EP012: 4 Realtor Personality Profiles & What Brokers They Need

Chris McAllister
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Connect Practice, track and Grow podcast. I’m here today with my partner in crime and marketing guru, lacey LaBlanc.

Laci Leblanc
Happy to be here, chris. Yeah, I’m super excited about today’s topic, so I can’t wait for you to tell everybody what we’re talking about.

Chris McAllister
Well, today we’re going to discuss the four basic Realtor profiles and the brokers that they need to partner with to ensure their success.

Laci Leblanc
Awesome, I imagine for these Realtors listening this is going to be a really insightful experience.

Chris McAllister
Well, I hope so. You know I worked with lots of different real estate agents over the years, but for the most part, the vast majority that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with have been really good at what they do. They’ve been high performers, and I’ve been doing this since I bought my first remix franchise over 20 years, and all that time and all those talented people have taught me and shown me a lot of key insights about how they work and what their great at, and it’s also shown me what they need from their brokers in order to continue to grow and score those big wins that we all want as business professionals. And that’s why, you know, at Roosterlake State Company, you know we tend to attract folks who you know work by referral. They prioritize relationships, but they’re also high performing professionals. So you know that’s exciting and they have taught me a lot.

So I’ve broken down the characteristics of these Realtors into four profiles and you can use these profiles almost like thinking tools to help you figure out, you know, the type of professional you are or, maybe, more importantly, the type of professional that you want to be. So I hope that you find these profiles inspirational. My guess is you’ll see yourself in one or two of these profiles and you’ll also see a lot of people that you work with in one or two of these profiles. So once you know you know, once you’re clear and can describe to another person how you work, what you care about, how you act and what you want support with, it’s going to. That’s what you have to do first in order to find, identify it and partner with a broker that’s going to complement you know how you approach the business.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah. So here’s my hot take. I think this is going to be like one of those personality tests for the real estate professional. To our listening which I love, by the way I’m an ENFP, a Colby 5482 and an A-gram one. What else do you want to know? But you know, while you can’t let a personality test or how you work test determine how you live every aspect of your life, obviously there’s still, in my opinion, super insightful, super helpful. Just by digging into who I am and how I work, I’ve learned so much about myself. It really has given me direction for my career and my personal life and I just know. I know what I want, I know what I need and it really kind of knowing that about myself empowers me to chase that and to advocate for myself. So I’m excited for this to be. I’ve never seen a real estate specific test, but I think this is the places we’re going to get, so let’s get into it. What are the four distinct realtor personality profiles? Who are we? Who are we looking to see ourselves as today?

Chris McAllister
Well, first of all, since you shared your Myers-Briggs, I happen to be an INTJ, so I think we’re both very unique in our Myers-Briggs profile.

Laci Leblanc
We compliment each other personally, exactly, I guess.

Chris McAllister
That’s the name of the game, right? So we have four distinct profiles. The first profile, the four they’re called the first is the deal maker. The second profile I call is the disillusioned. The third profile is called the diehard and the fourth profile is called the new professional and we’re going to talk through these today. But if at any time you want to download the eight success mindsets, you can do that at eightsuccessminesetscom. You can download the book and find a scorecard there, or you can also take the scorecard, do the scorecard for yourself online. It’s not really a test, it’s more of an assessment. We mostly refer to them as the scorecards at eightsuccessminesetsscorecardcom and we’ll make sure that we get that link in the show notes of this one. But anyway, the deal maker, the disillusioned, the diehard and the new professional, and we’ve got some tools to help you figure out where you fall. But I think listening to this conversation will help you figure that out as well.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, just the names intrigue me so much and, knowing what I know about this already, I know they fit perfectly. But I have a feeling people are out there trying to kind of pinpoint themselves in advance. I also have a feeling that you’ve probably been a version of all four of these at one point or another, so I can’t wait to hear all about that.

Chris McAllister
That’s exactly true. I have gone through different stages of my career, different profiles. I hadn’t really thought of that, but you’re right. I’m sure I could tell stories about spending time.

Laci Leblanc
The transformation. So let’s start with the deal maker. What characteristics define the deal maker? How do you know if you’re a deal maker?

Chris McAllister
Well, let’s assume we’re talking about successful deal makers. Okay, so successful deal makers are incredibly self motivated. They set goals for themselves. They take every opportunity that comes their way. They don’t let anything or anybody stand in their way. Their job is to get transactions closed, get deals closed, and they want to do it as efficiently as they possibly can. So super self motivated entrepreneurs Now these folks, the deal makers they also tend to be a little bit more transactional in their mindset or, in most cases, honestly, try to get more. Quite a bit more transactional in their mindset and maybe a bit less real, a bit less relationship oriented than some of the other three profiles. But they are all about the business, they’re all about the next opportunity and probably the coolest thing about the deal makers is that they love the thrill of the hunt. They’re looking for that next opportunity, they want to go out, they want the challenge, they want to win. So they’re absolutely hungry to close deals and I think that is the essence of the deal maker profile.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, I mean hungry is such a compliment and I think that makes a great point. Any of these realtor types can be successful. There’s no necessarily right or wrong when it comes to your you know realtor profile. It’s just what works best for you and how you work best. Can you tell me about a deal maker? You know who are they, what do they look like, where they hang out, kind of stuff. How do we identify a deal maker? Have you ever been a deal maker in your career?

