950: Real Estate Marketing Principles to Live By – Jess Lenouvel

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Real Estate Rockstars, Aaron Amuchastegui here. Today I get to interview Jess Lenouvel. Now I hope I said her name right. And I told her that I could probably get it right now. But next month, I’m going to struggle a little bit more. So Jess is from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She’s got a company called listings lab. She was an agent for 15 years. We’re gonna get to talk about that and how she kind of transitioned from that to listings lab. Even though she’s in Canada, half her businesses is in the US, and it’s gonna be a fun, exciting talk. Jess, Thanks for coming on.

Jess Lenouvel 

I am so happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So right now, for the past six months, every time I talk to somebody, I get to ask them to about what life is like where they are right now. And so it sounds like Toronto is kind of back to lockdown, which I think probably makes sense. Because if people are eating outside and it’s cold outside, nobody would want to eat outside anyway. What’s it like right now? And what are they thinking for the future of business? Are people still doing business? What is open? What isn’t?

Jess Lenouvel 

Yeah, so things are pretty locked down at the moment. It’s sort of like even Christmas was household only things like that. So we’re pretty closed up. We can still do takeout and things like that. Bars aren’t open, gyms aren’t open, restaurants aren’t open, nothing like that. So we’re pretty locked down. And we are, like you said, in the middle of winter, so it’s freezing here. And so you know, outdoor dining and all of that stuff. It’s just it’s not an option here. So we stay home.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of places where outdoor dining became a solution to a lot of the challenges. And they you know, they closed down streets, and they move in restaurants kind of took over streets. It was super creative and super neat and innovative. But there was a little bit of the worry of what happened, even gyms, so like gyms have created these outdoor areas where they workout outside instead of inside. But the rain and the cold is definitely going to start impacting that a little bit. So Well, hopefully, even though 2021 is starting off like that the you know that everybody gets back to business as usual, whatever that new business will be. What did you see for, for the people that you’ve been working with over the past year? What was the transition like in like March and April? So what were what were agents talking to you about, and how did that transition tilt toward the end of the year?

Jess Lenouvel 

So I would say March and April, there was a lot of fear. And I think that that sort of across the board, people didn’t really know how to navigate things, things got quiet, I would say March and April for most of our members. But I mean, after April, things really started to pick up I think the initial fear the initial lockdown the initial like fears about what was going to happen in the market really kind of disappeared, and business started picking back up again. And most of the agents that we’ve worked with have had their best years ever, just because they’ve really been able to adapt really quickly to what was happening and, you know, figure out different ways to accommodate the clients that they had. I really think that you know, ever just like any other change anything else that happens in the world, people get freaked out for a little while and then they get used to it, it becomes kind of a new normal, as much as we hate saying that. And we kind of go from there. We’re adaptable humans.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, there’s been, I mean, there’s been so much adaptation. If you’re gonna do like a prediction for 2021, what would you predict when it comes to really anything in the real estate market, whether it whether the market goes up and down new technologies, any big predictions or big changes you think are gonna happen this year?

Jess Lenouvel 

I think just like any other year, kind of like even the like the last five years, I think there’s going to be more of a shift towards technology, more of a shift towards social media, building relationships, online, things like that less of the manual in person touches. I also think that from a market standpoint, I think most markets are going to remain relatively strong. I don’t think any market has like really, really crashed. Like there’s maybe a few here and there but I don’t really think anything is in dire straits at the moment. And I think we’re probably going to end up with a little bit more of a balanced market closer to the end of the year.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah. Cool. So the I like that prediction, I think I probably agree with agree with a lot of that prediction. And, and especially if we’re just putting you on the spot. I appreciate you being willing to just go for it. Yeah. And tell us what you’re thinking. So you were an agent for 15 years?  Why did you get into real estate?

Jess Lenouvel 

So when I finished school, I was 21 with a very useless degree. And I didn’t really know what I was going to do with myself. My mom has been a realtor for 35 years. So at the time, she was like, 20 years in, and she just sort of said to me, I think you’d be good at this. Get your license and just try it out and see what you think.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So what was your degree? You said you had a pretty useless degree.

