← The Millionaire Real Estate Agent | The MREA Podcast
The Millionaire Real Estate Agent | The MREA Podcast
66. Win More Clients Using Google Reviews With Nick Waldner
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- [00:00]
Nick Waldner
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Jason Abrams
Welcome back to another episode of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent podcast. I'm Jason Abrams and this is the place where we lift the curtain on the world of real estate like never before. Every week I sit down with visionaries, pirates and mavericks. We're here to document, demonstrate, and most importantly, demystify their game changing models and systems. What secrets prepare propel them to the top. And how are they living their dreams? This is about passion. It's about strategy. But above all, it's about real, tangible success. So buckle up and let's dive in. This is the Millionaire Real Estate Agent podcast. Hey, gang. We are back with another episode of our show. Today we're going to talk to a real estate agent that runs a team That's a perennial $180 million producers. He came up with the 555 program, which is an incredible way to stay in touch with your database. He's a second generation real estate agent and he has done something that I think is incredible. Friends, he has almost 2000 five star Google reviews. And yes, there's a system to do it and yes, there is a hack to do it. I promise you're gonna love it when you hear it. And he is gonna tell us exactly how to do it. Friends, I am talking about none other than Nick Waldner. Sit back and buckle up. This is Nick Waldner. Nick, how are you, sir?
- [01:53]
Nick Waldner
Jason, when I got the call to be on your podcast with you speaking one on one, I jumped for joy.
- [02:01]
Jason Abrams
I love it. It's not my podcast, Nick. This belongs to the people. It's the people's podcast. I am simply the host and driving the proverbial real estate car today. It's their show. Let's jump in, Nick. Y' all are having wild success. Anytime you do over 180 million in volume, 400 plus transactions, you're doing a lot of things right. And I want to unpack all of that. But before we do, I want to ask you a simple question, Nick. How did you find your way into the greatest industry in the world?
- [02:30]
Nick Waldner
Oh, man. It was college. Freshman year, I had the choice of going home for the summer, which sounded like terrible. Mom and dad tell me what to do. Or going to a beach town where all dreams came true. And I had three choices for a job down there. It was lifeguard. Seems pretty cool. Ladies would look at me and, you know, maybe get some dates out of that. Maybe go bar back somewhere, make a little bit more money. Or this weird sales job where you ran up and down the beach asking people if they wanted their picture. And then you sold them pictures of their family, the kids, grandparents, all that stuff, and you got paid the harder you worked and that was it.
- [03:13]
Jason Abrams
So let me ask you this. Any experience in photography?
- [03:16]
Nick Waldner
No, no, no. And in fact, photography is the job. It was a sales job. It was get on the beach, hear no 912 times, then get one yes, take 50 pictures and make roughly $40, $50 per family and do that as many times as you could. So we just got really good at hearing no and pushing through to find those yeses.
- [03:42]
Jason Abrams
That's interesting to me. So your aha from that experience is what?
- [03:46]
Nick Waldner
That 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. And I think, you know, that's what helped me in real estate. I got in very quickly and I heard no, but I was so used to that. So I just kept going until I found the yeses.
- [04:04]
Jason Abrams
So after the brief stint on the beach for photography, that's a seasonal built business, did you look up at any point during that and say, I can own this company and I can build a career as a beach photographer?
- [04:15]
Nick Waldner
Any entrepreneur would lie to you if they said they didn't. So of course I did. My second, third year, I was like, I want to be a manager. And they were like, you don't know anything. We'll give you a couple of rookies. And my rookies ended up number one, number two, and number four for the year out of all of them. So then they gave me a store and then I ran an entire store. And by the time I graduated college, I still was running the business. It was a sales business, just seasonal for the summer. And I would spend my summers. I went to Florida State for a semester. Never went to school there, just spent a semester there going to football games. I went to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji. I was surfing, I was jumping out of planes. And then I would come back and do this sales business.
- [04:56]
Jason Abrams
Nick, I gotta stop you. If I didn't know better, it would seem like you're just recanting the movie script to Point Break is. And I just want to remind you, you are no Patrick Swayze. Is that what you're doing, Nick? Or did this really happen?
- [05:08]
Nick Waldner
No, this is exactly what happened. I mean, Jason, at $5 a picture, what do you think we did in sales in one summer?
- [05:15]
Jason Abrams
I can't even fathom. You can't make any real money doing that.
- [05:18]
Nick Waldner
1.2 million in sales of a $5 keychain.
- [05:23]
Jason Abrams
Get out of here.
- [05:25]
Nick Waldner
Yep. And that is what led me to real estate. So here I am coming into real estate, going, wait, I'm not going to make $5 a sale. I'm going to make 5,000. This seems amazing.
- [05:36]
Jason Abrams
That's so interesting to me. So you travel around the world, you're living this incredible life. You probably are a bronze Adonis at this point. It can't just be the money, dude. What makes you look up and say, I'm going to leave the beach behind, I'm getting the sand out of my toes and I'm heading in to the real estate world.