Chris McAllister
I think I started out in my career as a deal maker because I think that’s, I guess that’s sort of the classic sales person profile, and I didn’t have any other real experience in sales other than, you know, I guess, being sold. When I got started, you know, I took everything that came my way. There wasn’t a lot of discernment as to what makes sense or what didn’t make sense. The fact was, you know, I had just left a management job at Target stores and, you know, I was suddenly 100% commissioned and you know, I approached that opportunity or that challenge as if I were shot Hungry, you know so, as if I was hungry exactly, and I had to go hunting and I had to just take whatever came my way. And making that next deal and getting that next paycheck, you know, when I first started out, was the most important thing on my mind.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think, in a lot of ways any career, whenever you start, I feel like, even in marketing I’ve stepped out of college real hungry, ready to prove myself, and for some people that turns into something they’re really good at and really enjoy, right, and it becomes there who they are as a person, as a realtor, as a professional, but for others, you know, you realize, oh, maybe I’m not quite as much of a sales person as I thought I was going to be and maybe I need more and different, right, you know another that’s exactly right.

Chris McAllister
So we do. You know, we have different stages in our careers and we do different things. But you know, one of the other major characteristics of the deal makers is they tend to be, you know, lone rangers. They don’t, they don’t cultivate a team around them. They find it much, much easier to do everything themselves. And you know, they are truly entrepreneurial. One man, one man or one woman. Vans.

And you know they don’t want help. They don’t necessarily, you know, establish relationships with wonders or title people and, quite frankly, especially for the most successful deal makers in my experience, they don’t really worry too much about their broker relationship. So, you know, they are completely self sufficient and they’re, I guess, on their own and they prefer it that way. So, consequently, a lot of these deal makers, especially successful ones, they tend to gravitate towards the 100% shops, right, the 100% real estate brokerages, where, you know, sometimes 100% is a misnomer, but they gravitate to those brokerages where they are really left alone and in return for being left alone, they earn a much, much larger percent of their commission than they might at you know, another, more traditional brokerage. But at the 100% shops, you know, the agents get to keep up to 100% of their earnings in exchange for, you know, maybe it’s a monthly nominal administration fee or office fee. Sometimes they, the brokerages, will charge a transaction fee that the realtors get to pass along to their buyers and sellers. It’s one of those situations where the brokers don’t expect a whole lot from their agents and, quite frankly, it works, because most of the deal makers don’t expect a whole lot from their brokers either.

Sometimes the 100% shops will make some extra money too, because they ask their, expect their agents to refer their buyer and seller clients to the broker’s in-house title or mortgage company, and that’s one of the ways that these brokerages can make some money is through their ancillary services.

So for the broker, just as it is for the deal, maker, you know their business model is all about the numbers. It’s the number of transaction per month, it’s the number of realtors on the stack, and it really is a numbers game. They need a lot of agents in an office because so few of them actually have a consistent stream of business, right? So you know, if you’re 100% shop, you want 100% shop and you know you were only getting, as a broker, a small part of the commissions earned in exchange, for you know the liability and the address and so on and so forth. Volume is key and the only way to get that volume is from a lot of people, because you’re not going to get that volume from a smaller number of people who do a lot of business, if that makes sense.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, for sure. It’s easy, when you explain it that way and when we talk about those hundred percent shops being the home of the deal maker, how somebody could become the next type of personality which is disillusioned. So if you don’t work well that way and you do need a little more support, or if you want to focus more on relationships, then it seems like it would be really quick to move from deal maker to disillusioned.

Chris McAllister
Well, it’s funny. The disillusioned people they can come from any type of brokerage, right. The disillusioned folks can come from the hundred percent shops, they can come from the legacy shops, they can come from anywhere. And the disillusioned agents they’ve got a bit of a rough road. For one reason or another, the real estate business just hasn’t turned out the way they hoped it would. They got their license, they had a certain expectation, they were promised something and it just didn’t come together for them and most of the folks in the disillusioned profile and obviously you can become disillusioned more than once during your career, right, we can all dip into the disillusion from talking to the time, I wouldn’t know anything about that.

Laci Leblanc
I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

Chris McAllister
But the disillusioned profile we’re talking about. More often than not, they’re a newer agent. There’s somebody who’s been had their license maybe for not much more than a year or two, and they’re just not happy because they’re either not making any money or they don’t like what they have to do to get that little bit of money. Maybe they didn’t realize how entrepreneurial the real estate life is or didn’t really understand what it meant to live by the commissions you earned. So, however, regardless of whether the disillusioned agents got mixed up with the wrong brokerage or whatever has held them back, the key thing about this group that I absolutely love is that they’re not ready to give up. So it may not have turned out the way they wanted, definitely not as fast as they wanted, but they still have a passion for the business, they still have a vision for their future and they’re not ready to give up.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, it’s not for lack of trying, it’s not for lack of effort or lack of talent or you know, it’s just circumstantial, is what I’m hearing. Do you have an example of a disillusioned or, when you were disillusioned, a real estate agent that you can share? You can change the names to protect the industry here.

Chris McAllister
You know it’s funny as a brokerage, you know we. You know we I don’t like to use the word boutique, but you know we don’t have hundreds of agents at this point. Maybe someday, you know, but our agents tend to do. You know they are some of the top performers in their markets. You know they do very well relative to the competition and that’s great. But the other thing that’s interesting about the disillusioned is and I think we’ve had this discussion before, but you know, for us, when we find somebody who has been in the business for a couple of years, it’s almost always because they were in a situation where they, more often than not, their broker’s philosophy on the business didn’t line up with their philosophy on the business. So they were not aligned. You know their brokerage wasn’t aligned with who they are. Maybe there was a disconnect between training and mentorship and everybody has different definitions of what those words are, and or maybe it was just, you know, the personalities didn’t gel, or maybe they just didn’t realize that.

