Real Estate Podcast: Be Human, Give Value, Get Business

As an Olympian, Hans Struzyna knows that hard work and consistency pay off. Now in the third year of his real estate career, Hans has a booming business in the Bay Area – selling just under $20 million in volume. On today’s show, Hans shares the strategies he used consistently over the last several years to grow his business. He also elaborates on how he wins clients by applying one simple sales theory: be human, give value, and get business.

Listen to today’s show and learn:

Hans’ secret to success [2:01]
What it takes to be an Olympian [3:04]
Hans’ sales figures [3:57]
Why tracking numbers is so important in real estate [5:25]
How Hans gets listing leads [7:52]
Hans’ strategy for getting positive reviews [9:14]
The “lean in, lean out” strategy [14:15]
The mentality shift that will win you more business [17:09]
Why Hans is excited about open houses in 2020 [21:29]
A failure that contributed to Hans’ current success [27:25]
Hans’ advice to new agents [34:02]
Hans’ biggest headaches as an agent [36:40]
A unique tip for boosting business in 2020 [37:54]
How to break through your goals.
Plus so much more.

Hans Struzyna

The First is that all goals must be written down and visible on a daily basis.

The second is that there’s no such thing as overnight success and consistent work is the only path to success. Finally, everything is the way it is because someone made it that way. So to understand people is to understand the world.

Hans Struzyna applied these lessons to his 12 year rowing career culminating as a member of the 2016 USA Olympic rowing team. After the Games, Hans had to descend from the metaphorical mountain he’d spent years scaling and ended up feeling lost for the first few months.

Hans got his license six months later and have been pursuing all avenues of this business ever since. He is a Realtor Partner with a Wall Street Journal Top 100 nationally ranked team, The Gunderman Group. They focus on advocacy, risk management and exceeding their clients’ personal definitions of success. By staying true to those core values, they’re the top team in the East Bay of the Bay Area and sell over $180M per year (with over $1.5B sold in total) with an average price point of $1.2M.

Hans is also fascinated by real estate investing and completed his first flip during his first year in the business. He and his wife also invest in out-of-state multi family properties. Hans is actively looking for his next few deals.

So he recently created a podcast called Another Way To Play. Hans believes that if you trade hours for dollars, you will never achieve true freedom in your life. He brings inspirational and practical content to listeners at their own personal crossroads by interviewing entrepreneurs, thought leaders and industry experts to learn how they achieved freedom in their lives.

Hans recently got married to the love of his life, Kristin, who is also an Olympic rower and entrepreneur. She runs her own business and loves real estate investing and they are actively building what they call their “business/real estate empire.”

Related Links and Resources:

Thanks for Rocking Out

Thank you for tuning in to Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars, we appreciate you! To get more Rockstar content sent directly to your device as it becomes available, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher! Reviews on iTunes are extremely helpful and appreciated! We read each and every one of them, please feel free to leave your email so that we can personally reach out and say thanks! Have any questions? Tweet me, Facebook me and ask Pat anything. Don’t forget to head on over to Bare Naked Agent for Pat’s answers, and advice. Thank you Rockstar Nation, and keep rockin!

Read the Full Interview

Adam Roach: Welcome to Real Estate Rockstars. My name is Adam Roach. I am your guest host today and do we have a fantastic just incredible interview today with Mr. Hans Struzyna. Let me share something with you guys real quick. Here’s an individual that has been in the business of real estate for only three years. He’s doing just South of $20 million in sales. He’s from the Bay Area, and he’s an Olympian. Hans, say hi to everybody.

Hans Struzyna: Hey everybody, Hans Struzyna here. Thank you for having me on, I’m real excited to be here.

Adam: Good, man. We’re super excited to have you here as well. Hey, let’s start off our listeners love to hear what people’s superpowers are. Why don’t you share with us what your superpower is.

