Real Estate Smoke & Mirrors, and the 4:30 Psycho Challenge — Ron Howard, MD

In this episode, Josh May and Matt chat with Ron Howard, the dynamic leader of the Greatest Moves Team at RE/MAX Advantage Realty, who has been making waves and creating community in Central Maryland's real estate market since 2005. With nearly a billion in sales, Ron and his team have achieved the rare feat of combining top-tier sales performance with unparalleled customer satisfaction, as reflected in their Zillow reviews.

Ron's journey in real estate began with a series of successful property flips, laying the foundation for his illustrious career. His unique background in sales, IT, video production, and networking has empowered him to harness the power of AI for SEO.

Beyond his professional achievements, Ron is deeply committed to the Baltimore community, serving on boards and committees of respected non-profits and tirelessly working towards its betterment. His approach to real estate is not just about transactions but fostering community growth and support.

Listeners will gain insights into Ron's market trend analyses, property valuation, and his strategic negotiating tactics that ensure the best outcomes for his clients. We'll also dive into his bestselling book, "Create Demand and Stop Chasing Business," which has been a game-changer in the real estate industry, and hear about his founding of the 4:30 psycho challenge, showcasing his dedication to both professional and personal excellence.

Join us as Ron Howard shares his wealth of knowledge, experiences, and the keys to his success in Baltimore's competitive real estate landscape. Whether you're a home buyer, seller, or fellow real estate professional, this episode is packed with valuable insights that you won't want to miss.

See Ron Howard's books on Amazon, or Connect with Josh May

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.
🔑 Treadstone Funding: https://www.treadstonemortgage.com/
🔑 Neighborhood Loans: https://neighborhoodloans.com
🔑 Real Estate Marketing Guide: https://www.amazon.com/TAG-Tangible-Action-Guide-Marketing/dp/1698339747
📲 Learned something new, or have a suggestion? Message Matt Muscat on Instagram! 

🏛️ Treadstone Funding propelled by Neighborhood Loans NMLS 222982 “Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee No. MB.6759826. neighborhoodloans.com/licensing/  For licensing information, go to www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org”

Transcript

(upbeat music) - In that first two weeks, I called 249 people and I got 10 deals under contract by the end of my second month. Going into my third month, I had 10 deals and never slowed down.

(...)

(upbeat music) - When you surround yourself with the best and coolest people in the industry, you tend to meet more of them and have more opportunities. So I want to give a huge shout out. Many of you guys know listening out there that we've had the luxury of having Josh May with the May Group Grand Rapids, co-hosting a lot of episodes. And he is just teeing up some heavy hitters in the industry who think differently. So I think today everybody is gonna learn a different perspective to real estate. We're gonna get a little controversial. It's gonna be fun. But Josh, I'm gonna hand it over to you to tee up our guest today since you know him and you know a lot of like the exciting things he's, we're about to learn about. - Awesome, awesome. Thanks for having me, Matt. And excited to introduce my friend,

(...)

Ron Howard from Baltimore. He's an amazing team leader from the Greatest Move teams. He's a RE-MAX team leader and best-selling author and just an incredible man that I've got to watch his journey over the years and listen to his stories about how he's transformed his business, what he's learned.

(...)

And Ron, I just kind of want to jump into this real quick because like I said, I've seen and heard you talk about this, but I want to dive into your business as a best-selling author, as a team leader. What I've noticed and what we were talking about yesterday is you've written two books and you're working on your third book, which we'll get into. But your first book was "Creating Demand and Stop Chasing Leads," right? And that was back in 2018.(...) And you're running a high-performing real estate team in Baltimore and something changed because you wrote a second book that was much more focused on profitability as a team leader. So let's kind of dive into that and just let's chat from somebody that's selling hundreds and hundreds of homes a year. Talk to me about your journey.

(...)

- So when I started in real estate, I had just had a business that we were shutting down. It was running on fumes

(...)

and I was looking at the real estate landscape.(...) I felt like if I created a brand of these four components,

(...)

I wanted, you know, that I would compete because a lot of agents don't even think of themselves as a brand.

(...)

