, and I just respected how he can communicate. He was so enthusiastic. Everybody liked Grady. Once I got him, I think it broke him away from the pack. I think we had lunch or dinner and I just wanted to, pick his brain and get to know, his story, kind of what you’re doing with me.

For some reason, I think, he was a top salesperson at BMW his entire life. I think he was there for 35, 40 years. Made a great living for himself. Everybody liked Grady. Earned a lot of opportunities, people sharing, their friends, family members, only work with Grady. He got me a job at that store. Not only that, he took me under his wing. He wasn’t selling at that store anymore. He was retired but then he was teaching me how to sell through his retirement.

Lindsay: That’s such a great opportunity for you.

Sammy: It was amazing. I got the opportunity to see, like when you’re at that level in sales, we have clients walk in and they say, “I’m only going to work with Grady. No one’s going to talk to me except for Grady.” I was like, “Well, Grady’s retired.” You can just see the depression set in.

Lindsay: “But I’m Grady Jr.”

Sammy: I’m the new Grady, right.

[laughter]

Lindsay: I love that.

Sammy: It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Yes.

Lindsay: COVID starts. You’re not sure what you’re going to do because things are getting a little dicey. At that point, did you get your license?

Sammy: Simply put, when things start slipping at the dealership– I’m still really good friends with all the management and almost none of them are there anymore. All the way up to the owner and general manager, I walked into their office one day. I said, “I don’t really like how things are changing. I know you’re scared, but we’re not working less. We’re going down with the ship. We’re here [inaudible 00:06:00].”

I just laid it out. It’s like, I just, not to give you an ultimatum, but I have two or three shots in me, like strikes where, if you cross that line or disrespect or anything- and strike one, two and three came and went. It was like I just wanted to keep my integrity and leave because I told them I would.

I got licensed the next two months. Real estate never seemed that difficult to me, because I actually sold a lot of realtors cars. They didn’t seem like very polite people. The ones I met, I worked with, they weren’t very polite. They were arrogant. They all told me they understand the sales business and that I’m the same as them. I always make the joke. They know that we have 70% of markup in the car because they would always make the most ridiculous offers.

Lindsay: Yes. You’re like, would I do that to you at a house? What the heck?

Sammy: Yes. I didn’t own a house back then either. I never dealt with one except for selling them cars. I figured I would give it a stab. If they can do it, I could.

Lindsay: Yes, absolutely. That’s awesome. You get your license and you decide to hang your hat at a specific brokerage. What helped you make that decision? Then were you part time on the two or did you just go, “You know what? I’m jumping in full steam ahead”?

Sammy: One of my best clients that bought the most cars from me was a realtor. He wasn’t disrespectful. It was easy to respect this guy. He had been in for over 15 years. I asked him, “Can I work with you?” He just had his own brokerage of him. It was like his home address.

I quickly found out that all of his business was referral. He was not proactive or hungry to find new business. He didn’t really even talk to his past clients. They just really liked him so they remembered to call him. He was selling probably 30 homes a year that way and still does. What I realized then what is some people are teachers and some people aren’t. He was an amazing teacher, but there’s not much to teach when your business model is just be in the business for 15 years and then you’ll start getting deals.

Lindsay: Be a good person and be good to your wife [chuckles].

Sammy: I wanted a more proactive approach. I got hooked up with another brokerage in town that again, just like I found my next Grady. His name was David. He was in Mike Ferry Coaching, or he was in the past. Taught me how to cold call and how to communicate a little better with people. More importantly, how to listen to people. That was a huge– That took years. Now I’ve been in business coaching with Mike Ferry and other coaches for roughly four years. I don’t see myself ever not having a coach unless I retire.

Lindsay: We say it all the time that a lot of agents, they don’t train. When you’re looking at professional sports teams, they train every day, all day. They’re actually only playing in their games a very small percentage of their career. I don’t think it’s any different for real estate agents, especially in today’s environment where you’ve got to be up on what’s new and what’s going on, and you’ve got to be well trained and well-versed in how to maneuver through everything. I think that’s so smart. I think it’s great that you have a coach and that that’s important to you. I wish that more agents would really do that.