- [05:53]
Nick Waldner
I wish it was only in my toes, but what I realized was there was a max of how much money you could make. Your time is limited and it's limited in sales as well. And that's why if you're selling $100,000 condos and you can convert that to $300,000 houses, or convert that to $3 million houses, like your time is so valuable. And I realized no matter how much I worked or how hard I worked, I was still limited by time. And it was a $5 product. So for me it was what was the next thing I learned? Sales. And now where could I go apply it?
- [06:29]
Jason Abrams
So you end up in the ice cream business, if memory serves.
- [06:32]
Nick Waldner
Oh, you are good. You are good. Yeah. We actually ran Cold Stone Creamer. We bought the franchise rights For Maryland, Delaware, D.C. pennsylvania, southern half of New Jers. We opened up about 52 stores our first year. We opened 57 stores our second year. We were the fastest growing Cold Stone franchise in history, or area developership, as I should say. And we were running like gangbusters.
- [06:59]
Jason Abrams
So what happens?
- [07:00]
Nick Waldner
You know, this is gonna get a little personal, but I don't mind sharing. Cause we're close. And I'm sure the millions of listeners wanna hear it anyway.
- [07:07]
Jason Abrams
Tens of millions.
- [07:09]
Nick Waldner
I sat down one day and I realized that my partner and the person who had taught me sales was having an affair on his wife with another coworker. And that just struck me really hard. He was married, three kids. They were, you know, beautiful wife, beautiful kids, great family. And I just went to him and said, this has to stop. You need to stop the relationship. You need to tell your wife, you need to work on this. You can't be doing this. And he told me in simple terms, get out, it's none of your business. And I walked out and realized, this is not the person I want to be in business with. This is not a partner. This is not who I Want a long term relationship with. And I sold all of my shares, all of my stores, everything I owned in the business. I gave it all back for a lump sum of money and walked away and never looked back.
- [08:03]
Jason Abrams
Gosh, now you're what, in your early 20s, you had built a successful ice cream empire. You walk away from it, that had to have been a little bit scary. Like, I understand you took a stand for your principles. Was there a part of you that said, ah, look the other way, this is going to work itself out in time or business is different than personal. Did the voice in your head try to convince you that you were nuts?
- [08:29]
Nick Waldner
Never. Originally, the very first thought that went through my head is, if he is 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. But it's the exact same thing. If he can't be faithful there, he's not going to be a faithful partner to me.
- [08:45]
Jason Abrams
Gosh, now you're unemployed again, you got a little bit of money, but it's not enough to retire in the statute that you like to live. So what happens next?
- [08:53]
Nick Waldner
100%. So this is where I call them the peanut butter and jelly years. I called my mom, who you know you're very fond of, great woman. I gave her a call and I said, hey, mom, I think I'm going to get into this real estate thing. And she said, great, I would love to have you in real estate. I said, well, I'm not going to get in like that. I read Rich Dad, Poor dad when I was 18, and he said to write offers at 50% of value and send it out and see how many houses you can buy at 50% of list price. So I said to my mom, I found 20 homes and I want to make 50% offers. And she said, are you out of your mind? I'm not wasting my time writing 20 offers at 50% of value.
- [09:32]
Jason Abrams
Well, it should be noted that at the time, Nick, your mom was and is a fantastic real estate agent who had built a dynamic business locally. So when you called her and said, I want to write 50 cents on the dollar, she kind of treated you like any other investor.
- [09:48]
Nick Waldner
Yes, she definitely looked at me like I was crazy. And initially she said, I'm not doing that. However, I will teach you how to write a contract and we'll write one together and you can write 19 on your own. So I did it. I sent all 20 offers out and guess what happened, Jason? Nothing happened. Everyone said, I was insane and go away, kid. So I wrote Robert a nicely worded letter about my experiences. And I was at the local in Waterhole, and I ran into somebody, and they said, oh, we're looking for a rancher with this type of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know, I actually saw one of those and made an offer on it. Do you want to see it? And the guy was like, yeah, I would love to see it. And we went out the next day. They loved it. They wanted to make an offer. I called my mom, I said, hey, this guy wants to buy this house.
- [10:34]
Jason Abrams
And.
- [10:34]
Nick Waldner
And she said, great. Write the contract, and here's what you'll make in commission. And I went, what? This is what I'll make. And that was it, man. So then it was going all in. And then for the next six months, I followed my mom around. She was, you know, top sales, top listing for numerous years in the small county where we're from. I followed her around with one of those yellow legal pads, and I wrote down everything she did. And I remember my mom specifically telling me, our businesses are separate. You have to earn your own business. You're not taking any of mine. This is a commissions business. I get mine, you have to go out and get yours. And I thought, come on, she's my mom. She's gonna give me some.
- [11:16]
Jason Abrams
None.
- [11:17]
Nick Waldner
No. To her credit, I call the next six months of my life my peanut butter and jelly years. I had peanut butter and jelly on bread, peanut butter jelly on toast, peanut butter and jelly on waffles, peanut butter and jelly on bagels. Like, you name it, you could peanut butter and jelly on just about anything. And if you add granola, it gives you a crunch. If you add some peanuts, it gives you, like, Jason. I was a connoisseur.
