Julian Addy | Service Mindset

Lindsay Favazza: Welcome back to the Agents Who Crush It in Real Estate Podcast. I am with a very special guest, someone who I’ve known for a few years now. We were introduced a few years ago today. His name is Julian Addy. He is with the Boston Trust Realty Group. Welcome, Julian, to the Agents Who Crush It in Real Estate Podcast.

Julian Addy: Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Lindsay: Julian, as we were just talking about, you’ve been in the business now for five years. You started in 2016. When this airs, you still are five years into the business, but people could be listening to it a long time from now, so I just want them to get a sense for how those years progressed for you. Take us back to the beginning and what sales you had in the beginning and how your career took off.

Julian: My first year of real estate was extremely difficult, as many people who start doing real estate can experience. I was 24 years old. I had just rage-quit a software sales job.

Lindsay: You have to explain the rage-quit.

Julian: Long story short, I was working for a software sales company which was a phenomenal experience, but I just got to a point where I felt like I wasn’t being appreciated enough. One day, I just packed up my bag, literally put my ID on the desk, and walked out of the building. When I did that, I went to grab lunch because it was around lunchtime. I met with the security guard, he looked at me and he was like, “Julian, there’s no way you quit.” I was like, “What do you mean? I put my ID down. I’m done with this place”.

He was like, “No”, pulled out his phone. He went through his phone, he said, “These are all the people that are not allowed in the building. If you quit, you would have showed up on the list.” He just walked me through professional etiquette, what is the right thing to do. I just went back and I formally quit that job.

Lindsay: You were young.

Julian: I was young.

Lindsay: You were trying to throw down the mic? 

Julian: Yes. I was trying to have a moment. Make a big out

Lindsay: You’re trying to have a moment?

Julian: Honestly, I was trying to tell a good story, which is why we’re–

Lindsay: Exactly. Here we are telling the story. You ended up going back for two weeks.

Julian: Right.

Lindsay: Then after that, how did you get into real estate?

Julian: I reached out to a friend of mine who owns a co-working space, and he also owns a startup business consulting company. He advised that I reached out to the different businesses in the co-working space to do informational interviews with them, to see what kind of businesses they do so I can get a sense of what I want to do for my career. He introduced me to a REALTOR, Jose Rojas. Jose is the man. Shortly after I left, I started getting my real estate license and I was shadowing Jose.

He went on vacation for the entire month of August. This is a guy who’s been in the business for over 15 years, has a huge book of business, closing deals left and right. He was like, “I have enough business. I want to take a break. Julian, can you manage my business for a month?” It was trial under fire. I was in it, showing houses for his clients.

Lindsay: That’s some trust right there.

Julian: Big trust.

Lindsay: He threw down the mic on you?

Julian: He did, and I’m glad he did it because you learn so much by being exposed to it. I managed his business for a month. He came back. The hardest part about real estate, which everyone can relate to starting out, and even in the business is getting business, getting leads. It took me six months to close my first deal in real estate. My philosophy is whatever client you’re working with, just go above and beyond for them. To this day, the client that I closed my first deal with, we’ve done seven deals together in a matter of five years, simply because I just gave him my all and he appreciated it.

Lindsay: That’s so cool. What a cool story. After that, after you had this trial under fire and he came back, you were out on your own. Tell me how the next couple of years unfolded for you.

Julian: I had to pick up a job. It was rough. I was doing tutoring part-time while trying to get business. I was doing a bunch of open houses, shameless plug. If you are a new REALTOR, get in those open houses.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Julian: I know agents who are closing 25 deals a year from just picking up clients at open houses. Doing a lot of open houses. Sphere of influence is another place where I get a lot of my business. My first year, I closed 12 deals, then I went to 11 deals. The second, third-year 13 deals. Then from year three, I feel things really start to click with me where I started to understand the fundamentals of, how do you actually close a deal? What are ways that you can support your clients? What are things that people are going to be looking for when buying a house and selling a house? From year three to four, I went from 13 to 29 deals. Now, I’m in year five, I’m already at 27 deals.

