28: Top Real Estate Agent - Brandy Finnessey - Closing a Deal a Week

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, which once again is brought to you by ViewedIt from Vidyard, be sure to check them out at top1.fm. My guest is Brandy Finnessey. Brandy is one of the top real estate agents here in Austin at Kuper Sotheby's International Realty, who is closing on average one transaction a week and last year did $21 million worth of business. Also, a really special mention is in order for Stephen Harvill here, who introduced me to Brandy. Steve spent well over a year talking with 175 sales superstars, all selling at least a million dollars a year, to inform the book he just published with Simon & Schuster called 21 Secrets of Million Dollar Sellers. I got a chance to read an advanced copy and it was well worth the time. And as I've said before, there's just not enough content out there coming more or less directly from top sellers like Brandy. So to support Steve and his book, I'm going to give away 5 copies through the Sales Success Community. If you're not already part of that community, you can join for free in one of two ways. In the US, you can text top1 to 444-999. That's T-O-P and the number 1. To 444-999, or just go to top1.fm and join the mailing list. Within minutes, you'll get an invite to the Sales Success Community. And to be clear, this isn't a sponsorship. I'm paying for these books out of my own pocket to thank Steve for connecting me with Brandy, who stars in a later section of the book on client relationship secrets. So thanks for joining me today, Brandy.

1:57 Brandy Finnessey: Thank you for having me.

1:58 Scott Ingram: So we'll begin like we always do in an effort to front-load a lot of value for our listener, you know, beyond giving away free books, and start with the top 3 things that you believe contribute most to your consistent success as a top real estate sales professional?

2:13 Brandy Finnessey: Okay, so number one, I would say come up with who you are. Really dive deep into who you are and how you see yourself in the business. And really be honest about that. Don't be afraid to reach out to people that you know that you've either worked with in the past, like if you're not new to this business and you're just really looking within to get better and grow to the next level, but to really look within yourself and figure out what the special sauce is for you and how you can take that information and leverage it to work best in your business. So I think once you've figured that out and what you want your message to be, then I think it's really getting together a concise and very granular plan. And I think in real estate especially, I think oftentimes folks are looking for a very quick shot at things and they're looking at a dartboard and they've got 50 dartboards on the wall and they're just throwing randomly because somebody told them to do something or that this one way of doing things would be successful. The problem with that though is that so many folks are doing all of those little things and they're spending money in all of these buckets and they're only doing those some of the time or sporadically. So because it's not part of a system, it's ending up being very lackadaisical, if you will. And they're not seeing the results that they're wanting in it because quite frankly they're not putting into the work into any one of those buckets. So what I would recommend and what I made the mistake of doing early on was that really focus on 1 or 2 or 3 things, 3 at most, but really 1 or 2 that really embody who you are and how you see yourself working and what you wanna give to your business and to your clients, and focus on those and how you can formulate that into a plan. And then third, which I think is often left out but is completely critical, is to look back on what you are doing as you're doing it and don't be afraid to cut ties on things that just simply aren't working or you're getting negative feedback on that aren't very positive in the direction you're trying to go into. So really doing that self-evaluation all along the way, and don't be afraid to ask your clients what they think about some of the things that you're doing, and be sure to ask the ones that maybe don't like you. Or that don't like some of the things that you're putting out. You need the honest feedback there. It's very important to grow and to get better and take things to another level.

4:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so much good stuff. And you really tap on, I think, a lot of the themes that we've heard through this show. I mean, one, one that I hear really consistently that I think you articulated beautifully is I think the very best sellers out there have just a deep, deep understanding of themselves and who they are, and they bring the best version of themselves to the market. A couple of quick follow-ups based on what you just shared. The first is, how do you decide, and maybe you could give a specific example or 2, like when you're choosing those 1, 2, or 3 things, how do you know of all the different options that are out there which one is most likely to produce and give you results?

5:20 Brandy Finnessey: So I feel like in real estate people will talk about a spoke on a wheel and they'll name off things from open houses to client parties or, you know, farming or all these things. And you can see those on anything that you look at online. There's generally a spoke of We'll say 7 to 10 things. So as you look at those things, really look at what you are really gonna commit yourself to. For instance, I'm not a door knocker. So door knocking and cold calling was not top on my priority and not realistic. Did I do it once upon a time? Sure I did, because out of desperation it was one of the buckets I did. I wasn't consistent on it. My heart wasn't in it. So of course the message didn't come across and I didn't convert sales like I could've or should've. If I would have had the right mindset. On a success note, I'll tell you that what I do, I'm a very social person. So for me, and I'm kind of a family-driven person, so for me, throwing parties and getting people together or like-minded people together and doing some sort of function around that was really easy. It's very easy for me and it's seamless and it's something that I really enjoy. So one, my heart's 100% into it because I think it's a great way to meet people and then connect other people that maybe have either similar interests or maybe could help each other out in a different way. So that's one that all in I attach myself to and that I do year over year. I host personally 2 to 3 large client events a year and then I do small functions too for what I would consider my raving fans, if you will, kind of spread throughout the year that's a much smaller group. They're invited to the big groups too, but there's a very small gathering that's for them as well.

7:05 Scott Ingram: Awesome. You also mentioned kind of deciding what not to do. What's… how long does it take to know? Yeah. How, how long do you feel like you have to invest and try something? Because what you, what you don't want is I gave up too early. You were, you were, that was just about to pay off and you gave up 2 weeks before it was really about to hit pay dirt.

7:25 Brandy Finnessey: Well, I think that the, I think that that's a great question. And in real estate, because that's what we're talking about today, in real estate, if you're looking for something that's a quick, and gonna get committed to something, open houses. I know nobody wants to hear that because a lot of people aren't comfortable with them, but that's the reality of it. You're actually meeting people tangible that you can meet in an open house, whether they're a seller or a buyer, and then trying to talk with them about what they're looking for and be the expert in that to provide them good information to get them to open up enough to you to be able to make a client generally will result in a sale faster than any of the other opportunities. In contrast, something like farming, a particular area, the statistic, and this is a national statistic, not mine, the statistic on that is a minimum of 18 months. And that's 18 months with consistent touches. That's at least 18, that's more than one a month that you are touching these individuals in that farm in order to have something come over to you 18 months or more later. So really understanding which avenue you're picking and kind of the realistic timescale for when those conversions would happen and then committing all in on it. So in other words, if I'm gonna go the farming route, I better do 18 minimum touches a year on my farm and maybe more to try and get that conversion to come back. And then no, not cut it until I get to 2, 2.5, 3 years down the road because that's just the reality of that one.

8:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now for folks who aren't familiar with real estate, can you give us just a real quick overview? What does farming mean in that context?