You know that this is supposed to be. You know the broker agent relationship is supposed to be a mutually supportive relationship. So, quite frankly, we love to have agents who are disillusioned. You know, have had their license for a couple of years, joined our company because we tend to do really well, you know, with them and they do well with us. You know we get to help them get on the right path, we help them grow, you know, and quite frankly, we get paid when they get paid. So you know, we really love that disillusioned realtor profile because they’re not ready to give up. And it’s funny, it’s a little bit of a tangent, but you know we’ve brought on our share of brand new licensees over the years and we’ve had a handful that have done really well, but we’ve also had, you know, an equal number that didn’t do well at all.

The group of new agents that you know is distressing is those folks that come to us with a new license and they do incredibly well the first couple of years and then what happens is all the competing brokers start whispering in their ear hey, you know, we’d love to see you at our place. You know we’re watching what you’re doing. My gosh, you’re amazing. And you know they court them, they flatter them and, man, that just feels good when you hear that I don’t care who you are or if they’re here to agent or an existing agent.

So you know, the sad thing is that you know we have had people that have done really well with us and they’ve, you know, thought the grass was greener on the other side or they succumbed to the Chinese Objects Syndrome and they’ve left us, you know, and we will always welcome those people back, you know, honestly, and we’ve had agents who have left and come back and but I got to tell you so often, the ones who make that change, they never, ever get back to the production that they had with us and there’s a lot about the right broker right it does, and I think that’s really about how it’s, you know, independent of again we talked about it’s not for lack of effort, it’s not for lack of it’s almost seen circumstantial, but it’s really that broker relationship and how the right broker really makes a huge difference for an agent.

Laci Leblanc
And you don’t think about that often because real estate agents are independent. In our eyes, right, they’re like the self employed, so it’s really it seems like to an outsider like me that it’s more of just a framework and a structure, and I think that’s why we have to have a broker to do business, and so, therefore, you must join a brokerage.

Chris McAllister
And but I didn’t think about before you know, we talked about this the first time about it having such a huge impact on the success of a real estate agent and every new licensee or every licensee at a stage in the career has to be very selective about the broker they choose to associate with, just like every broker needs to be selective about the agents they choose to associate with. You know it’s a two way street. Sometimes the best thing a new broker can do for a disillusioned agent is just get them excited about the business again, you know, remind them, you know why they got their real estate license in the first place. And you know some folks need a strong mentor, somebody who can offer them specific training, and usually it’s not theoretical training. To some degree it’s definitely sales training. You know, from our perspective, connect, practice, track and grow.

But for many newer agents they’ve never had a broker or somebody in the office who sat down with them the first time they had to write a contract or the first couple of times or the first time they go on a listing appointment.

And you know those are things that you just don’t learn in real estate school and you don’t learn unless somebody’s willing to let you tag along and observe or, quite frankly, you know, model the way.

But a strong broker can offer training in the areas where a disillusioned agent needs to walk up on their skills.

We might be partnering with somebody with fresh insights, or somebody has learned the lessons. They’ve already made the mistakes so that this new agent doesn’t have to make them again. But again, I really like the phrase model the way, because to have somebody who’s successful, who’s willing to share and willing to show a new agent how things have worked for them and what’s made them successful, that is a wonderful thing, and a lot of times you get a newer agent disillusioned or not, paired up with a veteran agent and they teach each other. It’s kind of a cliche, but we’ve had some agents that have been at this for quite a while and maybe they’re not as marketing savvy or social media savvy or tech savvy as some of our younger agents are, and they’re eager and willing to learn from them. And the newer agents are eager to learn how to get into the nuts and bolts and the details of the situation without putting them, their clients or themselves or their license in jeopardy.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, I think that’s a really great point. I spent a lot of time with my Nana We’ve talked about that who happens to be a realtor, but just the shared experience she teaches me so much about life in general. But also I have a very different mindset as a part of a different generation that kind of broadens her horizons a little, and I think that kind of mentorship and partnership is so underrated from both sides and it’s really about having kind of like an abundance mindset, knowing there’s enough out there to go around and, as a result, being able to root for and train and help other people achieve success. And that’s something that unfortunately, this kind of scarcity mindset seems to be all around us if you’re not surrounded with the right people. So how do you find that broker that can help a disillusioned agent or a new agent looking for that kind of mentorship and partnership?

Chris McAllister
Well, I think that going through and kind of figuring out where you are in your career, where you are as a realtor and this exercise is a great way to help do that but being really clear on what your skill set is, what you’re better at than anybody else, what you need to spend most of your time doing, that’s the first step. The second step is okay. These are the things that I’m really good at. I need to do more of. What are the things that either A I need help with or things that I need somebody else to do for me? So it’s kind of what you just said Having a relationship, a productive relationship, a profitable relationship, is when you and another person have complementary skill sets.

The things that you do in our relationship I can’t do. I don’t want to do them, I’m not wired to do it, it’s not natural for me, but there’s certain things that I can do that I need to focus my time on. But I’m not a natural marketer. I can’t do what you do anymore than I’ve got realtors that are far better realtors than I will ever be. Not only do they walk in and light up a room, but, man, they’re detailed, they’re organized, they’re great people skills. They’re coaches. It’s amazing, but by the same token, I don’t have to be a fantastic agent. My job is to be the best broker I can possibly be.

So again, it comes back to complementary relationships and finding a broker or brokerage that is going to help enhance your overall business and generally that’s a complementary set of benefits or skill sets. So knowing who you are, how you work and what you want in a relationship is half the battle. At that point you need to do your research and it’s a Google search. It’s asking other agents who you admire. Take them out, take them to coffee. I got to tell you almost every agent I’ve ever met. We love to talk about ourselves.

