How Jenn Grandjean sold 50 homes her first year and breaks goals into daily work

Jenn Grandjean00:00

A lot of agents, maybe they’re successful on social media, but they have fear around going live, because it is awkward to just put your face in front of a camera and talk nonstop with no one responding to you other than a chat, right? And so I’m gonna try and help people overcome their limiting beliefs around that, and just show that you’re leaving money on the table if you’re not engaging in what’s happening.

Loida Velasquez00:28

What’s going on, everyone? Welcome back to a brand-new episode of Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors, 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’re gonna talk about goal planning and goal setting, especially for this year, 2025.

00:48So if maybe 2024 was not your best year and you wanna start to change things up, well, get your pen and paper ready, because with that being said, I’m gonna go ahead and bring on today’s guest, Jenn Grandjean. Welcome, Jenn.

Jenn Grandjean01:00

Hey. Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Loida Velasquez01:03

Yes. Now, we have had you in the past, so we’re gonna make sure to put our previous episode in the description box.

01:08But for someone that’s new, that maybe is not too familiar, just go ahead and give us a little bit about your background.

Jenn Grandjean01:13

Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been in real estate for like 13 years now, and I got started, didn’t know what real estate was going to bring me, but was super excited about it after I graduated college.

01:26I just jumped right into real estate. And so I’ve been on teams. I’ve done every single aspect of real estate you can think of, from admin assistant to transaction coordinator to a listing specialist. Worked with tons of buyers, sold hundreds of homes, been on teams, I’ve been solo. I’ve done all the things.

01:43I’ve been an operations manager for a high-producing team. And then in 2018-ish, I transitioned into being an agent on a team, and then I went off solo by myself, and then made my first hire within the first year. I hired a transaction coordinator, and then I built up my team from there.

02:02And then I started a national organization within my company, and now I coach and train real estate agents all over the place. And so that’s what I primarily spend time on. I do still sell, still help people buy and sell real estate, but my main focus is on coaching and training and helping other people be successful.

Loida Velasquez02:25

That’s so awesome. I feel like you have every type of experience that we can probably think of, from being solo to a team, operations. I wanna take it back to what you did before you got into real estate and kind of what made you get into this business.

Jenn Grandjean02:39

Yeah. Absolutely. So out of high school, I went into college, and initially I majored in business and found myself in psychology.

02:48So I actually graduated with a psychology degree. Knew that I loved helping people, have a passion for helping others and giving other people opportunity. And so that’s kind of my background and education. And I decided on real estate because, I’m like, “Okay.” I knew someone that knew someone that was like, “Hey, I think you’d be good at this.”

03:07And so I just went for it, and ultimately it was the best decision that I’ve ever made. If I could have started real estate earlier, I would have. And so basically I just went into it and learned everything that I could. And so before real estate, I was in college, so it’s kind of the first career move I made.

03:28I actually was a server before that, just to help pay bills through college and whatnot, so that gave me great experience and customer service skills and talking with people. So that actually transferred over really well to real estate. But yeah, as far as my background, that’s kind of where it all got started, and I’ve never left, so.

Loida Velasquez03:47

So when you started your real estate career, what did your prospecting, your schedule, did you have guidance? What did that all look like?

Jenn Grandjean03:55

Yeah. So fortunately, I started in real estate on a very high producing team in the area that I was in, and so I was inundated with training and sales skills, negotiation techniques, and also how to do things properly, right?

04:10Because it was a full built-out team. So we had transaction coordinators, we had admin people, we had all the things. So I really got to learn how it should run, and that’s where I really built an understanding and really valued a team. And so I love the aspects of people having different strengths and seeing how all of that works together to go further, farther, faster.

04:31And so that’s kind of where it all started for me, and what my initial experience was.

Loida Velasquez04:41

Yeah. So obviously, you’ve been in the business long enough, now you’re coaching and training agents. You have a nationwide team. So at what point in your career were you like, “You know what?

04:51I can grow this. I know what I’m doing. I can start to hire people.” Can you share more about that?