Jess Lenouvel 

So I have a degree in African and Caribbean studies.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Alright, so Caribbean studies, you got the degree, and that was a while back? And then she’s and then you said, What am I going to do with this? And then she said, “Well, I think you’d be really good at real estate.” So then you just went all in and said, “All right, I’m gonna I’m gonna go sign up”? What was your first year like?

Jess Lenouvel 

My first year was good. I looked like I was 16. So I was 21, I looked like I was 16. So that was really a concern of, you know, who’s gonna, really Toronto real estate is relatively, you know, high end. And I was like, Who’s gonna trust me? I look like a child. And I learned a lot from my mom, though. I grew up in the industry. So I wasn’t really afraid of the selling real estate side of it. I’ve been doing paperwork since I was 13. So there was really nothing about the actual transactional side that I was really concerned about. It was mostly just how am I going to get clients? How, who is going to look at me and say, Yeah, okay, that’s the person we’re going to choose. And so it was interesting. My first year was great. I probably did 20 odd deals my first year. And you know, some of that came from sphere but a lot of it came from Facebook, to be honest.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Wow. So how did you overcome the challenge of being so young? We’ve had a few people that have talked about that. And when they first did the interview, people say, Hey, this is great. But I mean, nobody really wants a new agent. That’s a challenge anyway. And then if you add to that, that they just automatically assume that you’re less experienced with life. What how did you overcome that?

Jess Lenouvel 

So I was actually really fortunate. There were a couple of deals that I brought my mom in, I just said, Hey, you know, what, if you’re if this is really that much of a concern for you, and she didn’t do a whole lot, it was just sort of optics. Yeah, I was able to bring her in. And she was, you know, my kind of back my backup. Yeah, you know, if anything happens, if there’s anything that you want, you know, any questions that you think that I can answer, like, she’s here, she’s got 20 years of experience and hundreds of millions of dollars of production.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I think that’s great advice. I think anybody that’s young and starting in the I mean, that’s why people join teams. That’s why people join. That’s why people choose their brokerages carefully. But it sounds like bringing in somebody else to kind of be that co-agent with you really, really helps them kind of feel better about that. So you had a really good first year, and you know, and you said, and a lot of that came from Facebook. So instead of that being your sphere, it was Facebook, how did you use Facebook to get people because Facebook is kind of sphere? Or is it? Was it just a way to communicate with a sphere? Or were you able to kind of market that and cross some lines with that?

Jess Lenouvel 

Well, I mean, the other thing that I struggled with was because my mom was such a, you know, such an experienced agent, I was kind of competing with her. Right? So we have the same sphere. And so really, when someone was deciding who they were going to work with, were they going to choose me brand new agent 21? Or were they going to choose my mom. And of course, 99% of those people chose my mom. So I had to find a different way to generate business to build these relationships and Facebook. I mean, I’m gonna date myself, but Facebook was really new. Yeah. And there was no — I didn’t have the opportunity to really, like really work with my sphere. So there wasn’t marketplace back there. Then there was just classifieds. So I started prospecting in classifieds. And nobody else was doing it. I started like building relationships through messenger and through comments, and just having conversations with people who, you know, were on there looking to buy and sell, even even some rentals, right? And a lot of those rentals that I did in my first year as well, which I didn’t count in that initial 20, also became buyers down the road.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it’s really interesting to take the new technology. It’s the thing I remember when, you know, people started using each step of it. It was kind of like whoever got in first and adopted it first could really it could turn into something and not every social media turned out big but most of them did. I remember when Facebook first came out, the adoption wasn’t fast. And there was, people loved it or hated it. And so the I think that probably the people in those classifieds, they loved the idea of technology and love the idea of social media kind of being that chance. So if you were going to go back and tell yourself advice your first year or really any agent. So if you’re talking to somebody in their first year of real estate, what recommendation would you give them?

