In this episode I had the privilege of interviewing Matt Laricy, the #1 Realtor by units in Chicago. In 2022 he and his team ended the year with over 550 units sold for $295,000,000.
He walked us through his story starting – Matt is a 3rd generation Realtor but didn’t have anything handed to him, other than the notion that real estate could be a great career. He was a practicing Realtor within 24 hours of graduating college in 2006.
Over the years Matt has developed the reputation as the hardest working Realtor in Chicago – he sets rigorous standards for himself and his team – and those standards lead to delivering consistent marketing, communication and results for their clients and themselves. We discussed the importance of being at the forefront of technology, and even more so the importance of developing deep knowledge of the neighborhoods that you serve or plan to serve.
Find Matt Laricy online: https://mattlaricy.com/
The Neighborhood Realtor is proudly sponsored by Treadstone Funding and Neighborhood Loans. For more tangible tips in real estate marketing, check out Matt's book, The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing available on Amazon.
In this episode I had the privilege of interviewing Matt Laricy, the #1 Realtor by units in Chicago. In 2022 he and his team ended the year with over 550 units sold for $295,000,000.
He walked us through his story starting – Matt is a 3rd generation Realtor but didn’t have anything handed to him, other than the notion that real estate could be a great career. He was a practicing Realtor within 24 hours of graduating college in 2006.
Over the years Matt has developed the reputation as the hardest working Realtor in Chicago – he sets rigorous standards for himself and his team – and those standards lead to delivering consistent marketing, communication and results for their clients and themselves. We discussed the importance of being at the forefront of technology, and even more so the importance of developing deep knowledge of the neighborhoods that you serve or plan to serve.
Find Matt Laricy online: https://mattlaricy.com/
The Neighborhood Realtor is proudly sponsored by Treadstone Funding and Neighborhood Loans. For more tangible tips in real estate marketing, check out Matt's book, The Tangible Action Guide for Real Estate Marketing available on Amazon.
Matt Muscat: | 00:00:03:05 | Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. I am 99% sure that our guest today who shares my name because his mother is a genius, is the highest producing realtor we've had on the show before. Before we hit record, he told me about his production, but I'll let him tell that to you directly. So, Matt. Matt Lauer is from Chicagoland.
Matt Muscat: | 00:00:21:15 | Welcome to the show.
Matt Laricy: | 00:00:23:01 | Thanks so much for having me on.
Matt Muscat: | 00:00:24:23 | So tell everybody, what is your production, your team's production in 2022 units and volume.
Matt Laricy: | 00:00:31:11 | So we should finish a little bit around 550 to a little bit more than that, closed in transactions that we're going to finish around 295 million closed. So, you know, it's going to be a record breaking year for us. It's not it's a little bit short of our goal was our goal is to do over 300. But, you know, I'll I'll I'll call the year a failure, even though it's good.
Matt Laricy: | 00:00:54:15 | But, you know, the goal is always to grow, you know, to do a little bit more than you did the year before.
Matt Muscat: | 00:00:59:07 | Well, you may not be getting the number one wine off the very top shelf, but you can you can probably get a really good bottle anyways for hitting for hitting that number. So that puts you in number one team per units in in the Chicago area, which is absolutely amazing. But you and hearing about your story, I'm most impressed with the grind.
Matt Muscat: | 00:01:16:15 | You hustle in every aspect of your business and so does your team. Walk me through where you started and some of the pivotal moments to getting to where you guys are today.
Matt Laricy: | 00:01:27:15 | Yeah, So I started in 2006, pretty much before I graduated college. I was already licensed. I'm a third generation agent, so I always knew I was going to get into real estate. So when I graduate, I started working within 24 hours of of graduating. And just like everybody else, I thought real estate would be somewhat easy because I came from a background family of it.
Matt Laricy: | 00:01:47:08 | And like a lot of people, I got my license and start working and I was kind of like, Well, what do I do now? So, you know, you kind of have to figure out what do you do?