Sammy: No, I believe that when you say that, because a big thing I respect about you and Anthony is you coach, you teach. My coach, I’ll say this just to put a nice conclusion on it, he always said people get into real estate so that they can be their own boss only to realize that we actually are pretty shitty employees most of the time.

Lindsay: [laughs]

Sammy: If we’re not working, we’re not making money. No one wants to work with us if we’re not working. I think we all want to be told what to do, but only once we find someone that we really respect and look up to. That’s the same for our clients. I find that so many times the reason why my clients work with someone like me is I think I showed them that I’m in the business full time, I’m doing this, and if I tell them I can get a job done in a specific amount of time, I can. They listen to me. With that first step, none of that would have happened.

Lindsay: None of it. It was 2020 or 2021 when you got licensed?

Sammy: Yes, it was mid-2020.

Lindsay: Mid-2020, okay. Probably it was a big pain in the butt for you to actually physically get your license. I remember there was all these nightmares about people went through the class but then couldn’t get their license because no one was working. God, I don’t miss those days [laughs].

Sammy: It was different.

Lindsay: After that, how long before your business kicked in? When was your first deal? Who was your first deal? I think a lot of the times people are like, oh yes, I’ve sold cars to a bunch of people, so they’re just going to show up and start buying houses. It doesn’t work out that way for them. How did that translate for you in the very beginning?

Sammy: I never called the people I sold cars to at first, which is so, looking back, idiotic. I spent five, six, seven hours a day cold-calling to the city, pretty much out of the phone book saying hey, I’m a real estate agent, just curious if you had any real estate plans coming up this year. It was just no’s constantly. I think I was four or five weeks into doing that and I was ready to quit the business. That is boring.

I was working from home because that was the office I could afford at that point. Looking back, it’s such a fun story. The first person that ever hired me to sell their home, I was cold calling. I had met this guy, David. He lives in Arcadia, Phoenix, Arizona. It was like a $700,000 house.

He said, well, my wife passed away a few years ago. I’ve been procrastinating and I want to sell the house eventually, but I used to be an agent. I used to do what you do and so, you’re not going to get one over on me. You’re not even going to know if I’m going to invite you over. I got the appointment eventually. I think I followed up for about a week. I showed up, I had sold that guy and his wife two cars.

Lindsay: No way. That’s so cool.

Sammy: It was fun. Not BMWs. They bought Acura from a BMW store. I was just like, “What? Is this how small the world is?” It was a client that used to work with Grady. It was just like he knew my story.

Lindsay: Stars aligned.

Sammy: Yes, and I’m sure he wanted me to do well, but I don’t think he thought I was competent. He respectfully said, he’s like, “I would love to give you the business. I don’t think what you’re doing. Have you sold anything?” I didn’t lie. I was-

Lindsay: No. you can’t.

Sammy: -like, “No, [chuckles] teach me.” I brought that other David, my mentor with me. It was just a set of follow-up appointment. We went out, we shared what David does to get homes sold, and we got hired for the job. It was COVID, so we sold the $700,000 house in two days.

Lindsay: Sammy, I want to shake 2020 you and be like, “Call your list.”

Sammy: I know.

Lindsay: Just imagine how many more of those people would have been in there.

Sammy: Yes. Well, surprisingly, I didn’t start calling after that either.

Lindsay: I think now’s the time.

Sammy: Now’s the time. I started a year and a half ago, honestly, that’s why I’m doing so well now as my people do know.

Lindsay: That’s so great.

Sammy: That was the coolest experience I could have had, I think, in the business [crosstalk].

Lindsay: How long into the business was that? It was a couple months, you said?

Sammy: A couple months, yes.

Lindsay: That’s really lucky because some people go six months without having their first deal closed. That’s really difficult to get that first one. Once you get the first one, though, I think it–

Sammy: Yes, I learned so much. It was a good market. I might have gotten the offer in two. We actually took an offer,. It fell apart, we had to get another offer and I learned, oh, you have to prequalify your offers. Going through the transaction taught me so much that I now use today, and the other hundred transactions I’ve had since. It’s like, you just have to go through the steps to become savvy and sharp at these contracts. That was my first deal, but from there I just kept cold-calling.

