How Bernie Gallerani and Karina Loken kept selling through the COVID-19 shutdown

Ren Jones 00:04

It’s that time. Welcome to Roadmap, how to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. This is a special-report Roadmap show on COVID-19 — there’s a lot to discuss, and a lot of things we can do to not only survive but to thrive and have an amazing next 90 days. We’ve got Sarah Close here, who you’ve seen on many of our shows — Sarah is the operating principal for three very large Keller Williams offices in Southern Ohio: Cincinnati, Dayton and West Chester. And how many agents roughly?

Sarah Close 00:46

I think it’s about 560.

Ren Jones 00:49

That’s a higher number than last idea. So there’s a lot to discuss — you’re looking for people every day, calling expireds or for sale by owners in your database. There’s a lot to cover as things change. But the first thing we wanted to do is go live to Nashville, Tennessee and talk with our good friend from RE/MAX, Bernie Gallerani. Awesome, thanks for joining us. Hi Bernie. When you came out here, you said you’re going to be insensitive to the national issues, but you’re not going to let it affect your business either.

Ren Jones 01:47

And this is on the heels of a pretty significant tornado weather event that you guys had as well.

Bernie Gallerani 01:55

Yeah. Today’s Monday, so two weeks ago today we got hit with a tornado. It really made it difficult down in Nashville — it destroyed a ton of houses, and we’re dealing with some of the aftermath. And then of course last week they announced everything going on with the virus, so that’s been interesting. The most interesting thing is the virus has kind of trumped the tornado issues we had going on here. It was pretty big for about a week, and then unfortunately for all those victims of the tornado, the virus came in and it’s dominated the airwaves, it’s getting a lot of play. And what we’re finding is there are a large number of real estate agents saying, “What should I do? Should I be talking to people? I’m afraid to call and even speak to people,” and a lot of them are sitting on their hands.

Ren Jones 03:01

So what are you doing?

Bernie Gallerani 03:04

To us it’s business as usual. I was just sharing with you guys off the air, and I’ll share it again: we actually had our best week of real estate in regards to pendings. I pended 19 properties from Monday to Friday of last week, and we pended 16 properties the week before that. So when the coronavirus actually got to the United States and started creating a lot of issues here, we had 16 pendings the week before, 19 pendings last week, and as of this morning we had 11 more new pendings from the weekend. So we’re expecting between now and next Friday to probably have a very similar week. In our thinking here with my team, it’s business as usual. We all prospect every day, we still go through all of our role play, we do all of our training, and we don’t discuss the coronavirus in regards to how it’s impacting us. If it’s brought up, I’ll always say you always have to take precautions, because we need to be cautious of certain things, but there are still buyers and sellers out there. I’ll tell you, we’re seeing there are a ton of buyers and a ton of sellers that are willing to meet with us this week to list their property.

Ren Jones 04:23

Well, you’ve got all-time low mortgage rates, so if somebody’s trading up, trading down, going from one to the other, it might only be a small window where you get that kind of mortgage rate.

Bernie Gallerani 04:35

I don’t know how it’s affecting the rest of the country in regards to areas that have what they call hotspots. For us, I think we’ve got 50-plus confirmed corona folks in the Middle Tennessee area where we are, so it’s not real rampant here yet, and I don’t know if that’ll change it. But I will say this, it hasn’t changed it the last week to ten days — it’s been pretty strong.

Ren Jones 05:03

Is there any change in your approach at all — in what you say, or if they bring it up, or if you bring it up — because you and your team are talking to a lot of people?

Bernie Gallerani 05:20

That’s a really good question. First of all, we’re not experiencing what maybe some other people think is going on. So when they bring it up to us, we share with them that what we’re finding is that buyers and sellers are still buying and selling. When it’s a concern from the consumer standpoint, we just share that it seems to be as hot as it ever was last year right now. Buyers are taking advantage of interest rates, and for the sellers, buyers are still going into the properties and looking at them. Our agents are busy, I’m busy listing and selling homes. So it may be something to be concerned with later down the line — I can’t speak for the future — but right now it’s still wicked hot out there.

