952: Close One Deal per Week as a Part-Time Real Estate Agent with Garrett Maroon

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Real Estate Rockstars this is Aaron Amuchastegui, and I am back today to interview Garrett Maroon. So Garrett is a real estate agent from Newport News, Virginia, we’re gonna have a lot of fun, exciting stuff that we get to talk to him about today. You know, we asked him if he was on stage for a panel, what would the name of that panel be and he said it’d be how to sell 50 homes a year in under 40 hours a week all by referral. I think that’s gonna be a lot of what we talk about today. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Garrett, thank you for joining me on the show.

Garrett Maroon 

Absolutely. Thanks for having me here and excited to share with your listeners today.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That is awesome. So how long have you been an agent?

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, so I’ve been in business for a little over six and a half years started june of 2014. And I’ll say for a lot of the newer agents, do you know my business, I didn’t come in with a huge database, I’m not from here, I didn’t grow up in this area, I don’t have family in this area at 40 people in my database to start, and just through tons of mistakes and failures and dig in and figured out a way to sell and that’s kind of my passion. That’s why I want to be on here. It’s just to encourage those new agents, if they want to do real estate their way and their way happens to be relationship, then I want to help them figure that out. So that’s why I want to share my story. Yeah, and what a story we’re going to be able to get to you at that because it’s so you had just moved to Newport News when when you became an agent. So I went to school in Newport News, and graduated, went back home from Richmond, Virginia originally, and went back home for about a year and a half, two years, and then came back and kicked off my real estate career essentially, at that point, he said, I’m gonna be an agent and I know 40 people. That’s right. And I’m gonna do it only by relationship, right, because everybody else everybody else you knew had graduated and moved on somewhere else. And it was the lucky few that got to stay and hang out. What is it been like this year, you know, over this last year, you know, with with COVID and lockdown. So what’s what’s it been like in Virginia? Yeah, so I mean, I, we we shut down for a little bit, we reopened pretty quickly about mid May, something like that. So thankfully, it’s been relatively normal. You know, one of the things I’ve been really fortunate for, and I came in in 2014, I haven’t lived through a bad market, right? A lot of people have never lived through a bad market. And so all I was saying was what I thought would be true, which is if your relationship based, no matter what the market is doing, no matter what the economy’s doing, no matter what’s happening in the world, your business is going to be okay. Because when people feel a pinch, they’re going to go to the people they trust most right when we’re scared in COVID, especially when people were scared, and there’s fear a lot of things going on, they wanted to go to a trusted voice and a trusted advisor. Right. So even more, so I thought our referral based business was going to thrive. And thankfully it did. I mean, so last year, I sold 50, houses had 53 referrals is what got me there. This year, by April 1, I had already received 41 referrals, by the end of the year will have received over 100 referrals. And I really think it’s because I only have a database of 300. Now, so I really think it’s because people when they are then they feel that pinch, when they feel that bind, they’re going to go to someone they trust, because they just there’s too much misinformation, there’s too much fear. And they need someone that can say Just tell me what’s true and tell me what’s really going on? Or hey, do you have a friend that can just be honest with me about where we are. And that’s we had an awesome year. And I’m really grateful for that we’ve been able to serve a lot of people through that. So thankfully, through COVID, our business has been really, really rock solid. It sounds like your number one idea that was being the person they’re like being the voice of reason, right? Are we the voice of accurate answers? Because everybody’s like, Hey, what’s really happening right now and you got to be that voice? Yeah, we always talk about being the trusted advisor, you know, that’s what I want to be. I’m going to tell you, if it’s smarter for you to rent, I’m going to tell you, if you maybe should buy I’m going to tell you what I would personally do. You know, and I think that ultimately, at the end of the day, people respect you if you’re willing to say what’s not best for you, but it’s best for them. And as agents, it’s easy to forget that we’re taught make the sale, make the sale, make the sale, well, I’m more about provide value, tell them what’s honestly true what you actually think and then build the relationship. And if you build a relationship, you will make a sale and guess what you’ll sell their friends too. And so from a long game perspective, it’s not just about forcing someone into doing something they don’t want to do. Listen to them understand what they want, and be a trusted adviser to them, even if it means guys, you know, so many times I’ll say, guys, I know you love this house. But let’s just go back to our original meeting. This is far more than you meant to spend. I mean, that’s your decision. But are you okay with that? You know, it really has got to be about putting that person first building that relationship become a trusted adviser to them. And I think that’s the key for me for all the growth that I’ve been able to see

