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Let’s pretend that you’ve been attracting business for five to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and you’re going to get towards that retirement stage. How the fuck do you sell your practice? Or what do you do next, you just stop selling. Today we’re joined by a couple out of actually Illinois, Peoria, Illinois. And this is what they do. They focus on the transition, post real estate career.
First we have Jessica ball who has been an agent just under five years with REMAX truth unlimited. Justin Ball is a Real Estate Investor/Entrepreneur. They’re about to publish a book that will help realtor monetize their business as they retire and teach other real estate agents how to do this.
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why maintaining good relations with other realtors is important
- What you can do to help others while benefitting yourself
- How to monetize your business as they retire
Resources
The Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)
Transcript:
So how do you attract new business, you constantly don’t have to chase it. Hi, I’m Mike Cuevas to real estate marketing. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand people have come to know, like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It’s your job to remind them. Let’s get started.
What’s up ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the real estate marketing dude. Podcast. What we’re going to be doing here today, folks is talking a little bit about the future quite often on the show, we talk quite a bit about how to build in the current in the now and how to make now business better yet attractive, not necessarily chase it. But let’s just pretend that you’ve been attracting business for five to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and you’re going to get towards that retirement stage. How the fuck do you sell your practice? Or what do you do next, you just stop selling. I know, when I moved out to San Diego, I just literally stopped cold turkey probably wasn’t the smartest move. But I was burnt out, I didn’t really give a shit. I was just ready to go. And I was done with real estate and that sense in Chicago, however, I probably could have set up like a really easy to go referral network, I still get referrals back there. And I don’t even try and wish I should have done it better. So what we’re going to be doing today is we’re joined by a couple out of actually Illinois, Peoria, Illinois. And this is what they do. They focus on the transition, post real estate career. And eventually under one day, you’re going to retire or you’re going to stop selling and you’re gonna do what I did burn out and something’s gonna happen. There’s a reason why most people don’t last this long in this business, no matter who you are. It gets tiring, it gets old and you want to do some different and other opportunities will come up. What are you doing to get to that point? That’s what we’re gonna chat about today? How do you monetize everything you worked for so hard? Prior to those 10 years, like if you built a business of 20 years selling real estate, you’re just gonna walk away and let that go away? It’d be like opening up a bakery and just saying, Hey, I’m gonna close the doors tomorrow, not sell the business and not do anything else to it. So what do we do with that? So that’s what we’re gonna be chatting about today. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and introduce our guest, Jessica and Justin ball. How’re you guys doing? Good. Good.
Glad to be on the show. Man. I’m listener, and it’s awesome to be a part of it.
Thank you. Well, guys, like you just have to call and ask if you don’t get if you don’t ask you don’t get you guys just fucking called me I think and said, Hey, I have this thing. I’m like, I’m looking for shows. And I’m like, Alright, let’s just do it. You’re from Peoria to cool. Let’s see what’s up. So that’s basically where we’re at guys want you to tell everyone a little bit about yourselves. And then let’s get right into this interview. Yeah,
I am Jessica ball. I have been an agent just under five years with REMAX truth unlimited. And I added Peoria and I lead a small team. And really where this came from watch it. I’ll let Justin introducing stuff real quick. And then we’ll jump into kind of where this brainchild came from on what we’re doing. Sure.
So Mike, I am a long time unpaid, unlicensed assistant and one of the best in the business. And then 2021, I got my real estate license. I’ve always been an investor. And I’m looking forward to doing commercial real estate investing to support the Jessica ball team.
Awesome. So what do you guys stumble across here?
Yeah. So when I first started, I was I was coming out of a 10 year law enforcement career. And so I had no idea how to do marketing or anything like that. And I was looking for a way to grow my own sphere grow my business. And we realized that there were agents that were retiring from our brokerage that pretty much just said, Hey, I’m retired, anyone want to buy a few signs? Great. And then they’re out the door. And it’s like, well, what just happened? All their clients that someone taking care of those, what happened? And we started asking questions, and a lot of times people just kind of shut the doors and walked away with no plan in place. And so we really dug down deep into how can one we help those agents monetize their business as they retire. But then also, for agents like myself looking to grow their business, how can they benefit from that as well and helping an agent do that? And that traveler?