Jerry 06:12

One question for you too. Let’s say that as we continue to progress with this situation, folks are limited with what they’re able to do, to create the social distancing that’s being recommended. What opportunities do you see for you and your team, and what types of things might you and your team consider doing, for lack of a better phrase, to take advantage of the crisis?

Bernie Gallerani 06:39

To take advantage of the crisis — right now there are a lot of folks staying home versus a month ago. So I tell the team to take advantage of the fact that people are sitting at home. Some of the schools here are no longer in session, they’ve closed down, which means parents are staying home with the children. So I’m sharing with my team to make sure they’re reaching out to the homeowners that are home, because there are a lot more people today paying a little more attention, not being at work and having that conversation over the phone. We’re not finding that there are fewer people picking up the phone — if anything, it might be a little more. I was on the phone this morning, I made 35 calls, and out of that 35 I had 12 contacts, which was pretty good — about a third of the people picking up the phone, a little better than what I’d normally been seeing over the last six months, where maybe 10 or 12 percent of people were picking up. So I actually had a really good turnout this morning. It’s not always that way, but today it was.

08:00 As far as social distancing, I’m telling my team: in the world of agents and buyer’s agents, a lot of us can work from home. So what I’ve created — we still have to role play and practice all our scripts as a group, so the last couple of weeks I’ve been running an online Zoom training with my agents. They all jump on a Zoom call like this and role play our scripts. And the agents are meeting the buyers in the homes — they don’t have to shake hands, they can open up the doors, they can all walk in and keep the three to six feet, ten feet, however far that is. It’s going to go as well as it’s going to go. I can’t speak for what next week’s going to bring, I don’t know what the mental side of this is going to be for the consumer, but for my agents it’s going to be business as usual for right now.

Ren Jones 09:01

Anything to get in your way from selling a lot of homes.

Bernie Gallerani 09:08

You’re right, it’s a mindset piece, and we have to figure out what the workarounds are, because even in a worst-case situation there is a way to do what we do. We’re going to sell houses. We’ve sold 181 homes since January 1st of this year, and we’re seeing a pickup in the last 10 days to two weeks in our business, which normally would happen as the spring months start to approach. So everything seems the same to us. We’re not approaching it as if there’s an issue, our result isn’t as if there’s an issue. I certainly could play it as if there is an issue, and probably my business would be different, but we’re electing to play it as: we’re going to go after it, we’re going to take advantage of the fact that people are home. Regardless of whatever the consumer starts to think, today there’s somebody that has to buy or sell a house, tomorrow there’s going to be somebody that has to buy or sell a house, and we just want to make sure we’re there every day to find those people, whether it’s 10, 20, or 5.

Jerry 10:27

Any steps you would take inside your team internally, whether financially or otherwise, if you do start to observe some signs that maybe you’re not getting things under contract at the same clip? Any recommendations on expense items or your financial structure?

Bernie Gallerani 10:59

That’s a good question. Jerry, as a business owner and team owner, I’m probably different than some other folks, especially real estate agents — I look through my P&L and all of my expenses daily, almost. Right now it’s a little excessive, but it’s just the way I do things. Every week I go through my system for my agents and I say, who has X amount of leads that we’re providing, and what is that conversion percentage? It tells me how many leads they received in the last seven days, how many in the last 30 days, how many pendings came from those leads, and a 90-day overview of their calculated conversion percentage. So I’m pretty on top of it financially, and I’ll always look, whether the virus was impacting it or not. I had an agent who texted me this morning concerned about their lead flow, the amount of leads they were getting. I said, it’s interesting how you’re questioning the lead flow, and yet lead flow was up last week — I know the numbers — and pending sales were up. We averaged, in the first quarter of this year within our business plan, pending 13 new properties every week. We were staying on pace until two weeks ago, then we pended 16 two weeks ago and 19 last week, and we’re on an upswing for this week. So I said, it’s interesting, you might be having a lead problem, which is ultimately going to cause you to have a sale problem, but everybody else on the team is not having that problem — so is that the agent and how they’re thinking? He mentioned the virus, “the virus here and leads being down,” so in his head he’d created a scenario he believed was true. When I shared the numbers, he said, “Gosh, that’s just not what I thought.” And I said, don’t let your thinking dictate your production. If it’s negative, allow positive thinking to create the business, and it’ll show up like it has for all the other people. It’s a whole mental game, and you’re fighting that mental capacity every day while the news is chatting about the virus. It’s going to bring people to think it’s not great — in our case that’s not been true.

