961: Leaving 6 Figures for a Real Estate Career – John Clidy

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the question is, is, how do most agents find the secrets to succeed in today’s competitive real estate market, especially when the top agents are keeping those secrets themselves? That’s the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. Hi, I’m Aaron Amuchastegui. And welcome to Real Estate Rockstars.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Real Estate Rockstars, this is Aaron Amuchastegui. I’m super excited to get to interview John Clidy. So I’ve met John a couple times at governance events around the US I’ve got to meet his beautiful family. Our kids have been able to hang out a bit and I’m also good friends with with one of the guys that John works with, Mike McCarthy, and I’m really happy to have him on here. So John has done a ton of stuff. He just had a new book come out this year, but he is the regional director for – I hope I say this right – New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania. He also owns six offices for title companies that manage like 10,000 agents for Keller Williams. So John, did I miss anything there? Did I get that right?

John Clidy 

Well, I got four kids, you know all about the kids and all that stuff. And yeah, you know, sales team, all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, the only thing that matters is that family stuff, right? All this stuff is just the in between stuff.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Right? All the big stuff that we try to grow is for that legacy. Someone asked me on a podcast last week, they said, Aaron, if you’re, if your income covers your bills, why do you keep going? It is like one you got to keep raising the bar – like if I stay home and I go nowhere – my income pays my bills. But if I want to go travel and do stuff with my family, well, then I got to keep raising the bar. And then the rest is about legacy for them.

John Clidy 

You know, I listened to a podcast that Gary does. The think like a CEO, and he was saying that, you know, the reason why you you want to have that money is – God forbid something happens like a pandemic, right? Like COVID you know, all the all these things that happen in your life, cancer, whatever, that you don’t you know, unforeseen things that now just suck up your money. And then you know, if you can’t help a loved one, how’s that make you feel? So you know, there’s always a need for that. And you never know when that need comes.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it’s like you want to live every day like tomorrow is it and you want to have full life experiences. But you also want to be able to create for that legacy or that that rainy day fund, like the net, I think we’ve all learned that the rainy day fund isn’t just like, the way I kind of thought about growing up was, I don’t know, like a month’s rent or something. Or like groceries. I never thought of a rainy day fund to be able to survive a nine month catastrophe. Right? Or a medical catastrophe. That way of really trying to protect ourselves now that we know that life is unpredictable.

John Clidy 

You know, you learn lessons from children. And I, the other day, my daughter comes home from school, and she says that I didn’t know that people work till they’re 65 they take two vacations a year. And then they die. Like, you know, I guess since she was just like, you know, like, that’s the like the normal lifespan, like you go work, you get two vacations a year, you make just enough for ends meet you think you have enough in your retirement, but you don’t. And that’s it, you know, and then you kind of live you know, a very struggling life. That’s why I think they said, the bankruptcy people that are bankrupt now, like the most bankrupt group of individuals in America are 62 and over. And I’m like, Oh, my God, like, you know, that’s horrible. I don’t want that.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I don’t want that, and I think most of our listeners don’t want that. That’s why most of our listeners chose to become real estate agents. Most of our listeners have come from other jobs to do that. What did you do before you were in real estate?

John Clidy 

I was a New Jersey State Trooper. Yeah, I did that for 17 years.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

You were the guy. You were that guy was gonna work until he was 65. You were on that path?

John Clidy 

Yeah. And if you think about it, they tell you, you know, like, you’re, and I’m sure you felt the same thing. We grew up like, you work real hard, right? You got to make all this money and you’re gonna retire. But if you really think about it, like if you do the math, you know, in 25 years, what I would make, like, I know what my pension would be. I know what the benefits would be. And the truth be told that’s not enough to survive, like for kids, colleges. I mean, you’re going back to work. Period.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

You started doing the math and you’d ask people, you know, why are you still working at 65? I mean, inflation and everything else really, really changes that. So you were a state trooper, you were you were working hard. You were a state trooper for 17 years. So you had really started to build into, you know, the pension and everything else. How did you get introduced to real estate?

