Conquering the Impossible Through the Relentless Pursuit of Greatness with Sandee Payne

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. Erica, thanks for joining us. Thank you, good morning.

My lovely co-host. It is the morning after the Super Bowl. We are- Tired.

A little tired. We’re not hungover.

[Erica]
We’re not, but we’re just tired.

[Mattias]
It was a big weekend because it was also our daughter’s birthday. And so we had a lot of things going on.

[Erica]
Yep, we had the Super Bowl upstairs and the heiress tour playing in the downstairs. So we had simultaneous Super Bowl party, birthday party last night.

[Mattias]
Yeah, yeah. So we’re tired, but it was a good time. Yeah, I wanted to chat a little bit.

So our guest today is Sandy Payne. Sandy achieved a really amazing thing. She said she was like basically called out on stage to do a really big, set a really big goal for herself and then basically come back and report on whether she did it or not.

We’ll not get into the details of it, but I thought it was really interesting to hear about. So she had this audacious, huge goal that she felt really, really compelled to actually get. And I feel like when you’re setting goals for yourself, it’s not always that way.

Or I don’t know, maybe that’s just me. I feel like when I set a goal for myself, I will often be okay with getting most of the way there. And I think that by setting this huge, crazy goal, and if I get like three-fourths of the way, 80% of the way, 90% of the way, that’s way further than I would have gotten if I hadn’t set that goal.

And that’s kind of one of the mindsets I have. I mean, how would you approach that kind of thing?

[Erica]
Well, what comes to mind is our debt payoff.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Erica]
Because that was a big goal to us at the time and we did have to pull really hard focus and make a lot of lifestyle changes and we did finish it.

[Mattias]
Yeah, we did, we did. We got to, yeah. I mean, we didn’t have like a hard when it was gonna be paid off.

It was just like we’re throwing everything we can at it. And the only thing that we did have a kind of more of a hard line on was the great compromises, as I like to call it, where we were gonna start trying for a kid once we hit 80% with the intent of being paid off by the time said kid came, which we did.

[Erica]
But currently, this is not a great answer, but I tend to not make goals. So then, I was actually telling somebody the other day at the gym that I don’t do these like 75 hard challenges or things like that because I lose motivation for them. And because I tend to be a pretty consistent person in general and so like my lifestyle changes, I just run with.

I don’t tend to be like an up and down type of person. So that’s not a great, that’s a growth area for me is to make a goal and stick to it probably.

[Mattias]
Well, and I think, I mean, if we wanna be real, I think that you probably would be less okay with not achieving the goal than I would be, I’m guessing. Or like the amount of failure, maybe, it could be a way to call it, but I think that’s probably more true for you than me. So I think it’s just interesting how you really have to understand yourself and understand kind of what motivates you, what gets you to the finish line, or gets you just further along when you’re thinking about big, hairy goals, I forget if that’s Atomic Habits, I bet they talk about that, but yeah.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about goal setting and how to track and all that kind of stuff because it is not, like the tracking part for me is not natural and that’s really forced and hard and not something I really like to do. But for me, maybe leading a group of people to do a goal, big hairy goal, would actually motivate me to track or have somebody track for me. So it’s like just how you approach something that you can really maximize the end result.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yeah, one goal I have, I don’t even know if I wanna call it a goal. See, again, goal probably also includes a clearly identified finish line, which I don’t necessarily have.

But one thing I have been tracking dutifully has been my alcohol intake. And so I’ve had an app with that that I’ve used for the last three months where I’ve been able to see stats on how many drinks I’ve had. And I think my goal that I have in the app is two a week.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Erica]
And I think it’s right around four right now. But that’s something that I’ve been tracking. And the other thing that I’ve been trying to do that I haven’t been great with is the one line a day journal.

[Mattias]
Hmm. Yeah.

[Erica]
That’s my two.

[Mattias]
Yeah. So I mean, think about your own way you achieve things. And if you are goal-oriented, goal-focused, if you’re creating safe goals, then you need to challenge yourself a little bit.

This podcast is gonna be great to hear her story and hear how she did it. Not everybody is gonna be presented a challenge on stage like her. But how do you kind of replicate things like that for yourself?

And just quickly before we get into it, I was thinking she had this big public accountability. And I think that one of the things that I didn’t realize I do, but I definitely do is when I have some kind of vision or some kind of goal for myself, I’m talking to everybody about it. And it creates this like huge accountability thing, right?

Like if I have mentioned to everybody that I plan on doing this thing and I don’t or I fail at it, yeah, it’s just harder than if you just keep that goal to yourself. So that’s maybe another way you could kind of replicate what she did, how she got to where she did with her goal. But before I keep talking vaguely about it, let’s let Sandy talk about it herself.

So without further ado, Sandy Payne. Welcome back to the REI Agent. I am here with Sandy Payne.

