Jeb Blount: Must-Know Secrets For Real Estate Success

Guests: Jeb Blount, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: August 8, 2019

Excerpt

Capitalizing on your expertise never goes out of style. It boils down to how you do it and where. Are you utilizing all the platforms that you have available to you? Are you mindful of your audience? Do you know who you are speaking to and what kind of language they respond to? You need to work on your message and make it about the human experience. A lot of agents forget this, and this is what is missing in sales in general today. If you forget that, then you are missing the point. Building relationships is the foundation of a durable and lasting business.

Jeb Blount is one of the most sought-after and transformative speakers in the world today. Best-selling author, Anthony Iannarino, calls Jeb the “modern-day Zig Ziglar.” His engaging stories and affable stage presence draw audiences in, keep them on the edges of their seats, and leave them begging for more. In addition, Jeb is known for his unique ability to quickly assimilate the languages of the organizations he serves and customize his messages to his audiences. It’s not uncommon to hear audience members exclaim, “It felt like Jeb had been working here for his entire career.

Each year, Jeb touches tens of thousands of people through his training programs, workshops, books, articles, podcasts, videos, and keynote speeches. He is known for his unique ability to make complex concepts simple and easy to consume. Jeb transforms organizations by helping people reach peak performance fast and is a trusted advisor to companies and their executives across the globe.

Sales Gravy was founded in 2006 by bestselling author and thought leader Jeb Blount. Today they are a globally recognized leader in sales training and enablement solutions. Their proven systems and methodologies are leveraged by executives and sales teams at the most recognized companies in the world.

Transcript

00:00:08:06 – 00:00:13:04
Daniel Ramsey
What is the message that you think would land most appropriately for them?

00:00:13:17 – 00:00:24:00
Jeb Blount
Well, what are what are they telling you when you send emails? What are the emails that they’re hitting that you get the most open, the most click through? Like what? What what’s what’s emotionally connecting with your audience right now?

00:00:24:15 – 00:00:42:24
Daniel Ramsey
You know, it’s interesting. You’re you know, there’s definitely something going on in our industry. Commissions are getting compressed. San Diego market just kind of did a little bit of a switch over, meaning it’s the first decline they’ve seen in like, I don’t know, since 2013.

00:00:43:13 – 00:00:47:08
Jeb Blount
And where are the commissions going? Are they going to the brokers? Are they going to the.

00:00:47:24 – 00:01:03:03
Daniel Ramsey
No, they’re they’re getting compressed because of competition. They’re getting compressed because of really different models out there. They’re getting compressed because people, you know, are saying, well, I can just sell my house on Zillow, you know?

00:01:03:15 – 00:01:18:22
Jeb Blount
So you’ve got competition with with with for for sales by owners, for office. And then you’ve got the automated bulk buying that’s happening basically through machine learning and these big investment houses that are buying up all these single family homes.

00:01:19:02 – 00:01:33:13
Daniel Ramsey
You know, that’s a misnomer. There’s no such thing as machine learning in real estate and and even Zillow, who says that they’re doing it? They actually they use real estate brokers to think.

00:01:33:13 – 00:01:52:06
Jeb Blount
That there’s more. I think maybe maybe a better name for is what they call it, systematic buying or what have you, where they’re going through like all these listings and their computers are crunching that. Then human beings are looking at them, but they’re not walking through the door with cash. They’re using brokers. I mean, they’re using real estate agents.

00:01:52:06 – 00:02:19:12
Jeb Blount
But there have been at least five articles in The Wall Street Journal in the last 90 days about about these investment firms and all the all the VC money that we’re all in into them. I mean, they’re clear is making a small impact right now. But they’re but they’re basically going into the residential market and they’re walking in with cash and they’re saying, you know, based on these this stuff right here, I want to buy this house from you.

00:02:19:21 – 00:02:44:14
Daniel Ramsey
Actually, you’re right about that. So investors are making cash. Investors are making a much higher impact on who sells and for how much. And and these these you know, these companies, these larger companies, they they can go on very skinny margins where you and I would want to make 20 grand if we flip the house and risk capital and did all that.

00:02:45:03 – 00:02:50:04
Daniel Ramsey
They can go in and risk and just make five grand because they’re doing 50 of them.

00:02:50:16 – 00:03:06:20
Jeb Blount
And a lot of our just written houses, I mean, the bigger firms are buying them and they’re keeping them on the market. So they’re they’re they’re compressing the amount of time that the buyer I mean, it’s a simple tradeoff, right? You can you can have your house on the market for six months or you can have a market for two weeks.

00:03:07:08 – 00:03:27:09
Jeb Blount
Take this cash now or, you know, take it later and and we just you know, we’re doing we just did a big seminar for house flippers. I’m not in the house flipping world, but teaching them how to prospect. So going after it, you know, folks and then we’re we’re doing some online fanatical prospecting boot camps for house flipping.

00:03:27:16 – 00:03:51:03
Jeb Blount
And it’s really about, you know, getting in the door qualifying and then obviously convincing the person to sell their house for cash at a much lower amount than they thought they were going to get. But it’s interesting what’s happening out there. I mean, I think the real estate I’m I own real estate. I own rental houses. But it is I think for for real estate agents, it’s a pretty if I were real estate should be a pretty scary time.

00:03:51:09 – 00:04:19:10
Jeb Blount
I gave a keynote at the Century 21 and I followed their CEO on stage and I thought his message was strong. And his message and I loved this message was it’s the world is changing. And computers, technology, Zillow, Trulia, all of these these you know, these companies, they’re they’re getting in the way. They’re disrupting what we normally did.

00:04:19:15 – 00:04:45:03
Jeb Blount
The value as an agent is your knowledge of the marketplace, what you know and the human experience that you bring to people who are trying to to to purchase a home. And and I thought, well, if you know, if you’ve got a better disruptor than that, tell me, because a robot can’t do that for you. And I understand on the listing side, for example, you know that, hey, I’m going to I’m a it’s easier for me to be to sell it myself than to bring someone in.

00:04:45:10 – 00:05:12:24
Jeb Blount
But but the value of the agent is that they, that they know things that that other people don’t know. And I know that because I bought you know, I bought a vacation home recently and I found it on Trulia. What I was looking for, I, I went there and got in touch with an agent who did a fantastic job of teaching about area, showing us around, took us to enough houses where we can make a good decision.

00:05:13:05 – 00:05:33:03
Jeb Blount
The house that we originally looked at, we didn’t end up buying the one that we thought we wanted to buy from the picture right? Once we got there and some insider knowledge and help, we got a really, really good deal on the home that we wanted and and and we learned about where to buy, not to buy, but we would have never known that if it hadn’t been for the agent that we were working with.

00:05:33:03 – 00:05:53:17
Jeb Blount
There’s no way possible we would have known that because it’s just it’s one of those things that’s there’s such a niche area and, you know, in everything there is, you know, you’re spending $1,000,000 to buy a house. So you can’t really you don’t want to screw that up. And in the future and in your future, resell is going to be predicated on where you are in that particular area.

00:05:54:02 – 00:06:03:11
Daniel Ramsey
So and you only in real estate, you make money at the buy, not at the sale. Like everybody gets that confused. So yeah. Yeah, I love it.

00:06:03:21 – 00:06:23:15
Jeb Blount
That’s exactly right. That’s the you know, we were we had the right area, right place, some stuff that needed to be fixed and a really motivated buyer. And, you know, we, we, we did well there but but I think that that to me, the message is it’s human. It’s about the human experience, which I think I don’t I don’t know enough about real estate because I don’t live in the real estate industry.