So I decided I was gonna be the hardest worker, be in the office at 6 a.m. every day, that was my thing. Everybody saw my car in the parking lot early. I thought I was gonna have to go super deep on learning how to connect with people versus selling. I thought this was a relationship game and explored all the different ways that you can connect with people, mental triggers, all kinds of things like that. I felt like building my sphere of influence in the nonprofit world, giving back to the community,(...) was something that would be really big. So I just started volunteering for every type of events, committee, nonprofits, and then eventually joining boards of nonprofits and things like that. And then right before I got in real estate, I had ran into a buddy of mine, he just got his pilot license. Now I live in the city, I've been here since 1995, I knew a lot of people. I thought a lot of people would know me from being out in the bars and restaurants and things like that. So I ran into Jim and he just got his pilot license. And I was like, that's how I want people to think about me, sharp like a pilot. So I enrolled in flight school, scared of the death of flying. I thought I was gonna kill myself, but that was my brand. And when I started reconnecting with my sphere,

(...)

because I kind of like dropped out of going out and everything and people like, how are you doing? I'm like, yeah, I'm working really hard. I haven't done one deal yet. I'm in the office every day at six, halfway through flight school. And people were like, oh really, flight school, oh my God, it's amazing, let's get together. So in that first two weeks, I called 249 people and I got 10 deals under contract by the end of my second month. Going into my third month, I had 10 deals and never slowed down, right? Like I had just bet on this whole branding idea. And then the thing about it was I was coachable, but I just didn't know where to get coaching. And I was on a team, I was doing so much self-gen. I started my own, left there and started my own team. And then over time, you just grow it and grow it and grow it and then 2008 hit, we got really into short sales. So we dipped down a little bit and kept on growing. Before you know it, I had 30 agents on my team. We're doing 540 transactions, 150 million in sales.

(...)

The problem was my,(...) and I wrote a book about it. And once I got to 500 transactions, I was doing some research. Somebody on my team asked me,

(...)

how did you get so good at selling real estate? And I did some Googling. Like I was gonna, I was gonna like, I said, "Look, I'll write you guys a document "and get it to you in like a week." And I did some Googling and they're like, "Hey, if you're really good, "something write a book about it." And I was like, "I'm gonna write four books." So I've actually written three books. I'm finishing my fourth book.

(...)

But the first book was a bestseller on Amazon for like nine months, "Create Demand and Stop Chasing Business." It was about all the things that we did that weren't really taught. We were being taught to cold call and prospect and door knock. And that was about like getting involved in the nonprofit world and just creating that reciprocity at the community level, holding big events, fundraisers. And before you know, you just start getting this, "Hey, come list my house. "Hey, my realtor is gonna kill me, "but you're so involved in this thing "or that thing or whatever."

(...)

There was a time where I had, like every night I had like a nonprofit type event. And so my sphere of influence now is over 2,500 people, but almost all of it is from people that are involved in the community and giving back. And the reciprocity was a huge, super mental trigger.

(...)

It's just never,(...) it's like serve regardless of opportunity. You can't expect business out of it, but it's a good way to be. It's really,(...) you can bet that good things are gonna come from it.

(...)

So I was at an event, probably where I met you, Josh,

(...)

speaking to a crowd of real estate coaches.

(...)

But on the surface, I was number one in our market, when we were the biggest team. I had all these internal problems. I had clicks on my team that didn't get along with each other. The structure didn't scale to that size properly. I could never get everybody to agree to make adjustments so that we could build in the things that we needed. And you just become a volume machine. Like you're adding agents to add more volume, but the margin's just shrinking. And we got our margin down to 10%. It's not a bad living, but it's just a tremendous amount of work for about the same amount of money you were making doing half of the work, right? So that's when I hired Workman Success to rebuild. And I went from 30 to 10 agents, and I just got married.

(...)

And when you're dismantling the money-making side of it, and you still haven't completely dismantled the expenses,

(...)

you know, it's a little stressful. But the other thing too is you think that you're unique once you get into the coaching world. There's hundreds of thousands of teams around the country that grew the same way without having crowdsourced ideas from millionaire real estate agents that you implement. And so with Workman, we completely rebuilt the team. Within two years, I was netting the same amount of money doing half the volume. - Well, do you mind if I dig a little bit deeper into this? Because I just want to get into the psychology piece, because I think there's a, you know, there's a,(...) this is something a lot of agents are actually scared to talk about, they're embarrassed to talk about, because they're on the surface, everybody thinks they're running this amazing business. But internally, you're like,(...) you know, you kind of feel like, gosh, am I faking this? Like, am I, you know, like, how did you actually feel? And like, what was the trigger for you to make that decision to go from a 30 person team to just say, you know what, I'm not gonna do this anymore, I'm gonna fix it, and I'm gonna do it the right way? Like, how did you feel and what made that, make you make that decision?

