Shut Up and Listen: Sales Tactics for Introverted Realtors — Barry Karch, TX

In this episode of Marketing in Other Markets, Matt Muscat talks to Barry Karch, a veteran real estate professional and top-performing agent.

Barry has a whopping 37 years in the real estate industry and has built his business into a small empire in El Paso, Texas. In 2021, Barry managed over 400 transactions between 25 Realtors, with an average deal size of $275,000! He’s the real deal.

Barry’s secret weapon? He’s an introvert. Seriously. He turned being an introvert into a tool to build his business—being an introverted Realtor is his greatest asset as a manager and salesman.

Realtors far and wide are known to be pushy, aggressive, and overly excited to get your business. It’s the defining characteristic of salespeople across the board—Car Salesmen, Real Estate Agents, Loan Officers, and Sales Reps are all hungry to close the deal. After nearly four decades of business, Barry has figured out that doing the exact opposite as the traditional salesman is the key to success. As a salesperson and/or Realtor, building trust and putting your clients at ease should be the top priority.

As a Real Estate Agent on a sales call, you should be listening—not selling. An introverted Realtor spends at least half their time listening to the client and letting them speak their mind. When a client gets on the phone with a soft-spoken, introverted Real Estate Agent, they immediately realize they are talking to a normal, friendly, regular person. Not a hungry salesman. The introverted Realtor isn’t pushing anything onto the client that they don’t need or want, but instead is strategizing a way to help meet their goals. It’s a trust-building sales tactic to play the long-term game.

Realtors often receive cold leads online, whether it’s through organic discovery or paid lead generation. Those leads, who are real people, don’t need an instant race to the closing table, but rather prefer someone to help them through the process. When receiving those leads, Barry’s advice is not to rush, push, or overly excite the process. Don’t brag about your business or credentials. Introverts win at winning over cold leads every time.

Networking can be tough as an introvert, but it is vital to building a real estate business (or any business)! When you’re out in the world meeting people for the first time, one of the best tactics to gain business is to talk to other people about themselves. You heard right—don’t talk about you, but rather talk about them. But stay in contact with them. Friend them on Facebook, follow them on Instagram. People latch onto the people who are interested in them. Shut up and listen!

One of the other strengths of an introverted Realtor is the focus on taking care of current clients, instead of trying to source new leads. Barry no longer advertises for new clients, nor has he advertised in years. It’s not profitable to spend money on people who have no clue who you are. Instead, reward the folks who do.

Barry’s top trick is giving away Girl Scout Cookies each year to his clients. For $5 a client, he wins over past clients year after year, and it makes the Girl Scouts ecstatic, too. Barry’s referral business increased exponentially the year he started giving away cookies door-to-door.

Long story short, being an introverted Realtor is a superpower.

If you’re a Realtor: shut up and listen. Take care of your clients. Build meaningful relationships. Reap the rewards of a fulfilling career.

Transcript

Matt

Everybody and welcome to our newest episode. I got great feedback, by the way, from all of our listeners on our last couple podcast, and I'm positive that this one is going to be just as good, but possibly better. I think it actually has a different spin in some previous episodes, so I'm really excited to announce our guest today.

We're with Barry Karch, a veteran realtor. A veteran realtor in El Paso, Texas. He's been in the business for over 37 years, which for those of you who know me, that's longer than I've been alive by two or three. But I just love talking to people with this much experience, because you've seen the ups and downs in the market.

You've seen a wide swath of real estate history. I mean I mean, if real estate as a profession has been around for, you know, call it 100 years or less, you've been around for 40% of it. I've only been around for 10% of it, a little bit more than that, maybe 11% on a good day. So, really excited talking.

Very welcome to the show.

Barry

Well, let me get out of my cave here and. Yeah. Hello, how are you?

Matt

I'm great. Well, just to make two, make a self deprecating joke about my guest. I'm usually. I'm usually nice. But you did tell me teasing you about about your time in the business that you're you. What is your email address? Your email address is.

Barry

Yeah, I'm at AOL. Little AOL guy. I guess.

Matt

Not. As I know you're not the only one. And honestly, the quality of a realtor is not is not assessed by the type of email address that I think the number one realtor in our market might be a Hotmail. So, you know, if he was making 2 million a year, no one cares. And his email addresses.

