The No Fluff Approach to Thriving in Real Estate with Yvonne Arnold

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. Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors. Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. It’s Mattias here.

I am solo today. We have a great guest for you today. It’s Yvonne Arnold.

She is a seasoned agent and now a seasoned coach as well, and has a lot of great tips for people. Has seen market swings up and down and has survived them and has great insights as to how to get started, but also how to season the storms if things aren’t as hot as they were a couple of years ago, which a few of you might be experiencing. So definitely stay tuned for that.

I wanted to talk a little bit, we kind of touched a little bit on marketing and how people go about marketing themselves as agents. And I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. She said she’s old school.

She thinks like, you know, you don’t need to have any kind of Instagram or, you know, Facebook or any kind of social media to do business. And I would agree, you really don’t need that. But I have an interesting thought that I’ve been kind of chewing on here the past couple of days.

And it’s how agents market themselves typically. What the culture is with agents and how they produce, or sorry, how they show their value is so different than how other companies market. And think about it for a second.

What other industries would you get a business card with a face on it? It’s like real estate agents are the only ones, right? And like what else, you know, you don’t shop at Home Depot because they brag about how many pieces of plywood they sold, like, or, or advertisements aren’t, aren’t, are talking about the recent sale they just did.

Because the consumers don’t really care about that, right? The consumers care that they’re going to get a good experience when they go buy plywood at Home Depot or, or whatever. Right.

And so I think that’s something that we should probably spend more time as agents thinking about is, is a first and foremost, what does, what do people actually care about? What do they actually want to, to, to gain from you? If you are putting yourself out there, do they want to hear about your successes?

Maybe, maybe there’s a few that do. And I understand the mindset that, you know, people want to work with somebody that other people have worked with and found a good experience with. I think reviews are definitely something that are important.

And I’m not saying you can’t do any of this stuff, but think about how other people market themselves. Think about how attorneys would market themselves. Think about how other businesses market themselves.

And is that different than what real estate agents are doing around you? And maybe if you are doing things more like other industries and focusing really on what the consumer is interested in, you might find yourself a lot more effective as a marketer and getting people to use you, use your expertise and then leave you great reviews. I just want to keep this one short.

That was my quick thought. If anybody has any venting or comments about this kind of thing, feel free to leave it in the comments. Without further ado, we have Yvonne Arnold.

Welcome back to the REI Agent. I am here with Yvonne Arnold. Yvonne, thanks so much for joining us today.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it, Mattias.

[Mattias]
Yeah, you are the, you said the no BS coach. Is that, is that how you describe yourself?

[Yvonne Arnold]
I have acquired that title through the years. Yes, I’ve been a coach for 15 years for Tom Ferry, international, very international. And, and he coined that phrase years ago.

When I, I just don’t pull much, many punches. That’s all. I mean, it’s, it’s like, we don’t have a lot of time in this industry and, and, and there’s just too many people not telling the truth.

I, I literally was raised in the industry with one like tagline that we learned and we lived by and served us well, which was show up preferably on time, tell the truth and don’t be tied to the outcome. And that’s what we live by.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I like that.

Okay. So 15 years of coaching, Tom Ferry is a name. Most people recognize, I’m sure.

What about, what about your sales career? When, when did that start? How’d you get into real estate to begin with?

[Yvonne Arnold]
Great question. So I’m from a real estate family. My husband is also from a real estate family.

My father was a custom home developer. And so I grew up around new construction. And then my brother who is 14 years older than me had gone into the air force.

And when he came out, he got his broker’s license and in our small town, uh, opened a brokerage and I was 14 and I would walk from school to his office after school. And I was in charge of answering the phones, making the coffee and all of that. My, my job was to literally cut out the ads from the newspapers and the magazines and the green sheet and tape it to a notebook that when the calls came in, I had to ask, you know, uh, what ad are you calling from?

And they’d say press enterprise. And I put a little tick mark next to the press enterprise in the notebook. And then I would transfer the call to a realtor on the floor.

And, uh, I remember several years ago, Bill Pipes was interviewing me and he said, he said, so you’re the original ISA. And I said, yeah, 1978. So if a 14 year old can do it in 1978, some realtors, she really should be able to do that.

So, um, that was the beginnings of my, my career, I guess you could say. But then I went into, uh, graduated high school and went straight into escrow. I was an escrow secretary.