Hans: Man, like your intro implied back in my rowing days, I would have said it’s rowing boats real fast. Now that I’m out of that world, I’ve taken a lot of what I learned as an athlete and applied it. I think my number one superpower is to learn quickly, retain what I’m learning and apply it immediately. I’ve found that that has just been huge in the, in my trajectory of just my short career so far.

Adam: Awesome, now you were in the 2016 Olympics, right?

Hans: That’s correct, in Rio de Janeiro

Adam: Rio de Janeiro, did you get out and shake it a little bit like those dancers you see on TV?

Hans: We had a few late nights out watching some beach volleyball and some stuff, which is, by the way, an unbelievable experience in Rio because they go crazy for their beach volleyball there.

Adam: Do they really?

Hans: Oh yes, it’s like a national pastime almost. It’s unbelievable.

Adam: That’s really, really cool. Give us quickly a background on what it takes, what does it take to be an Olympian?

Hans: It really just takes a lot of hard work and an ability to not quit, frankly. For me, I’ll caveat that with saying you have to have some physical ability to marry with your hard work and your work ethic. But generally, if you’ve got the skills or the physical features to compete, once you have that down and you find your niche or your sport. It’s all about hard work coachability, and trying to improve every day.

Adam: That’s awesome, and clearly that hard work has transitioned well now into the real estate world. Only in the business for three years doing just South of $20 million in sales. Man, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

Hans: Let’s do it.

Adam: How many houses have you sold in the last 12 months? What’s the volume, gross commission, profit margin? Tell us all about your business.

Hans: This last year was my best year to date by almost a three X factor. I’ve done 15 sides, 10 of those are from buyers, 6 are on the listing side. Volume right now is 19.13 million, gross commissions was 188, 980. I know that because I’m a numbers guy and I keep track of my spreadsheets and all that. For reference, I’m on a team. I have obviously a team split and pay some TC fees and all that sort of thing. That’s the gross commission to me, not to the team. Then my personal profit margin is running right about 70% because I do have a higher split with the team, but they take care of a lot of that stuff for me so I don’t have to deal with, some of the systems and the back office and all that.

Adams: Yes, absolutely. What I love about you is you already said you’re a numbers guy. I as a real estate coach, numbers literally are the language of business. Would you agree?

Hans: 100%.

Adams: If you don’t know your numbers what the hell are you doing in the business world? You’re just winging it.

Hans: If you can’t measure it, if you’re not measuring it and tracking it you can’t control it.

Adams: Tell me what, what do you mean by that?

Hans: Taking that to either an athletic performance standpoint or a business standpoint. If you are working really hard in the gym, or making cold calls, or holding open houses. But you’re not tracking where your leads are coming from, what activities are producing closings, or what your dollar per hour is on a cold call versus a in-person meeting and you’re just doing stuff. You will probably end up with results if you take enough action, but that action could be better used in a way to really scale you. You’re not running around with your head cut off all over the market, trying to put a deal together over here and over there. If you know what’s really moving the needle for you, you can actually double down on those activities and see results really relatively quickly.

Adams: Yes, I love that. It sounds to me like you don’t win the business, do you?

Hans: I used to, to be totally honest, but I have started to get more serious about those numbers. When I started to track it, it’s when I started to notice trends and then I could get really clear on ways to actually move the needle.

Adams: I hope our listeners hear that, is what we just heard Hans and say is, paying attention and tracking your numbers will ultimately build predictability, right?

Hans: Absolutely. Just taking it into the gym. If you’re just going in and doing a couple of lifts and you’re checking Instagram, and then you’re like going and getting a drink of water, then you go over to another machine. You’re in the gym, that’s fantastic, but you’re not doing anything. If you go in with a plan of like, I’m going to do four sets of five reps at this weight, then I’m going to lift it up to this weight next week and this weight the week of after. That’s when you’re going to start to see the results and you’re going to look in the mirror and like what you’re looking at. The same thing goes for your business.

