How Nick Grodzicki built a South Florida business on 1,200 calls a day

Ren Jones00:05

It’s that time.

00:08Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who’s consistently taking several listings each month, and we have an exciting guest today. We encourage you to take notes and apply as much of their knowledge as quickly as you can, and then use the copycat principle. Before I introduce our guests, let me introduce my, well, let me introduce my co-host from San Diego, Carley Hathaway. That’s carleyhathaway.com. Hi, Carley. How’s the real estate business?

Carley Hathaway00:39

Hi Ren. Hi everybody. Real estate is great in beautiful, sunny San Diego. Things are moving very fast right now.

Ren Jones00:46

Great. That’s a magical place. Before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everyone, we are also simulcasting the show on the private lead gen group on Facebook. They have 52,000 members and so we have a large audience there today as well. And we will be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to the lead gen folks. Let me welcome our guest today from paradise, Miami, Palm Beach, that whole area. Mr. Nick Grodzicki. I didn’t get that right. Nick Grodzicki.

Nick Grodzicki01:20

Perfect.

Ren Jones01:21

I did it?

Nick Grodzicki01:21

Yeah. Hi everyone.

Carley Hathaway01:25

Hi Nick, how are you?

Nick Grodzicki01:26

I’m doing excellent. Thanks for asking. Here in, like you said, sunny paradise South Florida.

Ren Jones01:31

It’s a wonderful thing. Now you were on a team and then you discovered Vulcan7, you broke off on your own. How’s that going? How long’s that been since you did that?

Nick Grodzicki01:43

So when I first got into the real estate business, I’ll give you a little background on myself. I went to school for business, did two years in sales, but prior to joining the real estate business. Originally from Michigan, so five states north of sunny South Florida and came down, so it was March of 2019 when I got into the real estate business, joined a top producing team off a million dollar listing, Miami. And from there right away they had put me into using Vulcan7. And I went down to South Florida with absolutely zero contacts, not knowing anything about South Florida other than visiting Miami maybe once or twice for spring break in college. And from there, Vulcan7 just has really tremendously helped me become successful in the real estate business in a short time.

Carley Hathaway02:31

We’ve heard that from other agents too. It’s like when you’re starting over, you can’t use your sphere of influence. You can’t call friends and family. You can’t work like that. You have to start from scratch. So it’s really nice that you did it.

Ren Jones02:44

But there’s the mixed blessing, Carley, because if you did that, you would sell less.

Carley Hathaway02:49

Exactly. That’s true. That’s true. So how long have you been in Florida?

Nick Grodzicki02:55

I moved to Florida March of 2019, so a little over a year now.

Carley Hathaway02:58

Okay. And what’s your goal for this year?

Nick Grodzicki03:02

My goal for 2020 is to sell $20 million worth of real estate and utilizing some of the past connections I made from Vulcan7 in 2019, but also just really hardcore prospecting with Vulcan7 moving forward throughout 2020, and being a long-term customer. I mean if it wasn’t for Vulcan7, I wouldn’t be where I am today in the real estate business.

Ren Jones03:23

Good. So that’d be like 20 $1 million homes or 40 half million homes? Or is it just four $5 million homes? Is that what it is?

Nick Grodzicki03:33

Yeah, I was going to say I like to work smarter, not harder. So I target anything a million plus. So yeah, I mean it would be better to do one $45 million house of course, but anything a million above is my target market.

Carley Hathaway03:47

Good. We like it. So let’s talk about schedule. I always like to start with this. Can we start with your morning routine and who you start calling in the morning and things like that?

Nick Grodzicki03:57

Yeah, absolutely. So right around 7:00 in the morning I log on to the local MLS, check to see what the expireds have been, the canceled, withdrawn properties. From there I log into the Vulcan account right around 7:30 and legally can’t start calling till 8:00 in the morning, so 8:00 in the morning is right when I jump on the dialer, start prospecting the properties after I did some preview on the properties, like I said, between 7:00 and 8:00, but jump on the dialer and typically spend 8:00 to 11 o’clock on the dialer straight, just moving forward with it and trying to get as many listing appointments as I can. And I try and set the appointments for either that day or the next day. You want to keep it as close as possible to the actual day of setting the appointment so there’s no any open time where they could cancel or reschedule the appointment.

Carley Hathaway04:50

That makes sense. Okay. And being that you are a newer agent, you’re staying on the phone for two, three hours in the morning, how difficult was that starting out? Because obviously you’re a little bit stuttery, you’re not as confident, you’re getting hung up on. How did you get past that initial difficulty?