Barry

Hotmail sounds new to.

Matt

Me. Yeah, right. Yeah. Very. I'm really happy today because aside from having a lot of experience, you you lead a team with some awesome numbers. So you're a real estate agent, veteran real estate agent and also a broker. Walk us through how long you've been in the business and what what your general numbers are for for your brokerage.

Barry

Yeah. Okay. So this is, as you said, my 37th year and exciting.

Matt

That said, you bring.

Barry

Me you've made me feel sufficiently old. So thank you very much.

Matt

By the way, for anyone not watching this it's is very does not have what here he does not look like a 37 year old veteran. I mean, he could be on selling Sunset or one of these shows.

Barry

Hey, well, thank you. Thank you for saying that. I'm certainly fighting it. But when I started in this business, I was the young guy. I was a kid. I was 24 years old. So I was one of the younger realtors in my market. And I still think of myself as the kid, but I look in the mirror and I guess I don't quite look the same as I did 37 years ago.

Barry

But yeah, I've been around a while, seen a lot of changes in the business and have evolved with the times other than with my email address than that I've evolved with the Times and I do. I've done extensive selling myself throughout the years. Plus, as you mentioned, I do. I head up a real estate company. I own a brokerage in El Paso and I manage about 25 realtors.

Barry

Actually, we have three in the Dallas Arlington area and the rest are in El Paso.

Matt

Okay, awesome. And what kind of production did your did your team do 20, 21, for instance?

Barry

Well, in 2021, they did approximately 400 units. That's so pretty good. Yeah.

Matt

But I'd say for most, for most people in most markets, 400 units is damn near fantastic. What just so people can compare, right? Because, you know, real estate's different all over the country. What is the average size of a deal in in your area in El Paso?

Barry

Good question. You know, El Paso is one of the most affordable markets in the country.

Matt

Guys. So if you if you're listening and you're not a realtor and you want to buy somewhere called bury today because, like, affordable right now seems like a dream.

Barry

Yeah, we do. We do have a crazy market. It's still a seller's market there. But but even so, our average price is running about 275,000, which is probably a lot lower than than most places around the country.

Matt

Yeah. I mean, we're in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We're low, but I think ours is now like three 4350. So that I mean, that sounds fantastic. So, you know, getting to the level where you're managing 400 transactions a year, that is difficult on its own. But when we talked on the phone before this, you mentioned to me something something that I thought was fascinating.

Matt

And that's the fact that you are an extreme introvert and I'm the I'm pretty much the opposite, the polar opposite of extreme introvert. I'm an extreme extrovert. Like I get sad if I don't have plans with other humans every hour of every day. But to be a broker, manager, leader and realtor client facing that, that's you don't see a lot of that in our industry.

Matt

So walk me through how you turn being an introvert into an asset rather than I think most of us would have assumed that it could be a liability. Oftentimes.

Barry

Yes. And looking back on my career, I have found being an introvert to be an advantage, which is not something you may often hear. But whatever success I've achieved has become because of being an introvert. Now, I'm not going to say I'm an extreme introvert. I am, for sure, an introvert. I do prefer alone time and I don't mind time by myself.

Barry

I don't need to be people all the time. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy being with people and I don't enjoy appointments and talking to people. It just means that I enjoy some downtime, maybe more than than you do, but I enjoy I enjoy some time by myself. And of course, with the pandemic and when people had to work out of their houses for a while and isolate, that was good deal.

Barry

I mean, as far as that goes, not the rest of the pandemic, but that that worked for me. But as far as it goes, being an advantage, I found that when most clients contact realtors at the very beginning, they typically expect someone who's going to be very pushy, aggressive, hard sale, and they're a little bit leery of contacting or talking to salespeople.

Barry

And when they reach out to me, they're put it is quite quickly because I'm not that way at all. I'm pretty soft spoken. I just try to help them. I just try to be friendly, regular guy. I don't have any special sales skills or persona and they relax. We end up working very well together, collaborate. They let me know what they like, don't like about properties.

Barry

And on that I never try to push them into anything, but I just found it to be a very good way to build up trust with clients because they see I'm not trying to push them into a sale or just rush into anything. So it's worked.