- [11:40]
Jason Abrams
This is akin to the Matthew McConaughey tuna fish recipe. But, yes, Nick, you can have peanut butter and jelly and everything. Let me ask you this. You kind of. And then we'll switch gears. But you watch your mom during those six months you're documenting everything she's doing. Did you have any aha's about your mom? Because when mom just sells real estate but you're not engaged, it might look like one thing. But when you jump in and now you're watching her as an apprentice, was it something else? What was your aha?
- [12:06]
Nick Waldner
You know, I realized really quick, coming from Cold Stone Creamery, in the franchise world, where every single thing was done the same in every single store, in fact, every store that succeeded followed the model and every store that failed tried to go off and do their own thing. And why would you buy a franchise if you're not going to follow the model? So I realized very quickly, I just need to follow my mom's model. Well, then I learned she doesn't really have a model. She kind of flies by the seat of her pants like most real estate agents. And sometimes she would do something, and other times she wouldn't. And I would ask her, hey, mom, why didn't you do that for that house? And she'd say, oh, I think I forgot, or whatever. And so I made this list of doing the same thing for every single transaction, every single time, no matter what, and really built the franchise model for what she was doing based on her entrepreneurial style.
- [13:02]
Jason Abrams
I love that. And so over time, you end up working together, yet building completely separate books of business within the enterprise.
- [13:12]
Nick Waldner
Yeah, so we actually. I built the Waldner Winters team. My mom being Diane Waldner Winters, me being Nick Waldner. My mom remarried, and for years, I asked her join our team. I had admin support. I hired several agents. At this point, I was probably five or six years into the business, and she said, no. And I finally said, look, I'm joining Keller Williams. You gotta come with me. Just be on the team. I'll give you 100% commission split, and I will pay for all expenses. I will lose money every time you sell a house. And she said, why would you do that? And I said, because you taught me everything. I wouldn't be here without you. It's my homage to you. So she joined the team. Three months later, she came to me and she said, wow, this is really incredible, what you've built. I'm going to Paris with my sisters for the next three weeks, and I don't think I need to sell real estate anymore. I'm quitting.
- [14:09]
Jason Abrams
Really?
- [14:10]
Nick Waldner
Yeah. She was on the team for three months. I'm such a terrible boss. She quit after three months. And I said, okay, well, mom, okay, no problem. Give me your database. We will work your database. Every single house we sell, we'll give you a 30% referral fee off the top. Like, we can really do some damage with this. And she said, my data. What? And I realized at that point, she never had a database. She never tracked any of that stuff. And her quote to me when she was leaving for Paris was, why would I need all of their numbers when they need to sell a house, they call me I.
- [14:46]
Jason Abrams
By the way, dude, we all know that's insane. And it might be the coolest line any mom has ever said. She's the one line expert for real estate. She's my Arnold Schwarzenegger is what we're talking about right now. That's fantastic. All right, so the business continues to grow. Fast forward to today. Mom is living in a palatial farm and loving life. And Nick is now running the real estate empire. And you've had this massive success, which means you do a lot of things really well. But there's always one thing that everybody does better than anybody else. What's the one thing, Nick, that y' all crush?
- [15:23]
Nick Waldner
I think our consumer experience. We crush our consumer experience. And I say consumer experience because I know a lot of listeners are hearing that and saying, we do a great job with our customers. We do a great job, you know, working with our buyers and sellers, and we really treat them well and we really make them feel special, and everybody feels like they do a superb job. And Jason, I'm here to tell you, a lot of the listeners probably even do it better than I do. But you know what the difference between what they're doing, what I'm doing? Marketing.
- [15:55]
Jason Abrams
What do you mean?
- [15:56]
Nick Waldner
I tell the world what we do. In fact, I would even rephrase that. I don't tell the world. My clients tell the world what we do. So if you are doing incredible amounts of energy and activities around making your clients have an amazing experience, but no one knows you're not getting business from that. So I realized very quickly that we needed to build an online presence, an online brand. We needed to be known as the best experience in real estate.
- [16:27]
Jason Abrams
So how did you decide to do that? What became your mission, your one singular goal?
- [16:32]
Nick Waldner
So the first goal that we came up with was how do people find agents? And there was this four letter word called Zillow. And I thought, that's where the buyers are going. That's where I need to go. So we spent about a year and a half.
- [16:47]
Jason Abrams
If I may, Nick, isn't it six letters?
- [16:51]
Nick Waldner
No, it's a four letter word because we're not allowed to say it anymore. They're not here for us.
- [16:56]
Jason Abrams
Got it. By all means, continue.
- [16:59]
Nick Waldner
So we realized that if the buyers are going there, then we need to be impressive. We need to be there for them to see us. So we started working on reviews, and we got to almost a thousand reviews on Zillow. And one day our thousand reviews dropped to 300. And I freaked out. What is going on? This is why we're getting our business. This is why people are choosing the Consumer is picking us over everyone else because of our reviews and how much better and how much more than anybody else. And Zillow's answer was, well, you guys were kind of running away with it, and we want competition to be a little fairer.
- [17:36]
Jason Abrams
You're kidding me. Really?