Uh, California, we still have escrow, so it’s not an attorney state. And, uh, and then after that, when I was 20, I got into title insurance and I was a title insurance rep for about 12, 13 years, uh, called on real estate agents. And then I got my real estate license in 1988 and started selling in 1990, joined forces with my husband who had been one of my title clients, uh, and ended up leaving title and went into, um, his team, him and his mom and family business, family team in 1994.

Uh, and then the rest is history. So we did a lot of business over, you know, 25 year period and, um, worked several increasing and declining markets. So we, we survived and never lost anything and never tanked because we shifted on the fly.

We got to where we needed to go very quickly whenever a change occurred. So that’s kind of where I coach now, you know, you have to have some thick skin, but you also have to have some foresight to know what’s going on globally and where’s it going to go, uh, and get there first.

[Mattias]
Okay. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s a wealth of experience there.

And, uh, you know, anybody that started the, their sales business in like 2020, 2021, um, might be in a, in a, in a weird spot now, or may have already gotten out of the business. Uh, you know, things were really good and fast and easy. And if you didn’t really set yourself up for success or set yourself up with systems to kind of, you know, maintain your business to, to reach out to people, to, you know, touch your, your sphere, uh, consistently, you may be finding yourself without business and feeling like you can’t survive.

Um, well, can you speak a little bit to, you know, the, the market shifts cycles and kind of strategies for, uh, staying true, staying on it, uh, working, working through it.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Yeah. It’s, um, I always said, being that I started in the nineties, uh, selling, uh, 1990, 91, 92, we saw a complete dive in California. The aerospace industry went out of business.

Um, and, uh, we had our first crash of California. That was not a global crash though. So Texas was cranking.

Everybody else was doing great in the country and California was in the crap hole. So, uh, so we started hard and I always say people that start in a hard market usually survive any market a lot easier. So the people that started during a hot market, they have a lot of catching up to do because when you’re in a hot market, you literally, you can go out in the street and you’re going to get hit by a deal or five.

Right. And so, so you don’t have to learn any skills and your skills start really having to come into play when the market does what it’s doing right now. Right.

It’s flat. It’s, it’s hard. There’s less homes being sold and, uh, lots of buyers, uh, people are hesitant interest rates, by the way, can we just get the interest rate conversation out of the way?

[Mattias]
Let’s go.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Five to 7% historically is where it’s at. So anybody who thinks that it’s supposed to be at two or three is completely smoking something. Okay.

Um, but five to 7% is historic averages. So don’t expect it to be like, it’s my friend would just posted something on the day. He said two and a half years ago, he, he, he did a video about, you know, marry the house, date the rate.

And he said, so not right. Buy the house you love and what you can afford. Okay.

I hated that saying, right? Because it’s like, well, that’s stupid. You’re basically assuming that you have a crystal ball and are going to be able to see the rates drop.

Right. They will not. I started in escrow when rates were 17 and a half percent.

And when I started in real estate, we said anything under 10 was great. So when you start thinking about those kinds of dynamics, and I know we get people to, but the prices were so much cheaper. Yeah.

But I was buying an $80,000 house on a 35 to $40,000 a year income. Okay. We have incomes now at 150 to $200,000 a year.

The prices are going to be bigger. So there are markets that are not affordable. We know that.

And the inflation has to adjust. That’ll get itself worked out. We’ve done it before.

But the rates are the rates. So when I talk to agents and they’re saying things like, you know, this is such a hard market. No, you just have to go talk to more people.

It’s that’s just the way it is. So the key is when you’re dealing in a market and you’re changing and shifting and skill sets need to come into play, you’ve got to train. You have to know what to say and how to say it.

And it’s not just talking at people and being all fluffy, right? You got to give them the good with the bad. So I am a believer that grassroots work works.

And so you can do a lot of things. You can sell a lot of real estate without ever getting on social media or a website if you go talk to more people and learn what to say and how to help them.

[Mattias]
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of interesting social media angles that people take to me often just is painful to see. And I don’t I don’t really know.

A, like, does the desired client, the desired audience of this content, do they really care what you’re putting out there? And I think for a lot of the people, what they are putting out there is not helpful. It’s not interesting.

You know, it’s like kind of bragging maybe of how great they are. And I don’t really know if people care about that at all.

[Yvonne Arnold]
I don’t believe so either. I mean, we have to say you’re a consumer as well. Right.

