How Dan Rochon has had no broke months since 2008 prospecting 1 to 3 hours a day

Dan Rochon00:00

Number one, believe in yourself. Number two, get out your schedule and right now place all your appointments on your schedule. I intend to have four listing appointments every single week, 10 appointments every single week. So my job during my lead generation is to fill the blanks. Do that for five days a week.

00:17Follow that recipe and you will have no broke months.

Loida Velasquez00:26

What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Vulcan7 Podcast, where we bring you some of the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies so that you can implement them in your business immediately. Now, on today’s episode, we have a special guest that we’ve had previously, and we’re gonna be talking about sales, we’re gonna be talking about mindset, and overcoming that feeling that you think maybe you’re just not good enough.

00:52So with that being said, I’m just gonna go ahead and bring on our guest, Dan Rochon. Welcome, Dan.

Dan Rochon00:57

Thank you. Hello, welcome. Or I guess you’re welcoming me. It is. Thanks for welcoming me.

Loida Velasquez01:00

Absolutely. For everyone that’s watching and tuning in, and they’re like, “Oh, man, I remember this person,” in case someone doesn’t know who you are, give us a little bit about your background and what you’ve done.

Dan Rochon01:15

My name is Dan Rochon. I have been a real estate agent since 2007, and got into the industry because I was a… Short story, I was a drunk waiter looking for a way out and looking for a pathway, and became sober and found this real estate sales thing, and started selling, and have no broke month since 2008, and I’m really proud and grateful for that experience.

Loida Velasquez01:42

That’s awesome. I’m glad that you brought up what you used to do before, because I love to ask that question. Many times agents are always listening and watching, and they see coaches and agents that are successful, but we don’t know previously what life looked like. I’ve interviewed some, they’re like, “Yeah, I used to be a lawyer, an attorney,” or, “I dropped out of school.”

02:03So I don’t know if you wanna share a little bit more of what made you want to get into the real estate business, or if there was an influence or someone that you saw or kind of what that looked like.

Dan Rochon02:13

So when I was struggling as a waiter, I would go and wake up at 9:00 in the morning.

02:22I’d be at the restaurant by 10:00. And then I’d work from 10:00 AM till around 2:00 AM. And each day around 10:00 PM, I would begin drinking, and 12 beers later and two bottles of wine later, I’d pass out. I’d also smoke about a pack and a half of cigarettes between that 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM or so.

02:45And I really knew that I wanted to help people solve their problems, help people achieve their goals. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I had no idea of how. I wanted a different life. And I looked at a bunch of different franchises to potentially purchase them.

03:06And it was like a quarter million to $500,000 a year to be able to get started. And though I was making good money as a waiter, I didn’t have a quarter million to half a million dollars a year to invest into a business. And so that’s where I considered becoming a real estate agent.

03:20And I did that with a business mentality. But mostly what it was is an escape. It was an escape from a previous life, and it was a new lease on life. And I approached this as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, not as a salesperson, which is, I think, different than what many, many of my colleagues do.

03:40And the first six months was zero sales. I mean nothing. I was drowning. And it wasn’t until then till I cracked the code, and I realized that having no broke months isn’t just a dream. That you can follow a system and follow a pathway, and that’s when I discovered teach to sell, or I didn’t call it teach to sell at the time, but I discovered a very certain way of sales to be able to understand how people perceive the world through their senses, and their beliefs, and their values, and their identity.

04:14And then to be able to ethically guide them to making decisions, and that’s been the process.

Loida Velasquez04:17

That’s awesome. I love to hear that, and I love to hear the story because again, sometimes we just see the success, but we don’t know what was the thing that kind of sparked that interest.

04:29And I’m just so excited and really is just proud. A proud… I mean, I don’t know you that well, but I’m proud of you, Dan, for everything that you’ve accomplished.

Dan Rochon04:39

Thank you.

Loida Velasquez04:40

And there’s more to-

Dan Rochon04:42

Well, my biggest pride, the biggest thing that I am proud of, is 20 years of sobriety.

04:47And if I look in my order of life, sobriety is first. Health is second. My relationship with God is third. That’s a little bit weird. I hope God’s understanding, right? And then my relationship with myself and my family, and it’s in that order. And when I say health, it’s not physical health, it’s mental health, it’s spiritual health.

