Bombshell episode! Today we feature a dynamo Realtor and Broker Owner Sasha Tripp from Charlottesville, VA. Sasha originally got into real estate because she wanted to educate herself on the home buying process.
For her first two years before she had the business, she spent her time learning about the market and creating content. After these bedrocks were set the rest was history! In our episode we discuss “partying with a purpose” - how to network with specific and tangible goals. We also discussed her journey that brought her to a 2022 that had over 285 closed units. As an introvert she makes a concerted effort to go into every phone call with a plan.
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.
Learned something new, or have a suggestion? Message Matt Muscat on Instagram!
Bombshell episode! Today we feature a dynamo Realtor and Broker Owner Sasha Tripp from Charlottesville, VA. Sasha originally got into real estate because she wanted to educate herself on the home buying process.
For her first two years before she had the business, she spent her time learning about the market and creating content. After these bedrocks were set the rest was history! In our episode we discuss “partying with a purpose” - how to network with specific and tangible goals. We also discussed her journey that brought her to a 2022 that had over 285 closed units. As an introvert she makes a concerted effort to go into every phone call with a plan.
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.
Learned something new, or have a suggestion? Message Matt Muscat on Instagram!
Matt M. | 00:00:24:01 | Everybody, thank you for tuning in today. I am super stoked for our guest today. So my one of my absolute best friends realtor named Ashley in Grand Rapids told me about an awesome agent she heard speak at an event she went to last year and I've been trying to get in touch with her, but she's one of the busiest and most successful agents in the area right now.
Matt M. | 00:00:44:06 | So super excited to announce. Sasha Trip is with us today from Charlottesville, Virginia. Welcome, Sasha.
Sasha T. | 00:00:49:19 | Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited we finally got connected.
Matt M. | 00:00:52:26 | Yeah. So you have a lot of exciting stuff and been top producing agent. You're the broker. Everyone in town knows you. But I really like that you have some serious brand behind what you do that you've been building up for for the last ten years. So why don't we start? You told me when we chatted before you got in the business in oh seven, because you wanted to learn more about the process of real estate yourself.
Matt M. | 00:01:15:13 | Tell us your origin story so people can kind of develop an appreciation for like, where you started.
Sasha T. | 00:01:20:05 | Yeah, it's not super glamorous. I graduated from the University of Virginia and five and had a little one year stint with the staffing firm Short and Sweet, and I love it, but I met a lot of company owners in town and sort of got the lay of the land. I was going to have to start my own company to make a living in Charlottesville because we have so many academics.
Sasha T. | 00:01:40:10 | I was a religious studies major, so everyone was a little more qualified than me. So I learned a little bit about that. I kind of fell under real estate. I was telling you I wanted to buy a house and I realized I knew nothing about like budgeting the mortgage payments, home ownership, home maintenance. So I took the class and I passed the test and I was like, Well, I might as well go sit for my license.
Sasha T. | 00:02:03:03 | So I got my license. And then it was like, Well, I might as well hang my license because why not? So I hung my license. And then around that time kind of just got burnt out of my job and decided, Well, let's give this a go. And of course that ended up being 2007, which was probably historically one of the two worst years in our market here.
Sasha T. | 00:02:21:29 | So a horrible time to start in real estate. But as I was saying to you, just give me a ton of time to learn and do the background. So let's talk.
Matt M. | 00:02:30:27 | About that for a second, cause I know so many people probably listening to this got into the business like in the last nine months, and they're probably all saying, Oh my gosh, Sasha, I relate to you because I think this is the worst market we've ever had. Now the market is great. The market's terrible. It's it's like you're out with them doing.
Sasha T. | 00:02:47:23 | This or this. And this is.
Matt M. | 00:02:50:09 | Kind of the same inability for a million different ways. But, you know, how did you spend your time when there is all that? I think one thing that's in common is there was fear in the market then, and there's fear in the market now, Right. In the consumer mindset. So how did you spend your time during those fear based years and kind of what were some of the things that you learned or that you did that you think, wow, that really paved the way for the business that you do now?
Sasha T. | 00:03:16:18 | Yeah, So that's a great question. And I actually talk about it to people quite often now because it it is very similar and I don't I won't compare hardship and the both markets have been tough but yeah so I just spent a lot of time learning. So I decided like if I didn't have anyone to sell houses to, I might as well figure this craft out so that when people became available to sell houses to or I had developed a sphere of influence, I will actually know what I'm talking about.
