How Real Estate Agents Win with Database Management & EQ | Title Agents Podcast Ep57

In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shamil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Well, welcome everybody. This is our August rendition of Ignite Mondays, and typically we do hold our webinars the first Monday of the month.

In certain situations like next month, where it's Labor Day, we will be shifting our meeting to the following Monday. But for the most part, we do hold these first Monday of the month. And if anyone is ever curious when the meeting is, you can always go to our IgniteMondays.com website, and we'll typically post the next meeting on the website. So welcome, everyone. We're super excited to have our speaker, Ryan DeBrill.

And shortly, our host, Faye, is going to be doing an introduction. And if anybody wants to ask questions, please feel free to use the chat function. And time permitting, we'll go ahead and work through all of those questions. So Faye, with that, I will turn it over to you. Yes, happy Monday, everybody.

We're hoping to ignite you today in real estate, your sales, your business. So welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're thrilled to have you here. My name is Faye Crossgrove.

I'm with APG Title, and I'll be your moderator in this case. We have a guest speaker, so he'll be taking the floor for today's session. And whether you're joining us from across the country or just around the corner, we're in Northern Virginia, the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. We appreciate you taking the time to invest in your business and your brand. So today's topic is one that's incredibly relevant to all of us navigating this dynamic real estate market.

So we're going to have Ryan discuss how to navigate today's real estate trends and elevate your real estate brand. So we're very excited to be joined by our special guest, who brings a wealth of experience, insight, and real world strategies to the table, Ryan D'April. Am I saying that correctly, Ryan? That's correct. Yes.

Okay. All right. Founder of Zanello, Ryan has worked with thousands of agents across the country, and he's here to help us break down the current market shifts, including the rise of listing bloat, how to adapt to rising rates, and most importantly, how to build your brand that truly stands out and attract long-term clients. This session is going to be packed with practical, actionable advice that you can start using right away to elevate your presence in the market and drive your business forward. So grab a notebook, settle in, and get ready for valuable and inspiring conversation.

And of course, we'll be saving time at the end for any questions you may have. So feel free to drop them in the chat as we go, or we can address them when this webinar is done. So let's dive in. Ryan, welcome, and thank you for being with us today. Thanks, Faye.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody. It's an honor to be here. So yes, when I was asked to join, I was asked to cover a couple of points and then elaborate more on them.

So some of them were like, as you said, Faith, listing bloat and whatnot, and what's going on in today's real estate market and trends. And real estate is hyper-local, as we know. So there's a lot that's impacting real estate in the late 2025 stage here where we are. One is obviously mortgage rates are still impacting affordability, floating around 6.7, 6.9%. And buyer activity is starting to slow in some markets, but real estate is hyper-local.

And like you said, Faith, earlier, there's listing bloat in some markets, and in some markets you can't keep a listing on the market. So buyer activity is slowing nationally. It's down 0.8% month over month. It's down 2.8% year over year nationally. But again, that depends a lot on regions, right?

So many regions are reporting slower sales and lengthening listing durations, like here in Chicago. My wife's a real estate agent in Chile, Sedona, two weeks ago for $800,000, and it sold that same week for about 1.1 million. So it really depends on where you are. So prices are rising in the Midwest and Northeast, are falling in flat in the South and the West. So Tampa, for example, is down 6%.

And so what does that mean, right? And what do you do? That's where I'm trying to come in here and add value to us agents, and how do you navigate through these markets? And I've been in the business since 2004, been through the Great Recession, I've been through buyer markets, seller markets, I've been through whatever you want to call those past two years, three years, which is probably the most intense thing I've seen with the quantity of easing and tightening and what it's done to the market and whatnot. But the key insight I think is that we have to stay agile and really think of how we are connecting with our clients.

And so that's what I'm going to dive into a lot here with us. So first off, market conditions may differ by region, but the human condition remains constant. In all of my years of coaching, all of my agents and agents from other brokerages across the country, it is the most important thing when I work with an agent is getting to understand their clients why. This isn't just like softy touchy things, this is really for hardcore negotiations. I had a client in Oklahoma and she reached out to me and in the midst of four or five transactions and nobody was moving.

