← Stay Paid Podcast
Stay Paid Podcast
Untapped Opportunities: Certifications That Could Transform Your Career
00:35:00
If you’re looking for practical ways to expand your knowledge, attract more clients, and stand out from the competition, this episode is a must. Dennis and Teresa Walsh, experts in residential construction, new home sales, and real estate marketing,...
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- [00:01]
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.
- [00:11]
Joshua Steike
Welcome to Stay Paid. My name is Joshua Steike.
- [00:13]
Luke Acree
And I'm Luke Acree.
- [00:14]
Joshua Steike
And our guests today are Dennis and Teresa Walsh. Dennis and Teresa are recognized throughout the housing industry as leading experts and innovators in all aspects of residential construction, renovation, new home sales, real estate, marketing, and business development. For over 30 years, the Walshes have dedicated themselves to bringing the best information, sales strategies, and marketing tools to more than 170,000 brokers, sales associates, builders, and other professionals who have enjoyed the Walsh's live and online courses. Together, they've established certified new home specialists as the number one brand of training and support products for new home sales success. Dennis and Teresa, welcome to Stay Paid.
- [00:53]
Dennis Walsh
Well, thank you. Excited to be here while listening to that introduction. Yeah, I'm really interested to hear what we're going to say.
- [01:01]
Luke Acree
Josh has that effect on people. Oftentimes he gives a good intro and then the people are like, man, I want to meet that person that you're talking about. Well, surprise, surprise, it's you. I would love for you guys, it's.
- [01:12]
Dennis Walsh
Angle Just real quickly. It's actually been 36 years now. Wow. New home specialist, Residential construction certified. Residential remodeling specialist. So we've.
- [01:22]
Luke Acree
How does one get into creating a certification? Like, everybody's heard about getting certified, you know, certifications in different industries, whether it's a financial industry or real estate. How did you guys get into it in the real estate industry? What led you there?
- [01:37]
Teresa Walsh
You want me to. Well, he was a builder in northeast Ohio, which is how we met. I closed the deal, we got married, we started the business.
- [01:45]
Luke Acree
She's a closer.
- [01:46]
Dennis Walsh
She's a closer. Dog on a pant leg.
- [01:48]
Teresa Walsh
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Dog on a pant leg. And he recognized that builders and realtors had no clue how to work together. And he kept being asked to come into the builders association to speak because he does an exceptional job explaining the whole process. So he's like, you know what? Here's what we're going to do. We're going to create a course that helps real estate professionals understand how to work with builders, understand how to assist buyers, all of that. So we did the George Costanza approach. We did everything the opposite. Okay. And we just created this course. We traveled all over, and we started little by little getting everyone.
- [02:22]
Dennis Walsh
Yeah, it's what we start. Yeah. We started with a huge real estate company based in Ohio. They're the fourth largest independent company, you may remember Realty one, run by two brothers, Giovanni brothers. They really liked our training a lot. And we got together with them and some of their folks, and they said, look, let's work together. Let's put a certification to this for the agents who complete it. And so we were the first to ever build a certification course outside the national association of Realtors. As time went on, people would say, well, this is recognized by ner. And we'd say, well, nervous. We partnered with them. They've been interested in acquiring it. But the reality is NAR doesn't really have any more credibility than anyone else to actually say, hey, this is great quality material. So our course has grown over the years, adopted by them. And then a Diner Realty, which is run by Ron Peltier and Arlie Peltier, grew home services, right? Built that whole business. People like Gino Blafari, who brought us in to train his people and then ultimately moved, you know, moved up the ladder. So over a period of 36 years, our training has grown all of our courses now to be the most popular their kind. The national association of Home Builders actually had a sales associate type chorus. And they ultimately they ended up stopped delivering that because we. People kept telling us, no. They. They really appreciated our course and the depth of our training.
- [03:44]
Luke Acree
Wow. Put the competition out of business. That is our all. Our dream is just to put the competition out of business. So, you know, question that I think in my mind, and maybe it's the, you know, reason people don't buy a certification. It's like, do certifications actually make a difference in helping you close a deal, or is it worth it in terms of, like, the knowledge? Does it actually mean something? That's a.