What do you like to look at? Right. And what are you looking for?

Are you looking for what the salt tax means in your state and your your local community and how it will affect you personally? Are you looking for somebody who’s dancing on TikTok? You know, because you think they’re fun and they’d be fun to work with.

I don’t know. Right. I know that you can’t put everybody in a funnel.

So, yes, the social media get you leads. Absolutely. Is it is it the cheapest way to be able to put yourself in front of a lot of people?

My gosh, we were having to spend eight hundred to a thousand dollars a month in 1996 to put in ads on the back page of a magazine. OK, I don’t have to spend eight hundred thousand dollars anymore to market my listings or myself. So, yeah.

Is that a good thing about the social media world and the websites and all that? Absolutely. OK, however, how you present yourself, I think, is going to be more important over the next 18 months.

What exactly are you educating people on? And I truly believe a real estate agent, the value we have is the knowledge that we share. And you have to educate people.

You have to teach them about the buying process, teach them about the selling process, because otherwise, what is your value proposition to the consumer? You know, you don’t have one unless you tell them what it is. There’s a product out there called Rays.

Have you heard of Rays? R-A-Y-S-E?

[Mattias]
I think so. Remind me, though. I’m drawing a blank.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Really interesting product. They created it so that you could literally document your time as a realtor like an attorney does. OK, so every hour of the day, it’s tracking your driving.

It’s tracking where you’re going from one house to another. It’s tracking the things that you put out there. It’s tracking every move you make and how you’re doing it for your client, which I found very interesting because now it’s like if we were to ever charge per hour, it’s like here.

My hourly fee is $1,000 an hour. Would you like to pay me for my hourly wage or would you like to pay me a commission? OK, you can do it both ways, right?

And so I have a feeling that if you did the hourly, that might be a win for real estate agents because and if we can actually show it like an attorney does. OK, so that’s where I say, you know, how are you proving? And everybody wants us to prove up our worth these days.

And we should have always, always been able to do that. But it’s very hard to communicate what we do, as you know. Right?

[Mattias]
And I think that, you know, I heard somebody say that a lot of the way the online stuff has evolved kind of cheapened the industry a little bit or just made it kind of feel more scammy. So if you had, you know, if somebody is interested in a house, I mean, let’s be honest. Somebody is looking at houses.

That’s what they want. They want a house, right? They want to buy a new house.

That’s what they’re interested in. They’re not interested in, you know, what car you’re driving or that kind of stuff isn’t as important. But so they click on an ad or something and all of a sudden they have somebody calling them every day, like, you know, like bugging them that they don’t know who they are.

They don’t have any desire to talk to this person. And that’s somebody had once said that, you know, that’s kind of where some of the scrutiny started coming from is things like that. And I can see where that is just, yeah, it’s a scammy.

It’s frustrating.

[Yvonne Arnold]
And then on top of that, Ambulance chaser model, right?

[Mattias]
Yeah, yeah. And on top of that is what we’re talking about with the social media that is not that kind of cheapens the industry as well, like showing things that aren’t really professional or not really demonstrating value. So I think you’re exactly right.

I saw this whole situation as an opportunity to really, you know, prove and iron out, you know, my worth, like establish it and be able to communicate that clearly because, yeah, you wouldn’t go to three different attorneys and ask them to draft up a contra illegal document and then be like, you know, I think I’m going to use yours because I like yours and the other ones.

[Yvonne Arnold]
It’s, you know, there’s no, in most cases, you’re going to get a referral. You know, you’re going to talk to your friends, relatives, your, you know, neighbors, you’re going to get a referral for that attorney, just like you should be getting a referral for a realtor. Right.

And so we know that about 40 to 50 percent of the business being done is past client sphere, repeat and referral business. So, you know, you don’t want to be so heavy that it’s only that. So you do have to diversify your lead sources, but you do want to make sure that those people are talking more about you because you want to continue that referral situation.

One of the things that we were really good at and our clients would tell us, we weren’t the ones that were going to, you know, we’re not going to be having a monthly event and invite you to the party. Okay. That wasn’t how we did our business.

But the way my husband and I were, were trained and knew how to do it was the really professional, highly professional. Like there was arm’s length distance and it was all about how can we help educate this person? So most of the reviews and things that like that we got and the referrals was my friend told me that Yvonne is the one that’s going to answer all my questions the right way.