00:06:23:15 – 00:06:41:07
Jeb Blount
But I think that’s the one thing that’s missing in sales in general is it teaching people, here’s all this digital stuff that you can use and we’ve forgotten about the human experience. And I think the same thing in real estate, you have to connect with human beings to sell to human beings. I mean, that’s important. You have to connect with human beings, lost list their homes.

00:06:41:22 – 00:06:53:16
Jeb Blount
You have to connect with this both at just the right time. And then you have to maintain and nurture relationship with them over time if they do all things. But it truly is a human to human experience. And if you forget that a robot can do your job.

00:06:54:12 – 00:07:14:02
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, yeah. So would you link the, like, the AI buyer investors coming in and purchasing stuff and then the changing landscape all the competition and all the money coming in and then link that together with the fanatical prospecting.

00:07:14:15 – 00:07:37:06
Jeb Blount
Yeah, I don’t know. You know, I think those are I think those are the things that are scary to agents. So the world change and all of those things are happening. It scares me because I worry about what happens when when the market shifts and you have these big corporations that have all this real estate in their portfolios and then they decide they need to get rid of it and they try to.

00:07:37:07 – 00:07:39:16
Daniel Ramsey
Push the red button. They push the red button.

00:07:39:18 – 00:08:00:12
Jeb Blount
Button that, you know, the housing market I just worry about that is is a real estate owner that I don’t want my values to get depressed by these big, you know, machines that are buying tons of property. I mean, as a as a percentage of all the properties out there, it’s a very small percentage. The problem that they’re creating in the marketplace right now, it’s not really for agents so, so much.

00:08:00:12 – 00:08:18:07
Jeb Blount
As for the the you know, the first time homeowners. The second time homeowners. So you’re, you know. Well, my first house when I was 25, I think people are going a little bit, you know, later than that. But I bought my first house in California at 30, which was a big purchase, and that was my third house, by the way.

00:08:18:11 – 00:08:35:22
Jeb Blount
And I think that, you know, if the people that are coming out of the very, you know, at the very bottom, they’re getting bit out of the of the marketplace by these institutional buyers who are buying these houses up for cash. You know, they’re sitting at this. They spent forever trying to save up enough money for a down payment.

00:08:36:06 – 00:08:56:02
Jeb Blount
But, you know, I read an article in this is in The Wall Street Journal to us about these the agents that are selling at the very top of the market. So homes that are $10 million plus. And they were they were interviewing this one guy and it was like, it’s all about the relationships because you have to you have to have a wide network of people who can buy these houses.

00:08:56:07 – 00:09:10:17
Jeb Blount
And then you got to get on the telephone and call call them and tell them this house is for sale and figure out a way to get them in to see the house. Because you’re like, you don’t list a $50 million house. And then everybody goes, Oh yeah, I think I like to go see that, you know? So it’s a it’s a different marketplace.

00:09:10:17 – 00:09:29:04
Jeb Blount
So I think that I think that every real estate agent, you got to know what niche you play in, where are you? What do you do? And you have to understand the, you know, the buyers that are out there. I think more than anything, you’ve got to you’ve got to provide a great human experience. I just I don’t think there’s any other way around that.

00:09:29:04 – 00:09:45:09
Jeb Blount
My my brother in law is a very successful real estate agent in Tuscaloosa. And, you know, that’s what he does. And, you know, he’s and we were just talking to the dig of all the leads that, you know, that like Trulia leads and Zillow leads and how worthless they are. And he’s like, I get these things and they’re just forever.

00:09:45:09 – 00:09:59:16
Jeb Blount
And then he had bought into someone else’s plan. And I’m like, Ward, where do most of your leads come from? He goes, Friends, people who belong to sold houses to us and their friends. To me, I’m like, Yeah, why don’t you play that? Is that card instead of all this other stuff that you think is going to make you money?

00:10:00:01 – 00:10:18:05
Daniel Ramsey
You my favorite question for that, your brother in law would be how much money have you spent on your friends and and sphere of influence? And then ask him to look at his PNL for the last three years and he’s spent zero money on that number one source of his business and thousands of dollars buying crap leads.

00:10:18:05 – 00:10:20:21
Jeb Blount
Omnipotence. Yup.

00:10:20:21 – 00:10:25:22
Daniel Ramsey
And and agents wonder like many ways we we could go on and on.

00:10:26:10 – 00:10:49:09
Jeb Blount
But it’s it’s a it’s a it’s complicated. And and add to it that you’ve got, you know, people who wake up every day and say, I’m going to be a real estate agent by like that’s like, you know, so and they start from nothing and then, you know, and then if you get with the wrong broker or you’ve got an unscrupulous broker that’s taken all your money out of your pocket while you’re trying to learn compassion.

00:10:49:09 – 00:11:08:00
Jeb Blount
So, you know. But I do I think it’s I think you it’s it’s a it’s always the combination of you have to do everything right. Like if you can get good leads in and you understand how that works and you’re paying for them, that’s cool. But you but you have to be able to flip those into more. What are you doing in your neighborhood?

00:11:08:00 – 00:11:33:13
Jeb Blount
What are you doing for networking? How many calls did you make on Facebook this week? I mean, why not just call them up and have a meeting with them? Look, sooner or later, they’re either going to sell their house. They’re going to get lowball buyer flipper, and that’s going to piss them off and or they’re going to get tired of people walking to their house all the time, having to be home, having to be chained to it like a so you have to be there when their their status quote shifts and they need help and they call you first.

00:11:33:21 – 00:11:35:19
Daniel Ramsey
Seller fatigue is what we call it.

00:11:36:12 – 00:11:44:08
Jeb Blount
Seller fatigue. I like that. Yeah, go ahead. I said I want to I don’t want to sell my own house. I want someone else to do the work for me.

00:11:44:11 – 00:12:17:22
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, it’s called seller fatigue, dude. Okay. Because selfishly, I have a question for you. So I’m about to launch we’re about to release a new book that I wrote, and I made up this whole framework called The Four P’s, which is prospecting, presenting persistent follow up and potential referrals like this is our methodology. Like if you just focus as a salesperson on those four things, everything else, you know is easy, like you’re the sales guy.

00:12:18:00 – 00:12:20:14
Daniel Ramsey
So I wanted to hear your thoughts were about.

00:12:20:21 – 00:12:41:14
Jeb Blount
I think it’s good. I love I love simple frameworks like that. So if you you know, if you if you you know, if you think about presenting is more messaging rights messaging it’s it’s staging. It’s it’s it’s organizing the story. So so I think if you’re a real estate agent, it’s the ability to tell that story, to get people excited.

00:12:41:14 – 00:12:44:22
Jeb Blount
And it’s I’d add one other too in this patients.

00:12:45:15 – 00:12:47:19
Daniel Ramsey
Are interesting five P’s.

00:12:48:03 – 00:13:07:17
Jeb Blount
Right because because when when you are working like you know you have to have the right people. Right. So at 6 p.m., right. You’re the right people because you’re wrong people. And I’m really careful when I’m working with a real estate agent. I’m very careful to be very clear with them. I will only work with you. I’m not jumping around.

00:13:07:17 – 00:13:21:03
Jeb Blount
I am going to buy a house. I’m not going to waste your time. And part of that is because I’m a sales professional and I sell stuff every single day and I just I just from a professional to professional, I want you to understand this is the role I’m in, but these are the things I expect from you.

00:13:21:09 – 00:13:44:13
Jeb Blount
So you do these things, I’m going to give you these these things and you’re going to sell a house. But I think you got to make sure you’re working with the right people because for, you know, for an agent, whether you’re working with a seller or you’re working with a buyer or you’re working with both, if you’re not doing a very good job of qualifying, you’re screwed because you’re going to spend so much of your time on people who are never going to buy.