Adams: Yes, absolutely. It’s funny going to the gym, a little bunny trail here I’ve been doing– Have you seen that new beach body workout called the work?

Hans: I have not.

Adams: Oh my gosh, this guy, I don’t even remember the trainer’s name, he’s incredible. They actually allow cussing on this beach body workout. I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like 5:00 AM and someone is cussing you out, it’s kind of fun. Let’s go back to that. You do track, I love that you track. What would you say is your number one source for listing leads other than your sphere of influence?

Hans: I mentioned earlier, I’m on a team and the team I’m on is The Gunderman Group. We’re the number one team in the East Bay, Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, for those of you who are familiar with the Bay Area, and they’ve been in the business for over 20 years each. We’ve got a huge database, a huge past client sphere. Most of our listing either comes from referrals from that. To me, it’s new business, but to them it’s repeat. Then we have a very large Yelp presence. We actually almost have almost 200, or we may have just cracked 200 reviews, which is the most in our marketplace, so that gets us a lot.

Then, generally speaking, we just have a lot of signs in the ground at any one time. A lot of calls just will come in, straight off the signs from neighbors and people who are driving around and seeing our presence.

Adams: Wait a minute, you’re telling me that sign calls still actually work?

Hans: Believe it or not, people actually want to talk to one another when it comes to a big transaction. Shocking, I know, but yes it happens sometimes.

Adams: Yes, it does happen. Let’s go back to this Yelp review. I know reviews have been quite the rave for probably the last five, maybe six years. Tell us about what the team focus is there. Tell us about that.

Hans: Everybody on our team has a bit of a different opinion or around generally speaking all the “typical sales stuff”. Asking for reviews, asking for a referral, that sort of thing. Generally, we have asked in a sort of non pushy way for past clients, anyone who has worked with us to leave us a Yelp review because we’re trying to build up that channel. I came into the business about a year and a half ago, by that, I mean the Gunderman Group. They had, I don’t know, 140, 150 Yelp reviews and then I had all my clients leave reviews. Then we really, as a group made a push to continue to ask our clients, just to build it up, tell about their experience, write a specific story about us. That has just accumulated up to pushing on that 200 mark. It’s really fairly organic in asking and the request.

When you make that request, I always couple it with why? Because I say, it really helps me gain clarity and feedback on what was important to you, but it also helps other people make a good decision when it comes to hiring us versus somebody else.

Adam: You’re intentional and purposeful with that question so they get it. The client then has an action to go do, right?

Hans: Right. Because if you ask someone to go leave a review. Think about how many times we get hit up by airlines and credit card companies anytime we’re on the phone with anybody. “Stay on the line and take our two minutes satisfaction survey.” It’s like, “Hell no, no one is doing that.” But if you tie it to a reason, it’s interesting. For the life of me, I don’t remember the study, but there was a study that came out that said, even if it’s a ridiculous reason, it’s just, “I want to make copies because I have to.” People were like 80% more likely to let someone cut in line with this study. I just said, Let’s just tie it to a reason, it helps us grow our business, helps us gain feedback. It’s just amazing how when you ask it in that way with any requests, how people will actually take action when it’s tied to a reason.

Adam: Love it.

Adam: Listeners, here’s what I want you to hear there. Number one, it’s a system. Number two, he is actually telling them or scripting what to do, when to do, and how to do it. Then thirdly, that these reviews are actually driving more leads back to him and the team, fantastic. Hans let’s go into the buyer’s side now. Tell our listeners, what’s your number one source for buyer leads?

Hans: In the beginning, it was just leads that would come in either through the open houses that I would hold for the team or from sign calls or internet calls through Zillow or through the listing website. Now it is starting to transition to referrals. I’m quickly on my way to having a 50:50 ratio of referral business to a new kind of internet sign called business.

Adam: Love it, nice, congratulations. In my opinion, as a real estate coach, that’s your number one job. Is to build your database such as your database gives you nothing but referrals all day long, right?

