The Millionaire Real Estate Agent Podcast

Episode 66: Win More Clients Using Google Reviews With Nick Waldner

Host: Jason Abrams
Guest: Nick Waldner
Date: January 20, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Jason Abrams sits down with powerhouse agent and team leader Nick Waldner, whose group consistently closes over $180 million in volume and has amassed nearly 2,000 five-star Google reviews. The conversation explores how Waldner engineered a systematized approach to client experience, leveraged social proof through Google reviews, and built a defensible business asset that drives referrals, conversions, recruiting, and GCI. Nick shares the exact playbook his team uses to dominate their market in reviews—demystifying the steps, incentives, and scripts anyone can use.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nick’s Origin Story: Sales Hustle, Values, and Early Lessons

• Beach Photography to Franchise Empire:
  • Nick’s formative sales experience was running up and down the beach selling family photos, learning to embrace rejection:

    “Every no is just on the road to yes. Every failure is just on the road to success and you almost get numb to it.” — Nick Waldner (03:46)

  • Scaled seasonal business to $1.2 million in sales (05:18) before transferring his skills to Cold Stone Creamery.
• Cold Stone Creamery Ride & Hard Choices:
  • Opened 100+ stores, grew fastest territory ever, but walked away from the business due to a values breach by his partner:

    “If he’s going to cheat on his wife and his kids, he’s going to cheat on me. And it’s going to be in business, not in personal.” — Nick Waldner (08:28)

• Transition to Real Estate:
  • Embarked on “peanut butter and jelly years,” humble beginnings shadowing his mom—a successful agent—before systematizing processes she’d previously done ad hoc (11:16, 13:02).
  • Built the Waldner Winters Team; convinced his mom to join, only for her to retire shortly after, cementing the importance of tracking and database management (14:09).

2. The Secret Sauce: Delivering, Marketing, and Leveraging Five-Star Experiences

• What Sets the Team Apart
  • Nick asserts their “consumer experience” is their key differentiator, but emphasizes it’s not just the service:

    “The difference between what they’re doing and what I’m doing? Marketing. I don’t tell the world. My clients tell the world what we do.” — Nick Waldner (15:55)

• Social Proof Stacks the Odds:
  • Realized early that reviews on Zillow were powerful until Zillow arbitrarily slashed his total. Switched focus to Google for more business control and SEO benefits (17:36–18:28).
  • Now boasts 1,839+ reviews—wields them as both a conversion tool for clients and a recruiting tool for agents (18:34–27:10).

3. The Step-by-Step Google Review System (“The Model”)

(19:33 Onward)

Step 1: Commit to a Five-Star Experience

• Focus on:
  1. Exceptional communication
  2. Anticipating and preventing problems
  3. Delivering a “wow” (20:13)
• “Doesn’t work unless you have a full commitment to that customer experience.” — Nick Waldner (19:33)

Step 2: Measure Success

• Track your baseline and target incremental growth.
• Gold standard: 75% of closed clients leave a review within the year (23:04)
• “If you can add 5, 8, 12 every single week, you will look up in a year and a half and think, oh my gosh, we are crushing our competition.” — Nick Waldner (21:04)
• Admins get $25 for every five-star review; $50 if partners/spouses both leave one. $20,000+ yearly paid out to motivate admin staff (22:22).

Step 3: Set the Expectation

• Embed the review ask in the client experience right from the start, using a promise-based script (24:49).
• Nick credits Mike Hicks for the framework, upgraded to emphasize reviews (25:09).

Step 4: Reward the Behavior

• Bonuses for admin; five-star reviews build credibility (“don’t take my word for it”) for agents (26:31).
• Adds retention, conversion, and agent attraction leverage.

Step 5: Make It Easy

• Buy a simple vanity URL (e.g., www.wwtreview.com), forward it directly to the Google review interface:

  “It has to be so simple that no one has to worry about misspelling it. ...I can tell my Uber driver when I’m getting out of the cab. ...That’s how easy it has to be.” — Nick Waldner (30:29)

• Don’t make clients jump through hoops; embed this link everywhere possible (29:21–31:51).

Step 6: Ask Everyone (Not Just Clients)

• Collect reviews from lenders, title companies, even other agents (32:41).
• “Every agent falls over themselves. ...I leave them a review and they go from four to five and then they leave us a review and we go from 1839 to 1840.” — Nick Waldner (32:59)

Step 7: Make Reviews Part of Team DNA

• Review counts and review-sourced GCI reported weekly; integrated into recruiting presentations (33:31, 27:48).
• Reviews now generate >$400,000/year in GCI, often from total strangers who call saying, “Saw your reviews. Are you still taking clients?” (33:59–34:33).