Nick Grodzicki05:09

Yeah, absolutely. And first I want to just reiterate. So when I did first start in March, the 8:00 to 11 is my current schedule on the phones, and then I usually do 6:00 to 8:00 at night. But when I did first start in the business, I was making 1000, 1200, calls a day and it wasn’t just 8:00 to 11:00, it was 8:00 to 8:00 at night. I was constant call, call, call and basically it’s a commission based business, you get rewarded for what you put in. And so I was just calling 12 hours a day, honestly, until the dialer let me start, until the dialer took me off at night, until business started to come out of it. And then where I’m at today is three hours in the morning, two hours at night, and I try to keep the middle of my day for appointments, follow ups and everything like that. But can you repeat your question for me one more time?

Carley Hathaway05:55

Well, first of all, I love that because I mean, what else are you going to do in the beginning of your career? You don’t have other pendings, you don’t have anything else going on. Why not stay on the phones all day? So that’s a really great strategy. How did you overcome the people hanging up on you, all the nos you were getting? How did you mentally make yourself stay on the phones?

Nick Grodzicki06:16

Yeah, exactly. I mean sales is just a numbers game and it’s a mental game. So when I was in college, I had three sales internships. All of them happened to be around cold calling in different industries. And so I really developed that rhino skin as some like to call it. I mean I’ve been told lots of things. To keep it good for the air, I’ve been told lots of things. But honestly, you can’t let the nos affect you. You got to just keep going. You’re going to get that yes. And honestly, if I set one listing appointment a day, there are many days that I set a lot more than that, but if I set at least one a day, it’s a numbers game again. So at the end of the month, I call seven days a week by the way. Saturdays and Sundays are actually the best because no one else is calling.

06:58But if you do 30 days of the month or 31, whatever. And then at the end of the month, if you just did one a day, that’s 31 appointments, and if only five of them sign and they’re all million dollars, that’s 5 million in inventory and five new listings a month. So like I said, I was calling 1000, 1200 people a day when I first got started, and it’ll work. It’s just get past those nos, don’t let it personally affect you, and continue to get that yes.

Carley Hathaway07:25

What a great attitude and mindset. I love it. You’re just charged through and what did you call it? Rhino skin? Thick skin?

Nick Grodzicki07:31

Yeah, I called it the rhino skin. Don’t let anyone affect you. No one can affect your personal energy. If you do, then they have control, you don’t.

Carley Hathaway07:42

I like it. And you see the end goal, you’re like, “Okay, that’s $5 million. Just keep going, keep pushing through.”

Nick Grodzicki07:48

Right, exactly.

Ren Jones07:50

I love it, I mean just because it’s such a mental game and to make 12 hours worth of calls. You’re in that one quarter of 1% that can mentally handle that. That is the biggest challenge because most humans after about two hours of calls feel pretty full.

Nick Grodzicki08:14

Right. I mean those were my sales internships as well were just call, call, call and like I said, between three internships and at first, my first internship, you build that, I guess that toughness of just to keep going. My wife jokes about it, She said, “Your AirPods are just going to morph into your ears and you’re going to grow antennas because you’re on that Vulcan dialer all the time.” But I’m like, “Hey, it works.”

Carley Hathaway08:42

It works. Okay. And so who are you calling throughout your day? Who’s first on your list? Who are you going through?

Nick Grodzicki08:50

So I call expireds, canceleds, withdrawns, and for sale by owners. And usually what I do is I start with today. So those are the most hot leads that just came off the market last night at midnight. So I’ll start with today with expireds, canceleds, and all the categories that I just named. And after today I’ll go back or I’ll go back one day and just call yesterday’s. After yesterday’s, I’ll go back and call today. After that I go back and call two days ago. And I keep doing that back and forth calling today because today’s are the hottest prospect until I get to a week past.

09:26So now at the end of that cycle I’ve called today’s seven times in a row in the morning. And I also, being from Michigan, I use a Michigan number so they don’t go, “Ah, it’s another agent calling me.” But I also use a South Florida number so they don’t go, “Who’s this spam guy with a Michigan calling me in Florida?” So I go back and forth like that. I end up calling today’s seven, seven different times, and the other ones previous in the week, I call them quite a bit as well. And eventually I get through to someone.

Carley Hathaway09:53

Yeah.

Nick Grodzicki09:53

Once I get to talk to them, that’s my chance.