Hans: Oh yes.

Adam: Tell me about your team philosophy. When you and I talked briefly before the podcast here, you talked about a philosophy of lean in, lean out. Tell our listeners what that means.

Hans: I wish I could take credit for that, but it’s definitely something that David and Andrew, my team leaders have come up with and have preached I think almost ever since they got in the business. The concept is simple, it’s people want to walk into an open house in this case and want to see the house. They don’t want to like sign in, they don’t want to be sold, they don’t want to feel preyed upon.

You literally have this moment when someone is walking in and you have a you have a decision to like aggressively attack them and try and get them in your world. Or you can literally take a step back, provide them some value and give away the information that some people like to hold back. Just have them remember you as the person who was value first, and then hopefully, and in practice, it actually works that people come back to you. Whether it’s in that same open house, or circle back and ask for the card, or they’ll call you a week or two later, whatever the case is.

Adam: What I’m hearing you say there is you become a person of value, is that right?

Hans: That’s correct.

Adam: Again, what I’m hearing you say more there is when you become that value, organically they come back to you because the value is so great. You’re the expert now, right?

Hans: Absolutely. I was talking to a lender who I do a fair amount of my buyers with. He and I were talking over coffee yesterday about the uncommoditization of your position. If you want to push paper, there’s an app that can push paper way better than you can. If you’re just sending automated drips and you’re saying, what do you want to write up on the offer? It’s really probably not super valuable. Wwhen you start to provide context and identifying landmines and just being a person that listens. That’s when you start to become less commoditizable if that’s a word. That’s when people start to start to find you attractive and they’ll lean back towards you when you bring that value first.

Adam: Very interesting word there that you chose to use, listening. Again, in my 20 years in the real estate world, man, there’s so many agents out there. I’ll admit, I’ve been one too. Where I’m hiding behind the bush waiting to get you and say, “Oh, I got you,” It’s like a trap, and there’s no value in that. These people are humans just like you and I, and they want to feel the value. Awesome.

Let’s do this, transition real quick. With regards to those number one sources. What are you doing today that our listeners can do as well that would instantly increase their production?

Hans: I think with anything, regardless of where the lead comes from, if you’re physically meeting someone at an open house, it’s a call off of a sign, whatever. If you can put that person first, this is a little bit more of a mentality shift than sort of a script. If you can think, how can I approach this person or help this person in this interaction to provide them some value that they couldn’t get somewhere else. I believe that that will start to set you apart in a big way, especially as we go into this new decade that we’re heading into in 2020.

An example of that is when anyone comes into one of my open houses, I do have a sign in sheet, I don’t push it, it’s usually back farther in the open house, like on the kitchen table or something. I always greet them towards the front of the house at the front door, introduce myself, shake hands and say, “Can I tell you a little bit about the house or what you’re about to walk into?” I’ve never had anybody say no. I get about 20 to 30 seconds to say, “Okay, the basement is really unfinished, but it’s a great place for an ADU. Go down those stairs. The owner’s suite is through this way, you got to check the view out. The backyard is not to be missed, but it’s easy to miss just make sure you keep going past that door.” Something basic, whatever is appropriate for that house.

Then I’ve always finished, “If you have questions I’m going to be hanging out right here.” It sort of engages people in an interesting way because most people, when they walk into an open house are greeted with something like, “Do you have any questions? Can I help you?” The answer is always no to that. I want to engage someone in some other way that provides value of something that they probably would have missed or could have missed, or wouldn’t have known in the first place, because that already separates you. Because you think about how many open houses people see in a day, probably five or six, they all blur together, we all know that. If you can just separate yourself just a little bit, you’re going to stand out and at the very minimum, you’re going to represent that house in a better way.

