How to Get More Referrals with Less Work and Fewer Calls

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast: Episode Summary Title: How to Get More Referrals with Less Work and Fewer Calls
Host: ReminderMedia
Release Date: December 2, 2024
Guest: Sky Michaels, Award-Winning Motivational Speaker, Coach, and Real Estate Leader

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Introduction: Unlocking Referrals with Efficiency

In this insightful episode of the Stay Paid Podcast, hosts Luke Acree and Joshua Steich delve into effective strategies for real estate agents and entrepreneurs to amplify their referral networks without the exhaustive workload traditionally associated with lead generation. The episode features Sky Michaels, an acclaimed motivational speaker and coach who has empowered over 30,000 real estate agents and entrepreneurs nationwide through his company, Heart Coaching. Sky's unique approach emphasizes authentic human connections over aggressive sales tactics, offering listeners a fresh perspective on relationship marketing.

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Guest Spotlight: Sky Michaels' Journey from Teaching to Coaching

Sky Michaels brings a wealth of experience to the table, transitioning from a high school history teacher to a top-performing real estate agent and finally to a respected coach in the industry. His journey is marked by a passion for education and a commitment to fostering genuine connections. Sky recounts:

[02:08] Sky Michaels: "I want to create a company that was focused on creating, you know, enhancing the human being and really taking the person and addressing the root causes of why they weren't doing something."

This philosophy stems from his early career as an educator, where he witnessed firsthand the transformative power of personalized mentorship. Sky’s transition into real estate was driven by practical necessity, but his inherent desire to impact lives naturally led him to coaching.

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Challenging the Status Quo: The Problem with Traditional Real Estate Coaching

Sky critiques the current landscape of real estate coaching, likening it to the pharmaceutical industry’s approach of treating symptoms rather than root causes. He observes:

[06:10] Sky Michaels: "Most coaching companies are really geared at, unfortunately, keeping agents, quote, unquote, sick. ... my goal of creating a company that was very different from the industry was a company that was focused on creating, you know, enhancing the human being."

Traditional coaching often relies on scripted interactions and generic playbooks, which fail to address the underlying fears and limiting beliefs that hinder agents' performance. Sky aims to shift this paradigm by fostering deeper personal growth and addressing emotional barriers.

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Sky Michaels' Unique Approach: Less is More

Central to Sky’s methodology is the principle of "less is more" in client outreach. Rather than overwhelming agents with numerous calls and superficial interactions, he advocates for fewer, more meaningful engagements. Sky explains:

[08:22] Sky Michaels: "We actually try to coach you to do less, but the less you're doing is the most impactful thing."

This approach encourages agents to prioritize quality over quantity, ensuring that each interaction is purposeful and builds genuine rapport. By reducing the frequency of calls but increasing their significance, agents can create more sustainable and fruitful relationships.

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CRM Segmentation: The ABCs of Relationship Management

A cornerstone of Sky’s strategy is the segmentation of an agent’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system into three categories: A, B, and C. This segmentation is based on the agent’s feelings towards their contacts, fostering a more personalized outreach strategy.

1. A (Love): Individuals the agent loves and has a deep connection with.
2. B (Like): Contacts the agent likes but doesn’t have a strong bond with.
3. C (Don’t Know/Don’t Care): People the agent neither knows well nor feels a connection with.

[13:14] Sky Michaels: "If every agent went out there and organized their CRM based on how they felt about people, it would change all of their marketing and outreach."

By categorizing contacts this way, agents can tailor their communication strategies to match the strength of their relationships. For instance, A-list contacts may receive personalized invitations to events, while C-list contacts might be targeted with broader real estate information.

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Overcoming Outreach Fears: Authenticity Over Aggression

One of the biggest hurdles agents face is the fear of being perceived as salesy, annoying, or facing rejection. Sky addresses these fears by promoting authentic, human-centered conversations:

[10:51] Sky Michaels: "We're afraid of being salesy, annoying, or rejected. So how do we overcome that? We overcome that by doing things that are not one of those three things."

Sky encourages agents to approach conversations with genuine interest and empathy, rather than pushing for immediate sales. This authenticity helps mitigate fear and fosters trust, making clients more receptive to referrals and future business.

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Practical Outreach Strategies: Actionable Steps for Agents

Sky provides practical, actionable strategies for agents to implement his philosophies effectively:

1. Climbing the Ladder of ABCs:

• A-List: Invite top contacts to events (e.g., concerts, exclusive gatherings).
• B-List: Send personalized emails or messages about relevant interests.
• C-List: Distribute informative real estate newsletters that provide value without being overtly sales-driven.

[16:36] Sky Michaels: "Climbing the ladder of the ABCs... your A's, you're going to invite three or four of your A clients or your A people to a concert."

2. Asking for Help:

• Engage contacts by asking for their input or assistance, which fosters a sense of collaboration and investment.

[22:29] Sky Michaels: "An example of this is ask for help. So real estate agents, especially ones that are starting out, feel like, oh my God, I gotta. I gotta give all this stuff."