Jess Lenouvel 

Get out of your own way? Okay, I think especially nowadays, I think there’s so many people who are self conscious about video, and people who are afraid to really kind of show up and be open and be themselves. I think a lot of the time our own fears and insecurities get in the way of like the opportunities that are actually in front of us. And especially when it comes to things like video when it comes to like online platforms. It’s really it’s really like people don’t are not going to be judging you. People aren’t looking at, you know, whether or not your makeups perfect. What they actually really care about is what’s coming out of your mouth.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I think you’re right, there’s there’s so much kind of worry and people are people are people. And I used to be, you know, five years ago, if we wanted to make an ad, or make video on Facebook or YouTube. We had four cameras setup and lighting, and it and it was professionally edited. And that was helpful. And we were and that’s what people wanted, they wanted professional, there was some sort of a transition that I that I experienced in the last few years, we would do these, like we want to buy your house videos on Facebook. And the more professional we got, the less responses we got. And then there was one of me just walking through a house. And I hadn’t shaved and my hair was messed up. And I just started telling the story of like, Hey, I just bought this house. And here’s why. And people don’t do that. And we even accidentally spelled like that the title wrong. Right? Yeah. And that and that video gotten more responses than kind of anything. And it was it was funny to realize the ones that we spent the most effort on and the most critiquing did not succeed as well as the kind of crappy but super honest version

Jess Lenouvel 

Amazing lesson and I say this to our agents all the time. You know that the more polished your stuff is on social media, the less response you’re going to get because it looks and it feels like an ad and we get bombarded with ads every single day. And the more Addy it looks like, the faster people are going to scroll past it. And the more honest and the more down to earth and the more raw it looks it looks organic. And when it looks organic people are willing to pay more attention.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So your first year again, so remind me how many deals you did your first year.

Jess Lenouvel 

I did around 20.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

What’s the average sales price?

Jess Lenouvel 

I would say 750 at the time.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Were they mostly buyers or mostly sellers?

Jess Lenouvel 

They were mostly buyers.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Okay. And then, what was it like the next couple years? So what was your two, year three, year four? What was your transition for the next five to 10 years?

Jess Lenouvel 

So I mean, I slowly grew, I honestly, I was so young, and I spent all of my money on shoes. And you know, I was just, I wasn’t really building a business, I was just, I was just really like, you know, making money. And like that part of it was fun, I didn’t really start taking my business seriously until I was like in my mid 20s. And it kind of grew and grew from there. But yeah, my first couple of years were great. I mean, I did the things that I felt like I needed to do, I used to call it prospecting in my PJs. So I would, you know, sit at home, and I would get on Facebook or get on whatever, you know, social media I was using, and I would just talk to people. And that’s where most of my business came from. I mean, that kind of strategy wouldn’t work today. But it worked really well back then. And I kind of consistently grew, I was making a good solid, multiple, six figures for the first couple of years. And I was happy.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it’s as you as you think about like, when deciding to take it seriously or not, and pushing through it. It was it’s your idea of prospecting, though, is pretty cool. Right here. Like I would get my PJs and start just talking to people on Facebook. What what are those conversations like? Especially if you’re like, you’re like prospecting, but you’re seeing them? So like, how do you do the outreach? Is it cold outreach? You know, like, how are you getting these conversations going?

Jess Lenouvel 

Yeah, I would say 90% of it was cold. I would go in and I would start having conversations with people. I mean, I was messaging the people that were clearly interested in a move or were interested in real estate. So I mean, I would look at the classifieds, I would look at what they were looking for. And I would send a message and a lot back then I mean, buyers and sellers are so much more educated now than they were back then. Yeah. But you know, I would talk to them about the fact that they could buy using an agent and you know, the whole like, it’s not going to cost you more, you don’t pay the agent back then a lot of people didn’t know that. Especially first time buyers and my entire most of my business that didn’t come from sphere of some sort came through there. And they were all first time buyers. So the fact that I was able to like educate them along the way, even though I wasn’t the most experienced agent out there. I knew more than they knew.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah. So 2016 and 2017 were your last years as an active agent. What was the prospecting, like then? Because by 2016, 2017, it wasn’t necessarily classifieds anymore. Did you change? Did you change your business? And what was your average day like then?

Jess Lenouvel 

Yeah, I so I stopped prospecting years and years before then, everything that we do, and everything that we everything that we teach now. And everything that we did then was automated lead gen, automated nurturing. So most of what we were doing was any calling. We were calling very warm leads that had been nurtured. And the rest of the business was people just putting their hands up saying I’m ready. So I did end up with a team, I had a small, very lean, very high producing team. And that’s the way that everything happened. We, you know, the idea became, and after years and years of doing things, the way that I was doing things, I have kind of two cardinal rules of questions that I asked myself before I make a decision in terms of adding anything into my business. The first one is, is it scalable, and anything that I do manually is not scalable. So we eliminated everything that was really manual. And the second thing is, do I enjoy it? And if it’s something that I didn’t enjoy, or something that I wasn’t interested in, and didn’t seem fun and exciting to me, it didn’t do it.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So how did you go from being an agent to making a decision that instead of being an agent, you wanted to start teaching agents?