Adam: Again, I think you said maybe five or six minutes ago about being valuable, being valuable and being human. I can’t tell you how many homes from coast to coast I’ve gone into where the agent literally sat at the kitchen table and said, welcome to the open house I’ll be here if you have any questions. Come on, even as a potential buyer, I’m probably not going to want to work with that guy pf female because just sitting there. Good for you to get to the front door. Basically, what we heard you say there, listeners is get off your toolkits, get up there, go introduce yourself when someone is walking in the front door, be a human and be a point of value. Awesome. That’s really lovely.

Hans: Absolutely.

Adam: What team systems are you most excited about for either 2020 or just in general?

Hans: This is one that I think is so funny. Because I think you hear this story all the time and I certainly heard it before I joined this team. You hear about some of these top producers who have all this business and then you get into their team and you’re assuming it’s like this machine that just churns and it’s just awesome, but half the time it’s not. There’s a lot of greatness under there, but it’s not like there’s a system in play.

In this one system that we were lacking was simply just a way to stay engaged with our sphere and our past clients. What I’m really excited about in 2020 is simply just staying in touch with the people that we as a group have done business with over the last 20 years. Doing it in a way that’s thoughtful and engaging both on social media, an email drip campaign and then something simple, like having some client appreciation events of some kind in 2020. Those three really basic items I think are just going to move the needle in a big way for us here in the next year and beyond.

Adam: That’s cool, really really cool. Let’s go to what lead system or lead producing system are you most excited about?

Hans: I’ve tried a handful of things. We work with HomeLight as one of the things that we have. As opposed to paying per lead, you have a 25% referral on the back-end of those leads. We’ve had some success with them, but and I’ve tried a handful of other lead providers. The thing that I’m actually really excited about frankly, is open houses. My team leaders are our listing machines and I think we have over 30 in the pipeline coming up in Q1 this year which is just insane. Going in and being able to actually build a human connection with people in a way that differentiates you.

I am a personal believer in the fact that when I call a bank or I call a credit card company or an airline, I want to talk to a person, I press zero immediately. I believe that a lot of other people want that too. Bringing that humanity back into this transaction, which most people moving and selling and buying and filling out loan paperwork, most people rank that somewhere close to getting a root canal of things they want to do. I’m of the opinion that if you can bring the humanity back into this interaction in this engagement, you will stand out in a totally different way. That’s why the open house for me is something that I’m really excited about this coming year.

Hans: Love it.

Adam: Clearly you are a very people forward person, and I love that. That’s fantastic. Let’s pause on all of that and let’s get down and dirty here as it relates to where we fail. The question is, having the success that you’re having now, what failure have you had that when you look at it today as a successful agent was an incredible learning experience? That can be as an Olympian in your trainings, as a business person. Where have you failed man?

Hans: Yes, I’ve got two, one sports and one is real estate related.

Adam: Lets’s hear it.

Hans: The sports one is the Olympics. The actual, A final which happened right in the middle of the Olympics. We made the A final, sitting on the starting line, gun goes off. Race is–

Adam: A little bit. The A final, that’s like the last race, right? This is the medal race?

Hans: This is the medal round, baby.

Adam: Where are you sitting on the boat?

Hans: I’m in two seats. When you look at a boat and it’s got the bow obviously it’s the front, and then the stern’s the back, but the rowers are facing opposite. The rowers are facing the back of the boat or the stern. I’m sitting in a second seat from the bow. You count bow or one seat, and then you go up as you go to the back of the boat.

Adam: Got you.

Hans: We ended up finishing fourth, which is obviously right outside the medals. It was a second or two to third and second, it was a relatively tight race, as you can imagine an Olympic race may be. It was a real disappointment for us. We certainly didn’t have our best race, and we were certainly capable of standing on the podium that day. In those moments of like finishing, taking the boat to the dock, putting it away, all that stuff, it’s like four years plus of training for that and I just failed.