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Being the trusted advisor, what a what a concept, right? Like we talked about it as an agent, and we have obligations of that as an agent. But it’s, but it’s not always easy to stay the course and tell somebody, hey, you shouldn’t buy right now. Like get him giving some it’s really easy to be the trusted adviser when you’re giving someone good news. Right? That’s a fun time to be the trusted advisor when you’re like, yes, you’re qualified. Yes, they got accepted. It’s a lot tougher when you’re like, no, it is this is this is not in the cards right now. And here’s why. So you started with you knew 40 people, you said, Hey, I’m going to get into become an agent. What was what was your first year? Like? What? Yeah,

Garrett Maroon 

yeah, I mean, so I came in too quick background. So my wife, Rachel, we were married at the time, been married for about two years. And so we came in and said, Okay, my wife really pushed me said, I think you can be good at this. So I took the leap. I came in. And we both agreed that if in three months, I hadn’t made any money that I was going to quit. That was just whatever random barometer that we had decided, well, three months in, I’d made nothing. My friend, his name’s john, my friend, john used to always joke Hey, have fun at your nonprofit job. Right? He said, you’re just volunteering every day, because you’re going to work for free. And he was right. Yeah, it wasn’t wrong. And I felt that I remember feeling that people around me were busy and running around and meeting people. And I didn’t understand what what am I doing wrong? Right. So for me, it really came down to the point of Okay, I’ve got to figure this out. Up until then, I didn’t really know how I wanted to do business. I did all the industry classes door knocking cold calling open houses, all that right? And thankfully, never did a minute of that. And just tried to figure out okay, how if this is going to work, how is this going to work? How do I want this to work? Again, real estate my way. This is how I want to do, it’s got to be by relationship. So I just dug in. And I just figured out the principles, the tactics, how I could grow my relationships, how I could serve those people to encourage them to give me referrals. by month, six, I still hadn’t made a sale. But thankfully that following month, I had literally eight closed that month and close 14 in the last two months. And so it just started to snowball, I felt that effect of Okay, nothing’s happening. But I felt like I was planting the seeds, growing those relationships, nurturing those relationships. And like any farmer, right, if you’ve got if your database is your farm, which is how I see it, and you’re watering your crop, I don’t know when they’re gonna grow necessarily. But I knew because tons of people have done before me that my crops would grow eventually. And so I just kept committing to calling them writing them notes, dropping off gifts, and finding the parties, being very intentional with my relationship with them, knowing that many people in front of me had had that work. And thankfully, it worked really, really well. And just kept digging into those relationships, slowly growing my database by selling homes to people, and eventually getting where I am, but that those first six months were really hard. And I mean, I wanted to I still want to quit sometimes To be honest, right? It’s still really hard. But in the first few months, I really wanted to quit, I was convinced that I was not good at this. And a lot of it was a lot of the other agents were going out and door knocking and buying leads and selling homes. And so they felt like they were having success. And maybe they were, I felt like I wasn’t having success because I wasn’t getting traction. But as honestly as because what was building was being built underground. And it wasn’t until it actually came through the soil. Right, that actually got to see the result of all the hard work. And I’m really grateful that I stuck with that.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it’s the I remember when I quit my w two to go start my business in the heads of similar talks with my wife. And after a certain amount of time, the savings was drying up. And it was like I remember having the thought of saying if I don’t like make some traction, like this week, then I need to go apply for a job again. Like then it’s time for me to actually realized that this didn’t work and go start in. And that was when the stuff started to really in that week. And sure enough, we bought my first two houses and it was it was off to the races. But I think in a lot of businesses we interviewed a lot of people that a lot of things worked right away. And but we get to interview just as many that gets to talk about that that takes three months, it takes six months, it takes nine months of working really really hard. But if you love the business and if you stay the course then things start to work. And so when How long have you been an agent before you did your first deal?

Garrett Maroon 

Five and a half months before I got my first contract

Aaron Amuchastegui 

so five and a half months you got your first contract six and a half months and you got your first paycheck. How did that feel?

Garrett Maroon 

Great but not like it felt like it wasn’t enough. Like oh god this only covers a month. Right exactly. So you know it was encouraging that okay, maybe I actually can do this it was a referral and I can figure this out. But you know, I think for any good entrepreneur to its you know I don’t look at the success that I’ve had and think wow I’m so grateful though I am so I think about I am really grateful but I think more about okay if I can just keep working and keep understanding at a deeper level what I’m doing how this is going to work x y&z I can keep growing and so my mindset even then was okay, this is proving to me that this concept will work. Now I want to see if I can grow it to the point that is really going to have massive success. And so it was encouraging was motivating and it definitely Aaron was better. than first five months where I made nothing. So I will be grateful for that for sure.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah. And so what have you done in 2020? How many how many closings? Jeff?