3. Purposeful Conversations:

• Initiate conversations with a focus on the contact's interests and needs rather than immediately diving into real estate topics.

[21:19] Sky Michaels: "Hey, I'm working on my newsletter and I know you're a foodie and I want to insert something about food into my newsletter. Do you mind sharing me some of your top restaurants?"

These strategies are designed to make interactions feel less transactional and more about building lasting relationships.

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Emphasizing Process Over Outcome

Sky stresses the importance of focusing on the process rather than obsessing over immediate results. Success, he argues, lies in committing to consistent, meaningful actions that build trust and rapport over time.

[31:22] Sky Michaels: "We preach that the gold is in the process. The marathon is not the marathon. It's the actual training you're doing to run the marathon."

By concentrating on the day-to-day efforts and personal growth, agents can achieve long-term success without getting bogged down by pressure to deliver instant outcomes.

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Notable Quotes: Wisdom from Sky Michaels

• On Coaching Philosophy:

  [02:08] Sky Michaels: "We don't just talk about, make this phone call and call 100 people... we actually just to just really trying to get people to focus on themselves and on what they love and what they're passionate about."

• On Authentic Outreach:

  [09:10] Luke Acree: "They won't do it if you tell them what to say. Because I tell them to call every quarter and I give them the script and they still don't do it."

• On Emotional Connection:

  [33:02] Sky Michaels: "Emotions are driving us, not discipline or, you know, other things. So we'll have them latch on to the emotion and the positive story versus the negative, and may help them get over it."

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Conclusion: Building Meaningful Relationships for Sustainable Growth

The episode wraps up with the hosts and guest reiterating the importance of authentic, relationship-driven strategies in real estate marketing. Sky Michaels underscores that by organizing contacts based on genuine feelings and focusing on meaningful interactions, agents can foster deeper connections that naturally lead to more referrals and sustained business growth.

Luke Acree summarizes the actionable insights:

[36:18] Luke Acree: "Your action item is to look at your database, segment it based upon those three segments, and then do a simple outreach."

The conversation concludes with listeners encouraged to implement these strategies immediately, emphasizing that top producers distinguish themselves through consistent, thoughtful action.

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Connect with Sky Michaels

For those interested in learning more about Sky Michaels and his coaching services, you can visit his website at withheartcoaching.com or follow him on Instagram @SkyMichaels.

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This episode offers valuable insights into efficient referral strategies, emphasizing that quality relationships and authentic communication can lead to significant business growth with less effort. By adopting Sky Michaels' principles, real estate professionals can transform their outreach approach and achieve a life of freedom and sustained success.

Transcript

[Luke Acree]

Welcome to the Stay Paid podcast where we help agents and entrepreneurs master the latest business trends to unlock growth and create a life of freedom. Brought to you by Reminder Media.

[Joshua Steich]

Welcome to Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Steich.

[Luke Acree]

And I'm Luke Acree.

[Joshua Steich]

And our guest today returning Stephen Acree and Cody Smith from the Acree Brothers Realty team, the number one team in Lynchburg, Virginia. I like it. You switched your name, Stephen. You got in there.

[Stephen Acree]

I put it first this time.

[Cody Smith]

Afterwards, he hit me and I was.

[Luke Acree]

Like, guys, an egomaniac.

[Joshua Steich]

If you weren't listening to last episode, they had it. They had a switch. So Cody got in there first. But our special guest today is Sky Michaels. Sky is an award winning motivational speaker, coach and leader in the real estate industry. Driven by a deep passion for education and a genuine love for creating meaningful connections. Through his work at his company with Heart Coaching and previously serving as the head of coaching at Compass, sky has helped over 30,000 real estate agents and entrepreneurs across the country. Sky, welcome to Stay Paid.

[Sky Michaels]

Thank you so much for having me. It's so excited to be here.

[Luke Acree]

Sky, man, it's awesome to have you on the show. So sky is in our backyard here in Philadelphia. And it's. It's funny because we've been in the real estate industry now for what, 20 years, and we had never connected. And I was at a Tom Ferry conference and ran into a guy, Mike Hagee, who's a mutual connection of ours. Actually, Mike's going to come on the show and he said, do you know Sky? And I was like, I don't. I don't really know him. I think I know of him, but I don't really know him. And he introduced us. And then you were able to come to the Eagles game on Sunday, which was a blast. The Eagles almost blew it though, with Jacksonville. So you guys know I fell into this way back and they almost blew it. But just an awesome time in a testament got to know you a little bit and we got to hear a little bit about your journey. So I was excited for this. But where I want to start the podcast is you decided to start a coaching company in real estate, which I think is crazy because there are so many coaches, it's over saturated. Um, this is just my opinion. And then it's like you get on Instagram now and everybody thinks they're an influencer. Everybody thinks they're a coach, myself included.

[Stephen Acree]

You know, so there you go.