So then you started seeing some of the retirees a new created this is I see where we’re going right now? Um, yeah, I could, I could. It’s interesting, because people just, you know, when you get to that stage, you’re just sort of like, Ah, I’m Bert. A lot of times and they don’t really think about this, but keep going interesting. So
the first succession plan that we did was with a long term residential agent, who had ironically bought someone’s book of business about 15 years before that. And so we sat down with him and said, Tell us about your sphere of influence. Tell us about your database and your CRM, and how can we make a plan over the next 18 months for you to introduce us to your clients, the ones who are really engaged and give you a lot of referrals as well as the ones who may have bought five years ago or own an investment property and do these How do we really build trust and show them that we’re a team working together so that when you retire, they pick up the phone, and they call us or when you are in Florida and you say, Hey, I have this team and Justin and Jessica, they’re going to be working with you. They say to themselves, that’s awesome. I know who these people are, I trust them, they’re going to really treat me right, we’re going to be great. And for us, the acquisition cost is zero. And the lifetime benefit of developing a relationship with these clients is really, really high. And so when we started writing the book, and when we started doing this process, there’s nothing out there, literally, there’s some contracts. And there are people who do this, I think all the time. But the information isn’t there, there’s nowhere to get it, and there’s no place to talk about it. And so we really sat down and said, let’s design a contract for when you’re going to hand your assets over and how we’re going to do marketing and CO branding. Here’s the referral fees that we’re gonna pay you while you’re still an active agent selling at the brokerage, here’s the referral fees, we’re gonna pay you in retirement. And we really set on a thought about everything, websites, domain names, of video assets, all of the marketing assets, the signage, and we really build a plan from start to finish. So the retiring agents can feel really good about getting paid referral fees that their clients are being taken care of. We can really expand our our team and our business and commissions. And then
it’s almost like every brokerage should have this sort of program like this built in office, I mean, just to increase production, but it’s a good mentorship thing.
standpoint, you know, you when you think about this, the brokers are big winners here. Because if somebody retires and they call their cell phone, and they say, Hey, I moved to Texas, and I’m no longer a realtor, a real estate agent, you know, they’re going to go on the internet, they’re going to find other people, they’re going to find new realtors. And so this is really a win win win for the retiree for the team taking over as a successor, and then the brokerage because they’re keeping that business within the brokerage, keeping those clients and keeping the recognition for their brand.
I’m assuming it’s a 18 month plan for the introduction of the new entity face brand to inherit that relationship right? Or is it because it’s hard to just introduce it like you have to blend that in over time and so they start to see it because I I’ve seen other people Oh, yeah, I’m just gonna get my book of business. You can’t just do one email. That’s what I did when I left. I sent out like one or two emails me Hey, this is Luke. Hey, go ahead. Give all give all his Luke he’s cool call call him up. Like I’m out peace. But keep Yeah, I mean, that’s is that the number one issue that people have when they’re doing this is the transfer of power transfer brand? Yeah, says her face.
Yeah, exam, we can type into that. So as far as the time limit, I mean, really, a year is ideal, the more you can give it to do the CO marketing and CO branding is, is the best that the longer you can do it, the longer you have to introduce your sphere to the successor is the best. But we’ve done we’ve done a shortest two weeks, actually, when there was kind of a lack of planning and suddenly an agent was leaving. And in two weeks, she was going to be gone. And we pretty much sat down, I said you need to give me at least three hours, I’m gonna sit with you with your database, we’re going to make calls, we’re going to send out a few things I’m going to take whoever you have unlisting you know, alerts right now and convert them right now we’re gonna, you know, onto my stuff. And so we you can do it in a very little amount of time, but it’s not going to be as productive and as as good of a monetary gain and continue into retirement is if you have a longer period of time for it.