A year and a half ago from today, I did start calling my past clients, my friends, my family. I thought if I were to call someone that bought a $100,000 car, I know their house is probably at least a million, and how would I feel if my car salesman called me and said that he wants to sell my house? I wouldn’t think that he could do it, and that’s what stopped me from calling. Once you learn how to communicate and listen to people, the way you talk to them is what’s going to make them feel confident in you or not.

Lindsay: Exactly. Plus, maybe they would want to because they know that they had a great experience with you buying the car. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, you don’t know, you don’t know. I love that. I love that was your first deal and that the stars aligned. It was meant to be, it sounds like [chuckles]. Everything happened for a reason, for sure.

Sammy: It was a total God thing. Total God thing.

Lindsay: You said that you’ve now sold over 100 homes since then, which would only be like doing that, only three years. That’s incredible. How did it go from there? Then what do you contribute to the success of having so many deals so quickly, it was it not quick? 75 of them in the last year and everything in the last year was prior 20 deals. How did that go for you?

Sammy: No, that’s fair. That’s a fair question. I think my first year, it was somewhere between 25 and 30 deals and the reason I can’t remember is, there’s always some that go over December 31st and then count to the next year. Having that many people hire me to sell their property, it was eye-opening and it became, I think, probably six months into that year, something in my mind clicked. I had six years of sales experience and it clicked and I realized, oh, this is the same thing.

There’s these little things that you can say that help people feel comfortable in you or confident that you can actually do the job. Before, I thought I had to reinvent the wheel of real estate and be better than- come up with something today, now that I’m an agent, that the other 60,000 agents licensed in my market, I’ve never even thought of it and then that’s why I’m going to get hired. That’s not how it works.

The reality is, I love this, is so many clients will start, when they first meet me, they go, “What do you really do? Agents all do the same thing.” It’s like, “No, no, no, we should all be doing the same thing, but most of us aren’t. That’s actually what you’re looking for. You’re right, we don’t have- it’s not that we have to come up with some groundbreaking idea that’s never been done in real estate. It’s just do the things that you expect from me when you hire me, and that’s why you hired me.”

Lindsay: Our training center in the back of the room, there’s like a couple of quotes. One of them is, “Imitate before you innovate.” It really comes down to, emulate the success that others have had, do those things. Once you get good at that, then you can innovate and see if there’s ways to improve on that from there, or to do something different or better. Until you have that groundwork, you got to go do what all the other people are doing, so that you can, obviously, success leaves clues, and you want to make sure that you’re doing the things that other people have been successful at. I love that lesson.

Sammy: Yes. The thing I like thinking about, too, is our most successful clients, the ones with the biggest houses, they’re all the same people. Whatever industry they’re in, an attorney, whether they’re a judge or an attorney or a doctor or a CEO, they all did that. They imitated before they innovated. They looked up to a boss, they copied the boss until they got good. We’re not actually doing anything differently.

Lindsay: No.

Sammy: If I come in and I lie, and I’m like, well, this is why I’m amazing, they know I’m lying, because they remember going through this.

Lindsay: Can you do the same thing?

Sammy: You [inaudible 00:18:25] just be honest. I love that.

Lindsay: Then when you can’t deliver that, now they’re not going to use you in the future, and that’s not how Brady built his business.

Sammy: No, it’s not [laughs]. It’s not.

Lindsay: What do you do for customer service? Now you have all these clients, and that have bought and sold with you. Now what do you do to keep them in your realm? That’s something that Brady didn’t do. Now you’re learning to do that better. What is it that you do for outreach and those kind of things with clients?

Sammy: The way I’ve been taught by my coach is, different clients, if you take 100 clients that all love you, they actually want to hear from you at different times, which doesn’t mean us guessing. It’s like, Lindsay, if you’re a client and you regularly call me monthly, or at least quarterly, four times a year, you say, my neighbor needs you, my sister needs you, my mom’s moving, and you’re constantly calling, and you really love me, well, I want to talk to you at least a month, every month.