00:13:44:13 – 00:13:58:03
Jeb Blount
And that’s the biggest waste of time. You possibly can. And this was a resources that you can possibly spend your time and effort on in emotion. But I also think it’s patience because you kind of got to let people, you know, sometimes.

00:13:58:03 – 00:13:58:23
Daniel Ramsey
It’s a process.

00:13:59:07 – 00:14:17:04
Jeb Blount
And I work with agents that are like, yep, that room, that room, that room, that room, that room or or you’re working with a person who believes that they can sell their home and you don’t have the patience to stick with the nurturing and keeping it alive over time. Because imagine if you had a net of, say, 50 of those people that were out selling your houses.

00:14:17:04 – 00:14:41:22
Jeb Blount
They’re everywhere. And you nurtured and nurtured and nurtured. Then the statistics just say that that there’s a certain number of those they’re going to have seller fatigue and a certain number of those people that are going to work with you because they just like you better than the other person. Right. Is having that ability over time to build those relationships and maintain those relationships and also allow people to fall in love with a home or fall in love with a story.

00:14:41:22 – 00:14:54:16
Jeb Blount
You have to do that. So it’s it’s, you know, unless you’re just pure investor, I don’t know that there are too many more emotional buys in your life than than your home or your vacation home. And I’ve bought a lot of work.

00:14:54:17 – 00:15:20:14
Daniel Ramsey
I am convinced that in the next six months we are going to go through a little bit of a recession that’s going to last a year or two. And my curiosity is how as a sales professional, how do I weather that storm and what are the activities pre recession that I can do to set myself up to last through that two years of kind of slow I will call it slow gravy.

00:15:22:20 – 00:15:38:12
Jeb Blount
I don’t like first of all I don’t think I don’t think six months is the right number. I think I think it’ll be further out than that. So I think we’ve got a little bit more runway left and that’s just my opinion. But but there are certainly you know, there are certainly signs that say, you’re right, I just in.

00:15:38:14 – 00:15:46:10
Daniel Ramsey
Your area, in your area, you’re absolutely right. You have a year, maybe two. I mean, we’re on the end yet.

00:15:46:18 – 00:16:07:09
Jeb Blount
Maybe. Maybe so. I mean, the housing market is going to go up and down. But I think the economy as a whole is a lot stronger. And there’s a there’s still a trump card out there, believe it or not. And that is if the Americans and Chinese sign an agreement, then you’re going to see it zooming because there’s still space left to go.

00:16:07:17 – 00:16:25:02
Jeb Blount
And and and my belief is that that that these guys are all smart enough to figure out exactly when to sign that so that you carry through. Because if you’re right, there’s a there’s a recession in six months. It could be two years because there’s a recession in six months, there’s going to be a change in the White House and there’s a change in the White House.

00:16:25:07 – 00:16:49:21
Jeb Blount
Depending on who gets in, you know, we might see, you know, higher taxes, some other things happening that disrupt the marketplace. If those things happen, we could go a little bit longer into a recession if if what I believe will happen. And that is that these guys are all smart enough to get something inked, Chinese and Americans, then I think you’re going to get a lot more runway and then you won’t see a recession until Trump’s second term.

00:16:49:21 – 00:17:09:24
Jeb Blount
Sometimes there you’ll see it drop off, but if it happens before that, he’s toast. There’s no chance that he gets reelected. If it doesn’t happen, I think the chances are he gets reelected a pretty good regardless of your politics from an economic standpoint, which is where I’m I’m I’m just an unabashed capitalist. It’s a good thing if we can keep this thing going.

00:17:09:24 – 00:17:29:12
Jeb Blount
And, you know, and I think that despite all of the other stuff, the levers that are getting pulled are pretty good. But I wrote a book about in 2009 called Seven Rules for Out Selling the Recession. And so if there is a recession, that book will be back and in vogue again. I’ll be able to sell books again.

00:17:29:12 – 00:17:46:01
Jeb Blount
So what I teach salespeople is, is if you’re getting ready for the obsession, the recession, what you want to do is start thinking about it. First of all, it’s like four Game of Thrones. Winter is coming. Be prepared for it. I say to my people every single day, everybody in my company, I’m I’m preparing for the recession now.

00:17:46:01 – 00:18:05:14
Jeb Blount
I’m already ready for it. I already believe that it’s year. I’m already focusing on that because there’s going to be a recession. Winter is coming. I just don’t know when you might be right. I hope you’re not. But if you’re right and it happens, then I’m in the training industry and the training industry. What happens? People start pulling back and they don’t start meeting people.

00:18:05:15 – 00:18:25:11
Jeb Blount
They just stop traveling. People and and like corporate events start building being peeled back. So I’m a keynote speaker, so guess what? You know, you’re your corporate event. Last year we spent money on Jeb. This year, Bob from Accounting is going to be our keynote speaker. I mean, that’s what’s going to happen in recession, right? So so like.

00:18:25:11 – 00:18:27:06
Daniel Ramsey
Bob, by the way, I like him. He’s a good.

00:18:27:06 – 00:18:49:14
Jeb Blount
Guy. So they’ll start pulling back. So we know those things are going to happen. So, you know, what are we doing? Well, you know, what you have to do a is, you know, you have to be a safe choice. So everything that we do as a company right now is making sure that when the recession happens, we know the companies are not going to quit training, but they’re going to reduce the amount of training they do, but they’re not going to take a risky choice.

00:18:49:14 – 00:19:08:11
Jeb Blount
No one gets fired for picking sells, baby. That’s that’s the you know, that’s the old IBM thing, right? So you make the choice for them. Number two is we have to have different ways of of making money. So so for example, you may not be bringing people into a classroom, but we offer built, which is virtual instructor led training.

00:19:08:11 – 00:19:25:22
Jeb Blount
So I’ve got a whole stable of trainers who are fantastic at delivering training. I’m sitting in a big studio right now actually behind me is a 36 foot greenscreen. I just have this thing in front of it because I was too lazy to see this. So so we, you know, we’re we’re expanding 3000 square foot out that way.

00:19:26:01 – 00:19:57:10
Jeb Blount
So we’re building this massive sound studio with streaming. We have live studios for our trainers to train in. We have a full audio studio this is our video. I’m in our video studio, so we just shoot training videos here. So we’re spending the money now to get ready for the recession later because it having the space already invested in and having the ability to to to deliver training this way and deliver content this way, suddenly it gets easier for us to get in where other people are still struggling.

00:19:57:10 – 00:20:12:15
Jeb Blount
And by the way, in the middle of the recession, you’re not going to spend the money that we’re spending, which is, you know, which is a mid six figure, you know, about $300,000 to build this out, which is expensive to build a sound studio. You’re not going to spend that money in the recession, which is why we’re doing it now.

00:20:12:21 – 00:20:35:05
Jeb Blount
So to the investments that we’re making now are setting us up for that in the future. So it’s a salesperson. You got to be thinking, where’s the money going to go? Because there’s been recessions, recessions, recessions, and yet people in real estate continue to make money. So where’s the money going to go? I’ll start thinking about that now and then start building out those relationships and building out your your your database.

00:20:35:13 – 00:20:56:06
Jeb Blount
So that’s the next thing that we’re doing. Getting ready for this is that we are really focusing our sales team right now on qualifying. So we’ve got a massive database. I mean, on our list, we have 1.2 million people on our list and the number of companies that we have qualified is minuscule compared to that number because we’ve been in such a running economy.

00:20:56:13 – 00:21:17:06
Jeb Blount
It’s like it’s almost crazy. Like the day that Trump got elected, my phone started ringing and it hadn’t stopped ringing and sets. It’s been insane. So we’re grateful for the opportunities that we’ve been getting because the whatever happened when the administration changed money loosened up, people started spending. So that money’s been coming in at a rapid pace. So we haven’t been doing qualifying.