Sandy, thank you so much for joining us today.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

[Mattias]
Sandy, you are a realtor and we will dive into some of the cool things you have done here in a minute. But can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into real estate?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, so for 23 years, I traveled the world supporting my husband in the military. We got married, moved out of my house. We never lived together.

It was one of those like move out of mom and dad’s house into a married life. And immediately he was deploying and he was gone and going through the whole family growth and moving many times. I think we moved nine times from stateside all the way in Europe as well.

It kind of gave us a really interesting sense of home. I like to kind of say that because a lot of times you move around in the military and everything feels so temporary all the time. You’re like, well, don’t get too settled because we’re gonna move.

Don’t get too settled because we’re gonna move. And that’s kind of the life you live. You get close with friends.

Your children get close with friends and then everybody’s uprooted and having to just kind of have this rinse and repeat life. But one of the things that I really took to heart was how important establishing kind of that home base, regardless knowing if we were gonna move in 10 months or two years, really having a space for my family to feel like it truly was home, whether it was from decorating or just creating just as normal family habits and really being cognizant to never say things like don’t get too settled or don’t get too close to your friends because we’re just gonna leave.

The other neat thing is like we were all in the same environment. It’s like all of our friends, all of our social dynamic, even at the schools on every level, we all were living in this kind of cyclical life. And I learned that a lot of people really found like you just bloom where you’re planted.

Like you’re not guaranteed anything. So just make the most of what you have. And moving from here over to Germany, we lived in Germany for seven years, one of the things that I really kind of always had a gift was I love design and I love decorating.

And I looked at every home or apartment or wherever we lived as an opportunity to like, how do we create this? How do we use what we have? How do we get, maybe this time our tablecloth has become a window treatment, right?

Like using what you have and accessing different furniture pieces to make it work around the house. And what happened was I got into such a pattern that I could literally unpack our house in like two weeks, you would feel like we lived there for everywhere, which is funny because it started to become a job. So I would actually started my decorating business, pre real estate decorating business in helping other military families establish their homes and get set up so that they could really feel established for the time that they were there with their family, you know, before they moved.

So long story short, we wind up here in Central Texas, we buy our first home, terrifying, that was terrifying.

[Mattias]
And- We had to stay there for more than nine months.

[Sandee Payne]
We actually got to stay, we thought maybe just two years, but we were at a point in our life where we thought it would be a good investment, you know, to kind of start buying a house. And I remember words like escrow, like these words were like, these are really big like banking words. And we were terrified.

We had a wonderful real estate agent who was older and very fatherly and just walked us through the process. So we felt really good. And then, you know, after 23 years of my husband serving and me living here, I wound up building my own interior decorating business.

So it became a business here, literally one with like a brick and mortar. We just kept staying here. My husband kept deploying to Iraq and just all of that was happening.

And we became really, really established so much so that I started working for a lot of real estate agents. So they were calling me to have me come in and say, hey, can you help us get this home ready for sale? Can you help us stage, declutter?

And I was offering kind of decorating services to other real estate agents.

[Mattias]
Sure.

[Sandee Payne]
And as my husband’s career was progressing and retirement was like really right around the corner, I was like, you know, I think when you retire, I think I’m gonna get my real estate license because I feel like I have a skillset in the design and decorating element that a lot of realtors don’t have. And so it kind of became my niche when I got into real estate. It’s kind of what I became and still I’m known for is getting in there and really creating a space to be able to sell it from a remodeling perspective, how to use your money wisely, what should you do to prioritize when it comes to getting the house ready.

So, and now here I am like 11 years later, real estate agent in this market and yeah, just loving it.

[Erica]
That’s awesome. Do you tend to work with military families coming in looking for a home?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, majority of our clients are military. You know, here at Fort Cavasos, it’s the largest army military base. And so we have a lot of influx.

And with that being said, it’s a really reasonable price point. So a lot of families come in and they do make this an investment. They know coming in that they may not be here forever, but it’s really affordable for them to be able to find that first home, have that first investment experience and then keep it as a rental as they go ahead and progress.

Some people wind up coming back after they retire, but a lot of them just keep it as a rental and an investment opportunity.

[Erica]
Yeah, I just wanted to say, when you were talking about moving from place to place and growing where you’re planted, I also moved a lot growing up and I was often asked if my parents were in the military and they’re both pastors. It’s like the other one, you know, that tends to move a lot. Well, we tended to move about every year or two after I was about 12.

And so, and I remember going into new communities and somewhat struggling with, I don’t know how long I’m gonna stay here and so how attached do I get to the people that I’m around? But then also building systems, like I’m gonna join a sports team, even though I’m not great at volleyball, I’m gonna join it just so I can get some friends and figure out how to kind of build your community around you. And I think that’s really cool, kind of me reflecting as that experience as a child, how you created a sense of home for your kids and to help them feel like no matter where we are, here’s our home base and to help them feel that.

So I think that’s such a cool gift that you gave them. Hopefully they felt that way too.