And she just really went down with me, Ryan, I laid down all the stats. Here's where it is. Here's what's selling price per square foot. Here's what's selling, you know, list price, computer sales price. I went over all this data and I said, I won't say her name, but I said, you know, such and such, why is it she's representing the seller?

Why is your seller moving? And I said, have you talked to that? She really didn't understand what I was talking about at first, but when we dove into it, we have a widowed grandfather whose only daughter lives an hour away and has his only grandson who is 11. And so, you know, what we got to do is understand when we are in this business, it's a people business as much as the real estate. And everybody has more money than time, but most people value money more time until they really feel and recognize what's going on with them.

So when he was kind of dug in and $20,000 just wasn't worth it for him to sell his home, we asked the question, right? You know, you're 11 year old when he's 13, will he be 11 again? And how valuable are those two years to you? And I won't dig into it too much, but these are the things that I have worked with agents on how to master. And it's incredibly important to do it pre lead generation, but then also to do it while you're in really tough negotiations.

And she reported back to me a week later that they got the deal done, that he realized that his 11 year old grandson will never be 11 years old again. And his daughter is an hour away. And time goes by and you could get $20,000 back, but you're never going to get it back. And so when you start to bring up to the surface people's why, because everybody has a why when they're moving, because buying residential real estate in most cases is not the most logical thing, right? When you're upgrading, you're downgrading, you're doing these things, it's really emotion driven.

And we want to talk about that and we want us to ground our strategy in local and data, you know, local data and that human motivation. So let me see. I can next one. So also want to talk to us about, you know, how do you elevate your personal connections? And I do this now more so as, as more and more agents are delving into social media.

I don't know, Faith, if you know this, but there's a statistic for 2024. Do you know what percentage of real estate agents transacted in 2024 across the National Association of Realtors? I don't know that. It's been reported 28% transacted, 72% did not, 72% of the real estate agents did not sell a home in 2024. And one thing that I'm watching agents do, and I've always coached our top producing agents that have coached, right?

It's that. percentage of real estate agents transacted in 2024 across the National Association of Realtors? I don't know that. It's been reported 28 percent transacted. Okay.

72 percent did not. 72 percent of the real estate agents did not sell a home in 2024. And one thing that I'm watching agents do and I've always coached our top producing agents that have coached, right, it's that, you know, marketing is incredibly important, but it can never replace the human connection. And you know, it is nice to have content, but if you don't have connection, your content is worthless. And so we got to go beyond the basic CRM marketing automation.

We got to go beyond the social media posts. It's great to be an influencer. And I will tell you, though, that probably 95 percent of the 72 percent of agents that didn't transact are already social media influencers. Marketing is not our problem. Marketing is not our problem.

Database management and connecting with the people that are in our sphere of influence is most real estate agents' problems. And what happens is they've neglected their past sales. I'm going to give you another statistic that's insane. 95 percent, it's like 95, 97 percent of all homebuyers surveyed, liked their agent and they said they'd use their agent again. Surveyed 10 years later and if they transacted and were asked if they use that same agent, only 7 percent do.

And I start working with a lot of agents, we start going, or brokerages, we start going back. I go into the past. And we find out that 9 out of 10, it proves along with those statistics, 9 out of 10 agents have not engaged with their past buyers, have not talked to their past client, are not sending annual real estate reports every year, even if it's five years later, to their past buyers. Your past buyers are your next sellers and buyers. And so the business is so easy to pivot and get into the right position.

So if we understand that, you have to have a combination of marketing and connectivity, but it really should be 80 percent connection and 20 percent marketing versus what most I'm seeing now is 95 percent marketing, 95 percent social, and 5 percent, if that, connectivity. So we got to organize our database. We need to nurture our network. Your database is the most important part of your business. This podcast is brought to you by Struggling to set appointments and generate leads?