00:21:17:06 – 00:21:34:19
Jeb Blount
We’ve been doing triaging. Like I mean, there was a time last year at this time when my executive vice president and I were sitting down looking at our pipeline and he said, What are we going to do if we close all of this? Because we didn’t have the capacity to handle it all and that those are good problems to have.

00:21:34:19 – 00:21:57:23
Jeb Blount
But now it’s like, I want everything qualified. How many salespeople do they have? Who are the decision makers there? How do they deliver training? Are they doing third party is doing the self? Do they do licensing? All right. I want to know every single thing about these companies so that we have this loaded up database so that when one here comes and we have to really have to shift to we do a lot of outbound, but we have a lot of inbound coming in too.

00:21:57:23 – 00:22:13:12
Jeb Blount
But when we have to shift because we’re starving to death, because the leads aren’t coming in as fast, because Bob’s doing the keynote, right, then we have to be able to have all that done. Now we have the luxury to do the do the qualifying. Now so that when the time is right, we can call and set appointments.

00:22:13:12 – 00:22:36:00
Jeb Blount
And I think if I’m a salesperson, I want to do that. And the one thing that I see the salespeople getting into a recession and thinking about a recession is accelerate. What a lot of people do is a slowdown. So what they they they get into their cave, they huddle up, they hunker down. I’m going to wait. And and what I say to people is put the accelerator on and go faster.

00:22:36:06 – 00:22:51:12
Jeb Blount
That means that you’re going to have to work harder. You’re going to have to make more touches. You’re going to have to do more networking. You have to do all the things that we were doing that go back ten years ago, ten years ago, I worked as hard as I’ve ever worked in my life. Right, to make enough to survive on.

00:22:51:12 – 00:23:08:19
Jeb Blount
I was working ten times harder than everybody else. On the other hand, we came out of the recession like a Phenix. I mean, we were on fire because we were we were still moving fast. We were still making investments. We were still prospecting. We didn’t hunker down. We were careful. We didn’t make stupid mistakes. Right. We we didn’t we didn’t spend our money in the wrong way.

00:23:08:19 – 00:23:30:15
Jeb Blount
We didn’t take undue risk. We spent a lot more money today than we did then because we have the money to spend and we’re willing to take the risk. And I think if you were in business, what I would say, if you’re, you know, real estate business, the one thing you want to start watching and which is what we’re starting to go now is where where do we have, you know, fixed infrastructure costs that we cannot live without?

00:23:30:15 – 00:23:47:15
Jeb Blount
What are those? What do we have? Fixed infrastructure costs that if we needed to to unload it, we could unload it right now. And what are our variable costs that we have, like, you know, things that we spend money on that we can we could, you know, move up or move down as we go know what those are.

00:23:47:15 – 00:24:13:14
Jeb Blount
Because what happens to a lot of companies and a lot of people, especially in their lives, and if you’re real estate looking at your own life, look at your personal finances, where do you have money being outlaid? If tomorrow and I doubt we’ll have another 2008 again, but if we had another 27, 28 again, which was the worst financial crisis of my lifetime, you know, I remember talking about the risk, the depression, but I mean, it was it was like that about the way it was supposed to be over in like 2009.

00:24:13:14 – 00:24:32:23
Jeb Blount
But I felt it all the way to 2014. So, you know, so I think that if you have these these cost that these outlays that you’re spending money on, go look at them right now, figure out what they are and then and then figure out either how to get rid of them, pay them off, mitigate them, whatever. And that’s one of the things that we’ve been doing this year.

00:24:32:23 – 00:24:53:09
Jeb Blount
My my wife and I, looking at all of our rental properties is we were we’re cash rich right now because of the the economy is taking the money that we have and we’re paying like basically paying off these rental houses, which is which most advisors will tell you not to do because you’re using someone else’s money to make money.

00:24:53:15 – 00:25:13:05
Jeb Blount
But as the US comes and rental rates start getting depressed, which they may, we don’t know. It’s better that we don’t have that debt because then, then we have income coming in that we don’t have to pay anybody for that can carry something else. So it’s it’s looking at the entire world and saying, okay, here’s where we are.

00:25:13:05 – 00:25:29:16
Jeb Blount
Recessions coming, it’s happening. Is it going to be six months? Is it going to be in a year and a half? I’m praying for a year and a half. Praying for a year and a half. Know. I think that would be best. But when it happens, it happens. I think the good news, my opinion is that it’ll be a small dip.

00:25:29:16 – 00:25:47:14
Jeb Blount
I don’t think it’ll be a two years. I think I think it’ll be a three quarter recession and we’ll be out of it. But for most people, because as soon as it hits, we’re going to feel it harder because of all the technology that’s coming in, taking people’s jobs, that type of thing. So I think it’ll feel like like it did this last time where we were.

00:25:47:20 – 00:25:58:06
Jeb Blount
I think I think technically out of the recession in late 2009. But I mean, I felt it for like I felt like I felt like we were still in it for a much longer time than that.

00:25:58:22 – 00:26:04:21
Daniel Ramsey
And that’s because your business has discretionary income kind of base. Like companies are like, okay, we can afford to do some trading.

00:26:04:21 – 00:26:22:24
Jeb Blount
Let’s call it is we have a job board that we back that up. And believe it or not, during the recession, the job board was fantastic because people everybody’s looking for a job. So right now, the job board sucks because nobody is looking for a job. So any money posting jobs are going to yell at us the entire time because nobody’s applied to their jobs.

00:26:23:08 – 00:26:44:19
Jeb Blount
So, you know, weird things, but I think I think yeah, you’re right. It’s discretionary income. It is. I have a big team. I’m 19 people on my team. So I have a huge, you know, training team. So it’s you’re exactly it when it dips. We feel it. I mean, we’re we are totally going to feel it because you don’t have to travel people.

00:26:44:19 – 00:27:09:17
Jeb Blount
You have to do those things. But companies still train people. They they don’t quit training people. So you have to be able to shift into that. We’ve made massive investments in our online training platform and just world class. It’s amazing. It’s we have we have the ability to create white label alums. And so we have a lot of companies that are coming in and using it, you know, licensing, you know, all of those things come into play.

00:27:10:08 – 00:27:39:04
Jeb Blount
If we have a deep, ugly, nasty recession, it’s, you know, is we’re going to feel it. I mean, it’s going to be a painful situation. I mean, I’ll take some time off the road, but it be painful. I just don’t I don’t see that happening this time. There’s just not the the only bubble we have out there is student debt and and that it’s it’s crushable, but it’s probably not as crushable as everything else because the federal government basically is guaranteed it.

00:27:39:04 – 00:27:53:18
Jeb Blount
So we shall you know, we shall see what will happen. But I think I think you’re exactly right. I think well, I mean, you know, for real estate, recessions are tough for real estate, but the money’s really tough. But the money moves.

00:27:53:18 – 00:28:18:00
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, yeah, well, it moves from the stock market and to real estate and then from real estate back to the stock market. And it’s got to capture those markets as they move. So where real estate virtual assistant company and we primarily I’m a real estate broker and hired basically went on my honeymoon was working at two in the morning you know in Guatemala in the mountains bartenders making fun of me.

00:28:18:00 – 00:28:38:00
Daniel Ramsey
My wife, my brand new wife of three days is sleeping. And I got back and I was like, okay, something’s got to shift here. Otherwise I’m not going to have a I’m not going to stay married and never going to have a family, you know? And my oldest was really just born from my own need to survive the last recession, hire great talent at great prices.

00:28:38:00 – 00:28:49:03
Daniel Ramsey
And we’ve served over 5000 real estate companies and, you know, been around for 12 years. And yeah, we help people get talent, basically.