[Sandee Payne]
They did, I really think they do. And it’s funny, because they look at a lot of their friends, you know, they’re a little older, they’re empty nested, but they look at a lot of their friends and they’re like, what do you mean you’ve never left? Like, what do you mean you’ve never moved?

It’s hard for them to even understand, like, why wouldn’t you go live other places and meet other people? So I hope that we did a good job. I feel like we did a good job with them.

[Erica]
Yeah, yeah. Was there a point in time where you realized that you had lived where you are now longer than you had ever lived anywhere with your husband?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, after two years. After two years. Yeah, after two years.

They’re like, wow, we’re actually here. I mean, deployments were a blessing in disguise because it did really root the kids and it really rooted us in the community. So when that option for retirement, I said, I just don’t think we’re gonna uproot again.

Like, I had one already out living on his own. My other was getting ready to be a junior in high school. And I was like, I just think these are the so most important years.

And at that time, we had gotten here, I mean, we had been living here, gosh, seven years. I mean, it was like, we were here a long time. So talk about feeling established compared to anything else we ever experienced.

And so part of that is one of the reasons, he decided at the time when he was able to retire, that we took that retirement and just really focused on family. We don’t live in the same house. We moved one more time.

You would think that we would have just stayed, stayed quiet, but I’m like, let’s just do this one more time.

[Erica]
Yeah, well, you’re so good at it. I mean, might as well.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, but we realized where we were living once the kids were out of the house, like we didn’t need to be in the subdivision where the schools and all of that. We built our, what we call our forever, hopefully forever home. We built what we wanted.

Yeah, we live out in the country. And I still drive back to the exact same town every day to work, which is funny, but.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. I have to ask, we don’t have to dwell on it too long, but where were you in Germany?

[Sandee Payne]
We started off in Vilseck and then Wurzburg, Bomberg and Wurzburg. So we moved three times while there for seven years.

[Mattias]
Wow, okay.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
I lived in Gießen for six months. I know there’s a military base there. Yeah.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Sandee Payne]
It was a really neat experience. It’s not what it was today, you know, what it is today than it was there, but I think it was really neat. We took high advantage of the fact we were living there and traveled and exposed, you know, our kids to all kinds of cultures and just really, it’s really made them like wholesome people as adults.

[Mattias]
I love that. Yeah, that’s such a good thing to give to kids. Different perspectives.

I mean, I think that’s one of the definite benefits of traveling, probably not just internationally, but certainly internationally helps too, but just giving them that perspective of people think about things differently. People do things differently in different parts of the world. And so, yeah, you’ve got to think a little bit about where other people are coming from and how maybe question you’re just, yeah, what you believe is just concrete.

It’s not necessarily, there’s different ways of doing things.

[Erica]
Well, we also, we took the kids, so Mattias’ mom is Swiss and her whole family still lives over in Switzerland. And we took the kids over in July and they met a lot of their cousins for the first time. Huge family.

But I remember thinking it was such a good experience for them to be in a place where they don’t speak the language and to not be able to communicate and to have to figure that out. And they loved it over there. They had such a great time.

But yeah, definitely, I think, pushed them a little bit in a good way. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[Mattias]
All right, so let’s get into your real estate sales a little bit. So you said you kind of focus on the military family, serving them. What other things have, I mean, you incorporated your design.

What other strategies have you used to succeed in the real estate sales?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, I think a lot of people, we’re heavy listing. We list a lot of homes. And our whole brand is designed to sell.

Like, that’s what we do. We really focus on people who wanna use what they have and really kind of uncovering all of the hidden dollars. We say, the dollars are in the details.

So we like to go in and we define, like, how can we showcase? How can we feature? How can we present your property where every detail has a dollar attached to it?

So we can get the most for your home and we can make it most appealing for everybody. Not just in the home, but when it comes to our whole experience, I think we get sometimes really hung up on like the listing presentation rather than the relationship side of actually like, how can I help this family? How can we use what they have?

Which is really challenging because not everyone’s a beautiful designer, right? Like, rarely do you walk into a home when it’s like show home ready. So it causes a lot of these challenges.

And we all look at homes. We see homes for sale, you know, all the time. I mean, if you’re a human, you’re looking at homes that are for sale, whether you’re watching it on TV.

And it’s really, really important to really understand presenting that home from every aspect of the marketing, to the branding, to the video, like all the things. But if you don’t have a fantastic product to sell, right? Which is the home, it makes it a little bit more challenging.

You know, more challenges come up, more obstacles come up, more objections come up. And so being able to start the relationship with the prospective seller or even buyer, you know, it’s kind of a different approach and be able to say, hey, look, we’re not here to tell you to clean. We’re not here to tell you to declutter, right?