Matt Muscat: | 00:01:55:23 | And you showed up on your first day. Like, I look for realtors because I feel like you get a job as a realtor, but then no one tells you that it's not like a real job with a boss and people dealing with you. What did that first day look like for you as a third generation person? Because you didn't go to work for your dad because he wouldn't let you, right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:02:11:10 | Yeah. So my old man went to let me go work at his company right away. So I started working in a company called Century 21 Pro Team. So they had some training sessions that I would do daily, but minus the training sessions. I just thought you would get in at 9:00 because that's what you know, you're right about nine fives, right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:02:25:23 | So I'd get in at nine. My first day I would look I looked around for two sit. And the owner of the company actually was a past client of my father's. And they didn't like each other. So I didn't get a desk and everybody had that's there. So, like, I didn't I was like, always kind of like a little bit nervous of sitting in somebody else's seat.
Matt Laricy: | 00:02:44:20 | So I think that first day where I sat, I think I was just nervous that somebody's going to have to get out. Or is it also 21 and most of people in the office like 60, So like I didn't have anybody to relate to of like, what do I do at this point?
Matt Muscat: | 00:02:57:10 | Right. So how did you initially I know a lot of your initial story was was kind of, I guess, in testing every possible piece of effort that you could you could think of. You mentioned you used to hang outside of Home Depots, not not to speak of the labor work. What what were you doing? What were what was in those early efforts that you tried in your attempts to make something happen?
Matt Laricy: | 00:03:17:19 | I mean, I would hand out business cards at different places. I just figured it'd be a good way to, you know, you know, get your name out there. I figured if you remodeling your house, maybe you're thinking about selling it. So I went to a bunch of dollars, went to Starbucks to spend 2 to $4 on a cup of coffee.
Matt Laricy: | 00:03:31:03 | You know, maybe you're looking to buy. I drove around neighborhoods collecting information and for sale by owners. And, you know, most time I would I would actually if I saw facility owner always go up to the door and doorknock and if they weren't home many times it was the neighborhood I wanted to sell. And I would sit in my car and wait for them to get home.
Matt Laricy: | 00:03:51:05 | So like now looking back on it, like, I mean, it's race damage. You probably get arrested. But, you know, back then, I mean, I think the world is a little bit of a simpler place. I just I just thought like, you know, these are the ways that I knew that I could try to get business because that's how I could you know, these are people you knew that could buy or sell.
Matt Laricy: | 00:04:08:18 | So I did what I could. I also got the paper. Every day is back in back in all 61 papers. But there wasn't as much stuff online and it cut out, you know, for sale by owners, I would call them, and I follow up them every five days. So pretty much anything anything that was possible out there to do, I did to try to get business.
Matt Muscat: | 00:04:28:03 | What's crazy is that we're sitting here that was 2000, 6007. Now we're in 2023. And a lot of those same strategies are still the things that agents are doing. I mean, I just two weeks ago went with an agent to a coffee shop. We bought a coffee shop for 3 hours, got four leads off of it. Now, it's nothing revolutionary.
Matt Muscat: | 00:04:46:09 | It's not tacky, it's not sexy. It's just meeting people. But so I think so many times people are looking for those golden for those silver bullet, how to get business. But it's just showing up and putting the work in like you mentioned you did 20 years ago.
Matt Laricy: | 00:04:59:13 | So like right now, I think it's so much easier to try to get businesses. You know, now you have social media and stuff like that, but also now, you know, if I sold in like just I mean, I sell downtown Chicago now, but like, let's say River North is a big everyone was selling. Like if I had more time, I would just be like, you know, you have next door, you have Facebook groups, Instagram groups, you know, neighborhood social groups.
Matt Laricy: | 00:05:20:10 | Like there's all these different groups. I would just be the voice constantly on there giving advice. Counsel, You're going to get you want to get to sell today, even get sale tomorrow. I get one a year and then you did a good job and that that turns into two next year and it a good job and that that's for next year right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:05:33:00 | So like you know that that that's no balls in business so there's so many different ways now because of technology that you could get business that didn't exist when I was young.
Matt Muscat: | 00:05:40:09 | Well I think to a lot of a lot of realtors do that. They think like, oh, well, you know, he's saying, you know, go post on these groups, but I don't have anything to post about because I'm a new realtor and I don't have any listings, etc.. But all it's about it's just about being an expert in those groups and being a valuable person that can answer their questions.