8:56 Brandy Finnessey: Okay, so farming would be taking a particular area or neighborhood, it's a geographic place, which I think is why they came up with the name farming. But it's a geographic location that you are marketing to very specific about that location. So whether you're looking for listings in that particular area, or you can also farm a particular area and actually look for buyers too, meaning that there's rentals maybe in that area that you're still soliciting to that particular geographic farm.

9:26 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So before we learn more about Brandy and her results and all of her deep, dark secrets that are going to help us all become more successful, I want to thank the exclusive sponsor of this episode. ViewedIt by Vidyard. Thanks to ViewedIt, the rest of this episode will be completely uninterrupted, which also means I don't have to read any more ads. And I hope you'll thank… help me thank them and help yourself in the process by getting their free Chrome plugin that allows you to create personalized videos that you can include in your email outreach to really stand out and get significantly higher response rates. Just go to top1.fm/v, that's the letter V, or go to any page on top1.fm and click on their ad. So Brandy, talk about about how you got into real estate sales in the first place.

10:11 Brandy Finnessey: Well, I have kind of an interesting story there. I started actually as a nurse, a pediatric oncology nurse. And as you can imagine, that turned in a direction which seems to some folks as obvious, but lost a lot of children along the way and really wanted to make a… really wanted to take a complete 180, if you will, on life and be more in a direction of positivity. And real estate was something that I stumbled into in the beginning, to be perfectly frank. I started at an on-site model home, which is sales through a major production builder. And I started there and didn't need a license initially. In Texas, you don't need a license to be an on-site model home person. And started there initially and loved it. I loved every minute of it. And very quickly worked my way up the chain to eventually become what they called the cleaner, It's a glorified phrase for basically saying that I would go in and close down neighborhoods to sell the last things that most agents couldn't sell and get those off of the builder's books. But then I would also start up neighborhoods to set them up for success so somebody could come in and they could train new agents and so forth and so on. So I was kind of the closer and the opener for that particular builder. And then had anybody who knows anything about firefighters, I actually am married to a firefighter and they are tied to their pensions. Not able to move, and I got asked to be promoted and relocate. And that just didn't work, even though it was a great opportunity for my particular family. So I decided, at that point, I kind of hit the glass ceiling with the builder and kind of exited stage left, so to speak, and went into general real estate. It was a trying time. I decided to go into general real estate in 2007. So anybody who knows anything that happened in the world around that time, there was a huge market crash. And of course, it was fall of 2007. 2007 that I jumped out. So if you're gonna, you know, cut your teeth on real estate, the time to do it is when things are down for sure. If you make it through that, then you can, you can go anywhere from there.

12:25 Scott Ingram: Well, and other than the timing, is there anything that you would have done differently if you were starting that track over again today? Like, did, did that set you up, the experiences that you had early on, did that set you up for success? Or if you were coming into the field from scratch, would you take a different path?

12:41 Brandy Finnessey: I would say that I was very blessed in the sense that I, because of my work with the builder, I had some relationships with some folks that were large teams in real estate, and I was able to glob onto them, if you will, not just to learn a lot more about real estate than what they teach you in the classes, which is a little bit laughable, but to really kind of dive into what it really took and what needed to be done and how to market and how to do a lot of these things initially through a large team team. So my recommendation to most folks, although I did stumble into it and was blessed and fortunate to do it, I've seen a lot of folks and friends struggle. And my recommendation to people that are new to real estate is don't be afraid to be humbled by that. Go and join a team and learn what you need to learn from a big group, because you trying to do it on your own usually doesn't end up very successfully. There is a time and a place for that to step step out from a big team, but that comes much later. Learn what you can in the beginning and don't be afraid to swallow your pride to do that.

13:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good stuff. Talk about your results and just kind of quantify that for us a little bit if you can over time.

13:54 Brandy Finnessey: So for me, I'm a little bit of a workaholic by nature, so it was about really trying to employ early on what kinds of things I was going to do in my day and then blocking out my weekly and daily schedules accordingly. To try and get numbers and appointments and things like that that I wanted to get. So when you first start in the business, even though I had done builder stuff for a long time, it was virtually starting over. So when you first start out in the business, you think all your friends, family, and people that you've known for years are gonna use you, but hello, you're brand new to real estate. They're not entrusting their largest transaction to you. Love you and all, but not that much. So it's just about trying to find folks through different other mediums that maybe don't know that you're quite that new or being okay to prop up that team if you are with a team to kind of use that as leverage to where you're not the brand new guy and you've got all this support to kind of help you out. So initially it was about learning as much as I could, doing as much as I can. And the first couple of years, despite being in '08 on that side, I did $3 million my first year, which was pretty phenomenal for just starting in 2008. But then quickly jumped to $5 and $10 million and have just continued to progress since then year over year.

15:22 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Really, really good stuff. And just so we have some more context throughout this, I'm wondering if you could walk us through either a typical deal, kind of start to finish, or maybe you want to tell us the story of a specific transaction.

15:36 Brandy Finnessey: Well, so I get a lot of questions a lot. There is a misnomer, like, like with any profession, but I think realtors, lawyers, used car salesmen, that kind of thing, all kind of hit at the bottom totem pole of people's perceptions. And I think it's because, quite honestly, there are a lot of bad apples in the arena. The bar is a little bit low and so forth and so on. So having said that, people will hire a discount brokerage house And think that it's not worth it to hire a professional. So the story that I'm going to use in this instance was someone that I had met during a really good year just a couple of years ago when we're, you know, in a multiple offer situation and so forth. And this particular gentleman had hired someone to represent him on his listing. And he had a septic and he had a well and he had some other complicated, not Not overly complicated, but more than just a normal cookie-cutter neighborhood. And he lost several deals with his agent because of certain things with his property that weren't being marketed in the proper way. And that to me stands out from, one, someone not really understanding the business, but also not marketing effectively. And kind of getting what you pay for a little bit. So my best story about that was within Sitting down with him, talking about the reality of what's going on, a few items on his property that we needed to get fixed pretty quickly. I ended up having to fight on his behalf, even though I wasn't part of the transaction, to get his earnest money back and some other stuff on another property that this agent had kind of failed through, which was about $8,000 that was tied up in escrow. That was pretty easy to walk through and deal with the contract of things, but just Really working with him and understanding all the ins and outs of the contract, what needed to be done to market the home, and then negotiating really hard for him once we did get that next buyer. So I would say that a good portion of my job in real estate is a little bit selling, but a lot about really being there for clients and customers and remembering that this is a very emotional time for them, and it is one of the largest transactions that they'll ever deal with, and really just kind of walking them step by step through the process and saying, setting those expectations along the way.

