How Debbie DeGrote went from 36 to 156 deals a year by raising her activity

Debbie DeGrote00:00

I guess the lesson I learned by starting in the business in a market that was so terrible is that I just had to adjust the dial of more activity. If I would make more calls, have more conversations, meet more people, on any day that I did not have an appointment, make sure I got in front of one or two people, knocking on the door of an expired or visiting with a vendor who could give me referrals.

00:36If I just cranked up the activity, I could fill the void, right? If there’s 40% less listings but I do 40% more to hunt them, I can close that gap.

Ren Jones00:57

Welcome everybody to Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors. I’m Ren Jones, CEO at Vulcan7 in Cincinnati.

Loida Velasquez01:05

I am Loida Velasquez, out here in Miami, Florida.

Ren Jones01:10

And our guest, let me introduce our guest, and hopefully I’ll get this right. Amazing. When she first started in real estate at age 18, and not many people do that, within four or five years with the largest franchise in the world, she was number one, after four years at age 18, number one in Century 21 Los Angeles area, and then number three in the United States, and number eight in the world for real estate sales.

01:44I mean, that is just amazing. Amazing. She has co-led one of the largest real estate companies in the United States earlier on. Very, very involved in leadership with the Keller Williams franchise. Started her own company, Forward Coaching. I think one of her business partners also is Mr. Ben Kinney, as many of you know.

02:05I don’t know anybody that has the wisdom to run this real estate business as Debbie DeGrote, from now Newport Beach. Is that correct?

Debbie DeGrote02:15

Correct. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you guys. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Ren Jones02:20

Good. Welcome. Welcome. So we have a lot of people that watch this looking for a way to get their stride.

02:26And they’re in a variety of places. We have people that are doing 80, 100 transactions that just wanna get to 150. We have people that would like to do eight to 12 this year, and perhaps on the listing side of the business as opposed to accidentally on the listing side of the business.

02:46Wanted to see if you could come in and give them a few ideas, hacks, secrets, and get them moving north.

Debbie DeGrote02:56

Yeah. And what a good time to have this conversation, because as we all know, inventory across the country is down by 40%. In fact, Ren, you and I were talking earlier, my first year in real estate was a very challenging market.

03:12Fixed rates went from nine to 18 in 12 months. And had I had more qualifications, I might’ve left the business. But at 18, I’m like, “Hey, I’m all in.” And thank goodness for that.

Ren Jones03:25

From a low of 9%, everybody.

Debbie DeGrote03:28

A low of 9%, yeah. And so I think the reality of the market right now is whether you’re new to the business or a seasoned veteran, we’re all feeling the pain of being able to find those listings and make the buyers happy.

03:45My husband’s 30 plus years in the business. He’s a full-time agent. My daughters are licensed, so we are all in. We are a real estate family, so I get it. And I think when I was thinking about what could I share that would be the most helpful… And again, this goes across every level of production.

04:06As I travel around the country and have the opportunity in a year to be in front of thousands of great agents, and you know, Ren, I’ve been 16 years selling, 22 years coaching or running coaching companies. I’m well past 100,000 private coaching sessions. So I have a pretty good insight into what agents say is their challenge.

04:32And one of the challenges is they will often have one or two things that they do very well, that many of you do very well to get your business, and yet when a market becomes stressed, it’s not enough, right? I think of it like a wheel. It has multiple spokes and it rolls along nicely, but if you lose a few of those spokes, it’s a pretty bumpy ride.

05:02So my advice would be take those things you do well and do a deep dive into those and say, “Okay, well, but where are the gaps?” So I’ll give you an example, Ren. I always tease the audience when I’m speaking on stage that I can always find a gap. If they tell me they do something so well, I can find a gap, and I take on the challenge for somebody to come up and test me.

05:28And great guy here in Irvine, Fred, he jumped up on stage, he said, “You won’t find a gap in my process of working my past clients and sphere.” And I’ll tell you what, everyone, he started going through all the things he did to work his past clients and sphere, and it was impressive and very complete.

05:51And I actually had that moment of, “Oh, maybe I won’t find a gap.” And then at the end of it, I said, “Wait. Fred, I didn’t hear you say that you called them.” “Oh, yeah. That’s the one thing I need to do, but I don’t do.” So there’s always a gap. And I always tell clients that’s the bad news, but it’s also the good news, because that means you still have hope to squeeze a little bit more out of your areas of specialty.