Matt Muscat: | 00:05:57:06 | If they're asking about what's the best coffee shop, the neighborhood, best burger, etc., you the answer. And then when there's the real estate question, you're going to be that much more trustworthy or an either go to ghost person. I love hearing them also on social media, your team does an absolutely fantastic job. Everyone out there should check out the latest group on social.
Matt Muscat: | 00:06:15:18 | But I noticed on your website you guys mentioned that other agents say in their presentations that they use social media, but they don't really explain what they do and they're not consistent. You guys actually market the property for the entire life of the property until it sells. Can you walk us through that? Because I think so many people miss kind of the consistency and the ongoing part of it, but they still talk about it as if it's like some magical thing that they do that their clients are smart enough to understand.
Matt Laricy: | 00:06:43:04 | Yeah, I mean, I think most people when you when you especially I mean, we have the most listings in the city so I mean, run the symptoms all the time. People say, well, you know, we're going to post on social media. And I said, Well, what are they like? What does that mean? Right? Like, so they post one post and then what?
Matt Laricy: | 00:06:57:05 | What from there. Right. So like for us, we have a strategy. So in fact, we're switching up our strategy as we head into 2023 because social media has changed right now. Before it used to be longer videos, etc. Now everything's about reals and short stuff, right? So like first we gronnemark we're going to promote our first real our second week on the market.
Matt Laricy: | 00:07:13:17 | We're going to promote our second real that we can do. So the second type of custom, real third one we're going to do like cool pictures for a fourth one, we can go back to the first real boost again. So every single week around the market, we're going to boost a different ad for the property. And every single week we send what the analytics are for that boost to our clients directly on Wednesdays.
Matt Laricy: | 00:07:32:24 | So it's not just like, Hey, Ron here. It's like, here's exactly what we did, what we spent, we targeted, etc..
Matt Muscat: | 00:07:38:19 | What's more, it's more detailed. It's more like working with professional agents. I think a lot of times when a customer, especially for a nicer high end house, they're hiring a realtor, they're in essence hiring a marketing agency to get that property out there. And then in the second there's an offer they're hiring to negotiate on their behalf. So I think sending out those analytics is genius because I've never heard of a realtor doing that ever.
Matt Muscat: | 00:08:00:20 | I'm sitting there.
Matt Laricy: | 00:08:02:18 | Yeah, I mean, we have a to follow up a week system with clients. So every Wednesday we do analytics ratios, social media performances, open ratios on websites, showing tendencies of our place compared to others. And it's pretty crazy. And on Saturdays I break down the marks of the tea time, how they performed, What We Need to Change, which came on that similar to us had a price change, etc. I tell them what's going to happen in the market.
Matt Laricy: | 00:08:22:12 | This article is going to cross the law, or at least a lawyer podcast. So I mean the I would say that we over touch with our people, but I think it's harder to try to get fired if it's a tough market and you're over communicating. Most of America the last few years have experienced a phenomenal seller's market, so they were able to sell properties very quickly.
Matt Laricy: | 00:08:42:12 | The markets we worked in was a hardcore buyer's market. In fact, I'd say the last three years were the worst markets in history for where we sold because I was selling in high rises downtown Chicago. And there's no offices open there, no businesses open, and you're pretty much locked up inside. And we had the highest amount of inventory on record.
Matt Laricy: | 00:08:59:11 | So, you know, when you have an average mark time of over 200 days in your market, you need to do everything you can to show that you're doing anything you can to try to sell the property.
Matt Muscat: | 00:09:08:15 | Well, it's fascinating because most of the time agents list a house and then they just wait for that offer to come in. And there may be no communication between the agent clients until there is an offer due to missed opportunity. Because every single time you touch base with a client, that's an opportunity to get referrals. That's an opportunity for to impress them.
Matt Muscat: | 00:09:29:06 | That's opportunity to grow in your knowledge of what's going on in their building, in the life, in their life, etc.?