Carley Hathaway09:56

Yeah. I like that schedule. I haven’t heard that before. Call today’s, then go to yesterday’s, then go back to today’s, then go for two days. I really like that because then you’re calling the new ones pretty much every hour on the hour.

Nick Grodzicki10:09

Right. And I do that four times in the morning. So once I get to seven I’ll repeat the cycle and then I do it four times back in a row like that.

Carley Hathaway10:19

Love that. That’s great.

Ren Jones10:21

Do you do anything for mindset? You were saying, if I remember, that for mindset, you were following, what was that? Greg Cardone?

Nick Grodzicki10:34

Grant Cardone. And then I named off all the other gurus but-

Ren Jones10:38

Oh, oh, Tony Robbins and whatnot. So do you have a rhythm around that for your mindset? Because these are mindset pieces.

Nick Grodzicki10:46

My goal is to read at least one book a month or more. But really it breaks down to again, numbers. So I set an hour a day that I set aside for reading, motivational books, sales books, negotiation books. And typically it comes to one to three books a month depending on the size of the book. But I always shoot for an hour a day of reading. And it really keeps your mind positive and not letting the nos affect you and the negative things you will hear on the phone. I mean it’s easy in the sense of the actual task. The mental side of it isn’t as easy. However, it easily can be developed if you want it bad enough.

Ren Jones11:23

Okay, so an hour in a day of that. And are you in any kind of masterminds with other agents or anything like that?

Nick Grodzicki11:30

No, I’m not really. I mean being on the, I’d say especially to newer agents getting started, joining a top team in your area is definitely helpful, especially if you’re new to the area because you’re moving a state away wherever, a city, whatever. You now know some agents in the area, people to pick their brains with, kind of have that camaraderie when you do get that listing or that sale under contract. But after a while it only makes sense from a financial standpoint to take what you learned and go on your own.

Ren Jones11:59

Okay, gotcha. Well, you’ve got it down. The only thing, and we were talking about this offline, is unlike almost every single guest we’ve had on the show, Nick is not yet in any kind of formal coaching. So unfortunately, Nick, even though there’ll be agents because we’ll have your phone number and contact information at the end of the show that will be calling to send you referral, a listing referral or whatever it may be, that you may hear from a couple people that say, “You need to be in our coaching.”

Nick Grodzicki12:33

I was going to say, feel free to call me. I call 1000 people a day. So now it’s my turn to get lit up a little bit.

Ren Jones12:38

That’s right. Well, like, “What do you mean you aren’t in coaching?”

Carley Hathaway12:41

Yeah.

Nick Grodzicki12:43

Right, right. Exactly.

Carley Hathaway12:44

And his mindset’s so tight and you’re so militant about it. It’s great.

Nick Grodzicki12:48

Yeah, I found, and another thing is, you can’t just do the calling. You also have to stay organized with using Vulcan’s folders and when to follow up with them and how to follow up with them. Because most of the time you get them on the phone, it’s the right data. I mean the top team that I was on tried multiple different data services and by far Vulcan was the most accurate and that’s why we canceled any and all other services and just heavily invested all into Vulcan. They were most accurate with names, numbers, emails.

13:19So, anyways, you have to be organized with the data too though once you speak to someone. What did you say? When did you speak to them? When’s the next follow up? You want to make sure whether you’re a new or a seasoned agent that you’re following up with them and always getting a date when they expect to follow up with them and do what you say. So you always want to, if you talk to them today, maybe set that follow up for Thursday or Friday, get a time in their head to kind of clear their schedule, and then follow up with them exactly when you told them you would. So it kind of builds that credibility and trust before you list their home.

Carley Hathaway13:53

Yeah, that’s so true. Let me ask you this. When you’re working FSBOs, it’s a lot more follow up. So what’s your kind of schedule around doing your follow up with the FSBOs that you talk to?

Nick Grodzicki14:06

Yeah, I mean just again, each client’s a little bit different, so you want to ask them what works best for them. Some of them say, “I want to try it a couple weeks,” and they’re done with it. Some of them want to try it a full six months and then they’re want to speak to an agent. So you kind of just want to ask questions as always in sales and do a little bit of fact finding, and then keep your calendar when they ask for you to follow up with them.

14:27But you really just want to talk to them about what’s the activity level that they’re getting and make them aware that when they do use an agent, don’t just think about the 6% or 5%, whatever it is that you’re charging them, because most of the time agents can get you more money for your property and actually can take the headache away from you having to babysit your house, show it, take calls. I mean that’s why we’re hired to do what we do.