Adam: Hold on, can we just pause this for one second. Clearly, you’re extremely competitive. Gang, what we all just heard Hans say is he got fourth place, which meant he was the fourth-best in the entire world, and he said, he failed. Come on, man, I don’t think you failed there, but I can totally appreciate where you’re coming from.

Hans: When you go somewhere to achieve a goal and come home with hardware, anything other than that is not a success. In retrospect, I have worked through a lot of that and understood from a psychological standpoint, why I felt that way. To round the story out, I tried to have fun at the party because it’s basically a party once you’re done rowing or competing in the first week and it’s all access to everything with your athlete badge. I really was having a hard time enjoying it. I got home and it took me well over a year to really sort of come to terms.

I didn’t watch the race for over almost a full year after it happened and even then I had to stop it a couple of times in the middle because it just hurt to watch. I finally got through the race, I’ve only watched it once since the final happened but that took a lot to get there. Just untangling my self-worth and my personal feelings about rowing and what it meant and who I was and was I failure or success and all that stuff. We get so tied up in entangle our identities with what it is we’re doing and we forget you aren’t what you do, you are much more than that. I’m sure we could dig into that conversation a whole different episode but–

Adam: You aren’t what you do, that’s incredible.

Hans: It was really not an easy process and certainly having gone through it, I have a very different Olympic story to tell as a result of it. I’m glad, I wish we would have won a medal certainly. It was one of those moments that really made me decide like, “Okay, I’m 27 when I finish that race. Am I going to let this define the next 80 years of my life?” No. Ultimately that has led me to climb this new mountain of Real Estate and adjust my mindset around success and failure.

Adam: That’s a badass man. What an incredible story? If I could give you a virtual high five or a fist bump through the computer, I definitely would.

Hans: I got you.

Adam: What I heard you say was you were fourth-best in the world, you didn’t get hardware, it took you a while to figure out that that was not a defining moment. That moment was not going to define Hans going forward. It was a hell of an experience, not many people, if hardly eeny meeny people get to experience what you did. You took away what you want to take away, it didn’t define you and now you’re going to kick ass in Real Estate. Is that right?

Hans: More or less and that’s a grossly oversimplified version of the process I went through, but yes absolutely. If someone wants to ask me about that process, I’m happy to talk about that off air and I’m sure you’ll throw my stuff in the show notes so we can connect that way. When you get so entrenched in that one little sliver of life and for me it was rowing a little skinny boat as fast as possible. You sometimes forget that there’s a world out there.

One thing I didn’t mention, as I was trying out for the 2012 team which competed in London, and I was cut from that team. One of the other guys who was cut, who was an older guy who had been on the circuit for a while. He said, “Whether you make it or you don’t, like your friends and your family still love you and beer still taste good.” It was a joke at the time. Like, “Oh, yes. It’s okay if you get cut don’t worry about it,” but it’s true. Getting tied up in your identity around how much real estate you sell, or how fast you can row a boat. You are more than those results.” Coming to terms with that and it really internalizing that was something that came out of that fourth place finished and I’m really glad I was able to internalize and come to grips with.

Adam: Man, what an incredible story that’s awesome. I’d love to keep going deeper into that but we got to keep moving on. Hans thank you for sharing, that you for getting authentic and real man, that was awesome.

Hans: Yes, absolutely.

Adam: That was really, really cool. Let’s do this, what advice would you give yourself now three years into this world of real estate. What advice would you give yourself Mr. Rookie agent? Going back three years, what advice would you give your rookie agent self?

Hans: When I first started in the business I was just cold calling. We had lists of distressed property owners and basically people who either had equity but had a notice of default or had to do something on that front or were upside down and they could do a short sale. That’s how I started, and I cut my teeth on those transactions and I’m really glad I did that. I would say I’ve got two ideas, one is that if you can get out there and just play a numbers game in some way. Your comfortable knocking on doors and you can learn how to cold-call and get a coach or get a mentor who can teach you that. The numbers game will just be in your favor, it just will.