[Luke Acree]

But yeah, no comment. So why start a coaching business in real estate? Do people even need A real estate coach. It feels like it's just an oversaturated market.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah, well, first off, I mean, the licensing process to become a coach is really, really hard. And just there's zero. You do not need to go out and get a license, become a coach, or to like, go to school for four years or do any of the things that we normally need to do to become a profession. You literally just need to go on Instagram and say, I'm a coach, and start spouting out, you know, whatever message you want to spout out. So one of my inspirations behind becoming a coach actually goes way back to my beginning of my adult life when I was actually a high school history teacher. And so I graduated from Syracuse University. I became a history teacher. Lifelong dream. And that process of impacting people and watching people change and grow and become their best version of themselves is really the reason I got into being a high school history teacher. I didn't get into it because I wanted to, you know, teach kids about World War II or the Presidential election or whatever it might be going on. Unfortunately, I quickly realized I was poor. So I got into real estate just as a side gig and it blew up. You know, once again, making a long story short, I got into it as part time agent, full time agent, became number one agent at Coldwell Banker. I launched KW Philly with a bunch of great people here in Philadelphia in 2018. I was part of the educational process in that brokerage. And then when I went to Compass in 2018, I took over as a managing director in PA, NJ, DE. But from the very beginning, I was doing a lot of national training. And then we had, I don't know, Luke, have you ever heard of something called Covid? It was this little thing that happened maybe four years or so ago. So we had this thing called Covid that happened. And Covid hits in March. We all go home, I'm eating, drinking, you know, leading Zoom happy hours as we all remember those early days. And I just was so incredibly frustrated with myself, as were most of the people around me. And digging back into that high school history teacher or that person who I was, I really just wanted to create some change in the people around me who were struggling. So I started a group called the six Amers, and it was a morning motivational group. We had no reason to get up at 6am starting in April of 2020 though, and I would lead two Zoom calls at 6am every week. And the group just started spreading. But more importantly, I knew that I was Showing up for people in a way that was impacting their lives and changing their lives. And I was doing in a way that was not to a coaching, quote, unquote script or to a book that, you know, someone read or anything like that. I. I was doing it out of actually just really trying to get people to focus on themselves and on what they love and what they're passionate about. And as I grew, I became the head of coaching at Compass, developed, you know, coaching for agents, 30,000 across the country. And my desire to create this coaching company really came back to my observation of the industry. And my observation of the industry over the years was the fact that the industry was very similar to our pharmaceutical industry. Right now, most coaching companies are really geared at, unfortunately, keeping agents, quote, unquote, sick. You go to a doctor and you have high blood pressure, and they prescribe a medication you take. Well, the minute you stop taking that medication, you're not really addressing the root problems, but also you go right back to where you were. And my goal of creating a company that was very different from the industry was a company that was focused on creating, you know, enhancing the human being and really taking the person and addressing the root causes of why they weren't doing something. Let's be real, there's probably not a real estate agent out there that doesn't know what to do, but they don't do it right. And a lot of that doesn't come back to having a script or having a playbook or having a accountability partner or having all this stuff. A lot of it comes back into having fear, having doubt, having stress, having limiting beliefs, whatever it might be. And as I was launching this coaching company, I wanted to create a company that didn't just coach to the tactic, but actually coach to the heart and the human being. And every program that I create takes that concept and infuses it into everything that we do. So we don't just talk about, make this phone call and call 100 people and sit 10 open houses, send more emails, send, send, send. A lot of these companies are geared at, once again, just like the prescription drug industry. Right. Take this and you'll be fine. Hey, we all know if we call a hundred people, we're gonna, we're gonna make a, you know, we're gonna meet someone, but we're. That's gonna stop at some point. We go right back to our sickness or the reason why we're not making progress in our life.

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah. And I'm. I'm assuming are these, like, are any of These one on one coachings are these like abroad, you're talking to 300 people at a time. What do you normally do?

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah, I do have a one on one component to my coaching. It's called flex one on one coaching. Which again, you know, the idea behind it's not just like we're gonna get on a call and talk and I'll see you next week. So I call it flex one on one because we have the ability to flex it into anything. We want to talk about life, you know, not to say sometimes or therapy sessions. Sometimes I'm coaching the person's team, sometimes we're doing, you know, something that has nothing to do with real estate but will indirectly impact. But the real, really what I'm talking about for the most part are these scaled programs. We all know you go online and you search real estate coaching, you know, we, there's hundreds of programs you can go online, purchase, they're going to sell you something that's going to show up in your email. Most likely you're not going to do it. So how do you actually create something that people are going to do? And one of the concepts we preach to is less is more rather than doing more. We actually try to coach you to do less, but the less you're doing is the most impactful thing.

[Luke Acree]

What does that, what does that mean though? Less is more. Can you give an example of that?

[Sky Michaels]

Great, great example would be most agents know that if they talk to their past clients or their sphere of influence that they're going to generate business. But they get hung up by this word lead generation. So an example of less would be conversation generate. So rather than lead generate, where a lot of coaching programs are going to say, hey, call your past clients once every quarter. You know what happens to every real estate agent when they hear that they don't do it, they don't do it across the board. Why? Because what do I say? How do I say it?