What if you had a team working behind the scenes to help you book more meetings and close more deals? At Alltech National Title, our dedicated inside sales team help you find your pipeline so you can focus on what you do best, building relationships and closing business. Why join us? One built-in lead generation. Our inside sales team actively sets appointments for you to more time selling, spend less time cold calling and more time closing three proven support system, advanced tech, industry expertise and marketing tools at your fingertips.

And for unlimited growth potential, no red tape, just the resources to help you thrive. Ready to take your career to the next level? Visit AlltechNationalTitle.com or DM us today to start the conversation. You got to maintain your leads depending on their buckets. And we could get into that a little bit later and a few other slides.

But the final part is I want everybody to understand is that real estate is a people business and your brand lives in the relationships you build, not just your logo. So I want you to really think about, you know, marketing mediums, how you go about and what impact do they have versus the human connection and connecting with individuals. And you could connect with individuals systematically without eating into your day and you could do it in a relationship based way versus a transactional based way, which we could dig into a little bit more. Any questions before I move on? Makes perfect sense.

So this is just a slide of a database. Okay. And I just took a snippet of an agent here. Let me get my little pointer. Can you see my cursor there?

And can you see this fifth? Can you guys see? Yeah. So this is the real estate agent and she has 169 people in her database. And that's plenty.

150 to 200 people that you are connecting with on a quarterly basis is plenty to make a significant income. And you could see the date and the connections and what it was. Their daughter graduated preschool. Wish them congratulations. This one says in funnel, which means sales funnel, leads, active, skip, write, inactive.

Sent a message, congratulations, Liam's graduation. Sent the message about their kids and how they're growing up. Said hi and nothing new in the market, but we'll keep them posted. Said hi and hope all is well. And this is a $25 million producing agent, you know?

And this is what top producing, whoever you are, whether you're in title, you're in mortgage, you're in real estate, you're in pharmaceutical sales. You could take it to any industry that you are responsible for driving revenue. Okay. All right. It's in my opinion, sales is sales and marketing is marketing.

And what we're all starting to tend to is we're all thinking we're marketing. We are actually in the relationship building business and I'm showing you a top producing agent and their activities and how they manage your database. Now you'll see next to them, their social media links. Okay. And I tell a lot of people, I think a lot of people are using social media the wrong way.

They're using social media to push. You guys start thinking about how to pull information. It's not about what you say. It's what Amy's posted about. Maybe it was about her son, Liam, graduating, right?

It's not about what Lindsey's posting on social media about her knowledge of the real estate market. Maybe it's what Lisa Cody posted about her kids. And this Lindsey made a personal connection because she saw it on their social media outlets and warmed up to those individuals. Do you know that 16% of your network transacts every single year? So if you have 100 people in your database, that's 16 transactions if they transact only once, 32 if they transact twice.

Furthermore, everybody in your network knows at least four people that buy or sell every year and those are referrals. And so when we get down to solid database management and get focusing on nurturing our network and not selling them, nurturing them, the postcard, the email marketing, the just listen to our gadget, just sold post you did on social media will do your selling for you. But when you, if you can engage in the human experience and it connected them to what matters to them, when they have a need, they're going to trust you on these elements that we talked about here about the relationship and why they want to work with an agent with high emotional intelligence, which I'll walk into in a little bit. Any questions on this before I go to the next slide? Move it on.

Another thing that's incredibly important for real estate agents to do is to organize their leads. This is your network of 150 people. You have leads, you have active clients, and you have deals that are under contract and closed. These are three separate buckets. And when we organize our leads, we want to categorize them.

Are they closing this calendar yet? Are they closing next year? Are they potentially a lead for my database, but I'm not certain if they're going to transact or if not even certain they're going to hire me. And you could see this agent, Lindsay. Now this is all, I took the snapshot this morning, okay?

So it is August 1st, 2nd, no, it's 3rd or something of that sort. So the year's coming to the end and her leads should be very low. You know, if somebody comes and approaches you in mid-October and says, I want to buy a home, you're most likely closing on that transaction in 2026. So a lead is not an active client. A lead is not a pending under deal, you know, a deal that's under contract or closed.