Sasha T. | 00:03:42:03 | So I really went back and forth just a couple of things. First, it was like, learn the area, learn the neighborhoods, learn real estate, like learn how homes built, learn the common problems of homes. But I feel like I was trained really well or I was taught that, like, you can't just learn. Like you can't just keep getting ready to get ready.
Sasha T. | 00:04:02:09 | You have to actually go do things sometimes. And so I realized early on I needed to be constantly networking and making connections. And so I would go to every event in town. I volunteered for tons of non-profits. I made myself like an ambassador at our Chamber of Commerce, which meant I sat at the table and I agreed that every new person and I learned their names and they saw who I was.
Sasha T. | 00:04:25:08 | So I would just do anything that I could find that would put me in front of people. And I think people started associating like Sasha in real estate. They had no idea that I had never sold a house. They just had so much exposure. I was sort of like omnipresent always around. I think people thought I was a really good real estate agent, whether I had had any experience or not.
Sasha T. | 00:04:47:13 | And there were times like I would do, I'd sit at a coffee shop and I would schedule an appointment for eight, 830, nine, nine, 30, ten, ten, 30, 11, 1130, take a little lunch break and then go through the afternoon the same way I would schedule a 20 minute coffee appointment that 30 minutes apart and tell people like, Oh, this is just to get to know you get to know if we might want to work together more.
Sasha T. | 00:05:08:19 | And I just expose myself to as many people as I possibly could. And then, of course, in the background, I was constantly learning, creating checklists, creating systems. So I was like.
Matt M. | 00:05:21:09 | You just said a lot of stuff that I feel like we have to unpack because you said it quickly and I really want people to understand some of this. So number one, don't if you're a new agent or if you're if you're trying to get busier, right. Like maybe you've been in the business forever, but you're slow this year, don't fall to the curse of like death by training.
Matt M. | 00:05:40:01 | I think so many of the big, big brokerages in the country right now. I mean, if you wanted to train for 40 hours a week as a realtor, you could.
Sasha T. | 00:05:48:14 | Write like even now, like 15 years in the business. Yeah, for us, yeah.
Matt M. | 00:05:53:06 | There's there's there's never any training. I think training has its place and it's important when you know what you want to get out of it. Right. But when you want to learn a specific new skill. But what you said that I thought was impactful is you spent your time learning and training yourself on the market, on your community, on real estate, so that when you got into those conversations, you had something intelligent to say.
Matt M. | 00:06:13:21 | And then your number two thing we should like for everyone listening like this is this is the thing, right? Like we've heard this on the podcast before. She spent all weeks networking and trying to make new friends, trying to meet new people, and then conversation happens. She has all this new real estate knowledge to share with them. And then the real closer is let's set 20 coffee meetings for the next week in a way that fits into her schedule, an intelligent way, rather than doing like one coffee like every third day.
Matt M. | 00:06:40:26 | The different time.
Sasha T. | 00:06:42:15 | Task switching class, commuting in your car. Yeah, I think I learned really early efficiency and like group like batching tasks of the same type was really important because we said we waste so much time task switching between, you know, what we're supposed to be wearing and prepping and even meet like as a female in this trade. It's like I even appropriately dress like I can't go walk 50 acres in the rain, pouring rain in mud and then immediately go straight to Chamber of Commerce Business Roundtable luncheon with all the biggest company owners in town like so thinking about how do I group things back to back so that my mind can be in one spot
Sasha T. | 00:07:24:03 | for a period of time. So yeah, I did that with networking and then I do that with learning and I just would not let either of them fail all my day.
Matt M. | 00:07:30:19 | So let's talk about this rubric. So obviously you're a likable person, but I you know, you mentioned in the call earlier that you are an introvert, right? So like, you can be likable and you can kind of like choose to portray more some extroverted tendencies. But when you're I think a lot of people miss the connection between like, you're out there in the community and then you meet someone and then how do you get them to have coffee with you, Right?
Matt M. | 00:07:53:22 | Because like and I would also love to hear your perspective on like how guys could do this because like, I think sometimes, like if a guy is like, Hey, I show.
Sasha T. | 00:08:03:11 | You what I'm going.
Matt M. | 00:08:03:27 | To call.
Sasha T. | 00:08:04:13 | And I mean, it's tough for females. It's tough for males talking to, yeah, it's all there. It is tough. So there are some races around it. But I would say, you know, what I found is you go to all these events and people pass around that like pass around business cards and no one does anything like that. It's like they go straight in the trash can.