Lindsay: This is September, so you’ve got plenty of time left.

Julian: Yes, nine deals under agreement.

Lindsay: Excellent.

Julian: More to come. It’s all about just service mindset and abundance. You have to really believe that there are deals out there to be had, regardless of what the market says. One of the benefits of the software sales job that I was working at is a friend of mine who was working to be a professional development coach. He was all about rewiring our mind to think about opportunities, identify opportunities. He always used the example of, “Whenever you get a new pair of shoes, or you get a new car, you notice that everywhere and it’s the same thing with opportunities.”

It was so intense that he invited me to his house at 5:00 AM one morning and he was like, “Julian, we’re going to get in a cold shower.” I was like, “Dude, what are we doing in a cold shower?” He’s letting the water run. Water is running for five minutes on cold. I was just looking at him like, “Will, when am I going to get in the water?” He’s like, “I’m waiting for it to be cold enough.” He had a thermometer on the shower and he was like, “As soon as this gets to around 32 degrees, that’s when you’re going to go in.” It gets at 32 degrees. I’m standing in the water. The water is running on me. He pulls out a stopwatch. He was like, “I’m not letting you out until a minute goes by.” I was like, “Standing in there harshly hyperventilating?”

A minute goes by and then we debrief. He’s like, “Julian, what were you thinking about in the first 30 seconds while you’re in there?” I was like, “Honestly, I couldn’t breathe. I was just trying to gather myself together.” Then he was like, “What about the next 30 seconds?” I realized that in the next 30 seconds, your body starts to adjust. You stop worrying about trying to breathe. He’s like, “Julian, this is a theme that I want you to have for your life. This is something that I want you to take away from your life. Whenever you’re in those kinds of situations, of course, your natural instincts will tell you to freak out, to worry”.

Lindsay: Breathe.

Julian: Yes, to breathe, basic instincts. After a while, your body will know what it needs to do. From then on, I was just like, “I can do anything.” That whole year, what he was trying to get me to understand is there’s no such thing as limiting beliefs. We limit ourselves so much.

Lindsay: So much.

Julian: We are usually the first person to tell ourselves, “No, you want to get out there. You want to close more deals.” Then your mind starts telling you, “Oh, you can’t do it. This is what happened last year. This is Joe Schmo. Look what happened to him.” But it’s so possible.

Lindsay: I couldn’t agree more. Over the summer, I was doing a run and I was raising money for Dana-Farber. One of the times, I went for my run and I had two ways I could have gone. I had the way that I knew is the flat way, but it was going to be a little bit longer of a distance, or I had one way that was going to be hills and it would be a little bit shorter but I knew it’d be tougher. In my mind, I decided I needed to go to the left, the easy way, the flat way because God knows I can’t do the one to the right. That’s too challenging for me.

Then afterward, I went, “Holy crap.” There’s not one person in the world that talks to me the way that I do. There’s no one in my life that says, “You’re not good enough to go in that direction.” There’s no one in our lives that say that. It’s what we say to ourselves. I could not agree with you more. I’m glad that you took that nice cold shower and then you had that realization. I love that. We all have that moment where we go, “Wow, what are we doing to ourselves?”

Julian: Right. Because we hear our voice so much throughout the day and what are we feeding ourselves and how is that causing the impacts in our life.

Lindsay: Yes, what’s it affecting? I totally agree. That makes a lot more sense now. Why you said that even though you didn’t like the job, why you felt like that was such a pivotal thing for you to go through, now it makes sense because you probably wouldn’t have had that mindset and you may not have been as driven as you are now, so, very impressive. Thank you for that.

Julian: There were a lot of good things about that job too. It was software sales. I was doing 100 cold calls a day, 20 emails a day, everything was measured. They taught me how to sell. They taught me the importance of metrics. They taught me the importance of following up, which are all skills that you need to have to be successful at real estate.

Lindsay: Yes, because it was a sales position, so you learned all those basics of the sales world. That makes sense.