- [17:39]
Nick Waldner
That's the basics of what I got. They wouldn't actually come out and say that, but they were like, yeah, we'll give you a few back. And they gave us a couple hundred back. But I realized right then and there that they were in control of our reviews. And at any time they want to have real estate agents, they want to run a real estate business, they could just wipe us out in a second. And all of those reviews, all of that time and energy is gone. So now I am on to the right idea. Having the consumer understand the experience that we provide based on the words of other consumers is our path, but Zillow is not our answer. So we went with Google. We went with 95% of the search goes to Google. Why not be there? And on top of that, Google's not trying to get into real estate.
- [18:29]
Jason Abrams
So right now, how many reviews, give or take, do you have on Google?
- [18:34]
Nick Waldner
Give or take? 1839.
- [18:38]
Jason Abrams
Okay, friends, we are about to switch gears and go into a model. Now, you don't have to take the notes if you're driving 141 miles an hour in your new Defender. Enjoy yourself. I'm taking the notes. So have no fear. The notes come out every Thursday. So if you're not getting our notes, it's because you didn't sign up. You can sign up on mreanotes.com that's mreanotes.com Nick, you are about to teach us how to get more Google reviews than anybody else in your marketplace. And I want to reset the stage. The thinking process here is that 95% of searchers begin on Google. And so having the most reviews within your marketplace there gives you an incredible advantage because you get to say things like, you don't have to take our word for it. That said, Nick, tell us step by step exactly how to get 2,000 reviews in Google.
- [19:33]
Nick Waldner
All right, so, Jason, I love where your head's at, and you're going the exact direction I want. And the first thing you have to understand is this doesn't work unless you have a full commitment to that customer experience. You have to choose to deliver that five star experience. So first step, a number one is choose to deliver that level of service.
- [19:58]
Jason Abrams
Okay? Now, without spending a whole nother show's worth of time on it, Nick. But I do think you're leaving the audience hanging a touch because when you say you have to commit to giving a five star experience, what are the three most important things in a five star experience?
- [20:14]
Nick Waldner
Well, if you think about for the five star experience, what does the customer have to get? They have to get exceptional communication. Communication is the number one thing when you talk to a disgruntled customer that they're missing from their agents. You have to think about what's going to happen before it happens. You have to either set the expectations or solve the problems before they happen. Like they have to go in prepared. And then number three, you have to find a way to wow them. You have to find a way to make them go, wow, what a great experience. I'm really glad I chose to work with them.
- [20:51]
Jason Abrams
I love that. Okay, so I've made the commitment for the five star experience. This means that I'm going to have exceptional communication. I'm going to anticipate the problems and get ahead of it and I'm going to wow them with something absolutely incredible. What's step two?
- [21:04]
Nick Waldner
Step two is you got to measure your success. Where are you now? That's the easiest part. If you don't have a single review, you're at 0. If you have 310, you're at 310. But knowing where you are right now and then looking for improvement, it doesn't mean you're going to go from 300 to 1800 next week. But 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.
- [21:36]
Jason Abrams
You know, sometimes it's so hard for anybody to look out and do incremental success like that. Like it sounds like compounding interest. And in our industry it's really hard, Nick, because a year we're living like dog years. A year is like seven years to everybody else. You made the point when we were doing our pre interview that this isn't a one year journey. This is committing to a lifetime journey around reviews.
- [21:59]
Nick Waldner
Yeah, 100%. And everyone on the team has to be involved. So down to our admin get bonused every time we get a five star review from one of our customers. So if you think about that, 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.
- [22:23]
Jason Abrams
How much do they get bonus for that?
- [22:25]
Nick Waldner
$25 per review and that's $50 if the husband and the wife each leave one. Now do the math. At $50 times 400 transactions, how much available bonus money, Jason, do we give out to our team an extra 20.
- [22:45]
Jason Abrams
Grand on that alone?
- [22:46]
Nick Waldner
All of a sudden that makes a big difference. And if you remember the personality of an administrator, this is something they fully can control.
- [22:54]
Jason Abrams
Okay, I love that. All right, so measure. So I'm going to figure out where I am today and then I'm going to make sure that every day or every week that number is growing. What's step three?
- [23:04]
Nick Waldner
So along with measure, and I just want to make sure we hit that, you have to make sure that you are looking at a percentage earned. So if you closed three properties last week, then the goal is to get three five star reviews. But if last week was a big week and you closed nine properties, then three reviews wouldn't cut it. What we try to DO is average 75% of our closed transactions give us a review within the year. Now, we also know that the sooner you can get it, the better.
- [23:37]
Jason Abrams
Okay, cool. I'm going to commit to doing it. I'm going to make sure that I have a five star experience. I'm going to measure my success. And the gold standard is 75% of all my past clients leave a review sooner than later. What's next?
- [23:51]
Nick Waldner
Now we need to set the expectations so we know what our clients, we want them to do. But do they know it? So now we're going to sit down, Mr. Mrs. Seller, thank you for having me. You know, there's one last thing I'd like to talk about. I'm very excited to get your house on the market. And that's our five star experience. That is our ability to deliver five star service, which we hold extremely important. And as you know, one of the reasons you selected us is because of our Service and our 1800 five star reviews. So one of the things we're going to be doing is checking in with you throughout this entire process to always make sure we're delivering on our five star promise. And then we go through all of that and at the end it is, you know, at the end of this transaction, we're going to ask you how we did and if we delivered on that promise where we want. Just two things. One, for you to leave us another five star reviews because 1900 would be so much cooler. And number two, if you have a friend or family member that needs help in real estate, we want to be there for them as well.