Sasha T. | 00:08:24:14 | Maybe you take some information off of them and put them in a database or whatever. But like just being the one person that actually shoots an email and says, Oh, so nice to meet you today. I'm so serious about your company, or I would love to know more about your position. You know, if it's very clear that you the company is, I would love to know more about your position or a little bit more about your background or what your main goals are for the year or whatever.
Sasha T. | 00:08:47:21 | I mean, something has to spark your interest.
Matt M. | 00:08:50:07 | What a surprise here. Like your questions, your reach out to them is about them, right? Like most people.
Sasha T. | 00:08:56:13 | This is about them to companies, about this talk about real estate. So when I was having those meetings, I think that's the key, is people like you more, the more time they get to talk about themselves with you, Right? Like they are spouting off all these fun facts about yourself and your company and how you can help and how you're the best real estate agent in the world.
Sasha T. | 00:09:19:02 | They're going to be super turned off. But if you do it, if you make an invite that is tied to like, I would love to learn more about you or your company or your obstacles this year, or somebody you're trying to hire for some connection I could make for you. And then you take them to coffee and pay for coffee.
Sasha T. | 00:09:34:22 | That's a nice thing to do. And you ask them whole time about themselves. And then at the very end, most people are kind of like, Oh, it occurs to me, I should ask you some questions too. And at the end it's like, Well, this wasn't this wasn't a sales pitch. This wasn't me trying to close on anything. I wasn't going to try to start working with us.
Sasha T. | 00:09:52:05 | I just legitimately wanted to know more about you to see if we might want to maintain a better business relationship and keep a better touch and maybe generate some business back and forth. And I think having this low barrier and then becoming known as a person that not works a lot but doesn't, you know, isn't pushy, I think is really important.
Sasha T. | 00:10:10:13 | Like I've never questioned, never trying to sell anything. I'm just trying to build rapport and trust in relationships and then be top of mind when the time is right below that.
Matt M. | 00:10:19:21 | So when you after you have that coffee, what is your follow up? So you have, you know, 20 coffees in a week. Are you is it like add to your serum, is it a social media ad Like what? What is your do you have like processes and procedures?
Sasha T. | 00:10:32:03 | Yeah.
Matt M. | 00:10:32:29 | Says each one differently.
Sasha T. | 00:10:34:28 | Each one is different because I will tell you, like I am an introvert and so and I'm at the place in my business now where I can be more selective about relationships. I think earlier on it's like you got to be friends with anyone who's going to be your friend because beggars can't be choosers, right? Like you've got to work with whoever's out there when you're young and green and new.
Sasha T. | 00:10:56:11 | But there are still some people you go to coffee with and you're kind of like, I don't get a goodbye from this person. Like they're too pushy or they're not super responsive or they're like a little they seem a little more specific or they're pretty arrogant or like, they just couldn't see any value in the other person. The conversation and I think to myself, well, like that's probably not someone am my client too.
Sasha T. | 00:11:17:12 | I'm probably not going to refer them a lot. So this is probably not going to go anywhere. So for those people, it was like add them to the database, maybe add a few notes about what we talked about, but I am not going to do a lot of follow up with those people, the ones that I like. And we hit it off and I'm like, Oh, they're nice, they're kind.
Sasha T. | 00:11:31:29 | They seem interested in my development. I'd love to see their development happen. Like I think we are mutually interested in each other's success. Then I add them to the database and then basically I merge them in to our drip stuff that was going out anyway. So like we sent an e-newsletter out every month. So then they got that.
Sasha T. | 00:11:49:21 | We said evidence of success, like post, like a little postcard that'll have a testimonial or a low design on mark at or a really high price sale for a neighborhood. We add them to that briefly. They're not in there forever, but we had them for a couple of months and at the end of my coffee I'll say, Hey, this is awesome.
Sasha T. | 00:12:07:01 | Like, you seem like a great person. I'm so glad we got to know a little more about each other. I would love and again, remember, I haven't talked about myself that much. They have talked about themselves and it's like, I know we didn't talk too much about Story House or we didn't talk too much about my team or my background.
Sasha T. | 00:12:21:05 | I would love the opportunity to sort of expose you to the way we do business. So what that would mean is getting our e-newsletter or having a couple of postcards in the mail, I just want you to see how our business is done so you learn a little bit more about that. I want make sure it's okay with you, because I don't want you to feel like it's spam, But if it's okay with you, I'll add you to these mailing lists.
Sasha T. | 00:12:41:12 | And you know, I let them witness that. I let them see these things happen, and which means they might get an invite to our client party if it falls during the several months that they're in the list, they might get an invite to a tailgate. They might get a hot bike after just what we're doing for our database at that time.