Right the likelihood that this podcast is talking about Chris and Ruth, so the likelihood that somebody is not going to want to sit down and let you pick their brain is slim to none. But get that kind of input, ask the questions, and ask the questions you feel are embarrassing, or ask the stupid ones, right? If you don’t, you’re never going to get the answers and I could tell you every question you have. Any successful realtor has had them at some point in their career. But as you do your research, as you talk to other agents, be alert to the names that come up more than once. If you’re in a larger town, maybe there’s going to be some more agents, more brokerages to choose from.

If you’re in a smaller town, you’ll probably find that there’s just a handful of names that come up, maybe even two, three that come up time and time again and you want to really dig deep on those brokers or those managers. But once you have the name of at least two brokers you like, just pick up the phone and call them. We’re thrilled to get calls from agents thinking about making a change and a great broker is always looking to make a great connection with a new or a veteran agent that wants to either get started on the right foot or wants to grow their business and continue to succeed. I mean, that’s the name of the game for us. But you’ve got to know yourself, know what skills that you want to bring into your team, know what you want in a broker, do your research, do some interviews and do the work. This is the most important relationship you’re going to have in your career, so it deserves whatever investment you need to make to get it right.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I love to ask the questions you think are done, because every good realtor has had that question. I think that’s empowering for folks in a time where we can ask Google anything. We sometimes undervalue real people who have done this before. But we’ve talked a lot about the disillusion at this point and the die hard. So we’ve got two more profiles and next up is the die hard realtor. What that sounds scary. What’s that about?

Chris McAllister
The die hard. It sounds a little derogatory, but the die hards are some of gosh. They’re some of my favorite realtors and my gosh, some of these folks that are just the best people to have, you know, on the other side of a transaction when you’re co-opping, you know, but I use the word die hard with the absolute utmost respect, and the die hard real estate agents are super loyal to their broker and the success that they’ve achieved through them. Now, when I think of the die hards, I think of nine times out of 10, these folks work for the big legacy brands. You know things like Caldwell Banker.

You know comes to mind Remax, or even some of the big regional companies that have been around for a long time and have been successful, like Howard Hanna, for instance, you know, here in in Ohio, and these are outstanding companies and the die hards became successful because they follow the traditions and the rules of these companies. When they started their careers, they didn’t, rather than, or they didn’t have to, you know, forge their own paths. The brand was laid out, the path was clear, it was just. It was. I want to say it was connect the dots, because these people have ups and downs like anybody else, but they tended to, you know have joined these brokerages 5, 10, 15, more like 10, 15, 20 years ago, and the business was just quite frankly, different then.

So the die hards in general have been around for a while. They’ve been successful in the business for a while. They became successful by doing whatever needed to be done, and these big legacy brokerages were always great about having people in the office to model the way and train and so forth, and they’ve become incredibly successful, you know. So being a die hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially the die hards that I love, that are always open to learn and open to share. So the question becomes right what? What’s the downside?

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, it sounds great. It’s like being a Tar Heel in North Carolina or you know like I went there. I’m born, bred dead. Tar Heel born, tar hill bred, tar hill dead. That’s what it sounds like to me, which is half of my identity. So what should I be looking out for? What’s the downside?

Chris McAllister
Well, again, the die hards have been amazingly successful for a long time but and they have been in their veterans more often than not, and they, quite frankly you can’t become a die hard if you haven’t been at it for a while so they’re veterans in the business, but the business has changed a lot in the last 10, 15, 20 years and the pace of change is accelerating and a lot of times, many times, quite frankly, these legacy brokerages haven’t kept up with the changes in the market or the changes in the realtor population or the, you know, a Gen Z, a Gen X versus, I’m sorry, a Gen Z or a millennial versus a Gen X or a, you know, baby boomer. And to some degree they’re behind the times, I guess, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but what it comes back to is why should they change? You know they are, they’ve been successful in a long time. They continue to, you know, retain fantastic agents. They still attract agents, you know, to their company when there’s changes in the marketplace and brokerages close or consolidate or whatever. So, you know, I don’t know that there’s necessarily a reason for them to change.

But, having said that, you know, sometimes diehards will struggle in today’s real estate market because they haven’t been exposed to new ideas, they can get stuck in a rut, and one of those ruts is that they’ve been successful so long they never had to establish a strong personal brand or establish a strong identity outside of.

You know the work they’ve done for and with the legacy franchise. And in this market, if you don’t establish a personal brand, if you don’t have, you know, personalized marketing support, it just continues to perpetuate the myth that all agents are alike. And we all know that all agents are not alike, and you know it’s one thing to be unique, it’s one thing to do a great job, it’s one thing to take care of your clients and offer things and value that nobody else does. But all of that is, of course, fantastic, it’s a prerequisite. But if you don’t establish a personal brand that conveys who you are as a professional, you know I don’t want to say it’s for naught, but you’re surely not going to get the benefit out of that experience and talent that you’ve grown over the years that you should.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, I can see that becoming an issue because, just like every realtor has a profile and wants to work with the right broker, every client or customer you know, every home buyer or seller has their own personality profile and wants to work with the real estate agent that they work best with right.

So maybe it’s a personality thing, maybe they want to get along, maybe it’s a trust thing, maybe it’s like me when I bought my house and my like, I picked my mortgage broker because he made me feel safe. It was something I had a lot of anxiety around and from the beginning he said, whenever you’re ready, like, I’m going to walk you through this step by step and I didn’t even look at anybody else because I needed that from my broker. I needed that relationship. So if you don’t have a personal brand and identity and I do think that all of the diehard agents are the same then that’s somewhere that maybe I’m not going to even consider right. So I think you’re right and, as an elder millennial myself, I think that’s important to upcoming generations maybe even more so. You know my dad’s looking for the best rate, my dad’s looking for the best deal and he’s willing to deal with whoever whatever it is, I am not.