Garrett Maroon 

Yep. So 2020 is the first year that I added an agent to the team. So I’ve had a full time assistant always, but add an agent to the team. So collected, we’ll do 80. And of those 70 were referrals from me. So we’ve done really, really well this year. Alright, so

Aaron Amuchastegui 

you said 80 deals, and what’s the average price point out there?

Garrett Maroon 

To my average price was about 285.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

And so and you focus all on referrals? Are you mostly a buyer’s agent, mostly a seller’s agent? Or is it about half and half? Because of the

Garrett Maroon 

leads? Yeah, about half and a half. I mean, and that’s right. So at the beginning of the business, it was mostly buyers, by far, you know, the people that know you and support, you also know that you just started, right. So the sellers, were not as eager to say, Yeah, come to my house, I didn’t know what I was doing. And so it really started with a lot of buyers. And it took me until about year four, where it was pretty much breakeven 5050. And this year, I’m actually transitioning where my agent will take on all the buyers and I’ll just handle sellers. But yeah, it’s really very buyer heavy, which I think is the right way to learn the emotions that you have to deal with with sellers, the strategy, the understanding, he was sellers, I think it makes sense to start with buyers in my opinion. And so and like you said, when your referral base, I don’t get to choose where it comes from, I can help my my database focus on what I’m asking for. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I don’t get to choose it’s just about serving them well. And if they know somebody, they know somebody, and if that person wants to buy or sell great, I’ll help them.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

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Aaron Amuchastegui 

So someone wants to build a referral based business, right? They’re in their first year or they’re in their second year or they’ve been beaten this for a few years. And they’re saying hey, instead of door knocking, I want to try to do this new plan. What’s the path? What are they? What do they do first? How do they make sure that they build that referral based business? And what sort of traction should they expect?