00:28:49:22 – 00:28:53:04
Jeb Blount
So tell me, tell me. So explain what you do.

00:28:53:04 – 00:29:14:20
Daniel Ramsey
Well, we have virtual assistance in the Philippines and then we kind of bump them up with in fact, we built the industry our first we hired our first person before Tim Ferriss put out the wow workweek. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that thing completely changed everything for us in 2000, like ten and 11, because that book got very popular at that time.

00:29:15:01 – 00:29:36:19
Daniel Ramsey
But we had started in 2007 back when the recession hit. And yeah. And then a friend of mine said, Hey, do Daniel, can you give me a couple? And I was like, Yes, but I got to charge you because it’s a pain in the butt to find these folks and get them all on board and everything. And so, yeah, we’re and right now, you know, we’re just reaching out to other, you know, folks in the industry.

00:29:37:07 – 00:30:04:05
Jeb Blount
That’s that’s all I started Excel’s Gravy in 2007. Okay Jeff differently. I was a senior level executive in a Fortune 200 company and the and in 2007, I was, you know, flying around in a corporate jet, you know, with to a corner office in steaks and drink and wine. And it turned out, you know, and we were one of those companies that we were leading indicator of the recession.

00:30:04:05 – 00:30:24:03
Jeb Blount
So we felt it before anyone else felt it so turned out that they just didn’t need people who flew around on corporate jets and steaks all the time. So that was a do so. So with so I started I started sales gravy in the middle of a freakin ugly recession and and, you know, it’s like who does that kind of thing?

00:30:24:03 – 00:30:24:22
Jeb Blount
So it sounds.

00:30:24:22 – 00:30:34:21
Daniel Ramsey
Like I think it’s great. How did you come up with sales gravy? I mean, were you were you sitting in MREs, Wilkes Booth, how you know that that restaurant and said, I like gravy.

00:30:35:19 – 00:31:01:02
Jeb Blount
I do like that I was I had the original name for my company was sales professionals online because naively, I believed that I was going to create a portal for salespeople and make a lot of money. And I figured out really quickly that that was not going to happen. And a friend of mine who is a digital marketer, you know, online guru, consultant, we were having lunch in Orlando and I was telling him about my name just sell professional online.

00:31:01:02 – 00:31:24:12
Jeb Blount
And he just looked at me and go, This is the dumbest name I’ve ever heard in my life. Nobody’s going to ever remember that on this whole thing. And so I walked out of that meeting. I was dejected. This is like late October. And then I went online. This is 27. I went online to try to find sales blank dot com anything and I couldn’t find anything that I liked and nothing that made any sense.

00:31:24:12 – 00:31:51:13
Jeb Blount
And we were on Captiva Island over Thanksgiving and 2016, and I was having Thanksgiving dinner and the waiter came by with a gravy boat and poured some gravy on my mashed potatoes and like, it just hit me and I got up from the table. We were on Captiva Island like this is really before like iPhones and tech with a ran to the office because I didn’t have any like anything with me, you know, really poor connections.

00:31:51:23 – 00:32:09:17
Jeb Blount
Ran to the office, pushed the lady off the front desk and said, I’ve got to use your computer, it is an emergency. And I got got a lot in reserve cells, grammy.com, because I thought everybody in the world is going to think about this at the same time. And and it just was, you know, because it hit me because it’s what I always tell salespeople.

00:32:09:17 – 00:32:33:21
Jeb Blount
Like if you do all the right things and you’re doing it consistently as a gravy just falls out of the sky. You just get you get blessed with all kinds of things that you wouldn’t normally get blessed with. My sales people call them the sales gods. The sales gods rewards you. And so we, you know, and by the way, the sales guys will take take away from you, too, if you’re doing the happy dance after you get a verbal on a deal but you don’t have a contract signed, the sales guys will bite you in the rear end for that.

00:32:33:21 – 00:32:54:22
Jeb Blount
So be careful what you what you celebrate. But the but so it was just something that I said all the time. So we, we picked it up and it’s a good and bad name. I mean, it’s a great name because people never forget it. But we made a decision, I guess, three or four years ago because we were considering whether we should change the whole brand and we just made a decision to stick with that.

00:32:54:22 – 00:33:05:00
Jeb Blount
It’s who we are and and we haven’t looked back and we take care of some of the biggest companies in the world. So we just we figure it’s a it would if people won’t forget it. Well, that’s a good thing.

00:33:05:14 – 00:33:36:06
Daniel Ramsey
I love that man. And nobody can forget it now. It’s it’s unforgettable. Okay, so let’s let’s dove in. We were talking earlier and you’d mentioned, like, the human to human connection and that being such a major lever in the sales conversation. And who better than you? The founder of Sales Gravy, to kind of talk us through that talk to me about the human to human connection that is important in any line of sells that that that you know people are facing today.

00:33:36:24 – 00:33:59:20
Jeb Blount
So there’s you know we’re living in the world we have what we call the Amazon effect. I think people talk about this all the time. And what Amazon did was make it really, really easy for people to buy things that are low risk. So so if I can go in and I can buy something, there’s not a lot of risk in it and I can take the friction out of it, which is typically a human being that’s in the way of me and buying it or going to a store or what have you.

00:34:00:02 – 00:34:25:16
Jeb Blount
Then as a person, I’m more likely to buy something that way and and their products that are sold online today that we wouldn’t even consider would be it would be possible to sold online, you know, say 15 years ago. But the quality is such a, you know, it’s such a level or the variables and what you’re going to get are so, you know, so, so skinny that there’s not a lot of risk in buying that particular thing.

00:34:25:16 – 00:34:47:12
Jeb Blount
So like, you can buy an industrial refrigerator online, but it may cost $5,000, but you know that it’s something that you’re going to be able to buy. It’s going to be right. But it’s a brand new refrigerator. Every single one of those refrigerators, it’s exactly the same. So you can do that. But even with Amazon and even with buying that way, they help people still call in.

00:34:47:12 – 00:35:06:02
Jeb Blount
I mean, I’ve got clients who sell tons of products online who have an entire bank to sell, people who are on the phone helping people because that person needs to hear a human voice that makes them feel comfortable with that. And when things go wrong at Amazon and they do call in and they will give you some of the best customer experience and customer service that you’ve ever had.

00:35:06:06 – 00:35:30:03
Jeb Blount
So they understand the human to human experience where this begins to to separate from that particular world is when things are all different. So, for example, I get clients who sell capital equipment and some of that capital equipment can be a 200 or $300,000 purchase. Most of it’s 30, 50, $60,000. No one is buying that used equipment without talking to another human being.

00:35:30:03 – 00:35:53:20
Jeb Blount
Why? Because it’s all different. And because it’s all different. I need to have a conversation with someone to make sure that it’s what I want. So right as we move up into into things like real estate, if you’re a residential buyer and this is going to be your home, you want to have a conversation with another human being that’s going to make you feel great about the purchase, that’s going to give you a great experience with the purchase.

00:35:53:20 – 00:36:16:11
Jeb Blount
I love buying real estate. I love going through the process. I wish I had enough money to buy a new house every week because I love the hunt. I like doing those things and I want to work with someone who who shares that enthusiasm and and and helps me have a good time going through the process. You need that they need someone who’s going to reassure them and help them and talk them off the ledge.

00:36:16:11 – 00:36:45:07
Jeb Blount
You’ve got sellers who do evil, nasty things. You’ve got buyers who do ask the sellers for evil nasty things. You’ve got insecurity, you’ve got fear. You’ve got a husband and a wife or, you know, two partners who are, you know, at each other’s throat about what they want and what they don’t want. Everything’s in perfect. And your job is to is to weave like the human emotions and relationships into that, that that tapestry of imperfection that is buying a house.