14:49And I think after a couple weeks the seller finally realized, “Okay, I’m sick of showing the house. I’m sick of getting the calls.” And it’s just what level of threshold does that seller have before they cave and hire the agent? And so you want to stay top of mind with them and always following up very proactively.

Carley Hathaway15:07

I like it. Good strategy.

Ren Jones15:07

Beautiful thing. This is great. This is beautiful.

Nick Grodzicki15:15

And it works. I mean I listed a house recently for $2.7 million off of FSBO and they ended up taking a month. I’ve done multiple FSBOs, but that’s just one of the most recent examples. And I think just being there for them, not just to get the sale and just to get that listing is hearing what their concerns are and kind of hearing what they’re going. I mean sometimes I’ll talk to them on the phone for an hour and just let them vent to me. It’s a stressful process. It’s one of their most prized assets that they’re dealing with and it’s a large amount of money, especially when you’re dealing with a million plus homes.

Carley Hathaway15:51

Yeah, I agree. And that’s what goes back to you saying you have to be really organized and take really good notes because if you do call them back two weeks later, you want that conversation fresh in your mind.

Nick Grodzicki16:02

Exactly.

Ren Jones16:03

Nick, are you tracking numbers? If we said, “What’s your batting average?” You go on 10 listing appointments, how many do you take? Things like that?

Nick Grodzicki16:12

Yeah, yeah. I mean as far as, so I have it all in an Excel sheet that I use for all my listing appointments that I have. And then I have a color coding system that I set up. So did I go on the appointment and that’s a certain color, and then do I have the listing? That’s green. Are they not interested for another six months? That’s a different color. So as far as tracking averages in an actual percentage wise, I could easily do that. I pull a report based on my color coding system I set up, but I don’t have it right in front of me.

Ren Jones16:45

What’s your gut say? You go on 10 appointments, how many do you ultimately end up taking?

Nick Grodzicki16:51

I mean I think the hardest part is just getting that appointment. And once you have that appointment, being likable, being personable, building that sense of trust and that personal rapport right off the bat? Eight out of 10, you’re getting the listing once you-

Ren Jones17:06

Okay, so roughly 80%. Okay, so that means you’re doing a little bit of pre-qualifying too, right?

Nick Grodzicki17:12

Yeah, definitely.

Ren Jones17:14

You’re asking a number of questions before you get there because sometimes when we ask those questions then we choose not to go.

Nick Grodzicki17:21

Absolutely. Because I mean in this business, time is money. And it’s what your motivation behind the sale?

Ren Jones17:29

Yeah.

Nick Grodzicki17:29

What is your timeframe looking like? What was the past activity like with the past agent? If the house was listed for 2 million and they say, “Well I got offers for 1.95 but I want my 2 million,” I’m not going to go on that appointment, because if you’re getting an offer that close to the 2 million, I’m just going to spin my wheels with them.

Ren Jones17:47

Or if they got three offers at 1.1, then that tells you something, too.

Nick Grodzicki17:56

Right. That definitely tells you something. That means they’re asking way too much. And I don’t ever try and get too much into price on the phone just because I don’t want to scare them away when you hit them with the realistic number because there are a lot of sellers that are unrealistic. But I want to kind of beat around the bush a little bit to kind of get a feeling for where they’re at, but at the same time not hit them with the hard facts yet. And so I’m in front of them, they like me, and we’re already into the appointment.

Ren Jones18:20

Right, well if the motivation’s high enough, no matter what you want to get in front of them. If they have to sell and they have to sell soon, you want to be in front of them, but if you feel it out and you find out that their motivation is a one on a scale of one to 10, then maybe you don’t go, unless they’re realistic on price,

Nick Grodzicki18:44

Right. You get the classic, “Oh, I’m just testing the market.” Well, yeah, you can test that with another agent. When you’re ready to actually sell on the market, you know, can call me back.

Ren Jones18:56

Wonderful. Good deal. This is powerful information. This is going to help some of our folks because we have folks that would like to get where you are, where every day they’re looking for a seller. When you look for a seller and you build up that inventory, as you were talking about offline, if you control the inventory, you’ve got it. You have money and the time to enjoy it.

Nick Grodzicki19:19

Yeah, I mean as the saying goes, I’ve learned, is buyers are liars. And, yes, that is part of our business and we can’t push away all the buyers or push away any buyers for that matter. However, when time is money, you want to control the inventory. So as many listings as you possibly can have. And before we went on the show, you mentioned, yeah, you can be away for three days and you’re still selling homes. You can’t do that with buyers. So get as many listings as possible. The buyers will come from the listings.