Step 8: Avoid Pitfalls

• If the whole team isn’t on board—admin, agents, ISAs—system will fail. Team buy-in is non-negotiable for momentum (35:52).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Resilience in Sales

• “Every no is just on the road to yes. Every failure is just on the road to success...”
  — Nick Waldner (03:46)

On Leveraging Social Proof

• “I realized very quickly... we needed to build an online presence, an online brand. We needed to be known as the best experience in real estate.”
  — Nick Waldner (15:55)

• “I tell the world what we do. In fact, …I don’t tell the world. My clients tell the world what we do.”
  — Nick Waldner (15:54)

On Losing Control of Reviews on Zillow

• “Zillow’s answer was, 'Well, you guys were kind of running away with it, and we want competition to be a little fairer.' ...they were in control of our reviews. And at any time ...they could just wipe us out in a second.”
  — Nick Waldner (17:36)

On the Simplicity of the Google Review URL

• “I want to tell my Uber driver… when I’m getting out of the cab …that’s how easy it has to be.”
  — Nick Waldner (30:29)
• “If you tell me to Google your team name, find the review section, go to the leave a review page... you’ve already lost me.”
  — Nick Waldner (31:07)

On Team Incentivization

• “Our admin are financially influenced to provide exceptional service in order to earn that five star review, which then gets them more money in their paycheck.”
  — Nick Waldner (21:59)

On Team Buy-In

• “If you decide to do it but you don’t bring your team along… all of those things won’t happen. If you don’t do it as a team, it has to be a team decision.”
  — Nick Waldner (35:52)

On Recruiting and Personal Pages

• “Every one of our agents has their own page… every time somebody leaves a review saying, ‘We worked with Jason, he was fantastic,’ every one of those is pulled over to your personal page…”
  — Nick Waldner (27:48)

On Daily Impact and Big Results

• “We’ve received over 400,000 in GCI from five-star review leads alone. That is somebody who calls and says, ‘Hey, saw your reviews. Are you still taking customers or are you willing to work with me?’”
  — Nick Waldner (33:31)

Personal Insights: Life, Leadership, and Balance

[38:17] – Watch Tradition for Kids

Nick described his family tradition: buying and wearing a special watch for each child, to eventually pass it on at a momentous time in their lives, inspired by rites of passage and a sense of tangible legacy (38:17).

[39:36] – Lessons from Nature

On climbing mountains and outdoor challenges:

“We’re all equal in the eyes of Mother Earth.” — Nick Waldner (40:24)

[40:26] – Leadership & Hiring Woes

Nick’s early struggles with admin hires highlighted the importance of leadership clarity, expectations, and communication:

“I realized all three of these people were probably more than qualified. I’m a terrible boss. …I wasn’t ready to lead them.” — Nick Waldner (41:13)

[42:05] – Talent Attraction vs. Recruitment

“Recruiting is probably the majority of my time. And I don’t like to recruit, I like to attract. …I want the cream of the crop that look and think like we do.” — Nick Waldner (42:53)

[43:05] – Family Rhythms

Integrates purposeful routines into his family and work life, especially through early morning rituals and coaching his kid’s sports, creating non-negotiable “dad time” daily.

Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Nick’s sales origin story (02:30–06:28)
• Cold Stone business values and departure (06:32–08:53)
• Transition to real estate and learning from his mom (08:53–13:02)
• Systematizing client experience; team evolution (13:02–15:23)
• Why social proof (reviews) is the business moat (15:23–16:27)
• Zillow review debacle & switch to Google (16:31–18:28)
• The step-by-step Google Review system (19:33–35:22)
• Bonus/reward structure (22:22, 26:31)
• Technical hack: vanity URL for Google reviews (29:21–31:51)
• Team use and GCI driven by reviews (33:31–34:38)
• Team buy-in: key to making it work (35:52)
• Personal/family tradition stories (38:01–39:16)
• Leadership and hiring lessons (40:26–41:13)
• Daily family routine and integration (43:05–44:48)

Practical Takeaways

• Google reviews are a lifelong, team-wide asset that converts prospects, attracts talent, and generates measurable GCI.
• A simple, frictionless process for clients to leave reviews at the point-of-closing (or at any interaction) is essential.
• Incentivize everyone: admins, agents, partners; make reviews part of the culture, not an afterthought.
• Use reviews in recruiting and personal marketing—individual agent landing pages with curated Google reviews for each team member.
• Start now: the moat only gets wider for early adopters.

Connect with Nick Waldner

• Instagram/Facebook: Nick Waldner or @ickwaldner
• Website: nickwaldnerwinnersteam.com
• Google: “Best Agent in Maryland” — Their reviews speak for themselves

Final Thought

“If you don’t start today, tomorrow might be too late. ...This is the kind of model that if you started today ...by next year you might be number one, number two, or number three agent in your entire marketplace when it comes to Google reviews.”
— Jason Abrams (45:34)

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