[Luke Acree]

Dude, they won't do it if you tell them what to say. Because I tell them to call every quarter and I give them the script and they still don't do it.

[Sky Michaels]

And again, part of that is because, Luke, we're giving them a drug to try to make everyone the same. The solution is actually how do you do less calls? But the ones you do are more impactful and the impactful calls are the ones where you are not salesy, you are not marketing anything, where you are literally connecting as a human being and you're making someone feel like they matter. So if you make someone feel like they matter one time a year. That's way more impactful than calling someone four times a year saying, hey, just checking in. Right. Hey, making sure you switch your filters on your H VAC system. Hey, Right. Like, whatever. I'm sorry, not, not interrupting the script. But it's way more impactful to make someone feel like they matter. And. And an example of this script would be, hey, I was driving through your neighborhood, I drove by your house and it just made me smile. Just want to reach out and say hi and I hope you're doing well. Key there is. You're not asking for anything. Right. We're not asking to grab coffee, we're not asking how they're doing, we're not asking, you know, all this stuff. We're really trying to just generate conversation that's based around human interaction. Yeah.

[Stephen Acree]

So just being like, more intentional, basically getting back to like understanding your value proposition is what you're coaching them on.

[Sky Michaels]

That's right. And let's be real, being less salesy. Right. Less salesy, more human. And that's the key.

[Stephen Acree]

What would you say?

[Cody Smith]

Because it sounds like the belief is that it's like fear based. What would you say is like an agent's biggest fear for not doing it? Agent's biggest fear is most common.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah. Yeah. The most common one. It's hard to say. It's one of these three. It's being annoying, being salesy, or rejection. So usually it's going to revolve around one of those three. And usually all three are sort of tied up in the same emotion, you know, which goes back into, you know, fear. You know, we're afraid. We're afraid of being salesy, annoying, or rejected. So how do we overcome that? We overcome that by doing things that are not one of those three things. And if we coach people to being authentic, being who they truly are, if we coach people and we teach people how to connect on a human level. If you're connecting on a human level and you're not talking about real estate, you're talking about life, you're not annoying, you're not being salesy. And if you are rejected, it's probably someone you shouldn't be talking to anyways.

[Luke Acree]

You know, I find, like, I tend to agree with you. Like, that is what we see. It reminds me of Ricky Carruth. We've had Ricky on the show too, and he phrased it a little bit differently, but he will. What was his slogan? Relationships over transactions. Like that concept, but essentially like. But he's a Big cold calling guy. Right? But it's like cold call, circle prospect. But stop trying to get a deal. Just build a relationship with the homeowner. Like there's endless amount. He would say, like there's endless amounts of leads. You're just trying to get a lead versus trying to get a relationship, in essence. So I actually agree with you. I think if you go to any coach, they'll tell you it's the relationships. But I think the pain point is, how do you get someone to know how many times they need to do that authentic, impactful outreach a day? Because that gets into what you were kind of talking about earlier on this whole trying to like, hey, the activity. How you do the activity. I buy, but you still have to have the activity. What are your coaching agents there?

[Sky Michaels]

This is. I am so. I could. I'm so happy you asked me this because this is the essence of my company and what I coach to. Every agent takes a CRM and they organize their CRM based upon what they feel they're going to get from someone. This is a past client. This is someone who sent me a referral. I'm going to. I'm going to make them an A because they're a past client. Right. This person bought a home for me. Or this person is going to send me a referral.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, VIPs.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah, these are my VIPs based on what they got from them. This is the concept, Luke. If every agent went out there and organized their CRM based on how they felt about people, it would change all of their marketing and outreach. So the way I coach to agents is your sphere. A is your VIPs are the people you love. Your Bs are the people you like. Your Cs are the people you don't know and don't care about. And what it does, it gives agents an unbelievable, simple method that they can look at someone and immediately say, I love them, I like them, or, I don't know, I don't care about them. And the revolution there is the fact that every agent, when they go to, quote, unquote, organize a CRM, looks at someone and says, hmm, I think they're going to buy a home from me or they bought a home for me, but I don't really. They're sort of an asshole.

[Luke Acree]

So true, man.

[Sky Michaels]

And then agents, let's be real, unfortunately, have ADD characteristics. They either have it for real, like are diagnosed or they have characteristics of it.

[Joshua Steich]

Cody's padding.

[Sky Michaels]

Stephen, support group, I'm talking to you right now. So the minute with that mindset, the minute you get hung up on, is this person going to set it right? That, that second your brain is off in a different direction and then you stop doing the task at hand. Instead of getting obsessed and actually engaging the strengths of the ADD mind, which is hyper focus. I love this person. I like that person. And if you can switch your brain operation from how you feel about someone versus how you. What you're going to get from that person, it actually addresses the humanity of who we are. We don't organize our personal relationships based on who's going to get us the best birthday present. Well, I do.