(...)

- So,(...) it was, I went to lunch with Lee Tessier.

(...)

- Lee Tessier is a top producing agent in Baltimore, right? - No, he's Howard North of us, he's in Hartford County.

(...)

He, on paper, I look like the bigger agent. I've always, you know, I always did more. At that point, I always did more volume and more transactions. And we sat down, we were talking about getting together to create this like, local sort of Facebook crew coaching platform to recruit to. He's a little bit more North than I am. And he just started showing me like his P&L statements, everything he's tracking, profitability.

(...)

Like he had been coached from a second year in real estate. I had just kind of, you know, watched YouTube videos as I needed it as, you know, I was like, I gotta figure this out, you know? And so it's not uncommon, you know, you just sort of like patchwork things together. And I was blown away by Lee. I was like, oh my God, like, you know, his profitability was like three times my profitability.

(...)

And, you know, the only thing I had was it looked like I was a bigger agent. Like, and that's really, you know, and the more you get into the coaching world, you're like, wow, you know, like there are, it's not uncommon. Cause if you break down like the profit you're making from your team and then look at what you're generating and looking at what your expenses are, like it's pretty common that a lot of teams are just an assemblage of agents that just promote that they're great because they do all this volume, but there is no cohesiveness. There's no structure. Nobody's leading by example. They don't, you know, they're not, you know, they're not, they're not, they're not, the1111enteer, the

(...)

you if your customer goes with that other agent. And it's the kind of the whole smoke and mirrors of our industry. And it doesn't always make sense to be to be that team. I love that point. I think everyone should really think about what their goal is when it comes to when it comes to real estate, growing a team, etc.

(...)

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 DM on Instagram, or if you find my email, send it that way. The more feedback that I get helps me to put together better shows and attract better guests.

(...)

You know, it's easy to get going,(...) you know, especially you're younger, you're connected to a lot of people. And then, you know, people want to join your team because they see the volume and success you're doing. And it's easy to grow that in a

(...)

less than perfect system. You know, it just is it. And then,(...) you know, a lot of teams implode, you know, because what I did, it was a lot of work, it was, you know, it was it was difficult, it was tough, it was. But it had to be done at some point, it was like, at some point, I gotta, I gotta pit stop this business and rebuild it, I gotta get into, you know, just restructure it and, you know, build a new team around that. So I think a lot of people get into the volume, then if you if your net margin goes down, you start to figure out profit.(...) And then you got to really focus on consumer, you know, the consumer experience. That 100%(...) 100%. So you took that realization. And I saw this happening, because this is right when I met you. And you know, you, you, what we're learning is, you know,(...) finding some great mentors, finding some great coaching, you know, lashing on to people that are doing great things. And this is where I met Ron, who was in the coaching community. And I saw this transition where you said, you know what, enough is enough. And you wrote a book about it. And tell me, tell me how your life has changed since you wrote the book profitability and performance pit stops of real estate rock stars, like tell me how your life has truly changed.(...) So you know, I had committed to writing four books.(...) I promised myself I would do that. And the reasoning was I would learn, as I grew my business and developed it, the things that I hadn't figured out to that point, I would learn and research and go super deep on deep enough that I could write a book and share it with people. So there is a altruistic sort of like I want to help people, but it is primarily self serving, like where I can learn something deep enough to actually write about it. So I told real workmen, if we got my business back to running profitably and structured, all the right seats and all the right people and the right job and grow this thing. I'd write about it. And so November 15 2019, I said, Alright, I'm gonna write I'm gonna write this. And at the time, I was getting up at like 530. I decided to start getting up at four o'clock. I have not missed a day. I've not missed one day since November 15 2019. And I would sit down and I'd write from I've do some chores and write from 430 to 730 every morning.(...) Right around that time COVID kicked in. We also got pregnant. My wife got pregnant while I was writing this book. So it was really the thing that I really that was every day the thing I knew if I focused in the morning, one hour a day across across the year, that's 365 days, multiply that out. That's 15 20th hour days I added to my calendar at the beginning. And(...) that was just to write this second book, which ended up being you know, really big book and got really good reviews and everything.(...) And my life changed, you know, so we at the end of it took me 13 months to write that book. And we had just had our son and I got into really thinking about like a like, like a what I call a lifestyle framework. So that whole getting up at four in the morning,(...) the first year was for the book, the second year was because it really gave me a lot of time with my son. Once he got up, I took him until our old pair took over at eight o'clock. And then since he's born, and I've been out of town twice, but I get home every day at five o'clock every day, and I barely work on the weekends. So the number one thing in my life is that I get home at five and hang out with my son. So I don't steal I'm really big enough stealing time from like my son or my community or my friends or my or my family(...) to do my moonshot activities, you know, really swinging for the fences and getting your business next level. That all happens from 4.30 to 7.30 in the morning. And I do it every day have not missed a day. And yeah, so that's that's, yeah, that's amazing. I'm gonna dig into that. Because you know, I've been calling my while I've been like faking calling myself a psycho, which we're going to talk about the psycho challenge in a minute here. But I just kind of want to recap this so we can people can visualize this journey, right? So here's a team leader that you know, on the outside, the perception was you forgot it all you got 30 agents 500 600 700 deals, right? I think yeah, right around no, no children, you know, just getting married at that time.(...) And what you did is you made a massive change. And you have scaled back the amount of agents, right? You're back to what eight agents or so or 10 or 10 agents. So you have reduced your agents from 30 to 10. And how much more to 10 up to 15. And now we're at 10. And that's probably where we'll be for a little bit. And how much more profitable are you now than when you were at that 550 deals?