Jenn Grandjean04:57

Yeah, absolutely. So with my unique experience, in the sense that I kind of did every single role possible in real estate, I had this unique perspective that a lot of agents don’t come into the game knowing and having.

05:12And I remember the moment where… So when I first started, I valued security over opportunity going into it. ‘Cause the majority of my background, the people that I know, my family had nine to five jobs, W-2 type employees. And so security was taught, and something that I just grew up with.

05:35But as I went along, I realized, as I had a salary position, operations manager, I was working 50, 60 hours a week making what I made. And I was coaching and training other real estate agents at the time to do this, and I saw that they were working part-time and had more flexibility and were making more money than me.

05:53And I’m like, “Okay. Well, I’m literally training these people how to do this. Why wouldn’t I just do this myself to have more opportunity?” So I made the jump, and I became an agent on the team that I was on. So I moved out of operations and went into just selling, and my very first year I sold 50 homes.

06:08And so lead generation, I built my business on cold calling. And then after that year, ’cause I track everything, I looked at all the numbers, and I realized that 200, almost $250,000 was going to the team. And I’m like, “Wait, I could hire a transaction coordinator, I could have my own admin assistant, and I could buy leads, and I could do all the things that I’ve been coaching and training real estate agents to do, and I could start it on my own.”

06:35So with a lot of support, and for me it was a scary jump to do that, but at the same time it’s like, well, I know I can help people buy and sell, I can lead generate, I can do all those things. So I took a chance on myself, and that’s when I broke off and became a solo agent in 2018.

06:52And so because of the experience that I had, because I’d already done all that and helped build it, I was able to see that, okay, I need a transaction coordinator right away, and that’s the build process that I started with. And then along the way I’m like, you know what?

07:08I really enjoy helping other agents. Yes, I get fulfillment from helping people build wealth, buyers and sellers, but I will have so much more of an impact if I can help other agents. What I know today, 13 years in, I wish that there was someone like me when I first started, to help with confidence, to help with guidance and training.

07:29‘Cause there’s so many shiny objects in real estate and in business, and you can get sidetracked and get lost in all of the noise. And so that’s why I created the initial course that I did, which is Slay Your First Year in Real Estate, that anyone can purchase, but when people join my Hype Squad organization, they get that for free.

07:47All my stuff is, I cut out all the BS and all the things that don’t actually matter, and just talk about and help coach and train on the things that do, which is you gotta have self-confidence, you have to believe in yourself, have a why, and have an intrinsic motivation in order to make it and to sustain a real estate business, ’cause this is not an easy industry.

08:07And then you gotta lead generate, lead follow-up. Those three things, the confidence, lead gen, and lead follow-up, are the foundation to any real estate business. And so all of my team meetings that I do, the coaching that I do, that’s kind of the underlying foundation and principles that get infused into any topic and conversation that I talk about when I’m coaching agents.

Loida Velasquez08:29

Something that you mentioned was the shiny objects, because I think especially now, there’s so many things that agents get distracted by. So what are some of the mistakes that you’re seeing from maybe agents that wanna join your team or are in your organization? What are they doing wrong?

Jenn Grandjean08:45

Yes. So when a brand new agent comes in, right?

08:48You’re just getting licensed and you’re super excited, right? So there’s a lot of excitement and feelings of, “Okay, I can do this. This is gonna be really fun,” and all that stuff. And one of the biggest mistakes that I think agents make is that they focus on all the wrong things and the non-moneymaking activities.

09:04So they’re focused on, “Well, where’s my office gonna be?” Or, “I need headshots,” or, “I need a website,” and “I need to know contracts.” And so all of these things, while, sure, they may be important, those things don’t make you money, right? The things that make you money are conversations with people who are able to buy and sell real estate.

09:24And so I tell any agent that talks to me, asking about the Hype Squad or what is it like, I’m like, “The very first thing that I do when you get in here is we’re gonna focus on lead generation.” And all this other stuff, I’m not saying it’s not important, but you need to be making money in order to do all the other…

09:40Get a great website and spend time on creating social media content or building out beautiful marketing packets, because you can have all those things, but if you don’t have any clients, it doesn’t matter, right? So one of the biggest mistakes that I see is focusing on non-moneymaking activities.