[Luke Acree]

I mean, that's right. You know, Josh, Stephen, you guys are competing. But no.

[Sky Michaels]

I want to point out.

[Luke Acree]

Though, that I think the goal of what you're saying, because I don't. I agree with the philosophical that you're saying of how relationships work and everything like that. Spot on, 100% agreement. But I think the golden. Your training right there is that that's actually actionable. Like people can actually do that. Where the trying to mark the A, B and C based upon will they buy or not is not actionable because you don't know. But you're giving them something that they can do because they know it's very obvious to go, yep, I like Sky. You know, I like Stephen. Don't like, I love you, Cody. Don't like Cody. You know, put him up.

[Cody Smith]

Here it goes.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah.

[Stephen Acree]

And ultimately, like, that leads to more calls. When you say so, like, you know, for instance, if you, you know, my wife, I talk to my wife every day. I love my wife. Right. And you go down the relationship. I talked to Cody every single day. I talked to Luke every single day. And so ultimately you'd say, like, it leads to more calls. But how would you like fundamentally put that into like a strategy of how often you reach out to people? Because we all know we got, you know, I have 300 people, let's say, in my sphere group. I can't reach out to all of them. So obviously I segment the groups, right. And then I come up with a strategy of going, hey, ultimately I know that my friends would appreciate it if I reached out to them a certain amount of times. Right. Is there a certain, like, number that you kind of get to so you can help them strategize on that.

[Sky Michaels]

This is the concept. Stephen, I want you to come back to anyone listening, I want you to think of this concept. I call it climbing the ladder of the ABCs. Right? So A, love B, like C Don't know, don't care. When we think about creating one action a month based around what you know that ladder, think about doing something you love. So, Stephen, let me ask you, what's one thing you love to do locally? Where?

[Stephen Acree]

Music. Basketball.

[Sky Michaels]

Music. Let's just take music. Right. Good example. So your A's, you're going to invite three or four of your A clients or your A people to a concert. You're going to treat them to a concert. Your B's, you're going to send them a quick email or a text message about a great concert coming in town, and you're just going to let them know about it. And then your Cs, you're going to market, you're going to put in your newsletter, your email newsletter, you know, ways that they can enjoy music in these three great homes on the market. And, and it's an example of climbing ladder ABCs. The other thing you said is that you don't. The people you love, you actually don't need to talk to them as much as the people you maybe don't know, don't care that you're trying to turn into clients. Right?

[Luke Acree]

Sure.

[Sky Michaels]

But if, if you, it's someone you don't know. And Luke, you could probably speak to this a little bit more. You probably need to touch them a lot of times for them to actually say, you know what, I'm going to call Stephen and use him as an agent. And the reality is you got to talk to them a lot about real estate. But if you called your wife, if you sent your wife an email every single week about real estate, what would she say to you? I got it.

[Stephen Acree]

Take me out on a date.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Steve, you just highlighted the absolute essence of what we're after. The reality is you don't love a ton of people so you can have deeper interaction with them fewer times throughout the year. And because they love you, they're actually going to send you referrals, business, et cetera, because they love you. And you don't even need to talk about real estate because of the fact they know you're in real estate and they want to support and help you. Your B's, you want to talk to them a little bit more about real estate. But again, these are people you like, so you can infuse more life into it. But your Cs, you're going to talk to them a lot about real estate. And if you take most agents databases, they're loaded with people they don't know that they then Treat the same everyone the same way. And Stephen, would you ever get your plumber and your wife the same birthday present?

[Stephen Acree]

I would hope not.

[Sky Michaels]

I would hope not too.

[Luke Acree]

But I could see it happening with adhd.

[Sky Michaels]

You know, what do agents do? They take their database and all they get there. They treat everyone the same in their database. And that is the cardinal reason that we see the statistics, we see that most people love their agent at the end of closing and never use them again is because they tune out the quote unquote marketing that they're getting to back that up.

[Luke Acree]

We see that guys. And then Cody, you can share what you're sharing. We see that in our marketing. We see that the postcards that we've tried to do that are more relational don't work nearly as well because they're usually going to farms, which you would consider to be a C, right? Anonymous, where it needs to be straight. Real estate on postcards. We're learning that more and more, the more more we do postcard marketing that man, you just gotta pound these people. Which is educational, real estate driven content. Occasionally what I call is like entertaining content, like local stuff, but it's still tied. Whereas like your the reason why our magazine works so well is because it's for your VIPs and it has nothing really to do with real estate. It's all filled with stuff that they would enjoy. Travel, art, food, design, things to do with your kids. Stuff that is nothing really about real estate is more perceived as a gift than an actual piece of marketing.

[Sky Michaels]

Exactly. And Luke, what you just described is the exact mindset of the agents that are out there really trying to build solid, incredible long term businesses. Refocus it based around how you feel about people. So your magazine, Reminder Media magazine is a great example. Like you're not going to send that to thousands of people you don't know because they're like what is this magazine we're getting in the mail, Right? But the people you love, they get it and they want to read it because they love you, they care about you and you're sending them something of value.