A lead is somebody who wants to buy or sell a home, it's a buyer, seller, or renter, but they have not yet started the process and you need to categorize them. What's nice for this particular agent who is organizing their database and their leads is she's got insight of what are 2026 going to look like. And right now it's shaping up to be pretty good. August 4th, looking at a $14.75 million a deal, and then she needs to get these $1.79 million worth of leads that are closing this calendar year. She needs to get them active or recategorize them either into closing next year or uncertain to transact.

This podcast is made possible by our sponsor. You have worked so hard to build your business. So why do 70 to 80% of businesses never sell? The truth is most owners wait too long. They don't plan properly or they can't find the right partner.

At Alltech National Title, we help title company owners avoid these pitfalls. get them active or recategorize them either into closing next year or uncertain to transact. Ensuring that you maximize value, protect your team, and transition on your terms. Whether you're looking to grow, merge, or sell, we'll help you craft a strategy that actually works. A good deal is one where everyone wins.

Let's talk about how to make that happen for you. Visit alltechnationaltitle.com or DM us to start the conversation. Alltech National Title, Smart Transitions Built to Last. Then the last slide here on the database management is, we should be forecasting our business. Just like any good business forecasts.

As a real estate agent, we are our own, right? We're our own boss, we're running our own business, and we could sell this particular agent here has a goal of doing 18 million dollars. So there's a book, Good to Great, and what the author wrote in the book, Good to Great, is what you are not tracking, you can't improve. What you are not measuring, you cannot improve. So it's imperative that we track our progress, our business, our communication, everything that we're doing with the agents.

It's great to go and do some marketing. It releases some, what's it, the endorphins in our brain, right? Dopamine makes us feel good, right? But we got to do the hard work of actually connecting with these individuals, so when they have the need, they work with us. And then track our business.

I want to do 18 million in value this year. I'm forecasted at 16.5 million. I've closed five and a half, I got our two and a half under contract. I've got 6.6 of active clients, and then here's my leads, 1.79 that we said we're going to close this calendar year, okay? We're not putting the 14 and a half million dollars into the forecast, or the nine million dollars of people that we're uncertain.

That doesn't go in the forecast. Any questions on this before I move on? Okay, so what I'm hoping for everybody to get out of this is that the key to navigating the market is knowing your local stats. You know, rates are at six and a half, seven percent right now. Pending sales are down 0.8 percent, down almost three percent nationally.

And in some markets you can't keep a house on the market, in some markets you can't give a home away. All of that is important, but then once you couple that to the individuals, and know who they are, and how you're connecting with them, and understanding their why, that is the formula to becoming a top producing agent in your marketplace. So lastly is the power of emotional intelligence. And again, whether you're in title, real estate, mortgage lending, pharmaceutical sales, if you're an accountant, you're an attorney, okay? This is one of the most powerful tools for you to practice, to use, to incorporate in your day-to-day.

Emotional intelligence is the most important value a real estate agent brings to a transaction. If it was not, if it was not, the discount brokers would have taken us out of business 20 years ago. The consumer has access to the MLS via the website. My buyers and sellers, and my client's buyers and sellers, know it's on the market almost before we do. They're not coming to us for that data.

They may not even be coming to us for the market knowledge. They're probably coming to us for the emotional intelligence of walking them through. They're not just making the biggest financial decision. They're dealing with stress, uncertainty. They're making the biggest emotional transition in their life.

So this is why 90% of all sales go to somebody that they know, and that they like, and that they trust. And as a real estate agent, that is your craft, and you got to recognize how do I get that across? And maybe you can't get that across through mass marketing. And mass marketing is great, and social media is wonderful, but maybe we're looking at it a different way. Maybe we got to realize that social media is R&D.

We could research what they're posting about and develop a relationship with them. Did somebody have a question? I heard somebody jump in. No? Okay.