It’s not every month to say, hey, what business do you have? It’s, you’re just a fun person, honestly. That takes, if we break it out into personality styles, you’re probably an expressive at that point, because you like talking, you like partying. I like talking to people like that. That’s every month. I would categorize that as an A client.

A B client is, if you’ve sent me a few referrals, and you really enjoy talking to me, maybe one a year, two a year, three a year, that just shows, that’s not that you gave me business or a paycheck. For me, that shows me your level of confidence in me. You’re not as confident as Lindsay. That’s okay, you’ll get there. You’re a B. I call those every 60 days.

A C client’s like most of my database. That’s where most people are going to land. It’s you say you will refer me and you say you’re comfortable enough, you’re confident enough, you’d love to share my name out. Just hasn’t happened yet. When we worked together, it was a good transaction, it was fine, you were happy. That’s every 90 days.

My least favorite thing is like some of my favorite clients move out of state. I want to talk to them all the time because they’re so–

Lindsay: That’s no fun.

Sammy: I do push them off until every six months, I’ll call them, unless they call me. A lot of times they do, just keeping in touch. At the end of the day, that’s happening to everybody. Every day, I have lots of calls to make and then birthdays and anniversaries are on top of that.

Lindsay: Love that.

Sammy: My partner’s in real estate, like title companies and the lenders. When I sell something, they like putting the little thing together in a map of all the dots that I’ve sold that year, and can you help us? They’ll send that out every month. People are seeing me a lot, which I’m grateful to have partners that will do that. That’s fun.

Lindsay: Yes, that’s so cool.

Sammy: Yes, so that’s how I’m doing. Then, the mornings 8:00 to 12:00, this is how I build those people when you’re new and you don’t have anybody in there. 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM, I’ll call expired, canceled, which are people that had an agent they fired, and now I need an interview for that job or for sale by an owner. Just check it, see how their sale is going and if it’s not, make it go [chuckles].

Lindsay: Yes, love that. You time block. What does the rest of your day look like?

Sammy: 12:00 to 1:00 is preparing for any appointments we have in the evenings. We only do appointments in the evenings it after 1.30. I have like a 2:00 PM, a 4:00 PM, and a 6:00 PM appointment slot. In the beginning, I would meet with you at 6:00, 7:00 AM, if that’s what you asked me to do. Now that’s business time and I have a 2:00, 4:00, or 6:00 for you to choose from.

Lindsay: Love that. I love that.

Sammy: When you have a client say, “I’m only available before noon,” you say, “Oh, that’s such a bummer. I wanted to work with you because I’m only available at 2:00, 4:00, or 6:00.” They make it work. They say, “Oh, it’s two o’clock.”

Lindsay: Yes, and we always use the example of like, you’re the doctor and they’re the patient. You wouldn’t be able to say, “Oh, doctor, I can only come on this time, and then they just fit you in at 6:00 AM [crosstalk]–

Sammy: No, you absolutely couldn’t. They unfortunately can’t work with you.

Lindsay: We can’t work with you. Then on top of that, we always take it to the next step too. When you show up to the doctor’s office, they don’t take your weight, they don’t take your blood pressure, they don’t take your height. They have someone to do that. Then when you’re completely ready, that’s when they come in. That’s how you should be valuing your time. I love that you do this. This is something else that really sets you apart, Sammy, because a lot of people don’t do that.

I can’t tell you, every Wednesday we have training here in our company. It is training from 10:00 until 12.30. It’s a very small window, but it’s really jam-packed. There are some agents that religiously will block it out on their calendar. They will not do any showings, anything during that time. Then there’s agents that are like, “Oh, I have a showing. I can’t come to training.” It’s like, you should be making that a priority. It’s your business time, like you said. I think that that’s awesome.

Sammy: There’s something to break it, isn’t there?

Lindsay: Then they’re like, “Oh, I haven’t marketed in six months.” Well, yes, because you’re running like a whacking the mole all over [laughs] the place. You’re chasing, herding cats. You’re not actually out there doing the things in order that you should be doing. I love that you have it all time blocked like that. That’s fantastic.