05:11It’s wellbeing. And I do put that at the beginning because I believe that if I’m not the best version of myself, if I’m not focusing on that healthy body, spirit, your mind, then it’s really hard for me to be the best version of myself. It’s really hard for me to be able to help others.

05:31And so that’s why I place it in that order.

Loida Velasquez05:33

Yes, I love it. So one thing that you mentioned is that you were able to crack the code.

05:38That you now say teach to sell. So for someone that’s like, well, what is teach to sell? What do you mean by that? ‘Cause I wanna crack the code, ’cause I have had a lot of broke months and I’m ready to get out of that.

Dan Rochon05:50

Well, as you might imagine, businesses, they live and die on sales. And if you really wanna sell, you have to understand that it’s not about you. It’s about the other person. It’s about the way that they see the world. Teach to sell is a way to be able to build trust and gain influence by first connecting with them energetically, secondly, asking adept questions to really discover what is their true intention, what is their true fear, internally, external, what’s their true desire internally, externally, and then actively listening to them.

06:30And so when you’re able to use teach to sell as a way to be able to build trust and gain influence by first connecting with them, then asking adept questions, then actively listening, and then showing them how to think so they can get what they want, then that’s gonna lead them to feel inspired to follow your lead, which ultimately will help them to get what they want, and then help you to get what you want.

Loida Velasquez06:54

Absolutely. So what do you think right now is the biggest mistake that agents are doing? Especially if they wanna start transitioning into this mindset or maybe they’re just reading off of a script, they’re not really listening. What is that shift that they need to start making?

Dan Rochon07:11

It is to understand that it’s not about you. It is to understand… And by the way, you as a real estate professional, you owe it to your clients to do your job every single day. What is your job? Write this down if you’re listening. There’s five things to your job description. Number one is to lead generate.

07:34I bet Vulcan7 may be able to help you with that. Number two is to convert your leads to meet with you. Number three is to meet with them for the purpose to get hired. Number four is negotiate. Number five is to practice your script and role play. So again, that’s lead generate, lead convert, go on appointments to get hired, negotiate, practice your script and role play.

07:59So as a professional, you owe it to your clients to do your job. Why? Because if I’m worried about how I’m gonna pay my bills, how much service can I provide to my client? I’m worried about me rather than them if I don’t have business. So you owe it to your clients to be able to, on a daily basis, five days a week, one to three hours a day, to go find business.

08:29Now, does that mean you have to call expires or FSBO? No, not necessarily. Or do YouTube marketing or podcasts like what we’re doing right now? No, not at all. But what it does mean, it means that you have to be able to identify, what is my superpower? What is it that I love doing, first. Then, what are all the ways that I could do business?

08:54And then you match the two. So whatever it is, your superpower, whatever it is that you enjoy doing, identify that first, the behavior, the things that you like to do, and then what are the options to be able to get business? And now I got my game plan. So now that I have my game plan, I’m gonna pair the two of those, and now I’m going to, for one to three hours a day, because I owe it to my clients, to be able to find new business.

09:18And now when I have a pipeline that is full, that’s how I’ve had no broke months since 2008, by following that recipe I just gave you, by the way, now I can always focus on my clients and their needs first. Because I’m never worried about how am I gonna pay my mortgage. And so that’s why I believe that as a professional, as a real estate agent, broker, mentor, whatever you’re doing in the world, mortgage loan officer, you owe it to your clients to be able to find business every single day, five days a week.

Loida Velasquez09:50

Okay. So I wanna go back to 2008.

09:53Right? Because ever since 2008, you said, “No more broke months.” So what was your superpower? What did that look like for you in terms of your prospecting, how you were generating leads, how you cracked this code and you’re like, “You know what? I finally figured it out, what I need to be doing and who to go after.”

Dan Rochon10:12

Yeah. Well, first you have to understand what was going on in 2008. Well, the market was really hard. It was hard to find business. There was doom and gloom in that time. Which by the way, sort of reminds me of today, just a different doom and gloom.

10:29And the difference is today you have AI, you’ve got technology, big data that are overlaid into that challenging times. But when I was first licensed, at first I was trying to convince, and what I recognized was is that convincing doesn’t work. The real power is in guiding others to see the best path for themselves.