I am looking for a good relationship.

Chris McAllister
Exactly, and that gets us back to abundance, right? So what your dad’s looking for it’s more of a transaction. He’s not interested in relationship and he’s already done his homework. He doesn’t feel like he needs a lot of coaching.

Laci Leblanc
He needs somebody who’s going to deal maker?

Chris McAllister
through and through, he’s a deal maker through and you know there’s a lot of you know real mortgage brokers that we work with that are more relational and they do enjoy taking the time to help a first time buyer through and that may just purveig your dad. Oh, he would have said I did get a great rate but he would not have enjoyed the process.

There’s enough business for everybody and we all have different ways of approaching the business, just like what we’re talking about here. You know a deal maker versus, you know a diehard. You know one of the things that the diehards have to watch out for. You know, when you’ve been successful for a long time, you tend to become pretty scripted. You tend to believe in yourself, as you should, but your, your certainty, sometimes can alienate. You know a client who’s looking for something more. The other thing that’s interesting these days is that I don’t know that a lot of our diehards have embraced is, let’s face it. I mean millennials, gen Z, are the best educated, if not best educated, best informed group of buyers we’ve ever had, because all the information they would ever want is at their fingertips. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’ve got the right information or the best information, but what they really they need to consult, they need a coach, they need an advocate to help them. You know, sort through what they’ve learned, and I would much rather work with a motivated buyer than somebody who, you know, just wants to be led, quite frankly. But again, when we talk about the diehards, you know it is a concern, it’s a potential red flag when you know their, their identity as real estate professionals just becomes completely intertwined with the France’s name. So it’s not easy to set themselves apart. You know we said that these folks sell to move their license and there’s no reason for them to. They stick with what is work. They see no reason to risk what they’ve worked so hard for the years and they’re content to finish out their careers right where they are, doing what is worked for them. And that’s another characteristic of the diehard folks they do skew older.

A lot of these folks got out of the business after COVID. You know it’s funny. We associate this whole phenomenon or I did anyway of quiet quitting with, you know, W2 employees and big companies. You know, because either they don’t want to come into the office or, you know, covid helped them reset their personal priorities, whatever. But we also had a quiet, a lot of quiet quitting of entrepreneurs, including realtors, who of course are, you know, 1099 independent contractors.

We had a lot of quiet quitting of the diehards as we have gone through COVID and come out of it.

So a lot of times these folks are, you know, they’re content to just work out their careers and there’s not much point in doing anything different.

We also have some diehards, you know, that see themselves, you know, wanting to practice for another 10, 15, 20 years, and they also are very aware of what’s happening in the market, who their next generation of clients is, and they’re looking for a way to reinvent themselves and their approach to the business. And, my God, these are, of course, my favorite diehards, right, you know? Anybody who’s been successful but knows that they have to continue to learn more, keep up with the market, figure out how to add additional value and are willing to reinvent themselves at any age or stage in their career. Those are just the people that I love spending time with. And you do see a few of these folks, you know, amongst the diehards that you know. I don’t want to say start over, because they’re bringing so many things with them, but they are looking for a new way forward and it can be a daunting task for these folks, but with the Bright Broker it can certainly be done.

Laci Leblanc
The downside for new rates. I think that’s why quiet quitting got so, you know, so much traction or angry staying. Another friend of mine referred to as angry staying right.

I like that one too, because there’s so much courage. It takes so much courage to to move on, especially if you know initially in your career it’s you envisioned yourself being in that role or with that, with those people or with that you know agency forever. So yeah, I think it does take a lot of courage to do that. But certainly angry staying or quiet quitting is not the ideal for anybody, I imagine.

Chris McAllister
Yeah. So I guess, just to kind of close out the you know talking about the die hard profile here, you know the downside for newer agents joining these legacy firms and by newer I mean agents with less than five years or so in the business is that what worked early in a die hard personal career 20 years ago, it’s just not going to work today. The business is just so different that that path to success is no longer available. There’s different paths that you know you need to take. What works today, you know, is personal connection, a commitment to continue to continue with some improvement. You know professional practice I just harp on that, I know. But professional practice and an entrepreneurial mindset, you know you are a 1099 independent contractor. You’re an entrepreneur, you’re a business for yourself. You’re deciding who you’re going to associate with to help you achieve those goals and you know that’s what brings us to the fourth and final profile that you know we’re going to talk about today, and that’s the profile that I call the new professional.

Laci Leblanc
The goat. That’s where I’m at here. This is like the culmination of all of this. If I were to identify myself, I would want to be the new professional. That’s because it, you know, I think it just embodies kind of that entrepreneurial spirit and bodies the goals it’s. And, you know, tell us about it, because I’m obviously gushing over it and we don’t know anything about it yet. But yeah, what is? What are the characteristics of a new professional career?

Chris McAllister
Well, new professionals do tend to value relationships over transactions. They’re about building long-term productive relationships with their clients, with their affiliate partners, with their brokerages. You know people they work with over time. You know I think we talked before there’s a. You know, make new friends but keep the old. You know they keep those relationships over time because they work for both parties and they’re always in the on the lookout for, you know, their next great relationship, whether with a client or a business partner.