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, so and that’s the right question I so what I always tell people at the beginning here is that we misunderstand the word database, especially when it comes to building a referral business. So most people think a database is all the names and numbers and emails and addresses of everybody I’ve ever met all in one place. And for me, that’s not true. When you talk about referrals. The first thing if you’re if you’re a newer agent, this is what I would do, I would get in a room by myself, I would shut down my computer, my phone, believe it or not, the world’s not gonna explode. And I would write down 100 names of people that I know, just 100 names. And I know that seems like a lot. But trust me from the people that you’ve met to anybody just get 100 names on paper. And then you’re gonna go about asking those people this particular question, good to reach out and say, Hey, Aaron, this is Garrett, how are you doing? Hey, I didn’t know if you knew or not, but I got into real estate. And I just wanted you to know that I’m planning on building my business by caring for the people that I care about most like you. So and this is the most important dialogue. So I was wondering if you had an eight excuse me, if you had a friend or family member thinking of buying or selling a home? Do you have an agent you’d refer them to? If the answer is yes, great. I’m super excited for You hope they take great care of you. They don’t go in your database, because guess what, they’re not going to help you? If their answer is no, well, I’d love to stay in touch with you and be that agent that you can refer to friends and family. It’s that all right with you? And of course, they’re going to say yes, right, then you get fun, phone number, email, home address, and then now you’re starting to build a database of people that have said, they’re actually going to help you grow and commit to sending you referrals. That’s first and foremost, if you been an agent for a long time, and it helped a lot of these agents. If you come to me with 1000 relationships, I’m going to say, Well, how many of those you actually know? And how many of those of you actually had that conversation? If you had a friend or family member thinking of making a move? Do you have an agent you refer them to? majority of them never said that? And so as they start to weed down, we’ll go from 1000 to 150, to maybe 200. So it starts with the understanding of who is your database? What do we mean by database, these are people that you actually have met, that you actually know and have said, they don’t have another agent. So if you spend your time with them, you know, you can generate referrals. So that’s step number one. And then once you figure that out to me, then you’ve got to have just a systematic way to build relationships. So what what I’ve figured out, and I’m still figuring out along the way, is that I created something for myself, that is just systematically staying in touch with people. You know, I think one of the struggles we see in the referral business, for example, I know statistically, that 91 of consumers would refer the agent they just used but guess what, only 11% of agents consistently ask for referrals. There’s a massive number agents out there that aren’t being consistent with their relationship. And I often use the example of if I want to have a real relationship with my wife, I don’t talk to her once every six months, right? I’m not inconsistent with showing up sometimes and being way overwhelming here and communicate, communicate by yourself, whatever, whatever, take her on a date, and then not talk to her for six months, and then show up again and say, Hey, do you still love me? Do we still have a good relationship? Right? Because that’s not the way that human relationships work. So we’ve got to understand at the basic level, and that’s what most agents do, right? We’re we’re very sporadic, at the basic level, relationships are built by consistently showing up all the time, not every conversation is going to be a life changer. But I want to be there for all the conversations, right, I’m going to show up for my clients, I know that statistically, the average person and 2015, the latest time we had data, I’ll go back to 2005, they did a group of 10,000 people they studied in 2005, the average person had 6.2, close relationships. Fast forward, that same group to 20 1510 years later, average person had 2.1, close relationships, it dropped almost under two. And I can guarantee they feel that way even more now. Right? So my job is an agent, the systematic relationship, my job as an agent, is to take that number from a two to a three and be that third person, or better yet, introduce them to community of people I’ve been able to serve and take that two to a 10 or two to a 20. Right. And it is a result of knowing who’s actually going to help me by having the proper understanding of a database. And then being systematic and just being relational, showing up all the time. Like I said I was going to, and being there for them when quite honestly, no one else in the world really is. So I know that’s kind of theoretical, but that’s really the mentality that we’ve got to have, if we want to understand how to build a referral business with a database of people.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the So number one, it’s, it was reaching out and just saying, hey, do you have anyone else that you refer your friends to? If not, will you refer to me too? That’s a little bit that’s got to be an easier ask so many people out there. So many of our listeners right now are agents that are calling people and saying, Hey, have you thought about selling your home? Right? And that’s the first question. And that’s a hard thing to get answered. Because people are automatically are thinking you’re trying to sell them something. Now most a lot of our agents and our people we’ve had on the show have mastered the answer to that to really make that a part of your business. But I think for agents listening right now that struggle with that they do the outreach, and they knock on the door and say, Hey, would you like to, you know, would you like to sell your house or calling somebody and saying we’d like to sell their house, being able to do a different conversation of just saying, hey, do you have anyone that you refer to other people? If somebody asks you Who is your favorite real estate agent? Do you have anyone to tell them? It’s a much easier ask to go like, okay, cool, because I think it’s easier for people to say yes to because no one has asked them yet. No one has said that. So it’s like hey, so someday if somebody says hey, do you know a real estate agent? Just tell them I am and the so low pressure so step one was doing that low pressure ask and if somebody says yeah, Garrett, the I don’t know any real estate agents right now. The If my mom asked me if I know and I’ll recommend her your way. So then he goes in so it’s not so the person is going to be referring you is the one that you continue reaching out to. And your step two was kind of that consistent communication. He said, like like a really like a real spat like a real friend or a real spouse. You don’t just call him on Christmas and on New Year’s and on stuff you’re calling to check in on him. The one of the things that we that we talked About a lot when COVID first hit was like just calling and texting people and saying like, Hey, how are you? How are you doing? You know, is everything okay? How are you feeling like an eye care was like an eye care techs, hey, just want you to I’m thinking about you. Like that’s what real friends are doing right? They’re reaching out to people in those tough times. They’re not just waiting for, you know, giving gifts at Christmas time and things like that. So. So you started with that? And you just reached out to people? And how did you? Are there extra processes you did to snowball it? So let’s say now people have got a couple 100 people on their list that they’re keeping those communications with? Are there certain things that you do at times to make it grow faster? Is there a trick to making it grow faster? Or is it just No, you just stay consistent with that, like you continue outreach when you meet people?