Sasha T. | 00:12:57:08 | But then they see what our company does and they decide if they like it or not.
Matt M. | 00:13:00:17 | Real estate has a lot of contracts. I want this podcast to have a social contract as well. Here's what I need from you. If you're listening to the show and you get something valuable out of it or you hear something that you think that's awesome, I want you to send me a dime on Instagram. Or if you find my email, send it that way.
Matt M. | 00:13:16:01 | The more feedback that I get helps me to put together better shows and attract better guests. I love that so much, and I think that's like a key. Like if you're not driving right now, like write this one down because you preface people that you are going to be adding them to your list. I think that's where like most people miss out on our mission.
Sasha T. | 00:13:34:24 | It's not like the upload they're giving.
Matt M. | 00:13:37:15 | You're getting them excited about it too. It's like, hey, like work into the conversation that like, you know, education's your big thing. You want to keep your mission as if every single person in your community involved in like an education, what the housing market is doing. But also like you guys are having a really great party in two months and you want to send them that.
Matt M. | 00:13:52:00 | You want to send them an invite for us. So watch out for this in your email because like the person you meet with is going to get a ton of like networking and connectivity opportunities, and then they're excited to get that first email via delete them.
Sasha T. | 00:14:04:02 | Yeah, it's like that because something that hurt my feelings, I shouldn't take it so personally. But if somebody like Remove Else for my newsletter, I'm like, Oh my God, I failed them. I'm a terrible person. Like, I must've been terrible. Like I beat myself up. But typically they only remove themselves if they never should have been on in the first place.
Sasha T. | 00:14:22:01 | Never geared them or prep them that they were going to receive it, or they remove themselves because they like to Charlottesville or like it's just no longer relevant. But typically I feel like it's usually because we just added someone to something that we had no business adding them to because we didn't have that permission from them or we didn't have the relationship.
Sasha T. | 00:14:39:21 | And then it just felt like trash.
Matt M. | 00:14:41:09 | And I think like a lot of times we see a lot more of that marketing, you know, like the super low end market where like you buy a bunch of crappy Zillow leads and then you try crappy marketing with them. And if it works one in 100 times, which it will, and you keep doing it.
Sasha T. | 00:14:56:22 | So often that some day someone's going to raise their hand, it'll be rare, but.
Matt M. | 00:15:00:09 | It's kind of like the golden rule. Like if I wanted to sell myself a $500,000 house in my neighborhood, I'm not going to put myself on a crappy email drip campaign with, like information about homes in California. Like, it's like, it's irrelevant to be like, how how do I want to be marketed to You.
Sasha T. | 00:15:15:27 | Sometimes point that out till the end right now, I mean, it's been years and years and years. Every time I meet someone, I do a coffee. I just mention like, Hey, I'd love for you to see how our business operates. If this is okay with you, I'd love to include you on it. And then, of course, if it's not relevant, just let us know and will remove it.
Sasha T. | 00:15:31:10 | But you know, I want you to know how we operate the community. So someone ask about who you'd recommend for real estate. I would just love to be amongst the people that you are considering that you're thinking about. So it's a really easy, not a hard craft. It's just a gentle nudge towards that.
Matt M. | 00:15:46:13 | So I know that, you know, a big a big part of it is like keeping in touch with these people after that initial coffee and the newsletters part of it. But you do a really great job with like personal phone calls, texts, letters.
Sasha T. | 00:15:58:18 | Yeah, dozens other things.
Matt M. | 00:16:00:08 | But you mentioned to me that you something you improved in your business, right? Because I know we're always trying to improve you starting gauging your relationships because you said you've maybe some that weren't as strong as you thought. Tell me more about that, because I think we all fall victim.
Sasha T. | 00:16:16:24 | Do a couple minutes. I'll tell you. Like how I got to that. But like, you know, I realized I started thinking about, you know, sometimes we hustle really, really hard and we start making a lot of money at, like, we're achieving lots of things. And it's like, okay, neat. But you have these moments. You're like, What is this all for?
Sasha T. | 00:16:35:10 | Right? Like, when is enough, enough? When's there enough money? When my team big enough, When do I have enough clients? Like, when is enough networking in a day? Enough? Like, when is enough enough? And I started thinking about like, I basically sometimes feel like the mayor of my town, right? I feel like I know everyone, but I've gone through a couple massive hardships to my life and I didn't feel like very many people showed up.