09:56And another thing, a lot of agents that come to me, when we have conversations, they’re fearful and focused on things that just don’t actually help them in their business. This is another big thing: they’ll try a lead generation strategy for a couple weeks or a month or whatever and be like, “Oh, well, it doesn’t work.

10:19I’m not getting something.” And in real estate, it’s not an instant gratification business. It is a long game, and you have to sustain it enough. Any lead generation strategy that you pick, you’ve gotta stick with it long enough, and you have to track it in order to really determine, does this work for me or does it not?

10:36Is it not working because you just don’t have enough time in it, right? And so that, I would say, is a huge thing for real estate agents: they don’t spend enough time and actually track things to know if it actually works or if it doesn’t.

Loida Velasquez10:50

So obviously, we just started a brand new year.

10:53I mentioned it right when we started, regarding goals. If someone is watching this and they’re like, “You know what, Jenn, 2024 was not my best year, but I’m ready to kick butt this year. How can I set goals, and what should that process look like? What do I need to be analyzing?”

Jenn Grandjean11:09

Yep. I love this topic. I think it’s really, really important. I think there’s a lot of great things, and most of my coaching calls that I’ve been having with agents in December and January have been surrounded with goal setting and planning. And so I have a lot of things that I could say about it.

11:25But some of the main things in what I do with the agents that I coach and train is I like to look at the whole person. It’s not just about how much money you wanna make this year or how many transactions you wanna do. It helps to tie it into what actually motivates you. Why do you get up every single day?

11:42And it’s not even what is it about real estate that you like. What do you actually wanna do with your life? What kind of lifestyle do you wanna live? What types of people are in your influence, or are your responsibility, that you have to take care of? What do you like?

11:55What are your hobbies? Do you like to travel? All of those things. Do you have debt that you have to pay off? What are the real-life things going on that impact and can have a tie-in with your business? So I try and talk about the personal things and really truly figure out your internal why and your motivation that we hear about all the time.

12:15And then say, “Okay, so now that we know what it is that you want, the expenses that you have, the nitty-gritty of all that, now, how much do you need to make this year? How many deals would it take to have the lifestyle that you want, to go on those vacations that you wanna go to, to set aside money to pay for your kids’ college, to whatever it might be?

12:33Now let’s put a number to that.” Then all of a sudden, instead of what I hear from most agents, especially when they’re first starting, “Oh, I wanna make six figures.” Okay, well, why? Do you need six figures right now? How do we go from this just whatever random goal, and you don’t know what you don’t know, to real numbers that actually fit who you are, your lifestyle, and what you want?

12:54And so taking a look at the whole person, your entire scenario, both personally and professionally, that’s what then dictates how we do our goal planning. And then what most people find out is that it’s actually not that many deals to get to what you want, especially if you’re brand new, you’re just starting out.

13:12And so a lot of aha moments happen when we break that down. And what I like to do is it’s kind of a funnel. We’ve got the big picture goal for the year, right? Okay, I wanna sell X amount of deals, or I wanna make X amount of money. Perfect. Okay, then we go into your lead generation strategies.

13:27I recommend that most people do three. If you only have one, if that doesn’t work out, it doesn’t go very well, then you got all your eggs in one basket. If you have too many lead generation strategies and you’re trying all these different things, you’re probably not gonna do anything well.

13:41So that’s why for me, that magic number is about three, two to three, just depending. And so we build those out, and then we break it down even further into what does your daily schedule look like? What are you doing on a daily, weekly basis, so that you wake up every morning knowing exactly what you have to do in order to get to those lead generation strategies that you set out to ultimately hit your goal.

14:04And I also like to do certain checkpoints. So for example, I’ve got one agent who has some student debt that he wants to pay off. And so I’m like, “Okay, how much is that?” So we know that amount. Okay, three deals is gonna pay all of that off. How much money from each of those deals can you put into that and get that done by June next year?