So when you connect with people on a human level, you guys, they trust you to guide them. That's your job. That is honestly the number one element to solid lead generation is connecting with your targeted individuals on a human level. Agents with high EQ, they listen deeply. They could read the room.

They could respond with empathy, right? And they create calm and emotional moments. So trust is built through emotional intelligence that leads to smoother deals. It leads to loyal clients. It leads to referrals, and it leads to a business that really can be put on autopilot where you just focus on the relationship element.

The transactional part of the business eventually becomes second nature to you. Finally, last thing, because this is my last slide before I go into a quick thank you. Everybody on this call should be incorporating annual real estate reports to their clients. And those annual real estate reports need to be sent in the mail, not electronically. And if I were to rank marketing, let's just give three mediums, social media, direct mail, and email marketing.

If you were to ask me to rank which is the most powerful, I would tell you still direct mail is the biggest bang for its bunk and it has the best way of getting through. I have 4,500 friends on Facebook. I'm not seeing 4,500 posts. I'm only seeing posts of people that I'm targeting, guys. And my people that I'm targeting are targeting other people.

So they're probably not seeing my posts. If you look at people who are viewing, it's usually other real estate agents or your vendors. I'm not saying don't do it. What I'm trying to tell you is that in the real estate business, it's hyperlocal. If you send somebody an annual real estate report in the mail once a year, you should see an exponential increase in your referrals, not just your direct business, which should be 16% of your database, right?

But your referrals, where those people know four people who buy or sell every year, that should go up exponentially. We need to take a step back and stop living in the transaction and start planning. My network is my net worth. It's not what I know. It's who I know.

And what are you doing day to day, right, to incorporate that? And then when you're in the heat of the moment and when you're in a transaction and you find yourself giving statistics and market data and what percentage of markets up, what percentage of markets down, ask yourself, why is your buyer or seller buying or selling? And are you bringing that into the conversation? This podcast is proudly sponsored by Need extra hands without extra overhead? Meet Safi Virtual, your on-demand team of virtual assistants trained specifically for the title industry.

Our VAs come with foundational knowledge of title insurance, ready to handle admin tasks, client communication, data entry, and more. So you can focus on closing deals, not paperwork. Scale smarter, work faster, and cut costs without sacrificing quality. Visit safivirtual.com or DM us to find your perfect VA. Safi Virtual, expert support tailored for title professionals.

And that's what I have for you, Faith. That's just a little thank you to me about who I am. And then if you guys want any more information, you can reach out to your all tech representative, or you could email directly and I could open it up for any questions. It's a question that came in, Ryan. Going back to the CRM real quick, how would you recommend that the leads are categorized to be most effective?

Yeah. So, and I do this a lot with broker owners that are coaching a lot of individuals. I like to define the leads. So let's not call them hot, warm, cold, and let's not call them A, B, C, right? Because then you got to redefine, you got to tell somebody what A means, what B means, especially your subconscious.

When you have a lead, now a lead is not an active client. So you can see my cursor. These are not your active buyers. These are people that are out of the 169 contacts that she has up here. There's 24 leads and she's categorized them.

They're either going to close this calendar year and she feels 90% certain they are and are going to use you, or they're going to close next year and she feels 95% certain they're going to close with her. Or they're not sure they want to buy or sell a home, but they may, they may want to do it, but she doesn't want to lose sight with them. When she's loving on these individuals, she wants to be able to see them. If you're uncertain to transact, she can click her uncertain to transact button and see, when was the last time I communicated with these individuals? What's going on with them?

year and she feels 90% certain they are and are going to use you, or they're going to close next year and she feels 95% certain they're going to close with her. Or they're not sure they want to buy or sell a home but they may, they may want to do it, but she doesn't want to lose sight with them. When she's loving on these individuals, she wants to be able to see them, they're uncertain to transact. She can click her uncertain to transact button and see when was the last time I communicated with these individuals? What's going on with them?

If there are some of the uncertains, do I have them still, and look at sent property port, set property port, set property port, right? $25 million producer doing these techniques. Okay. I just got a question here. I'm sorry, Alex.