Presenter: Let’s take a quick break and hear from Dave Karoly, the master of objection handling as he teaches you how to overcome buyer and seller concerns.

Dave Karoly: All right. Guys, when a seller brings up accompanied showings and if you handle a listing appointment correctly, it’ll be when you are reviewing next steps once they’re signed up. You really got to get to the bottom of their concerns. Is their concern security, valuables or firearm, something like that? Or is it them thinking someone’s going to help sell the home? If it’s security base, tackle the elephant in the room. They can move the things. Do what you need to do to keep them feeling comfortable and secure.

Most times, though, it is the mentality of they think you need to be there to help sell their home. When that comes up, a great script to go to is– Well, let me ask you, Mr. Seller, we want a buyer to feel as comfortable as they possibly can when they come into your home. When they see me here, they often ask what am I doing here. They’ve built a very good rapport with their buyer’s agent. Now there’s a stranger who they know represents the seller is at the property.

They don’t talk freely. They just don’t get that warm and fuzzy. Also, they know where the kitchen is based on seeing a stove and a bathroom based on seeing a toilet. They even know I’m a pretty good salesperson. There’s no one on Earth who can convince a buyer to buy a home that’s not for them.

Also, talk to them about schedules. We need to not only accommodate on your schedules, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, and your kids’ schedules. We need to also accommodate around the buyers’ schedules. There’s probably two of them, and their agent’s schedules. When you add my schedule into the mix, it makes it more difficult to the buyer. If they can’t get into the property, a lot of times they’ll move right on into the next.

Presenter: Thanks, Dave. Now let’s get back to the shop.

Lindsay: You were just recently named 30 Under 30 for the National REALTOR. Woo woo. You can take a little pat on the back moment. I want you to let me know how you got that achievement, where this all came from? How they discovered you? I want you to tell me what it’s done for you since?

Julian: Absolutely. Since I got my real estate license when I was 24, I knew I wanted to get this achievement. I’m very big on setting big goals. When I set this goal, the limiting belief. The first thing that came to mind is, “People like me don’t get these kinds of awards.” Along the lines of breaking that limiting beliefs came preparation. I reached out to four different REALTORs in Massachusetts who got it.

I just asked them, “What were some of the things that they did to get this award?” There’s three parts to the interview, which is great. We’re not going to go into that. But the most important thing is shortly before they started the interview process, I reached out to, and I’m going to throw out another plug Randy Horn from Compass, Randy is a beast. I reached out to Randy and I was like, “Randy, I’m going to apply for this. What do you think?”

This is another one of those take-a-step-back-reflect-on-life moments. He was like, “Julian, honestly, this is going to be a great achievement for you, but you need to realize what you did and who you are becoming as a result of applying for this. Whether you win or lose it, that is not what you should be aspiring for. You should be expiring for the character that you’re going to get as a result of it, and the skills that you’re going to get in preparation for this”.

All of that feedback was invaluable to me. I think a part of the reason why, one, is I just doubled down on things that I was passionate about, and things that I was doing already. I am a natural-born entertainer. I was on the dance team in college.

Lindsay: I follow your page. I’m going to just let everybody know that it’s listening. Please go and follow. What’s your Instagram handle?

Julian: Julianaddyrealestate. Nice and simple.

Lindsay: Perfect. Go and follow him, because I’m telling you, it definitely is entertaining and educational, too.

Julian: Educational. That’s a piece of it because a lot of people feel real estate is this puzzle, this huge mystery when it’s not. I doubled down on videos, dancing videos. I posted educational videos about the process. I realized that it helped me to connect to my sphere of influence, because there’s so many people out there that know you or know of you, who would like to do business with you, but if you’re not putting yourself out there, there’s no way that they can find you.

Lindsay: You got it pretty close to the cutoff for when you turn 30. That’s exciting.

Julian: I know. Yes.

Lindsay: Just made it.

Julian: Barely made it. This is my last opportunity. I realized the month that I was applying, that this is my last opportunity.