They’re going to save me out of trouble. They’re going to get me the house. You’re going to get me what I need to get.

And I took pride in that. Right. And then we had relationships with other agents.

And I think that’s an area that agents really miss the boat on. You know, they’re, they find it competition and they’re not very nice to each other on deals and stuff like that. And I understand it because when I was young and new, I was pretty gung ho.

And then I had to learn and that, you know, we are in this together. And what I realized was the more I worked in a relationship with the other agents, the better the transactions went, as well as the fact that those agents, when there was multiple offers, they’d look at mine first, my offer first, because they knew that I was going to get the deal closed. It was going to be a clean transaction.

My buyer was going to be qualified and it wasn’t going to be messy, you know, so, so there’s a lot to be said about relationships in the industry in multiple facets of it. And posting things on Instagram and TikTok and all these other places that don’t lend to that, I think is a mistake.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think it could be a good tool to like help people get to know you, you know, and if you’re approaching it that way, where you’re kind of, you’re not like trying to be flashy or whatever, like it, or something that you’re not, if you’re genuine and you’re not, you know, you’re just sharing kind of your life, like, you know, most people that aren’t trying to do their, you know, I don’t know.

I think there’s a way to, to.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Funny thing we had, we had a saying, because we’ve been through several foreclosure markets in our career. And we had a saying that you knew when the market was going to tank, when all the realtors went out and bought new boats and new Hummers and wrapped them and new motor homes and houses, million dollar houses, you knew the market was going to tank because that’s what we do, right? That’s what the real estate industry has a habit of doing.

And, and so we laugh about that and we’re like, Oh, here it comes. We’re in a hot market. It’s anything goes up, it’s got to come down, you know?

So, so yeah, very interesting. We have to kind of make light of it sometimes.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. You were talking about how there was, it was, you had California specific crashes.

You know, it is interesting to, to, to look at the big numbers, like, you know, how much there’s just not enough supply, right? I mean, that’s the kind of like the over through the whole country is, is facing that. But I know that in our local market, we have had a lot more new construction than I think some other areas have.

So it’s interesting to kind of get, get a pulse of, and, and looking at those, like, you know, how many months of inventory you have, et cetera, are probably other factors here that we can, you know, get a pulse of what the market is. Yeah.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Super important. And, and don’t just look at your MLS. You better know if your market has new construction because those won’t show up in the MLS most of the time.

And so, and funny, interesting story. I have a client in Florida and he only started four or five years ago and he based it on YouTube. Now I’m a fan of YouTube for one reason.

Um, when my husband, who’s not on the internet, not, not on social, goes to YouTube for a lot of things, you know, that YouTube is where I have eyeballs on, right? For sure. Right.

Somebody who’s not into social media, you do a search for everything. I need to change the bike tire on my bike. I got to go to YouTube to figure out how to do it.

Right. So this coaching client of mine, um, he started his business with YouTube videos about new construction. Okay.

He now closes about 40 deals a year. All buyers. Well, I would say 75% buyers calling him from his YouTube channel to buy new construction in Southwest Florida.

Now that’s, and he only, he was able to develop that over a two year period. It wasn’t long, right? But what they’re doing is, is that that YouTube video is creating trust.

And so it’s showing you you’re giving information. So now the agents out there who are not tracking the, the transfers of titles, so the business and the, and the inventory and all of that in all aspects of their market are making a mistake because they might not be having inventory on resale listings, but then you got a bunch of new construction happening over here. So I would highly recommend that people get into their data and they learn their local market first.

You always learn, get really good at your local market stats first, then you grow outward. Then you go, okay, now we have County stats. Now we have state stats.

Now we have global stats. Okay. And you can utilize all of that to educate the consumer and to create new business and help you just be smarter at what you do.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. It’s data is, and, and I think that’s, we, we probably have the same kind of mindset. I know there’s different kinds of archetypes for how you interact with your, your, your clients.

And, and, you know, there, for example, there could be the, like the Disney type of archetype where you’re like all about the experience, right? You’re making it a magical, wonderful experience. And that’s the biggest focus of it, which, you know, is valid.

And I, you know, it’s fun to make it fun. But I think what you’re talking about and what, how I’ve kind of gravitate gravitated to as well as more being the, like the, the sage, the, the wise trusted advisor that will help you through this really, you know, the biggest thing that they ever do financially. And yeah, doing so with, with helping them, I like to educate my clients to, to help them make the best decision they can so that I’m not pushing them in one way or another, but they feel like they have an informed decision and feel comfortable with it when they make it.