Ren Jones 14:07

One of the reasons you’re probably going from 16 to 19, and this week may be a record for you, is because your competitors are in the stinking thinking.

Bernie Gallerani 14:16

Yeah, people around the country — but people in this town, if they choose to start allowing that stinking thinking to occur, I’m just going to take advantage. I’m not going to let my team think that way.

Ren Jones 14:41

It’s like its own virus — there’s fear. That stinking-thinking virus is worse.

Carley Hathaway 14:58

What kind of things do you do with your team to make sure they’re staying in the right mindset? What have you found works really well to stay focused on winning?

Bernie Gallerani 15:08

That’s a great question, because we do it every day in our world. Every day we role play our scripts, and now we do it all online on Zoom. What I was fighting is, when they were role playing together and I’d interject, jumping from pair to pair, I started hearing all these things I didn’t like — “why are you saying it that way?” So about a month ago I decided all the role plays would be on Zoom, so I could hear everybody chatting in the conversation. That’s helped the skill level — I can say, “no, let’s not say it that way, let’s change the tonality, you’re dealing with an analytical, or an expressive, or a driver, let’s adapt to that.” Doing it that way was a big advantage. The other thing we do, and we’ve been doing this for about four years, is every day we do affirmations. We own two offices here in Nashville, with buyer’s agents on each team across town, and after we get off the role plays from 8:30 to 9:00, we break up, go to our teams, and do full-team affirmations. I’ve got to be honest, I think it’s probably one of the main reasons our team does so well, because we don’t allow the negativity to penetrate the core group. No poison. Everybody’s got problems — look at the people right now across the globe dealing with big issues even bigger than ours here — so everybody has something they can complain about.

Ren Jones 17:08

One of the things, if I can make the observation — you’ve got a team, so there are people on the team seeing other people who have just gone out and taken a listing or two, and they think, “well, if they can do it, I can do it.” We have people watching that are solo and don’t have that advantage. We have a little show on Vulcan7 on Monday mornings called Monday Morning Watch, a Zoom call, and I had a couple agents on there this morning — one took a listing last weekend, one wrote a buyer sale, business as usual, and one was in a hotspot area selling a lot of property. If you can see other people being hugely successful, it’s easier to tell yourself you can do it too, and the advantage of having a team does that for you every single day.

Bernie Gallerani 17:58

Yeah, you create your own culture. In a time of difficulty in our country, it’s important to think of what you’re grateful for, because it’s easy to think about all the negatives — but let’s talk about the things that make our life better. That’s the direction we’re trying to take.

Ren Jones 18:16

It’s what are you paying attention to, because you can go down a deep well if you want to. This has been great, Bernie, this really helps give a lot of guidance for people. I’d like to check in with you in about three weeks, because this thing will unfold and you’re going to have a strategy for every step of the way — it’d be fun to learn from that.

Bernie Gallerani 18:42

I’d love the opportunity to do it for your people and the viewers. And I’ll say this too — I have no idea what tomorrow’s going to bring or what next week’s going to bring, but I can tell you we’ll have a good attitude about whatever it is.

Ren Jones 18:58

Good deal. Thanks again, Bernie, I appreciate it, we’ll talk to you in a few weeks.

Bernie Gallerani 19:02

Thank you, thank you.