- [24:49]
Jason Abrams
We should pay homage to the great one to Mike Hicks, because this conversation framework sounds incredibly close to his original promise conversation with the addition of the reviews. And by the way, Gary always says the best way to create is to take something that works and incrementally make it better. It sounds like that's exactly what you did here.
- [25:09]
Nick Waldner
Mike Hicks and I met at a coaching skills camp and someone had told me that he did 62% of his city's business or some ridiculous number like that. And I thought, I am having lunch with that guy. I drug him over to a table. He thought I was just a nice guy. I was really going for the point. We sat down, I started asking him all the questions about how he was doing it. He told me about the promise. I asked him if he would send me it. I then followed up with him for a month and a half because every time I called, he had never really written it down. And when he finally did write it down, he felt like it wasn't perfect, so he didn't want to send it to me. Six weeks later, he finally sent me the written version. And two weeks after that, in a room with Gary, Gary calls Mike down to the front of the room and says, I think everyone needs to hear your promise. And I was flabbergasted as I'm sitting there holding the the very first original written five Mike Hicks promise.
- [26:09]
Jason Abrams
By the way, when Nick mentions Gary, he's referring to Gary Keller. And Gary Keller, along with Jay Papasan and Dave Jenks, may he rest in peace, were the original authors of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which of course is the namesake for this show. Okay, Nick, I totally get the expectations. I've nailed it. I'm asking them for the review and I'm asking them for the referral. What's the fourth step?
- [26:31]
Nick Waldner
Fourth step is the reward. And we talked about that a little bit. The $25 bonus for every five star review to your admin so that it's not just the agents getting it. What's the reward for the agents for the five star reviews? Jason?
- [26:44]
Jason Abrams
It's got to become easier, by the way, to go out and close business. If I can point to 1800 reviews, that feels like their win. Is that right?
- [26:51]
Nick Waldner
It is. It's the validation that when they walk into a room and they're like, don't take my word for it. That stands and has power. So now we're rewarding both sides of our team.
- [27:02]
Jason Abrams
When you go into recruiting appointments, attraction appointments with agents to join your team, you put a lot of value in these 1800 reviews.
- [27:11]
Nick Waldner
Yeah. One of the things that we point to is, well, let's just look at your current team. How many reviews do you have? Click. Oh, you guys have seven team. That's cute.
- [27:20]
Jason Abrams
We joke about it like that, but I think there's real power there. You've engineered a business asset that's very difficult for someone to duplicate if they start today. And so for all my friends driving out there, if you don't start this today and someone else does, I just want you to ask the question, what does your conversion ratio look like two years from now when the agent in the office next to you has 2000 reviews and you're still thinking about whether or not it's a good idea to think about it.
- [27:48]
Nick Waldner
And really what we do with our recruiting appointments is with every one of our agents on our team, they have their own Meet the Agent page on our page. So on that page there is a link that pulls from Google any review that has their name on it. So, Jason, if we're blessed enough to be working together and you're on the team, every time somebody leaves a review saying, we work with Jason, he was fantastic, every one of those is pulled over to your personal page. So now the total is 1800. And every single review on your Meet the Agent page has your name on it. So what do you think the consumers think? They assume you did most of them. So every one of our agents has their own page at, you know, Jason, WWT.com or whatever it may be and has a Meet the Agent. Learn a little bit about them. Here's all their reviews and has all those details so that you stand out against anyone else.
- [28:49]
Jason Abrams
Love that. Okay, so now we're sharing in the rewards. What happens next?
- [28:54]
Nick Waldner
So now we gotta make it easy. That is the key to any of this, is how do we make it easy for the consumer?
- [29:02]
Jason Abrams
I'm just gonna jump in and tell you right now. You're about to hear something that I think is phenomenal because I'll be honest, Nick, I've documented other people in the way they think about getting reviews. It's step five in your system right now where this thing, I think, becomes wildly different than everything I've heard. And you're going to talk to us about how to make this easy. Technically.
- [29:21]
Nick Waldner
Go ahead. Exactly. So what I want everybody to do who's not driving. If you're driving hands on 10 and 2, don't change a thing. But if you can pick up your phone and go to this website, wwtreview.com Again, that's wwtreview.com. now, I want you to select the star on the far right hand side, press that star and then write anything you want in the box. Nick was great because. Write anything you want and click Submit.
- [29:58]
Jason Abrams
Okay, for those of you that are driving right now, I'm doing this live on my phone. So here's what happened. I put in WWT Review and I was instantly taken to sort of the end of the Google review process. The only thing on my screen right now is selecting a number of stars. Nick. I chose five. Then an open text box where I wrote this is the team. And then I simply pushed post. I didn't have to log in, I didn't have to figure out how, I didn't have to read any directions. How in the heck did you build this?