[Luke Acree]

Exactly.

[Sky Michaels]

Not related to real estate.

[Cody Smith]

What would you say then? Because we've actually talked about this a lot. When calling your sphere, especially with newer agents or agents that haven't done this yet, what do you say the initial conversation should look like? Because you say it should be mostly relational. Do you not mention anything about real estate? You're calling someone that you know and you just trying to connect them, obviously let them know you're in real Estate. But what would you say is that conversation that first time you call, I'll.

[Sky Michaels]

Share a really, really simple one where you can like almost drop a small hint of real estate in a. Cody. Hey, Cody. I'm. I'm in real estate now. I don't know if you know that. I'm actually working on a newsletter and I know you're a foodie and I want to insert something about food into my newsletter. Do you mind sharing me some of your top restaurants in, I think, Lynchburg? Right? That's where you guys are, in Lynchburg. Like that. You know, I just need your help a little bit. So it's a concept. An example of this is ask for help. So real estate agents, especially ones that are starting out, feel like, oh my God, I gotta. I gotta give all this stuff. The reality is the people you love and like, if you call them and ask them for help around something, that's one of the greatest scripts you can use. Right. You add that newsletter and you're inserting the real estate a little bit. But no one, no one you care about is gonna be like, well, you know, are you just selling me on a house? No. They're like, oh my God. Well, Cody, there's this great place here. And then I went last week to this place and all of a sudden you start having conversations about restaurants or. Cody, do you have pets or kids or anything?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, kids, Kids.

[Sky Michaels]

Hey, you know, I'm looking for. I'm putting in my newsletter some great recommendations of parks or things to do with kids. Do you have any recommendations for this winter? Right. And you. And you coach all your agents to make 100 of those phone calls. A, they won't get through them because of the fact they're going to have just amazing conversations. But B, no one is going to say like, no, I'm not going to do that. That's salesy.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, that's it. Because the biggest feedback we get is that when you have that relational conversation up front, which is what I like to do, but that it seems fake. Some actually after the real estate conversation.

[Sky Michaels]

Exactly. And if you're. All I'm doing is asking about something in the community and then you may see it show up in the newsletter, what am I. So the other key reason, psychologically, I'm saying, hey, I'm working on my newsletter that I'm going to send next month. What am I actually making the person sort of, what am I planting a seed in them? Hey, I can't wait to get Sky's newsletter.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, it's great.

[Sky Michaels]

Instead of like, ugh, another newsletter. Unsubscribe.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, right.

[Cody Smith]

What are your thoughts on that? Because you're a little bit different.

[Stephen Acree]

Well, I think, like, it's still the same thing because, like the way I approach things. So you're way more conversational, small talk, that kind of thing. But I've learned that I love business and I love real estate. And so it's like a true authentic thing just to go straight for the close on people. So when I call, you know, I'm always talking about real estate investing, how you can make more money, how you can upside, you know what I mean? Like your house, that kind of thing. So I just dive right into the conversation. We've had this debate, you know, before, and I think it's a better way of doing it if you can get to that authenticity, you know, the fact that you love it. So if I go with this belief that I am salesy, obviously it doesn't work. But I'm not going in because I believe so much in my value proposition that I just go straight into real estate conversations. And ultimately I think that just still goes back to what you're saying. Right.

[Sky Michaels]

Well, Stephen, I'll give you. I'll give you another nugget for you. You have 57 days left. In this year. The best script for you are goals for 2025. And your script is going to be like, hey, I'm just reaching out to all the people I care about to see if you have any goals related to real estate in 2025, whether they're investing, maintaining your home, improving your home, buying or selling, renting. I just want you to know if you have any goals for 2025 related to real estate, I would love to help you out in any possible way. You notice I buried buying and selling at the end.

[Stephen Acree]

Yep.

[Sky Michaels]

Right. And the advantage that you have there is you're making it about them, not about you.

[Stephen Acree]

Right. And yeah, we actually have these coachings all the time. Like I say, you know, coach our agents on exactly what he says, because in exactly what you're saying, which is, you know, you need to be conversational. It needs to be about them, not about you. And then ultimately they're going to ask you. Luke says it all the time. They're going to ask you, you know, what have you been up to? Right. Those kind of questions. And you can go into real estate talk, but ultimately the goal is to learn your value proposition, be so valuable and believe it, be confident. Right. So that you can just go into these conversations with, look, I know how valuable. I know people need me. Right. When I sit down with them and when I'm strategizing with them, it wouldn't. You have that kind of confidence. You really should just go into real estate and. Because it's helping them.

[Luke Acree]

Right.

[Stephen Acree]

You believe it's helping them. And ultimately I think that will lead to more closings. Right?

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah. And Stephen and Cody, what you're really talking to is a concept we. We preach here with our coaching is right person, right message, right time. Right. You need to be able to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. And if you do the same message to every single person, that's the mistake most realtors fall into.

[Luke Acree]

Right.