- [04:10]
Teresa Walsh
That's a great question. I hear it all the time. Well, what. How's the certification going to help? Well, first of all, it does allow you the opportunity to market yourself. So I'll give you a great example. I just had a call with a real estate agent before we got on this podcast. Biggest. What's the word I'm looking for? Challenge or frustration that I hear from real estate agents. These buyers drive me crazy. They go directly to the builders, right? So I look at them or I ask them, well, let me ask you a question. Take into consideration 60% of active home shoppers. They want to look at new homes. Yet what do the majority of them do? They go directly to the builder. So I say to them, why don't you Google in your market area that you're looking for a real estate professional, someone who's going to help you determine who's the best builder. What should I know who's going to help assist me? Are you going to show up? And they always say no. I said, well, then why would they call you? So of course they're going to go directly to builders. So having the designation logos to promote yourself and we teach them how to go out and market themselves as new home buyer representatives, to your point, look, it is the knowledge, it's having the confidence to know how to help them. Because I'll say, what if they drop in your lap today? Are you really going to be able to help them? Well, I could sell anything, but new homes is a different animal. There's so much more you need to know. So between being able to promote yourself on social media and then once you have them, to be able to demonstrate your value is key. They're going to not want to make.
- [05:45]
Dennis Walsh
A move, you know, and, you know, I'd like to add, so, absolutely, a lot of times that designation becomes a differentiator that gets them in the door. Bottom line is when that point comes, you've got to deliver, you've got to know your stuff. And so over time, not only have many agents leveraged that to build tremendous success and we can, you know, give you plenty of examples, but the industry, the industry, as far as builders, as far as home buyers, now after all these years, and for quite some time, we'll have builders reaching out to us and say, hey, I've heard, I've heard that certified new home specialists really get the job done. Can you help introduce me? How do I find someone? And so on.
- [06:23]
Luke Acree
Oh, wow.
- [06:24]
Dennis Walsh
Yeah, it's fun to see how over the years it's continued to grow.
- [06:27]
Luke Acree
Yeah, it's basically even turned into a network. That's interesting. So then, you know, in the course, right, you're teaching them some core things about new construction. Let's take that for instance. And I think that's a really hot topic right now because inventory is so low. Like I myself, I'm talking with my brother Steven, we're looking at doing some development because, you know, he's a real estate team, right. And it's just like there's not enough inventory. And if you can build it, people will buy it at this point in time, or at least in his market. And so like, where does the real estate agent, where can they focus when they're walking through somebody with the new construction? Can you give us a flavor of like, what they will Learn or what they can bring to the table. That's different than just the average agent that is not certified to wow the customer that you need to go with me because I'm the subject matter expert.
- [07:15]
Dennis Walsh
No, absolutely, absolutely. There's so much there. And we talked. First of all, I think the big picture is one of the big things we do is help the real estate agents recognize that one role is representing builders, developers, helping them successfully bring the right product to the market at the right price, the right place at the right time, the right marketing message and so on and so on. Right, right. Features. There's interesting.
- [07:39]
Luke Acree
I didn't realize that's part of your course.
- [07:41]
Dennis Walsh
Oh, absolutely.
- [07:42]
Luke Acree
So, okay, I didn't realize that. Okay, so you're teaching the agent how to help the builder so they can represent the builder to sell that home.
- [07:50]
Dennis Walsh
Exactly. So we call it builder representation, developer representation. That's what many people, for many years, Luke would think of. If I'm a real estate professional, somebody says you want to get involved in new homes. They think, well, geez, I don't know, do I want to represent a builder, Sit on site? How do I do that? So in the early days of our training, that was the primary focus. Right. We all know buyer agency came along, but as a builder representative, our training goes into all kinds of depth on the sales process, overcoming objections, the psychology of buyers when it comes to buying a new home. So it's actually we hear that one of the most common things we hear is everything we've learned in your course applies to everything I do in real estate. But then further, we say to the agents, look, builder, developer representation, that's one arena. And we've got again, loads of success stories. But another area, a lot of agents say, I don't know if I want to do that or I'm just getting started. We'll get started as a buyer representative. So to tree's point, you start to market yourself in today, videos, social media, your website, speaking to that. And then we help buyers. How do I, how do I compare one builder to another? What are the different types of builders out there? Who are they? How do I sort through the floor plans and locations? I've heard about the cost going off the rails while homes under construction. Can I control that? Yes, I can help you do that. What are allowances? What are selections? What is the difference who owns the lot, how do I finance this? And on and on and on. Our course goes into all kinds of depth. Then there's infill, teardowns, rebuilds. There's raw land sales, working with developers. There's building lot sales. Our course teaches all of those. And every one of those presents another opportunity that may be right around the corner that an agent never thought of. And even if they did, they don't know. They don't know how to start. They don't know where to go.