The new professionals work by referral. You know. They know that if they do a great job for you know this client and they’re a fun client to work with and they’re adding value and it’s a mutually supportive relationship that client is going to refer them to somebody else who’s like more than likely just like them, right, because we tend to associate with people that are like ourselves or the people we like. So you know, great people tend to refer great people and not so great people tend to refer not so great people. So it’s kind of a fact of life, but we’re new professionals. Professionals work by referral and they gravitate to brokerages who support the way they do business. And you know, joining a broker who understands working by referral can really kickstart your business if that’s where your head’s at. If it’s not where your head’s at, it’s probably not going to be a good fit, but if that’s how you’re comfortable moving forward in the business and how you want to live your life, that’s who you got to be looking to work with.

Laci Leblanc
Yeah, the marketer, referrals are the best way to get business right, like that’s generating referrals, facilitating referrals, whatever you want to call it.

And again having a brokerage that understands working by referral. That’s a really interesting comment. I don’t want to just pass over it, because there is a psychology behind referrals and it’s not what a lot of people think. Right, dean Jackson does the secret psychology of referrals and talks about how it’s really. It’s not about being incentivized, it’s not about you know, here’s a free $50 gift card. Sure, some people will work that way. But really and truly it’s about sharing what someone knows is going to be a positive experience with someone they care about, right? So if I had a positive experience with my real estate agent, then I want to share that. I want to give that positive experience to another person because that makes me feel good about myself.

So, yeah, I think the brokerage who understands working by referral, is a really excellent point. That deserves a little more thought from people, because you just think about like oh, referrals yeah, and people you know pass over it because we’ve all been offered a $25 Amazon gift card for you know sharing that’s just another transaction.

Chris McAllister
That’s not a relationship orientation, that’s a transaction. So you know it’s like you said, building strong relationships is the best way to obtain, you know, repeat business and new opportunities. You know it’s funny, I don’t know if it’s funny, but you know I’ve had it’s 80-20 principle right, maybe 90-10. But I can tell you that probably 10% of all my clients referred me, 90% of my business, and you know I happen to gravitate and work well with attorneys. So you know I would do sometimes complimentary, sometimes not. You know CMAs for states, you know I’ve worked for attorneys who have owned a lot of rental properties and I understood they were coming from. I was able to do certain services or tasks or whatever for them and through that, you know I was referred a tremendous amount of business.

It never would have happened if I wouldn’t have been open to those relationships. You know you mentioned Dean Jackson. You know I met Dean through Strategic Coach and you know we developed a relationship and through Dean now we’re working together and Stuart and I are working together. But that is the power of a relationship orientation, where you know you go deep with the person and you obviously need to be complimentary but your goals need to be aligned, etc. But the power and the opportunity of being open to relationships it’s. You know, it sounds silly, I guess, but it’s almost magical.

Laci Leblanc
So you’re gonna talk about this point next, I think and you know it’s that collaborative effort and that you said, go deep, you go deep with somebody and then that moves you into a relationship and that gets you these referrals. And I think that’s huge is offering what you know and offering, you know, any help or any you know mentorship or partnership, without expectation and without you know, with that abundance mindset, is really what kind of makes those relationships sincere? Right, they have to be authentic, those relationships.

Chris McAllister
Absolutely absolutely. And the new professional has to find a broker who’s committed to their personal goals and who are able to meet them where they are in their careers. Right, you know? It’s just how it is. There is no substitute for that. New professionals, as a group, tend to value collaboration, and new professionals have little use for competition. Their focus isn’t on what somebody else is doing. Their focus is on their practice and how they’re going to continue to add value and build out a business that works for them. Right, I mean it’s. It’s so. They’re so internally motivated that they truly have no clue what’s going on, and they’re all the better forked it quickly. I just hope they you know they make some time to listen to this podcast.

Laci Leblanc
There’s a lot of driving in real estate, so I’m feeling that we got that going for it.

Chris McAllister
But here’s the thing, you know, the thing that sets a new professional apart from a diehard, or, you know, definitely, the disillusioned, or you know the deal makers say this the new professional, absolutely, and their heart of hearts believes that their future is bigger than their past and that it will always be bigger than their past. Right, they’re always looking ahead, they’re always excited about the future. You know the deal maker they tend to take what comes right and they ride the wave, whether the market’s up or the market’s down. They tend not to be overly proactive about, you know, building a steady incoming stream of referrals because they’re in the transaction of the moment. So a lot of times the deal makers are riding higher than high when the market, you know, on tv, per tv is good, but they also tend to ride really low when the market, you know, for the tv abundance is not so good, whereas, you know, the new professionals and a lot of the diehards tend to have a much steadier stream of business, mainly because they’re creating their own markets, they’re creating their own opportunities and they’re fully aware of doing that, because every addition to the database, every connection, is another opportunity for another referral.

So many times, you know, our folks do incredibly well in what is supposed to be a down market and, quite frankly, there’s times when they, you know, don’t hit the highs that some of the the deal makers might in a really hot market.

And of course, the disillusioned are in such a bad place they can’t even contemplate what success might look like one day and hopefully they’ve got enough strength and fortitude to, you know, crawl out of that, do some research, make some calls, take some people to coffee and find out if there’s a better path or a better person to a better brokerage to take that that walk with on that path. And again, like we talked about, you know, a lot of the few, of the diehards. There’s some unicorns out there that are ready to reinvent themselves, but for so many of the diehards their best days are behind them and you know, sadly I feel like covid really drove that home. So, in my worldview, how I approach the business, only the new professional is ready, willing and able not just to take on the world but to transform it. They want to make a dent in the universe, as steve job used to say.

