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- [00:03]
Lindsay Anderson
Are you ready for next level growth in your business? Welcome to the Lindsay Anderson show where we pull back the curtain on the exact strategies, tools and mindsets that build million dollar empires. If you're hungry for more time, more freedom, and a whole lot more impact, you've come to the right place. Buckle up because we're about to ignite your business journey. Now, here's Lindsay.
- [00:33]
Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode. I'm so excited. For today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing Ms. Andrea Beam. She is the owner and principal broker for the Beam Team LLC and a motivational speaker. Her team is the 2015 Small Business of the Year awarded through the Albany Chamber of Commerce. She was the 2017 President of the Willamet association of Realtors and and a previous Maps mastery coach. The Beam Team is a top producing real estate business that puts customer experience at the top of her list. And in today's episode, we're going to be asking her all about how she made this happen and her secret sauce to building out her agency. Put your hands together for Ms. Andrea Beam. Welcome to the show, Andrea.
- [01:17]
Andrea Beam
Thank you. I'm honored to be here.
- [01:19]
Lindsay Anderson
I'm so glad you're here. I read a list of accomplishments for your business. Did I miss anything in there, Andrea?
- [01:26]
Andrea Beam
Oh, gosh, I don't know. I'm sure there's a slew of stuff. I am probably the worst at self acknowledgement. I'm sure there's lots of awards in there. We did engage from your stage down in Vegas. Graduated from that program, speaker at local churches around the area and yeah, oh, I'm in everything.
- [01:44]
Lindsay Anderson
Is that a secret sauce to how you actually grew out your agency and are so successful in it?
- [01:50]
Andrea Beam
Absolutely. Education is such a big part of who I am in terms of offering training and value. That is a huge piece to what we provide, whether it's to consumers or whether that's to my team, my company. It's education and education. I think right now people, people are soaking up education.
- [02:15]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah, yeah. So in terms of how that looks, that translates into more clients. Can you be a little bit more specific about that?
- [02:23]
Andrea Beam
Yeah. With consumers, we do a lot of events throughout the year. So for example, 2020, we are planning out an entire series, a 12 month series that is in person where we're educating the community in different hot topics that we're seeing rise to the surface in our industry. Things like financial literacy for young people, maybe like 16 to 28. That range opposite end of the spectrum. There's a lot of people Starting to live in multi generational living, which is popular in other countries. It has not been as popular in America and it's becoming a lot more popular with inflation rising and with the prices of everything and hold prices. Right. And so people are having to look at other solutions. So giving resources, bringing in special speakers, bringing in people that can really teach in these niches that we're seeing, these holes and these gaps in the community that people don't know about. Right. And so it could be investing. It could be learning to invest in your first investment property, or investing in the stock market, or protecting your assets that you already have. So all of that series is going to be nothing but education. And that's a large part of how we provide value out to our community is through education and how you stand.
- [03:51]
Lindsay Anderson
Up above the rest of your competitors. It sounds like.
- [03:54]
Andrea Beam
Absolutely. I mean, there's. I think we've all seen it, right? We see the posts on Facebook or on social media, hey, I do this, call me and I'll even pick on my own industry. In real estate, I. It's a pet peeve of mine. I see people make postings about, I'm in real estate, I'm a real estate agent, so you should call me to buy, sell, or invest in a home. There's that saying that people don't care how much they know until they know how much you care. I love that saying. And that's really the epitome of why we do so much education is because we lead with education, not with the selling of ourselves. And it gives our community a chance to get to know us when they don't even need us yet. They may not need us to buy or sell, though. We're still providing education to them and we get to know them during the time period of their life where they don't even need us yet.
- [04:43]
Lindsay Anderson
Maybe that makes sense. With education, it's sounding like you can really rely on looking at relationships when it comes to building out your agency. And so it's like, no, I don't care if you buy from me now or five years from now. I'm here to give you value so that you know me, so that you'll turn to me when it's time when you actually need my expertise.