- [09:39]
Luke Acree
You know, it's funny, everything you just mentioned is a piece of social content that can be created. So, like, if I'm like sitting here listening to this as an agent is in essence I'm hearing, okay, I'm going to go get certified. But you just gave me 20 pieces of content that I can film a video on now on YouTube, I can make a post on social media. I could write a blog and put it through my email and all of that. Then type to your SEO strategy to tie back to what you were saying, Teresa of How do you what shows up when someone Googles, you know, home builds in Lynchburg, Virginia or King of Prussia? You'll show up if you have content there. Constantly educating on all of these areas. Do you find that your agents are utilizing your course for content?
- [10:26]
Dennis Walsh
Oh, absolutely. But honestly, straight up, one of the reasons that we connected initially is because you have such a powerful platform to bring that to life. And let's face it, agents are very.
- [10:36]
Luke Acree
Please tell us about how powerful our platform is. I love it.
- [10:39]
Dennis Walsh
No, Josh just, he called me up the other day.
- [10:44]
Luke Acree
That was my whole plan with this is to just get you to go and reminder media. No.
- [10:49]
Dennis Walsh
Right down the path. Luke, you know what's funny is normally when we get together, we have nothing to talk about here. We look at, look at how well things are going today.
- [10:57]
Luke Acree
Yeah, yeah. But it's funny because, I mean, my mind, because I'm in the content world, that's always where my mind goes to is like, okay, how do you like. Yeah, we know people buy like if I'm agent listening to this or really any business, like, people buy from people they know like and trust. Everybody's heard that almost now till they're blue in the face. We've heard that the question is how do you build trust? Because the know and the like is decently obvious. It's like you got to get your brand out there and you have to showcase one, your values, what you stand for, because people do business with people that they are like and shared values. But then also, you know, likability in terms of who you are as a person and what you're into and all that stuff. Trust, though, is built off of What I think is authority on your subject matter, being a subject matter expert. If you're going to go invest with a financial advisor right now, you want to invest with somebody that you believe knows more about the S&P 500 than you do, that knows more about crypto than you do. Whatever the investment strategy is, you don't want to invest with somebody that you believe you know more than them. You want to go to the financial advisor that knows more than you. So this whole certification concept is that is bolstering your trust to the audience, going, hey, I know more about this subject.
- [12:20]
Dennis Walsh
No, you're on the money. So it's. And we teach them how to go out and learn even more about what's going on locally. But let me tie into another piece because again, we go into in depth sales training. That's. We've had, we had, we had a call not long ago from a guy who said, I have been a junkie on sales training. I think I've read every book, watched every video. I just took your course because I was interested in new homes and opportunities. He said, as I went through, I felt like I've never had sales training before because you approach it. Wow. From a different approach. And it. And one of the things I'll tie in, you have to be the authority. You have to have that information, know the market, guide people through, and we lay that all out for them. But you want to know the other secret to that? It's honest. It's honesty. Nothing. You can't fake honesty. Right. George Burns. What? Yeah. George Burns said, listen, sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made. Right. But the reality is you can't. And so at the heart of our training, the foundation, what drives you to do everything you do all the research, is truly caring about your customers and what's best for them. You put everything you said together with that and you, you're unstoppable. I think I told you. Our son Christian, he's been in real estate now, what, about 16 years, right? And he grew up in our business. He goes through our training every year. Christians ranked in the top 1% of all real estates in the nation right now. We tell them, look, you got to make a little more effort. And we can't hang in there, you know, in the one for just the.
- [13:57]
Luke Acree
You need to be in the 0.001, you know.
- [14:00]
Dennis Walsh
No, come on, set some goals, will you? But, but, but, you know, we have that conversation now and then where he.
- [14:08]
Luke Acree
How does he utilize it when you're looking at his strategies or how he finds it is benefiting his business. What are you hearing from him? You know, obviously he might do it because it's like, ah, mom and dad, I have to support him. You know what I mean? I have to make him feel good. But he's obviously seen value in it to come back year after year. What is he seeing in the certification programs and what he's learning that he's implementing into his business?