Mike, I think this is where we talk about CO branding, like, well, that person is still an agent in your brokerage. We’re advertising ourselves as a team and putting both of our faces on mailers and putting both of our faces on advertisements and on that the retiring agents information so that all of their sphere and their farm and all of these things are seeing all of our faces together. And then when they actually move into that retirement or into the referral networks. It really moves it co marketing than that we’re marketing maybe that team but not misleading and keeping in track with all the state guidelines of things. But people honestly a lot of times don’t even realize that that retiring agent isn’t even there because we’ve done such a good job of CO branding and CO marketing on the front end. And so, you know, when we have 18 months or 24 months to do this process, we’re shooting videos together. We’re going out on big listing presentations together. We’re hosting client parties together we’re doing all of the things so that literally that sphere of influence doesn’t think that It’s just Jim’s business. It’s Jim and Jessica or Jim and Justin and Justin, who is actually a real team now.
I like it. So let’s first, let’s just say you find somebody like, Alright, I’m gonna retire in a year or two, let’s sit down, how does it work? What’s the most important thing to do first, and then especially in the first couple months happens, because once you build it, I’m sure it’s just repetition, repetition, repetition.
Yeah. So in the book, we talked about three structures, kind of for what a contract would look like, for that succession planning. And so are you going to be literally teammates, equals or you’re gonna have an actual team leader? And then a team member in that? Or is it just gonna be this really loose contract of, hey, we’re gonna start doing some branding together and kicking things back and forth and not sharing expenses. But I think where we really see the power is sitting down and making a plan to say, here’s kind of where we’ll negotiate what those referrals look like, here’s my retirement date. And making sure that people are really confident they’re going to keep that retirement date, and serve themselves. And it’s okay, if it’s a moving target, you know, if it’s going to be summer of 2022. You don’t need to know whether it’s going to be June 1, or whether it’s gonna be July 15, you can kind of aim for but the closer you get, you’ve got to really know when you’re going to pull that trigger. Making plans about the marketing is the biggest piece, how do we really sit down at first get people’s business together for their data, and their CRM at some of those, we have to reconstruct totally from scratch. Some of them are, hey, I’ve got an awesome CRM, I’ve got brevity I’ve got TM, I can literally just print all this out for you and habit. And then how do we really start to get the message out of we’re working together how to you as the successor learn the clients and the business that the retiree is in and how their clients like to be treated? Are they super analytical? Do they have a great sales plan for marketing a home? Do they work with investors? Do they work with commercial real estate, building that plan and then executing on the CO marketing and CO branding? Because that’s where the power of it is, it’s really, the most important thing is how do we tell a retiring agent sphere of influence, you can trust this new person I’m bringing in, they’re really good, you’re going to get what you expect, you’re going to get continuity. And you should feel really comfortable when you pick up the phone as a client calling them or when you call me and I refer you back to them. You know what to expect them what you’re going to get?
That’s what is the the average age last time I checked your real estate agents like 56 and a half or 57 years old, right? So how many of those people are retiring? Do you guys ever done the math on that? How many like people in the real estate industry? What’s the number of agents because it is an older overall population? And then the younger ones are coming in now. But what is that, because there’s quite a bit of people out there that are probably in this position right now.
You’re exactly that. And I was just flipping back because I had all the data from NAR that’s here. But basically, in Illinois, there are 7000 realtors who have reported on the NAR national survey that they’re not confident they’re going to be selling real estate in two years. And 2400 of those are over the age of 55 and 60. So really, there is a great opportunity here in the sense that as you look across the country, that average age of Realtors is going up even though there are 10s of 1000s of new realtors, which is telling us even people entering the market are not younger agents in a lot of cases. And so it’s not just the opportunity for people retiring to but kind of like you were talking about during your plan. There are people that relocate there are people that get into the corporate side of real estate or lending or do any of these things. But this is a huge, huge market. In terms of the number of retiring agents even at our brokerage in Peoria. There’s a significant percentage of our retirement age eligible. And I think what was really neat to think about in the the National Association of REALTORS report on kind of the state of Realtors was that those experienced Realtors get 70% of their business from referrals. So they’re not buying these leads. This is their sphere doing the work, and it’s them passing their sphere on to you. So whether you’re in a small brokerage, whether you’re in a huge brokerage, whether you’re relocating to a new market, to try and establish yourself as a real estate agent, there are ample retiring real estate agents or people who are eligible to retire and I think sometimes people don’t retire because they don’t have a plan. I mean, they want to feel really good about when they do that someone’s going to take care of their family and their friends and their clients and sometimes having that conversation with retirement eligible agents in your brokerage is probably going to make them feel really good about starting the process.