Jess Lenouvel 

Yeah, so I got to a point in my business, which I’m very fortunate to have, that money wasn’t really a thing anymore. We were doing several 100 deals a year in, you know, in a very active market. And I just got to a point where I asked myself, I was I was still in my early 30s. And I asked myself, you know, what do I want to do for the rest of my life? Like, do I want to still be selling real estate? And it was a little bit of a rough I kind of had a bit of an existential crisis of, you know, who am I? What do I want to do? You know, what lights me up? And I realized that, you know, selling real estate, wasn’t it for me anymore. But the most fun that I had was when agents would knock on our door or knock on my door and say, “Hey, how are you doing this?”

Jess Lenouvel 

Yeah, a lot of it came down to what was actually fun. For me, it was a really big risk. I remember telling my mom, Okay, you know what, I’m gonna stop selling real estate and I’m gonna start teaching agents. She’s like, “What?”

Aaron Amuchastegui 

A huge pay cut like this. If you’re doing 10 deals a weekend and then you’re gonna try to do you know, share your secrets instead. It’s a huge pay cut when you first get started.

Jess Lenouvel 

First, it really was and it was a really big risk. But we are great marketers. And I think that that’s really the thing that has really it shifted my business when I was selling real estate. And it really set us up well here is I stopped looking at myself as a realtor. And I started looking at myself as a marketer a long time ago. So we just jumped in, we spent a fortune setting up the listings lab and like just building audiences quickly.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So now you before you use social media to get lead gen, people wanting to buy or sell their house. Was that your first way you started getting, you know, real estate agents as kind of as clients as part of your group was you started targeting real estate agents, instead, using the same principles you did when you were targeting buyer? sellers?

Jess Lenouvel 

100%. And I mean, I was able to build a little bit of sphere as well, because it was a lot of agents in my home market who were like, Oh, she’s teaching, she’s sharing what she’s done to get where she was. And I had quite a few local agents come into our program right off the bat saying, “Hey, I don’t know what this is. But I want to I want to know what it is.”

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Very cool. So now what is listings lab? So if somebody wants to come and talk to you, and I’m sure a lot of I’m sure a lot of people are going to reach out to you and say, “How does this work? What are you doing? How are you teaching people?” So what is listings lab?

Jess Lenouvel 

So the listings lab is is based around a methodology of three major pillars, relevancy, omnipresence, and intimacy. It’s a marketing program. So it’s really a marketing mentorship program to get agents from six to seven figures. So that’s kind of our like our tagline, you know, I help six figure agents get to seven figures by creating relationships at scale. So there’s not a lot of that, well, there’s no kind of like your typical spammy marketing stuff. We use both organic and paid traffic. So both your organic social media stuff, which I think a lot of people don’t realize what the potential is, from organic social media, most of the people who go through our programs are doing an extra three to 10 deals a month, purely organically, no money behind it. And then, and then you add kind of fuel to the fire with the paid traffic and it becomes unlimitedly scalable. So the systems that we use are very much geared around nine different types of content, a nine point psychological journey to take someone from stranger to client in an automated way.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Wow. So nine points stranger to now being a client. The what are some of those points?