I hope that answers your question there. What struck me is how simple the categorization is because I've seen other situations where there are so many categories that it's really hard to keep track. But in this case, it's this year, next year, not so sure. Yeah. Let's understand like the subconscious and the conscious mind and how we are so running on the subconsciousness.

Okay. So let's define it. And then Mike asked, do I believe what's contributed to the 28% of the NARA population having a transaction while 72% did not? I truly believe, and I could show you guys hundreds of agents that I have coached, right? That do anywhere from $20 to $80 million in production a year.

They're not teams, they're individuals, okay? And they have hardcore database management. They are connecting and they are loving on their individuals, okay? The 72% that did not, okay, I could tell you they're not organized. They're not disciplined.

They're spending so much time on social media and it's probably me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And I can show you real estate agents that are huge agents that barely even post about real estate on there. I'm not saying don't. I'm not saying do that. But if you peel the onion and you go into their database, you will see how connected they are to the people in their neighborhood.

And they're involved. They're involved in their country club or their kids' schools or this and that. And they're involved intentionally. They're agents on purpose. They're not agents on accident, right?

And these are all terminologies that you are going to hear if you read Ninja Selling or the Millionaire Real Estate Agent. There are so many books out there, right, that I learned from that made me a top producing agent. Then I created one of the biggest real estate brokerages in Illinois by coaching brand new agents into the business by taking these fundamentals and focusing on the basics and understand we're all going to be tracing trends and trends are always the fun things to chase. But the people that didn't leave the blocking and tackling are having the most success. All right.

There's another question. There are more. There are more reports of more people doing off market transactions and through MLS. How do you feel about this for the future of real estate? I don't know.

So I have to live through my own paradigm right through my own lenses. And so I had a real estate company in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and I had an office in Miami. That's a long story, but I did. So those are the markets that we covered. In markets where there is no inventory, okay, you would tend to think there is more off market activity.

In Chicago with 47,000 real estate agents and our MLS, still over 90% is going on the market. And if it's off market, still going on the private market. So you do see some of the for sale by owners occurring. But of the 10% that are FSBOs, 70% of those are still family to family transactions. So look, I've been hearing for 20 years how the real estate market is going to change.

The real estate brokerage business has changed. I know that as a broker owner, but as me being an agent, my wife being an agent and having thousands of agents that I've coached, and that business has remained solid. And it really becomes, people don't need a real estate agent to sell their home. They need a real estate agent to talk them off the cliff, to walk them through, to hold their hand. And that emotional connection is not going.

In fact, I only see an increasing with more and more of the rise of technology. Today's episode is sponsored by, Hey, you title agents, stop wasting time digging for answers or waiting on an email or call back from your underwriter with title GPT.ai. You get instant, reliable answers to your title questions fast, no more delays, work smarter, close faster, and keep deals moving. Try www.titleGPT.ai today. I've got three daughters.

My oldest is 21. She'll be 22 soon here. Um, and yeah, they're on Tik TOK and Facebook all the time, but she's going to parties at night. They're going on dates. They're going to coffee houses and meeting and chit chatting over coffee for two hours.

You can't eliminate that human connectivity. And so I feel so great about our industry, especially for those that understand it. The sad part is that 72% don't get it. They don't realize we're in a seven to 10 year sales cycle, guys. You're not selling a paper cup.

You're not selling something that you want to QVC and you see a video of somebody saying, here's what it is for 1999 and you could buy it now, right? It is a very sophisticated, high level transaction. They're going to work with people that they are connected to. So you can have all the marketing in the world, but if you are not bringing it down to a human level and connecting with the people that are in your database here with the way that she's doing it, you're never going to get to that next level. And then if you got the pipeline of business, right?

But deals just aren't closing. Get to the Y, get to the motion, get off the stats, stop trying to convince them based on stats, what percentages is, what the mortgage rates are going to do next year, what sales rates get to, why did they put that home on the market? Why do they start the process of driving around the neighborhood and looking at homes? There's something great that's moving in them in the transaction and fell to the bottom. It's your job to bring it to the top and that will get over the finish line.