06:25But then I can pretty much promise you that right now in this market, that still will not be enough. And that’s why then you wanna add a third, a fourth, a fifth lead generation lever.

Ren Jones06:37

What are you finding are common ones to add?

Debbie DeGrote06:41

Well, everyone’s talking right now about finding the must-move sellers.

06:49And that sounds wonderful. It maybe isn’t as easy as it sounds, but there are some logical things. Our clients here at Forward are truly some of the best in North America, and they’re really looking at some of the niches that maybe we pushed aside when the market was busier. Things like divorce, because divorce filings, statistically 21% will list the property within a year.

07:16So whether you’re working with divorce attorneys or you’re contacting people who have filed for divorce, which, I probably wouldn’t say, “Hey, I know you filed for divorce.” That spouse doesn’t know yet, but it could be just a, “Hey, we have buyers for your area. Would you like to talk about an off-market sale or selling your home for the highest price possible?”

07:40Absentee owners, many of our clients are working and targeting out-of-state absentee owners. We do work with a lot of luxury and resort markets, so it might look like that vacation home or Airbnb owner, or it might just be a regular rental, right? Because you may have these absentee owners that are thinking, “It’s kind of a lot of trouble.

08:03I’m maybe a little tired of it. I don’t know where the market’s going. I could get my cash.” So we encourage maybe a letter that says, “If you’d like to sell your property to a buyer willing to pay a fair and reasonable price, potentially purchase as is, and maybe even accept the tenant you already have in place, please contact us.”

08:28‘Cause what do absentee owners want? Quick and easy sale, right? They don’t want to deal with that. Notice of defaults. We have a great client here in Orange County, Robert Barksdale, a Realty ONE Group agent. He is phenomenal at notice of default. And he actually goes out and knocks the doors and offers to help.

08:50If they can keep their home, great. He adds them to his nurture campaigns, helps them in the future. But many right now have significant equity, but they’re still in default, and he’s helping them at the very last minute save those properties. So some markets have a few expireds and canceleds starting to show up, which you know that’s a favorite, right, Ren?

09:14Those expireds, those are awesome.

Ren Jones09:17

A lot of fun, and they’re doing just really well this year.

Debbie DeGrote09:21

And that was

09:21one

09:21of the-

Ren Jones09:22

Compared to last year, that it’s not quite as aggressive as last year, so it’s

09:26stronger.

Debbie DeGrote09:28

Well, it is. And that was one of my biggest areas of opportunity, was expired

09:33listings. And at one of the points in one of the more challenging markets, I think I listed something like 20 in one month. I only sold 13 of them, ’cause I probably overpriced the rest. Point being, though, what a great niche. And I actually learned to get a little better. I’ve noticed many of our luxury clients broke into the luxury market by working expireds.

09:58So you guys have awesome, great tools for them to do that. I think the best on the planet.

Ren Jones10:04

And we have T2,

10:11and we have NODs too.

Debbie DeGrote10:12

Yep. NODs, everything. That has actually become standard with our service. Yeah. And I think that’s the key. You’ve got to be smart. For an example, I said to someone the other day, they said, “I’m doing circle prospecting.” You and I, Ren, used to call it cold calling.

10:25“But I’m doing circle prospecting, and I’m getting nothing. I’m making like 500 contacts. I’m getting nothing.” And I said, “Well, are you looking at the area where you’re calling? What is the turnover rate there right now?” So they checked with their title rep, they came back, ’cause they were here in California, title rep could run a filter.

10:48It was less than 1%, but only 15 minutes away was a pocket market where it was 13%. So wouldn’t it make sense to be a little more strategic, even if you’re going to cold knock or cold call, and go to the areas that may not be as beautiful or as lovely, but they have actual turnover? Right.

Ren Jones11:15

Right, right. And in some of the states that you’re working in, or in California anyway, you have title companies that will provide that.

11:23In the rest of the states, it’s a little more difficult to figure that out. But you can figure it out. There are areas like you say, like in our city here, areas that if you’re relocating in with, in our case, larger employers here in town, there are areas that they direct them to go to.

11:41And so every three or four or five years, people are in and out.

Debbie DeGrote11:45

Well, and you kinda know just by working the market.

11:49This is a neighborhood everybody loves to be in, but they gotta die before you can buy a house there. Or you can even do things like, if it isn’t a non-disclosure state, you could even just run a market evaluation on an area and say, “Well, how big is it and how many homes sold?”