Sasha T. | 00:16:56:03 | And I think what that showed me about my life is that I had a huge amount of shallow relationships, but I didn't have a very I didn't have very many deep relationships. So I was wide and shallow. And when you have hardships in your life and when it comes when like the rubber hits the road, you want to have some deep relationships.
Sasha T. | 00:17:15:11 | People that really care about you really check in on you really show up for you. And I started to think like, okay, is there value in me just being like surface level friends? You know, I have 5000 friends on Facebook, like no more people can be my friend on Facebook. And you would think like, Oh, this is the pinnacle.
Sasha T. | 00:17:32:23 | Like, you know, I'm super cool and popular, but it's like, what is the value in having 5000 friends on Facebook if none of them care about you? Right? And so I started thinking, Well, I'm the common denominator and not like if none of them care about me, I'm the common denominator. I'm sure all of those people deeply care about other people.
Matt M. | 00:17:51:00 | And there's like, you're maybe describing a Taylor Swift song.
Sasha T. | 00:17:54:13 | Oh, is that true?
Matt M. | 00:17:55:17 | I haven't on the problem. It's me. I haven't caught.
Sasha T. | 00:17:58:14 | Up with her latest album, although I'm sure I agree with everything she says. But yeah, that was it. I was like, well, like if I died tomorrow, who would show up at my funeral? Like, would it be the random 5000 real estate agents that have seen me at once in my life across the nation? No, like none of them would even notice.
Sasha T. | 00:18:17:12 | And I was like, All right, so what is the purpose of all of this? And that's what I just realized. I was not in deep relationships, so I had to game the system for myself because I knew that, you know, I'm a little I'm a phone phobic, I'm an introvert. I don't love talking to people about, like, random stuff and the weather and small talk.
Sasha T. | 00:18:38:07 | But I was trying to do people. I'm like, Well, what am I supposed to say? Like, I just call them over and over again in chit chat, and then I'm like, Well, that's wasting their time. That feels disrespectful for them. So I created a room for myself, and it's literally a Google spreadsheet that has a series of questions that I answer about people, and then I give myself a score on each of those people to figure out if I'm in deep relationship or not.
Sasha T. | 00:19:01:28 | So some of the questions, as an example, would be like, Have they been to my office? Have I been to their office, have they been to my home? Have I been to their home? Have I met their spouse? Do I know the names of their children? Have we done if they're spouses cool and they are cool, have we done like a double date, like a couples dinner or something like that?
Sasha T. | 00:19:26:02 | Have they sent me a referral? Have I ever sent their business a referral? You know, things like that that are just like, okay. A It's mostly if I just know them surface level or not. But it also gives me like really direct things to talk to them about. So if I call you and I'm like, Hey Matt, you know, instead of me calling every couple of weeks just to be like, Hey, how's your wife?
Sasha T. | 00:19:49:25 | It's like, Hey, Matt. It just occurs to me that, like, I know so much about you as a business person. I have so much respect for you as a business person. I've never seen your office or met your team. Like, is there a time that I could bring coffee back to you or I could pop by and deliver some goodies or something and it opens the door.
Sasha T. | 00:20:06:26 | It like tells me the things like, I think if you share a meal and you get belly to belly and people space and they get in your space, that's when you're building actual relationships or at least you have the opportunity to. So it sort of just gave me a rubric of like things to talk about. So I didn't have that like resistance or calling these people like I wanted to follow up, I wanted to keep in touch.
Sasha T. | 00:20:27:25 | I care about them. I want to learn about their life, but I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to annoy them with my phone calls. Right. Because that puts you further from a relationship with people. So that's kind of how we do it for fun for me. And then I tally up all the points. If I have yeses for those questions, I tally it all up.
Sasha T. | 00:20:43:03 | There's ten questions and I'm just trying to get every person closer to a ten because I know that, like then I've poured into them a little bit. Like they know that I care. They know I'm going the extra mile to meet their family, to meet their office, invite them to my home. I know that I've done my best to try to pour into them.
Sasha T. | 00:20:59:07 | And then if the relationship doesn't blossom, that's okay. There's no. But at least you know, you tried and you'll find the people that really do care to be in deep, meaningful relationship with you and that give their time and pour back the love.
Matt M. | 00:21:12:03 | That you gave on Friday for yourself because it gives you like a tangible thing to work on every week. Like, okay, I have these three people on my list, but I don't know, I need to find their spouses name, I need to find their kids names. I need to know what sports they're in. I need to figure out more of like how I can help them and then know what you're working towards when you're making those calls is like all of our brokers tell us, Oh my gosh, call your past clients, call your database, but then they don't call on.