Jess Lenouvel 

What I’ll do is I’ll break it into three major buckets, because if it’s the nine points will take me two hours. Let’s go through the three buckets, the first one is going to be your authority bucket. So that’s going to be things like authority content, which is you know, basically what questions do you get asked by your clients on a regular basis, answer those questions in content form. The second one is going to be things like process solution. So you should have a signature process in your business. All experts and all authorities in different industries in different markets have a signature system or methodology. So that becomes your second type, right? So basically, your authority content is going to be anything that sets you up as authority and gives value to your clients. This is not going to be things like hey, it’s springtime, it’s time to clean your gutters. This is like real teaching real value. And it’s all geared around whoever you want to target. So the more vague you are in your messaging, the less niche down you are, the more issues that you’re going to have in terms of creating relevant content. Now, the second bucket that I think is the one that most agents forget to use, or don’t want to use, or think that they shouldn’t use is your personal bucket. So these are things like personal beliefs, personal philosophy, personal story, people need to build a certain level of trust, especially if we’re online, we’re all relatively skeptical about the things that we see online, and everything seems like you hear about a million scams out there. So it’s really, really important that you are sharing the personal side of who you are, what you believe in what you stand for, and where you come from. Because that’s really going to build a lot more trust more a lot more know, like and trust.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So let me stop you for a second. Yeah. So the very beginning one, you’re saying, “Hey, take your frequently asked questions. I now create content with that, and that and that’s part of building that authority stage.” So in short, what’s the best way for them to answer those questions? I think your system is through email.

Jess Lenouvel 

Our systems not just through email, we also use retargeting. We have entire like automated funnels, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn clubhouse is the new one, right? Like there’s, you can use whatever platform and the platform has to be relevant to. So this is also really very much about you need to go where your ideal client lives, so lives online, so you know if you’re looking at upsizers, probably Facebook and Instagram, as your as your primary places, because those are the places that those people are going to live, and that you’re going to get the most bang for your time. And so we talked about both the organic side, which is your social, your, your organic social media and your email and you know, things like that. And your content should be probably like 50/50 video and written content. Your written content should also always be accompanied by an image of you. And not just pictures of homes and just listed just solds and things like that. A lot of the time, that’s actually not valuable for people. And when we’re talking organic social media, I always say, you know, people don’t move every single year. So you have to give people give your audience give the people out there a reason to follow you the rest of the time. So I break it down for ya. So they get their frequently asked questions. Yeah, this could be a new agent or something, just getting the social media, here’s my 10 frequently asked questions, half of them make a video of themselves answering it, the other half have a picture of themselves that they post and they answer it.

Aaron Amuchastegui

How often should they be putting those on social? Is it every day is it every few days?

Jess Lenouvel 

The three buckets you should be posting, if you’re if your goal is to grow the audience and to get more and more exposure once a day.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Okay, so once a day, you’re doing one of those. And then kind of that other bucket that you talked about was then also showing people “Hey, it’s okay to tell them who you are, you know, who you are of hanging out with your kids of like going out in public and doing things or a picture of you or a picture of something and telling a story.” So that’s kind of your second bucket. Now is that is that mixed in with the other one, so you’re doing kind of once a day of each of the types?

Jess Lenouvel 

You only want to be posting once a day period, and you want to mix up between the three buckets. So with your personal with the personal content, usually like the tip that I would give is, you know, do a brain dump of your entire life, everything from like, when you were born, how much you weighed, like what your family life looked like, all the way until now, you if you do that in point form, you’ll have hundreds of pieces of content, that that you can eventually, you know, you can talk about stories are 22 times more memorable than facts. So the more story that you can add into it, the more emotion that you can evoke from people, the better and the more connected, they’re going to feel to you.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I love that. So then you finally get to your third bucket. What’s that third bucket?

Jess Lenouvel 

That third bucket is going to be social proof. So people want to work with people who have helped other people in their situation. And social proof is not just listed, just sold. I cannot harp on that enough. We’re talking, we’re talking case studies, testimonials, PR or media. So your case studies are going to be basically every client you’ve ever had tell the story of that client, where were they when they met you? What were the pains? What were the issues? Why do they move, people don’t move because it’s fun, moving is awful. I’m in the process of it now. And so you know, the reason why people actually make that move is because something in their current situation isn’t serving them. And they believe that that pain or that problem can be solved with a new location with a new house with a bigger house with the change. So whatever that issue is, we need to get really dialed in to what that is, and then tell stories of your past clients who’ve been in that situation and tell the story of where were they what was the process? Like, where did they end up? There’s a reason why HGTV is so powerful. I mean, it’s because they’re literally telling those stories and people watch those other stories and sometimes relate to them.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I can tell it’s a it’s a great kind of thing to think back. So everybody loves HGTV and they’re like they want to be that’s like a fantasy of being there. Social media actually gives you the ability to be there in the same way. Right and the represent and I’ve seen people grow huge social media is from just being them just just creating content every day. That’s like all in line all and kind of line of the same focus and it the it takes a while to grow it but then it really, but it’s then it’s amazing what people can do with it. So what are some what are some? Do you have any basic, like marketing principles for agents that you like, would recommend people focus on as they’re starting to just get into marketing?