- [05:01]
Andrea Beam
Absolutely. This whole industry is built on relationships and it's built on looking at the bigger picture. I call it a holistic approach because we're not just looking at a transaction, we're looking at the whole person and their whole portfolio. Right. It's just, they're just Selling or they're just buying. What are they trying to do with this? Are they trying to build a legacy to hand down? Are they trying to build a retirement? Are they, are they trying to build an income? What are they trying to do with real estate? And then is that protected? And do they have they legally set up things correctly? It's more than just what you see right in front of you. It's. You have to look at it from a holistic approach. That's so important because I think we get caught up. Just entrepreneurs in general can get caught up in the process and a thing that's right in front of them and it's so much bigger than that. It's so much bigger than that.
- [05:58]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. There's a lot of stories about, hey, you serve one person in the family and then maybe you serve their children and then they go and sell their house again or they buy a second or third house and you're always the one that they really turn to. It is more than just one transaction.
- [06:13]
Andrea Beam
Oh, gosh, absolutely. I don't remember what the calculation is in terms of how many times you have the potential to work with one particular client through their lifetime, but when you compound that with their brothers, their sisters, their aunts, their uncles, their parents, their kids, it's exponential. Right. The relationships and the business that come from that. And it's really rewarding when that happens. What bigger compliment is there really, that someone refers their family to you or their best friend to you or their children? What bigger compliment is there than to work with multiple generations? It's amazing.
- [06:53]
Lindsay Anderson
Yes. So you have these events that actually is. It's like pr, getting in front of new people so that new people are coming into your ecosystem. What's your advice for now that you have people in your ecosystem? How do we make sure that we're in front of them? How are we marketing to them? How are we nurturing those relationships so that when those transactions come along, I'm the one that they think of? What, what are some tips you have around that?
- [07:16]
Andrea Beam
Well, a lot of tips. I think it has to go back to the pie that we look at. A lot of people communicate a lot of different ways. This is not a one size fits all world or industry. Any entrepreneurial industry is not one size fits all. When you look at the retention, you have the clients now and you're looking at what do you do now that you have them. It becomes, I think, a multi pronged approach because you need to speak to them in different areas of their life. You need to continue to provide education and value because it's going to change over time what they need or what they're looking for. And if you're reaching out to them in text messages, in emails, in social media, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, there's different ways to speak to people. They all retain information differently. And so I think it's important to make sure you have a multi pronged approach to reaching out to those people. Can't just be one thing it there. There's lots of ways that people retain information or I know for me I probably have to get maybe 15 emails and five text messages before I go. Oh, I should pay attention to this thing. This thing.
- [08:33]
Lindsay Anderson
Right, right.
- [08:34]
Andrea Beam
The world is noisy and if you're not bringing value to your consumer, to your client, you're just part of the noise.
- [08:44]
Lindsay Anderson
That's right. Can you speak to how social media plays a part in that? How do you use social media to nurture and create those relationships?
- [08:52]
Andrea Beam
We do two separate channels, whether right or wrong or indifferent. I have a personal channel which is more my faith based side of my, my entrepreneurial stuff that I do. And then we have the real estate side so we split it up two ways and it still is all educational content or inspirational or encouraging or fun facts. Did you know things that there's different purposes for each page. So when it's more the real estate page we're looking more at, are we providing content that the consumer wants to digest? Is this something that they want to read about they don't always want to see? I sold five houses this month. Good for you. I'm not saying that's bad. I am saying though, that's probably not the content that your consumers are digesting. The accolades are good and the proof of success is good. But that is such a small part of what we're putting out there. 80% of it is going to be, is this something that's beneficial to them? Is this something that is going to be useful to them or even make them want to learn more? Um, a lot of times, unless you're doing like a YouTube, like a long form, you don't have a lot of time. So sometimes it's just a matter of getting their interest. So they want to get more information from you.
- [10:09]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. It sounds like instead of showing up on social media for yourself and talking about yourself, it's always about what is relevant to them, what resonates with them and what, what do they want to see? I think as you run social media, the answers will Be clear on whether or not it's for them or for you. Is that fair to say?