Matt

Well and I love hearing that. I think like there's a lot to unpack there, but like, you know, to start, I really want to focus on the fact that, you know, any, any personality of an injured extrovert, anyone can adapt that into their sales style because being pushy is not something that an extrovert has to do. But oftentimes it really is what happens.

Matt

The more the more extroverted you are, the more you tend to talk and the less you tend to listen because you talk fast. Like I like to go, go, go. However, when you're talking to a customer that isn't familiar with the real estate process or what to expect, that can be a huge turnoff. So probably a really great lesson out there for the extroverted agents like, hey, half of your sales pitch should be switched to listening.

Matt

And so like just slowing down and taking it in. And obviously every personality that customer wise too is different. And some people do need to let a little bit more. But you always take a second to analyze the personality type of the other person that's going to give you a huge advantage. And then the second thing I'll say is that like the the approach of asking questions, listening and not being pushy works especially well, I think for for cold online leads because those people need to understand that you want to that you want to understand them and their needs before you jump into your your credentials, your stats, all that stuff.

Matt

I think when realtors are talking to other realtors and other real estate professionals, they often go into like brag mode and they do that with clients as well. But for certain personality types, it can be a huge turnoff. And so the fact that you do the opposite every time is huge. And it's obviously works because you've you've built a 25 person brokerage and 440 transactions in the last year.

Barry

Yeah. Let me expand upon you made some really good points there. Let me just please expand upon a couple of things. First of all, you said people should listen at least half the time. And I agree with that and probably more than half the time, really just ask good questions. Ask people what their goals are, what they're looking for, what they're trying to accomplish.

Barry

And people love talking about themselves. Right. Everyone thinks the most interesting subject in the world is himself. So if you give them asking questions and give them a lot of time to talk about themself and just listen, they're going to really bond with you. They're going to feel like you're doing a good job. So I do listen a lot and let them do the majority of the talking.

Barry

So that really works. And another point you made is don't brag on yourself so much. You know, I had a class when I was in college and I never forget, I'll never forget about it. I hated at the time I took it, but years later I look back on it like This is one of the best classes I ever had.

Barry

And the professor was it was about writing. It was about writing papers. And the professor always talked. He said, write with the you attitude, right? With the other person in mind, not you. And whenever you put eye in your paper, she would cross it out and say, No, you know, you who or who cares when you said I.

Barry

So I try to take the same thing into business all the time and focus on the you, on you. What do you want? What are you looking for? And so it's all about you what, what your goals are. And how can I help you? It's not about me and how great I am or am not. It's focus on you.

Matt

Okay? I'm going to take that exact point and transition that to just finding new clients. Because, you know, so many people right now, I mean, the market's hard. I think we're in one of the most we can get to your your look back on the last 37 years and let's compare later. But you know, I think right now is one of those challenging times to be a real estate agent, a mortgage lender, for sure, or even a salesperson in a lot of respects.

Matt

And what I find is that people don't know how to find new clients yet. When you look at the average person, they're out to coffee shops, they're going to dinner, they're buying things, they're out there getting gas, going to the supermarket, and you're meeting you're having the opportunity to meet all these people, but you're never finding where people don't find ways to make those interactions meaningful enough to truly get like a database contact and what I think part of the reason is, is that any time you actually get into a conversation, most people go into AI mode and they don't go into you mode enough.

Matt

It's AI. This is what I do. This is what my days like. This is my interpretation of how the weather is doing today. And, you know, when you go to a party, if you ask the other person three or four questions and it gets to the end of the conversation and they didn't ask you anything, there's a huge chance that they're either going to reach out to you afterwards to apologize, to say, hey, by the way, I just realized we talked about you, but I didn't all about me, but we didn't even get to ask about you.

Matt

And then that's your end, because now they're truly interested. And that's happened to me more times than I can count a bit in a wedding. And I ask the person sitting next to me all kinds of questions about themselves, because I was truly curious and we developed a good report. And then I literally got a Facebook message that apologized and said, Oh my gosh, we talked to me the entire time.

Matt

What do you do for a living? And then I can jump into real estate. And that's that's usually how I get the business. But, you know, taking that, I mean, you approach and ensuring that you're getting enough use out there is going to really amplify the meaningful connections you make when you're networking in the community.