17:56 Scott Ingram: And how are you staying organized through all that? Because you're not juggling just one of these. I mean, you're, you're closing 40, 50 transactions a year. You know, that's, that's not one at a time. How do you manage what must be just 1,000 moving parts?

18:10 Brandy Finnessey: So a lot of folks have teams. I myself do have a team, but a little bit different. I, I do believe that when you hire me, you should get me. So I am not one of those teams that sets up to where I set the initial appointment and then you never really hear from me again. I actually manage my clients all the way through, but I do have 2 assistants behind me that manage the other details on small things. They do not negotiate. They don't do anything like that. But they handle a lot of the tedious tasks, which are very important, though, about contacting lenders, making sure that we're on time with things, appraisals are getting ordered when they should, everything's advancing down the line, even on the opposite side of the transaction, just to make sure that we are all gonna end up to the finish line in line what we all expected and on time. So it's really about having your team behind you as a support staff to make sure that we're hitting all of the customer service level aspects for our own personal clients so that they're kind of insulated from a lot of the chaos that may be going around. And then it's also about managing oftentimes the other side of the transaction and making sure to, you know, smooth out their chaos so that everybody can get to the finish line on time.

19:22 Scott Ingram: And are there systems that you use to kind of manage all of that chaos? I mean, this sounds like just project management 101 at some level.

19:31 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, so there's various CRM systems in the market for real estate. I would say pick one that works well for you. Based on just who I am as a person and how I transact with my clients, my clients become friends and then back to clients and then friends again always. So I like to kind of keep my clients for years and years and I see it as a lifetime. So the CRM system for me wasn't about numbers of how many calls do I make to get somebody to call me back because these aren't cold people. These are folks that I interact with on a regular basis. So the CRM system that worked for me was, it's actually called Referral Maker and it's by Brian Buffini is the one who came up with it, very, very successful salesperson. So again, not reinventing the wheel but taking something that was done very, very well and it focuses, highly focused on client interaction and really that past client relationship and continuing that relationship for years and years. So for me personally, that's a system that worked for me, but you have to have a CRM system. It's kind of rule number one. When I first started out, I had a spreadsheet, and let me just tell you, I've come a long way since then, and I'm a fan of spreadsheets, but that was terrible.

20:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Now, you're talking about a lot of the business that you do is obviously repeat business. What's the biggest source for new clients?

20:50 Brandy Finnessey: So new clients, I mentioned open houses before. I will pull a lot of new business from open houses, whether I'm specifically targeting other sellers in the area and hoping to get their business and stay in touch with them later and show them how I'm marketing their neighbor's home or the house down the street or whatever that may be. But also really marketing to buyers and then just the knowledge base that I provide in that particular area. Being able to say when they walk into an open house that I'm holding, To be able to say, oh, you're looking for a 4-bedroom that's got a pool? Well, have you looked at the one over on Cedar Street? And Cedar Street, it's a little yellow house, it's darling. It's got 3 bedrooms on the main floor with a 4th bedroom upstairs. It's got a nice pool in the back. There's a great swing in the tree. When people look at you and you are providing that level of value, it's really hard to stay with the Zillow agent, if you will, or the Redfin agent that has no idea what's going on in that particular neighborhood and they just set you up on a random search for everything under $300,000 or $400,000 or whatever it may be. So it's really about establishing to both sides that level of expertise that you bring to the table and really boosting that up. And when you're a new agent, go out there, take the property tours, go into as many houses as you possibly can, really dive into an area that you're wanting to market in and work in and really understand it, because it's not until then are you going to really truly be an expert in that area.

22:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, you've mentioned a number of times that, you know, you're marketing a home and you're marketing to people. Do you think of yourself more as a salesperson or more of a marketer? Like, how do you think about what your role is day to day?

22:31 Brandy Finnessey: I think my role for making sure that business comes in the door is marketing. I think that you can sum that up in a nutshell, whether you're looking at past clients and working with them and marketing to them, although I cringe a little bit to say that because the reality is, is that I really care about the relationship. So it's easy to talk to them. Just making sure that I don't get too busy in business land that I forget to talk to those that do care about me or that have helped me along the way or whatever. It's really making a point to put into my calendar to go out to coffees and lunches or happy hours or whatever the case may be to really keep myself involved with those clients and friends to see what's going on in their life and maybe how I can help as a resource. It may not even be real estate related, but just to be there to help them in their careers or them in their personal life or whatever that you possibly possibly can do.

23:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What's, what's your frequency there? How often are you trying to be in touch with folks that you've worked with before?

23:29 Brandy Finnessey: I have a minimum of 2 past client appointments a week. So I would say fairly often, and then 2 large client parties a year and about 5 small gatherings a year.

23:41 Scott Ingram: And what do those different gatherings look like? What, what is a large event? What is the more intimate flavor?

23:46 Brandy Finnessey: So a large event is going to be pretty much everybody that's in the CRM program. So a couple hundred people minimum actually attend, but the reality is that who's in the CRM is about 900 folks. So you get about a quarter of that that generally shows up to an event, and that's true of any event that you throw.

24:08 Scott Ingram: And what's an example of that big event?

24:10 Brandy Finnessey: So I did a pink party a couple years ago, and it was right around between, it was in October, so for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and everything, and the whole theme was pink. So everybody dressed in pink, we had a whole photo booth photo area where people could take pictures with really outlandish, crazy pink hats and boas and big pink sunglasses and all of those kinds of things. And then everything from the food to the wine and everything was all pink. And it was just a lot of fun. And I always, my clients know this about me, I have a little bit of a pumpkin fetish. So we had about 500 pumpkins at the event and half of which were painted pink. And they got to take a pumpkin home on their way out and they could either carve it later for their kids or keep it on their doorstep or do anything like that. There was a music venue there as well, so it was just a really nice time of food and drinks and hanging out and having a good time.

25:06 Scott Ingram: And what do the smaller, more intimate events look like?

25:09 Brandy Finnessey: I am doing a… the next one coming up is a wine tasting party, so I'm having a sommelier come in and sit down with an intimate group of about 15 people And they're coming to my personal home and we're gonna have light appetizers and things like that, but the theme is a wine tasting, but specialty wines from across the globe, so maybe things that they haven't heard of or tried before and just an opportunity to do that, but really kind of putting 15 people, and that's really, when you really break that down, that's really only 7 people, if you will, and then their spouse, so it is a small intimate group where people kind of get to know each other and then trying to pick who who will fit together at that group.

25:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, and so you're picking, I think you called out at the beginning, those are sort of your raving fans, so I imagine those are the folks who are referring you most often, who like to upgrade most frequently, that kind of thing?