Ren Jones 19:07

So we’re going to go live next to Houston, Texas, the local group, and we have Karina Loken here. Karina, you sell a lot of property. Welcome to the show, Roadmap, thanks for being here.

Karina Loken 19:20

Thank you for having me. And it’s not me that sells all those properties — it certainly is a team effort that makes that happen.

Ren Jones 19:41

What’s the goal for this year for the team?

Karina Loken 19:43

2,700 units.

Ren Jones 19:48

2,700 units. So here’s the tricky question — how many went pending last week?

Karina Loken 19:57

That’s a great question. I don’t know — they literally are going pending as we speak, we’re getting contracts.

Ren Jones 20:03

So you haven’t broken your stride yet.

Karina Loken 20:06

No. We’re looking for ways that we can be proactive — how can we reach out to the clients and not need to stop?

Ren Jones 20:21

Talk to us about that, that’s a huge point.

Karina Loken 20:24

We’re not too far removed from Hurricane Harvey, and we’re very fortunate that we have a team that takes total action and jumps right in. As soon as all the news started coming out about everybody being put on hold, our team leaned into all of this and said, “Okay, what can we do? How can we do virtual consults? How can we even do virtual showings? What do we need to pay attention to, what do we need to provide to sellers and buyers, what do we need to have signed?” Everybody’s gone diving headfirst right in. The sellers and buyers that are on the market right now are really serious, and they need somebody who can be very educated, be their expert, and help walk them through all those steps with total confidence and give them great advice that’s in the best interest of their families. That’s what we’re here to do.

Jerry 21:24

What are you finding when you’re talking with your clients today, or what is your team finding — how much of the conversation is around the national concern versus the actual process of getting the place sold or bought?

Karina Loken 21:39

I think it all varies by client, just like it does with any group of people. There are kind of three categories — people on one polar end or the other, mass hysteria or “this is really ridiculous,” and then the realists down the middle: “Hey, this is happening, there’s a lot to sort through, the news is putting out a lot of coverage, so we need to know what’s going on and how to navigate it,” and they need somebody to help do that. So it’s certainly part of the conversation, some in jest and sarcasm, some in “should we pay attention to this,” but everybody’s different, at a different level, and it’s really our responsibility — with family members, friends, clients, doesn’t matter — to meet them where they’re at and help them see the other side.

Jerry 22:28

Have you found any particular policies or strategies you guys are using to make changes to how you’re showing houses or handling open houses?

Karina Loken 22:37

We definitely are paying a lot of attention to that. We’re advising the sellers, getting into close communication with them about whether they even want anybody going through their home at this point, and taking lots of cleanliness steps. We’re still out showing properties to buyers, keeping that six-foot rule, wiping stuff down, washing our hands, and following the guidelines everybody has suggested.

Jerry 23:08

With all the different markets you guys are working in, you’ve got a lot of folks in higher price points, and your marketplace tends to be at least a little more affluent than ours. Have you seen any changes in the dialogue or behavior as a result of the stock market situation lately?

Karina Loken 23:29

For folks who had money in the stock market that they were counting on to make their purchases, that’s a conversation, and again it’s always case by case. We really haven’t seen transactions falling out yet as a result of the health stuff. Certainly for us the price of oil in Houston is something we watch, and honestly, prior to the weekend, that was what we were watching more than anything. There’s so much going on in the market that we really have to consider all factors and what’s best for each client on a case-by-case basis.

Jerry 24:15

When you’re working with your team, what are you doing as far as dialogue around mindset, and how are you keeping everybody focused on their goals versus getting distracted, while still maintaining an appropriate level of awareness so everybody is safe and healthy?