Jess Lenouvel 

Absolutely. So the number one rule of thumb is it’s not about you. And your content is not for you. 90% of realtors out there are creating content for other realtors without even realizing it. So like they’re sharing things that resonate with them. And if something resonates with you, that’s about goal setting and the grind and like, you know, creating a better life and all these things. Those are things that are going to resonate with other agents, which is why so many people have these audiences on Facebook and Instagram and things like that, that are mostly agents. So the truth really is is you got to focus in on who do you want to serve, and what do they need? So every single day, instead of asking yourself, what do I want to post today? You say to yourself, what does my ideal client want? Is that target person the ideal person that I want to work with? What do they need to hear today?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s like the whole difference of the just listed just sold, right? So just listed/sold is actually like, and I haven’t thought of it. But I haven’t heard somebody say, and I haven’t thought about like that. But that’s more, you know, showing like, hey, this agent is successful. And they’re posting it because they’re thinking customers are gonna go, Oh, this agent is successful, I can hire them. You’re saying that’s more like other agents saying, “Oh, I wish I was getting more, you know, just listed just sold.” It’s more about figuring out like, “Oh, I can find you this one or whatever.” Is that other kind of content is? I think our agents are gonna get so much out of just what you’ve shared so far. I’m sure tons of them are going to reach out to you to get some more specifics on some of that stuff. I’m getting some fire round questions. So the only ones you’ve worked with, like, what was the biggest thing that they did in 2020? to like, survive? What was the biggest thing that they were like? Because they did this? Like, that’s what helped them get through it? Because a lot of agents have had their best year, there’s plenty that have been just crushed. Yeah, they’re trying to rebuild. What was the secret? What are the guys that the people that did great what how they do it?

Jess Lenouvel 

Consistency, okay. So I think consistency is always going to be the most important thing you have to be top of mind. And if you are not consistent with with your marketing in general, and I don’t mean consistent, like once a week, everyone was posting every single day, they were sharing the things that were going on in their lives, they were sharing lifestyle changes, they were sharing, you know things about how they were adapting with their kids, but also they kept their marketing and their automated ads up and running. And so their audiences continue to grow, there was a lot of opportunity that came up at the beginning of COVID, where everybody was at home, we had some people that started mom Facebook groups and dad Facebook groups, and, you know, online learning at home Facebook groups, and they started building audiences of people who were not necessarily real estate related, but we’re still their ideal client. So if you’re working with upsizers, and you have a Facebook group, that’s a moms group for young kids, for moms with young kids, that’s your target demographic, you give value, you build relationships, and then when and they know, if your social media set up correctly, they know that you’re, you’re an agent, and it gets you that foot in the door more often.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

And I love the idea of that consistency and kind of keeping the plan and keeping the ads on that wasn’t super common in March in April. We have Rebus University is one of our websites where we sell training, right? We sell training to agents, and there’s lots of like, classes that just take people a few days, they’re like 50 bucks. We had so many people that were on a monthly subscription services, all access, and COVID hidden APR, and like 75% of everybody was like, Oh my gosh, I need to save 50 bucks a month. And they turned it off. Yeah, right. That’s the opposite, right? That’s the opposite, like the And so then, and then afterward, they’re like, “Hey, we’re really struggling.” And you’re like, “Well, it’s that example of taking their foot off the gas, the people that stayed that, that continued as members that kept doing the trainings that took the time at home to like actually keep learning. They are the ones that have been reaching out to us going while your classes were thriving.” So the I love being able to have you share that example. So taking that as kind of something that we you learned in 2020? I guess that was the way they succeeded. What did you learn in 2020 about the real estate market?

Jess Lenouvel 

I learned a lot about real estate agents, actually, that there really are two camps. There’s the there’s the camp of people who are going to say, “Hey, you know what, something shifted, I get, I have the opportunity here to pivot and to be ahead of the game.” And then there’s that second camp of agents who are going to say, “I’m scared, and I’m going to pull back and I’m going to hoard.” And I think that it’s really important that we understand that this is just natural selection. This is just science literally at play. And the people who survive and thrive, whether you’re a species, whether you’re a business, whether you’re a human being are the people who are the most adaptable, and the people who actually stepped up and stepped forward and adapted throughout this. This, you know, this change in the world. Those are the people who really came out on top.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

All right, what’s one thing you would tell people to succeed in 2021? What’s one thing they should be doing?