25:59 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, and as an agent or any sales profession, I would think you would want to categorize very early on to see who you should be talking to as far as your raving fans. I use a very simple system which a lot of folks use, which is like an A+, is anybody who's referred me more than 2 deals a year. An A is someone who's referred me a deal a year, and then a B is someone who would like to refer me but maybe didn't this year. And then Cs are folks that either I'm still cultivating and trying to get there or just met or just started doing business with.

26:33 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So you've had a lot of success, accomplished a lot in your career. What are you most proud of?

26:40 Brandy Finnessey: I would say, and I'll try not to get kind of silly emotional about this, I grew up very humbly, and I would say that a lot of what I do and why I do it is to provide a difference for my family. Specifically, I have 2 small boys, and really being an entrepreneur, really making a point to be involved in charity and giving back, and letting my 2 boys see that through me and be a part of all of these events is probably the thing that hands down I'm the most proud of, to see My oldest, who's now 9, which is still really young, but to see him really getting excited about some of the charity events that we do and talking to teachers or different people like that about, you know, what we're looking forward to doing and why he's looking forward to it really, really says, okay, yeah, that's, that's why I'm doing all this.

27:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What's, what's the biggest challenge either just in, in general in the day-to-day or maybe the, the hardest time?

27:40 Brandy Finnessey: Um, I would say the hardest time is managing the chaos because the reality of real estate is it's highly emotional. Almost everybody, even in the most blissful of transactions, has a lot going on. They're moving at the most simple of levels. So let's say that the transaction's perfect, but they're in the process of moving or relocating or changing their kid's school or all of this. It's just a highly, highly volatile time. And as agents, we're supposed to be the complete neutral party and the very calm one. And sometimes on the other side, you have an agent that maybe isn't calm, and being that neutral party So trying to manage the other side as well, and then trying to make sure that you still get in your daily tasks. What I see most with agents, whether it be on my team or in the real estate community overall, where I see agents really stray is they have these real big highs and lows in their business all the time. And the reason why that is is because when the chaos is going on, they're not doing their day-to-day activities that they should be doing, whether it's connecting with their past clients or, you know, going to some of these functions or going in and looking at property tours or whatever the case may be, they lose track of all of that because they're allowing the chaos to take over. And I'm not saying that you don't have to deal with it. You have to deal with the chaos, but it's about really trying to kind of put perspective on all of that and make sure that in your day, even if you are exhausted, that you've gotta push through and do these 1 or 2 or 3 items still so that you kind of get rid of that major high and low.

29:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so let's dig in there super deep. This is probably my favorite session in terms of just dealing with all of the tasks and maintaining that structure. So first question, are you a morning person or a night owl?

29:20 Brandy Finnessey: Um, I used to be a night owl, but since having kids, I would say that I'm more of a morning person.

29:26 Scott Ingram: I think that happens to all of us. So walk me through, what time do you get up and then what does your morning routine look like?

29:34 Brandy Finnessey: I generally get up at between 5:30 and 6:00. And the reality is that with 2 small kids at home, I need at least 30 minutes to an hour to myself to take a shower and do all that other stuff and get myself ready without having chaos around me. Around me, but then getting them off to school and whatnot, and then my phone generally starts ringing from clients about 7 o'clock. So I really want my wits about me before that phone starts ringing. Now granted, I could not answer it, but then I have to answer it at 8 o'clock or whatever, or 9 o'clock, or whatever the case may be. And I would say that my phone generally stops ringing at about 9 o'clock at night is about when I cut it off. I do think you have to set some boundaries. Some folks would disagree. That maybe they don't need to turn their phone off at all, or maybe the opposite. Maybe they set it and they stop at 6:00 PM. I just think the reality is, is that most people do work, and you need to be accessible for most of your clients, especially if there's something major going on or they're right in the thick of it, that you may have to talk to somebody at 8 or 9 o'clock because that's when they got their kids down to bed and they finally have a minute with their spouse to be able to talk about the negotiation you're in the middle of. So I think you have to allow those allowances in cases like that.

30:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, then how are you structuring the rest of your day, especially to make sure that you get some of those core tasks done?

30:56 Brandy Finnessey: So mostly I will lay out my week, and Mondays are generally chaotic because those are usually paperwork follow-up kind of days, so you just need to know the nature of the beast on those days. I try to very rarely schedule appointments on Mondays, and sometimes not even on Tuesdays in busy season, because those are the optimal times for you to be taking care of the title company, the mortgage company, everybody else that's coming back into play because they were off on the weekend and you did all your transactions maybe over the weekend or Friday or whatever the case was. So it's a matter of really kind of dealing with a lot of those very transaction-based items on a Monday and a Tuesday and then really taking the middle part of your week to kind of engage in whether it's networking that you're doing or appointments that you missed out on or closings or any of those kinds of things. Generally speaking, me personally, I always do my closings on Wednesdays and Thursdays because, to be quite honest, Fridays people like to check out early and inevitably somebody drops the ball and my clients don't get keys over the weekend that they were hoping and praying and expecting on. And Mondays are usually chaos because somebody dropped the ball on a Friday and left work, and Monday morning closings are a nightmare too. So again, it's all about insulating your client to maximize that they have the smoothest transaction possible. And if we know that these are pitfalls, why set them up for failure?

32:22 Scott Ingram: Do you ever get a day off in any of that?

32:26 Brandy Finnessey: I think it's about time blocking that. So yes, they're weird. I would say that I never get to count on a particular day as my day off, especially during busy seasons. So for instance, if I have clients that are coming in from out of town, they may only have Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I guess I'm working that Friday, Saturday, Sunday. If I say I'm not going to work on Saturdays and Sundays, period, I think that that really alienates a whole lot of your clients to feel like that they can't talk with you or work with you over that time. But I do think that your clients will begin to respect your time when you respect their time and you set appropriate boundaries as such. Really explain, I understand you've got something major going on in your life this weekend and you're coming in town. I will be there for you. I'll move appointments. I'll do whatever and be there. But then other times they understand that you're taking a day off or whatever the case may be. So I think it's about having that good communication like you would with most people in your life.

33:20 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Are there other habits or routines that are really central to your success in the way you operate?

33:26 Brandy Finnessey: I handwrite notes. I feel like that, that is a dying profession or a dying… what do we say… nicety, if you will, a courtesy. It's very unusual to get a handwritten note. And even I saw the other day somebody… it was actually my assistant brought it to me and said, hey, what if we type something up but it made it look like handwritten? And I said, no, it totally defeats the The idea is to really sit down and handwrite the note. And very specifically, don't just write some cheeseball line that you write in every single card, but really write something that is genuine to that person. Otherwise, why bother doing it? So again, it's about really making those connections with your people. And I handwrite notes to everybody. I handwrite notes to… and I'm not old. Those of you that know me, I'm not an old lady. And Scott could attest to this. So it's not from that. It's because I actually believe that it's, it's a really nice gesture that people still today are surprised and taken aback by you taking the time to actually do, and it really does mean something. So I, I would say that that's one routine that never goes away. Me personally, I write about 30 a week.