00:36:45:17 – 00:37:08:03
Jeb Blount
And so everything everything is different. And so for you, as a as an agent, what, what the value that you deliver in this transaction is the human to human experience. So when I say experience, it is an emotional experience. And here’s what we know to be true. The buyer’s emotional experience of working with you is the most consistent predictor of outcome of any other variable.

00:37:08:03 – 00:37:31:14
Jeb Blount
Let me say that in a different way, because I want to I want to load something into that. The qualified buyers, the qualified buyer’s emotional experience by working with you is a more consistent predictor of outcome. Whether they buy the house or don’t buy the house than any other variable. The qualified sellers emotional experience of working with you is a more consistent predictor of whether they lose that house with you or they list it with someone else, or they try to sell it on their own.

00:37:31:20 – 00:37:33:12
Jeb Blount
It’s how they feel about you. So.

00:37:33:13 – 00:37:57:15
Daniel Ramsey
Okay, okay, hold on. That’s everything. You’re too fast, man. I’m slow. You got. You’re passionate about this. I can super tell that. But let’s break that down, because what you just said is really important. How exactly from start to finish, like walk us through, how do you create an emotional experience and intertwine that human element in a transaction?

00:37:58:06 – 00:38:13:14
Jeb Blount
Well, first of all, are you going to treat it like a transaction right or you’re going to treat it like an outcome? So if I were meeting with you and I’m you know, let’s just say that you’re a seller and I sit down your living room and I like, what are you trying to accomplish? Like, why are you moving?

00:38:13:14 – 00:38:34:05
Jeb Blount
Why are you selling your house? What do you want to do? Where are you going? I want to know what you’re doing. If I treat you like a transaction, you’re going to treat me like a transaction. So if that. If it’s. Hello, sign here. We’re not getting anywhere. But if it’s. I understand you’re trying to get your equity out of this house so that you can move to Florida and and spend the rest of your days hanging out on the beach.

00:38:34:05 – 00:38:39:08
Jeb Blount
I mean, if I can talk about that all of a sudden I’m speaking your language. But essentially.

00:38:39:08 – 00:38:49:14
Daniel Ramsey
Step one is to just make sure that you’re 100% focused. Yeah, their outcome is what they what’s important for them. That’s step one.

00:38:50:00 – 00:39:10:07
Jeb Blount
What’s their outcome? What if if I if I’ve got buyers, what do you what’s the outcome? What are you trying to get to? And what we do is we say, what are you looking for that’s different? The outcome is, what do you see? Like, what do you want? I was telling you earlier in the pre show that I bought a vacation, also bought a house in a lake and it did my bucket list for my entire life.

00:39:10:22 – 00:39:32:08
Jeb Blount
And I always wanted a house here and I finally was in a financial position to get a house there. And the real estate agent asked me that and I told him my story is this. This is my bucket list. This is where I want to be. And you always came back to that. You know, he always just came back to, you know, so like this part of the lake or this part of lake?

00:39:32:08 – 00:39:52:23
Jeb Blount
Of this part of lake. And I could remember the different pieces of the lake. So it’s it’s there, but it really starts with with answering five questions. So when you’re dealing with a human being, they’re asking five questions of you. Question number one is, do I like you? And that’s that’s first. So if they don’t like you, they’re not going to list or buy with you.

00:39:52:23 – 00:40:07:14
Jeb Blount
That’s that’s just a fact. They’re not going have anything to do with you. Now, if they do like you, that doesn’t mean that they will. So there’s no guarantee that they do like you, but they don’t like you there to guarantee they will. So do I like you? Do you listen to me? Well, the easiest, fastest way to be likable is to shut up and listen.

00:40:07:14 – 00:40:27:03
Jeb Blount
And what I find with most agencies, their mouth is running instead of their ears listening. So do I like you? Do you listen to me? Do you make me feel important? Now, this is this is probably the most important lesson in all of this. The most insatiable human need is the need for significance. This is the singularity of all human behavior, good and bad.

00:40:27:03 – 00:40:51:06
Jeb Blount
I need to feel like I matter, that I’m appreciated. I need to feel important. So when you make people feel important, you give them the greatest gift that you can give another human being. And when you give people a gift, you create something called obligation. That obligation means that they’re more likely to comply with your request and any type of real estate sale is a series of small, micro commitments that people make along the way.

00:40:51:13 – 00:41:07:10
Jeb Blount
So do I like you? Do you listen to me? Do you make me feel important? Well, the easiest way to be likable is to listen. And the easiest way to make someone feel important. The greatest gift that you can give them is to listen to them. Numbers number four is, do you get me and my problems so you understand me as a human being, right?

00:41:07:14 – 00:41:27:23
Jeb Blount
And do you understand my outcomes, the problems that I have, where I’m coming from, what I’m doing? And and this is this is basically, you know, everybody wants to be understood. Understood. When we were looking for our vacation home, I didn’t say, well, I’m looking for three bedrooms and three bathrooms and this and this and this. I didn’t do that.

00:41:28:05 – 00:41:45:17
Jeb Blount
I said, This is my bucket list. I’ve always wanted to be here. Here’s how much money I have. Can you find me something that fits in this? Then we built and we and like my wife and I, the way we buy houses, we went and laid hands on it and I’m just teasing. But we went and walked through it and said, How does this place make us feel?

00:41:45:17 – 00:42:04:01
Jeb Blount
We didn’t walk in and go, you know, there’s not enough bathrooms in here. We walked in and said, This just doesn’t feel good. And the place we finally bought, if you would have been with us, that we were like, it was just textbook. We walked in and we walked out onto this big porch that looked out over the lake and it’s a cabin type place.

00:42:04:05 – 00:42:19:01
Jeb Blount
And we sat there for a minute and both of us set down on the chairs on the porch and just sat there. And at that moment, that house was sold and that very we made that this we looked at like ten other houses that we I knew walking now that that was house we were going to buy and it was just how it felt.

00:42:19:10 – 00:42:35:16
Jeb Blount
So if you get that and you understand some people are looking for is statics, some people are looking for emotions, some people are looking for the number of bathrooms or what have you, but they’re not going to give it to you in a bullet point. They’re going to give it to you in a story. And this is when you were talking about the piece, right?

00:42:35:16 – 00:42:53:01
Jeb Blount
This this patient’s inside the patient. So let people tell you their story. And the reason they tell you stories is so you will understand them. And the way that you demonstrate that you understand them is that you speak their language, not your language. And their language is their problems, their outcomes, their emotions, their needs, their want. Do I like you?

00:42:53:07 – 00:43:09:09
Jeb Blount
Do you listen to me? Do you make me feel important? You get me my problems and do I trust and believe you? And when you demonstrate that you get someone that you understand them, which, by the way, defines the greatest, most important relationships in your life. Those are all people like your wife who get you and understand you.

00:43:09:14 – 00:43:35:10
Jeb Blount
Once you fit into that space, this person totally gets me. Then you begin to trust and you begin to trust by showing up on time, doing things the right way. You know, when you say you’re going to do something, do it. When you say you’re going to show up, show up, making sure that like, for example, even like going through doing the contract and their disclosures on their go through the disclosures with the person to make sure that everything is right.

00:43:35:10 – 00:43:53:04
Jeb Blount
Because if something is wrong and someone finds out and that impacts the way they trust you, all of a sudden everything else starts to fall apart. So you have to answer those five questions and you do this organically, but you and in a non-linear way through everything that you do. Do I like you? Do you listen to me?

00:43:53:04 – 00:44:05:12
Jeb Blount
Do you make me feel important? Do you get me into my problems? What? Trust and believe you. And when you answer those five questions in the affirmative and consistently, it becomes almost impossible for the qualified buyer or seller not to do business with you.