John Clidy 

Actually, so I became a trooper in 96. And then I became a realtor in 99. So I was doing both careers dual career, okay, for a while. I was an inner city, undercover, you know, I did the whole thing. And then all of a sudden, I’m starting to grow this real estate career. And if you remember, the early 2000s, the market was going like this. So timing was there, I started a little light investing, my sales business started to take off, and I use those troopers as my customers, because, you know, they’re all young, you know, nothing to do, you know, in between their jobs. And I’d said, you know, watch you buy investment properties, and that kind of got that buzz going. Because, you know, you get what I think at the time was 100%. Financing was big.

John Clidy 

You can get 10 properties. So I had troopers buying from me like crazy. And then I started being busy, as an investor, and as a real estate agent and kind of doing both jobs. And then, you know, then at some point, you start to get that, that mindset shift, like, why am I going to this job when I’m doing so good at this one, you know?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Why would you go to like, undercover state, like, I can’t imagine like what your normal day was like that, just like you said – like wrestling, getting in fights or whatever – to where you have to be also like, concerned for your health and your life. Like I can’t imagine doing that job without, you know, being concerned about your life and your health sometimes. And then the other side of that, you could go do a deal on the weekend or buy a couple houses and that’s like your full month’s pay as a trooper. You got to be going like, why am I? Why am I doing both? So that’s the title, the title of your book is leaving six figures. So I imagine that idea was like, Hey, you were getting paid really well, as a state trooper, though, because you had your 17 years and you were working? And how it must, must be the story of how you decided to go all in on real estate. I know a lot of our listeners do real estate on the side, or do real estate part time? What advice would you give them to succeed doing it part time? And then what was it like? Like, what was that final transition point for you?

John Clidy 

Well, the advice would be, you know, to plan, you know, I don’t think it’s something you just do and say, Oh, I’m taking all the years of Academy I went through getting shot at and I’m just leaving tomorrow. Now, you know, you have children. You got to have a plan, you got to make sure that you talk to people you trust and say, here’s the plan, right. And, you know, I shared this, you know, how much I had in my account, you know, the budget for me to live my life? Obviously, you have, you know, if you have a significant other, you know, are they okay with that, you know, you got this steady career with benefits. And, you know, listen, it’s a state trooper in New Jersey is, you know, is a good career. I think the people that really want to be there, it’s awesome, right? It’s an awesome job. But for me, I went there every day kind of feeling like, I don’t want to be here anymore. You know, and it’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to the people that I’m supposed to help, you know, the public, or for my colleagues. So, you know, besides the plan, I think it’s getting over the fear of just like, no matter how much money I had in the bank, it’s still scary, right? To give up something that you kind of earned, right? I worked real hard. And I, you know, went through all this academy, and I went through all these different units and worked undercover, I deserve to get my pension and retire like everybody else, you know, and I’m, like, three years away from it, you know? And then, you know, I started to do the math, right? I looked at the numbers, and I said, well, I’m never staying past 20 years. And I probably did this at the 15 year mark. And so if I leave now, this is what I would give up. And I’m never going to get my health benefits anyway. So then I started to think, well, I couldn’t imagine if I had 40, you know, 50 hours of my life back every week to actually go out and do this stuff whenever I want. How much money could I make then? So I started to do the numbers. And then it started to come really clear to me like – I’m making, you know, 400,000 or 500,000 on the side. I couldn’t imagine what I could do. And that’s when I showed my wife, I showed friends that I trust, and you know, it’s like dude, you can leave.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it becomes a no brainer if you’re getting shot at but you’re making $400,000 on the side. You’re like, Okay, I know that I wanted to finish this thing that the I’ve proved but you’ve proven to yourself and others that you were great at real estate. So how did you go from being a, you know, a trooper that also did real estate to now being a regional director and having 10,000 agents that you work with? What’s your Cliff Notes for what that transition was like, from 1999 to now. So that’s, that’s 22 years, right?