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, great question. So there’s no magic bullet. There’s nothing like that, that I found personally, you know, I think it’s a combination of and like you said, one of the things that I failed at and figured out was I started asking, do you have a friend or family member thinking of making a move, take the pressure off of them to say, Well, I don’t want to move? You know, even if you look at statistics, I know that statistically 91% of people will choose a referral over anything else. And then I know, for example, from Zillow themselves, they say they have a 4% conversion. So 95% conversion 4% conversion for Zillow, right? Do you want to sell 20 homes next year, and you do it all by referral? Guess what you need 23 solid referrals, if you want to sell 20 homes by by Zillow, you need 500, right? We’re just talking about a difference in your time energy, where your focus is and how you’re developing those relationships. So it’s all about the consistency, I mean, anything. I think one of the things that people often will get bored with is doing the same thing over and over and over, right? I think is john Maxwell talks about if you’re going out to cut down an oak tree, well, you don’t go cut it down in one day, you got to take five hard shots that day. And then you go out the next day, and you do it again. And then you do it again, you do it again, it’s just about consistency. That is building the snowball because someone’s got to keep pushing this snowball, right? If I want to get bigger, I can’t all of a sudden have big enough muscles to go from a tiny little snowball to a huge snowball, and all of a sudden I can push it, I’m building my muscles along the way, getting smarter about what I’m doing until a bigger snowball, which I could never push day one, I now have developed the muscle strength to continue to push it down the road or wherever it’s going right up the hill. And so a lot of this, for me was nothing more than just understanding what a database really was. And then building a system, quite honestly building a system that says in this month, I’m going to call and text and reach out to everybody. And this month, I’m going to write them a handwritten note. And this month, I’m going to invite him to a party. And you mentioned this earlier. But at the end of the day, the basic simple truth of human condition is we want the people we like to succeed. If I like you, I want you to succeed. If I like you, and I know how I can help you succeed, which is the extra layer for referrals, then I want you to succeed, right? So if people like Garrett, maroon, and people desire to me to see me succeed, because I’ve cared for them in such a real way, then when their friends say I’m thinking about buying, they’re gonna say you absolutely need to talk to Gary, he’s awesome. He’ll take great care of you. Right, because I cared for them. They want me to succeed because they like me. And so I think we’ve got to understand that, again, like you talked about, if you’re building a relationship, or I meet somebody new, right, and I’m saying this person is also a really want to get in relationship with them, whatever it is, I’m not going to reach out to them once every six months. Because someone who is desiring to have a relationship with you doesn’t set a very slow clock to every time you have communication with him, you are consistent. You show up on time you show up all the time, and you come out in different ways. And you say, like you said at the beginning, how are you? Right? How’s everything going? And COVID? I know people are feeling alone. How are you doing? How can we care for you and be genuine about it? Right for our notes. During COVID. We were handwriting notes and saying this is not about real estate. At the end of the day, we want you to know how deeply we care about you. And we know we want you to know that you’re not alone, because we are always here. And we always have your back. Right? It’s about showing up in the way that people would want you to show up. And I think it’s understanding being consistent with that showing up as a friend knowing that if they like you, they want you to succeed. And it’s really that simple. That’s one of the greatest challenges. Honestly, when I’m trying to share this information with people and encourage people and I’m teaching it, they’ll say, well, there’s got to be something else. And the answer is it’s not. It’s that simple. It’s human relationship, and it’s just being consistent in every time and being consistent about caring for someone. And if you can do that at a pretty high level, guess what, you’re gonna have an awesome business. And that’s a pretty awesome thing.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah. Well, you talked a little bit about kind of having a thing that you do every month, you know that to continue doing that. And everybody’s will be a little bit different. But one of your things was, you know, 50 homes a year and under 40 hours a week. Right? So you’re going to deal every week and the and what does so how are you essentially you’re averaging a deal a week working less than 40 hours a week. What’s your average week look like? How do you how do Do you manage the transaction? What compared to, you know, a real estate agent that does their business differently? What’s an average week like for you?

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, so I’ve got a full time assistant. Right. So that helps a lot in terms of paperwork and processing and those kinds of things. You know, I’ve been really fortunate last year, I only work 20 hours a week on my real estate business was able to launch a coaching business, which I mentioned you earlier, and but the beauty of this program via the system, so it’s a system I created for myself to use for referrals. And now I call it the perfect 36. Such because it sounds better than some other name, right. So all it was, I wanted a really easy way for me to show up every single day and just do what I know I need to do. So I know personally, that I’m never going to show up and do something that’s hard, right, I’m not going to accidentally fall into that, I’m not going to have a terrible morning and show up and say you know what I can’t wait to call 30 people today, that’s just not going to happen. And so I wanted a way to plan well in advance what I was gonna do every month, and then even every single day, even actually, right here. I don’t know if anybody can see this just on podcasts. But there’s a calendar of every single day of 2021. And exactly what I’m gonna do for lead generation that day, the beauty of what I do is it takes me less than an hour a day to do it. And there are tons of days where I’m not even doing any lead generation. Because if I’m thinking about writing notes to 300 people, this is why you can’t successfully maintain 1000 relationships, that’s just not realistic. But if I have 300, people that know me, like me, trust me, and would refer me, I can write 300 notes in a month, and it can take me less than an hour a day, it’s not going to overwhelm, it’s not going to kill me. So the beauty of that is then I can think about and care for them. And then I can show up and I can go sit down and have coffee with somebody I can go think about building another business, I can be available to them when they need to get on a phone call, you know, whatever it is, My days are not super structured in the real estate world. Because I know I come in the first thing I do is my lead generation. The second thing I do is I read I want to learn and get better. And then after that it’s pretty open, I do a lot of stuff for the other business, I do a ton of stuff with different database sphere, people that I know that reach out and say, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this too, can you help me figure out how to get this business off the ground, not real estate related, right? So it just gives me the freedom to say I just get to them care for people and execute that at a high level and have a business and it’s one of the most amazing well kept secrets is you can just care for people build relationships, and in return, you can have an awesome business doing it.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I like that the know like and trust the guy I interviewed a couple months ago named Bobby and he talked a lot about that like for if they once they know you, first they have to know you have to know you’re in real estate then they have to like you and take so in that trust is that final stage and once they trust me then then the amount of referrals you get for that are endless. So before we get to talking about your coaching business and kind of what’s next, the Curtis told me to ask you said before the interview, you got to do a pre interview with Curtis. He said I needed to ask you why referrals don’t work. So what are the what are the reasons out there that referrals don’t work for people?