Matt Laricy: | 00:09:34:08 | Yeah, I think the biggest problem people have is that there's my my father taught me this one is that they stick a sign in their lawn. They never hear from them again. And then if you're following up with them a minimum of two times a week, like, yeah, I know a lot of our clients get really pissed off about it because if they're not selling with marked for a while and here's another email reminder of why they hate us, but at the end of the day, at least they can know that we're trying and we're doing everything we can and we're showing it.
Matt Laricy: | 00:09:56:03 | You know, I would say actions speak louder than words over physically showing you every single week, twice a week what we're doing, try to sell it. And it was what it is. And, you know, just like anybody else would be fired every now and then. But ultimately, I can always say that we've done everything we could to try to move that property.
Matt Muscat: | 00:10:11:13 | And you've done more than the competition's doing to move their properties, which is huge. But hopefully in other huge things like you going through that process of preparing the data for your clients, at the same time makes you guys the most knowledgeable people about those neighborhoods, about those buildings, etc. which number one, gives you opportunities to spot listings you should be taking in that area.
Matt Muscat: | 00:10:34:03 | But also it better prepares you for the next one. And people tend to that. And I think you mentioned to me before the call that through doing some of the stuff, your team has actually broken multiple records for the highest price points in many different Chicago neighborhoods.
Matt Laricy: | 00:10:48:15 | Yeah, I mean, you know, we get a lot of sales solely like a lot of most of my listening leads come from just the fact that, like, they see your name all over the place or here we did a good job or, you know, and we sell a lot of high rises. So I'm the only company in the city where my guys address codes.
Matt Laricy: | 00:11:02:22 | There is going to be a suit and tie at all times. Okay, So you see the guys in suits and ties constantly coming in and out of the building like they had a senior group like 30 times. I'm thinking about put my place up. Let's let's get you an interview in here. Right. So or there's a lot of listeners we get that we represented the seller and then when they go to sell they they call us up And in fact, right before we get started through us talking, we broke the record for the highest priced sale in the West Loop.
Matt Laricy: | 00:11:24:21 | And the guy that bought it we didn't represent, he called me to resell because he's just like, Listen, like you're the one that sold it to me. I thought you did a great job. I don't think my agent as good of a job and we want to hire you to do it. So, you know, that's that's a people forget that the way you act in a transaction, if you do it the right way, you can actually get that client, somebody else's client.
Matt Laricy: | 00:11:45:05 | Fact yourself. If you're the better one there. It's, you know, ultimately you're on an interview at all times. That's what you look at.
Matt Muscat: | 00:11:51:19 | You're on an interview at all times. And I think people too often forget that, right? I mean, there's so many agents that show up wearing their cargo shorts and a t shirt and expect to get that listing.
Matt Laricy: | 00:12:02:23 | I random think about this. You know, when you go on a competition, people say, like, what separates you from somebody else. And like with Alaska that came in here, I saw some like out the door in jeans and t shirt and I'm here in a suit and tie. It's 105 degrees, but they're not like, I'm a professional. Like, that's the difference, right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:12:16:18 | So like, the way you carry yourself, people are attracted to it. People want to be led to the water, right? So if you're the one that's walking in with the confidence and you look the part, you show the part, you act hard and knowledgeable but not walk apart like they're naturally going to gravitate towards you anyway. So that's a big way we get business as well.
Matt Muscat: | 00:12:31:17 | I absolutely. So obviously that's almost 3 million is a huge amount. What's the size of your team that helped you do that and what tips positions do you employ?
Matt Laricy: | 00:12:40:05 | So I have nine agents total, including myself, and then I have four assistants and two marketing people out there.
Matt Muscat: | 00:12:50:11 | And are you feeding them most of their business or are they prospecting their own databases to grow as well?
Matt Laricy: | 00:12:56:00 | I'd say most of the business comes to me and then we kind of work it together. Okay, a lot of people are buyers and sellers, agents or junior agents and stuff like that. I don't believe any of that yet. So like we like and we're like Navy SEALs. So like we we work very hard. My guys do listings and they do buyers.
Matt Laricy: | 00:13:14:01 | You know, I told you before, we have a dress code, but we also counties also behind me here on this board, here's the board. You have to work seven days a week. If you take off before 630 at night, that's a half day. You take off before 4:00 on a weekend. That's a half day. So many days off, you get fired.