- [10:26]
Andrea Beam
Absolutely. What's their pain? What's their pain point? A lot of people are missing that on social media because they sell the. I heard this the other day and it just really resonated with me. We sell the, we sell the feature, not the benefit. And we have it backwards. We should be selling the benefit, not the feature. We're not trying to sell that this is a three bedroom, two bath. We're trying to sell that this home is closer to their grandkids or this home is maybe, maybe a lesser commute for them, for their work or what are the benefits of them being in a home. We tend to not focus on those things but in reality that's why people are at least in our industry, why they're buying or why they're selling. In some of my other businesses it's a. Still, it's a matter, it doesn't matter what business. It doesn't have to be real estate. This could be any industry out there. Focus on the pain points. That's the content you should be putting out. The information to be putting out is the benefits that are going to ease that pain for them. We just tend to hit on the wrong things sometimes and I would love to see as a entrepreneurial as a whole, I'd like to see us change that shift in social media. It'd be amazing.
- [11:34]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. Because I think that's how you get clients, how you build these relationships. I think it's the only way to really go about that. Can you speak a little bit about niching? So niching as a real estate agent?
- [11:43]
Andrea Beam
So, so this is saying go small to go big.
- [11:46]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah.
- [11:47]
Andrea Beam
If, if you're trying to be everything, everyone, which you know, when you first get into real, you're just like one person and so you tend to be open to anything. As you get more experience under your belt and get really good at what you're doing, I think you find that a lot of times you have a passion about a particular area of the business that you're in. So for real estate it could be anything from helping seniors to helping first time home buyers to helping distressed property owners maybe that are behind on their payments. It could be helping luxury. There's lots of different niches that are out there and trying to be everything to everyone. In theory feels good.
- [12:32]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. In theory I can help anyone bring em in. Yeah. Yeah.
- [12:38]
Andrea Beam
And if we were willing to take a step back, get really good in one area, what happens is and where we miss the boat on this is that we get really good at an area now we become known for that. We become known as the expert in that. And so everyone that has heard of us, oh, they specialize. You need to go talk to them. If you're struggling, you need to go talk to them. If you're selling a luxury home, you need to go talk to Susie Q. Right. If you're, you're a first time homebuyer, you gotta go talk to Billy Bob. You become known for something. I would challenge people to think about the fact that they probably get referred more if they have a niche than if they tried to be everything to everyone.
- [13:20]
Lindsay Anderson
Definitely. Definitely. Can you share what is your.
- [13:24]
Andrea Beam
So my niche is actually in training agents. It is helping agents build wealth, helping agents build their businesses, coming together where you really, together you have more power as a group than you do as one individual agent. I'm a huge believer in that. And so for me, my niche is training up agents to be very successful real estate careers, not just becoming a statistic. 80%, actually, maybe it's 87. 87% of real estate agents will fail their first year in business.
- [13:59]
Lindsay Anderson
And why is that? What's the number one reason for that, Andrea?
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Andrea Beam
It's who number one reason? I think it's probably tied at the top. I think autonomy is probably ties for first place. I think there's two things. Autonomy. People don't know what to do with their time. A lot of people come into real estate with a W2 background and that's not bad. It's just a different mindset. It's a different mindset when you know you have a check coming on the 1st of the month or the 5th of the month and you have to work so many set hours and everything is very structured. When you come into real estate, you are a business owner, you're an entrepreneur, and all of a sudden you have freedom to do whatever you want with your time. And I think autonomy kills more careers than anything because you don't know what to do. So structure would be the other part of that. You get away from discipline, you get away from structure and you just wing it. Everything, you just wing it. And that's what's killing all the careers in this industry, is they're not able to discipline themselves to follow a schedule, to follow a framework, to follow a plan that works, and they try to wing it. Bam. You become a statistic because you're not.
- [15:14]
Lindsay Anderson
Doing those daily tasks that's actually building your business. You're not doing the right tasks. So what's the solution to that, Andrea? We experience that with any small business owner. All of a sudden they are not at the whim of a job telling them what to do. And so they're like, oh, but I'm an independent person. Like I don't have to do stuff I don't want to do. When you actually do, you actually really do, right?
- [15:36]
Andrea Beam
Absolutely. I mean, not only do you have.
- [15:38]
Lindsay Anderson
To, but you have to motivate yourself and know what it is yourself.
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Andrea Beam
Yeah. Discipline is freedom. I think Jocko said that, Right? Discipline is freedom. And it sounds like an oxymoron, right?