(...)

Well, with more tinkering to, you know, we replaced a lot of employees with like TC services and things like that, that scaled down as the volume of the last last year, two years have scaled down. But we're, we're, we're like right around 25%.(...) So almost three times almost three times more profitable. We're good. Like my business skills. I'm, you know, we have over 940 reviews and Zillow. Our Google reviews are growing. We're really focused on the consumer experience and the smoke and mirrors part of it. I laugh about I make fun of it. I because there's a whole other generation of people that are feeling the pain of a big team that doesn't make a lot of money for the for the amount of work, right? And right?

(...)

Yeah, you know, yeah. Well, and I want to jump in because you know, what I what I what I find amazing about you is I'll ask you some questions like, Hey, Ron, are you are you going to this conference? Are you doing that? And you you are one of the people that point blank, you're at a point in your life where you just don't care about the ego part of this business. And this is a piece of how old is your son now?

(...)

Three years old, right? So I'm just trying to, again, share a visualization of somebody that has made some drastic changes in his life with a three year old son. And part of this was because you had your son, right? And you've also been vocal about eliminating negative things from your life, negative toxins, like alcohol, right?(...) You've been vocal about that, how much time that has given you back. And then I just want to dig into,

(...)

you know, what this is what the transitions look like into the psycho challenge. Okay. So it's all a part of the story. Massive changes, massive commitments, eliminating ego, being profitable, spending time with who you believe is the most important people in your life, right, which is your son and your wife, and just kind of dig into those changes right now.(...) Yeah, so November 15, 2019, when I started getting up at four o'clock, I also stopped drinking just because I, you know, I drank one night a week, but I didn't want to feel good, you know, one to two nights a week. So I averaged I averaged 75 days of not feeling my best. So cut that out. You know, it's a lot of time really analyzed my where I was spending time, I didn't want to be spending two hours a night at the end of the night watching TV, I wanted to take that time, put it in the morning and then you just adjust your your framework, I call it a lifestyle framework. And I really focused on, like, how do I, number one, hang out and not still time for my son, which that was easy, like get home at five.(...) But how do I swing, you know, I call it moonshot thinking, JFK had this speech about getting to the moon, they call it the moonshot speech. And it's like, if you keep on working and working and working, it's like the compound effect. It's, you know, like, I need that time, I need that three hours in the morning.(...) And then so I really focused that time on success, have a fitness commitment, a weight commitment, a clarity commitment, family, community and relationships and sleep. So you know, I believe in that good quote about small hinges swing, small hinges swing big doors. And so I can like, just focus on these little concepts, it's going to open up all the all the big things I want. And, you know, so last year, or just over a year and a half ago,(...) somebody told my sister in law, they didn't believe I was up every morning at four. And, and at the same time, I had a friend of mine who was having problems with alcohol asked me if I could mentor him and getting better. I said, Look, I'm gonna, I always wanted to do this kind of like hard 75, I want to create this challenge. And I want to implement all of these commitments, I think that they're each one of them is a little small commitment, if you can do it for 90 days, which ended up being too long, a lot of people tried it, but couldn't do it 90 days. So we re rewrote it this past year, and now it's a 30 day challenge. So every morning, we do a 430 accountability call, it goes live on on YouTube and Facebook and this little private group and got people to come on and they're doing the same thing. So they're spending three hours a day, they're working out at least 30 minutes a day, they're, they have a diet that has less than 2000 calories and eating good, no sugar, eight glasses of water, no alcohol,(...) for the family community relationships, we narrowed it down to making three calls a day to stay in stay in touch and nurture those relationships with people important, and you got to be in bed by 930. So that was a challenge.(...) It was funny because the person that I wrote the challenge for didn't take it and(...) be the person that told my sister in law, they didn't believe I you know, they didn't get involved or anything. But