John Clidy 

Yeah, you know, it was, it was sad because, you know, the mindset shift from me – I was this big macho trooper and, you know, you have a different mindset. And as I started to turn into the business owner, you know, that was different. And guys would talk about retirement with like, 20 years left to go there, like, I can’t wait to retire, and I’m like, dude, you got like, a lot of years left. And they all talked about that kind of stuff all the time, like retirement and I’m like, this is sad. Like, you’re supposed to be happy with what you do in life, and you’re sitting, you’re talking about when you’re leaving, and when you’re going on vacation. And I think that kept going in my mind. And then I started to be successful in real estate. And I started to love it. You know, like that chase, right? You know, you’re an investor, you know, the making the money you make, you know, I made $1,000 in one day, I remember that day. And that was kind of a pivotal moment for me when, you know, I made as much in one day as I make in a year, you know, from flipping houses and from from the real estate transactions I had that day. And I had two checks in my pocket, because I was like, the old school guy that like, the wad of money in the checks all near me. Yeah. And I went to work that day. And they had like a shift party. And you know, everyone’s breaking my stones. Hey, you, you’re uh, you know, this real estate sucks, you should work overtime, we get time and a half. You know, your name is never on the board.

John Clidy 

I’m like, dude, I don’t care, you know, and they’re like, you don’t make money. You’re a landlord. That’s BS. And I was like, sitting there. Like, I’m so sick of this. I go and pull the checks out and say, here, what’s that? Does that look stupid? And they started passing them around. And it went from like, the joke to they actually got angry. And you could tell like, from that point on my life was never the same in that environment. It was like that, for me and for them, because they were like, My hobby is making too much money. Yeah, you know, and now it’s like, I don’t need that job, which makes me really a threat. When you’re like worried about promotion and things, they kind of got you. But when you don’t really care about that, it’s like, this guy could care less if you know he comes to work or not. And then that’s the mindset shift for me. You know, little by little. I left seven years after that incident. But I will tell you, that’s when the journey started to click for me.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I could definitely see why that would be kind of a life changing moment.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So, now you have so many agents that come in and work with you and work with your teams. And you’re still a mega agent yourself. What did you do in volume last year?

John Clidy 

Our team did 35 million.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

How many people on your team?

John Clidy 

We have six and an admin. I have offices in all three states, but my sales team is in New Jersey.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Okay, so southern New Jersey, you’re still crushing it there? What do you tell a new agent right now about what they should expect in real estate? Because a lot of times I say like, What do you wish you would have known your first year in real estate? You know, now, your first year real estate was a really interesting time. You know, in your first few years is really interesting time with the boom. But what do you tell new agents now? What do you wish someone would have told you when you first started in real estate?

John Clidy 

Well, it wasn’t the boom when I got in in 99. I think it started in 2002 ish, so it wasn’t that great. But you know, the one thing I always tell people now, and maybe you do this in your world, but you got to understand money. You know, I think to me, it’s almost like real estate’s one thing, but I think if you don’t understand money, that’s the first thing, your budget and all that, like, I know, it sounds off topic, but I tell agents now, like, Do you even know like how much money you have in reserve? Do you know how much money you need to make to actually hit your goals or whatever you’re trying to do? And again, I’m we’re talking full time agents here, I’m in my mind, right. But part time agents have a similar thing to discuss. It’s just they have another income flow coming in. But if you’re an agent saying, hey, I want to do this job, you know, right now, they say you should have not three months, but six months reserve, because it’s a business, right? If you treat it like a business, you should have your reserves. And I think you should be set up like any business ready to rock and roll. And if you’re not, then maybe this is not the business for you. Like, you know, to me, it’s if you want to come in to be a hobbyist, then that’s different. But if you’re coming in to be a business owner, then act like one and know exactly how much money you have, know exactly how much you need to make, and how you’re going to do it. Because customers are the name of the game. So you know, how much time do you have to go get a customer acquisition. And you know, it might take you some ramp up time to get it. So if you don’t have some reserves, then you’re going to be sitting there struggling, and then you’re going to take any Tom dick, and Hank that comes around and is probably not pre qualified because you’re broke. And then you’re going to really go into a spiral. So I think having it set up right at the beginning and have this mindset that I’m a business owner, and I’m going to treat it like a business is how you start off at the beginning. And if you don’t have that money, or you’re, you’re confused or whatever, then maybe you join a team, you know, maybe you you get part of a coaching program, you know, our productivity program, but you got to have your money in your foundation, right? A plan before you do anything in life.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I love the point you just made there, part of why you need those reserves are part of why you need to really understand your budget is so you don’t go down the wrong paths. So you’re not getting the wrong client that isn’t going to be the best value or so that you don’t make the wrong decisions. When people are desperate for money, they just make bad decisions.