- [15:50]
Lindsay Anderson
Sure does.
- [15:51]
Andrea Beam
It's true. If you have discipline to go to the gym, you're going to get the result that you want. If you have the discipline as an entrepreneur to make the calls, to get the sales, even if you got to sit there for two and three and four hours, you're going to get the result that you're looking for. But you got to do the push ups. You have to do the rest on its own.
- [16:10]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. So I know you're a big believer in teams. How do you help your team with this, with the autonomy piece? This is really. This is great.
- [16:17]
Andrea Beam
Yeah, yeah. Systems. Systems, Absolutely. All day long, in order to scale your business, whatever that business is, you have to have systems that are scalable. Not just systems, but systems that are scalable. Because as you continue to grow, you'll find that you break systems because they don't work. What worked for one level of business doesn't work for the next level of business. What got you there doesn't get you here. So having systems. I put it this way, when I talk to my partners, how do you send a rocket ship to the moon? What's probably one of the biggest things they have when they're sending a rocket ship to the moon? Or an airline pilot, maybe that might be more well known. If you have an airline pilot, what do they do before they take off in the plane? They walk around with a checklist.
- [17:08]
Lindsay Anderson
Systems check, baby. Yeah. Wow.
- [17:13]
Andrea Beam
Why not have that in your business? Why not have playbooks in your business? Of this is how we do each section of our business have a playbook. You have a video on that section of your business. You have a checklist on that section of your business. You have an sop, a standard operating procedure for that section. Section of your business. Every section of your business should have it. If I go out and get hit by a Mack truck today, does anybody know how to come in and do my business? Is There playbooks on what I do and how I do it. System.
- [17:42]
Lindsay Anderson
What would you say is give us an example of one system that your business could not live without?
- [17:47]
Andrea Beam
100%. Our CRM, our database.
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Lindsay Anderson
Okay.
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Andrea Beam
Database is an ecosystem all in itself. Everything is in there. From communication with our clients to checklists. Everything has a checklist in our system. Whether it's a checklist for we just put a new home under contract or we just took a new listing or we just hired a new business partner, everything has a checklist so that we don't let things drop between the cracks. We can be amazing as humans, but we're still humans.
- [18:19]
Lindsay Anderson
Yes.
- [18:20]
Andrea Beam
Still.
- [18:20]
Lindsay Anderson
Yes. We need to be told what to do. Can you expound a little bit more on team? I hear. I heard you say that they're your partners. Can you expound a little bit on that?
- [18:28]
Andrea Beam
Yeah. My team is comprised of agents and administrative staff, and every single one of them is a business partner to me. Every single one of them is treated as a business partner. Every one of them has a role within the growth of this team. When you think about a football team going to the super bowl, you don't get there with one person. You get to the super bowl because everybody has a lane. Everybody has a role in the bigger picture of getting to the Super Bowl. Entrepreneurial and owning businesses. And whether it's real estate or something else, you're going to do it with other people. And whether that's other people in your team or the tribe of people around you. Business partners, to me, it's a mindset. I don't just have an agent on my team. They're in business with me because I want to be their best business partner. Not because they are someone here just to do a job. No, we're business partners in this. I provide things, they provide things, and we have a common goal. Business partners are, to me, changing the mindset. Changing the way that we talk about the roles on the team is a really big part of the ownership of the team. They play huge roles in the success of this team.
- [19:44]
Lindsay Anderson
And. And words matter. Like I heard it put just the other day, I'm not their manager. Nobody wants to be managed. Nobody wants to be managed.
- [19:52]
Andrea Beam
I want it hard to let them use the word boss. I am not.
- [19:56]
Lindsay Anderson
Yes. Nobody wants this. Yeah. And words definitely matter when it comes to all of this. How you're addressing them. So, Andrea, the real estate business is going through a lot of changes right now. There's a lot of laws coming out, a lot of things happening. What do you see as the future here, real estate's always going to be here.