Like those are just such big words, but what we’re here to do is actually uncover the value, uncover the hidden value in your home to make sure that if you have to do an update, you know, it might be less expensive to do a small update now than have your house sit on the market for three months because it becomes the problem of the house. And so really taking the time on the forefront of listing, not just rushing to get the sign in the yard, which I think is a really big habit. Everyone’s like, oh, I got a new listing.

Let me like, how fast can I get it on the market? We dial that back and we say, okay, look, we’re gonna craft this experience. We’re gonna customize this experience to really set you up for success.

That is all up for success. I’d rather you slow down. Let’s take a month or six weeks and really analyze every aspect of the home, do what we can up front because it’s gonna make the presentation.

It’s gonna make it easier for us to sell this product. I liken it to like, if you’re gonna go buy a new car and you’re gonna trade in a car, you don’t just roll up to the dealer with like McDonald’s cups and dust and like, you know what I mean? You take the time and you really dive into your car because every little piece of dust you think is a dot, like I’ll get more if it’s completely spotless, if it shows well, if it’s presented well.

We’re doing the same thing for your home. We don’t want you to lose money because it sits on the market or people just can’t see themselves there, can’t see past your life and imagine their own life in it. So we really take the time to build that relationship.

Presentations are one thing that’s just data, right? But I think creating that curated experience so they really feel listened to, they understand why we’re asking them to do the things that we’re asking them because then we can kind of foresee the outcome of whatever their motivation is. You know, whether they wanna sell quickly or they wanna get top dollar or they’re not in a rush.

You know, if the right person comes along, love those. Right person comes along and wants to give us what we want, we’re like, oh, great, like. It’s happening forever, right?

And so we really dial into what is it they need from the sale and how do we bring our services in to make that the most successful for them.

[Mattias]
What, how much are your clients often investing in getting their house ready? So, I mean, I think, you know, brainstorming through like, you know, paint, obviously sometimes flooring, kitchen, baths. I mean, what are we looking at here?

[Sandee Payne]
I mean, we see a range everywhere from, you know, $500. You know, it might just, we sell a lot of VA, you know, a lot of VA loans. And so your criteria of home condition with the appraisal is a little more stringent than some of the other traditional.

So we go in there too and we say, hey, there’s a little bit of like wood rot on the outside of your windows or around the chimney or, you know, this is gonna be something with the VA. All it’s gonna take is my contractor and a couple hundred. Or you, like, get on the ladder.

Like, I don’t care who does it. Like, let’s knock these things out. Or hire your Uncle Bobby, like now, to do it as a favor.

Versus waiting for an appraiser to come in and now we have a value problem, we have timelines, we’re rushing a professional contractor to get out there to do something that could have just been done really simply. But we also have people who, you know, they’ve maybe purchased the home when they were stationed here. They’ve had it as a rental for 10 years.

Tenants are finally out. They’re ready to sell. And it’s a train wreck.

You know, full repaint, full floor, carpet. You know, people don’t always take the best care of your property like you would of your own. And so, you know, we see everything from $500 to 20,000.

It just really depends on what that analysis is when we meet with them as to. And if they don’t have a lot of money, we just at least create an awareness. We at least want you to know that this may come up, right?

Like, so at least, you know, identifying where some of the challenges might be to prepare them. And we have a lot of contractors that will, like, take payment at closing, you know, and things like that. If they’re things that are really close to the closing date, we try to work with, with our contractors and our sellers.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that I, so one of the ways I look at it sometimes is from the comps themselves. Like, let’s look at what your comps look like.

Let’s look at, you know, the one that is the most similar to your condition as it is now. Let’s look at the most sparkly one and kind of where they sold for at a cost per square foot. And that can kind of help sometimes as well.

But it’s hard to, you know, say, how do you approach this? Okay, so I think often a common question is, if I put this money into it, what am I gonna get back? Sure, sure.

And so that’s, yeah, I’d be curious how you handle that.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, and you know, I always like to say, like, I don’t have a crystal ball.

[Mattias]
Right.

[Sandee Payne]
But I do have historical data and I have experience. And so from what we’ve seen with our clients is if you tackle these $2,000 worth of things now, they could potentially be a $10,000 difference. Even just appeal, right?

People, just from the appeal of a buyer, if they walk in a house and the minute they’re walking up the sidewalk, they’re noticing to do things, their brain now shifts to all the other to-do things. And if they’re not a contractor, they’re not experienced, or their agent’s not experienced, right? Like, they may have a conversation that says, look, you’re gonna have to put $50,000 into this house, when really, maybe it was 1,000.

So let’s eliminate some of the questions up front and let’s start from the beginning and start to have people walk into your house with a positive. Then they’re gonna look at the space, they’re not gonna get distracted by the little nail holes or the curtain rod holders that are there, but there’s no rod or curtains. Let’s just look at the details, right?

Let’s just pay attention. But yeah, and I’m very similar. Mattias, I do the same thing.

We kind of look at the range and we say, we’re gonna be here or we’re gonna be here. Where are we now? And sometimes people are just good with that.