Karina Loken 24:33

First and foremost we need to make sure we’re staying in close communication on all fronts. Our mind goes into fight-or-flight, “what’s dangerous” is kind of your brain’s first thought, and if we don’t create a story for everybody to really know the difference between fact and fiction, we’re going to get trapped very quickly — all of us, just human nature — in a space of “danger, danger.” That’s in any situation, not just this one, so this is no different than any other day of the week: we need to know what is fact and stay on top of that, but not get sucked into the drama that sells on TV and in the media. As leaders, I think it’s our job to show up very confident and really lead. This is a time where it’s so important for leaders to get in front of their folks, reach out, check on people, care about people, and do all the things we honestly should be doing every day.

Ren Jones 25:47

When something like this happens, what we’ve found in the past — even with the hurricane a couple years ago — is that as awful as situations might seem in the present moment, they often are a gift if you look at it from all the different angles. Every day we should be reaching out to our database, talking to our clients, checking on how they’re doing and what their needs are, and helping be their expert in real estate.

Karina Loken 26:11

Absolutely. It really is just a swift kick in the pants right now to get onboard and do what we should be doing every day. When everybody sees the positive results they come out of it, they’re going to be like, “Wow, why don’t we do that all the time?” It gives us a gift. But as leaders we definitely have to get out in the forefront and make sure that message is conveyed, or as humans we’ll let it get the best of us.

Ren Jones 26:42

Just like you did with the hurricane, it sounds like you’re reaching out to your database, checking in, showing some care, coming in contribution, making sure they’re okay — the way you would during a hurricane, creating a caring attitude. We were hearing from some of our Vulcan7 clients earlier that they were struggling with what to say to people. You’ve done this before in other incidents — what would be some of the sentences you would say to someone in your database?

Karina Loken 27:34

We’ve actually given this a lot of thought, and it’s what to say and also what not to say. The words that we use matter, the language patterns we use matter. We talked a lot, even with our clients, about making sure we’re calling and not creating more concern, but definitely checking on them. From a scripting sense, there’s a lot of confusion right now that the media has created on so many levels, so we reach out to our clients and say, “Hey, we really are here to be your expert and be proactive, and the one thing we can do for you right now is help sort out the information that’s online and that you’re hearing on the news. Wanted to just check in — how are you doing, do you have any questions, is there anything we can be here for you for right now?”

Jerry 28:25

Do you guys have a particular medium that you use for reaching out that you find works better than others?

Karina Loken 28:32

There’s everything you just mentioned — we do all of that, and it’s an efficient way of getting hold of lots of people at one time, because you can hit groups. But honestly, right now, the phone — I truly believe the phone needs to be everybody’s best friend. The more we’re doing this whole social-distancing thing and being removed from people, a lot of folks are so used to feeding off the social energy they get from the workplace, and if they’re at home, especially with kids, the dynamic of their environment has changed. You might be the one voice they hear today that’s positive and upbeat and answering questions proactively — the voice they needed to get their own head back on track. You cannot, through text or Facebook or Instagram, read people’s emotions, their level of concern or lack of concern, their understanding, their interest level. The timeline they were on when you talked to them a month ago may have just changed a whole lot, and they might be ready to go do something right now. There are a lot of investors watching things pretty closely right now. You don’t know unless you talk to them, so honestly I don’t think there’s any better medium ever than a telephone. It’s the most effective — not always the most efficient for touching a lot of people, but voice contact just doesn’t go out of style.

Jerry 30:33

One question as we broke up here — obviously your folks have such a fantastic benefit because they get to work with you in a leadership role every day. For a lot of agents that don’t have a strong team lead like you, if you were a solo agent, what types of things should an individual agent be thinking about today?

Karina Loken 30:58

First, not just leadership but also thinking about accountability. As our work environments change and a lot more people are working remote, and you don’t necessarily have the energy to feed off of if you’re choosing not to go into an office — ninety percent of our success is mindset. So getting that leadership mindset from your leader is important, your affirmations are important, and there’s so much online available for that. But also making a connection with a buddy, somebody else who really wants to lean into this thing and be highly accountable, on all levels — peer and with your leader, whoever you’re accountable to. And by the way, you’re accountable to your family — we need to make sure everybody’s healthy and safe and taken care of at a really high level. Leadership-wise, even with all the amazing leaders we have access to, we’re always plugging in online and reading books, and Audible is one of my new favorite things, and there are some really cool podcasts out there. I’m blessed — our whole team is fortunate that we’re part of Keller Williams, so we have the benefit of great leadership and training, and I know they’re really doubling down on training opportunities right now. Even on a call this morning, we were encouraged to invite other people. So if you’re in real estate like we are and can plug in with a friend who has an amazing leader, nobody’s going to turn you away right now.