Matt Laricy: | 00:13:28:19 | We hold our guys accountable. So like my nine guys is equivalent to like 50 people on a different team because they're always working and, you know, some guys like to do everybody's got different personalities. So when I get a lead, it depends on, you know, I give it to them depending on if I think the personalities will match, if it's an area they like more than others.
Matt Laricy: | 00:13:48:03 | But I think to many people with these teams only try to get the person be like, This guy's just going to do my license and this guy's just going to do my bias. And then those people get burnt out of just doing business because that's the way I've used them and buyers seven days a week, 24 seven Like you kind of get gets old, you know, And if you just do listings, it's the same way.
Matt Laricy: | 00:14:05:14 | But like with us, the good thing is like they're doing all their work and hands off the work and all that stuff. We're working on the middle stuff they're doing the buyers and sellers. They're doing our jobs to help out too, you know, like, you know, meeting contractors, etc.. And I think that keeps it fresh.
Matt Muscat: | 00:14:19:21 | That's huge. So when you are looking at your database, what types of what types of reach out to communication are your past finds keeps you throughout the year?
Matt Laricy: | 00:14:31:21 | I don't really use the term VP's, I just look at every client is the same. So every quarter, like no matter what we do a hand touch, reaching out of giving them a quarterly update. It's usually something really tiny, personal or business related. I'm not I'm not the type of guy that likes to do client events or going out to dinners or anything like that.
Matt Laricy: | 00:14:50:11 | Like I don't associate myself with my clients in a social way. I don't mean that in rude way, but like I look at myself, like it's like, it's like you got to have a heart surgery. Like you may like your one heart surgeon better than the other guy, but like the guy that's the number one in the country.
Matt Laricy: | 00:15:03:12 | Like it's it's life or death. You're going to go the one that's the best. Not going to go the one you like them all. So I really try to separate social and business with my clientele. So when we do our touches, it's it's really very business like so you know every quarter no matter what like clockwork at the end of the quarter, we follow up with our clients or give them a focal or update of what's happened.
Matt Laricy: | 00:15:22:23 | Okay. Every month, no matter what, they get an update from us. And that has like a lot of our videos, like our podcast or blogs, what's going on the market, how we're talking this year, etc.. And then for those clients that want to be signed up weekly every week, I send out the longest, most dry out email. You'll get right literally break down the market to the team better than anybody of what's actually happening boots on the ground.
Matt Laricy: | 00:15:43:21 | So, you know, I give our clients options of how involved they want to be or not, but at the at the minimum, they get a monthly email, a quarterly email all, and then we do a quarterly card as well.
Matt Muscat: | 00:15:56:05 | I love anything for cerebral listening out there. The idea of clients options of how they want to be communicated to is huge because some people don't want to get a weekly, a weekly piece, but everybody in theory needs to get an update on what their market, what their neighborhood, what their properties do on a yearly basis. So there's kind of like minimums, but then there's also some some client preference that comes into play there.
Matt Muscat: | 00:16:19:02 | I love what you mentioned on our on our talk before that you have to really get rich and knowledge before you can get rich in money, which I think is most people, you know, you watch all the real estate shows on TV, you chase the money first. How how long were you in real estate before you feel like you truly had that knowledge?
Matt Muscat: | 00:16:38:05 | Obviously, it's always growing, but how did you get there?
Matt Laricy: | 00:16:41:13 | I would say probably in my fifth, the six years when I started really feeling very comfortable with with talking about the marketplace. And I think the biggest problem is that a lot of people, especially right now in certain parts of the country, got their license, grew up rich or had a great network. You know, I think this business, if you have a good network, you do very well for it, for I call it a short period of time.
Matt Laricy: | 00:17:04:02 | And that's why a lot of people there's always that question of like, what was your best year ever? You know, that's a that's a big saying in the mortgage and real estate industry, right? Like if you run into something, it's a networking event like we had just was your best year. Right? And I never understood that because I'm like, well, every year should be your best year, right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:17:18:18 | You should always be doing better than the last year. And the reason that happens is a lot of people get in the business, they got a great network, crush it because it's a good market, right? And then the market next year sucks and they're like, I don't know, like what's happening? Like, well, my network's not buying it, right?