[Yvonne Arnold]
I’m as a coach. I also know that we’re not going to appeal to everyone, right? So, so what I, how I work is different than how you work and in different, how the experience agent works that loves the experience and wants to present that to their client, the fun realtor, who’s everybody wants to work with because they are just fun to work with.

Okay. So that’s there, but there is so many people out there to help. It’s okay.

It’s like coaches. I mean, not everyone, I’m not going to expect everyone to want to coach with me. I don’t want to coach everyone, right?

I want to coach the people that fit into the avatar that I coach to. Okay. And, and then they’re going to coach well, and they’re going to, they’re going to be able to excel faster.

They’re going to be more coachable, all of that stuff. So we have a lot of different real estate agents out there in the world, a lot of different brokerages that have different personality types. And we have a lot of consumers that have different personality types.

So there’s enough to go around. Trust me, even when the inventory levels are down, there’s plenty to go around. It’s who’s working and who’s not working.

That is what it comes down to.

[Mattias]
That makes me think of a problem. I think a lot of people have, and that’s firing clients. I would be curious if you have any advice on that.

I think that, you know, there’s, there’s times where you just realize this is a very toxic thing and it may be, it may be a slight personality, how we do things differently type of thing, or this person could just be very toxic. What’s your, what’s your advice on, on firing clients when you feel like you need that money and you’ve already put, invested so much time and energy in this person and you don’t want to have it be for nothing.

[Yvonne Arnold]
There it is right there. You just nailed it. So it’s being tied to the outcome.

And I just had this talk, this call this morning with a coaching client. They called me up and said, we have a situation with a client. I need to get your take on this.

So they, they laid out the scenario. And at the end of the day, really what happened was, is that as a realtor, we have to determine that we understand when we walk in the door, someone is hiring us for our skillset. However, that doesn’t mean that we have to let them hire us. Okay. So when you get to the point where you’re working from abundance and not scarcity, you are much stronger in this area and you can be a stronger real estate agent. And what that means is I’m out prospecting. I’m out talking to more people.

I’m setting a lot of appointments. I’m going on a lot of appointments. I’m taking a lot of listings.

I’m working with a lot of buyers. So guess what? Now I’m no longer tied to the outcome.

If I have to lose one, because we’re not meant to work with everyone. And when people do not follow your instructions. So one of the things I have an old school definition of a lead, it is someone who is ready, willing, able, and qualified to buy or sell a home in the next 30 days under my terms.

Okay. I lived by that for 30 plus years and here’s when I learned it was when I had to fire my first client because they had drugged me around or I had let them drag me around for months showing them houses. Okay.

They were vacillating. They weren’t sure. And then all of a sudden, well, they went and bought a car.

Now they don’t qualify. Well, they figured out how to qualify. And now they’re doing this.

It was an absolute nightmare. Okay. All I wanted to do was help them buy a house and make my money and move on down the road.

Well, what I realized was I was tied to the outcome, you know, show up, tell the truth. Don’t be tied to the outcome. Right.

So if I’m tied to the outcome, it will happen ugly every time when I’m not, I say to that client, you know what, Mr. And Mrs. Buyer somehow over the last month, when we’ve been showing you properties and talking to you about this, unfortunately, we’re not connecting and I take full responsibility for that. So I’m going to release you of your buyer broker agreement and let you go work with someone else. I have a recommendation.

If you’d like me to refer you to somebody that might work a little bit better for you, but I think that’s going to be better for both of us. And there it is. Okay. Now what happens at that point? Your, your, your podcast here is a holistic approach to life through real estate. Holistic to me means a lot.

Okay. Because I’m a nine year trained yoga instructor, which I didn’t tell you that before. So I have a lot of background in, you know, internal, right.

What it does, I always say, when you let go of a client who is just a high maintenance client, you’re never going to please them. So why bother? And now with the whole reviews online and all that, you’re risking your reputation if you stay with them. Okay. So let them go. And what happens? I’m a believer.

It opens up your Chi. Okay. It opens up another door, better energy.