(...)

yeah, so I go live if you go to, you know, 430 psycho calm, it's got the whole challenge and then our 430 psycho YouTube channel, you can see the 10 million accountability calls. And yeah, I think it's amazing. I think it's amazing. So I want to repeat that because it's 430 psycho calm and rounded about rounded, I've been talking about this in his real estate professionals. I mean, a lot of us have personality styles that

(...)

were very driven, where we've got the entrepreneurial mindset.

(...)

But a lot of us have personalities that we sometimes need to make massive changes in our life and make massive decisions. And this is a massive decision that you have made. And I've heard about other people that have joined this challenge. You were telling me, you know, just the other day about a mother with four kids that like she she has to, in order for her to function at a high level throughout the day and to take care of her business in her family, like she has to execute these three hours to get her life back. Is that right? I believe she's got to start her day for she's single mom, four kids, got a bunch of business owners that come on. We have a we created a tracker where you can log in and just time, time stamps, your login.(...) And then so now we do it for 30 days. And the first batch of people doing it for 30 days are just finishing. So it's pretty cool. It gives you 90 hours in that one month before 730 in the morning, right? If you do it at you know, seven days a week. And it's cool. It's easy. I mean, I do it every day. So it was easy to create a challenge and then say, Look, of course, I'm doing it. Continue to do it. And I think that's what people need to hear with stuff like this. I mean, we all got to admit like that first day, that first day, that second day, yeah, it's difficult. It's difficult to wait. I know I wake up at 445 every morning. And it's difficult to get that first one or two under your belt. But once you get to day three, once you get to day four becomes easier, easier, easier. And you're five years into this. And it's like clockwork, right? It doesn't affect you at all. It's a part of your lifestyle. I'm in the beginning of my fifth year. And yeah, it's just it's just how I do it. So if I like couple days ago, I woke up, I didn't feel like getting up. And I have this thing where I don't let my feelings make my decisions. I said, of course, I'm getting up. I gotta do this call, you know,(...) you know, so yeah, I don't I don't I don't make decisions with feelings. And I feel like this. Do you feel like your clients have really got to know you better? Because you're so vocal about these really cool and big things you're doing? Right? I know you mentioned you live stream these. Do you do you hear? How do your clients react to this? Is that become like a major conversation piece with your customers? It's it's improved, you know, them seeing you as more than just the realtor. So one of our commitments to the challenge is scarcity, we'd actually don't promote it. We actually have a commitment that says that maybe mention it once or twice in social media, but we want people that you're surrounded by to see this change without getting the play by play.(...) So now, I mean,(...) here and there, but it's really for anybody that wants to participate and change their life. It's not really to, you know, it's not to smoke and mirrors, right? It's not the hey, I'm making all this change and that everything it just drizzles out doing it for you first. That's right. Yeah. So if you actually go to 430 psycho.com, you'll see one of the commitments is not to like, let everybody know how you're changing. Like when I first started in the business, I peg these like four commitments of my brand, and then just kind of dipped out of like my social scene.(...) It, you know, it's nobody knew what was happening. But when I made these calls and called 249 people that knew, I knew in those conversations, how it was going to trigger people, right? And so I just think it's better that if you start losing weight, and you're getting more done, and you're, you're, you got more energy, and you're, you're spending more time with your family and your wife or your partner. And you're, you know, helping, you know, do a fundraiser that you never did before, like all that time, like being able to work on things in the morning, and then and then open up the time, instead of working till eight or nine o'clock every night, like a lot of realtors do. That's, that's what I want. I'm doing it. And I really like it's like, anybody that wants to do it great.(...) If you don't, that's great. But I don't want people doing it for two weeks and putting it all over social media then and then failing.