34:31 Scott Ingram: So, and when does that happen?

34:33 Brandy Finnessey: They are always in my bag. If Scott were to look in my bag on the floor right now, he would find…

34:39 Scott Ingram: Is that an invitation? Am I gonna go on a treasure hunt? We'll take a picture of that.

34:43 Brandy Finnessey: You might find other things in my bag, Scott. No, but all joking aside, there's always notes in my bag with envelopes that are already filled out and stamps and a pen even, because I don't want the excuse to give myself that I didn't have a pen on me or something random like that. Business cards and otherwise, all in a nice little bag so that I have zero excuses to write it out. And then it stares at you all day long. So whether you're waiting for somebody to get here for an appointment or you're sitting in the car eating your sandwich on the go or whatever the case may be, there's no reason you can't write a couple notes.

35:18 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Are there any other powerful sales or productivity tools, whether they live in your bag or on your phone?

35:26 Brandy Finnessey: I would say that, you know, you have to have a good operating calendar and pick what works for you, but I think that you really need to block out your week, your month, your 6 months, your year. I do a yearly meeting with my team in November every single year for the following year, and we block out on a huge whiteboard every single month and all the different touches that we're gonna do with clients and where we're doing things so that we can see it at that level and be able to see where the holes are and see where there's big gaps in time where maybe we're not doing anything or we're not connecting, or then we put on the bottom of that, but still where we can see on the board, how we did transactionally throughout the year. How many closings we did each month this prior year. So this November, I'll be doing it for 2017, and I look at that, and I go back through and say, okay, well, what happened in this month? Why are we so much less than the month before? Or why is this quarter less? Or whatever the case is, it means that maybe we need to beef something up. You know, a quarter or 2 quarters before that, and how do we fill that in to make sure that we don't have those highs and lows in the market?

36:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I was just gonna ask how you're accounting for, actually I'm curious about when is your busy season and how do you account for that? But it really sounds like you're doing that annual planning process and you really have a visual way of seeing, okay, this is when I'm gonna be slammed, this is what our transactions have looked like historically, when are the slow times, what do we do to get way in front of the slow times? 'Cause you just called out, it's 3 to 6 months of things that you did before to make up for that future empty spot.

37:09 Brandy Finnessey: Absolutely, and I think that it's very powerful for you to put that mirror, if you will, of your business up on the board in front of you and then really look at it and be honest about it and look at your transactions up there because it will very black and white show you where you're doing really well and where you're not. And my first year when I started doing this, my slow months, when I looked back at the couple months before that, they were my high months months, and they also didn't have anything major that I was doing in those, that quarter for my clients and past clients or any networking functions or whatever. I didn't do anything. So it made total sense that I, like most agents, got really busy and overwhelmed and fell apart and didn't talk to anybody during that time. I just kind of sat in my office and worked, and that's what I did. But those transactions essentially ate me alive. Well, that's what happens on the back end. Is a quarter later or 2 quarters later, you have this huge lull where there's nothing going on even if the market is pretty decent.

38:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, so at the end of the day, it goes back to having that big picture plan, but also then taking it all the way down to the daily time blocking so that you're doing the activities to make sure I'm not gonna be starving in 6 months.

38:21 Brandy Finnessey: Exactly, exactly, and then just knowing that some days, maybe you did have 3 closings in a day. That's a fantastic day, but still sit down and write your handwritten notes. Still sit down and make the couple calls you need to do. Still sit down and do a couple of things even if you had this huge high of a day. It's not to say don't go celebrate it. You can go do that too. A lot of what you need to do, you can do if you're really diligent about it in an hour or 2 during the day and crank that out and still keep yourself in a better position.

38:50 Scott Ingram: What do you do on the off day where you're just not feeling it?

38:55 Brandy Finnessey: I think the best advice I ever got by a mentor once was, I had done it and I came back to the office talking about how I blew a listing. And it was because I had had a really, really bad day. And I was real surprised that I blew the listing. And I could tell when I left there that I wasn't getting it. And we just didn't connect. I was just off. And the best advice he gave me was he looked me straight in the face and he said, the hardest lesson I learned was figuring out how to move an appointment if it is that catastrophic because it would be better for you to be on and be totally on. Now that doesn't mean that you can't just go mess around and say, oh, I'm not feeling it today. No, you need to buck up and do that. But like if something major just happened in your life, your dog just died or something terrible happened but may not be that terrible to other people but is totally affecting you, you need to be honest about that and then figure out how to move that appointment and be real about what's going on.

39:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. It's… I'm flashing back. It was just a couple of weeks ago. I was living a day, I swear to God, it was a country music song. I had to put my dog down. I had this dentist appointment. Like, it was just not a good day, but somehow I still closed a quarter million dollars that day. So I wasn't quite sure at the end of that day what to do with myself. It was definitely a roller coaster. At the end, I think it just sort of balanced itself out. Sort of tried to take good humor. I joked that day that I'm living a country music song and it kind of worked. It worked itself out. So what does your information diet look like? What are you reading, listening to, and watching?

40:36 Brandy Finnessey: So I do, as a real estate agent, I'm in my car a lot. So I have found that there are a lot of YouTube things that you can look up, whether you're doing something like TED Talks or you're doing something that's very industry-specific or whatever the case is. I will say that your dialogue of your information that you're taking in and what you're putting back out there. This job is hard and you get beat down a lot. So I think it's really important to be mindful of what you're taking in as a positive, that it's resonating in that positive fashion. Because I think so oftentimes we get surrounded around a lot of negativity, whether it's at the office or maybe in our personal life or the call we just got off of or whatever the case is. And then letting that kind of dictate where you're going that day. So I would say I'm very mindful about that. So I tend to read and associate with things that either are helping me from a sales perspective where I'm walking away going, okay, I got this really great nugget. I'm gonna see how I can apply that in my business. Or if I really need that pick-me-up because it has been that country music kind of day, then I'll try and put something on that's a little bit upbeat that maybe kind of grabs me and says, okay, well, come on, persevere. Let's push through this. And then as far as like a book, I would say that one of the best books that I've read in a long time was Hug Your Customers. It was completely unrelated to real estate at all, but I thought it was really amazing and really brought perspective of just simple things that you can do, just little tweaks on how to make that personal interaction with your clients, and then how much that magnifies through your business. This book was very specific about a clothing owner. So he did men's suits in the Northeast and just how he had a very early database, like a CRM system of every single one of his clients and he knew all of these different tidbits about them. So when he would do things like package up their suits or do things like that, he would send them things that were very specific to them. Like if they were into golf, he would send them a golf pass or if they were into something else, else, tickets someplace, he would send them tickets. Or if they really liked something else, he would do that. It was really powerful, and everybody would drive all the way, even when they relocated, when they would fly back in to get suits from this gentleman. And it was because they felt like he really genuinely knew them and he cared, and it really impacted their life. And I thought, man, if he can do that with suits, I ought to be able to do that with real estate, no problem. Because you are literally in people's homes. He's not even in their homes and he's making that connection. So it's a really powerful book, and I would recommend that anybody in sales goes and really reads that and really gets some perspective on how to treat your customers.

43:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah, is there something that you're now doing because of having read that book?

43:37 Brandy Finnessey: Absolutely. That was kind of the pivotal moment for me after reading that several years ago, really to dive in deeper into really having having that love affair, if you will, with my clients. And really, I had no problem in relationships before, but I was sprinkling in about 50/50. I was doing a lot of new client stuff and marketing and things like that, and I was doing about half of the time my past clients and the relationships I already had, when the reality is, is that the relationships you already have, they're gold. They will give you great folks to work with, and generally speaking, if they're great folks, they know great folks. So the clients you're getting are also not problem children or really terrible, you know, unappreciative type folks. They usually love you before you ever walk in the door. So that, that's the best thing to go after, and it's… and it feels good when you do it.

44:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah.

44:30 Brandy Finnessey: And I…

44:30 Scott Ingram: there's some great stories, a very recent episode with John Hinkson who sold 1,600 cars in his first 3 years selling cars. And that's what it was. It was great service and really taking care of the customers that you have. And and he's getting 20, 25 referrals a month, and those are, they're basically done deals at that point. You know, you don't have to go convince somebody from scratch. You don't know who I am, you don't know what I'm all about, versus here's somebody who's bought a car, a house, or whatever from me. They know that I'm good at what I do. You've gotta work with this person. They talk you up, the sale's done. Like, it's a given.

45:08 Brandy Finnessey: And we live in an information society. Everybody is detached from everybody, so the world overall is just seeking someone to actually notice them and pay attention to them. Please tell me what to do in all of this. They know the, you know, maybe what the car that they went in there looking for, they know what model they wanted, but he was able to kind of take that and leverage it into something that was much more powerful because he got to know them, you know.

45:34 Scott Ingram: So yeah, exactly. How would you describe your style and your approach?

45:38 Brandy Finnessey: So my style My style is, I'm very businesslike, I'm very informational, but I would say that my approach is always educating clients and informing them every step of the way. I always say to my clients, everybody's heard me say this, I'm a next step kind of gal, and I take that very seriously. I don't ever want my clients to be blindsided by something, so whether we're just starting the process early on or we're into negotiations, I'm already giving them kind of, when we start negotiations, okay, this is where I think we should counter back at, This is what I think they'll likely counter back at or ask us for, and this is what I think we maybe will do. They might do this, but this is what I think they're gonna do, and so forth. Because if we've done this enough times, you start to see a lot of trends. So we as the professionals should be able to convey that in a nice way to our clients so that they can get prepared, because this may be the first time they're ever doing it, and they don't know what to expect. And I think oftentimes, no matter what business you're in, we take for granted that our customers know what's going to happen, and they don't. They don't know what's going to happen most of the time, and we, we do because we live and breathe it every single day.

46:48 Scott Ingram: Is that, that process, is that just, it lives in your head because of all of the times that you've done it, or do you have it documented and you're sort of making sure that you're communicating each of those things along the way?

46:59 Brandy Finnessey: Both. So for buyers and sellers both, I provide them each with documentation that's kind of a next step book. It's like what to expect during the process. And I joke, but very serious about it, that some clients will, that'll be something that just collects dust next to the bedside, and that's totally fine. But there's a lot of clients that want to grab ahold of something and look at something when they're freaking out at night or whatever the case is, and what's gonna happen next. They really gobble that up. And then some of them that could care less, but that's fine. Fine. For those that don't want to read it or look at it or do anything like that, I say don't worry about it. I'm here, I'm going to next step you the whole way through, and I'll do it one step at a time so I won't overwhelm you. But this book is just for in case you get paranoid or want to look ahead a few chapters. This is, this is what's going to happen in the process.

47:47 Scott Ingram: Awesome. That is really, really… how long did it take you? Like, at what point did you develop that and start doing that?

47:53 Brandy Finnessey: I really did that in my second year in real estate, and I was already thinking about in my first, and a lot of it had to do just from the builder side of things. In the builder side of things, I would tell people what was gonna happen in construction, and just their behavior over when that would happen on time, they were much more pleasant, and obviously if it didn't happen on time, then they weren't. So really in my first year, even though I didn't have a lot of transactions, I still got to see that my clients were kind of helpless, wondering what's gonna happen next, and so forth and so on, and it really reminded me of those days back on the builder side of things. To where I said, I need to come up with something and put something together that talks about this, and I need to open up dialogue on what's going to happen next so that they understand that I've got this. You know, even if there is a lull and the lender has it for a while and there's not much going on on the house side of things, that's okay. Let them know that that's what's happening so that they don't think that maybe there's something they should be doing on this other side.

48:53 Scott Ingram: So, Brandy, what motivates you and how do you think about motivation?

48:58 Brandy Finnessey: So I think the biggest thing to do is to create your big why. This is what I was told to do years ago and was very obstinate, like setting goals, and didn't do because, haha, I didn't need to do that. I think it's important for everybody to sit down and create why it is that you get out of bed each morning and really be honest. Write that down like a diary entry that maybe you don't want anybody to see and just kind of be honest about what is it. And then if you can really put that into some sort of words, even if they're just for your eyes only, then think about that when you are tired and when you don't want to get up and those kinds of things. It helps to motivate you. I think all of us are a little bit different. I mentioned earlier in the podcast that my family is a big deal and really kind of getting them further in life than maybe where I started to where they don't have to fight as hard. Um, that for me is, is my personal motivator. Um, but I know a lot of people have different things that motivate them. So I think that it's really diving into your own personal why you get up outta bed and what you wanna do with your life and what you wanna see and being honest about that with yourself.

50:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. So this next section, um, I'm really interested in because you gave me some previews as to your thoughts here. And so the, the first one is, is there something you believe that the average real estate salesperson would think I think that most agents don't think of really planning out.