John Clidy 

You know, in general, Keith Cunningham said, the key to being successful is doing less stupid things. Yeah. And when you got to feed your family, or you got to get money, you do stupid things, you know, because you’re not, you’re not in a good state of mind. And if you have your reserves, then you then you feel like okay, I got this, you know, I got time to get better at my scripts, I got time to go do my door knocks, and you’re not so stressed and pressurized. But if you are like that and you need that money and your your family counts on you, you could you know, you could see why people maybe do things that they shouldn’t do. That’s a big deal.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s actually one of the first times I’ve thought of being a having a dual career being an advantage for someone as they’re learning real estate, because that dual career helps them. I’ve heard some people say no, like, jump all the way in and do it because you’re not going to succeed unless you do it. But the idea of the safety that a dual career can provide early on, that’s like no, so your financial stability there, it helps you really get good at their job, it helps you make the right decision, make the right choices. They say don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, right, because you’re gonna make it because it’s going to be tougher to buy what you need and the and I could see the same thing when you’re dealing in real estate. We deal with lots of money. I hadn’t thought about that I need to go listen to that podcast and Gary Keller did about that. If you look back at 2020, what’s like the number one way you survived 2020?

John Clidy 

You know, it goes back to me being a state trooper. I experienced 911 right? And, you know, I was one of the troopers that was sent to the, the Newark Airport, because that whole group was wiped out in the trade center. So I remember it, like it was yesterday, you know, when that that happened – you kind of got to really refocus and get your mindset in the right place. And, you know, I was a leader at the time being a state trooper, and I had to kind of not worry about me being scared, and just be ready to lead and show the public that I’m okay, right, and that I’m, you know, I’m ready to rock and roll. And I think it’s no different for this, this COVID this situation. We’re leaders, you know, and you might cry at night to yourself, and you might have your dialogue with your family or whatever offline, but when you get in front of your businesses, they look at you as the leader, and you got to show up, you know, you got to be, you know, for me, as a regional director, or an owner or my sales team, I got to show up, and, you know, how can I help you guys? And are you okay? And, you know, do you need anything, you know, and I think, not only did we do it in my businesses, but even when I talk to recruits, no different, like, you know, I’m not looking to recruit you, now I’m looking at the you need help, is there anything we can do, and that’s how we behave just as, as a region, as a company, a lot of the leaders that I’m around, we behave like that it was more what well, being checks and things. Because, listen, truth be told, I mean, our businesses, you know, they, we were a little flat, in, in April, a little flat May. And then I mean, we’ve had records ever since. So we’ve seen the best real estate market we’ve ever seen, you know, in a country. And, you know, a lot of my, my businesses and my owners have, you know, received the benefits of that. So, I think, you know, we had that little monster. And I mean, listen, there’s, there’s some unfortunate things in some people’s family, some of our leaders have gotten sick, their family members have passed that part, you know, you can’t that’s, that’s without saying, you know, or, you know, we care about that. And that’s a big deal. But I’m saying in terms of business, you know, I think it’s just keeping your head up. And you know, you got to work right, you got to pay your bills. And I think if you had that mindset, you’re good. And then some people put their head in the sofa. And really, you know, whether they gain weight, they couldn’t really function. That’s not helping their family, it’s not helping their business is not helping anything. So, you know, we really just tried to as much as we could, we tried to be business as usual in 2020. And the leaders that I’ve been around, and my business partners that I’ve been around that acted like that we’ve done well, the ones that did not like that, you know, they were the ones that struggle, you know, they they were like shutting things down, they, they weren’t doing things, they weren’t promoting, you know, growth inside their companies, and now they’re there, you know, some of them are trying to keep their businesses open. You know, so that’s what I’ve seen is just, you know, you had to check on people. And once you know, they’re good, let’s go, right, you know, if you’re good, let’s go. If you’re not good, let’s help you.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I like that. It’s like, it’s like the check in. Have you got the things that you need right now? And, and if not, let’s work on that. We talked a lot about it back in April in May, that, you know, fear is contagious, but so is leadership. So is confidence, so is hope. And so for a lot of people, whether they’re leading an office, or just a father, or a wife, or even a daughter and a son, you know, as we go into whatever 2021 might bring, if we get to bring in that leadership, to inspire those around us, it’s more contagious than fear, you know, something really it’s as contagious as fear and being able to bring hope and leadership and so I love that reminder that that’s the thing to focus on. You know that we’re okay. And like, yes, and maybe we’re crying at home. And maybe when I think about the big stresses that I go through my kids don’t see that because really worries them. Like if dad is stressed and they feel like they’re worried the world is falling apart. But if dad isn’t stressed, they feel like everything’s okay. And so I think, I think wherever we are in our lives, if we’re leaders of our businesses – our customers, our clients – are looking to us.