- [14:35]
Teresa Walsh
Excellent question. So what, for example, I'll have agents that will call me or will be at a convention. Okay, how is this going to help? I've been doing this for 28 years, 32 years. What is it, what do you, what is it going to do for me? I said, okay. So you do a lot of new homes? Yeah, I do a lot of new homes. I said, okay, great. Going to give you two ideas. I'll guarantee you you haven't been doing in your business. Okay, number one, are you a member of your local builders association? No. Do you attend your local planning commission meetings? No. I said, okay, I've given you two ideas in under 10 seconds you haven't done in your 20, 30 years that.
- [15:13]
Joshua Steike
Could change your career.
- [15:15]
Teresa Walsh
That's what Christian does. Christian attends his local planning commission meetings because who are you going to meet? You're going to meet, you're going to meet builders, you're going to meet developers, you're going to meet architects, designers. Anything new coming to market that they want to tear down, rebuild, has to go through that planning commission. So Christian has front row seats to opportunity, which most agents, like Dunn said you could be driving by an opportunity today. Let's take the blinders off. Let's look at it differently and see what the possibilities are. The builders association, the same thing. Who are you going to meet? You're going to meet builders. So they have. And many agents think new homes. Well, there are no subdivisions in my area. It's not just about subdivisions. Every builder built their first home. Dr. Horton had one first home built. Okay. Now look at them. They're a monster. But you can meet with these builders who may have 10 sporadically placed lots. That's 10 paychecks that agent has coming. And the majority of these buyers that are going to be building have an existing home to sell. So that's what Christian, how Christian, those two things he's taken from our training, he's applied, and believe me, we're in an area that's all built up. There are no subdivisions where he focuses on his business. So Just a couple of ideas that agents can apply to them.
- [16:33]
Dennis Walsh
Yeah, to your point about being an expert and knowledgeable and so on. Listen, today people more and more want someone to guide them as it relates to the improvements, the condition, the home. Listen, we're buying a product that's made up of foundations and windows and doors, so on. So Christian and of course our certified new home specialist and our residential remodeling specialist apply that knowledge not to just impress people and win their confidence, but ultimately provide the best guidance. And that's where, that's where the new homes blends into the remodeling. We started sharing the remodeling message way back in the, in the early 2000s. And now the industry is coming around and recognizing that your expertise in that arena here, as Tree said, there's not a lot of subdivisions. There are not production builders. Christian or other agents are going to take on their sales and marketing. They handle that themselves. But there's all kinds of tear down and rebuild and major remodeling. And Christian has nurtured that reputation. I think I told you he has. Here in Southern California, over 33,000 subscribers on YouTube videos regularly, all kinds of content. And people reach out saying, we're looking for someone who help can help us.
- [17:49]
Luke Acree
Sort through this all around remodeling and construction, stuff like that.
- [17:54]
Dennis Walsh
That's it. We're not, we're not happy with our home right now. What should we do?
- [17:58]
Luke Acree
Yeah, it's so gold. Because maybe I mentioned this to you guys or not, but like Megan and I are trying to decide what we remodel in our home. She wants to remodel everything. Surprise, surprise. It's like a new kitchen or a new master bath or a new guest bedroom slash bath. And I'm just like trying to decide. But here's the question. Like kitchens, you could do 20 grand, you could do 120 grand. And it's just like, you know me, the way I'm working is I'm like, well, we'll never get our money back, so let's not do it. She's like, not everything you have to make money on. I'm like, yes, you do get it. That's insight to our marriage. But, but that's the question. The question is, who do I ask whether it's worth it to put in a $60,000 kitchen or not? Like, meaning like in that. Honestly, like, I would think maybe I go to Brian, my real estate agent, but I don't know if I would trust. No offense, Brian, if you're Listening to this, Brian's opinion on that. Unless Brian can actually share with me a well thought out reasoning why, like, here's Luke, if you ever think about remodeling your kitchen or your bathroom or whatever, come to me first because I can help you tell you how much you should spend in order to actually increase the value of your home or get your money back. Which is an incredible touch point that all real estate agents could literally be doing to their database right now. How many people think about remodeling?