Just stay on them. Got it. I think a lot of agents don’t look at that as a potential source of business either. I don’t think anyone does. They’re chasing leads they’d rather do like a Facebook ad versus just go target some old crusty real estate agent that’s dying by the vine waiting to get the hell out of business in your office right in front of you, that could need your help. Yep,
yeah. And I can speak a little bit more on you know exactly what you’re saying, you know, it’s, it’s so much easier to work with a lead and work with a person, when it’s a referral, someone saying, you know, hey, this is the person I trust, you’ve got to sell your house, you’ve used me in the past, but I work with with my teammate or my partner here. If you’ve been given that credibility, and so working with that person, they already then trust you, you’re not having to fight for the conversion on that. And so it’s, it’s not just going out there and paying for these leads here, you’re sure you may be paying a referral on the back end of it. But you’ve just been given credibility to work with this person?
How, what are the referral agreements? Typically, when you guys see me 5% 30%? Is the agent still involved? Can I guess? I’m sure it could be all the above. Sure, it’d be open for discussion or negotiation, like the agent still gonna be involved for a year? Maybe they’re just the listing presentation, and they hand everything off? And that’s all they do.
Really, it can be all of the different different ones there. Yeah,
I think would you know, when we sit down, and we say that there is no standard for what a referral is, and these things, but we typically see, as we’ve done these contracts, making three years of these referral commissions that will pay out before then we wholly own, if you will, the, the book of business or the sphere of influence that people are passing. And, you know, we’ve taught to some agents across the country where referrals are 40%, I would say we mostly see 25%. And we really sit down and say, you know, in the first year, should we be giving more than 25% have put this plan in place, so that the retiring agent says I really feel comfortable, and I know I’m getting some benefit here, and then slowly reduce that over time. And we even you know, you talked about the the investment side of business, we put a lot of things in that contracts about if they’re going to sell their personal residence or their personal portfolio, giving them a discount or not charging some percent of the commission or a flat fee. But those are all the things that I think really build a trusting relationship between the successor and the retiring agent is sitting down and talking through those and what they feel they deserve and don’t deserve. I think as you look at the the history of succession plans, there are some people who literally just put a number on their book of business, and they’re like, I’m gonna sell this to you for 50 grand. I don’t know that that’s the best way to do things. But we even talked in the book about how do you sit down and put a monetary incentive in there, of, hey, if you meet the certain amount of millions of dollars of referrals that you send, we’ll give you a $2,500 or 5000 or $10,000 Bonus, because that really gives that a the retiring agent motivation to be talking about real estate at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m referring their older relatives who may be selling their home or building smaller ranches or moving in house, whatever it is, they have some skin in the game now to say like, I’m going to keep referring business and we’ve even seen agents in the referral business, or referral networks make a business card that says referring agent, and then they’re still out there in the field, handing them out and then getting them connected with us.
How long? How long does the agreement last?
But it depends. I mean, we have we have one right now that’s a three year another one is just one year, it really depends on what what the person wants to do what works best for them, maybe how long they’re going to be working another one that’s probably going to be even a multi year, maybe more than three years because they’re going to still be working with us for a while. Got it kind of depends on what’s best.
Because eventually they’re gonna they’re done. Right? Like a sad, sad person prepaid style, like in what’s the right word for perpetual? ility? Whatever. perpetuity forever. Yeah, there it is. It’s like jewelry. I can barely say that either. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it makes a lot of common sense to me. Just you’re just, instead of just I mean, it makes a whole lot of sense. I think it’s a recruiting model for a broker owner, perhaps. I think a broker owners is probably where I would start marketing this thing, because it’s an office if
the broker owners should want to have us come in and talk to their group of agents about because there’s probably some percent sitting there thinking about retirement and they probably have some really hungry agents who can take on the business who would be a really good fit. I found the place in our kind of introductory chapter where I talked about that survey of realtors. So there are 300,000 Realtors across the United States who are over the age of 60. And 65,000 of them reported that they don’t think they’ll be selling real estate then the next two years. So the numbers are are staggering out there. Yeah, I’ve got across the board
makes a lot of sense. What about age gap differences? How do you overcome that a lot of times the personalities have to mesh, no doubt. But I could imagine like you had like a 24 year old kid coming in, then you got like a 65 year old woman going out? Sometimes, it’s not just automatic, you got to find the right person for your business, right?