They’re like, hey, that’s great. I really don’t wanna do much. And I say, okay, then let’s at least work with the visuals that we can work with.

Let’s then, let’s clean up the garden if we can’t replant new, fresh things. Let’s at least clean up the dead stuff, right? Let’s put a little sweat equity into it instead of check equity at that point.

And really kind of shine up what we have to work with and present it in the best fashion. But I think having those conversations are important because if it doesn’t sell, if it doesn’t get, then you can say, remember when we talked about not doing some of these things? And we really don’t want people to have to do it 60, 90 days on the market.

Like it’s hard to backtrack that momentum from the listing launch. So I do really encourage them if there’s things we can do upfront, we get kind of one shot to showcase. We want first look to be as best as it can because those are our most potential buyers.

The first people to get eyes on your house. We don’t wanna lose all of those. They’re not coming back.

Once they’ve been there and it’s not for them, they’re not coming back.

[Mattias]
Right. Now that’s one of the things that I often say and hopefully express this adequately enough that we do everything right before we go live is that there’s really three different things we can control. It’s price, marketing and condition.

If we are on the market for a while, like let’s take a look at those three things. Typically it’s gonna just be price that we’re gonna be working on unless there’s clear feedback on condition. So yeah, I mean, you don’t wanna, if you’re on the market for three months, then all of a sudden you have to do a price reduction and do some work to make the house more appealing because you’ve gotten the feedback that the paint color is ugly or whatever.

You’re gonna be in a position where you’re kind of getting the worst of both. You’re having to take a pay cut and do the work. So it’s not a great position to be in.

Yeah, yeah.

[Erica]
Sandy, I’m just thinking through this challenge that you did and I want you to talk about that a little bit. But you talking about the detail that goes into some of these conversations about the listings, I’m thinking through how that was for you to manage this challenge. And maybe just start off by talking about the challenge first because I’m trying to work through like, how in the world did you manage that?

And keep it long stay organized and, but go.

[Sandee Payne]
It was a lot, it was a lot, it was a lot. So a few years ago, I had the opportunity, I was on stage at a big conference and I was discussing on stage the listing attraction strategies that we use to do the listing. So how do we get the phone to ring?

Not win it at the kitchen table, but like, how do you even attract people to want to call you to list anyway? So of course, marketing, branding, all of those things. Well, at the end of this conversation, I was presented with a challenge in front of, I don’t know, 8,000 people in person and I don’t know how many more thousands of agents virtually.

And it was a $10,000 bet that I couldn’t list 100 homes in what was ultimately a 10 month period. Not just go on appointments, but actually like, win the listing, list the home. And you know, when you’re kind of in that moment, you’re just like, deal, and you’re like, d’oh!

Oh boy, what did I just get myself into? It’s a lot. It was a lot.

But I, you know, in that, in what felt like an eternity of slow-mo, sure, you know, in this, my brain was just flushing like, but what if? What if I do that? Like, that would be incredible.

What’s it gonna take to do something like that? That’s gonna take a lot of, a lot of change and really dialing in my business, dialing in my life. This is like a bigger challenge than just taking 100 listings.

This is like a life challenge. And even if I don’t make it to 100 and come somewhat close, like, what’s on the other end of that? Like, forget about the $10,000, right?

Like, what’s on the other end of all of that for me and my business and my team and my growth? Like, opportunity. Like, there were just, within a mirror of like, it was like my life was flashing before my eyes.

What if it happens? Like, all these things were happening.

[Mattias]
It’s like a near-death experience.

[Sandee Payne]
I’m saying. It was, it was, it was, which didn’t sink in until I got home and I was like, oh my God, I think I just literally broke my UOC, right? And so I took this challenge and so that’s kind of where it began.

And so I get back that Monday, I’m at the office and I come home and I tell my husband like, you won’t believe what I just did, you know? And he was like, are you crazy? I said, no, no, no, just think about it.

Like, let’s just really, let’s just really dissect this for a second. What if this happens? Let’s look at production.

Let’s look at how much money we’re gonna, like, what could we do with something like that? Like, this is life-changing. This is business-changing.

You know, there were just so many factors. It gives me like goosebumps. There were just so many factors that went into this but I had to buy, I had to get him to buy in.

And I think that’s one of the biggest things, Erica, when it comes to a challenge like this is you need to create a support system around you that also buys into the idea of something so wild. Because if you don’t have the support and the encouragement and the motivation from the people around you who are gonna be, like, literally affected by something like this, I don’t think it would’ve been possible. I really don’t.

I think that was such an integral part of the whole experience. And once that, like, emotional piece, like, got figured out and I knew that my husband was on board and he was like, how can I support you? I said, look, I’m gonna have to put in, like, early hours, late nights, like, but just keep our eye on the prize.

Like, let’s just keep our eye focused on what this ultimately could do for my career and our business. And he was all in and I don’t know if we really knew what we all inned, but it ended up to be absolutely magical. I think it was transformative in every aspect.