(...)

Neighborhood Realtor podcast is proudly made possible in support of our sponsors, Treadstone funding and neighborhood ones, two amazing Midwest mortgage companies that now have offices all around the country country. If you're a real estate agent looking to partner with an amazing lender, DM me at m must be 88. And I'll connect you with someone in your market. If you're a lender and you want to join the mortgage company DM me and I'll connect you as well.

(...)

You know, that's, that's what they say with these challenges, right? If you go, you know, I remember one of the statements when I did I completed that 75 hard challenge. And this always stuck with me, it was, it was, it was going to be more impactful by me failing that challenge than committing. So I love what you said, like, let's not do things for a week. Let's not do things for, you know, 14 days. Because if you if you go into that with I'm just going to do it until I fail, then it's going to have a serious negative impact on your lifestyle.(...) Let's complete these challenges. Let's make like, you know, long term commitments. So I think it's a great mindset 100%.

(...)

Yeah, there was a guy today, he just hit 30 days. And he's like, I'm coming back tomorrow. I'm not stopping. You know, yeah. And that's, that's cool. It's it's literally changing his life like he's embracing it's not for everybody.(...) Once you adjust to it, you know, like you when you wake up for the first time at four o'clock, you were tired that night, you were gonna sleep deeper than you've ever slept.(...) He set the alarm clock and do it again. And by the third day, it's just like traveling to England and having your clock adjust, you know,(...) right?(...) Well, I got to be honest with you. For the listeners viewers, I feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface here. And I think, you know, today, this was all about, you know, Ron, being open and honest with being in an unprofitable situation and making those changes, and then really taking what's important to him in life with his with his son with his wife, and really making a commitment to those lifestyle changes, the lifestyle framework. And this is after five years, like I've seen this happen. So it's a great story for us all to reflect on how we want to make changes in our life. But I mean, to be honest with you, this, it doesn't stop here with Ron is what I'm trying to say. Because if you've got more time, if the viewers have more time, listeners have more time, you got to get on you got to get on Google and just check into some of these books, right? Like I said, profitability and performance pit stops with real estate rock stars. It's on Amazon, create demand, stop chasing business. It's on Amazon.(...) Google Ron because he was starting to get into all of the stuff that he does in the community. And he's got the third book 430 psycho challenge, which if you want to dig deep 430 psycho.com. What we didn't dig into in depth today, which I want the listeners to know is how much Ron has been involved in his community out of any real estate agent, I know, he's bought into the city of Baltimore, he's always doing community events, he's always got such a large sphere, and he's made that commitment. And he's running a business that a lot of agents can admire and want to be can you just touch on that just briefly, Ron, because I think that's something I've always admired about you is the amount of community events you guys do.

(...)

I'm all touristic. I love I'm economic and I'm driven by a altruism and economics. So I like making money, but I like helping people. And initially, when I decided, okay, I'm going to give back to the community as a branding idea, I realized I really enjoy it. So it's a good way to be a good motivator, if you know, disk, to be,(...) you know, in real estate, you're helping people with, you know, tough transactions, but out in the community, I really enjoy helping it. So we're involved in a whole, you know, a laundry list of different things. And it feels good.(...) I hate talking about what happens because it almost

(...)