You get rid of that block of energy and you can go do a lot more business with people that really want to work with you. And that’s my take on firing a client.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, I agree completely. I think you really hit the nail on the head with talking about getting into the abundance mindset. And I like your, you know, if you’re doing, if you’re working on your business, not just in your business or wait, was it that way?

Yeah. On your business. Yeah.

That you’ll be having enough, you know, you’ll feel abundant enough to be able to do that. I think, you know, one of the things that we talk about as well as building up your cash flow so that you also are not coming from like a, I need to pay my mortgage. I need to pay my, you know, my Porsche lease payment.

[Yvonne Arnold]
I will tell you, there’s a reason I got into coaching. And when I tell people this, they kind of look at me sideways and I go, no, it’s true. I’ve been around long enough that I got tired of watching real estate agents make a bunch of money in a good market tank and lose everything they have in a bad market and do it again when the market goes up and do it again when the market goes down.

And guess what? If you die at the wrong time, you die broke. And I watched too many of them actually die broke.

And I’ve had back, you know, when I first started coaching, people get in and they’re like, Yvonne, I’m 70 years old and I got another three good years and I need to make my retirement. And I’m like, oh, dear God, I know they’re 70. What do you mean you need to make your retirement?

You know, you’d be working on your retirement at 35, right? And so, so that’s why I started coaching because I, and it’s why I’m a little hardcore because it’s like, no, you don’t have a lot of time. Okay.

I had open heart surgery a year and a half ago and it was a complete surprise because I’m a very healthy person. It was not supposed to happen. And in it, it’s like, we don’t have a lot of time.

I have a friend and our friend says, you know, you got another good 20. And so that when you get hit 60, you got another good 20. So you can’t be thinking like, I got to work my retirement right now.

Unless you’re 30. Now that’s when you work your retirement. 30, 40, get it all squared away.

So I really, I really feel for the people that are needing to work paycheck to paycheck in real estate, because right now you might go three months without a closing. If you don’t have a lot of abundance happening in your habits and your prospecting and all of that, because the deals are not flying at you when you stand in the street.

[Mattias]
Yeah, completely. It’s, it’s absolutely true. And, you know, keeping your lifestyle smaller first while you build up the base of your pyramid is another thing that definitely helps along that route.

Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely, you see, you see that you see the people that you wonder if they just enjoy continuing to work or if they just can’t have no other option. I know that there’s definitely that.

[Yvonne Arnold]
I know both. I know people that are working because they have to. They don’t have an option.

And then I have real estate agents. I coach to our 73. I mean, I coach Marty Rodriguez.

She was the number one real estate agent, Century 21 agent in the world, you know, through the years. And it’s like, she’s still working. She has a whole team around her, but I mean, the woman has more energy than anybody I know who’s 40, you know, and I’m like, Marty, when do you think you’re going to retire?

She goes, why? You know, she loves it so much. And, you know, and her team still does 150, 200 transactions a year.

So, I mean, you’ve got those people that just love it so much. I was not that person. I did, I lived saying, I am not going to show buyers when I’m 70 years old.

So my mission was different. My, my, but everybody’s got a different life plan, right? So you gotta be ready to, to build it for what your plan is.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And then just having the, the freedom to choose, you know, if you want to keep working, if you want to, you can live this more abundant life. You can choose to do something a little bit more risky, right?

If you want to build a team or whatever you might want to do, or your own brokerage or something, you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable with that. If you have your base built, as opposed to, you know, yeah, just flying around with the, with the, with the hot market. So no, I love it.

Um, what, what do you think are some really good, uh, tips for any agents getting started in, in their business to, uh, turn around and start getting some leads that, uh, or you need to work their sphere. What, what, what do you suggest when people get first started?

[Yvonne Arnold]
There are some super simple things that you can do when you first get started. Number one, we all have this thing, that’s a giant computer in our hands. And it, the very first little test that we do is we make everybody go to their contacts and scroll to the bottom and tell us how many contacts are in their phone.

Um, we get numbers anywhere from 500 to 5,000 or more. And so this alone has the start of your business in it. You just don’t know it.

So we, we teach them how to export that out of their phone and you must have a CRM. I don’t care what anybody out there says, don’t stick it in an Excel spreadsheet, although you could stick it in an Excel spreadsheet because you need to organize them and categorize them into, you know, are they, uh, a contractor? Are they your hairdresser?

Is it sphere? Would it be considered fear? You know, all that.