Sammy: I’ll add this, because you train agents, which I really respect. I like teaching agents. If they come to me and ask for help, I’ll give it. Getting my feet underneath me in this business, I always heard about time blocking. I always thought, That’s really cool. One day I want to do that.” The thing I never heard about until my business coach, and maybe you did, is like, this is our deal board right here.

Me and my assistant, these are the people that have hired us right now. Every single client, we’re in the market right now, it’s 115 degrees out. Every week the rates are changing. It’s slowed down. Before we could sell a house in a day or two, we would call you when we got the offer. Now it may take 45 days, or 60, or 75 days. If it’s a $2 million house, it might take six months.

Every single Thursday, like a lot of agents from out of state, they say, this is why we actually refer you to the client, because we know they’ll get their job done, is every client 12:00 to 5:00, we are actually calling to give an update. If nothing happened that week, sometimes that’s the client’s favorite update is, “Hey, we’ve called this many people. Here are the calls we’ve gotten this week. Here’s what we’ve done to sell your house or help you find the right house. Any showings or any offers we’ll call immediately. Any showings. Oh, and by the way, do you have any questions?”

If it’s a slow week, say, “Yes, it was a slow week. Not much happened this week. Two calls, but they didn’t go anywhere. Did you have any questions?” “No?” “Perfect, I’ll talk to you next Thursday.” It’s just like, at least I got an update. I know the guy still is in business and working. That’s made a big difference. Our clients say that’s– [crosstalk] What I do it differently as an agent, just calling every week. That’s what makes you special. I actually do it at the same time, every week.

Lindsay: Again, it’s going back to like, everyone does the same thing. People will call, they just don’t make it consistent. You took a process that probably happens for the most part, but doesn’t happen consistently. You made it a consistent time-blocked thing that they can rely on. Now they know that they’re going to hear from you.

Then that’s what they’re going to have in their mouth when they tell someone to work with you. Every week I got a call and blah. That other person’s going to be like, oh crap, when I sold my house before with my other realtor, they didn’t do that at all. It’s such a huge benefit. I love that. I love that as a differentiator. It’s something so simple.

That’s great. What else? What else are you doing for marketing, for getting leads in? Do you guys do any branding for your team? This is totally fine too. Some people just mainly rely on the brand name, like Sotheby’s and stuff like that. How do you guys market your brand?

Sammy: There’s different people you can speak to here, new agents or veteran agents. I always thought branding was important. I wasn’t always at Sotheby’s. When I came to Sotheby’s, and it does cost more to be here, I was curious what the difference would be. I was ready to leave if there was– I didn’t like it. The difference is when I call someone out of the blue that didn’t know I was calling them, a cold call, hearing Russ Lyon, which is our franchise, Russ Lyon, Sotheby’s, it buys me two to three seconds on the call before they hang up. That’s all Sotheby’s brings to the table. That’s it. In a pretty logo.

The business coach in the beginning, he taught me, he goes, brokerages don’t bring you business. It’s not their job to. It’s their job to protect you. It’s not even their job to teach you how to do this business. They just do that to add value and get more agents to sign up there, which I think does add value, but it’s not your job. Just like the same, it’s not my job to help you clean out, pack the moving truck when I help you sell the house, but sometimes we do that. That’s a thing with brokerages training.

We don’t do any drip campaigns. Anything automated, I stay as far away as possible from. I know it’s easier. I know it might make me more money, but it’s not genuine. When someone reaches out and they say, “Thank you so much for taking the time to email me every month for the last two years,” and I didn’t it, like I don’t like that. I’d rather just email them if they ask me to email them, or call them, check in, see if they need anything. The postcards are going out for homes that we’re selling so they know we’re still in business.

I like doing this thing on Facebook. Accountability is the most fun thing in the world for me. If my goal that year is to sell 40 homes, then I’ll say, 40 homes. The first home I sell, I’ll do 1 out of 40 and I’ll put it on the picture and on the post and then I’ll write the story of like, [inaudible 00:28:53] this person wanted to move to Minnesota, get close to their grandkids with their permission. Here’s what we did, here was the result, and then I’ll attach their review.

People are able to see, oh, he’s in business, and they cheer me on too. You’re at 6 out of 40, I think I found your number seven. Those are calls we get, which is so [crosstalk].