Barry

Exactly. Exactly. And it makes people feel important talking about themselves. But you're right. I went to I recently went out to dinner with a friend and the whole dinner he talked about himself never asked one question about me. And the end of the night, I was thinking, you know, I didn't really enjoy this so well. Yeah. Because he wasn't interested at all anything that I was doing or had going on.

Barry

And you're going to be your clients feel the same way if it's all about if it's all telling about how great you are.

Matt

Oh, absolutely. If you want, Barry, I'm happy to send a copy of this recording to that guy so we can make him feel a little awkward. I'm kidding. We wouldn't do that.

Barry

Yeah, and I won't do that.

Matt

But, you know, I always tell people, like, collect, collect your information about the other person. And at some point, if they're a normal human being, they will reciprocate. And it will be your turn. But it will be them asking you about you and not you. Word vomiting how great you are to them. It's a much, especially for personality types that don't like to brag.

Matt

Asking other people about themselves is always going to be the way to go. Just I mean, if you need to summarize that, shut up and listen. Right.

Barry

Exactly. Exactly. And to your point about getting new clients, people you have in that before your cold calling. Yeah. Focus on the other person. Don't start out with how great you are, how many homes you sold, why they should work with you, focus totally on them. What can you do to help them? What are they looking for? You know, what are their goals?

Barry

So you have try to start a conversation about what they want and about and don't worry about yourself.

Matt

And I think honestly, this I've talked to, you know, so many veterans, so many veteran realtors have such a different, different way of working, getting clients and then new agents and one of the most interesting things is every time I meet with a new agent, they want my help to develop like a 50 page listing presentation that is all about their stats and all about what they've done in their brokerages done ways they well, number one, you haven't done shit yet because you're a brand new age, right?

Matt

But number two, when I talk to existing agents who've been in the business for a while, half of their listing presentation is asking the customer questions about their future goals and what they've done to the House and what they like about the house. And it's all about the customer. And it's not even really a pitch, it's an assessment, it's an assumptive close.

Matt

And I think that's something that it's hard for new agents to do because you don't have that confidence all your new career. But if you can get there with more questions about about the actual house and about the family, it's going to make your job a lot easier. It gets the subject close, closer to not being pushy.

Barry

Yeah, Matt Exactly. You know, early in my career, I was guilty of those kind of listing presentations. I had page after page of my qualifications, how many homes I sold, what awards I won. And after a while I took all that out of there and decided, this is just too much bragging about me. This isn't right. And I changed it entirely to be totally what I am, what I can do to help them.

Barry

How am I going to get them highest price? How am I going to get their homes sold quickly? What am I going to do for them? How am I going to make their homes special so every page was just totally about how I was going to help them. So I totally revamped the listing presentation. But yeah, I used to do it the other way also myself.

Matt

I love that and I think like if there is a write this down moment for this presentation in a market for this podcast, not presentation, but in a market where listings are so competitive. Reflect right now on your listing pitch. Is it more about you and your brokerage and what you've done, or is it more about the house and the client and the family and if you can't answer it well or you're embarrassed to say, it's probably time to to rework your to rework your pitch a little bit.

Matt

So I want to jump into something else. You had a you had kind of a gimmicky one of the kind of giving you pitch. That's one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you. You told me that you were going to teach our listeners how they could create raving fans for $4. And as most of my friends probably don't realize that I'm a cheapskate, but my wife would tell you that I am.

Matt

So I was wondering how can we create reading fans for $4? Because the ROI in a rating thing in real estate is ridiculous, right? 3% commission on a couple of sales over 20 years. I mean, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so how do I do this? Let's let's let's learn.

Barry

All right, Matt. Well, you know what? This revolutionized my business when I switched to this method, I used to at one point, always be looking for new clients. I tried buying leads like a lot of people do on Zillow, Realtor.com, etc. and I decided, you know what? I'm doing things the wrong way. I'm spending money on people who don't know me, don't trust me, don't know who I am.

Barry

And I got to try to win them over and convince them to work with me rather than any of the hundreds of other realtors or thousands in town. So I decided, you know what, I'm not going to do that anymore. Instead, I'm going to spend my money on those who already know, like and trust me, I'm going to reward them.