Karina Loken 32:48

I’m not keen on watching all the political hullabaloo, but it was certainly really cool the other day to see how so many amazing business leaders are coming together — normally very competitive, driven individuals, kind of against each other — and for everybody to come together. I think we’re going to see more and more of that, and what a great opportunity for us to really come from contribution and be there for each other.

Ren Jones 33:21

The biggest struggle is with that solo agent who is by themselves. They watch a little television, the mindset goes down like that, and they wonder if they could even sell a home or help somebody buy one. On a team you have a huge advantage. So with your advice, they should have accountability, have a buddy, be in a mastermind, be around people that are having successes, so they can see for themselves that they too can have that success.

Karina Loken 33:53

Absolutely. And if we’re at home — this is something I have so much mom guilt about, loving my kids in the back of my old Volvo crossover — what’s come of it is our kids are going to get such a great opportunity for us to be models for them. Things like, what kind of role model do you want to be for your kids? They are now watching you, and going to be in a lot of what you’re doing day to day. What a cool opportunity that is. Just how can we show up and serve each other? A lot of your listeners are real estate agents, and in the brokerages they’re in, hopefully their leadership is stepping up and really being there for them, and if they’re not, I can guarantee they’ve got buddies in the industry. At KW that’s something we’ve put out on a call today — if you need to be pointed in a direction of leadership, I’m always happy to be a resource, people can email me.

Jerry 34:58

You said leadership and confidence, so this is a time where we can model that — stand tall and lead and be that confident person for the people around us who are fearful.

Karina Loken 35:12

For sure. I was listening to a call the other day, and it gives such a good picture — it was another amazing agent in our industry telling the story of, have you ever been on an airplane and you hit a whole lot of turbulence? What does everybody do? We all look to the flight attendant to see, are they panicking, or are they calm? If they’re calm, you’re like, “Oh, this should be happening, okay, it’s all good.” If all of a sudden their eyebrows go up and they look like stark panic, then your heart rate starts to go and your stomach drops. So put yourself in the shoes of being that flight attendant, where everybody really is looking to you — your family, the other people around you, your peers, your colleagues. You are a leader, every single solitary person, no matter your title.

Ren Jones 36:06

And for the solo agent, to their client, for sure. That’s huge advice, Karina, we appreciate it so much. I know you’re going to have a great time there in Houston. If anybody’s moving to Houston or from Houston, Karina Loken is the woman to call — thelokengroup.com, right?

Karina Loken 36:30

Yes, it is thelokengroup.com. I can give you my phone number as well if anybody needs to connect — it’s 323-877-1428. If you’re looking for some leadership in your area, or to get connected, or some mindset, let us know, we’ll get you connected.

Ren Jones 36:55

Thank you, thanks for being here, take care. I want to thank everybody for being here. If you’re watching on Vulcan7 and you want to get involved with the Lead Gen Facebook group that simulcasts the show, they’re at facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. And finally, if you’re watching on Facebook and you’re not yet involved with Vulcan7, make sure to sign up at vulcan7.com/leadgen for a special deal. And most important, in trying times when you want a little bit of confidence, after all your lead generation you go to the fridge and get the delicious Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. The listing side of the business is all about listings, it’s your perfect work-from-home business — listing property. And Graeter’s mint chocolate chip is for people that list property. If you’re working with buyers, the flavor is Rocky Road. So Graeter’s mint chocolate chip — go to graeters.com to find a store near you, and list property, the perfect work-at-home business. See you guys next week. Thank you.