seems like you can't be you can't expect business out of it. But if you do it without any expectation of business, which is the key, you'll kill it once you do something for a day, then start like talking about like, you know, maybe you could refer business to me or any kind of like silliness like that, just go out, you serve your community, serve regardless of opportunity, and serve and serve and serve, and it will be noticed and people will hire you instead of their past realtor, because they love the SPCA or they love Ronald McDonald house, or they love believe in tomorrow, or they, you know, they love the cause that you're working in. So it was just, it was a branding idea initially. And that's just something that became part of me and you're going to mature one way or another, right? Like, so you gotta, you gotta have a vision of how you want to grow yourself as a person. And then we are a lot of us we are our business, right? So like, I have really simple concepts from from the very beginning, like, and that's one of the things now, if you ask 10 agents, like, what, how do you define your brand? Like, I can tell you, because mine was like very specific, right out of the gate. And I would say probably two or three might be able to answer that question.(...) Like, I just got into real estate, I, you know, like, I really became a whole I became another person, like, I became a better person. And I think the more you do it.(...) For me, back in 2019, I was like, I'm getting rid of every bad habit, replacing it with a good habit. And I'm gonna have, like, it's confusing, everybody's pulling it in all these different directions. Like, if I can lock into, you know, like, if I work out a half hour every day, I know I'm going to keep slim, you know, if I keep my diet great, I know I'm going to stay slim. I know if I make three calls a day to my friends, family and community, or people involved in different nonprofits, I'm going to stay nurtured where I need to be. I know if I don't drink alcohol, I'm not going to mess things up. And I'm gonna get a lot of time back. I know if I get up at four, I'm going to work three hours every morning. And I'm gonna spend a lot of time with my son. And I'm still going to do a lot of a lot of good business like we've been doing. So the thing about I would say generally, the commitment to consistency and accountability is undefeated.

(...)

There's a lot of blues. I love it, you know, you can backfill you can backfill in all the other stuff that you're going to be coached and learn about. So I love it. You know, I got a sign above my door because I'm a big football fan. It says champions run towards accountability.(...) I see it every single day I walk in the door. And that's a huge thing, man, commitment. And I you said one more thing, which I think people need to understand because I've been saying this for years now, real as real estate professionals, we all have the opportunity to define the business that we want to run to define the brand that we want to be. And there's a lot of different things that real orders can be great at. But at the end of the day, we all have a choice. So realtors need to dig deep and understand like who do they want to be in this business? Do they want to be community based? Do they want to be like nonstop heavy prospecting machines? I mean, you name it, there's all sorts of avenues to be undefeated in this business like you said. And if you don't have like if you don't have that, you can't isolate what that thing is and what direction you're running and what your what your passion in this business or in your community is. That's your right this down moment for right now figure that out and the rest will follow. So real simply when I was getting into real estate, I was like, okay, everybody I know knows five real estate agents. How do I get somebody to say, Hey, I think Ron's a better pick than my friend I've known for 15 years has been doing real estate for 10 years. You know, cannot cannot cannot can I become the hardest worker by being in the you know, in the office at 6am, which I did for many years until now I'm getting up at four and and it's that's different but is he chasing me? Is he prospecting me? Is he cold calling me? Or is he just trying to be my friend? Which that from the very beginning, I was like, I'm going to be a friend to as many people as I can. Not a salesperson.(...) Does this other view these other people give back to the community or they as involved. And then the whole sharp like a pilot thing was this really odd thing that I thought was really cool and thought I was gonna kill myself. But I'm a pilot. I got my pilot license in six months and I'm sharp like a pilot, which transcended into how I do business, you know, so my brand, like from the get go was really like really thought out in those four components of it. And, you know, it's just evolved from there. So this is awesome. Well, I mean, I I don't know this is you might have to throw this into two or three segments, Matt, we got a lot of good information here. This was an awesome, awesome episode today.(...) Guys, Ron, Josh, thank you so much. I think everyone should have a couple takeaways. And the only thing I want to end on is there is something really, really smart Ron said at the very beginning of the episode that we glossed over mentioned the importance of ensuring that every agent really every business person has and understands their P&L is you can't really understand the profitability of your business and start to make decisions on what your next steps are going to be, what your how big your team is going to be what the goals for the next year is unless you know, your P&L and have one. So I want to make sure people don't gloss that over because it's a huge, huge piece. And it works for every top producing agent and business person. So Ron, Josh, thank you so much for being on the show today.

(...)

Absolutely, Ron. Hey, tell everybody how they can find you though. Because again, I know I've been pumping up your books and all that good stuff, but people are gonna want to check all this stuff out. If you want to find me, it's easy on Amazon. But I would say if you really want to find me go to 430 psycho.com. And if you're in the Eastern Standard time zone, and you want to make a big impact in your life and get yourself 90 hours a month where the phone's not ringing, and hold yourself accountable to, you know, getting a new license or getting a new skill or learning something where you can make huge, huge impact for you and your family.(...) For three psycho dot com is the best way to find me. Awesome. Thanks, everybody.(...) All right, have a good day, guys.