Sasha T. | 00:21:35:21 | You're like about we always say. And so the other problem I would say a, I hate being on the phone but be I was like, well, if I call them, every single one of them is just going to ask me for an updated value of their home. And that's going to take me like half an hour for each one.
Sasha T. | 00:21:51:06 | I was like, That's not good. Like if they're not planning on selling anytime soon, I, of course, am always happy to give them an update evaluation, but I feel like if you have nothing to say and that's the thing you have in common, it's just going to become a massive homework assignment every time you call. And really, that's not the goal.
Sasha T. | 00:22:06:15 | The goal is to check in on people, make sure their lives are going okay, see if there are things you can help them with, like be in relationship, not just be a random realtor with data spewing out them all the time.
Matt M. | 00:22:17:11 | You can do. I like don't just be a random realtor. I think that's fantastic. So what are you doing this year differently? So obviously the market has a little bit less inventory than its had, although I did read that last week. Inventory ticked up for the first time in forever in many markets. But what are you doing differently?
Matt M. | 00:22:34:13 | Like how how have you adjusted your either your marketing playbook, how are you working with your buyers or sellers differently? What's what's changing for you this year?
Sasha T. | 00:22:43:20 | A couple of things. We focused a ton on our national connection to realtors, like inbound and outbound referrals, because, you know, when when market share is so low, if we can still make income from referrals going in and out and connecting people to great realtors elsewhere, you know, there's enough inventory now for us to make a very good living.
Sasha T. | 00:23:03:09 | So we focus on that and hit up a newsletter. Now, like we started just getting in front of people as the Charlottesville realtor, they should know and then started talking to some of the aging realtors from our own market because we know in a are predicting what about a fall out Like we've got some weird stuff going on in our industry right now to say the least.
Sasha T. | 00:23:22:04 | And it's a hard market and a lot of these people are nearing retirement anyway and don't want to try to keep up with all of the technology and the whatever is coming with commission adjustments, you know, whatever is coming down the pipe. I just think there's a lot of people that are ready to hang it up. So we've been working on giving them a like a succession plan where we sort of help them ease out of the business over the course of a couple of years and we will pay them a higher commission on the first year, a slightly lower second year, more regular commission referral fee on the third year.
Sasha T. | 00:23:55:16 | And we're just trying to help them transition their business to a company that can take great care of their clients but let them retire. And then it's like they can hang their license on referral status and go network and play tennis and golf and enjoy their lives a little bit. Still be generating an income. So we've just been trying to think of like, how do we take advantage of the fact that the inventory does suck and that a lot of our competitors are not going to stick it out through this market.
Sasha T. | 00:24:22:25 | Like how can one of those people and helping that like helping them make a living, but also helping take over a little more market share? You know, I think of it as separation season. It's like there are a lot of people are pulling back and retreating right now. It gives us a chance to separate further from the pack and gain more and more.
Matt M. | 00:24:39:15 | Well, that's that's one of the most interesting tactics I've heard in months. So what I love about that is if you talk to any realtor and they tell you, like, what's the problem? Oh, it's there's too many agents, but they're not giving it. They're not coming up with a solution. You a solution where you're adding you're giving them an out, you're providing real terms.
Sasha T. | 00:24:55:29 | An out that has integrity and out that in and out that they know they can like. You know, not every realtor would be able to do that because if you've been a jerk in your marketplace and no one wants to work with you, then you're not going to get a lot of this business. But if you've been kind and polite and you're responsive and you take you're known for taking great care of people, it gives agents a super easy out.
Sasha T. | 00:25:16:15 | So yeah, we've just been trying to find ways to help them do it with grace and in a way that they feel an integrity with. But of course it's just taking on more market share and we have the bandwidth to do it right now. So that's been really fun.
Matt M. | 00:25:29:20 | How are you coaching your newer realtors at your brokerage this year?
Sasha T. | 00:25:34:09 | We're focused. I mean, it sounds so basic and every it's like we're focusing on face to face, belly to belly and phone calls. It's like, go be in the community If you don't have an event to go to, go look on, meet up online, go to the Facebook events like go to the Chamber of Commerce, figure out what's happening, go look on your local community news board to see what free events are coming up or things that you can participate in.
Sasha T. | 00:25:59:23 | Create a football team, create a book club, create a community, whatever you're into, like gather people around it. And it really it's just expose yourself over and over and over again and just constantly be making new connections because newer agents, they don't have a lot of people to call. Yeah. So you've got to go to the community, get the business cards, follow up and ask for the coffees.