00:44:06:07 – 00:44:20:05
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. I love it. And what you’d mentioned it earlier, salespeople like they don’t listen. Like that’s the number one challenge. What are some of the other mistakes that salespeople are making through the the buying process or the selling process?

00:44:20:16 – 00:44:37:23
Jeb Blount
Well, let’s if we just start with something basic, right? I like you. So if you if you think about the way that buyers and sellers are interacting and when I say buyers and sellers, the seller being the real estate agent, buyer being either the, the, the seller who is listing their house for the person who is buying a home.

00:44:37:23 – 00:44:58:18
Jeb Blount
So whatever those situations may be and if you’re in commercial real estate, it could be the individual in that real estate organization that is buying a commercial property. But if you think about how we interact, sellers almost always began at reason and logic. So we start with, for example, the number of bathrooms in the house, the number of square feet in the home.

00:44:58:18 – 00:45:17:04
Jeb Blount
Right. The demographics in the neighborhood. We start with the features and the benefits of where we are. And the buyer, the person that you’re selling to, almost always begins at two. I like you that they start there and. A lot of cases they begin deciding whether they, like you, are not before they even know that they’re deciding whether they like you or not.

00:45:17:14 – 00:45:37:00
Jeb Blount
So it’s a really simple, basic thing. And by the way, you do the same thing because it’s hardwired into our DNA when we meet a new person or we’re interacting with a person to start making decisions about whether that person is safe, secure, and has our best interests at heart. So the problem is, is that we begin emotionally out of sync.

00:45:37:08 – 00:45:55:13
Jeb Blount
We’re talking about reason, logic, features, benefits. We could even be talking about the size of our of our brokerage and, you know, all these other things. And they all they want to know is, do I like you? Are you a nice human being that I believe has my best interests at heart and that can help me find the home of my dreams or help me solve a problem for my family or whatever the case may be.

00:45:55:22 – 00:46:20:04
Jeb Blount
So the thing is, is that the easiest way to begin to close that is to simply move up to Do I like you? So focus on that first. Tell me about you. Help me understand you, help me understand your situation. Smile, you know, be kind, be polite, be focused, be, you know, be be there all the way. And then we can start learning how to listen the right way.

00:46:20:04 – 00:46:42:20
Jeb Blount
And there’s two types of listening. There’s active listening, which most people have gotten some lesson and active listening. And that is simply, you know, listening with your, you know, with with, with Ali making it tangible that you’re paying attention. So you’re listening with your your your body like you’re you’re repeating things that they say. You’re demonstrating that you’re there in the conversation that’s active listening.

00:46:42:20 – 00:47:03:03
Jeb Blount
That doesn’t mean you’re actually hearing people. It just means that you’re demonstrating that you’re paying attention to them. Then there’s deep listening and deep listening is listening with your eyes, your ears and your heart or your intuition. So it’s paying attention to the message. So the words that they use, plus, you know, the tone of voice, their body language, their expressions.

00:47:03:13 – 00:47:27:06
Jeb Blount
And to do this, you have to turn your empathy on and your outcome drive off. So empathy is the metta skill of sales. And what that means is that I’m able to step into their shoes and to sense their emotions and to feel their emotions. And by the way, I manage my own, my own impatience and and exert self control of over my disruptive emotions so that I allow them to express themselves.

00:47:27:12 – 00:48:01:10
Jeb Blount
So I’m demonstrating this empathy and I can get into them. And in that moment, I’m paying attention and hearing the emotional cues, the things that are important. And this, I think, is is where we really begin to feel as salespeople is is we forget that human beings, us, the people that we’re selling to, we don’t always walk through the door and go, you know, I feel so afraid to buy a new home or I’m really conflicted over whether or not I can afford this and do that or, you know, I’m having such a disagreement with my partner over whether we should do this.

00:48:01:10 – 00:48:27:13
Jeb Blount
I mean, they don’t come in and say that they go, we want three bedrooms and two baths. And that’s how they walk through the door. And what you have to do is learn how to pay attention to the emotional cues that tell you there’s something beneath the surface and ask questions about that that’s deep listening and that’s where ultra high performing real estate agents, agents and salespeople everywhere really begin to earn their stripes because that’s where they start to uncover what’s really important to this person.

00:48:27:13 – 00:48:50:20
Jeb Blount
That’s when they start learning the language. That’s when they get the person to begin telling their story. And inside that story, paying attention to what’s most important, piecing that, then giving it back to them so that they go, Wow, this person really understands me. And Oh, by the way, we were talking about imperfection. So let’s just say that your walking piece someone through a home and I’m just using selling as a as a way.

00:48:50:20 – 00:49:06:17
Jeb Blount
But let’s just say you’re walking people through a home or you’re having to explain to a homeowner who wants to list their home with you, then if they don’t change the color of the dining room from bright purple to something more beige, but they got a problem, even though it was those beautiful thing to them and the world when they painted that color.

00:49:06:18 – 00:49:23:07
Jeb Blount
Yeah. If you don’t have that relationship with them right, then it’s hard to do that. And oh, by the way, if you’ve listened to them tell you about their outcome, you may be walking through a home and saying, You told me that these things were important to you. And I know in this particular situation it doesn’t have those things.

00:49:23:13 – 00:49:40:01
Jeb Blount
However, one of the things that you said to me that was really important to you was this. And this home has that, you know, you can see the homeowner. I know that you love this purple and you think everybody likes his purple. But you told me that you were dreaming about being in Florida and you want to get there as soon as possible.

00:49:40:01 – 00:50:06:01
Jeb Blount
And if we can make this one adjustment and paint it beige instead of purple, then based on what the market is doing, we can get you to your dream faster. So you have to have that. But I’m speaking their language in the process and I’m able to speak their language because I listen to them. And I wasn’t just listening to words, I was listening to the emotions and asking questions around those specific emotions to get deeper and deeper below the surface.

00:50:06:20 – 00:50:12:18
Daniel Ramsey
So deep listening that your, that, that that sounds like the ninja skill that makes things happen.

00:50:13:17 – 00:50:32:16
Jeb Blount
Well, listening is a ninja skill if you do it the right way because of something called the self disclosure loop. And most people haven’t heard of this, but the self disclosure loop is a simple mechanism in our brain whereby. When we self-disclose, when we tell someone something about ourselves, we get a dopamine hit, essentially brain crack, right? You get a little bit of drug and you fall.

00:50:32:16 – 00:50:47:22
Jeb Blount
Everybody will experience this because you’ve been in a situation where you’ve been telling something, somebody something about you, and suddenly, I don’t know, we’re like, I don’t know what happened, but you crossed the TMS zone and you said something really personal about yourself and in the middle of saying it, you’re like, Why am I telling this person this?

00:50:47:22 – 00:51:09:18
Jeb Blount
I shouldn’t tell this person this, but you keep going, right? And they go like you tell them more and tell them more until the more, because you can’t even help yourself. You’re under the influence of drugs, brain, crack, dopamine and good listeners, good deep listeners. They’re able to to to activate this self-disclosure loop where people will tell them everything because they’re good at deep listening.

00:51:09:21 – 00:51:31:14
Jeb Blount
They know how to ask questions at the right time. They exert incredible patience. So they pause. They don’t talk over people. They allow people to keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. And they allow people to tell their stories. And they recognize that people communicate in stories, not bullet points. So they have the patience for people to get it out, but also they have the outcome drive.

00:51:31:14 – 00:51:46:08
Jeb Blount
So they’re empathetic and outcome outcome driven at the same time, what we call dual process. But they have the outcome drive to stay on track, but allow this person to take them down a road where pretty soon the person tells them exactly what they need to do to list the house or sell the house.