Okay. One more. There's been a growing trend of agents building their own private buyer pools instead of relying on open houses. Okay, wait. There's been a growing trend of agents building their own private buyer pools instead of relying on open houses.

Do you think this is a new normal for high performing agents? Yeah. No, I don't think it's new. I think it's normal. So let's talk about that for example.

So there's been a growing trend of agents building their own private buyer pools. That's right. It's called their network. Now, if you look at lead sources, I'm not going to, gosh, I kind of want to, I wish I had my live CRM up here, but we track lead sources wherever it's a lead. What's the lead source?

If it's an active, what's the lead source? And then if it's closed, we can take down the pie chart below. What's the lead source? Every time, is it Amin? Amin.

Every time when we look at these top producing agents, 85% or more comes from their network, right? 85% or more. Now it's either directly or indirectly. So it could be 50% from their network directly, and then another 35% came from referrals from the network. So I got 15% more.

Where do those come from? Open houses. Maybe I'm doing a farming technique, right? So those are there. But yes, it's not a growing trend and it's always been there.

It's your network is your net worth. And to give you an example, when I sold my brokerage, we had 200 and like maybe 80 agents, 280 agents. 80% of them had less than five years and we did $1.3 billion in transactions that year. My average agent was doing $10 million and those agents that had 10 years, they're up in some real big numbers, but they've mastered database management. And what sells CRMs is marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing.

I'd rather you have an Excel spreadsheet than a CRM if you're going to use it the right way. So yeah, I think it's not a growing trend. I think it's a trend of building your own private pool and it comes from your network. But open houses are pretty spectacular. But there's a right way and there's a wrong way to doing open houses.

And I could dig in that later, maybe for another, maybe for another session, say if you guys ever want, on lead conversion, right. But I, when we get into lead, I'm talking about connectivity first, okay. How do you connect and then the leads rise, but then how do you convert? Convert is one of the why, but if you're doing other things outside of the network like open houses, there's a right and there's a wrong way. Just like there's a right and there's a wrong way to nurture your database.

But there's a right way and there's a wrong way to doing open houses and I could dig in that later maybe for another session, Faith, if you guys ever want on lead conversion, right? But when we get into lead, I'm talking about connectivity first, okay? How do you connect and then the leads rise? But then how do you convert? Convert is one of the why, but if you're doing other things outside of the network like open houses, there's a right and there's a wrong way, just like there is a right and there's a wrong way to nurture your database.

Any other questions? There was another one. This is a get out your crystal ball. So do you think interest rates will drop in the fourth quarter of this year? I didn't want to hold you to it.

Yeah, no, that depends on the bond market. I'm not even what the chair, I don't know the answer to that question. I can't answer that. Here's what I can answer when I talk to a real estate agent about it. How have you connected with your database lately?

How much are you working on it? Because there's individuals in there where rates don't matter. Assumption, they have to buy or sell. And a rate is temporary. Now, if I'm in a position where I've got to sell somebody to become a buyer on rate, that's just not a qualified lead enough for me, okay?

When you're coming to me, you want to buy or sell. The rate may be a speed bump, but it's a temporary thing that changes. So they're emotional. Why is so big? Again, going back to the open house, somebody's walking in that open house for some reason, right?

And there's a big reason behind that makes a rate not that big of a deal. Now, there are new home buyers that are priced out of the market. We can understand that, okay? But again, at some point, that human condition is gonna drive them so much where money is no longer a matter because time is more precious. And they, regardless of where they are, are running out of that time in their life.

I'm not talking their life's coming to an end, but there's the time that the little girl's gonna go from grade school to junior high, or she's gonna go from high school to college. I say little girl because I have three girls, but this is how I look in my life, right? So I have certain moments of time, and then those moments are gone. Tomorrow, Wednesday, I take my baby to college. And then next week, I take my middle daughter to college.