14:23And so it starts to infuse and be like, “Okay, I can feasibly do… If I put aside half of my commission checks, I can get my student debt paid off within this year.” So that becomes a goal for his year: by June, I have to sell X amount of deals in order to pay off my student debt. Okay, then what’s the next one?

14:38So I like to create mini goals along the way. It’s a really, really good strategy, ’cause just having one big goal for a year is too long. Typically, you can wake up on any random day, and if you don’t feel like lead generating, it’s not close enough. You’re not close enough to that goal for it to motivate you.

14:55But if you have a quarterly goal, monthly goal, weekly goals, that’s enough to kinda keep you going. So I recommend, yes, having your yearly goal and even further beyond, but make little checkpoints and celebrate the small wins along the way to kinda keep that motivation going, since we all know that motivation wanes, and it comes and goes, and you never know how you’re gonna feel on any given day.

Loida Velasquez15:19

I feel like everything that you just said, everyone that’s watching might need to watch this two or three times and just keep on watching it, because it’s all exactly what you just mentioned, you know? Why are you doing this? A lot of times people are just like, “I wanna make this amount of money,” but what’s the reason behind it?

15:37So that’s a great thing and a great exercise. And now I kinda wanna switch to social media, because maybe someone is here watching and they’re like, “Wait, I think I’ve seen Jenn on TikTok or Instagram.” Tell us a little bit about your journey on social media and how that has helped your business.

Jenn Grandjean15:54

Yes.

15:54Okay. So I’ll be completely honest. I was one of those people that were like, “I’m a private person, and no one cares what I’m doing,” and whatever. And so I was just kinda one of those ghost people. I’d scroll the feed or look at stories, but not engage, not put my life or myself out there, because, like I said, my limiting belief was, “I’m a private person, and no one cares what I have to say or what I’m doing.”

16:17And you know what? I got really, really honest with myself, and I realized, you know what? I am giving up opportunity. I am leaving money on the table and hindering my own success by not realizing that you have to utilize social media these days. This is 2025, and if you’re not on social media, you are missing out in lots of different ways.

16:44And I knew myself, and I knew that I needed external accountability in order for me to do this. And now, I understand not everybody can go hire somebody to help keep you accountable, but I knew for me, in the stage that I was at, that I needed some outside help. And so I found the most amazing marketing director.

17:03She’s still with me today. I hired her four or five years ago, and she is a huge piece. And again, that’s also in alignment with my values of believing in a team, and that bringing in everyone’s strong point and having a mindset of collaboration over competition helps you grow further, faster, stronger.

17:21And so I was like, “I value this. I’m gonna spend money on this so that I ensure that I show up on social media how I’m supposed to, and that I do it consistently.” Because when you spend your own money and you got skin in the game, you’re more likely to do it, and I knew that from my experience in business.

17:37And so I brought her on, and she has a marketing background, and taught me a lot about video creation, content creation, how to be engaging, and what it takes in this day and age in the digital marketing space to be successful. And so I committed to showing up, to increasing and getting my skills to a level where they needed to be in order for it to be successful.

18:03Because it’s not enough to just say, “Okay, I’m gonna show up on social media, I’m gonna post here and there,” or whatever. I’m like, “No, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna spend money on this. I want it to be done well, and I want it to be done right, and I want it to actually impact people, not just do it to do it because everyone else is telling me to do it.”

18:18So that’s kinda how I got started, and then it’s just grown from there. And actually, my biggest account, the one that I’m most successful on, is TikTok. And I had an account originally. My handle was just Estate of Jenn, like it is on any other platform, and I grew it to 60,000 followers in, I think, under two years, and I got banned.

18:39And I still don’t know why I got banned. I’m like, “All I’m doing is helping people. What happened here?” So anyways, that happened, and I was sad about it for about 30 minutes, and I’m like, “All right. Well, let’s rebuild. Let’s do it again. We’ve done it once.” And so I built it back up to 20, 25,000 people in six months.

18:56So what I learned, and this is like a message for everyone, no matter what lead generation, wherever you’re at in business, right? Most millionaires go bankrupt on average seven times. And so what I’ve learned from that, and in my own experience, and just watching other successful people, is that you’re gonna hit roadblocks.