10:56And so Teach to Sell is about guiding conversations in a way that empowers people to make the decisions that serve them. So early on in my career, I identified my superpower as being able to communicate in a way that is a guide. To be able to communicate in a way that the top performers do, where I connect first and then I ask adept questions, and I actively listen.

11:23And then I teach others how to think so that they can get what it is that they want. And it’s in that order, and that’s the recipe. And so for me, a lot of that’s been on video, in podcasts, in advertisements that we do online. The majority of my business has come from when things have been tough.

11:45And I’ve been able to take that same recipe, I’ve been able to apply it in 2008 for short sales when I was educating the consumer on how to be able to avoid foreclosure. I was educating the banks on how to be able to sell their assets, and it was always from a place of educating. Now, that’s my superpower.

12:07But what I recognize is that we all have a little bit of that within ourselves. We all have experience in our lives, that we can use that experience that we have, and then we can parlay that into helping other people. But again, first you’ve gotta be able to recognize it’s about them, not you.

Loida Velasquez12:27

So what would you tell someone who’s listening or watching this and they’re like, “You know what? I just feel like maybe I’m not good enough because I don’t have enough experience. How do I overcome that feeling?”

Dan Rochon12:41

So you mentioned a little about the feeling, and there’s a thing called the self-coaching model.

12:46And in the self-coaching model, it’s the order of how do you change your feelings? So the feeling that you’re mentioning is the number one demon. It’s that thing that whispers in your ear and says, “You’re not good enough. You suck. What are you thinking?” And that again, those are thoughts and feelings.

13:06And so if you consider the self-coaching model, if you write this down, if you’re taking notes, and imagine you have a blank piece of paper and we’re gonna draw a clock. And on that clock, at the noon o’clock position, the 12 o’clock position, you’re gonna write down the word circumstance. We’ll get back to that here in a second.

13:23In the 2 o’clock position, you’re gonna write down the word thought. In the 4 o’clock position, you’re gonna write down the word feelings. We’ll get back to those in a second. In the 7 o’clock position, you’re gonna write down the word actions. And in the 11 or 10 o’clock position, you’re gonna write down the word result.

13:44And so now it goes from a clock from the top going clockwise, from the top of circumstance, to thoughts, to feelings, to actions, to results, back to circumstance. And now write an arrow in between each one of those words so that it literally is a clock. And what you’ll notice is that you’ve got a closed loop.

14:01You’ve got, like you can’t… It’s hard to break that loop. And by the way, that’s the reason why we get the same results over and over and over again, is because of that closed loop. But what you just mentioned, and the question being is, if I feel that I’m not good enough, recognize where that is on that clock I just gave you.

14:22If I feel that I’m not good enough, that’s in the feelings. Well, what happens before the feelings? It is a thought. So it’s the thoughts that we can manage rather than the feelings because the feelings are a result of the thought. Now, if you recognize that your thoughts are not empowering you, if you recognize that your thoughts are not serving you and you have bad thoughts that are saying, “I’m not worthy,” then look at what happens before the thought.

14:49It’s your circumstance. So now you have an opportunity to change your circumstance. You could do so through things like, and I go through this in the book Teach to Sell: Why Top Performers Never Sell and What They Do Instead. I go through this step by step, give you exercises. But if you look at what happens before the thought, it’s the circumstance.

15:06So how do you change your circumstance? You can do things like meditation, affirmations, visualizations, prayer, reading, listening to great podcasts like the show that you’re listening to right now. You could be able to change your relationships. Exercise. These are the things that when you do these, you can’t necessarily relate the way that exercising will help you to become a better salesperson, but it does because when you exercise you get more blood, you get more positive chemicals going through your body and now you have better thoughts.

15:41And when you have better thoughts you have better feelings. And that’s the method to be able to fight the demon of I’m not worthy. It all starts with what are you programming yourself?

Loida Velasquez15:52

I think anyone that’s watching this, hopefully you have drawn out that clock, or even go somewhere, Canva, print it out, put it in front of you.

16:02Because everything that you mentioned, I think many times we know we feel a certain way, but seeing it visually of what we can relate and how we can change it, even going back to the circumstances, many times agents say, “Oh, I don’t feel like I’m good enough,” but then the people around them are also negative.

16:20They’re not empowering them or lifting them or making them grow in this business. So of course you’re probably gonna feel the way that you feel.