Sasha T. | 00:26:24:24 | It's like you're starting from scratch. But really, it's the same thing I did in my first couple of years. And if you just do it, it's a really, really successful plan. I think most people just do it briefly. You get a couple of leads and then kind of get down a rabbit hole deal like servicing those leads and then it all falls off.
Sasha T. | 00:26:41:12 | So it's like, right. Well, I.
Matt M. | 00:26:42:09 | Mean, most people ride that roller coaster ride of, oh, they have nothing going on. They have a dealer to get another deal because they were busy and then they have nothing for three months. Guys of marketing open house.
Sasha T. | 00:26:51:01 | So that tied them up forever so they're not prospects anymore. So yeah, for us, we hold all of our and if you've been exposed to the core, the core coaching has a company I've been coached by for many, many years. I am now a coach for. But if you've been exposed to the core of many, many productive realtors across the nation, have they have the greatness tracker, which is it's the same as Brian of being very like all of the real estate, really all business coaches have the same.
Sasha T. | 00:27:16:26 | It's like you've got to have four face to face appointments. You've got to have some great brands or share some rooms or something else, and you've got to do phone calls, which means you've got to have people to call. And we don't really prescribe to the idea of cold calling. I would much rather you go to an event and gather contact information from a few people and then the next day call to follow up.
Sasha T. | 00:27:37:06 | So it's at least a warm call and they'll take your call. But yeah, it's a really basic like it's not rocket science. You have to make enough connection, you know, you have to take enough of that.
Matt M. | 00:27:48:21 | The Neighborhood Realtor podcast is proudly made possible by the support of our sponsors Treadstone Funding and neighborhood loans to amazing Midwest mortgage companies that now have offices all around the country. You're a realtor and you'd like to learn more about connecting with one of our lenders. Dammit, Matt must be aided and often acting with someone in your market.
Matt M. | 00:28:05:27 | If you're a lender and you want to join the right mortgage company in DME and I'll connect you as well. This week I went to a networking event. I met like three or four really interesting people. I got home. I only think I got home. I think I was in my car. I added a couple of them on social media who I could find easily, and then I emailed myself to say, tomorrow morning, send them an interesting rephrasing of something we talked about in conversation.
Matt M. | 00:28:26:27 | Yeah, and or ask them a question. Be like, Oh my gosh, I had you on social media. I know is that you have a five year old to like which for you guys like we just started also like.
Sasha T. | 00:28:34:17 | You're out want to say daily time built into your schedule to do the follow up from that we were just talking yesterday about like networking, partying with a purpose, networking with a purpose, like go to a networking event. And in the 5 minutes, one of the speakers making an introduction and the rooms and the scan people, people's tags, Google them.
Sasha T. | 00:28:55:08 | We're like literally, sometimes you get 5 minutes when somebody is introducing a concept in like Google, the people figure out who the people are that you most need to connect to, Like who owns the biggest company in town, who is an estate attorney who's a CPA? Like, be strategic and they'll hunt them down. And if you don't have the entire so you don't have that ability go to the person who organized the event and say, Hey, hey, Bob, I had this PTA event and I've really been meeting to meet like Suzy Smith all these years.
Sasha T. | 00:29:22:16 | I just I'm not sure which person she is. I would love to introduce myself. Can you point me to Suzy Smith? So it's like, go and have a purpose. It's not just like chit chat with whoever looks the loneliest, right? It's like, have a purpose and then have the dedicated time the next day to follow up. But make sure you do something with that.
Sasha T. | 00:29:38:16 | Well, because.
Matt M. | 00:29:39:00 | I think so many of us go to like these networking events and then afterwards we're going and getting out of it. Well, you didn't know if you don't know what you want to get out of a meeting or an event, you're not going to get it. So anytime someone invites me, I'll usually say that them like, okay, awesome.
Matt M. | 00:29:51:05 | Like, who should I know here? Like, who is your closest personal connection here? Who can you connect me with that you think we could have a mutually beneficial?
Sasha T. | 00:29:59:01 | Yeah. And even then, shockingly, if you if your goal is I need to collect five business cards from this event, knowing that the next day you have time in your schedule to follow each follow up with each of those five people and invite them to coffee. Then, I mean, that's five new connections that you just established. That's a massive, massive win.
Sasha T. | 00:30:18:09 | It's way more valuable than just chit chatting around with people and then not really knowing the names or their company, not remembering anything afterwards. Even you could go get a chit chat to 25 people and feel like, Oh, I was a social butterfly, I was being seen or I'm seeing it being seen. But if you don't have any new actual, like tangible connections out of it, then I'm not so sure that that serve the purpose.