50:30 Brandy Finnessey: And what I mean by that is they look at and let the wind kind of take them where they go. They may do open houses one weekend and may work on that for a month and try and follow up, and then they may run over and do something else, and there just seems to… they seem to be lost at sea, so to speak. So I think most people think it's crazy to really sit down and to devise a plan, if you will, and really a critical, fine-tooth kind of plan to everything, like the whiteboard we were talking about earlier. Why do I need to do that? Or maybe that sounds like a good idea and then they just never do it. They need to do it. I think writing 30 notes a week, some people may think I'm crazy. I've been known to have a trailer every year and deliver pumpkins to the farm that I work. That's 368 homes. So there's a few things that I think people would think are crazy, but it's really about being true to who you are and being true to your plan on how you want to successfully implement and how you're going to touch those clients or that farm or whatever the case is. What works for you and really doing it year over year.

51:47 Scott Ingram: And what about the flip side? Is there something that they believe that you think is crazy?

51:54 Brandy Finnessey: This one I struggle with a little bit. I think as far as, I think a lot of folks will spend a lot of upfront money on a lot of marketing pieces and things, and I see a lot of folks get lost in the, I'm paying for all these designations or education. I value that. I think that that's great, but I also think that you have to kind of… it's like the college kid that went to college for 10 years and just got its bachelor's, okay? It's like the education's great, but at some point you have to get out there, you have to work, and you have to work hard at it and get your designations, get the things along the way, but make sure that you're actually focusing in on your business and doing the work.

52:41 Scott Ingram: What about… you had shared a stat with me about about repeat business.

52:46 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, so I think that it's, this goes to the nutty, so thanks for reminding me about this, but the national statistic is that when they polled people that did, whether they bought or sold with a real estate agent, that between 26, depending on whether you bought or sold, so 26 or 28% said that they would use that agent again. And I just thought, wow. What a staggering number. I mean, that's embarrassing. I think it's a horrible number that people on the flip side thought that. When they asked them, the really great stat about this was when they asked them right at the table or the week of the closing, that stat was in the 80s. And when they came back and they asked them a year later, it was in the 20s. Why is that? It's because at the moment that they left that closing table, they never spoke to their clients again.

53:40 Scott Ingram: Out of sight, out of mind.

53:41 Brandy Finnessey: Out of sight, out of mind, and they got buried by the next deal. And some of it maybe they didn't do purposefully. I've met a lot of great agents to where they didn't do it purposefully. They just got, you know, overruled by the chaos, right? So they never checked back in with them, and then they felt so guilty. It had been so long that they were like, oh God, what do I say now? Well, just, who cares? Say something. Like, don't just let it die there and not say anything. Check in on them. Call it out. Make fun of yourself. I'm sorry, I looked up, it's 6 months have gone by. How are you? How's the house? That kind of thing. So I think find the humor in that. Be honest with it. Your clients will appreciate that so much more when you're honest and mess something up than when you sit there and just try and cover it up, or worse yet, just walk away from the whole relationship completely.

54:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I always joke, you know, relationships aren't like milk. Like, they don't spoil. It doesn't go bad. There's not an expiration date. You know, and it's probably different when, you know, you're the agent and they're the buyer, right? There's not really any expectation or obligation that they're going to reach back out to you. Um, but it still doesn't matter. Any relationship, it's a two-way street. And, and even if you reach out and it's been 2 years, it's been 3 years, it doesn't go away. Like, it's usually a couple of minutes of, oh yeah, you know what? I really liked this person.

54:56 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, exactly.

54:57 Scott Ingram: And just doing that and not being afraid of, oh, well, it's been too long. Really?

55:02 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, exactly.

55:03 Scott Ingram: So what have been the most important decisions you've made or lessons you've had to that had the biggest impact on where you are today?

55:14 Brandy Finnessey: I think one of the things that was really profound, I'll kind of digress a minute and tell a little bit of a client story.

55:20 Scott Ingram: We're all about the stories here.

55:21 Brandy Finnessey: So I was in, this was probably my second year in the business, and I would like to say I was pretty polished. Maybe could have been a little bit better polished, but I drove like an average car, and it was clean, don't get me wrong, it was clean, but it was an average car, I was very moderately dressed, but nice business, casual business, we'll say, attire. And I had a listing, and really great couple. They loved me, I loved them. Relationship was great. And we ended up having an unrepresented buyer that came and wanted to purchase the home. Asked them if they wanted to be represented. They said yes, so I put them in touch with another colleague of mine, which was actually one of my mentors. I just put them in touch and had him do that. Well, he had been in the industry a lot longer than I was, and he was a little bit of a playboy, if you will. But long story short, he showed up in an $80,000 car and was all dressed to the nines and everything else, and, you know, to show the house. Well, my listing clients had secretly gone to a neighbor's house and had peeked out the windows while their house was being… which this happens all the time… had peeked out the to see who was coming and who the agent was and so forth and so on. And then when I got back with them later that night to sit down around the coffee table and talk about what the offer was and everything else that we had gotten, they said, oh, by the way, what the hell? Why did you bring somebody over here that's like the shark of sharks that we're going up against? And it was a really wowing moment for me because these are like the most old-fashioned hippies you've ever met, so they could care less about the car that he drove, but it did impact their perception of him. And it immediately told me, wow, like if these folks that love me, think I'm great, and I'm dressed pretty well, are noticing the car he drives, the way he looks, and now assume that he's better than I am, I maybe need to take that into perspective a little bit. And I'll never forget that that was one of those pivotal moments that changed the way that I appear in front of clients, and it consequently changed the car that I drive as well. I think that there is a fine line between being too flashy, too expensive, but also being enough to where you look successful. So it's a weird oddity, but it's important. People make a point to notice, whether you think they do or they don't.

57:53 Scott Ingram: Super interesting. So what is your answer to not too flashy, but right? What are you driving today?

57:59 Brandy Finnessey: I drive a Mercedes today, but I don't drive like the G-Wagon or something like that. That would be ridiculous. That would be… I think that that's too flashy. If you're driving a $250,000 car and you do real estate, it's a little bit much. That's all I'm gonna say. It's my own personal opinion.

58:15 Scott Ingram: Fair enough. So is there advice that you would have for somebody that's either going into sales or going into real estate and, and this is the very beginning for them?