12:08But again, just really thinking through what are the opportunities that might make the most sense for me. And also, one of the things we do well here at Forward Coaching is we really believe in the custom approach to coaching, which, I would encourage you guys to take the custom approach to choosing your lead gen levers.

12:31And here’s what I mean by that. You all have a different personality. You have different strengths and talents, so there are certain new lead gen activities that you might choose that you simply won’t stick with, because it’s just not who you are. Or there are others you might choose, and while we all have to get uncomfortable doing things that are hard or different, they would be a fit for you.

13:00So Ren, for an example, someone who’s a very high I personality, high influencer, they’d be so naturally suited to networking or even door knocking. But if you take someone super high C, super analytical, they would potentially be more comfortable working with those absentee owners, right?

Ren Jones13:23

Agree with you.

13:23That analytical personality would do well with absentees, and an expressive high I, that energy’s so attractive, all they have to do is get in the way.

Debbie DeGrote13:35

Yeah. So you find your things, right? But the bottom line is, I think, accepting the reality that right now it takes grit, and you’re gonna have to grind a little.

13:49It’s not going to be a lot of fun for the rest of the year. We are moving through this, though, and our Goldman Sachs advisors have very positive things to say about some improvements next year, in 2025 being game on. So it’s not gonna last forever. Every cycle feels like it will. So whenever you’re watching this, we may be in a whole new ballgame, because it changes every day.

14:16But I guess the lesson I learned by starting in the business in a market that was so terrible is that I just had to adjust the dial of more activity. If I would make more calls, have more conversations, meet more people, on any day that I did not have an appointment, make sure I got in front of one or two people, knocking on the door of an expired or visiting with a vendor who could give me referrals.

14:48If I just cranked up the activity, I could fill the void, right? If there’s 40% less listings but I do 40% more to hunt them, I can close that gap.

Ren Jones15:01

Right. The good news, commission checks are a lot bigger than three years ago, yet there are, what, 25% less transactions this year.

15:12How should they structure their day? ‘Cause a lot of people in our business, the alarm goes off, they get something to eat, and they just do whatever occurs to them. How would you have somebody newer in the game structure their day in blocks?

Debbie DeGrote15:29

Well, like a real job. I think now more than ever.

15:34I remember the first day I came to the real estate office at the age of 18. At 11:30, my broker said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m an independent contractor.” He said, “No. If you work here, you will come to work at 8:00 AM.” And when my daughters got their licenses, I sit here at the corner, I could see the parking lot.

15:54I said, “Your car better be in those spots by 8:00 AM.” And so my advice would be approach it like a business day. Take your very important things for your family, the things that you must do, your non-negotiables.

16:14And take those out of your calendar. And with what you have left, you structure in, as we’ve all heard a million times, get that lead generation and that lead follow-up time blocked.

16:27Does it have to be in the morning? No, it doesn’t. However, your energy and focus is higher and there are less things to interrupt it. And my broker told me three hours on the phone in the morning. Okay. You take a break, you go preview property because you must have product knowledge, and then you go knock on doors for two hours in the afternoon, and then if you don’t have any appointments, you come back and get on the phone.

16:56See, for all of you, though, I’m not saying that’s your prescription,

17:01but you need to have a prescription, right?

Ren Jones17:04

I guess the prescription, and would it be fair to say that any prescription, let’s say they were on a coaching call with someone with Forward Coaching, would it be fair to say the end game, no matter how they get there, is to be in conversation with this many people each

17:22day?

Debbie DeGrote17:22

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because just imagine, where there are people, there are leads, and absolutely we should be speaking to the people we know well, the people who will support you in your business. But there are a lot of people out there in the world you don’t know, and some of them have real estate needs.

17:42So a phrase we’re using a lot here is expand your range. So that might be I’m working a bigger market. Expand your range, reach, and influence. So I’ve gotta maybe work different segments. I might have to work a bigger market. I might have to work a different price point, and I have to get to more people.

18:08The good news, though, about all of this is what happened for me, Ren, ’cause I was just basic. Nothing special. But when I learned to do that in a challenging market, and then the market changed, I mean, my business went from 36 deals a year to 55 to 75 to 110 to 156. It snowballed because I used great technology like yours.

18:39I built some good skills finally. But the habits that the down cycle forced me to create just became who I was and how I did business and my pattern, and it just went boom, boom, boom, boom, just went crazy.

Ren Jones18:56

So the down cycle actually preps you for a nice explosion after a couple years, ’cause you’re doubling down on your efficiency.