- [19:23]
Dennis Walsh
Well, yeah. Yeah. So that's the thing. So right now, the latest study by the website Houzz, H O U Z z finds that 90% of all current homeowners want to do some significant amount of remodeling. I look at that and I say that means those 90% of all current homeowners don't love their home the way it is. To your point, they don't know what to start. They don't know how it impacts the value of the home. I'll never forget, as we were introducing a number of years ago, our residential remodeling specialist, we met with an executive, one of the largest real estate organizations in the nation. We were explaining all this and he said, are you kidding me? His story was kind of like yours, Luke. He said, I'm going through this with my wife. We are surrounded by thousands of agents, part of our company, and we're thinking, who can help us decide should we stay here? What improvements should we do? Should we make improvements and sell? If we do, should we look for a new home? Or should we buy an older home and fix it up? We couldn't find anyone, provide their guidance. And he was, he's thrilled. I mean, they. So many agents are now learning this. And I'll let Teresa explain the rva, which is exactly what you're talking about. Exactly.
- [20:32]
Teresa Walsh
So in our remodeling course, what we teach the agents is how to do a remodeling value analysis. Because they hear it all the time, buyers and sellers. Okay, if I remodel, if we do this, how much is my home going to be worth after the remodeling? We need to know this. So we encourage the agents after they go through the course, reach out to your whole sphere. Anyone ever spoken with about real estate? Josh, what's going on? Are you thinking about real estate? I mean, you think about remodeling, are you downsizing? Are you growing out of your home? Funny you should call Teresa. We're thinking about remodeling. Great. Let me come on over and let's figure out what it is you'd like to do. Your home. We'll figure all that out once it's all done. We'll do an RV on that home. And guess what? Not a good idea to put all that money in this house. So why don't we do this? Let's do the minimal amount of remodeling. Let's get the most bang for your buck.
- [21:29]
Dennis Walsh
Let's do strategic intended for sale remodeling. Right. So. And the RVA to take it further. It's something that we developed quite a few years ago. And in essence, it's a CMA Competitive market analysis and an arv, an after remodeling value combined. Right. So we teach the step by step process. Now, this is not, this is not a scientific process. It takes knowledge of that area, the kinds of buyers in the market. The good news is we have yet to see any data crunching people with any automatic valuation models, any AI that knows what an agent who knows that market, who walks through that home, sees, knows and can evaluate. I know, Luke, we talked about it in, I think, one of our early calls. Our entire business. What do you do for a living? Our entire business is focused, even though we're focused in these arenas around construction. It's about helping brokers and agents stay at the center of the transaction and bring more value to their clients, buyers, sellers, investors and so on, than anyone else can putting that all together. And as we're in an arena where the industry, every time we turn around, there's somebody who's going to take the agent out of the transaction, simplify it automated. That's where this stuff is gold. And you know, we, we say to the age, here's, here's the other thing. Look at the massive companies, multibillion dollar companies that were built on the premise of people want to know how much their home is worth, regardless of whether that information is good or bad, people want to know. So to your point, so they, they use their reminder media program. They're reaching out to people saying, hey, listen, if you really want to get an idea of what your home is worth, but not just a cma, that's nice. That's nice. A lot of agents do that, but that's kind of old school. As a homeowner. Let me ask both of you, if somebody said, I'm going to come in, I'm going to give you an idea. If you put your home on the market the way it sits today, I'm going to give you an idea how much that's worth. You say, well, that's good. That's interesting. Another agent comes in and says, well, that's fine, but what I'd like to do is take your home the way it is and also analyze a handful of strategic improvements where, let's say you invert every $10,000 you invest. We're going to increase the value of your home, 20 or $30,000. Would you be interested in that? And you'll see, you know, the response is, are you kidding? That's the real value of my home. If I were to maximize it?
- [23:55]
Teresa Walsh
Well, you know what happens a lot of times, unfortunately, the agent is not prepared to do that for the client. So they sell the home and now Flipper comes in. They benefit. They're the ones that are benefiting. So we don't want them to benefit. Not that I'm not dissing flippers, but I'm just saying we should be in a position where we're helping that client.