So you want to do that. And then once you have that clean spreadsheet with all the contacts out of your phone, you’re going to upload it into a CRM. Um, once you have it in a CRM, now you have to actually reach out and make calls.

Now, one of the things that I see over the last 15 years of talking to so many teams and so many agents, individual agents is again, we go back to the personality types. We know that a listing agent is usually a higher DI. We know that a buyer’s agent is usually an I, a S I S.

And we know that an operator, somebody who works behind the scenes of transaction management, listing coordination, all of that is going to be an S C or C S. Okay. So if I take you and you’re an I S and I tell you go get listings, you’re going to struggle with that because you’re probably not going to be able to close for the, for the contract or, or even the appointment because sellers are a different animal.

They’re much more aggressive. They’re like, tell me what you’re going to do for me. How are you going to market my house?

How long is it going to take? How much am I going to make? And what do I have to pay you?

Right? So they’re very direct. Whereas a buyer that, that I S should go work with buyers because a buyers, they’re like, I want to see these houses and I don’t know anything about the process.

So a more amiable, expressive kind of person is going to do better with buyers. So go out there and show a lot of property, go preview properties, right? The key is, is talking to more people.

Now, what should a new agent brand new do in 2025? I would, I would never go into this business right now, brand spanking new with no experience without starting on a team. I would go find the very best team.

And there’s some caveats that team needs to have some value proposition. They need to be able to handle all your transaction coordinating for you. They need to be bringing in leads.

They need to have some training around it. They need to have some oversight. They’re going to give you the products to use because that team buys the products for the CRM and all that.

And all you need to do is go to the trainings, learn how to do the business, write contracts, set appointments, show properties and, and repeat. Okay. So agents who get in thinking, well, I’m going to work for myself.

I’m going to be an independent contractor. You know, that’s what a real estate agent does. I’m like, you don’t know anything about the business.

So why would you do that? Get your ego out of the way and now go work and make some money. And by the way, don’t ask what the split is.

Just go to work because 90% of zero is zero, but 50% of 12 deals a year is a heck of a lot more money. So go take advantage because that team lead is putting out, writing a lot of checks that you don’t have the money to go do right now. Then when you get experience and you grow, maybe you grow within that team and they have a career path for their agents that grow.

And maybe they don’t, maybe you stay there one, two, three years and you go, now you can go do your own thing. Okay. But you better take that knowledge and go build your own thing then, because even a solo agent needs an assistant these days.

You need to have a BA. You need to have a TC. You need to have somebody pushing paperwork for you because the consumer is moving way faster than you can as a real estate agent.

They’re online at two, three o’clock in the morning when you’re not. So you need to know how you’re going to actually communicate with those people and how you’re going to work them.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. It’s really good advice.

I think that it’s, yeah, it can be in my book. I wrote, I think, a section about the whole commission split thing and how you’re so focused on that and you go to a place that has zero support for you and you have zero training and no opportunity to actually sell anything. You think you’re going to be in the business?

[Yvonne Arnold]
No, you’re not. You’re not. The business will swallow you.

[Mattias]
Right. So yeah, having the support and having the more likelihood chance of actually getting business and doing deals and doing it well and building a reputable business is where you need to focus. So yeah, I agree with you completely.

[Yvonne Arnold]
I did want to ask you. The technology side is really important as well. If you’re coming into this business right now saying you’re not very techie, get out.

Just get out. Go get a job because everything is technology. AI, technology, and you have to learn, put yourself in uncomfortable positions and learn the products.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. It is.

It is definitely technology dependent now. We’re not carrying around books anymore for the MLS, right?

[Yvonne Arnold]
No. And we don’t have a little key that opens up every lockbox.

[Mattias]
Do you have any kind of books that you recommend people read, like a fundamental book, something that you think every agent should read or maybe just one that you’ve currently found that is really beneficial?

[Yvonne Arnold]
There’s two that I really enjoy and that I think benefit the new agent all the way up to the experienced person in the business. Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount, I believe it is. That book alone will absolutely get you engaged and getting you doing deals.

And I recommend solo agents use it as a Bible. Just go do everything he says. Get it on book form, get it on Audible, listen to it in the car, and it’s Fanatical Prospecting.

You need to just know how to do it. And then teams, if you’re doing that book, I recommend team leads and broker owners have book clubs, and they should be going through that book with their teams in their meetings and then holding them accountable to doing the last chapter. What was the last chapter?