Lindsay: That’s so cool. That is so cool. I love that. All right, we are almost done, which is crazy because this was a very easy conversation, but I have two more questions for you. One is a total switch-up. We’re going to switch the whole groove up here. That is, I want to hear the craziest thing that’s happened to you in the last four years, real estate-related-wise.

Sammy: In real estate.

Lindsay: Everyone always has like some crazy client story or some crazy like, there’s a person in the shower when you’re showing a house. There’s always a crazy story. I want our listeners to know if they’re new to the business, that these things happen, totally normal. When it happens, it’s just like when someone’s getting married. You tell them, the day that it rains and then the cake falls over and blah, blah, blah. It’s a wedding story. It’s just a wedding story. You got to take it with a grain of salt and go on. What is your real estae story?

Sammy: I’ll do two or three quick fivers. The first one is when I started cold calling. I had met this girl that said, “I hate all agents. All you guys are extremely lazy and so I fired mine. I’m going to sell it myself,” which is fair. It’s how I would feel if I went through what she went through. When I met with her at her house, we set the appointment, and I said, “What was it that caused all the frustration?”

She said, “Well, he told me all the things you just told me. He’s going to show the house himself every time. Whenever there was a showing, he’d text me and he said, you’re going to show this guy because right now I’m at dinner or I’m across town, I can’t get over there in time. Here’s some good questions to ask. Do you have enough money to buy the house? Are you already working with a lender? By the way, do you have an agent to work with?” He was asking his–

Lindsay: [crosstalk] question you don’t ask.

Sammy: He was asking any client to see if that client would like to work with her agent that was not working at the current time. That was the most absurd. She was forced to hire me, which was fun because now there’s a five-star review up.

The other one, we were showing a client houses and condos. They were all in the same building. Agent’s, a big critique is that we just don’t get back to people, and then automation. The automated response came through and just like, “Sure, go show it.” It never approved the showing in our little app. I was like, “This is weird. If you guys are comfortable, like my clients, if you’re comfortable, we can go see it, but this is weird.” They’re like, “Yes, we’re here.”

We walked in. It was like, sometimes you fumble around, make a lot of noise opening your door, and sometimes it just opens up really quickly. We opened up really quickly, and the owners were on the couch having sex. That was fun.

Lindsay: Oh, my God.

Sammy: It wasn’t like [inaudible 00:32:04] [crosstalk]–

Lindsay: What did you do? Were you like, “Ooh”?

Sammy: She was so scared, screamed. I just shut the door and I was like, “All right, we’ve seen it. On to the next.” It just made a joke. It was so scary. I thought I was going to lose my license because I technically didn’t have the approval. I just had the text from the agent.

Lindsay: I mean, the agent told you to go.

Sammy: Then the wife, we were up the hall or something, and she opened the door. She goes, “Give me 10 minutes. We’ll be ready.” She still wanted us to see the place because they wanted to move.

Lindsay: You’re like, “We’re embarrassed. We’re not doing that.”

Sammy: We’re already here. We just left. It was awkward. Then the last one was, I had a seller die after we went under contract, died just because they were in their 70s, and he passed away.

Lindsay: This happens more often than people think.

Sammy: This happens a lot.

Lindsay: They’re in a position where they’re selling a house for sometimes the reason that they’re sick or that they’re getting older. Sometimes that happens.

Sammy: Yes, probably for assisted living. That was during the inspection. I think the buyers went over. We had asked ahead of time, “There’s going to be an inspection requested sometime this week. Do you want me to just text you?” They’re like, “Yes, just text me. I’ll be gone within five minutes. It’s fine. I’m retired.” We just text them. We didn’t get a response back. They don’t normally respond. The home inspection, the buyers went over and they called us and said that they found–

Lindsay: During the home inspection?

Sammy: Just like laying on the ground. It was really sad. We completed that sale. We reached out to their family and they said, “We want you to [unintelligible 00:33:48] no need for the house.”

Lindsay: That was probably the whole reason he was going through this in the first place because they don’t want to have to deal with that later. That makes sense. That’s actually the best-case scenario because sometimes it goes into probate and then you got this whole awful thing.