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah. So I think there’s seven reasons referrals don’t work, but I’ll focus on two main ones. And the two main problems I think that we have in the industry world and the real estate industry is first and foremost, we don’t understand the questions that consumers are asking. There was a phenomenally talented football coach from Notre Dame. Excuse me that said, there’s three questions that everybody asks, When they’re making a buying decision. Right, three questions, and everybody asked when they’re making buying decision number one, can I trust you? Number two, are you good at what you do? And number three, do you care about me? So can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? And do you? Do you care about me? The problem in our in our industry relies mostly on everyone is taught to go after number two, prove that you are good at what you do prove it. Right? Well, when you do any kind of setting. I’ve done tons of research and study and reading about this for the past two years to really understand it. When you understand it do the research the reality of a consumer a seller, let’s say of meeting with three different agents and trying to leave those meetings and understand which of those agents is the best agent of those three, it’s almost impossible for them to understand. I don’t even personally know what would make another agent better than me. Right? When you talk about some of the top agents in our market. I’m certainly not the best one. I don’t know how I could determine which one is but it’s even hard for me to understand right as an agent. consumers understand our industry on an average of a two out of 10 level not because they’re not intelligent. They just haven’t taken the time so they understand this other two out of 10. My point being if my dentist for example, I love my dentist, if my dentist were to call me and check on me and I’d say Hey, are you doing dentist right? You say hey, this is your dentist like okay, that’s great. I appreciate that. And it says, Hey, send me I’d love to work with some of your friends. Right? And then my friends came and said, Hey, Gary, is your dentist the best dentist in town? The honest answer would be I have no idea. I don’t know what makes one dentist better than another dentist right? All I know is I can I trust him. And I can tell that he cares about me based on my relationship with him. So I think you should go work with him. Right? I think he’s awesome. But the wrapping that idea up, I’m trying to be quick, but so can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me, when agents show up and say, I’m the best one here, that seller that buyer cannot make that distinction. Instead, in all of psychology, all the research will prove that if you can show them that you are trustworthy, and you can show them that you care, they will assume naturally that you are good at what you do, because brains make the easiest decision possible. So if I say I trust Aaron, and he cares about me, then my brain wants to just go to he’s got to be good at it. So let’s go with him. Right, we’re asking the wrong question. We’re trying to answer the wrong question. We’ve got to show up my listing packet, for example, says nothing about marketing. But the first two pages say the three questions everyone should ask when hiring an agent, can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? And you care about me? And I answer that, right. And obviously, referral plays a huge part in that trust in that care. But that’s why for me in my career, six and a half years, literally, the numbers are 100% conversion was with buyers. 95% conversion rate with sellers. And it’s because I think, understanding the questions that they’re really wondering about, can I trust you, you care about me? And then they’re gonna assume you’re good at what you do. And then the second challenge, there’s there’s seven, in my opinion, but the second biggest challenge is that in our industry, in every story, there’s a hero and there’s a guide. In our industry, we are we tend to play the role of the hero. Well, the problem is, if you play the role of the hero, you can’t have two heroes in the same story, right? It doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. Well, the client, the potential seller, potential buyer wants to be the hero in the story. Well, if you show up and say, Don’t worry, Garrett’s here, I’m going to take care of you. This is about me, right? I’m going to make X amount of money, we’re going to sell your house, I’m the best agent in town, that person’s thinking, well, that’s great. But you know, I kind of wanted to be the hero. In my own story, I was looking for someone who’s just gonna help me, you know, a seller who let’s say, a single mom, who has two young kids who’s been working super hard to save up money, working an extra job, whatever it is, keep her house nice to sell her house, she can move her kids into a better school district. If you show up and say, Don’t worry, Garrett’s god, I’m gonna take care of everything. I’m gonna, you know, blah, blah, this is all about me. I’m the best agent now. Versus you show up and you say, hey, let me hear about your life. I want to know about all the things you’ve been doing. It’s incredible what you’ve been doing. Where are you hoping to go? Why do you want to make this move? And she shares that with you, your hero, your characters telling you the backstory? And then you say, Hey, thank you for sharing that with me. I think I’ve got a plan that can help you get there. Do you mind if I share that with you? So hugely different approach, but those people are thinking, Man, he’s writing a story about my life. Because guess what, when I go move into this house, and I’m with my boys, and they’re going through a better school, this is about the rest of their life, this is about a couple months in my life, right? So you’ve got to understand, when you show up, you show up as a guide, you don’t show up as a hero, your name is not everywhere, your face is not everywhere. That’s my opinion, you are about saying, Hey, you know what this is about you. I’m telling your story. I just want to understand your story. So I can help build a plan that’s going to work and fit in your story. So if we can understand those two things, playing the guy, not the hero, and understanding the questions that every buyer asked, and every consumer asked, Can I trust you? Are you good at what you do? Do you care about me and focus on the right ones. That’s where I think that we can really start to grow a referral base relationship that also converts at a super high level, I want to sell 50 homes by going on 50 appointments, that’s a great way to save time, right is a great way to tell my wife, I’m going to be home. And I don’t need to go out every single night of the week, I don’t need to go out on the weekends. So it’s really about understanding how consumers are making decisions. When we misunderstand that, even if we can get referrals, we don’t capture those referrals. So again, there’s more to it than that. But that’s a brief overview of understanding the challenges that agents face as a whole in this industry, in my opinion.