Now go execute it, right? Because I get asked all the time, what books do you want? It’s like, what book should I read for this?

You can give out books all day long. I mean, there’s a ton of great books. The catch is, is are you going to read it and just think it was a great book?

Or are you going to read it and execute on it? So I tend not to give my clients sometimes, what’s the next book I should read? I don’t care.

Go read a book. Because so far, the last two books I gave you to read, you’re not executing on. So that’s the one is fanatical prospecting.

The other one that I really like is this one here. It’s a beginner’s way of profit. So profit first.

I can never say this guy’s name, Mike Michalowicz. It’s beginner basic knowledge of how to pay yourself first. And the backup to that one.

So you read this one to understand your money and figure out how you pay yourself first when you’re getting a check for $5,000 and you don’t just spend it all in one place. It’s got to have definite divisions of where it’s going. But then the follow up to that book is one of my faves right now.

It’s financial freedom by Mark Kohler. And that one is it’s financial freedom. What Wall Street doesn’t want you to know.

And and basically that one takes once you know how to save your money and do certain compartmentalization of your money, then you can get into the nitty gritty of why you should pay your under 18 year old children a salary and their IRS tricks and tips and hacks that the average Joe on the street. I gave my chiropractor the recommendation to read the book because here he is. He’s making a lot of money.

He’s a great chiropractor and he needs to know better about his finances. And when you have a real estate license, because this guy, Mark, bases his information from a real estate perspective. We have distinct IRS guideline possibilities, as you know, as an investor that we can use because we’re licensed to use loopholes in the IRS tax code.

So realtors should definitely be looking at those as well.

[Mattias]
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s something that a lot of people have no knowledge. And and yeah, we talk about syndications a decent amount on this on the show and and how that’s such a even if there’s somebody has no interest in really being a hands on landlord and buying property, renovating it, getting tenants in it, having to deal with all the problems that come along with that.

A syndication allows you, you know, you have to get a good one. You have to find the right operators for the deal, etc. But you get into one of those and then you can take advantage of all the tax benefits like you just mentioned and earn passive income and have all the benefits of owning real estate.

So I love it. Those are great recommendations. I appreciate it.

I’ve not had I don’t think I’ve had any of those on the show.

[Yvonne Arnold]
You would really enjoy. Mark has a lot of Kohler has a lot of K-O-H-L-E-R YouTube videos and you would enjoy them. And he does an event.

Him and his partner, Matt Sorenson, do an event. I think they do it every year. And they bring in syndication guys to talk to people about how they do it and all of that.

But John and I, from a from a real estate agent perspective, you know, beginner agent up to selling 30, 40, 50 homes a year. We always said we worked for tips. So commissions were tips.

And what you do with your tips is how you build your wealth. OK, so we were definitely into real estate development and investments. And and that’s how we built our wealth.

And we took advantage of the tax code of moving houses. We’d build a house or buy a house and live in it for two or three years and sell it. And, you know, parlay that money and that capital gains where you’re not paying it.

You know, and so that’s important for people to understand in our industry is that commissions alone are not not going to make you wealthy. It’s in fact, if you’re building a big team, you probably are, you know, grossing three million, but you’re taking home one hundred and fifty thousand, you know. So I’ve seen a lot of very ugly, ugly financial statements.

So when people start to go big with their teams, it’s very unfortunate. But to that point, I was just thinking, you know, I always say we work for tips. Darn, if they were actually tips instead of commissions.

No, no tax on tips. You know, I mean, that’s true. So that would be like great.

[Mattias]
See if you can get them to change the terminology. This has been a great conversation, Yvonne. If people are interested in learning more about you, following you on your social media, where you, you know, drive around in your flashy Porsche and say, look at me.

[Yvonne Arnold]
My husband likes cars. I have never been a car fan. I don’t care.

It gets me from point A to point B. I drive a Honda Pilot. So but don’t ever talk to me about the price of a menu because I’m going to order anything.

I’m a foodie and I like experiences. So that’s where the money goes. But you can find me on Instagram at Yvonne Arnold underscore.

I also have a link in bio, it’s a Stan store. You can go on there and pull off free SOPs. You can book a time with me.

You can do all kinds of things. So follow me there. My website and all my information is right there.

[Mattias]
Awesome. Thanks so much, Yvonne.

[Yvonne Arnold]
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[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 this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.