One of the things that we did is we calendared immediately, like, probably within that first week, we actually opened the calendar and we said, okay, I don’t wanna get burnt out and I don’t want to forget who you are. I am not going on deployment. You know, you are present in my life for the next year.

We literally booked and paid for trips, multiple trips for the year. We made serious commitments. And I said, okay, when we’re on there, I’m off, but when we’re not doing that, like, I have to be all in.

And I think that gave us, again, like these tiny little sparks of like, okay, we’re gonna make it at this month. You know, okay, we’re gonna get a break. But the other thing that was really interesting was I had to, like, mathematically, like, I’m very big on, like, KPIs and metrics.

You know, I don’t wanna work and not make results, right? Like, so I like to track and know what I’m doing and what that’s actually transforming into in my business. And the first thing I did was said, okay, 100 listings in 10 months, that’s two and a half listings a week.

That means I probably need to go on three to four listing appointments a week, win two to three of them. So absolutely every function of my day needs to be revolving around getting those appointments. And we all know, Mattias, you know, like conversations equal appointments, appointments being, like, it’s just basic.

And so when I dialed it in and didn’t get overwhelmed with, like, how I was gonna do it at first, I had to figure out, like, this is what I need to do and this is where I’m aiming. And there were some weeks that, you know, we dialed in stuff and, you know, I had listing appointments and I was done by Thursday. And you know what I did on Thursday?

I went home. I went home. I didn’t try to get another one.

I didn’t try to get, because that is, I believe, where the burnout was gonna become. I said, I’m gonna give, like, that was kind of my challenge. I was like, how fast can I get these?

That I can go have five minutes to myself before I have to start again on Monday. Now there were also times that, you know, I was literally, like, just churning and burning, trying to desperately get those. And, you know, there were times that there was no break, you know, from week between week.

But being able to take that huge, daunting task and dial it in to say, okay, this is what I need to do. If you knew all you had to do was set one listing appointment every day, don’t worry about anything else, you would very quickly streamline your day and your tasks to be incredibly intentional on that. We get so hung up with, I have to make a video, I have to just do all these things, but we forget, like, why?

Like, what outcome are we looking for in the first place? So every call I made, every text I made, every email I sent, every lead I dug back into, every file I dug through to say, there’s gotta be somebody in here who’s ready now. So every video I made, like, it was all around the goal of setting those appointments.

[Erica]
I noticed from the get-go, Sandy, I was just gonna say, I’m, like, I hear you saying from the very beginning you were intentional about setting a framework around what this challenge was gonna look like. And I think it’s so important to also name with your spouse that this is temporary and we’re gonna have to pull a hard focus. And to name some of those things, it almost sets expectations.

So that way, when it is harder than expected or when it starts to feel really intense, that you’ve named it from the beginning. And so, yeah, keep going. I’m curious how this played out and what it was like in the middle of it.

[Sandee Payne]
And so you have to kind of say, okay, I need business now, like, literally now, and I need business nine and a half months from now because if I’m gonna do two to three a week, like, I have to kind of pace this so that literally up to that moment, like, I’m that week, I’m getting my last one or two, right? And so I had to look at a lot of things, Erica. How was I sleeping?

How was I eating? Like, it got really into performance. If I’m gonna need the energy to do these things, what things do I need to change?

Who do I need to stop being around? What do I need to add to my life? Am I getting up and working out and clearing my mind?

Am I educating myself? Am I reading, right? Am I finding the tactics?

Am I leaning in on things that exist that are gonna help me get to my goal that maybe I don’t know yet, right? That was probably the hardest part. I don’t think, like, when I look back at it, I don’t think the actual mechanics of doing the real estate activities was the difficult part.

I think it was fixing all the personal habits, really turning that mirror around. I mean, like, if I’m gonna do this, like, I have to become a different person. Like, I have to be willing to change a lot of things in order to hit that goal.

We can all have great goals. We can all have intentions. We can all say, I’m gonna do this or volume or whatever, but are you willing to actually become the person you have to become in order for those goals to be set?

And I think a lot of times there’s that disconnect. People aren’t willing to, I don’t wanna call it a sacrifice. I don’t think it’s a sacrifice.

I think it’s an exchange. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking crappy food out of your diet. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting up and getting your blood flowing by even just walking.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with removing toxic people or books or what you read or your time on social media. Like, I don’t think there’s anything wrong. So I don’t wanna call it a sacrifice because I think at the end of the day, it’s a gain, right?

It’s not really a sacrifice. And it really makes you take an inward look at all of those things.

[Erica]
Mm-hmm, and essentially in doing that, you’re really managing your stress level, knowing that my stress is gonna be super high. And so what are the things I can do to keep my cortisol levels low and be ready for that stress as much as I can be? And what changes did you end up making for yourself?