[Stephen Acree]

And you'll eventually get to the point where you don't need an abc, you just have an A that's so big, you know, that you're gonna get so many closings, so much repeat and referral business from them, that these are easy conversations. But that takes a long time. Cause I'm not even there. I've been eight years in the business. Right. And we're, you know, 50% repeat and referral business. So I wanna get that up to 80 and ultimately increase the lead flow. Um, still keep it 50, 50 with the team, but for me, move up to 80%, you know, personally.

[Sky Michaels]

Well, challenge that mindset too. That it does take a long time. Cause actually, I'll challenge that. Actually doesn't take a long time. If we actually structure the. Structure this properly.

[Stephen Acree]

Sure.

[Sky Michaels]

Right. Because at the end of the day, if you take a new agent and start them from day one with this mindset of love, like, don't know, don't care. Again, they're gonna be, you know, open houses, Internet leads. Like, they're adding to that. Don't know, don't care.

[Stephen Acree]

Right, right.

[Sky Michaels]

What you really get them doing is talking to those people they love and like, right away.

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah.

[Sky Michaels]

In ways that, you know, will lead to deals.

[Stephen Acree]

Right. And people make a mistake. It's like it. You have to do the activities, calling Facebook leads, calling Google leads. Right. Doing open houses. You have to do that to build up your A list. Right. People just want their A list to be an A list. And the A list is people that you've invested time. Resources into. And that's what takes the time. Right. Because Cody doesn't just. He didn't just love me right off the bat. Right. You know, when I know, even though his story is the best, because we didn't know each other that well, and I actually Pitched him selling his house at a Tuesday night. You know, we grabbed beers kind of thing. And I got invited and I pitched him. The very next day, I was out to his house and listing his properties.

[Cody Smith]

I was like, you could get this. I would totally talk to you.

[Luke Acree]

You're an easy clothes, Cody. You guys connected over alcohol. Surprise, surprise. No.

[Cody Smith]

Well, it sounds like he's in 6am Happy hour, so we're good.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah, Perfect.

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah.

[Sky Michaels]

Someone's up at 6:00am every day, Cody, so I wouldn't also like.

[Luke Acree]

One of the nuggets that you pointed out, you know, was this idea of getting your clients to help you.

[Sky Michaels]

Yes.

[Luke Acree]

And I think that also applies to real estate because you can think about it like us here on the podcast, you know, all of us here together doing this. And you, sky, probably want to know, what does Luke need? Like, what does he, you know, want? Or what is. What are his goals at Reminder Media? What is he trying to do? Because it's better to give than receive. So it's like you're looking for ways to give because you're a great business person, a great relationship person. Same with myself. I'm looking for ways to get, hey, what does sky need? How can I help him? Because it's better give than receive. And so when you call your sphere, you can translate that same idea about the foodie one that I think is such a golden nugget. Like, what recipes can I put into the help me in my real estate business? Because the. I've mentioned it before in the podcast, but really stood out to me. Ben Shapiro was talking about building Daily Wire, and he. I forget what business podcast I was listening to, but he was talking, you know, he's, you know, usually a political pundit type guy, but he's talking about how he built the business of the content machine of Daily Wire and everything they're doing. And he said, the number one thing I did was called every successful person I knew and ask them for help. And he said, most people will not do that because they don't want someone having something over their head. They don't want some that feel like they owe somebody something that, oh, I owe sky because he helped me. And he goes, you just got to get over that. You call all the people you know and you ask them, hey, would you help me? This is what I'm trying to do. And he said, you will be shocked because they will feel so good about themselves that they're able to help, that all this knowledge and this stuff that they've built up over the years, they can now give back and make an impact. And it's tying into that golden rule, if it's better to give than receive. And so I think that just can apply not only to the content side of recipes and the relationship stuff, but it can also apply to literally growing your business.

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah. And look, all the people. It's so funny. All the good people on your podcast that we've done a podcast with, like, we've connected with them, they do that exact same strategy. It's crazy. Like, we are literally coaching with Rocky Garza. Right. Coming up Friday. And it's just like, you look at that and you're like, all the successful people are doing the same thing.

[Luke Acree]

Yes, they really are.

[Cody Smith]

Well, and one thing that I do that's very similar is actually use the magazine from Reminder Media to have that conversation. So one of my first calls, when a new agent, I go, hey, I'm actually paying for this magazine to be sent out to the people I care about. I would love to have your feedback on what's in it. If I should change anything, there's gonna be recipes in there. So there's something in there that you like. I would love to hear your feedback on. Or you don't like. Cause I'm paying it. My. My face is gonna be the COVID It's kind of crazy. Uh, but I would love to hear your feedback on the magazine. And I'll call you. You should get it in about a month or two. I'm gonna call you afterwards, and I'd love to hear what you have. So be looking out for it. So I use that as, like, my.

[Luke Acree]

I love that. Yeah, that's awesome.