58:25 Brandy Finnessey: Um, I would say get connected with somebody who's been doing it for and learn from them. Because I think that there is a lot to learn, and I think that you need to get rid of your pride a bit. No matter what industry you came from or how awesome you think you are, I think that you will have something to learn. And I think that if you are fortunate enough to even have someone in your office where you work or whatnot that is a very solid, good agent, try to get to know them a little bit. Try to get to know their secrets. Try to get on their good side. They might actually feed you you a deal here and there if they like you and they see you trying hard. But more than that, even if they don't give you a single deal, you'll be able to kind of learn kind of what their secrets are and what they did and how they implemented things, and they might be able to kind of coach you along the way a bit. And I think that that's important in real estate because when you're starting out, you're just trying to eat at that phase. You're just trying to make a nickel, and you feel overwhelmed, and everybody's telling you to spend all those nickels and you're sitting here thinking, how, how am I going to get… how am I going to get through? How am I going to get any of this? Well, try to do some things around you that maybe don't cost you anything but require your time and your ears and your open-mindedness.

59:43 Scott Ingram: And, and how did you get through the very beginning? Because again, we talked about you started at probably the hardest possible time in the last 2 decades to have started in, in real estate and And if I do the math right, and your oldest is 9, you must have had a very young child at that time.

1:00:00 Brandy Finnessey: Yes, I did. So my son was born in January of 2008. So me being new to residential real estate on this side of things and a brand new baby was a little bit scary and terrible in 2008. So I'll say what I did. I said earlier in the podcast, open houses are probably the fastest way to get you business. I held 3 open houses a week. I did 2 on Saturdays, 'cause you've got longer days on Saturdays usually because of church on Sunday. And I did 1 on Sunday. And I did it consistently every single weekend for the first year I was in business. I did 3 a weekend. And my days off were during the week. So I would take time off during the week, but that was adamant. And don't just hold the open house. Have something that's relevant to connect back with the people that you meet in the open house later. Get to know them. Talk with people, not write anything down, talk with everybody face-to-face, nose-to-nose if you will, and get to know them and what they're looking for and what they're interested in and so forth and so on, and get something in that conversation that's relevant and very personal to them. And then if you were a fly on the wall with me years ago, as soon as they would shut that door, I would turn around and flip over a piece of paper and write down every single thing that they just told me, mad dash, before somebody else entered or the people upstairs came back downstairs or whatever the case was because you'll lose all that information that you just learned about that person. It's impossible to remember all of that. So I would write down how old their kids were and what school they went to and how long they've lived here and all of these really different questions, but I'd always try and get something weird weird, like about something that was going on in the neighborhood that maybe they didn't know about or something like that, a way to get their email to where I could send them information on something that was weird and relevant to them. And I would follow up with that. And then don't be afraid to stalk people in the sense of I would, if they told me that they lived down the street and they had an odd last name, go ahead and look it up and send them a thank you card. You would not believe how much business I got from just that simple act. That they were so surprised that not only did I find them, but I followed up and thanked them for coming in and, you know, taking the time to speak with me in the open house.

1:02:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. The level of detail that you can find on the Travis County Appraisal District website is disturbing.

1:02:27 Brandy Finnessey: It is scary.

1:02:29 Scott Ingram: So what about somebody who's a little bit further in? So maybe they're a few years in, they're having some success, but they're not winning the awards and selling $20 million the way that you are. What would you suggest to them to take it to the next level?

1:02:43 Brandy Finnessey: So I would say, I think a lot of times agents get busy and then they forget about the basics. So I would say really get back to some of the basics of whether it's note cards like I had mentioned earlier, or, or, you know, getting in touch with your clients and setting appointments or whatever the case is, that you get back to doing a lot of those things that you started maybe in the beginning of your career and you just kind of sloughed off of and kind of started sitting on your laurels, so to speak, a few years in. So I think that you get back to the basics. But then I also think a lot of agents get to a point in their career where they're kind of… they're pretty busy and they really need help, but they haven't hired anybody because they, you know, are just starting to get comfortable in the money. And if they hire somebody, then they're going to be broke again. I would say hiring somebody that's good and let me clarify that, make sure that you hire somebody who is skilled and proper and good, is kind of like doing a slingshot. You are gonna go backwards for a money's sake and time's sake, 'cause you're training this new person and helping them along and feeding them or however you're doing it, whether you hire an agent to work under you or whether you hire an assistant or whatever that case is. But then it should propel you past that glass ceiling that you keep hitting and you feel like you can't get past. Past because it will free up time for you to be able to do some of the things that maybe you haven't been able to do because you've been just busy enough that it's just kept you too busy, so to speak, to do some of these other things.

1:04:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah, awesome. So the last question, and this is where we try and, you know, you listening to this, tons of great ideas. Now we try and make it actionable. And because we release episodes every 2 weeks, I try and create this as a 2-week challenge. So Brandy, what would you suggest the person listening to this do over the course of the next week, 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their sales results?

1:04:41 Brandy Finnessey: So I'm going to say it's probably going to sound cliché, but if you're being honest and everybody listening to this really says, do they have goals set and do they have a plan behind it? And can you grab ahold of it in the next 10 minutes? If the answer to that is no, then, which I think most, most folks is, then do it. I think that you need to sit down and you need to create your why if you haven't created your why yet, and then you need to sit down and really self-reflect, figure out your goals, how you're gonna do your business, and then blueprint them basically. I mean, just get really granular about it, but don't let this be like a 2-month process you're working on this. This should be, really work on this for a couple of days, a few hours each day, or one full day that you're gonna knock it out, or whatever the case may be. Is, put all your heart into it, and then put it everywhere to hold yourself accountable so that you can look back. I'll give you a great example. I looked back the other day. I've been really busy, and I forgot that I had put on the calendar for this year from last November, put on the calendar to have that wine party in September. And I said, oh my God, we're in September and I haven't done this yet. And I totally forgot about it. So the fact that I was referencing back the goal, the plan, everything that I had gotten really granular about, who would be there even, I was able to implement it pretty quickly and now have the wine party scheduled for the end of this month and still hit my September goal of getting it done. But if I never had any of those, how many other things along the way would I have not done to impact my client that would resonate and bring me Success. So that's the question I would ask everybody listening right now is if you don't have that, what are you doing? Are you just like a ship out to sea that the wind is blowing you where it goes? Take control of it. Be very specific and go where you want to go.

1:06:38 Scott Ingram: Sounds like a good plan to me. Thanks, Brandy. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today. It's been great.

1:06:44 Brandy Finnessey: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

1:06:46 Scott Ingram: And let me just remind everybody about the book offer I made at the beginning of the show. So I'd love to give you a copy of Stephen Harvill's 21 Secrets of million-dollar sellers, where you get to read Brandy's story and the story of many others. And in the US, all you have to do is text TOP1 to 444999 or just head over to top1.fm and spend 10 or 15 minutes getting involved in the Sales Success Community so I can send you a copy.

1:07:12 Brandy Finnessey: Awesome.

1:07:13 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening.

1:07:13 Brandy Finnessey: Thank you.

1:07:15 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.