Jess Lenouvel 

We have computers in our pockets 24 hours a day or next to our bedside or whatever, you need to be showing up on that phone and you need to be online.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, so speaking of the phone, what’s your favorite piece of technology right now that’s out there.

Jess Lenouvel 

So my favorite piece of my I would say my favorite app, personally, his Instagram, but I think that there’s still so much opportunity on Facebook. I’m playing around with clubhouse a little bit. I have some things about it that I love and some things that I really don’t. So you know, I do I think that clubhouse is going to be great for networking within eight with four agents. 100% isn’t going to be a really great tool for agents to get more business. I’m not sure. I think that clubhouse is going to be great for referrals and and networking and learning from people who run businesses to help agents 100% but I’m not sure that like running your seminars or doing you know, creating rooms on clubhouse for, for, you know, buyer and seller information is really going to blow up in 2021.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, we’ll be interest. I’m an Android user. So I don’t have I don’t get to do clubhouse right. So it’s very Yeah, one day, the, but that’s when somebody else is already ahead. So the, it’s really, it’s really interesting when when businesses and brands kind of launch like that, but I, I love that a lot of the same technology you do and being able to see, you know, what people will use, and a lot of that is we don’t know what will happen. But when you stay consistent, and you do all sorts of different things and kind of checking them out as we go.

Jess Lenouvel 

I would say focus breeds excellence to like, Don’t try to do be on every platform. Focus on a couple you know, if you want to run with YouTube run with YouTube, you know, just be consistent and focus. Don’t try to like it’s the shiny object syndrome that I think gets people in trouble.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, no, especially it happens to me on the show. We listen to people and it’s like, no, I, I love texting people on Instagram. I like communicating that way. I love doing tips and talking about all sorts of things. And then I interview the YouTube agents. And they’re like, well, we have a million followers. And we’re getting so much incoming. So and it makes you Well, now I want to do YouTube, but I want to so a part of our jobs in the podcast is be able to tell agents about all these different options. Yeah, but I love what you just said is, we’re going to tell you about all the options, but you got to choose one. And if one isn’t working, maybe you want to check out one of these other ones. But the more you focus on one, the more better chance you have to succeed in that one. So you were a buyer’s agent for a long time. What’s your number one trick to get offers accepted?

Jess Lenouvel 

So I was a buyer’s agent for a long time. But I was, of course, like as my business changed, I shifted into being a listing agent, because you know, that’s what we did. But I would say my number one tip is to truly understand and ask as many questions as you can about the seller. Because I think so many people assume that it’s just about the it’s just about the price, it’s just about the deposit, it’s just about the closing, but you need to know which one is actually the most important. It was super interesting. This year I sold, I just sold my house that I’m in right now. And I didn’t choose the highest offer and I would say that the agents who were on the other side, some of them actually reached out to truly understand what it was that we were looking for. And some people didn’t. And the people who actually took that extra time and understood what we needed. They were they were the one that that was the one who came out on top.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I love that advice. The we make a lot of offers as investment properties. And I’ve never once said what does the seller prefer. Especially now we’re writing a lot of offers, and we’re getting out and we’re not getting the deal. And the simple thing of like, well, what are they looking for? Because we can do all sorts of things here, maybe a full, maybe a full price cash offer isn’t as exciting as something else? Or maybe if it is its price or, or whatever, whatever else. So the so on the other side of that, yeah, so if you’re talking to listing agents, what’s the number one way to sell their house for more?

Jess Lenouvel 

First of all, understand who’s the buyer, and everything that you do for that listing, whether it’s staging, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s putting the like ads, you need to understand the psychology of who’s going to buy this house and really make sure that everything is geared towards getting those eyes on this property.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Thanks for coming on the show. Real Estate Rockstars, I hope you guys love this one. I think we that was jam packed with info for you guys. There’s some actionable, marketable stuff for you guys to take into 2021. Jess, thanks for coming on the show.

Jess Lenouvel 

Thank you so much for having me.