Matt Laricy: | 00:17:32:10 | And then when the people call them up to ask what's happening, they don't know. They don't know what's hap They just they have a lot of friends ahead, a lot of money. But now those people, the friends that have money, they're gone. So like, if you know the business and you know the market, people always want to come to you.
Matt Laricy: | 00:17:45:10 | So give me example. Like when the pandemic hit here in 2020, we had the worst market in history with 24 months of inventory. Then the Great Recession, we had 12 months inventory with double the amount of inventory we had during the worst market. And most people, the suburbs are crushing because everybody wanted more spaces and are leaving there.
Matt Laricy: | 00:18:00:12 | But I was selling in the heart of the city downtown Chicago. There was not a single thing open. I was literally the only person walking the streets of Chicago and people talk about those three months locked down. They were slow as they've ever been. They've got family time. I've never seen my family less than I did there in those three months because I was at the office more than anybody.
Matt Laricy: | 00:18:16:18 | My phone was ringing off the hook. Everybody was asking me what's happening with the market? Where is it going to go? What should I expect? What should I sell has to do with my market or my property, etc. And the reason that I had that opportunity and I had the best year at that point ever in 2020 because I had so many people calling me for advice.
Matt Laricy: | 00:18:33:09 | And that's because I established myself as the expert.
Matt Muscat: | 00:18:36:06 | So I think that's probably skewed. A lot of people are going to need to start doing in the next couple of months because all of these houses around the country are sitting on the market for a little bit longer than they had in the past two years. So that creates some uncertainty. So whether you believe the market's amazing, terrible, etc., uncertainty is what is in the minds of clients.
Matt Muscat: | 00:18:53:17 | So if you are not putting content out there to let people know that you're the go to expert, you're not going to get those calls. So what I'll start doing right now to educate people on the market, the submarkets, the micro markets and even the national market so that you become the person that gets that call. So you can weather really any storm.
Matt Muscat: | 00:19:12:24 | I love I love this idea what going through that pandemic in Chicago is. Chicago did experience it differently than really almost any other city. What what things did you start doing then that you're probably going to carry through forever or the opposite like you hope to never do again?
Matt Laricy: | 00:19:31:17 | Well, I mean, first off, I think we I think we got a little bit lucky in the three month lockdown because most agents didn't want to work. They were scared of the disease. And like me and a couple of guys here were the only literally the only ones that. So we were taking we were taking a lot of referrals because we were like, okay, I got a buyer, but I don't want to go out.
Matt Laricy: | 00:19:46:04 | And I was like, I don't give a shit. Like I will do whatever. And not saying I respect that I don't believe in disease or anything like that, but they can ultimately they're going to put food on the table. So.
Matt Muscat: | 00:19:53:16 | You know.
Matt Laricy: | 00:19:54:10 | We learned how to get more efficient with certain aspects. But I think the best part was is that we've always been a paperless company. We've always been a tech for a company. So like people started doing like, Hey, we got to get in the video, we got getting a VR and we got to get the QR and all the stuff.
Matt Laricy: | 00:20:09:14 | Like those have been part of my system since day one. Like I've always I was a first person. Matterport First person to video tours, first person to promote QR, which we now turn and offices like. So when the market turned towards that, it's like everybody was rushing to try to figure out how to do it. And I had it perfected.
Matt Laricy: | 00:20:26:01 | So I had a leg up on all my competitors because like, people are like, Well, we need to make sure that we're build virtual, just like our office is built. But we produce almost no paper in this office. And I think because that we already worked so efficiently beforehand, we were set up to win and everybody else was trying to figure it out.
Matt Laricy: | 00:20:42:24 | So we had like a six. It's kind of like we were in a race and we got the first two laps or three before the other people got to get started.
Matt Muscat: | 00:20:49:11 | What do you think that it's so huge to be a, I guess, on the forefront of technology, especially when it comes to real estate? Because it seems like every time a new technology comes out, it might not work, it might not go anywhere, but at least developing understanding of it and figuring out how you could apply that gives you that extra advantage.