Before you get good, you have to get consistent and that is a great way to do it even though it’s painful and it sucks. Another thing you could do on top of that or in addition to that is spend time going out on tour and going through houses every single day. Going and meeting the listing agents when they’re holding their listings open, building relationships with those people. But also going through taking notes on all the properties, looking at the comps and starting to post either on a blog you create or just on your Facebook. What was the best deal you saw that day.

If you want to target investors go into bigger pockets and post that like, “Here’s there house. Here’s why it’s a good deal. Here’s the neighborhood demographic and bla bla bla.” Or here’s why this house is the best value on the block. Start creating content around that, people will start to notice if you do it consistently and start to call you or start to engage with you on it. Then also it will just step you up in a way that your skills will skyrocket because you’re analyzing four or five properties a day.

Adam: That is awesome. I’m sitting here taking notes, that’s awesome. I love what you just said there, “Before you get good, get consistent. ” That’s strong. That’s real, real strong.

Hans: I can’t lay claim to that one either, that’s a Grant Card owned one.

Adam: I know, but that is good.

Hans: I heard that early on in my sales life, and it’s resonated, and it’s totally true.

Adam: That’s awesome. Let’s do this, if you had a magic pill, and could remove one source of pain from your business, what would it be?

Hans: Right at this exact moment it’s contractors and handy people who are looking on listings for prepping. Because as I told you before we started recording, I just got off of a very frustrating situation where this contractor upped the price on us by about $2,000 without any knowledge. So I would like to change that, but generally speaking, it’s email. With Tidal and escrow and lenders and the clients and the inspectors and all the people. These emails just get so deep and there’s so many signature lines and you can’t tell which one was which. If we could all get off of email and figure out a better platform to communicate, I would really love to do that.

Adam: Would that be nice, oh my gosh email. Really cool man, that’s fun there. So last question here. What’s one piece of advice you would give the listeners here to drastically increase their sales or sales for 2020?

Hans: I’ve got a bit of an interesting take on this. I also invest in real estate and buy rental properties out of state because in California I don’t find and it’s not my model. The rent control the, the low it just doesn’t make sense for what I’m trying to accomplish right now, so I invest in real estate. The cash flow from those is obviously income that you can use and earn. I believe that if you can generate income from some investment that you make, that is offsetting some of your living costs. It will take the pressure off of you as you’re starting to gear up and to build up.

So that you don’t have the commission breath when you’re talking to somebody in an open house. You can actually take a second, provide value to them and really do it the right way as opposed to worrying about where your next commission check is coming from. Because approaching people whether it’s a listing or a buyer in that manner will turn them off, but conversely if you can bring that value it’ll bring them to you.

Adam: That’s awesome, that’s really good advice there. Here we go gang. Hans this has been incredible, you’ve brought immense value, your story from the Olympics was incredible. Everybody this is Hans Struzyna, he is not a former Olympian, he is an actual Olympian, he corrected me when we were talking earlier. There’s no such thing as a former Olympian, he’s a badass Olympian and an incredible real estate agent in the Bay Area. So if you guys ever have referrals that you want to send to the Bay Area, you better look up Hans, he is the man. Hans any closing words you want to say here before we go?

Hans: Yes, the only other thing I would say is find a mentor, find someone who’s been there before you and get into their world. I did that with both my first and my second team, and I was a sponge. I learned as much as I could, provided as much value as I could. Even though the split wasn’t the highest, I made up for it in volume and in education. I will tell you that is beyond worth it, if you can speed up your trajectory in this industry.

Adam: That’s awesome, that’s badass. Everybody this has been Real Estate Rockstars, we look forward to hearing your feedback, give us feedback whether it’s positive whether it’s negative, just give us some feedback. We love it and we will see you guys hear from you guys. Well, whatever you guys want to hear, why don’t you just tell us what you want to hear and we’ll bring it to this podcast. Take care. See you everybody.