Dan Rochon16:29

Yeah. And that’s about choosing about who… if you hang out… One, so I have this bad habit. I don’t embrace it very often, about maybe once every six weeks or two months.

16:40My friend Frasier, he’s a bad influence on me. He’ll invite me out to go have a cigar. Well, I have a good habit, and my good habit is I go to the gym nearly every day, five to seven days a week. And one day I went out with Frasier, and we’re sitting in the cigar bar and I look around me and everybody is fat and out of shape.

16:58The next day I go to the gym, and I’m thinking, like, I’m in the cigar bar, and I think I am the most in shape guy in the entire planet. I go to the gym the next day and I’m average at best. But what I recognized was if I hang out more often with my gym friends than with my cigar friends, then I’m gonna be more healthy.

17:17My body’s gonna show it up differently. I’m going to look physically fit. I’m not gonna be overweight and out of shape like the gentleman at the cigar bar were. All right? No judgment, it’s just understanding that your environment will impact who you become and who you are.

Loida Velasquez17:34

Day or two or a week, and then it’s like, “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow,” or, “It doesn’t work.”

17:40When it comes to lead generation and consistency, in this business we hear it all the time, agents try something for a day or a week or a month. And then they stop and there’s shiny objects and switching things up. How important is consistency and how can we start to be more consistent?

17:59What tips do you have for agents in that sense?

Dan Rochon18:03

Loida, you just described what’s called the valley of despair. And if you could imagine that… Let’s do a bar chart this time, where there’s a parallel or I guess a perpendicular line and a parallel line. And on that perpendicular line, that’s going to represent from the bottom to the top energy.

18:21And then the parallel line from the left to the right’s gonna represent time. And at the top of that parallel line, at the very, very top left, you start with what’s called a blind optimism. I’m gonna do YouTube, I’m gonna go open houses, I’m gonna go knock on doors, and I am freaking optimistic that this is going to work.

18:41And then as time goes from the left to the right, what happens to your energy? It goes from optimism to pessimism. So the energy goes down as the time plays out. And at some point, you get below a threshold of despair. And then what happens is you watch a webinar, you watch a class or whatever the case may be, and you have a new great idea.

19:05And that new great idea brings you all the way back at the top, starting over at blind optimism. And that’s what happens to us over and over and over again because the challenge that we have as a real estate agent is from today till tomorrow of the next closing is a 90-day cycle. So if you’re not willing to do something for at least 90 to 180 days, you’re not gonna get dividends on it.

19:35You’re not going to get a return on it. And what’s gonna happen is you’re 45, 60 days in on it, you’ve been doing the activity, and you haven’t gotten the return yet, and something else comes and you say, “Well, I’m gonna start over.” Well, you’re literally starting over from day zero. So that 60 days that you just did doing YouTube videos that you’re no longer going to do… at least with the YouTube, it’s gonna stay out there online, so at least you got that, but you’re not going to be able to continue to build it. So the question being is how do I gain habits?

20:07How do I gain consistency? How do I stay in the activity? That goes back to what I suggested first. What do you like doing? And that’s the reason why I suggest what do you like doing and understanding your superpower first because if you don’t like doing it, you won’t. But if you do like doing it, it doesn’t seem like work.

20:31And now you can train yourself, if I’m gonna do something, if I’m gonna go network, ’cause I love networking, if I’m gonna go do pies on Thursdays to all my past clients, if I love doing that, that’s what I’m going to do. If I love doing open houses, that’s what I love doing. If I love cold calling, that’s what I love doing.

20:49Whatever it is that you love doing, start there first and now you’ll have that pattern. And don’t forget that that cycle of blind optimism to earned optimism takes you breaking through to being able to get to the other side of that 90 days, so now you have your first closing. But guess what?

21:09You’ve got to do it five days a week. You’ve got to continue lead generating, ’cause that’s the other thing that agents do. They lead generate, they get two to three clients, and then they stop lead generating because they believe that servicing that client is more important. But then it goes back to what I said before.

21:25Guess what? If you got nobody else in your pipeline, are you really serving that client? And then you get one to three closings in February. And guess what? You got nothing in March, nothing in April, nothing in May, and then it starts back up in June. Nothing July, August, September. You get a couple in October, et cetera.

