Post Sara Kalke Event Recap

Anthony: Hey, everybody. Since last night when I did that video with Sara outside of the restaurant in Boston, we actually did get a bunch of questions back which I was excited about. Jackie and I were talking this morning about, “Hey, maybe we should do a video and answer people’s questions.” That’s pretty much what we’re doing. If you don’t know who Jackie is, remember yesterday she got up on stage?

Jackie: I did because somebody left their car on.

Anthony: Because someone’s jeep– And no one got up.

Jackie: Nobody got up. Nobody wanted to admit it that it was theirs.

Anthony: Anyway, want to tell them who you are real quick and then we’ll get in to answering questions?

Jackie: Sure. My name is Jackie Lou and I’m the Director of Growth and Development here at Lamacchia Realty.

Anthony: Awesome. Thank you. There’s a specific reason that I asked her to be involved and I’m going to tell you about that in a minute but first let me tell you that couple of questions that came back was, “What are those two questions that Sara asks on a listing appointment?” That came back from a few people.

Actually, some of our best realtors ask that. I called Sara this morning because I only could remember one of them so I’m confessing. She reminded me one of them was, “What is your biggest fear in selling your home?” I’m looking over reading and then, “What is most important to you during this home-selling process?” Sara said she reviews that pretty early in the listing appointments.

For the….Agency Listing, we always talk about going over goals of the seller when you first arrive.That’s when I would plug those questions. Those are perfect questions to ask. Sara said how they basically save her a half an hour on a listing appointment, what’s your biggest fear and what’s the most important to you.

The other question that we got is “What exactly do her assistants do?” I know that that’s an area like, “She did awesome on motivation and life skills and all that.” I agree she didn’t really get into what they do for her or kind of her setup so I asked her about that too. Both of them are full-time assistants. She pays them well as you heard. One is totally an admin assistant. The other one is basically an errand person, does some admin, does some help with bookkeeping, but does endless errands, dropping off checks.

I said to Sara, “It basically sounds to me like you do no admin work.” She goes “Anthony, I don’t write an offer. I don’t pick up my pen.” I said “Ah, okay.” Then she said that she doesn’t do any stupid errands, miscellaneous errands at all so that’s what they’re doing for her. I thought that was cool. A take away for me was the phones. I–

Jackie: Yes. That was tough for you.

Anthony: Well, I put it under my seat. The funny thing is three years ago when I’m vacation, I left my phone with Sara, our VP, and it was the greatest week ever. I’m very good every night about shutting my phone off and putting it face down for dinner but what I’m not good about is as soon as I wake up, I’m checking it. Right before I go to bed, I’m checking it. This morning, I did not check Facebook at all until about 10 minutes after I woke up. That’s a step.

Jackie: Really? It’s a baby step.

Anthony: All right. Now, let me talk about why I brought Jackie. Before Jackie got into the position she’s in as one of the top people in the company, Jackie was our star listing agent back when I had a team. Remember I had a team years ago. It’s been more than five years now. Jackie was a listing agent on that team and she sold over 600 properties. She’s been with us for nine years?

Jackie: Eight.

Anthony: Eight years. One of the things that she struggled with was putting the phone down. She would reply to emails in the middle of the night, reply to emails ten at night, five in the morning. You want to tell them? Go ahead.

Jackie: Two in the morning, three in the morning. I would literally sleep with my phone under my pillow so I didn’t miss any calls, texts, or emails, or anything like that. Needless to say, it was not good for my life. I got burned out very quickly and it stressed me out more than it needed to.

It all comes down to training your client. That first week you have with your client is critical. If you say to your client, “I’m available 24/7,” you’re setting some really bad expectations. Nobody is available 24/7. You don’t want somebody that’s available 24/7. That’s means really what else do you have going on in your life? Or I’m your only person that you need to focus on.

Letting them know there are times like Anthony said, putting the phone down at dinner. I got to a point where I stopped checking my emails after eight o’clock at night because my personal life was suffering which ultimately made my work life suffer. You had to find that perfect balance. It took a while. It took a very long while for me to get there but–

Anthony: It took several reminders from me but she got there. One thing I want to tell them about though, how when you first did this you had a couple of clients that were already in flow and used to you. One of them, I don’t know who this guy is but I’d like to yell at him if I ever saw him. He said to Jackie one morning “Why didn’t you reply to me last night at 10:30?” Or something.

Jackie: 10:30, yes. He emailed me or called me at 10:30 and I didn’t respond. In the morning, he was upset. He’s like, “I’m really surprised I didn’t hear back from you. Why didn’t you get back to me?” And I said, “I was sleeping. I do that from time to time. I need a little shut eye now and again.” Now, it’s my fault because I had told him I’m available 24/7.

Anthony: But once you stopped with it with your new clients, the issue went away.

Jackie: Once you set those expectations right from the get-go, everyone’s fine with it. People know you have a life. Just say, “Hey, dinner time, I’m not available. After eight o’clock, I’m not going to be around.” They respect it. They respect you more, honestly. Nobody’s going to get mad.

Anthony: One that I know of I have the email right here. One of the agent’s emailed back and said, “How are you able to not be available 24/7?” For the person to ask, I don’t want to name names, we wanted to answer this for you because I’m sure there’s many other people that were wondering that. She’s a real life example. She sold 640 properties in about five years. By that time, you were completely done, which was 3 or 4 years ago. I wanted you guys to be able to hear it directly from her. The other thing that I want to mention is Sara is a coach and there’s been some interest, some people have replied and asked about getting in contact with Sara.

If you reply to this email, we’ll reply and copy her, and get you in contact. The other thing that I wanted to mention because several people did ask is, “Hey, I hear you guys do a lot of training. Can I ever visit a training?” The answer is yes. We invite people pretty much every week at this point. We run courses in the afternoon. We do things in the morning. We do all different things. This month we’re running a Buyer Conversion Course. Next month in November, we’re running a Seller Signup to Closed Course which is basically from the time you signup the seller to the time you close it, dealing with price adjustments, and all those kinds of things.

If anyone wants to visit our training, you’re welcome to. We’re sitting here in our training room right now. It seats 45 people. We also Skype them out to the other offices but visitors always come in in person. I wanted to mention that. I guess that’s it.

Jackie: That’s it. Yes.

Anthony: Well, good. Listen, I’m glad to hear you guys liked it. I hope this helps you for those of you that were like, “Give me an action item.” I hope this video solves that. That’s it out of us. Thanks again for coming and have a great day. Have a good weekend.

Jackie: Thanks, guys.