Laci Leblanc
And the new professionals, I absolutely believe are the future leaders of our industry and it’s my commitment personally and the commitment of real estate company to support code and help those folks grow their businesses yeah, I mean, the whole world is constantly changing right, but right now we’re in a place where work is changing right and the thing about the new professional that I’m hearing is you know, and we’ve talked a lot about you know how people work, from the dealmaker to the dissolution to the diehard but the new professional is all, I think, very focused on how they live right, they want to work well and they want to be happy and, but they also want to live well, and I think that we’re making the realization that those two things are not mutually exclusive.

In order to live well, you have to work well, and they kind of both play into each other. So, you know, I want to talk for a second about just kind of the lifestyle of the new professional and how the way the new professional work plays into kind of the ability to achieve the lifestyle you want yeah, I think that’s a great question.

Chris McAllister
So I think the best way for me to answer that is is to talk about the four freedoms of an entrepreneur. So dan solomon, who’s the founder of the strategic coach and you know I’ve been a client of the strategic coach, I’m going to say at least 15 years of the last 22 so you know I’ve worked with dan and dan’s team very closely but they describe four freedoms of the entrepreneur and I think that these are the four freedoms of the new real estate professional. So the first freedom, the first of the four freedoms, is freedom of time, and for most real tours, their time is not their own. You know, they’re at the mercy of their customers. You know the next phone call, the next zillow lead, they’re on call 24 hours a day, some folks because they feel like if they’re not available at 10 o’clock at night or five o’clock in the morning, that they’re going to miss something. And it’s just, you know, not a sustainable lifestyle, right? But the new professional, they set boundaries for themselves and they set those boundaries early on in their career. They schedule time on the calendar for themselves and their family and they are very intentional about creating a life worth living. In other words, they’re focused on becoming a professional with a professional practice.

And I did the same thing. You know I said I was like it was like being shot out of a cannon. You know, when I first got into the business because, you know, I had two little kids, I didn’t have a paycheck anymore and I needed to make something, to make something happen. But the smartest thing I did as a real tour was I decided early on and this sounds like a small thing, but at the time it wasn’t I decided I was never going to work on a friday night and I was never going to work afternoon on saturday.

That was my time, it was family time, it was kelly time. My wife’s kept the name’s kelly and that’s how you know. We were going to roll and I did it pretty damn well. You know, and I can tell you, though, the times I broke that rule, the times that I worked a friday night, took an appointment on a friday night or planned for an appointment on a friday night or something on a saturday afternoon, every single time it led to nothing. Many times I would change my schedule, make other arrangements, disappoint the family, whatever, and they would cancel, you know, whatever, but at the time I just thought that the opportunity was, you know, too great to miss or what have you. And the fact is nothing ever came from me working outside of those two boundaries that led to anything I can look back on as a turning point or a win in my career.

Laci Leblanc
So yeah, I think that’s super important, that’s just, it’s. It’s such a and it goes against. Again. I think mindsets are changing around work and you know work hard. You know be the best, stay late, you know come in early, do all these things and don’t get compensated for it because eventually it will pay off. I think we’re starting to this. Prove that a little right.

And I was lucky.

You know I look around at people my age I just turned 40 this year in similar careers to me and because I had a great mentor in my very first job out of college that taught me the value of my work and my time and really did a lot of you know, mindset work with me.

I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t know I was being mentored, but he taught me how to advocate for myself in the workplace. He taught me how to set boundaries. He taught me how to, you know, push the limits when maybe they weren’t fair, because I was working in a, you know, 100 year old factory and the difference that has made in my career and what I value, which is time. So my full-time work week is about 30 hours and has been for about five years. When I look at other folks in my kind of in a similar age bracket who have similar careers. It’s totally different for them and the difference was they didn’t have a mentor early on that taught them those things. So I see a really direct connection here with kind of finding the right broker and getting yourself a good boss right out of college yeah, well, you know what one thing I’ve learned the hard way is?

Chris McAllister
you know, time off is not a reward. Time off is a prerequisite to being able to perform at a high level. Right? If you just work and work, you know, and burn yourself out and then you take a day off, you’re not getting anything out of that. You’re wasting free time and you’re wasting work time. But if you schedule in, you know, take care of the goose that lays the golden eggs, and then you’ve got to schedule that free time upfront before you. You know can’t live without it, before it’s too late, before you burn out, and you know I don’t want to spend a whole lot more time.

We’re going to do a whole podcast on, you know, lifestyle and things like that coming up, but you know, at the end of the day you don’t. Well, here’s a great way to think about it, right? You don’t just pick up the phone at 10 o’clock on a friday night and call your family physician and say, hey, I’ve got a cold, I need to come see you right there. I’m not going to take your call, you know you’re not going to. You’re not going to walk in on your lawyer at any time in the course of the week and be able to sit down more than once, yeah, not more than once.

So you know again, you have to treat yourself as a professional, you have to see yourself as a professional, and so much of that is taking control of your time and setting boundaries. So the second freedom of the new professional is the freedom of relationship, and you know that means that we, as new professionals, we work with who we want to work with and we want to work with people who already know, like and trust us. It’s that simple. We do everything we can not to work with jerks. Right, there’s not much point working with the jerk. It’s an unpleasant experience, you know. Even if it’s a big paycheck, it seldom feels worth it. And the other thing you gotta keep in mind is jerks, revert jerks. So be on the lookout for that. There’s seldom, you know, a client that’s worth working with. The damages your mental health. It’s all the steam, or anything else. So freedom of relationship also means that we earn referrals from our favorite clients, because they tend to refer people who are a lot like them. So freedom of relationship, it’s a freedom, but it’s also a responsibility that you have to protect, and nobody is going to do that for you but you. So you got to be conscious of who you want to be a hero to, who you want to work with and and who you want to build those lasting relationships with.