19:17You’re going to have, quote-unquote, “failures,” but it’s not a failure unless you quit. It’s a learning lesson. And now you can start from experience. If something doesn’t work, you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience, and that’s the mindset that I went into when I created my second account.

19:33Now it’s Estate of Jenn Official with the new account, and I built it in way less time the second time around. So it was a great learning lesson for me, and it doesn’t mean that there’s not struggle and there’s not days that are really, really difficult. But I actually convert more people with less followers now from TikTok than I did in my first two years of creating my original account.

Loida Velasquez20:00

So it’s all about being intentional, going back. You started creating content, but you’re intentional. ‘Cause sometimes, I see it all the time, agents are posting. It’s like, “I gotta post something today. I don’t know what it is, but I’m gonna post it.” But what’s the intention behind it?

20:13So I know that you have an event coming up that’s gonna be very beneficial for agents. So go ahead and share about that and what’s gonna be happening.

Jenn Grandjean20:22

Yes. It’s called the All-Star Summit. It’s a virtual event. And so I actually spoke at it last February, and so they’re doing it again this February.

20:31I was invited to come back and speak. And the topic this year, I’m gonna be sharing about going live for your business and how that can help you, tips and tricks on how to run a successful live. I do it every single week. Multiple times a week I go live on TikTok. I’m also gonna be going live on other platforms, since there’s some drama around TikTok, if people know.

20:52So you know what? Again, you never know. You never know when a platform’s gonna go bye-bye or whatever, but going live is a huge thing. If you notice, across multiple industries, big major players are going live, and when you see big major players starting to do similar things, that should be a clue for you of like, hmm, okay.

21:12If people who are millionaires, billionaires, whatever, are starting to do something, here’s your sign, right? Here’s your sign. And so going live, a lot of people have fear around that. Just like, I coach and train on cold calling a lot, ’cause not only did I build my business that way, but I’m coaching and training other agents to be successful in it, so I talk a lot about that.

21:33And a lot of people have fear surrounding making cold calls. A lot of agents, maybe they’re successful on social media, but they have fear around going live. Because it is awkward to just put your face in front of a camera and talk nonstop with no one responding to you other than a chat, right?

21:50And so I’m gonna try and help people overcome their limiting beliefs around that and just show that you’re leaving money on the table if you’re not engaging in what’s happening, and other content creators doing this thing that you might be afraid to do.

22:05But if you’re afraid, that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t do it, so.

Loida Velasquez22:09

So how can people sign up for that event or find out more so that they can attend?

Jenn Grandjean22:14

Yes. So if you just Google All-Star Summit, it should be there, but they’re gonna be releasing a place to buy the tickets and all of that stuff, I believe, as of February.

22:26It’s gonna be early February. I don’t know the exact dates yet. But I will be posting about it for sure. But the event will be marketed all throughout the beginning of February, ’cause it’s happening about mid-February, when the actual content will be released, and they’ll have specific days for all the speakers and everything.

22:44So keep on the lookout for that. You can follow my accounts to find out about it. But yes, I think February 1st is when the majority of the content will be out there for people to sign up.

Loida Velasquez22:56

Awesome. And we have, obviously, your links right under your name, but in case someone wants to reach out, or maybe they’re listening to this on a podcast, how can they get ahold of you?

Jenn Grandjean23:05

Absolutely. So obviously, I love TikTok. So TikTok is estateofjennofficial. All other social media platforms, like Instagram, X, LinkedIn, all the stuff, that is estateofjenn. And then I’ve got my website, estateofjenn.com, as well if you wanna check it out. I’ve got courses for agents, a blog, and different resources as well.

Loida Velasquez23:26

Awesome. Well, Jenn, thank you so much for coming on here once again. We’d love to have you back. We’re gonna make sure to put your previous episode in the description box below, send people your way. And yes, thanks again. I’m sure that we’ll be doing this again in the future.

Jenn Grandjean23:39

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Loida Velasquez23:41

All right. Bye, everyone.