Sammy: We handle those probates, too. I was surprised that buyer still wanted to move into that house after experiencing that, but they were okay with it. They were shook. Real estate is fun [chuckles].

Lindsay: We’ve been in since 2020. Can you imagine if we have this conversation 20 years from now and you’re still in the business?

Sammy: We’re going to have better stories.

Lindsay: [unintelligible 00:34:20] Oh Lindsay, I got some stories for you. [laughs] We’ll have to do another episode 10 years from now, and we’ll have to—

Sammy: I would love that.

Lindsay: We’ll have the new stories that you have. Sammy, this has been so great. I loved talking to you today. I just want to ask my final question that I always ask, which is if you were sitting across from one of our listeners right now who maybe has been in the business for a few years, but they’re looking to take their business to the next level, what is that one piece of advice that you would give to them?

Sammy: I would say when we’re hired by our clients, they believe that we’re actually professional and this is a real job. Let’s treat it like it is. Show up at the office every day. If you show up at the office at different times every day in a real job, you’re fired. Easy. Work the same amount of hours. Have a little bit of a schedule, maybe a checklist that you go through.

Then the other thing, and it’s the biggest thing I’ll always say, is just to have a coach, is join a team or have a coach. Solo agents are not solo agents. We’re just agents that are copying our mentors. When you’re on a team, you’re just trying to copy the mentor, which is the team lead. We’re all trying to emulate someone.

Lindsay: Yes, but find that person that you can work with, that you’re–

Sammy: Someone you respect. It almost doesn’t matter if they’re doing a lot of it, like 100 deals a year or 50, just as long as you respect them.

Lindsay: Yes, I love it. Sammy, someone is going to be very lucky if they aren’t all ready to have you as a mentor someday because I’m sure you’ll become the trainer pretty soon because of all the experience you’ve got and all the crazy stories that you’re going to have. I love that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for educating our audience and for just being so open and honest. We really appreciate that.

Sammy: If any of your listeners are in Arizona, look me up. Let’s grab lunch or something. I do that all the time where it’s like, I’ll show you my market and have you show me yours. We have to have friends across the country because their clients move across the country.

Then if you have anybody, like anybody, that you feel like could use my level of service and they’re moving to or leaving Arizona, call me and get some credit. Get paid, make sure they work with someone that’s actually close in business out here. Yes, I appreciate you having me on the call. This is a really fun podcast. Keep it up.

Lindsay: Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Back at you. I know you’re probably moving into the next few months, don’t want to come to Boston. If you do, definitely [unintelligible 00:37:04]-

Sammy: I have family in Gloucester.

Lindsay: -for sure. You have what?

Sammy: Family in Gloucester.

Lindsay: Oh, I live in Gloucester.

Sammy: There you go. That means you’ll never sell your house. No one ever sells their house out there.

[laughter]

Lindsay: My house, actually, I moved in. I told you, I’m married into Gloucester, married into the Italian last name. That is so funny. He lives in his parents’ house, the big owned. Then we’re going to raise our kids there now because it’s a two-family. That is the Gloucester way. Is it not?

Sammy: It’s insane.

Lindsay: I can’t believe we didn’t talk about it before. That is so funny. When we finish up today, we’ll have to see if we know mutual people.

Sammy: Yes, definitely.

Lindsay: Thank you so much Sammy, and thank you all for watching if you’re watching on YouTube, or listening, if you’re listening on your podcast app. We just really appreciate you. We want to see you back at the next episode. If you also have someone that you want to recommend or you yourself want to be a guest on the podcast, we only ask that you are an active realtor or broker-owner and that you have experience and have some deals under your belt.

Bring that information over to us. You can email us at info@crushitinre.com. Happy to interview someone prior to putting them on the actual podcast. Thank you guys so much for listening and watching today. We really appreciate it and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks for the next episode.

Announcer: Thank you for tuning in to the Agents Who Crush It in Real Estate Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it with your friends and colleagues and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you’re interested in being a guest, email us at info@crushitinre.com. Thanks for listening. Don’t forget to crush it in real estate.