[Sandee Payne]
Well, I committed, I definitely, I’d always kind of been like a, I don’t wanna say go-to-the-gym person, but I always had some type of exercise routine, whether it was a Peloton, but it never, it always would come and go. You know, like most people are like, oh, I’ll do it for a couple weeks. And then you’re like, you lay in bed one day and you’re like, this feels way better.

I’m just gonna stay here. And then you get off that habit. So I think it was being really not just intentional with work, but saying, okay, I’m gonna get up at 5.30. I’m gonna get out of bed. I’m gonna go for my walk. I’m gonna drink my water. Like very, I don’t wanna say regimented because that doesn’t sound fun.

But when you have such an audacious goal, like you have to make this part of the game. That also becomes a challenge. You know, it’s, you almost become like, if I miss today, my brain’s not gonna be clear.

I may not have enough energy. I’m gonna get tired halfway through the day. I might not be able to make that appointment if I don’t feel like having that right conversation, you know, or being attuned enough to my prospect when I’m talking to them to be able to land that appointment.

Like there’s just, it gets so macro. It’s almost irrelevant to real estate. Like there’s so many other successes that come from those types of internal being parts before you’re actually doing whatever it is that you’re doing.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yeah, and did you hit your hundred?

[Sandee Payne]
I took, I listed 103.

[Erica]
Wow.

[Sandee Payne]
Amazing. Yeah, and there’s a lot of framework, you know, I’m trying to figure out what lead gen source is gonna generate at what time and nurture progress, you know, because again, there were some that were right here and there were some that I had to really keep my eye on and really start nurturing for those 10 months down the line, you know, nine months down the line. It made me really look, I thought I was a great caller.

I thought I was a great prospector. I thought I had systems like clockwork. It was terrible.

It was not what I thought it was. And so that was a little bit of a gut punch, you know, because I was like, oh, I love cold calling. And I’m like, I hate cold calling.

[Mattias]
Is that what you did primarily? Was that one of your main sources?

[Sandee Payne]
I mean, oh my gosh, I think I drove everything from open hell. I just said, okay, I have like, this is time to just say like, we’re just gonna go all in on like 10 pillars and dial in the SLPs, practice, like hold fast to doing them and then really track it. Do I do all of that today?

Absolutely not. But I know which ones work for me the most. And those are the ones that I focus on.

So it’s a really good idea too, because we can’t do all the things. We just have to do the things that we know work really well and naturally for us that actually create a return.

[Mattias]
So, Sandy, you were laser focused. You learned a ton about yourself from this. How would have it felt to not hit the 100?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, I didn’t even want to go there. If you knew me, that was not going to be an option. And I, you know, it always sat there.

You know, it always just sat there. Like, I don’t want to stand up there and be like, I didn’t do it. It’s because I didn’t do it.

It’s not that I couldn’t do it. It’s because somewhere I failed something or I let something go or I lost focus. And the other thing that really motivated me when I talk about kind of that support system, you know, there are a lot of people who knew that I was about to do this challenge and I wasn’t going to be this like silent person and then like, well, we’ll see in a year when she stands on stage, like, didn’t she do it?

Especially when it’s peers, you know, it’s my own industry. I actually started kind of journaling on my Facebook Live about the experiences and what I was going through because I wanted to speak to, I had a team. I had a small team at the time.

I had some support staff, but I did not use them in any capacity for these listings. I mean, trust me, I had buyers. Like, I had other things going on in my business, but I didn’t want to stand in front of a solo agent who literally sits at home in their office with no support and for them to think they can’t do it.

So that’s like, it’s great to have a team and oh, we did 1,000 trans, okay, great. You’ve got like 10 virtual assistants. But what about just the solo agent who’s just wants to crush it?

And so to me, that was my fan base, right? That was my intention. I say, hey, I’m not going to just tell you that I did it and not give you what I’m actually going through because yeah, so I just went on live all the time, probably every week.

And when I got a new listing, I celebrated it. I made it very public, got a lot of people kind of champing in behind me and rooting for me. And that was encouraging.

So I think the thought to stand on stage and be like, I didn’t do it. Like, I don’t even know what that would have felt like across that entire, I had to prove to a lot of people that they could do it too.

[Mattias]
And so- If you took away that pressure, do you think it would have meant as much to you to hit it? Or like, would you have been more okay with not getting there? If you took away the, I’m going to be on stage, I have this accountability across everybody that’s watching me and cheering me on.

I mean, if it was just you setting that goal for yourself, would it have been different?

[Sandee Payne]
Totally. I think I would have just fallen into the normal thing that most of us fall into. Like, ah, who’s going to know?

But I think just that added accountability. And it was so cool because literally like, we’re talking like a few weeks before the event, people are messaging like, where are you? Are you going to do it?

Are you going to do it? And I was like, I’m not going to do it. And I was like, I’m not going to do it.

And it was crazy. I literally like, probably up to that last, when I finally hit a hundred and it was like two weeks before the event, I was just like, oh my God, I can’t believe it. But I kept going, but I was already on this roll.