- [24:15]
Luke Acree
It's so true, because we've done so many. Because we do a lot of flips and rentals and stuff like that in another business that I have. And we do so much value add properties where we can come in and we can not. We do more than putting lipstick, but basically, you know, renovating a kitchen, renovating some bathrooms, putting some lipstick, and then, boom, you're making 20 grand, you're making 40 grand because you increase the value. It just popped into my head. HGTV literally put out a show called Love it or Listed. And the whole premise of the show was remodeling your current residence. I'm thinking to myself, I don't run across a lot of agents who are doing this type of outreach to their database, but it is such a perfect outreach because I'm literally talking to you about something of a value add that I don't get paid. If I just help you remodel and tell you what to do and everything, I'm not necessarily getting paid off of that. There's no transaction taking place. But I'm solidifying the most important thing, which is the relationship and the thought leadership around the home. But if I take it to the next level. Do you guys know Amy Stockberger? Have you guys. Man, we. So we just got to know her. Just recently did a show with her on the podcast. We'll have to send it to you. But she's just. I mean, unbelievable. Where she's South Dakota. Yes, South Dakota. She's like the number one team in South Dakota going to sell probably 500 something houses this year. But she basically has created this network, VIP type club for her clients. In the VIP club, she has partnerships with contractors and local businesses, and she feeds them and they feed her referrals. Right? So people have heard about this concept before. She's doing it on steroids. It's unbelievable. But I'm thinking to myself, she gets the contract her. To pay her, what, 3200 a year. Yeah, to be part of her VIP contract. But here's why it's so beautiful, because Amy literally has 500 people just this year that she sold homes to. That 90% want to do some form of remodeling. She is the perfect lead gen for the contractors. So if you tie it all together, if you're a fan of the show, you literally can go, okay, let me get certified and get the knowledge. Let me then call my whole database and follow up to where I basically find out, hey, are you thinking about remodeling? Let me give you an rva. You called it. Let me give you an rva remodeling valuation, essentially. Then let me tie you into my VIP club of network of contractors, trusted electricians, plumbers, builders, whatever. And these people are paying you. It's freaking genius.
- [27:02]
Dennis Walsh
No, we've been. We have been. We've been teaching this for so many years, the concept, and again, we formalized it with our residential modeling specialist course. And in the course, we teach the agents how to build that. Right. How to grow their business around that, how to communicate that, and marketing, how to identify good contractors, all those things. How to build their business to bring that to life. We have folks who have applied this. We've been sharing this for many years. We have teams of people. Many. Some of these teams, almost everybody on the team except, you know, maybe somebody answering the phone has our designations, but they'll do. We have teams that do over 500 transactions a year. And their secret sauce is never lose a listing because they come in and they say, you know, we've probably talked to a few folks who've given you, you know, given you an idea. For example. Again, another example, Christian, because it's close to home. Someone called him, saw him on one of his videos up the road here in Whittier. They had a home for sale. They talked to two other agents who had both come to roughly the same number, about 525,000. We'll put it on the market tomorrow. The market's great. We'll clean it up just a little bit, and we'll probably get multiple Offers, they said, christian, we wanted to talk with you. We love your videos. We know that, you know, you've got an excellent reputation. Christian looks at it and he says, you know, I'd like to do. If you wouldn't mind. He's. The 525 is on the money. If you. If you're in a hurry and you want to go, we can. We can do that tomorrow. But if you want to give me a few days, let me get back to you. Christian comes back a few days later. You know, he's taking some measurements and some photos. He's got now quotes from his contractors. Now, a little aside to your point, Christian drives send so much business to his contractors. When Christian says, I need a quote, he gets a quote. When Christian says, hey, I've got to turn this around in a week, he gets right. Because he's a repeat customer. Right? So he comes back in, he says, look, about $40,000. He said, I'd like to do this thus. And so I think we could drive your selling price from 525 up to right around 6 or so. And they said, let's do it. Three weeks later, everything finished up. They went on the market. And Christian's got a great little video he created showing the improvements he made. The home sold. They had a little bidding war. It sold for 640. They cleared after their $40,000 investment. An extra $75,000. It was just sitting there. Someone else could have capitalized on it. Here's the other side. So not only does Christian win a listing, the people are thrilled. They refer him every time he turns around. He's getting another referral. Right. But now they move into the market as buyers with an extra $75,000 to work with, which. Right. That can make all the difference in getting the whole. So.
- [29:41]
Luke Acree
And he has an incredible story to showcase that he is the educator that can make you money caring about people.
- [29:49]
Dennis Walsh
I have agents say, well, that's extra work, and that can delay the sale. But let me ask you, what's the right thing to do? If you were those sellers, shouldn't they have the opportunity to decide whether they maybe want to pursue that and they maybe can ultimately make a better decision that's better for them in the long run.
- [30:07]
Luke Acree
Yeah.