Ren Jones19:47

Come back from the Caribbean and you’ve sold three homes and you can’t do that on the buy side. So it’s wonderful. It’s a wonderful thing. And then if you end up with a buyer, then it can break your stride and you get that one buyer sale, but you lost three listings. So, yeah, what are you doing with those? What do you do with those buyers? Do you have somebody to give those buyers too?

Nick Grodzicki20:09

So I was on the team and they did have a guy that was strictly just the buyer leads, whether it was from Zillow or another listing. And that’s one of the reasons I decided to off as well, go off on my own, knowing that I was missing a portion of the business. But eventually I just started my own group. It’s called Grodzicki Group and eventually I will be hiring a buyer’s agent to specifically handle and filter all the buyer leads. And actually when I first joined the top team that I joined, they had originally said, “Oh, we have spot to kind of shadow our buyer agent.” And I quickly realized after a couple weeks I’m like, “This isn’t where the money is in the business. It’s prospecting on the phone.”

Carley Hathaway20:49

Yeah.

Nick Grodzicki20:50

I said, “Get me on the phone.” He goes, “Really?” I’m like, “Yeah. Definitely.” So the first day using Vulcan7 I set quite a few appointments. He goes, “Okay, that’s your spot on the team.”

Ren Jones21:02

Rejection pays very well.

Carley Hathaway21:04

Yeah.

Nick Grodzicki21:05

Right. It does. Exactly.

Ren Jones21:08

That is great. That is great. This is, Nick, this has been great. And what’s the best way for them to reach you? And a lot of you as agents are watching, and you live in Chicago, you live in Minnesota, you live in New York, you need to buy a place from Nick, right now, and he’ll get you fixed up. So what’s the best way to reach you?

Nick Grodzicki21:29

Yeah, they can contact me at 786-860-1382. Again, 786-860-1382. But they can also reach me on any of my social channels. So Instagram’s @NickGrod. As you mentioned at the beginning of the show, it’s Grodzicki, so I shortened it a little bit to make it easier to find me, N-I-C-K-G-R-O-D, and that’s on Instagram.

Ren Jones21:52

Great. And we’ll print that on the screen right about now so people can see that. And I want to remind everybody, if you’re watching on Vulcan7 and you want to get involved with the lead gen Facebook group, that simulcasted show there, at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections.

22:11And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not yet involved with Vulcan7, can’t imagine, make sure to sign up at vulcan7.com/leadgen for a special deal. And the, and Nick may not be aware of this unless he watched the end of one of the shows, if you wonder what the secret is, Nick Grodzicki’s secret to handling all that rejection and blowing through it and being a very wealthy person, which just two years in the business, two, two? Life, paradise can be yours, but you have to have the secret. And the secret is what Nick does is after he’s made his calls, he goes to the freezer and gets delicious Graeter’s Mint Chocolate Chip. Mint chocolate chip. That’s the one for listing property. If you’re working with buyers, that is Rocky Road. So you want the mint chocolate chip, you don’t want to go down the rocky road. So go to graeters.com to find where you can buy it in your area all over North America.

23:05I want to thank everybody for being here and hopefully you’ve gotten some great ideas from Nick that help your business and I hope we can hear from you. If you’re out there and you watched this and Nick helped you blow it up, in two, three months from now, reach out to us and we’ll interview you and we’ll just keep moving this thing forward. Nick will teach you and then you teach somebody else. So, thanks everybody.

Nick Grodzicki23:28

I want to thank you as well for having me out on the show. It’s been great. And if anyone wants to reach out, questions, comments, if you want any tips that I’m using or just to share your feedback from what I’ve shared if it’s helped you out, I’d love to hear from you and open to it anytime you want. So thank you again for having me and you definitely will not regret going with Vulcan7. It’s all my leads where I got when I moved down to Florida.

Ren Jones23:52

Hey, I love the free advertising. Thank you.

Carley Hathaway23:54

Yep. Thank you so much, Nick, for joining us today. I think we’re going to have a lot of people rewatching it and people are going to be very excited to see you. So thank you so, so, much.

Ren Jones24:04

Good. Have a great summer, Nick.

Nick Grodzicki24:05

Thank you. Take care.

Ren Jones24:06

Thank you sir. Appreciate it. Bye everybody.

24:06