And then my last one is a senior, and she goes to college. That's the time in my life I'm in. And so there's certain things that I have a ticking clock on that I wanna do, and some of it revolves around real estate, and it revolves around what's going on in my life. Fellas, ladies, gentlemen, this is what you have to master. And it's more important you know more about your database than they know about you.

It's important to market, and don't get me wrong, but 72% of us that didn't transact last year, right, the 72% that didn't transact, I'll tell you, 95% of them are social media influencers. You're not gonna get it done with just social media. Their daughter graduated from preschool. I wish them congrats. Send the message congratulating Liam on graduation.

You guys, this is once every three months. This is not like every day, right? Send the message about their kids and how cute they are growing up, et cetera. That's called loving on your network. So I don't know about rates, but I do know that the fourth quarter's gonna come regardless.

And so what I wanna do is I wanna put everything I can in line to set me up the best to succeed. Any other questions? Yes, shifting back to the numbers side a little bit. What goes into, and this maybe will be the last question unless more come up, but what goes into your forecast for the sort of components or factors? Yeah, sure.

So an agent should set a goal in the beginning of the year. And then as the year progresses, you pick up active clients, and it grows. You get a deal on a contract, and that grows. These active clients and deals go on a contract, and then what you've closed year to date starts to grow. And then you pick up a lead.

Somebody wants to buy or sell a home, but only this year. They don't get counted if they're closing next calendar year. The leads that you are closing this calendar year, plus your active, plus what you got under contract, plus what you've closed comes to your forecast, okay? So this particular agent has $8 million pending and closed, another $6 million of active. She's gotta get these people to close, or her forecast is gonna be off.

And active is they're on the market, they're on the MLS, right, or they're in buyer agreements, and they're driving around looking at properties. And this number, as the year goes on, needs to go down and down and down. Your closing next year can grow, right? And I'll tell everybody, and I tell everybody this. You guys come really like October 15th, the year's over.

The year's over with mid-October. You are now looking into 2026. So that's why this is incredibly important, this closing next year. And what was the date, you hit the next year, these are the uncertain ones, but what was the date? Look it, here's your one next year deal, there's 24, right?

This is all uncertain, uncertain, $1.2 million, and she sent her a property report, right? That's the last communication. I'm sure she's communicating with her more than that, but she's notating when she sent the property report with these individuals. But again, your forecast is made up of what you've closed on her contract here, and agents become addicted to this because this is how they hit their goals. If you're not setting a goal, and you're not tracking a goal, you're just gonna plateau, right?

And plateau, in my opinion, is worse than failure, right? When you fail, at least you know you did something wrong, you can correct. Plateauing is, you don't even know you plateaued. I mean, so many agents are doing 15, $60 million a year, and it's great, right? But we discovered that they're probably 25, $30 million a year producers, they just haven't yet organized, and they got a great natural network, right?

But they just haven't put the tools in place to organize it, to leverage it properly. It takes time, but it works. Any other questions? Well, not that I can see. Anybody else from our attendees?

Brian, we may catch you up on your offer to do a session just on lead conversion. I think that would be a really interesting topic. Yeah, I would love, happy to do it. I see a lot of people doing it the wrong way, but that's another hour-long conversation. There you go.

All right, then if there are no other questions, I think everybody will get 15 minutes back on their calendar today. We do appreciate everybody for joining us, and please do subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's a new channel. This session will be available in the next few days on that channel. A lot of great information was shared today, so we really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys coming. Thank you. Thank you, Brian, very much for igniting our real estate professionals. Appreciate it.

My pleasure. And that's a wrap on today's journey with Mo Shamil from the Title Agents podcast, reminding you that mastering the art of innovation is key in the title industry's fast-paced world. If you're finding it tough to keep up with the changes and challenges, remember, you're not alone. Our calendar is open for you. Find the link in the show notes and let's connect.

Make sure to hit subscribe to not miss out on strategies that elevate and insights that empower. Together, we'll navigate the future of the industry. I look forward to our next meeting in the upcoming episode.