- [30:29]
Nick Waldner
This is just a simple vanity page. This is. We bought the URL of WWT review.com and then we pointed it at the very last stage of leaving a review. And that's the key. I've taught this all over the country and I've had people say, oh, we just set up ours. It is the hometeamofamerica.comreview.com and I'm like, no, no, you're missing the point. It has to be so simple that no one has to worry about misspelling it. WWT Review. Like, it's not clever, it's not crazy. It's something that I can tell my Uber driver when I'm getting out of the cab and I say, hey, I'm going to leave you a five star review. Would you mind leaving me one? That's how easy it has to be. And if you're out there and you say, oh, Nick, we've been working on five star reviews and we're doing pretty good and I say, great, I'll leave you a five star review. Where do I go? And if you tell me to Google your team name, find the review section, go to the leave a review page and then click on. You've already lost me. You've got to make it so easy for a consumer that it's simple. It has to be sitting at the closing table waiting for them to come back with copies of their license. Hey, would you go to this quick site and leave us a quick review? Sure. It takes two seconds.
- [31:52]
Jason Abrams
I think that that's the genius of the entire system.
- [31:55]
Nick Waldner
I can't tell you that there's a bigger point than that. That in itself and the ability to get that and anybody listening? If you left us a five star review from listening to this, I accept that. As the only payment for me sharing all this. I really do appreciate that you left us a five star review. I appreciate that. But you owe me nothing other than to go out and do this yourself.
- [32:18]
Jason Abrams
You're such a giver, Nick. It exudes is what it does. But it's weird because you and I are close. I've been with you in an Uber before and I'm getting out of the car and then the next thing I know, you're encouraging the Uber driver to give you a five star review in trade for their five star review. So it's not just past clients. You're willing to get a five star review from anyone on the planet.
- [32:41]
Nick Waldner
And we actually get them from lenders, title companies. We just highlighted in our team meeting another agent and we said, hey, it was great working with you. I would love to leave you a five star review somewhere. Where would you like it? And if you don't mind, would you mind leaving us one?
- [32:58]
Jason Abrams
That's fantastic.
- [32:59]
Nick Waldner
Every agent falls over themselves. They're like, sure, that would be great. And then they pick Facebook or Yelp or whatever they say. And 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. And we're doing it over and over.
- [33:16]
Jason Abrams
So owning this business asset of all these reviews, it's brilliant. And you're completely building value to the business. How do you then make having them live and breathe within the organization? Is there conversation frameworks that you've built around it? How do you get your agents to go use the tool?
- [33:31]
Nick Waldner
So we discuss it every single team meeting. We pull up not only how many reviews we have, how many reviews we received in the last week, but we also look at GCI. So this year 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?
- [33:59]
Jason Abrams
Stop it. Nope, that doesn't happen, I swear. No, it doesn't. Stop it. Because here's the thing about our audience, Nick. I got the biggest real estate agents on the planet listening to this. And the minute that they think that you're full of, they're going to stop inviting you to all their reindeer games. You're telling me that phone calls, incoming to the office and people say, hey, I've seen the reviews. We want to work with you people that you don't know.
- [34:24]
Nick Waldner
Even better, they ask us, are you still taking clients? Are you willing to work with us.
- [34:30]
Jason Abrams
I am blown away from that. That's real.
- [34:33]
Nick Waldner
That's real. That's 36 deals. 402,000 GCI last year.
- [34:38]
Jason Abrams
So the cost of the vanity webpage on the Godaddies is probably $4 a year and you're making 400,000. So as far as the greatest return in the history of investing, this might be it.
- [34:51]
Nick Waldner
Yep. And then you double down with everything else. If you're doing anything on Google, if you're doing SEO or doing any of the stuff Google AdWords and you don't have massive numbers of reviews, you are leaving money on the table. Remember, you're getting people to your site. You're spending all that money to get them to your site. How do you convert them? Where you show them what everyone else is doing. You show them the social proof that everybody else is choosing you. So they should.
- [35:20]
Jason Abrams
That's brilliant. Is there anything else on this or is this the model?
- [35:23]
Nick Waldner
That's the model. You just keep working it over and over again. You never take your foot off the gas. You continue preaching it to the team. You can continue giving bonuses. Everything is built around that. It's part of what we are.
- [35:37]
Jason Abrams
Okay, last question for me and then I want to switch gears. Where is this going to go wrong? Because look, everything sounds simple on this program and oftentimes it is. But help us see around the corners. If this is going to be a fail for me or if I'm going to screw this up, what's going to go wrong?
- [35:53]
Nick Waldner
If you decide to do it but you don't bring your team along, if your admin don't see it as a way for them to succeed, if your agents don't see it as a way for them to grow their business, if your ISA doesn't see it as a way to create the best lead flow possible, all of those things won't happen. If you don't do it as a team, it has to be a team decision. You have to come to this together and you have to work together over and over again. It's not a one time thing.