Sasha T. | 00:30:39:15 | So yeah, I try to tell our folks to be super efficient. Even if you can only spend 20 minutes at a networking event, then you have to go pick up your kids or show a house. If you can get a couple of business cards and then you appropriately follow up with them like you just do that a couple of times a week and think of how you're, you know, you expand.
Matt M. | 00:30:56:20 | Your database grows. I mean, like Nas consistently says that like the average realtor and hopefully none of us are average. The average realtor closes like 7% of their database every year if they reach out eight quality times, not spam. So if you if you add five people a week, that's like an insane amount of money and extra closings for at the end of the year.
Matt M. | 00:31:14:22 | And I feel like minute, like 30 of the podcast, but I want to be respectful of your time. We kind of glossed over something everyone listening like should actually listen to you. Sasha you did a $140 million in sales last year with your team. You don't have a gigantic team. You're not in Miami or California where the average price points like $2 million.
Matt M. | 00:31:34:01 | I mean, the average price in your market in the Charlottesville area is around a little higher than 400. So you guys did like close to 300 units by simply being a presence in the community and using the strategies that you talk about today, Like that's why people should listen to you.
Sasha T. | 00:31:49:01 | As valuable to say this. We don't do any paid like we don't pay for any. It's like our entire team is every deal or not every deal. But you know, we'll get some people off on the sign call or something where we're advertising our listings. All of our business is referral based. It's from our current sphere of people we know and then the people that they know, like we don't pay.
Sasha T. | 00:32:10:06 | And it's just a much more enjoyable lifestyle because we're doing cold leads and like Zillow or whatever, like online leads me to commissions and we used to have way more like online flood of leads coming in. It's like you're always spending your time proving yourself and justifying that you're not sketchy and that you're that you're a good person.
Sasha T. | 00:32:29:04 | And it's like, if we can cut through all of that and already have a warm referral or a warm connection to people, when the business comes in that we can spend our time educating that person and making sure they're making informed real estate decisions and then building our relationship further with them. And that's just way more joyful, right?
Sasha T. | 00:32:45:27 | Like you able to.
Matt M. | 00:32:47:06 | Sell Sasha, if someone listening in another city state has someone moving to the Charlottesville area within, you know, 23 miles, how would they get a hold of you for that referral?
Sasha T. | 00:32:56:01 | Yeah, So well, our phone number is 4342601435. But really, I would say our website is best. So story, how are dot com and that kind of you know that kind of forces you down to the buying side, the selling side are you still several months out but that's the best way to get into our business in terms of like speaking core coaching, that sort of thing.
Sasha T. | 00:33:23:03 | Sasha Trap me dot com. That's my own personal brand tied to like the more of the real estate community. If somebody needs a public speaker at their event or what have you. So those are the two apps.
Matt M. | 00:33:32:22 | And I know on your website you also have like some things agents can just kind of grab. So you have a bidding war bundle, tell people what that is and like why they need it. I think it's the name is self-explanatory, why they need it, but the.
Sasha T. | 00:33:46:13 | Bidding, well, they certainly probably need a little bit more like last year. But, you know, this spring I feel like we're going to have chaos again. I don't know if I don't know how you guys are feeling right now. I feel like a lot of buyers are a little burnt out. So we're not seeing as crazy bidding wars, but bidding war by basically templates that set expectations for the seller themselves, like what it's going to look like, like spreadsheets where you can compare every like every term of the offer side by side.
Sasha T. | 00:34:13:15 | And what's that go out to the agents themselves that explain to them, like when offers are going to be reviewed, what it's going to look like, is it best and final? Are they going to have opportunities to change, you know, to change terms? Are we going to come back to people? So it's basically like start to finish. Every person that needs to be communicated in that situation or communicated with.
Sasha T. | 00:34:34:05 | It's setting their expectations properly and then a place where we can condense all the information so our seller can make a very fast and easy decision. We we have offers or we would get 20 or many houses where we'd get 20 or 30 offers and it would literally take I could speak to my client for 10 minutes and they could make the decision because we had narrowed it down and find that perfectly.
Sasha T. | 00:34:58:05 | So yeah, it's just time saving and it makes your client feel like they can make a super informed decision.
Matt M. | 00:35:02:23 | It's awesome. Sasha, Thank you.
Unknown | 00:35:05:11 | Yeah, Thank you. This property.