And the third of the four freedoms is freedom of money. So the new real estate professional gets paid. It’s that simple. You know, maybe they’re not closing the next deal and have that money you know spent before they’ve earned it. You know, you know like a lot of the deal makers do, but and money may not be the prime motivation, but at the end of the day the new professional gets paid.

And getting paid is what separates professionals from amateurs, dabblers and dillers. You know you are presenting, putting value into the market. You are helping people make the if not the biggest, one of the biggest financial decisions they will make in their lives. You are putting everything you have into that relationship, into that transaction, and helping people get to where they want to be. The new professional knows their value and they are not afraid to put a price on it.

You know, sometimes it’s as simple as you know being able to stand firm and articulate your value on a listing appointment right? I think a lot of sellers these days think that if they don’t ask you to cut to your commission that they haven’t done their job as a seller, and that’s fine. Let them ask. You know. We coach our folks on you know things that they can say. But more importantly, we coach our folks on continuously reminding them where you’re adding value, what you’re doing different than the competition and why you’re worth what you charge. So freedom of money, again one of the possibilities I’m going to internalize every bit of that.

Laci Leblanc
I’m going to just take that one sound bite and I’m going to play it to myself every morning. Maybe the best piece of advice you’ve offered in the whole process.

Chris McAllister
Yeah, the other thing too, and you know, if you’re going to have a partnership or relationship with a broker, you need to put yourself in the broker’s shoes. Also, if they’re adding value to your career, if they’ve helped you get from, you know, $100,000 to $500,000, you know they deserve to get paid. They deserve some financial credit for that. And that also is the freedom of money. It’s the freedom to make investments that make sense. It’s the freedom to invest in relationships, whatever it is. Freedom of money comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. But again, one more time, real estate professionals get paid. And then the fourth freedom of the new real estate professional and again thanks to Dan Solomon is freedom of purpose.

You know, in the simplest of terms, we help people buy and sell houses. Right, that is our purpose. That’s what we do Now. Maybe we manage, you know, houses and work with tenants, whatever, but at the end of the day, we help people buy and sell houses. We’re also in the shelter business, especially if you’re working with investors and the. You know folks who rent from them. And I want you to see what you do. This business of helping people buy and sell houses. It is a noble profession. You know sales people get a bad rap. But a good salesperson is a coach, a counselor, a confidant, an advocate. It is a noble activity in a noble profession, and if you don’t see that for yourselves, nobody is going to see it for you. You know, you’re out there, your purposes, you care about adding value, you care about helping people and, at the end of the day, you transform lives, because where people live and how they live is fundamental. The new professional isn’t just kidding around. We’re in it to make a difference, so yeah.

Laci Leblanc
And you do. They do right.

And I think that you know, as you know, as a young college student, I thought I was going to be a martyr, you know, and I was going to work at a you know news organization for minimum wage and write all these stories exposing things. Or, you know, I was a journalism major, or I was going to work at a nonprofit and I was going to be doing their PR and but it took me a while to realize that the most impact that I can make is on the people directly around me, right, being kind to those people, stepping up for those people, you know, being present for those people. And I don’t have to work at a nonprofit making minimum wage or struggling to get by or, you know, eating ramen every night to make a difference in people’s lives. And I think that it’s just so true and I think that you know, seeing it as a noble profession to use your words is a really great way to hold yourself to a really high standard and also to make sure you do your best work. I love that.

Chris McAllister
Well, you know the new professionals, when they get paid, they tend not to be the folks that go, you know, blow it on a. You know they get paid. And they’re not the people who go blow it on a weekend in Vegas. Right, you know, part of the reason that you deserve to get paid and you need to get paid is that you have to start saving up money, create more capital so you can put it back into your business and expand the services you’re providing the people you help. You can’t get better at what you do if you don’t have enough capital to invest in coaching or to invest in training or to invest in new technology. You know, without that capital, you know you’re not going to get better, you’re not going to expand your relationships, it’s just not going to work. So you got to get paid.

So, at the end of the day, the new professional, you know she designs her lifestyle around these four freedoms and it’s fundamental and that’s why the new professionals are the most successful, satisfied and sought after leaders in our industry and it’s going to be that way for the next forever. So I think that’s the best path, but, you know, becoming a new professional, having those four freedoms time, relationship, money and purpose. You know that’s everything I want for all of our agents at, and team members at, roosteril Estate Company and, quite frankly, you know that’s what I want for everybody who listens to this podcast.

Laci Leblanc
Admirable, noble, even no goal, no goal.

Chris McAllister
So one other thing I just like to mention. Do you have anything else we need to talk about or add before we close out today?

Laci Leblanc
No, I just I hope this was as insightful for folks as I think it was. I think you know, like I said, I’m sure there’s a lot of you know realtor specific, you know kind of growth mindset stuff out there, but you don’t hear about it in the mainstream and I just think this is such important information that can really have a direct impact on the trajectory of somebody’s career. So I’m thrilled that you were able to share it, that all of your experience you’re using you obviously have freedom of purpose and have defined your as well, and I hope it’s beneficial for everybody.

Chris McAllister
I appreciate your kind words. It’s always a pleasure to do this with you. So I guess, in closing, if you want to learn more about the four realtor personality types, you can download a free copy of eight success mindsets of the new real estate professional at www.8successminsetscom, and we’ll make sure we put the scorecard link in the show notes as well. So thank you very much.

Laci Leblanc
Thank you very much.