Matt Muscat: | 00:21:07:18 | If the market changes or the world changes and you then need to use it, it becomes a necessity rather than a one. It gives you that after advantage. I mean, a lot of the people that were the first ones on Zillow 15 years ago, 20 years ago, are still the top agents, even if they don't use that software 20 more.
Matt Muscat: | 00:21:24:12 | And the same can be said for many other tools that are currently out there.
Matt Laricy: | 00:21:27:06 | Well, you know, it's funny you say that because I was the very first person on Zillow, actually in 2008 for the Midwest, and I was the first one advertised on the zip codes. And I remember, you know, I put my credit card down and I invested $5,000 between the two companies and six or 605. And I didn't have $5,000 at the time, so I was going to rack up some credit card debt and go bankrupt or win.
Matt Laricy: | 00:21:49:14 | And I played around with the algorithm of of online and just seeing their search tours and how things worked out and compared to real track and some of the other websites. And you know, I bought the house on it because I knew that at some point people can go searching online, you know, and when you look at Zillow, it's like the reason they had reviews, I was the one that pitched it to the guys because I remember in 2009 we went to San Diego and my wife wanted Italian food in San Diego, so I don't know why.
Matt Laricy: | 00:22:16:15 | And I went on, on and on. Yahoo! At the time, which Google wasn't big. We went to a website called Yelp, which was just starting to take off and I looked at the top three Italian websites and we picked a menu from there and it hit me like lightning bolt there. I was like, Why? How many people come to Chicago that don't know a realtor?
Matt Laricy: | 00:22:30:01 | Right? But I'll go all based off reviews. So I pitched that to the guys at Illinois truly at that time, and they started with reviews on Zillow and this hour with recommendations on Trulia. Remember, these are two separate companies at a time. So then I started my hardest to get reviews because I figured, hey, if I have online reviews, even if I don't have that many sales, if I have the most reviews, I'll at least have a leg up on somebody else.
Matt Laricy: | 00:22:50:13 | If somebody is just searching the web. And still to this day, I have like six or 700 reviews on the next guy. And that's because I started in oh eight, in oh nine of advertising there. So when when 2013 had nobody started advertising online, people like, man, I really got to catch up. It's like, well, we're sorry on our own.
Matt Laricy: | 00:23:04:23 | That's like it was done. Like we were so established in there. You can even you can even beat us.
Matt Muscat: | 00:23:09:19 | What do I think number one, it's being that early adopter. But number two, you stayed consistent with it throughout the next 20 years. I knew like we got to Google reviews on the Google business pages back in 2007 before they were huge and we got a bunch of reviews then. But it's the same strategy every single week. And now there's companies like Quicken that are ten times bigger than us, but we're still number one in our markets for the consistent weekly strategy.
Matt Muscat: | 00:23:35:06 | To get a couple more for a couple more distances is key. I think that's where most real estate professional sales professionals probably missed the boat. They start something, they don't get to lead that day stuff. They get a client over here, they stop, they don't protect their time. You mentioned earlier and the surgeon does not rearrange their life in their schedule because something changes in their day.
Matt Muscat: | 00:23:57:20 | Surgery cancels surgery, they protect their time. They are not a commodity. And we as vessels need to make sure that we're not a commodity either.
Matt Laricy: | 00:24:05:24 | Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Matt Muscat: | 00:24:08:03 | So that was a huge thanks for being on the show today. I have so many page notes and so I'm sure everybody else listening does as well. If someone has a referral, whether it's a $100,000 deal, which is probably a parking spot or a $30 million deal in the Chicago area, how would they get a hold of you?
Matt Laricy: | 00:24:23:18 | You know, they could easily just email said I'm literacy and corp are e-commerce it's literacy at AmeriCorps with the p r e dot com. We'll get back to you with the minutes.
Matt Muscat: | 00:24:33:12 | Okay guys again this is the hardest working real estate agent in Chicago, possibly the country. So he will get back to it. 10 minutes. Yeah. Everybody, thanks for listening.
Matt Laricy: | 00:24:42:06 | Say thank you so much for having me.