John Clidy 

It’s funny, my wife doesn’t like to fly. So when she’s on the plane, she’s nervous, she’s holding on to me, she’s like, oh, like, I need a drink and everything. I’m like, Listen, let me tell you this rule of thumb: If that stewardess looks nervous, then you get nervous, as long as she’s okay, you’re fine. And I think goes for all of us, you know, when the people that are leading the whatever it is, when they’re they’re falling apart, everyone falls apart, right? You know, that’s Game Over, you know, your President, you name it, whoever that is, it just is a whole effect on people. And the more leadership you have, the more people you lead, the worse it could be. Right? And, you know, for me, 10,000 people are like, what’s this guy going to? You know, is he going to stand up? We have a task force of a bunch of incredible leaders throughout the country that are really passionate about equity. And, you know, we just want to add it, you know, we don’t play, you know, we just went right at it. And, you know, we’ve already accomplished things that we haven’t done in the 30, some year history of our company, we did it in like eight months.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, you don’t go jumping in as that leader and taking on the tough stuff. And when they get to look up to you and say what’s Johnny gonna do, and people are watching no matter where we are in our lives on how we act. And I think that that’s probably one of my big reminders from 2020. What’s the secret for the average agents to succeed in 2021? What should they expect? What should they be planning on? How should they do this?

John Clidy 

Well, I usually talk to all those big agents, you know, because of my role, but recently, because of this, you know, the medium we have this, this zoom, and we’re able to talk talk to everybody. So I’ve been talking to newer agents, and I had this conversation with a younger group of agents and newer agents in the business. And in 2021, I don’t think you’re going to see much of a change, I don’t think we’re going to see the incredible things we’ve seen before. But we don’t think it’s going to be something, you know, astronomical drop, you know, like, we don’t see that as a, you know, Gary, and all the people that I trust in this industry, we don’t see that. So what I would say is, you know, listing inventories down everyone’s saying across the country, so what’s that mean? You got to knock on doors, you got to send letters, you got to go and find listings, and they might not come find you now, right? Yeah, that’s the difference, you know, if people know that they can get 20% more return on their house, or if they really knew what their house was worth. And you know, the rates are so low, I mean, you know, anybody can buy now and get a great low rate. So, you know, there’s a lot of positives of being a realtor today, you know, a new realtor today. But the, the main thing that I that I found out about the realtor was, you know, the time block is still the problem with all of us, leaders and especially with newer agents. So what I seen was, their calendar didn’t match their goals. And I would say for any newer agent is, you know, when you are going to go and do any businesses, what’s your calendar say you’re doing and who’s holding you accountable to do that, right? And most of the time I see it that doesn’t matter. It’s not an alignment between their calendar, their goals, and their plan nothing is match so you know, I think you got to get in sync though what the heck you’re doing why are you doing it? How much do you want to make go backwards? Take the numbers and how many appointments or you know, how many calls you need to make and all that and actually and truly know what it is and then your phone should tell you Okay, there’s your calendar, what am I doing from nine to 11? What am I doing whatever you know, put your lunch in there and all that but what are you going to do to actually hit that goal and you know, if you’re a new agent, it might be a lot of calls because you’re not gonna have a lot of appointments so it’s just a lot of calls up front and then hopefully in your next next you know, your next 90 your first 90 is more getting established getting set up, your second half of your 90 is going to be now appointments right so you’re going to not have as much call time now you have appointment time and then the next phase you know, you’re going to have you know, hopefully even more appointments less time to do that. But now you’re going to you know, you’re going to start to trend to have more business you got to probably be even more detailed with your time box and then you know, then you got to start having like some follow up systems going on. You want to start dripping people and you know, little by little, it’s just that that, you know, starting off real small, and then kind of growing and compounding it just like we do with interested in the bank and everything. Same thing with with a new agent is don’t get all upset at the beginning, no one’s going to answer your phone, no one cares about you because everyone’s selling real estate. But eventually you keep working it working it they start to see you’re, you know what kind of person you are, you’re sending out your postcards, you’re knocking on doors, then you start to get your little, you know, you start to get a little momentum. And it only takes one deal. It’s just like when you go to casino and you hit that one, you know, you win that one time you want to go back again, you know, same thing with real estate, you get that one listing you like yes, I want it again. And then you whatever you did to get it, you got to work this as hard, right? And you didn’t now you keep going and you use that one listing to get three more four listings, because if people see your sign, you know, so I think it’s, it’s really simple. It’s just really having a plan and time blocking to actually do what you’re playing says,