Barry

And so who are these people, if you've been in business at all for a year or two years or more, they're your past clients. Otherwise, if you're new to the business, they're your sphere of influence. People who know you already and like you, or maybe businesses you use, maybe your barber or hair salon, or maybe your doctor or vet.

Barry

These are people that already know who you are. So instead of spending thousands of dollars trying to generate newly trim people who don't know me, I decided again, I'm going to focus my money on people who already know me and like and trust me. So what I did was I decided, I thought, what do people really enjoy and always enjoy getting?

Barry

And it was came to me. People love Girl Scout cookies. Who doesn't like getting a box of Girl Scout cookies for free, right? So a box of Girl Scout cookies cost $4.

Matt

Now, with inflation this year, I don't want to ruin the four.

Barry

Dollars model, but I don't.

Matt

Know if they're going to be $4 again.

Barry

Okay. Well, let's just say they're $5. They want to. 25.

Matt

Dollars. Yeah.

Barry

Okay, $5. Even so, I go to my Girl Scout cookies, come out, I go to my local Girl Scout chapter and I'll buy 150, 200, 250 boxes of Girl Scout is a once. So the Girl Scouts love it. They I can't believe that they made such a big sale. And I helped them get awards for being top salesperson.

Barry

But I will go out and deliver these cookies personally to my past clients and sphere of influence, or maybe people I talked to there about buying and selling a home in the future. But the time isn't right yet, but I don't forget them. I still go and visit them and bring Girl Scout cookies to their front door. And you know what?

Barry

People love it. They love getting those Girl Scout cookies and they get to know me better because I just say, hey, I just want I was in the air area. I want to pop by and give you a box of cookies. And they're like, Oh, wow, that's so nice of you. And then we have a little conversation about, you know, what's going on in her life and so forth, real.

Barry

Okay, I'm not trying to talk him into business or buying or selling or anything, and I'll just close it out by asking him, Oh, by the way, do you know anyone else looking to buy or sell a home? I'm selling anyone else and that asking them to do business. And it leads to so many referrals after you do the cookies over and over and over again, they get conditioned to think of you for referrals and they always and they want to send you home because you're giving him gifts.

Barry

So the vast majority, my business became repeat referral business once I started doing this, and it's all because of these 4 to $5 box of Girl Scout cookies. It cost so much less than buying leads. It's so much more effective.

Matt

So a couple of things that I really like about this. Number one, I want to make sure people are focusing on the message or not, not the item here. Girl Scout cookies are great. I love a similar if you give me a box of smollett's, I'm definitely going to refer you. Yeah, but. But realistically, you going out and buying these Girl Scout cookies, it was the mechanism to force you, the salesperson, to go door to door to your own clients and to connect with them for 5 minutes.

Matt

And even if they're not home, you can call them, leave a voicemail to let them know, hey, if you're not going to be home, make sure your neighbor picks it up. There's multiple stuff on your doorstep. And that I mean, if you don't you don't get a face to face, make sure you leave a voicemail. It's just the mechanism for a way that you're going deep with people.

Matt

So whether you're giving away Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn because I was the top salesperson in 1994 for that, I mean, you're doing you're doing something. And I want to actually recommend that anyone listening now that's a newer listener goes back and listens to probably your third or fourth episode with a realtor named Sara Lyons. She is also in Texas, and she programs all of her past clients into her Google Maps so that over the course of the year, if she's passing by a past clients house, she does a pop by with also a 4 to $5 candy bar or like a little mini bottle of wine.

Matt

So the idea is like these papayas, these small gifts, they're incredibly impactful. The actual item doesn't matter as long as you can explain it. Well, although I will say we did have another we have a close client here. His name is Josh and his girl. His daughter is a Girl Scout and every year e-mails his clients and usually says something to the extent of, hey, I'm giving away a box of girls cookies to all of my clients, but if you want to place an order, I will double it.

Matt

So if any of this. So I think it's one box of cookies, but if they want to order ten, he doubles at the 20 and then wow, his daughter deliver it. They've also gone door knocking with his daughter and it's kind of like, hey, hey, house four door knocking. Do you want to buy cookies or house you pick?

Matt

Most your ticket can be like every once in a while he gets a listing. So very I mean his this turned into like an internship program for you or the Girl Scouts that you're meeting or they like turning out to be agents for you. Ten years later, this has to have gone some beyond a couple of referrals.