- [36:22]
Jason Abrams
There it is, friends. Give this a go. This is one of those things. There's almost no cost associated with it. There's nothing but upside. And similar to Ken Posick, by the way, if you haven't listened to Ken's episode on this show where he lays out how to go make untold riches using YouTube videos, I'm going to tell you this. I remember doing the interview with him and saying, I'm gonna go do that. And then a year went by and I hadn't. And then I checked in with Ken, and the only difference was his videos had been out there a year long. Now they were soaking. Now they had even more views. And over time, people get impossible to catch because they don't stop. There's no catch up, as they say. And so in Nick's world, he's the number one reviewed person. He's not slowing down. So catching up is difficult, which means he's built a moat around his business with very little cost. That is very rare. So, Nick, I want to switch gears. I want to tell you a real estate story. Nick. In ancient Athens, there was a philosopher named Epicuros. You don't have to think back to ancient Athens. If you could see Nick, his eyes just moved up and to the left and he was trying to recall that you weren't there, but he was. And he bought an amazing villa in downtown Athens. It's a bustling city. And he built this incredible garden. And instead of getting in front of a large group of philosophers to talk about life, he brought small groups of his closest friends into his garden. This became known as Epicurosis Garden. And some of the deepest questions in life were solved there. Nick, we would like to invite you to our garden. Will you join us?
- [37:55]
Nick Waldner
I am nervous to say yes, but I trust your eyes.
- [37:59]
Jason Abrams
I love that. Nick, how many children do you have?
- [38:02]
Nick Waldner
I've got three, and they are one and a half. Three and a half and six and a half.
- [38:08]
Jason Abrams
As they started to get born, you came up with a family tradition. It was around timepieces. What did you do? And most importantly, why did you do it?
- [38:17]
Nick Waldner
You know, I saw a. It might have been a movie. I don't even know if it was real life. And it was a father passing down a watch that he had worn for 25 or 30 years to his son at some momentous occasion of the son becoming a man. And at that moment, I was hooked. And I literally remember looking at my dad going, where's my watch? In my head. And when I became a father, I thought, how cool would that be to have a watch that I wear every day for 25 or 30 years. And I hand that to them at a momentous moment where I'm very proud of who they've become and I give them a piece of something that I've worn for years. Then having a second and having a third child just kind of got me on that watch journey. So now each one of them has a watch. Each one of Them knows which one's theirs, and they know what days I wear them. It's a whole thing.
- [39:17]
Jason Abrams
Now, you've done some things in your life outside of your business that I'm sure you've learned business lessons doing. And one of those things was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, and you made it to the top. And you kind of stretch your physical prowess at times. And I'm wondering what's been the takeaways from that? What are the ahas that you've had from these sort of physical challenges?
- [39:37]
Nick Waldner
I'm not a guy who got into, you know, running 26.2 miles or doing the Ironmans or anything like that, but I definitely feel like getting out into nature, whether that's climbing a mountain or rock climbing or doing something that involves nature, it puts us in a position where it doesn't matter who we are, what our upbringing is, what our education is, what our bank account looks like. We're all the same. When Mother Nature is dropping snow or rain or sleet or whatever, and coming together with a small group of friends and overcoming that or obtaining your goal, getting to the top, whatever it might be like. I love that idea of we're all equal in the eyes of Mother Earth.
- [40:24]
Jason Abrams
Nick, what was your first hire?
- [40:26]
Nick Waldner
My first hire was an admin, and she was absolutely terrible. I came home from selling homes and said, hey, what did you do? And she said, nothing. And I said, well, what do you mean, nothing? You're fired. So then I hired a second one, and she was terrible. And I would go out and I'd work and I'd sell these homes, and I'd come back and I'd be like, what are you doing? She's like, I don't really know. And I'm like, well, you're fired. And then I hired a third one, and I ran out and I sold a bunch of homes, and I came back and said, why are you doing anything? And she said, I don't know what to do. And I said, well, you're fired. And then I realized all three of these people were probably more than qualified. I am a terrible boss. I am terrible. I'm not setting expectations. I'm not telling them what I want from them. So my first three hires were probably amazing people, but I wasn't ready to lead them.
- [41:13]
Jason Abrams
So what happened?
- [41:14]
Nick Waldner
So then by the time I hired my fourth, I had really leaned into what should an admin do? What should their work look like? What should their day look like? What activities should they do, what processes do? I hate doing so I want them to do. And then what I found is when I communicated this shocker communication, I shared all this and I told them things I didn't want to do, they would take them off my plate and then they would end up adding to that list. Well, if you're going to do this, I might as well do this. And if we did this and this, it would actually be better. And all of a sudden everything. I gave them a short list of 20 things turned out to be a hundred things that they figured out would help me and make my life easier and allow me to have more time to sell. And that was when life changed.
- [42:03]
Jason Abrams
Nick, how much time do you spend recruiting agents?
- [42:06]
Nick Waldner
Recruiting is probably the majority of my time. And I don't like to recruit, I like to attract. And the difference is I want to give, I want to give away knowledge, I want to give away education, I want to bring people together, I want to run masterminds. And then if someone is attracted to that, if someone has a learning based personality, if somebody wants that type of environment, then we'll get in a room together, we'll start talking, I'll start understanding what do they want five years from now, ten years from now? And those are the people that I know I can help. So that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to attract the right people to our team because recruiting means anybody. If they can fog a mirror, bring them on. And we don't want anybody. We want the cream of the crop that look and think like we do.
- [42:53]
Jason Abrams
Every time I see a photo of you on the face pages, you have one of your little people in your arms. So you must be very purposeful around the time that you spend. What's the hack or what are the rituals you've put into place?