- [30:07]
Joshua Steike
How long does it take to get a certification like that? Like what should the people listen?
- [30:11]
Dennis Walsh
Ten year process, Josh?
- [30:16]
Teresa Walsh
No, the courses are all online. You could stop and start as you like. But we package both the remodeling and the new homes training with what's called our residential Construction certified, all about how a home is built from the ground up. And what's crazy is we're able to get our real estate license without actually knowing what's behind the drywall.
- [30:38]
Dennis Walsh
The product themselves, that's a whole other.
- [30:40]
Luke Acree
Podcast in and of itself, training for real estate agents or computers.
- [30:46]
Teresa Walsh
You need to know every aspect of the product, but for whatever reason. So they love that. And many of them say, why didn't I have this when I got in the business? That's 10 hours. The new homes is 12. The remodeling is seven. Stop and start, as you like, all online. So you're listening to dentists. You've got visuals on your computer screen. You download worksheets. And what I tell everybody is when you've had enough of dentists, you could actually shut him off.
- [31:11]
Joshua Steike
Okay, you don't have that luxury.
- [31:19]
Teresa Walsh
He is awesome.
- [31:20]
Dennis Walsh
Well, here's the other benefit. I purposely authored the course without any video of me. You're listening to my voice. So I tell people, here's the other bonus. You don't be in a live session. You don't have to look at me if you decide.
- [31:33]
Joshua Steike
Well, the most interesting thing I learned when I went through the real estate classes was that you, you own all of the real estate above you all.
- [31:40]
Luke Acree
The way to space and to the center of the earth.
- [31:48]
Joshua Steike
That is awesome stuff. Before we close out, let people know how they can connect with both of you.
- [31:53]
Teresa Walsh
Absolutely. They can go to sell new homes dot com, not sell old homes, sell new homes dot com. They could go to contact us. They can reach out, fill out a contact us, and we'll get right back with them. Anybody who'd like to learn more, Teresa, Dennis Walsh, you'll want to talk to me.
- [32:10]
Dennis Walsh
Or they can call either call Luke or Josh.
- [32:13]
Luke Acree
Yes, we will send you that way.
- [32:18]
Joshua Steike
And as of this recording, we are about to do a webinar. But by the time this, this podcast comes out, that webinar will be available. So if you're listening to this and you miss the webinar invite from our emails, make sure to check out the show notes. We're going to include a link there where you can watch the webinar, where we're going to go into a lot more detail on all of this as well. Thank you both so much for joining us today and thank you all so much for listening. As I mentioned, you can get the show notes over stay paid podcast.com as well as the video and all of our episodes over there. If you like this episode and want to show your support, you can head on over to Apple Podcast or Spotify, drop us a five star review and leave us a comment. We'll read it here on the show. And the best way to show your support is to share this episode with someone that you know. If you want to get hold of me or Luke, you can email us@podcast remindermedia.com and of course you can follow us on Instagram. We are at Stay Paid Podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Psych.
- [33:08]
Luke Acree
I'm Luke Acreid.
- [33:09]
Joshua Steike
Dennis.
- [33:09]
Luke Acree
Teresa, thank you so much. Fantastic. I cannot wait for the webinar to actually learn more. I was excited to have you guys on the podcast and then I'm excited to bring you in front of our clients because as I've learned a little bit more about this, I'm realizing this is such a untapped opportunity for agents because they know they have to follow up. We sell this all day long. It's our whole magazine concept. It's everything. You got to follow up, you got to stay top of mind. But they don't know what to follow up about. And this if 90% of homeowners right now, this is really my action item for everybody listening to this. If 90% of your database is thinking about remodeling and your job is to be known as the person that is the subject matter expert on everything around the home, what an incredible opportunity to call up your database right now and find who is thinking about remodeling and answer questions for them. Point them to your contractor that's trusted, your plumber that's trusted that you've used multiple times. You will do the unexpected. They expect you to help them buy or sell a new home, but they do not expect you to help them with their current home. And when you do that, you do the unexpected. Doing the unexpected creates raving fans. My action item for everybody on this is at least call five people this week. Don't be shy. Pick up the phone, call your database and ask them if they have ever thought about remodeling or if they're thinking about remodeling, if they ever need any help with that. If they need connections to contractors, you'd be more than happy to help them with that because that's what you do. You love everything about the home. Remember the difference between top producers and mediocre producers. In every business, top producers take action, take action on that today.