And I love

Aaron Amuchastegui 

the spin on that as saying, you get to you get to make them a hero in their own story. I have not heard that. You know, very often I’ve never heard it put like that, that the that sometimes these people selling the house, they’re like this is something they’ve been working about working on and thinking about forever. Yeah, they bought that house as the savings plan. Because the way the job that they had didn’t allow for like everything that they’ve saved that all was in this, and when they get to say, Hey, I bought that house 10 years ago, and then I sold it now they want to be their own hero, right? It’s I get that if saying, hey, Garrett came and saved me is a lot different than going, Hey, we bought this house. We saved it up for 10 years, and we sold it now we’re now we’re debt free, or whatever their goal is with that. So I think that is a very cool concept. And I like the and you said it earlier but remind me again, you know, being able to say like No, you go on 50 appointments and you get 50 listings, and you get 50 cents. It’s not like the idea where you’re cold calling people you’re showing up and you’re trying to get half of them to convert or a quarter of them to convert or even through like you know that nearly all of them convert because of how they came in and then when you get there you’re asking the right questions, and so it is such a It’s a very different use of time, like you said, instead of going after 1000 people to get 200, you’d be going after 200 people to get 200 a year. And then there’s got to be and there’s some extra growth with that to you, you get some people that might refute, or refer two or three people that year.

Garrett Maroon 

Absolutely, yeah. Right, you get the build up. So

Aaron Amuchastegui 

your coaching course, is your coaching course about how to build a referral business.

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, mostly. So right now what we have, we offer people an action plan. So the perfect 36 Touch system. For me, it’s just my systematic way that I stay in touch with people and build relationships, and ultimately generate a lot of referrals. And so the monthly action plan is a $20 a month plan, you sign up, and every single month, you get the mailer, the email to send out, you get the exact touch to make the personal touch, whether it’s a call a note, a party, whatever it is, here’s what to say, here’s the suggested calendar of when to do it, here’s everything that comes with it, they get it back in access to four hours of video training, so they can see the actual class, they can see a truncated class, a lot of other content of me just talking about different what a database is, for example, so a lot of training and content, we send a weekly encouragement video, and then a monthly workshop. For example, in December, we talked about how to plan for 2021. So all our all of the people that are in our action plan also get access to all of that content as well. So it’s really about you know, we talked about earlier, Aaron, but my passion so much is I was on the road, obviously before COVID. And I will tell you a quick story. I remember being in Baltimore, Maryland, and I’m sharing with this, this large group of agents, and a lady in the back just starts crying. And I pause and I say, you know, I don’t want to put you on the spot. But do you mind sharing me why you’re crying. And she says, you know, Gary, I’ve been in the business for a year, and everyone tells me the only way to do it is cold call. So I come in every day and I cold call and I cold call and I cold call and she said you know what, quite honestly, it’s not working. But most importantly, I hate it. And I always wanted to do by relationship. But it wasn’t until I heard what you shared and how you do it. But I actually believe that I can. That’s what I didn’t have an action plan until that point. That’s what made me say, you know what, there are people like that, that need help. And I want to help them figure out, you know, what you can do real estate your way you can do it by relationship, it’s absolutely possible. My own CEO in my office told me it’s not possible. Well, I went in, and maybe I was just young and naive, which probably true. And I said, I’m going to figure it out. I want to help other agents say if that’s who you are, you are a relational agent. And it doesn’t have to be only by referral. But you want to grow the relationships and build a database and have more referrals than you’ve ever had before and work in a better way, have a higher rate of return on your money, right? I’ve spent very little on marketing, have a higher rate of return on your money higher rate of return on your time, and then go home for me, I just want to go home and be with my family. If you want to do that we can help you, we can help you figure that out, we can help you do that. And so that’s my heart behind this, I want to help agents understand that at the end of the day, they can have a successful business, and they can have a successful family life, they don’t have to pick one or the other. And that’s really the heart behind helping agents understand this is what we want you to make it really simple as the easy button in real estate, make it really simple. Press the button do exactly like we tell you to is not going to take a lot of time, and I promise you your business is going to start growing, your relationships are going to start growing. So that’s really the heart behind everything.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