So like, that’s why like literally in the next two weeks, like I got another three because I had planted so many seeds and nurtured so much that it was just naturally or just like coming at me. And it was really incredible, which kind of like led me to a lot of opportunities because you know, there I am on stage. What’s everybody going to ask?

How did you do it? You know what I mean? Like that’s kind of an, unfortunately there’s no 30 second elevator pitch for something that massive.

[Erica]
Right, you got to rework your whole life. That’s how you do it.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, in a nutshell, be ready if you’re going to try it. But it kind of turned into this kind of mentorship position that I’m in now. I started a private Facebook group just for real estate agents.

It’s called The Hustle 100 and it’s free. And that’s kind of where I just shared, you know, because I was in bombarded with, you can just imagine that my message, my feeds were just like, do you have 30 minutes? Do you have an hour?

Do we have time to talk? I’m like, no, I’m a little busy. So I just kind of created that platform for me to share into and have some type of control of it, you know, as far as that dialogue goes.

And yeah, now it’s building into so much more. It’s exciting.

[Erica]
That’s awesome. I did want to ask you, I meant to ask you when we were first starting to talk about this, but I’m just curious when the person, whoever it was presented you with this challenge, what kind of a place did that come out of? Was that like a Q and A?

They were like, can you go ahead and do this for us? Was it coming out of like a positive supportive place?

[Sandee Payne]
Oh, I think a hundred percent positive support. I was on a panel with one other person and the coach. And I think, you know, I also believed that I wasn’t given that challenge just on like, I have a challenge for you, that I do believe that through this coaching program, you know, that we’re in, like there was definitely interest and signs, you know what I mean?

And a belief already, like I don’t think that challenge was thrown out for me to fail. I think that was thrown out to me to show me that I could. To show me that I could.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah. And so I knew there was a lot of thought and time and encouragement behind it. And I felt obligated to just believe in myself, like as much as he believed in me to be able to offer that opportunity to me, I knew he knew that I wasn’t gonna fail.

[Erica]
Like, yeah.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah. So I think that was really cool. Yeah.

[Erica]
That’s great. Yeah. Well, in that case, I mean, what an opportunity to give you a push you probably would not have otherwise done yourself.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah. I’m a competitive person, I’ll say, but that was probably like, it was like one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. Like I have to say, that was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever put myself through.

[Mattias]
Yeah. That sounds like it.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah. But it was so rewarding. I mean, it was just, it was so rewarding in so many ways.

Like, yeah, just, yeah, I would do it again. My husband did say when I went to the event to finally, you know, get the check and have that moment, whatever you do, do not offer double or nothing. I was like, I think we need a break from this.

Yeah. It was good. It was really good.

And I know that my business and, you know, just everything that I’m doing is just my life, you know, my life, my health, my marriage, my family. There’s so many beautiful things that came out of that experience.

[Mattias]
That’s really cool. I mean, I think that’s, yeah, what a gift to be able to really intensely focus on having to be optimal in every way and just live that 10 months with extreme intentionality. I mean, you had your husband planned out as well, how to manage that.

So it’s such a cool experience. So thanks so much for sharing it. I do have to ask, is there any kind of fundamental book that you would suggest for people to read or one that you’re currently enjoying, one that would teach you how to sell a thousand listings in a year?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, I have a lot. But one of them that I dove right into was Fanatical Prospecting. I think we think too much about the process of prospecting.

And this book really kind of simplifies it and really put some context as to like why we do it in the first place and coming from, not from a place of sales, but coming from just a different place of care and relationship and really knowing who your client is and the message that’s gonna resonate with them to be able to help them and open up into it. I think it was very interesting to read through a lot of it. I felt like I did a lot of it already, but there was a lot of clarity and just kind of shifted my mindset into prospecting because I think it has such a negative connotation for everything from cold calling to open houses, to door knocking, like to all the things we feel so invasive and salesy and pushy on people.

But I think if you change your perspective of where you’re coming from and the value that you’re bringing to someone in this industry, I don’t think I know that it can change the whole energy. It just changes the whole tone. It changes the whole activity to become something way more rewarding than just listing a house.

[Mattias]
I love it, I love it. I’m sure the people you talk to can sense that as well, that shift in mindset. That’s great.

Sandy, you mentioned a Facebook group, but where else can people follow you if they are curious to hear more about your story?

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, so Instagram, @sandeebpayne, super easy to find. If you just do Sandy with two Es, I think I’m the only one on Instagram with that name, so it should pop up pretty quickly. And then yes, my Facebook group is called The Hustle to 100.

You just spell it all out. And it is a free group to real estate agents. It’s the easiest way, yeah.

[Erica]
How wonderful. Well, Sandy, thank you so much for joining us today. I really enjoyed this conversation.

I really appreciate it.

[Sandee Payne]
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.