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So set your calendar needs to match your goals. And so make sure your calendar matches your goals. If you got your goals to be here, then what is your calendar telling you you’re going to do on a daily basis with with all the guys that are on my team? You know, for my companies, I try to work with them a lot on this is what your calendar should look like and try to go like what do you do every month? What’s that first Tuesday of the month? What do you always do? What’s that first Wednesday of the month? What do you always do? And sometimes like, well, there’s always so much it’s tough to put it into a calendar. But when you can, it really helps us if I’m doing that one thing every month on this day that I’m not gonna have a month where I forget. Well, sometimes they get missed because life gets busy. Life gets crazy. Are you guys seeing a gazillion offers on every listing?

John Clidy 

Yeah, I was just pointing, pointing here. We’re buying a new house in Florida. And it’s a new construction. So we put our downpayment in July 20. What’s today, what are we in February? Yeah, it went up to $500,000.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Holy cow. 500k? I mean, that’s the number of received so the as is the construction done on it?

John Clidy 

Yeah, I think they got like 15 homes left.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I was just interviewing, I was just talking with Kelly Skeval on the state of the market that, you know, it’s going to publish right before this one. And we were talking about locking in those new home prices right now. Because by the time the phases are done, by the time the houses are done, prices are sky high, like what the wait, but I have not heard of one $500,000

John Clidy 

I’m actually in the middle of the road, there’s more expensive ones. But I mean, you know, it’s insane. Some of the million dollar ones, they’re were going up at first it was like 50,000 increments. And then the last one was $100,000 increment.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

One of the gals that I’ve interviewed a few times on here – I saw her post on her Instagram the other day, she said, Well, we wrote 270,000 over asking and didn’t get a reply back. So how’s your afternoon going? And you started to go like, wow, you hear people offering 500,000 over asking on crazy houses. So what advice would you give to your agents when they say john, how? How do I get my offer accepted? Everybody is submitting 20-30 offers on a property. What’s the secret to getting accepted? I get messaged this almost every day from people on on Instagram or email, or social media just saying, hey, Aaron, I’m the buyer’s agent. I used to do three or four deals a month. And now I’m lucky if I get one. How do I get my offer accepted?

John Clidy 

This is gonna sound crazy. But you know, you ever watched the bachelor?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I have. It’s been, it’s been years, but it first came out I think everybody was hooked, right?

John Clidy 

Well, you know, wives do that. But you know, once in a while we just peek,

Aaron Amuchastegui 

We get to see a little bit. Yeah, this is recorded, I can’t say I watch it every day on here.

John Clidy 

But I will say if you know anything about it with those at the beginning of the show, they all come out to and they got to impress this guy with the first impression because that night they can go home. Right. So when you think about an offer, you know what’s going to make your stand out over 30 other offers, and that’s where you got to be creative, you know, whether it be a letter of you know, how incredible your buyer is, whether it be you know, something creative, that forces their hand that you know, whatever the number is, will go up 1% or two, whatever that is that your your real estate area allows you to do ethically, but you need to stand out and at some point, you know, you got to make sure there’s no coercion going on the agent part two – make sure your offer gets in front of the customer. Because I know in this crazy time people will do what they want to do or say. They should show all the offers. But does that mean that they did? So I would make sure number one, that there’s a mechanism that I’m assured that the seller has seen it. And I also want to make sure that the seller sees something really cool that I really present my business and my client in a light that they know that it will close. The rental markets are incredible here too. I heard like, there’s like 3000 square foot single family homes running for like, 20,000 a month here just because there’s none here. So what do you do? You go to the landlord say, Listen, I’ll pay you a year upfront, because you’re trying to say, you’re trying to take out anything that could stop them from giving it to you, right?