[Sky Michaels]

He's two concepts. Luke, I want to just throw. Everything you said is so accurate. The two concepts that if anyone is listening to, anchor around. Concept number one is don't create a story. Right. Our brain is wired to protect ourselves, and what it does all day is create a story around the what ifs, Right? What if this person doesn't like me? What if this person is annoyed? What if this person doesn't want to hear from me? Right? So we create the story to hold back on the action. So don't create stories, number one. Number two, obsess about the process, not the outcome. Unfortunately, I feel like we're raising. We're being brought up in this social media world where we're obsessing about results and outcomes versus process. And anyone that's successful knows that the gold is in the process. The marathon is not the marathon. It's the Actual training you're doing to run the marathon. That's the marathon. The marathon itself is just the icing on the cake. It's the six months of running and the cold and the wind and the early mornings, etc. That's the marathon. That's the process. That's the gold. Yeah. So that's the two things we want to come back to.

[Stephen Acree]

It's amazing how every single agent that we coach, it is the weirdest thing. But, yeah, they create stories in their mind. Like, every time with calling a lead, it's. It's like always the negative story for some reason. It's like, why don't you just create the positive? You know what I mean? Like, can we. Can't we get back to how valuable you are and that you have a skill set that can help someone and create a positive story that they might need that on the other end of the phone. But it is amazing how many people you know create those stories.

[Sky Michaels]

Stephen, here's a concept. You can have them have like a note card next to them. When they create that story, have them write the story down. This person's going to reject me or is going to be mad at me. And then have them write the emotion underneath that. At the. On the bottom, have them write the opposite of that story. This person's going to love me. And what's the emotion tied to it? The key thing you want to throw in there is that emotional tie. Right. We're emotional beings. We operate actually mainly by emotion. Emotions are driving us, not discipline or, you know, other things. So we'll have them latch on to the emotion and the positive story versus the negative, and may help them get over it.

[Stephen Acree]

I just whip them into shape.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah. Or you just yell at him, walk.

[Luke Acree]

Over to their note card and be like, idiot.

[Sky Michaels]

Your team wouldn't know what you do. Like, they're. If you're like, hey. They'd be like, what drug, Cody? What's beyond?

[Luke Acree]

Love it.

[Sky Michaels]

Sky. Thank you.

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah.

[Joshua Steich]

Thank you so much for coming on the episode today before we close out, let people know how they connect with you, learn about your coaching.

[Sky Michaels]

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I can't wait to continue to hopefully help you guys. You know, I love what you're doing and everything you put out there is such gold. So I highly encourage everyone to continue to listen to this podcast follow Reminder Media. Thank you. And so to get in touch with me, best way is probably my website, which is with heart coaching.com pretty simple. You could also reach me on Instagram, which is at Sky Michaels. Those are two easy ways to get ahold of me. And if anyone needs any help out there, please reach out. I have lots of resources I can share and hopefully just help you connect with the human being inside of you that is a powerful person.

[Luke Acree]

Love it.

[Joshua Steich]

Thank you. Sky. Steven, Cody, thank you. How can people connect with you?

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah, just email us. Like I said last podcast, we get a lot of calls, so feel free to call us. But emails teamcreebrothersrealty.com numbers 434-216-5306. Feel free to reach out.

[Cody Smith]

Awesome.

[Joshua Steich]

Thank you. And Cody, your check is in the mail for mentioning the magazine. We appreciate that reminder.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, Ariel, if you're listening to this, which you will be, clip that up. You know, get that, get that on the, you know.

[Joshua Steich]

All right, thank you all for listening. You can dive deeper to this episode. Get all of those links that our guests mentioned at what as well in the show notes over @stay paid podcast.com if you enjoyed this episode and want to show your support, head on over to Apple Podcast or Spotify. Drop us a five star review along with a comment. We will read it here on the show. And the best way to help out the show is simply share this episode with somebody that you know. If you want to get hold of me or Luke, you can email us@podcastreminder media.com and of course you can follow and connect with us as well on Instagram. We are at Stay Paid Podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Steich.

[Luke Acree]

And I'm Luke Akeri. Sky man, thank you so much. Really looking forward to digging more into your content. You have a really great take on how to do relationship marketing. Said a really practical way that I haven't heard before. And we've done what, 600 plus episodes, which is pretty amazing, man. And we've been. Yeah, it was really, really good. I think the action item for everybody is your take on how you should look at your database and go segment it. It's like the people that you love, the people that you like. And then what's the third one?

[Sky Michaels]

Don't know, don't care.

[Luke Acree]

Don't know, don't care. So go look at your database. That's your action item. And then segment your database based upon those three segments and then do a simple outreach.

[Joshua Steich]

Right?

[Luke Acree]

You've heard us talk about the five for five, which is take five minutes, pick five people in your database and literally reach out to them with a non salesy. Just touch point. Hey, thinking about you. We got to get together soon. Hope you're doing well. Thanksgiving's right around the corner. Well, probably this will be out after Thanksgiving, knowing our scheduling. But use a holiday. Use a reason to reach out. And remember, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every business is top producers take action. Take action on that today.