Loida Velasquez21:43

Yeah. So you’ve written this book Teach to Sell, which is why top salespeople never sell and what they do instead. Tell us where the idea came to write this book and tell us more about this book and obviously how people can find it, because it’s applicable to just anyone.

Dan Rochon22:04

It is. I wrote the book specifically for salespeople, entrepreneurs, and for business-minded people. And despite its name, Teach to Sell, it’s not about selling at all. It’s about what happens when you stop trying to convince somebody and start guiding them to making their own best decisions. And the journey of Teach to Sell goes through a hero’s journey, and the hero of the book is the reader.

22:31The antagonist of the book is not worthy. And so it goes through from chapter one to the final chapter of going through the four pillars of sales, which is number one is to believe in yourself. Number two is to be able to find business, so that’s lead generation. Number three is to be able to convert people to meet with you.

22:55That’s conversion. And to be able to build an organization and lead it. And my definition of leadership is to be able to teach somebody how to think so they can get what they want. And so the book guides people through using exercises, using stories, using the hero’s journey of walking the reader through how can a formerly drunk waiter have no broke months for almost 20 years, and how can you do the same?

23:27And I’m gonna show you and tell you how to do it when you get the book. It’s coming out early next year by Simon & Schuster. I’m very grateful that I’ve been picked up by one of the top five publishing companies. And for those who pre-order the book, ’cause my intention is to sell 40,000 books during the first two weeks once it’s published, and I’m giving away a free course.

23:48It’s a $10,000 digital media course. If you go to www.teachtosellbook.com, that’s teachtosellbook.com, you’ll get four classes for free when you order the book, and that’s a gift from me to your audience.

Loida Velasquez24:04

Awesome, so teachtosellbook.com.

Dan Rochon24:07

That’s right.

Loida Velasquez24:07

So anyone that wants to pre-order, that’s the website. Any other links or any other places they can go, or if they wanna find you and connect with you, where can they do that?

Dan Rochon24:17

Dan Rochon, R-O-C-H-O-N. Google me and you will find me on all the social medias. The official website is www.nobrokemonths.com, but the easiest way for me to be able to help you is for you to get the book, teachtosellbook.com, teachtosellbook.com, and I look forward to being a guide in your life, to being able to help you to be able to get from where you are to where you want to be and having no broke months.

Loida Velasquez24:43

Awesome, and if you get the book, make sure you take a picture, tag Dan on all social media platforms. We gotta spread the word about this book, because I think everything that’s in there is what people, especially if they’re in sales, they need to know this information. And in the last 20 minutes we briefly touched on some of the topics that you talk about in this book.

25:04I love the clock. Hopefully everyone that’s watching this is now gonna implement that or have it in front of them. But as we wrap up, what would be three things that you would say anyone that’s listening needs to do right now and implement in their business?

Dan Rochon25:18

Number one, believe in yourself. Number two, get out your schedule and right now place all your appointments on your schedule.

25:30Decide how many listing appointments do you wanna have in the next 12 months. For me, I intend to have four listing appointments every single week, 10 appointments every single week, including my buyers, the people that I coach, et cetera. And those appointments are on my schedule right now. So my job during my lead generation is to fill the blanks.

25:54So every day from 3:00 to 4:00 and then 4:30 to 5:30 are appointments. So in the morning from 9:30 to noon when I’m lead generating, my job is to input the appointments into my schedule when they’re already on that schedule. Why is that important? Because at 6:00, I’m spending time either going to the gym, hanging out with my daughter or my girlfriend, or doing something that’s special for me.

26:21I’m not working. Number three is now that you believe in yourself and now that you have it on your schedule, now go do your job one to three hours a day. Do that for five days a week. Follow that recipe and you will have no broke months.

Loida Velasquez26:36

There you go. Awesome. Well, Dan, thank you once again for coming on the show.

26:39We love having you. We’re gonna make sure to link your previous episode so that people can watch that. Put all of your links below. I know it’s gonna be a great, successful launch with your book, and so many salespeople are gonna be benefiting from this and hopefully reaching out to you and sharing their success stories after they read it.

Dan Rochon26:57

I look forward to hearing your viewers’ and your listeners’ response and how the book’s able to help them.

Loida Velasquez27:02

Awesome. All right. Thanks, Dan. And for everyone else, we’ll see you on the next one. Bye.