What can you learn from Guns n Roses about real estate?

My wife and I took a road trip recently and I took the time to download a book for us to listen to. I don't think she was too impressed in the beginning, but she learned to love it. It was a great book by Duff McKagan talking about his experience as the bassist for Guns n Roses.

We learned his crazy biography of how he got started with the band and what he went through in his life. One thing that he talked about, which really fascinated me, was when Guns n Roses was beginning as a young LA band. They would have to go out and meet with club owners and lounge owners to try to talk them into using them as a band.

In other words, they had to sell themselves. And something the lounge owners and business owners did was instead of just paying these kids to come in and play -- and if they were terrible, make their guests run out -- they would make the bands pay them to play in the lounge or...

What are the digital tools that buyers and sellers want us to deliver to them?

There is a new study that's recently come out that shares exactly what buyers and sellers would like us to use when we're working with them.

1. 3D Virtual Tour

Kind of like a Matterport tour. Another one that goes along with this is a digital floor plan. Now that might be a Matterport situation again where people can see the entire floor plan of the house. Sometimes we have that for new construction. Other times we might have to build that.

2. Email Notifications

Most of us have email available through our franchise groups or even through our offices where we can send automated emails to clients based on their needs that match the MLS database.

3. Video tours

Video tours with their agent (aka you!) offering to walk somebody through a house, maybe on FaceTime while they're not even physically present.

4. The ability to unlock a home and not even have the agent (aka...

There's one key thing that all great leaders possess: The ability to be self-critical. They're aware that they're not perfect. And that they need to change, adapt, and pivot to be more competitive in their market.

So how do you do that?

One way is to encourage brutal honesty and absolute transparency with your teams — both inside your office and community as well as outside of it.

If you're an agent, this means asking your escrow officers, lenders, and co-op agents to be brutally honest with you.

Now there's a magic question to help you do this that I learned years ago from a top producer that took her business from around $2 million a year to $10 million a year in only about two years.

When I asked her what she did to transform her business from 2 million to 10 million, she told me she just started asking this key question after every closing.

Here's her key question: "Hey, listen, I'm working really hard to improve my business this year. I really...

Have you gotten all of your reviews and recommendations from your past clients over the past year? If the answer is no, you're missing a huge opportunity because there's a young, aggressive, and strong agent that's rising rapidly and would like to capture your future clients.

These young agents are listening to podcasts, watching webinars, and they're learning about a secret weapon in the market — and they may be beating you without actually beating you.

Here's what I mean by that:

These young, aggressive agents are capturing reviews and recommendations. And they are hyper-conscious of getting five-star reviews from everyone and anyone who will give them to them. They're making sure that those reviews go on all the right places, which I'm going to outline for you. And what happens is you can have an agent that's only been in the business 2-3 years, but online, they look like they are super experienced because they've stacked up more reviews and...

50% of clients can't remember their agent's name 6 months after closing.

In order to avoid falling into that group, you need a system of steps to follow after closing that captures people for the long haul. In this video, I'm going to explain four strategies to do this and reveal a simple system you can implement today. It's called the "3-7-30-1 System" and it will make it impossible to be forgotten by your clients.

The 3 stands for Day 3 After Closing.

We already know we should provide a closing gift and ask for reviews and recommendations after closing. That's not what we're talking about today. Instead, we're talking about having a follow-up system that makes it impossible to forget you.

So on Day 3, you want to call or text your clients and say, "Hey, I just want to follow up with you since it's been a few days since we closed. Often my clients find that if things are going to go wrong, they go wrong in the first weeks of ownership. Because of...