Lindsay: You have mentioned a few times now about keeping in contact with your sphere. What other things do you do other than your social media to stay top of mind with those people?

Julian: I send gifts. Giving is my love language. Last July I sent a brand spatula. We were in the midst of quarantine, and I just wrote a message that cookouts are one way that I stay in touch with family and I’m able to build memories. Although we can’t physically be going places, a cookout is something you can do in your own yard to enjoy family and enjoy life.

During Christmas, I sent out a mug with chocolate bombs. Just little things like that where people are reminded that you care about them, because that’s the most important thing. People don’t care how much you know, they care how much you care.

Lindsay: Absolutely agree. We were telling our agents the same thing during that time, “Make sure you’re communicating with people, and not about, ‘Do you want to buy or sell?'” But really just communicating, “How are you?” Check in. I still feel that’s necessary, because we’re still in the throws of this whole craziness, and hopefully it’ll end soon, but we’ll see.

All great. Any other tips that you have or any advice that you have for agents that are maybe either the quitting their job, and getting into agents, because that’s definitely a pivotal time for you, or the third, fourth year maybe wanting to break that level and level up. What advice do you have for agents that were in your shoes?

Julian: For the agents that are just starting out, or people who are having a hard time closing deals, my biggest recommendation is find a mentor or find a team that is, one, going to give you exposure. Because the hardest thing about starting anything new is you don’t know what you don’t know.

Being around other people who are in the midst of it and doing it, you will be surprised the number of deals or crumbs that you get from other people’s tables, because they are so busy or they just don’t have time. Also, I realized that people like helping other people. Show initiative to agents in your company, get coffee, get lunch with other agents in your company. You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn, and what they’re willing to give, to offer.

Lindsay: Yes. Speaking of that, and that giver’s gain mindset, you’ve also been involved in YPN and some other REALTOR association-type stuff. Is that part of the reason that you do that, is to build those connections with your fellow REALTORs?

Julian: Absolutely. Building connections with REALTORs are invaluable. You’ll be surprised the number of offers that my clients have won, because the other REALTOR has said, “You seem like you would be so easy to deal with, or I’ve heard good things about you, and this is going to be a smooth deal because of it”.

Lindsay: I can say that I mentioned to someone in our office that you were coming in to do this. She was like, “I love him so much.” You definitely have a reputation for being likable, trustworthy, and all of that. You’re doing a great job at it. Last thing I want to ask you is about your growth. What is your goals? Now that you’ve hit 29 this year– Sorry, last year you hit 29. You’re already at 27 with nine-under. What is your trajectory for the future?

Julian: Since I went from 13 to 29, I’ve always like, “All right. If I double my business, is it possible that I could do it again?” I’m really competitive. I’m challenging myself to see if I can-

Lindsay: That’s not that mindset thing.

Julian: No, it’s not.

Lindsay: Shifted

Julian: Yes, I know. I will do it.

Lindsay: You will do it.

Julian: I will do it.

Lindsay: You will do it. I guarantee you will do it.

Julian: Absolutely.

Lindsay: We’ll have you back here to talk about how well you did.

Julian: To do it.

Lindsay: I love it.

Julian: Everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for volume two.

Lindsay: Exactly. I love it. Thank you so much, Julian, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. Other than your social media handle, do you have a website or some place else where someone can find you?

Julian: Absolutely. I keep it simple. Julianaddyrealestate. You can find me everywhere. LinkedIn, website, julianaddyrealestate.com. Facebook, google me. That’s another thing now, that has transformed my business. Make a Google business page and get reviews, the amount of people who google us is ridiculous. You want to control your perception. That’s an easy way to do it.

Lindsay: Absolutely. We actually have some instruction sheets. In the show notes, I will put the link for those instruction sheets. If anyone wants to set up a Google My Business page, we have all the instructions on how to do it, because it can be a little tricky with offices and zip codes and all that craziness. Awesome.

Julian: They got the tools for you.

Lindsay: Exactly. Julian, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Good luck on this next level of your business.