And their and their happiness, you know, starts to grow to I got an email from a lady about about a year ago. And she’s one of our listeners. And she said I am really struggling. And she said, You know, I did six or seven deals, you know, my first year, but I haven’t done one in the last three months. And she’s like, I listen to your podcast, and I don’t like door knocking. I don’t like cold calling. And I’m really having a tough time like calling people I know and asking me asking them to sell their house like and so those are like three of the tools that we give people. And I could just sense the pain that she was having. And I and I think that the your system is gonna be perfect for somebody like that, that says, hey, I don’t want to call people and say, Hey, you know, can I be your agent obedient? Because I think it’s so much easier to call people and say, Hey, if someone you know, asks for an agent, can you point in my way? I’d appreciate that. That is such a much simpler ask, and a way to start building that up. And it’s like by doing this, it sounds like people will they’ll get to make friends. Like you can’t be you know, trying to build 50 relationships without actually creating relationship, right? relationships become reciprocal, too. I’m sure a lot of people that were your referrals are now your friends. If someone wants to sign up for your course, how much do they pay? Where do they go get it?

Garrett Maroon 

Yep, so it’s $20 a month, or they can do it for 200 bucks for the entire year. So go to the perfect three six touch comm backslash podcast. That’s a special offer for any podcast listener. So the perfect three six touch comm backslash podcast, we’d love for you to learn more reach out, you can reach out to us there too. If you’re not ready to sign up, by all means, please ask questions. any way that I can serve you. That’s what we’re here to do, ultimately, the end of the day. And to your point, Aaron, one of the people that I got to serve last year is the guy that I built a relationship with who I hired as the CEO of business by referral, the name of the company. So it’s a great way to just have a business, have fun doing the business. It’s still hard, don’t get me wrong, but have fun doing that. Build relationships in a really meaningful way. And we all know that real relationships enrich our lives. And it’s an awesome thing, to have a business built on building relationships, having fun doing it and caring for people that you care about. It’s a really, really awesome way. And I hope that agents will understand you can do it. Even if you have 40 people in your database, you can figure it out, you can do it. People want to help you succeed. If you’re likable, people want to help you. If you’re not likable at all, then go cold call. But if you’re likable, build relationships, focus on the people that want to help you succeed. And that would be my message at the end of the day.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

If you’re not likable, become likeable. Because you have to be you have to be likable. In real estate, you have to love what you do a little bit. But yes, so many people hate some of the stuff they have to do. And they’re and they’re even the ones that are willing to keep working hard. There are 12 months and they haven’t got their deal yet, like I’m willing to do, whatever. So this is another another niche that’s out there. So listeners, whether you I think a lot of listeners are going to follow the steps that you took today and get to start the referral business. And some of them and some of you guys out there if you do this, you go hey, I want more. Right? So the I want more. I’ve done a couple steps that he said I want to hear the rest of the steps. I want that whole playbook of how to do it. You know, reach out to Gary, go check out his website. How about social media, we get so many people that’ll that’ll come try to find you. They’ll try to call you text you message you for questions. What’s the best way if somebody has a quick question they want to ask you.

Garrett Maroon 

Yeah, you can find me Garrett Maroon Mar o n plenty of people reach out send me messages, please do or Garrett, GA RR e TT at business by referral.co. That’s my direct email as well. By all means, reach out, I want to serve you whether you’re subscribed to action plan or not, I want to serve you. So by all means, reach out and ask questions. I’m happy to help in any way I can.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Garrett, what a cool what a cool way and for agents out there getting ready to start their 2021 with some different goals, really timely time to be interviewing you and go out. And if you are going to give agents one way to succeed in 2021. So if the next few months is a lot like it was the last three to six months with kind of COVID locked up data. What’s the one thing you would recommend people do to succeed in 2021?

Garrett Maroon 

That’s a good question. I would say be intentional about caring for people. And if you can do that, the rest is going to take care of itself.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Very good. Real Estate Rockstars. Thank you for listening. Garrett. Thanks for coming on the podcast today. Absolutely.

Garrett Maroon 

Aaron. Thanks for having me.