- [43:05]
Nick Waldner
Yeah, that's a great question. And it's really important to me. And it all comes down to habits. You know, we talked about my health habit and how I get my blood work done and I pay attention to all that. So obviously working out is important to me. And I know the only time to go is at 5:30 in the morning when everybody's still asleep. But I also know that I get home at 6:41 and my son gets up within five minutes of me getting home. So I greet him, he comes down, I'm emptying the dishwasher because that's my wife's love language, don't ask me why, but it's always empty. By the time she comes downstairs, I start breakfast for my son, my Other son gets up. Then I hear the baby crying. I go up and get her. And for the first hour and 15 minutes, from 6:45 to 8:00 o', clock, that is my time with the kids. That is my opportunity to do all the normal dad stuff every single morning. And then at 8 o' clock, it's time to leave for work. My wife comes down, she takes over and I'm in the car on a call the entire time. I have a leadership call and then my team call all the way up until I get to the office. Then when I come home, my goal is to be home by 5 or 5:30 every day so that I can have dinner with the kids. In fact, I'm coaching. And by coaching means I have to show up. If my kids play sports and I'm the coach, I don't have a choice. I have to be there. So now all of a sudden, they're in my calendar. And then of course, at nighttime, I love the bedtime routine. So that's mine as well. I do the bedtime. I do either brush the teeth, put on the pajamas. They now sleep in their underwear. They're crazy kids. They're running around wild. We read some books. I finally get them to sleep and then I get about 20 minutes with my wife before I pass out on the couch.
- [44:48]
Jason Abrams
There's a clarity that I get when I talk to you about your life and the things that are important in it. And it comes through as you talk about it. There's a clarity around your business and a clarity around your life that I think is very special. If our audience out there wants to get more Nick Waldner in their head, where can they find you? Where do you want to send them? What should they do?
- [45:07]
Nick Waldner
Yeah, Instagram, Facebook, it's all the same thing. Nick Waldner or Ickwaldner. If anybody needs me, you can reach out me directly. Nickaldnerwinnersteam.com you can absolutely find us in Google. But if you need an agent in Maryland, just type in Best Agent in Maryland. And our reviews should put us at the top.
- [45:27]
Jason Abrams
It's pretty good. Nick, thanks for everything you're doing and thanks for sharing with us so openly.
- [45:31]
Nick Waldner
Anything for you, Jeff.
- [45:34]
Jason Abrams
You know, there's this old saying that if you don't start today, tomorrow might be too late. Well, here's the thing. It won't be too late. Meaning you could start tomorrow and you're probably going to be just fine. But why would you wait? You see, this is the kind of model that if you started today and you get through the rest of this year, by next year, you might be the number one, number two, or number three agent in your entire market marketplace when it comes to Google reviews. And let's be honest, the Internet, it turns out it's not a fad. It's not going away. Tomorrow people are going to be using this thing. And the incredible thing, people take credence in reviews almost more than they do in referrals. That blows me away. But I don't think it's going in the other direction anytime soon. So it's a relatively easy model. Number one, I gotta commit to having good service. I just do. If you're not going to have good service, no one's going to say it was great. Number two, I have to measure success. It's okay. Wherever you're starting now is where you're starting. The question is, where are we going? And in order to know where we're going, we say, here's where I'm at today and here's what it's going to take to be number one in the marketplace. Number three, set the expectation. There can be nobody in your company who doesn't know how important this is and who isn't going to strive to get these reviews. Then next, reward everybody when they get them. Friends, you have to reward the behavior that you're trying to encourage. And so you gotta set up compensation that makes it fun for everyone to play this game. And then finally make it easy. Nick's model of getting that vanity page and setting it up right at the end of the Google review process. So all someone has to do is go to the URL and then click the five stars and click Submit is absolutely and nothing short of genius. Friends, here's what I know. As the world turns, you're going to want more online reviews. This is the model to go out and get them. Go forth and do likewise. There it is. That wraps another episode. Friends, I don't know what you're taking out of this. I really don't. I'll tell you what I want you to be taking out of it, which is these are the people that are having tremendously big lives. And the reason it's happening is because they're setting up the models and system to do just that. Gary Keller told me that leadership is teaching people how to think so that they do the things they need to do when they need to do them, so that ultimately they get the things they want when they want to have them. And that's what I want for you. You're all leaders, but it begins with leading ourselves. If you're enjoying this podcast, I want you to click the subscribe button anywhere that you get your podcasts. We want to be the voice in your head every single week and every week we're dropping new content. We also send out a newsletter at the conclusion of every show to make sure that you get the highest points in the models and systems that were discussed. So if you want to sign up, I need your name and your email address. Head over to the millie millionaire agent podcast.com millionaire agent podcast.com enter your name and your email address and every week that newsletter will be in your box. Friends, you just went on a journey. I hope that what happens between now and the next time we meet is absolutely wonderful for you. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.
- [49:01]
Nick Waldner
This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts and opinions of the guest represent those of the guest and not KWRI and its affiliates, and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax, or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness or results from using the information. You must comply with the TCPA and any other federal, state or local laws, including for B2B calls and texts, Never call or text a number on any do not call list and do not use an auto dialer or artificial voice or pre recorded messages without proper consent. Contact your attorney to ensure your compliance.