00:51:47:14 – 00:52:07:24
Daniel Ramsey
It’s amazing, Jeb, we are out of time at the top of the hour. I just want to thank you for being here, joining us. If somebody wanted to find out more about you, get more information or go deeper with these concepts. These like sales, gravy, ninja skills that you just talked about. Actually, I feel like we didn’t even really dove deep.

00:52:07:24 – 00:52:19:24
Daniel Ramsey
I feel like you and I could spend 4 hours and we would have like scratched the surface, but if somebody wanted to find out more about your company and what you do and actually get help, how would they.

00:52:20:09 – 00:52:45:16
Jeb Blount
Yeah, I would I would I would say start with you. Want to learn more what we’re talking about, go to sales. Q It’s a book I wrote. It really gets you a deep dove into human influence frameworks, persuasion and your self. It’ll help you understand who you are. Then I would go to objections. I think objections is it takes us into why we, you know, sometimes back away from asking for what we want, why we’re afraid of rejection.

00:52:45:16 – 00:53:02:08
Jeb Blount
And it really dives into the psychology of that, but then gives you frameworks for being able to to handle those type of conversations. And then fanatical prospecting connects these three books together. And how do you build the top of the funnel, build your pipeline, and get past some of these hangups? So let’s start there. You can find me.

00:53:02:08 – 00:53:24:11
Jeb Blount
It sells Grammy.com, so that’s pretty easy. Sales gravy. It’s right here behind me. The little the little segue. Jeff Blunt icon, my last name is spelled blow you intercom you can catch me there. I’m on Twitter at sells gravy. I’m on Instagram at sales gravy post and all the time I’m on YouTube. So I have 400 videos on YouTube.

00:53:24:11 – 00:53:41:13
Jeb Blount
I put up to three new videos a week. So for its last sales, gravy will get you there. I’m all over Facebook so I’ve got a fan on Facebook and I got a personal page on Facebook. So hit me there and I’m on LinkedIn now on LinkedIn. I’ve run out of connections, so they only let you have 30,000 connections.

00:53:41:13 – 00:54:01:05
Jeb Blount
So I’ve hit the top. So if you’re on LinkedIn, the best thing you can do is find me and click the follow button, and then I post new videos, all kinds of stuff on LinkedIn as well. And then if you want to connect with me directly, you can send me an email. I’m at Jabhat sells Grammy.com. That’s Jeb at sells Grammy.com.

00:54:01:05 – 00:54:26:10
Jeb Blount
And you can ask a question. Now, here’s what I ask. If you send me an email, don’t ask me a question that requires me to send you a eight paragraph answer, like something simple is easy, because usually I’m writing and I’m working off a cell phone. But if you send me something that’s really, really, really hard for me to answer and your and your your question is like, you know, for, you know, four paragraphs long, you’re probably not going to get anything back because I’ve only got so much time in a day that I can deal with.

00:54:26:13 – 00:54:42:24
Jeb Blount
But if you have something quick or you know, you’ve got something that you want to run by me, I’m happy to take your question. But any of those places you can connect with me and and and I appreciate it and thanks for for having me on. We should do this again. I don’t we spend a lot of time talking about stuff that had nothing to do with this, so it was a good cover.

00:54:43:16 – 00:55:06:11
Daniel Ramsey
I know. Well, we’ll do more, man. I really appreciate your time today. What would you do if we were to give somebody one last piece of advice in upping their sales game? You’re the guy. So I’m a sales guy. I’m let’s say I’m doing six figures, but I would like to double my income. I’d like to do more and be better and have a better life and all that.

00:55:06:11 – 00:55:07:21
Daniel Ramsey
Jeb, what would you tell them to do?

00:55:08:17 – 00:55:25:16
Jeb Blount
So that’s a that’s a long answer, but I’ll try to make this short. If you want to double your income, let’s say you’re at six figures, you in your income, what you have to do is start looking at the science rather than the art. So if you’re if you’re consistently knocking down a nice six figure salary or salary, but commissions, you’re probably doing really, really well.

00:55:25:16 – 00:55:42:24
Jeb Blount
You’re doing a lot of things right because there’s a whole bunch of people out there that are starving to death. So say you’re making 200 and you want to move to 400. So so there’s a couple of things that you want to look at, but most importantly, you want to look at your your conversion funnel. So all all we need all we need to do is think think about this.

00:55:42:24 – 00:55:59:15
Jeb Blount
How many new listings do you put in every single month? How many listings do you move out every single month? Where did those listings come from? So we start looking at where do the listings come from? And then, okay, so how many how many meetings do you have to get a listing? How many of those meetings turn into a listing or a second meeting?

00:55:59:21 – 00:56:23:20
Jeb Blount
But all the way down, all the way through the funnel to sold. So if you start looking at that, start looking at the micro levers inside that funnel. So what are those micro ratios? So, you know, ten listing meetings to one listing. So look at that. That would be a micro level. Where do they come from? So if you start looking at that, all you have to do to double your income is double the ratios.

00:56:23:23 – 00:56:41:21
Jeb Blount
So in other words, if it’s you ten listing meetings to get to one listing, then then change it to ten listing meetings to get to listing. So 20% or you need to do 20 listing meetings to get to. But if you got two listings all of a sudden, guess what happens if everything else in the final change stays the same?

00:56:42:00 – 00:57:04:22
Jeb Blount
You doubled your income, right? You also might want to look at levers like what’s the value of your listing? So if all if you’re if your average value listing is 130,000, then you if you change that to 260,000, guess what? Your income just change. I mean, if you just just go through the process right now, I mean, that you have to move someplace else which could impact everything else in your conversion funnel.

00:57:05:06 – 00:57:29:10
Jeb Blount
But when I’m in a place where I’m doing well and I want to double, the place that I go almost always is look at my conversion funnel first, see where I have places where I can improve. Sometimes It’s small improvements across all the micro levers inside of the macro ratios inside that funnel. And then if there’s a place where it’s easy for you to improve by doubling your effort or changing something else, do that.

00:57:29:20 – 00:57:46:05
Jeb Blount
Or if you’re looking at it and saying, let’s just be objective. For example, I could have more listing meetings if I was doing less of this. So I call you, right? Because if I call you, you can give me a virtual assistant who can take this crap off of my plate so that I can go have more listing meetings, right?

00:57:46:05 – 00:58:08:23
Jeb Blount
So then I can double my income. And so that’s where I typically go. As I go, I start looking at those things and I do this very similar that in my own life, I want to move this. What’s the stuff that I have to get rid of? And I’ll give you a great example for the day. Last example is today I’ve got really important things to do and I have a assistant that sits in the office over there.

00:58:09:04 – 00:58:24:03
Jeb Blount
And when I walked in this morning, I said, Lisa, here’s what I want for lunch today. Will you get me my lunch before you go to lunch? And I was in the middle of an interview and then I had to go do some other work. And then and then my lunch was sitting on the table in the conference room.

00:58:24:07 – 00:58:43:21
Jeb Blount
I ate my lunch. I never missed a beat. I got all my work done and I was able to increase by productivity because I didn’t have to start go down to the to the restaurant, get my lunch and then bring it back, unpack it all. It was already for me. And that’s, by the way, one of the ways that you can help yourself and make your life better, but you got to invest in it.

00:58:43:21 – 00:58:56:20
Jeb Blount
My assistant cost a lot of money to. Have someone sit in that office, you know, full time, pay a salary, pay for health care for one K, all those things. But guess what? I make a whole lot more money now that I have that person. Does that make sense?

00:58:57:09 – 00:59:06:09
Daniel Ramsey
I love it. Know your numbers. I’m just going to summarize. Jeb says know your numbers, cells, grammy.com. Thank you, brother, for your time. This has been awesome.

00:59:06:23 – 00:59:09:11
Jeb Blount
Thank you, sir.