Debbie DeGrote19:05

For sure.

Ren Jones19:05

What’s our quota?

Loida Velasquez19:07

Yeah. We’ve been talking about all of these lead generations, the structure of the day. I quickly want you to touch on mindset, because I think that’s extremely important, and that’s sometimes what stops a lot of agents from actually picking up the phone, going to prospect, calling expireds.

19:26So what would you tell an agent that wants to do it, but something is still holding them back?

Debbie DeGrote19:31

They really need your help. When I used to call my expireds, I’d say that to myself. They really need my help. They really need my help. They really need my help. So when they picked up the phone, my mind was in the right place, right?

19:46And someone said to me the other day, “I’m so good when I get to the table, but I just don’t like to prospect.” And I said, “But you realize that is 80% of the job.” Right? If you can’t do that 80%, it’s gonna be hard to get to the table. And I think working on skill and scripts, knowing your market, and being an expert at the properties and the data in your market, those things give you tremendous confidence.

20:18And when you really do believe in what you do, and that it helps people, you’re more willing to pick up that phone, right? And I think everyone watching here probably sincerely cares about helping people and being of value. It’s good, great service to their community. If they don’t talk to you, they might get connected to someone else who’s not gonna help them, who’s not gonna take great care of them.

20:46But we gotta cut the negative. Ren, you and I have talked about this for years. Don’t watch so much news. Be careful who you’re spending time with. Watch your own self-talk. Read great books. Every single one of us here today, every one of us has bad days. Every one of us has doubts and fears.

21:07When I see super salespeople, it’s not that they don’t have fears and worries, it’s just how they manage themselves through that, right?

Ren Jones21:19

So we need to reshuffle the deck, look at who our friends are, who we’re associating with, how we’re connecting with the outside world, to have shaped our mindset.

Debbie DeGrote21:29

Right.

Ren Jones21:29

‘Cause there are… What is it? Crabs in a bucket. Isn’t that what they say?

Debbie DeGrote21:33

Yes. And that’s a real thing. I actually went on YouTube to check that, if one… all the crabs could get out of the bucket, but the other crabs pull them back. Someone said to me the other day, “But what if I’m married to someone negative?

21:46Should I divorce them?” I said, “I’m not telling you to divorce them. I’m just, don’t talk business with them.”

21:56I know she didn’t mean to divorce you. Yeah, I’m not gonna tell you that. But the one thing, though, I said this to my daughters the other day. I said, “This is still an industry that offers amazing and unlimited possibilities and opportunities.”

22:12And we all just need a little help, a coach, a mentor. My broker was an amazing mentor for me. We’re always happy here at Forward to answer your questions, even if you just wanna email me, debbie@forwardcoaching.com, and say, “Hey, I’ve got a random question,” or, “Do you have a script for this?”

22:32Because, Ren, I think we roll the same way, that you have to pay it forward. You have to give back to this business. It’s not all about just earning money from each other. So if you guys need my help, send me an email. Happy to help you.

Ren Jones22:48

I like how you said that, “Pay it forward.”

Debbie DeGrote22:50

Yeah. Oh, I didn’t even think about that.

22:53That was a total accident. I’m gonna have to keep that, though. I think you need to keep that, yeah.

Ren Jones22:58

That’s great. Anything else you wanna share? Any events or anything else they need to know about?

Debbie DeGrote23:01

Well, if you’re watching this any time before September 12th, we have twice a year a big annual Built How events. They are entrepreneurial conferences for the real estate industry, but we bring in amazing guest speakers, incredible panels, all topics covered, wealth building, taxes, market predictions for the year ahead.

23:25If you’re watching this after September 12th, just go to BuiltHow.com, because you’ll see the upcoming date of our next one. We do two a year. We have about 3,000 people attend, all brands, all types of production, from all parts of the country. So we’d love to see you all there. And Ren, I hope you’re gonna join us, and Loida.

23:47We got tickets waiting for you guys.

Ren Jones23:51

We’re on our way. We’re on our way. This has been a real treat, Debbie, and the best thing they could do is get involved. So reach out, debbie@forwardcoaching.com. And we’ll go from there. Have a great day.

Debbie DeGrote24:04

Yeah. And thank you. Thank you, all my clients, thank you for Vulcan7.

24:10It changes their world. So thank you, guys.

Ren Jones24:14

Pretty good. Good, good, good.

Debbie DeGrote24:15

All right. Bye bye.