Absolutely. And that’s part of it, too. And in the book, we have a kind of a work book section there, where you go through and kind of ask yourself these questions as the retiree. And then if you’re a successor, asking, you know, those questions of what the best fit for you would be, and that’s kind of also where you maybe decide how the structure is going to be maybe if it’s a real, you know, fresh into the industry individual. You know, maybe you do work as a team for a year or two, just to build even more trust and give them the experience in the business. Yeah, like,
it makes a lot of sense. Any other thoughts? You guys have? You want to share here? Anything else? Someone may be looking at broker owners agents? Go ahead, the floor is yours.
Yeah. Well, again, really, the opportunity is out there. So you know, I, I love and when I listened to your podcast, I always say one or two marketing things away, like I’m going to start putting this into the work that I do. And everyone saw, I think, caught up in the game of buying leads and the high cost of entry. And this is the kind of opportunity again, that retirees should be thinking about other realtors or agents should be thinking about to grow their business, and the broker owners should really be I don’t wanna say subsidizing, but really thinking about to keep the owner in their brokerage
profit stream to make money in a brokerage today.
And I’m going to tell you a bit of the ones that we’ve done, the retiring agents have been really happy because literally, they’re just staying keeping their their license active through continuing education, and they’re getting mail checks. And they enjoy still, you know, being on Facebook referring people that they have conversations to transferring us phone calls, emailing us leads, and it’s a, it’s a really great opportunity for them to be doing it. And so I would say, you know, if people are interested or people are thinking about it, the biggest struggle is just the plan and putting it together. And that’s exactly why we wrote the the short book that’s out there is to give people that structure so that you don’t have to be scared or intimidated. And you can really enjoy the relationship that you develop with the retiring agent or with your successor. And do the marketing things that we found out are best practices, and then really sit back and reap the rewards and do the hard book and build your new book of business for the future.
Like it. Sometimes folks, the largest income streams or opportunities are right beneath your nose, you just got opened your eyes and Quit Chasing other shiny objects. Why don’t you guys go ahead and tell everyone how they can read your book, get your book, find you guys, if they want to learn more, follow us on social Go ahead.
So our books website is our E succession.com. The book is going to be coming out right at the start of March. A couple of versions of it are already available if you want to go out and check it out. We have a variety of services and we provide some consultation and support for people going through the succession planning process, whether you’re the retiring agent or the successor to make sure that you’re doing things, best practices and getting the most bang for your buck as you go through it. We also do a variety of speaking presentations. We’re going to be out at the International Conference for our for in Las Vegas at the end of February starting March, sharing that but we’re happy to work with people from all types of brokerages and all types of agencies and teams to talk about yours
yet, so we also have Facebook and Instagram. So our E succession is the handle on that so you can easily find us there plus links from our website for that. And then another website to reach us is Jessica ball homes.com. And then also Facebook, Jessica Boyle homes and then well that is also our Instagram handle so you can find us in lots of different places
and can’t pass up the opportunity for shameless promotion. If you’re another Illinois real estate agent or anybody across the country, and you got people moving to Peoria, Illinois, whether it’s for the hospital system Caterpillar tractors, anybody else we’re really happy to take your referrals and ship referrals out there.
Here’s ever used the tagline the balls in your court. I like it. I like it, too. I was just like, I’m gonna grab these guys.
We’ve got a lot of funny taglines and inappropriate taglines. You can insert your own balls
I love it. Alright guys, I think it’s great. Smart Good job. You guys look these people up man look them up, get this, get their book and if you’re in that boat, whether you’re young buck and you’re looking to get business look for someone who’s trying to retire and vice versa I appreciate you guys coming on the show. We appreciate you guys listening to another episode please visit our website check us out real estate marketing do.com and connect with us on our social channels. Make sure you subscribe, follow like comment, and I think that’s it. Appreciate you guys have a good day and you guys have a good day listening and thank you for listening to the episode. We’ll see you guys next week like thank you for watching another episode of the real estate marketing dude podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our website at WWW dot real estate marketing do.com We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training, and then schedule a time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We’ll see you next time.