John Clidy 

You got to make yourself stand out so you or your client look like it’s a no brainer. Because if not, then then you’re just like everybody else.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

A few of the things he said there, so one of them is like make a good first impression, think the bachelor you can get voted out that night, you’ve got like, you’ve got like 10 seconds to make a good impression. How are you going to do it, make sure that your offer is getting seen because I remember back in 2009, the reason we started buying houses on the courthouse steps was because we would write offers to the agents that had all the reo listings. And they wouldn’t even, they wouldn’t even look at ours, they wouldn’t even submit, they would just tell their buddy like, okay, you need to come in, you know, $100 over these guys. So that it was all the same buyers, all the same listings, they weren’t showing everything. And so that actually happens. So I think some people be like, does that actually happen? Yes. So you could write a full price cash offer or an over asking, and they won’t even show it to the seller, because of those relationships. So have a mechanism in there. And then you even mentioned some of those escalation clauses or something else. Is there anything you can do to make them do that other than just pushing the agent following up?

John Clidy 

You know, ethically, you hope that they do the right thing. I mean, you know, I guess that’s where it comes in that, you know, if you’re a newer agent, that’s where I guess you would have your, you would have more your limitation, because an experienced agent has been around, they all trust that this person knows what they’re doing. If you’re a new name, they’re like, I don’t know who the heck this person is. And, you know, I don’t trust it’ll even go but I see john Clady here who’s been doing this for 22 years, I’m pretty confident, you know, it’s the same offers are there, I’m going to go with him. You just don’t want to be that new agent that gets tossed. And then never was seen, you know? So I don’t know what you do with that. Because you trust that people do the right thing. And, you know, I don’t know, I try to look at the, the greener side of the grass instead of the darker side, and you know, hope that people do the right thing. And they have to deal with someone up above if they do unethical things. I’ll let that happen for me.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I think it’s great advice. I love your story. I love getting to hear your story of going Hey, you were you were doing real estate on the side. And you were doing on side for for 14 years before you left being a state trooper. Like that is cool. I didn’t realize that. You know, the I had already ordered your book I told you I’m going to go read it. The book, John’s book, is called leaving six figures, the dual career to a full career. So yeah, we’ve got 10s of 1000s of listeners that are doing real estate right now on the side. I think it sounds like your book would be a great book for them. We also have you know, people that are going to reach out on the show, they’re going to say hey, I want to I want to ask john about this or I want to see some of the classes he’s teaching or or learn more about, you know, becoming a part of one of his offices, what’s the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to reach out to you after the show?

John Clidy 

Yeah, leaving 6 figures .com with the number six. If they if they just go on there, they could reach out to me, you know, I’ll get back to them. They could send a message, join the community, you know, share some tips. There’s a big community of leaders, people out there that work in dual career. And, you know, not even that, you know, there’s people there’s like, we’ve had women come up to us that are like, in bad marriages that can’t leave because they don’t have money. It’s really the same plan. You know, the same plan, you try to leave a career you try to leave a relationship, they’re really similar. So you know, to me, this book meant more than I even thought because now there’s a you know, a group of people that are able to leave a band situation because you know, you’re going to play in the same way. You’re going to budget your money, you’re going to see how much you need, what’s the reserves? And then when you actually leave, you know, is this career going to get you the money that you need to do to thrive and provide for your family? I’ve heard so many stories sad and positive. And, you know, I wrote the book so people don’t have to be alone on that journey. You know, that’s a scary journey to be alone. When you’re you’re hating every day going to work or whatever in a relationship and you can’t get out or you feel trapped.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s awesome – wrote the book so that no one has to be alone on that journey. John, I can’t wait to get to hang out again. I don’t know when it’ll be but maybe it’ll be at an event again soon. We got to get the families together, get the kids together, and get out. Thanks for coming on the show. Real Estate Rockstars, thanks for listening.

John Clidy 

Appreciate it, man.