- [20:13]
Andrea Beam
It's never going to go away. And the constant thing in real estate is change. It's always changing. It will never sit still and stay the same. Quite frankly, our economy never sits still and stays the same. I don't know what industry sits still and stays the same. It's always evolving. It's always changing. And so I do think, at least from what I see in Oregon, what I see in the United States, I see a huge uptick in multifamily housing. I do see a huge uptick in the need for a single story. The. The ability to take care of mom or dad or uncle or aunt or disabled family member or things like that. I see that. We actually just recently partnered with a builder to provide floor plans and options for multigenerational living because it's hard to find on the market. They're not around every corner. Houses are set up already for multigenerational living. And a lot of times they have to have a lot of renovations done to if they are. And so we partnered with a builder to be able to offer that to consumers and our clientele that they can literally build a home to, to spec what they need for their particular situation. I see that being a huge piece of real estate going forward. They always say, oh, AI is going to replace a real estate agent? I don't think that it will. AI is a great tool for real estate agents, but it can never replace the human factor. Interest rates are going to do what interest rates do. In the 80s, they were 16, 17, 18%, the best we got down to, like, in the twos, maybe. And I don't know that we'll ever see that again. But the constant is that it's always changing and evolving, and I think the quicker we get on board with the fact that. Is there ever a bad time to buy real estate? I. I don't really. I don't think so.
- [22:01]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. So I hear you saying the future of real estate is change. And it always has been and always will be.
- [22:07]
Andrea Beam
Always will be. Yep, you can bet on that.
- [22:09]
Lindsay Anderson
And, yeah, once you. Once you embrace that, at least you know what you're dealing with here.
- [22:13]
Andrea Beam
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not something where you get to sit down and be comfortable. Right. As entrepreneurs, I think that's something that we're always coming to grips with. No matter what we're doing. The minute we get comfortable is the minute we stop growing. And the minute we stop growing, we're dying. So just get comfortable with Change, because it's coming whether we want it to or not. It's always given to it.
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Lindsay Anderson
I love that. So, Andrea, here you are, you're successful, you know at what you do. You have a really great team. You've built your agency and your team out. What is one thing you wish you would have known before you got started on all this that you know now.
- [22:48]
Andrea Beam
Oh, there's so many things I could share here. I think everyone hits a level of adversity that shakes you. A level of adversity that really tests your resolve to do what you do. If you have a goal, if you have a dream, you're going to encounter problems, you're going to encounter setbacks. I think Russell Brunson calls it the resistance. You're going to encounter it. It's a given. So for a long time in the younger part of my career, I maybe just didn't think that would happen to me. Last year there was a lot of adversity thrown at me all at once. I'll just be really honest. Sometimes I was crawling on the ground, crawling in the gravel, just trying to get to the other side. And you're beaten and you're bloody and you're bruised and you think, oh my gosh, I don't think I can take another blow. I don't think I can take another hit. And whether it's business or personal, when it rains, it pours. Right? We know that saying. I think the ability to build your mindset and know that it's going to happen at some point you're going to hit adversity and you have to be mentally tough to be able to get through that. I think I would've prepared myself a little bit better. For sure. There's a lot of answers I could probably give you for that one, but.
- [24:01]
Lindsay Anderson
That'S a good one. Adversity and the resistance is gonna come. So you may as well just like with change, you may as well just embrace this. Cause that's facts.
- [24:08]
Andrea Beam
It's facts, facts.
- [24:10]
Lindsay Anderson
I love it. Andrea, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. Before I let you go, I'm gonna turn the time over to you. Let us know how to find you and anything else you want the audience to know.
- [24:19]
Andrea Beam
Yeah, absolutely. If you wanna find my faith based side, go to Instagram and go to andreab. If you would like to follow us on our real estate page, go to Instagram. At the Oregon Home Hub is our Instagram page for business.
- [24:36]
Lindsay Anderson
Thank you, Andrea for being a guest on the show. Appreciate your knowledge today.
- [24:40]
Andrea Beam
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. It was an honor. Thank you.
- [24:45]
Lindsay Anderson
There you have it, folks. Another awesome episode. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Andrea as much as I did. Thank you so much for tuning in and we'll see you next week on the show. Cheers to you and your success.
- [25:00]
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share how you're leveling up your business. Want more? Connect with Lindsay Anderson and get the tools you need to crush your goals@lindsaya.com until next time, keep pushing, keep growing, and turn those business dreams into reality.