Barry

Yeah, I wish I could say yes, but no. But I tell you what, their moms have been pretty happy in their lands. Have been clients of ours.

Matt

Yeah. I mean, I think I think that's awesome. I think everyone out there should just take the message to find something they can do on a meaningful level for their clients that that you think is cool. If it's not cookies for you, that's totally cool. It could be something else. We love hearing it. So I know one thing that you have figured out a really good way to do throughout your career is to work a little bit more efficiently because I think in your first couple of years you just got to hustle, you got to work 1000000 hours.

Matt

You have to really dove in all in real estate and make it work because those who don't give it their full effort, their first couple of years, it's really hard to make it stick. But what is it like? What efficiencies have you learned over the years that you might be able to share with with the audience?

Barry

Okay. Well, you're right. After doing this for a number of years, one of the advantages of being the old guy here is you do get more efficient on doing things. I can do a lot of things quicker. I can do I can get more accomplished in a shorter amount of time than maybe someone that hasn't been through the sales process as much.

Barry

So you definitely want a CRM, a database to keep track of all your clients. And also keep track of all the tasks that need to be performed on every pending transaction. Or to remind you of calls to make times to reach out to prospects. So having that CRM up and running and active is definitely key to being successful.

Barry

And also so.

Matt

Let me back up really, really quick. So what so people think of serums and they think of like a contact list, email marketing. But the test side of it is hugely important. What you just mentioned and what people could do is every time you have a transaction, if it's a buy side or sell side, there's ten or 11 things that need to happen.

Matt

And that could be everything from sending a thank you note to ordering an inspection or doing doing like putting a sign in the yard. So the kind of every time you get a listing or buyer to have a task list pre pre pop up with the possible tasks you might have if your CRM offers that. It is huge because it prevents you from forgetting.

Matt

If there's 20 things you do right on every transaction, you're going to forget one or two of them every time, and this will prevent you from doing that. So I think that's an efficiency that new agents should definitely get. And if you're new asking some experienced agency or office what types of things you should add into that for added success would be huge.

Barry

Yeah. Matt there's so many deadlines in the contract and you can't afford to miss any of them because you're going to hurt your client. So if you've got a lot of transaction ins pending, the best way to do it, not miss anything, is to put them all in that CRM and remind you every day what you need to do so you don't miss any deadlines.

Barry

I find that to be very helpful.

Matt

I love that. Well, very. I know our time's coming to an end. I just want to say a huge thank you for joining us today. And I kind of want to give a reminder to everyone out there. Most salespeople have a very short sighted mindset. You know, it's about what you're doing today, what you're earning this year. It's your numbers right now.

Matt

However, your real estate is a long game. You know, one of the canards I teach is about customer lifetime value. And when you when you have a long term stick with that mindset that, you know, now whatever age, right, that you're going to be around in ten, 20, 30 years, every single move you make now has a tequila's ripple effect in a positive way.

Matt

So, you know, I want every agent out there to learn from an experienced agent on what that going to look like and what they wish they would have done earlier in their career to have a better time 37 years later. So I just want to say a huge thank you for being on the show today and thanks for sharing with everybody.

Matt

If people wanted to contact you for a referral or to maybe listen to your podcast, how would they get a hold of you?

Barry

Yeah. Okay. I have a podcast called The Real Estate Agent Salesperson. It's for people who are is generally geared towards people who are introverts or not real salesy in real estate or anyone who doesn't feel like they fit the mold so they can check that out. Wherever you listen to podcasts there. Oh, that's the you can go there.

Barry

Or if you want to reach me by email, let me give you my old fashioned email address here. Barry b a r r y s like Sam. Coach K rc h at good ol aol dot com.

Matt

And for anyone out there that's not familiar, there is not actually a good ole AOL. It's just at a letter O letter L dot com. That's a joke. But I my first internet email or my first email was AOL. And I just always remember the, the, like the crazy noises it would make when the dial up loaded. And then it would always say, like, you've got mail.

Matt

It was that's like my that's how I started the Internet back in the day right. Very base for you on the show today. And I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

Barry

Okay. Thanks, Matt. I enjoyed this.