Real Estate ISA Radio

Nate Joens: All right. Welcome everybody to our third interview with the top ISA. We're really excited about this one today with Alex Vincent. Robby T is, of course, joining us from Hatch Coaching after one of their very successful webinars, it sounded like, of their own. Again, for all of you watching, my name is Nate Joens. I'm with Structurely. We are joined today by another top ISA, like I mentioned, Alex Vincent of the Simone Group.

Nate Joens: This is going to be another detailed discussion about how she's running her ISA team, how her practices might differ from other practices of ISAs that we've had on the prior webinars in this series. And with that, Robby would you like to introduce Alex?

Robby T: I love it. First of, if any of you don't know, I only call Nate, Nate Joens like the rapper Mike Jones. And if you want a funny laugh, just go look up who Mike Jones and it's going to be the worst song you ever heard. Some every time I see Nate I think of-

Nate Joens: Not very good.

Robby T: Not very good. Anyways, Alex, super excited to have you on today.

Alex Vincent: Thank you.

Robby T: I first had the pleasure of meeting you... Was it about a year ago now?

Alex Vincent: Over a year. It was December 2017.

Robby T: December of 2017. It's been far too long. And we were doing in-person league immersion trainings, and Alex came up here with a team member, correct?

Alex Vincent: Courtney. Yeah.

Robby T: Yep. Yep. I remember you... Too many names, faces. You know how it goes. But what I loved is... Alex is, I believe, one of the most talented ISAs I've ever met. And I think, when you were up here, you just naturally showed that you get this role. And I think we have a lot of the same core beliefs. What I was most impressed about is: Alex is not afraid to share her opinion. And we had about 30-some people in the room, and I love it. You were very direct, you gave your thoughts. And more importantly, if you didn't agree, you named something. And that was really cool.

Robby T: So, super excited to bring your perspective to the role. In a moment I kind of just want to have you start off by telling us about you and who you are. I'm disappointed that baby Elliot isn't in the webinar right now. And I was kind of hyping that a baby would be involved. In crisis of leadership. But I get it. I get it.

Robby T: Anyways, Alex, tell us about you. How the heck did you join the Simone Group? And just give us the 101 on Alex Vincent.

Alex Vincent: Yeah, so. Commenting on Elliot not being here, she would've cried. It would've ruined the whole thing. So I definitely want to be [inaudible 00:02:55] of that. But yes, normally she is with me. I bring her to work every day. And... All day long. And it's actually a really great conversation starter. I think it's giving me an edge, not going to lie.

Alex Vincent: So joined the Simone Group back in 2017. And this was with the intention of building an ISA department, helping build up the team in sales. And it's been so rewarding. Our director of operations, Zach, was actually a close, personal friend of mine for years. And when he was kind of talking to me about our brokerage and the team, and the goals and kind of vision, really, it definitely drew me in. The ability to build something and have this kind of start-up feel, but with the support of a team that's been around for years. And the leverage and the money, which is a big part of startups. It's a big sore spot for some people.

Alex Vincent: It just... It really elevated me and brought me into some high level conversations. So I'm really excited to be here. I love Mondays. Not many people can say that. So yeah, we're just... I'm really excited to be a part of the team.

Robby T: I love it, I love it. So, every team in brokerage... We kind of talked about how that drew you in. What are some of those key things, like... There's a buzzword, right? Culture. And culture's just a placeholder in my world. It's a word that has so much more meaning than just culture. Give us some insight, like what drew you in? You said you wanted to build something, the startup feel. But if you were to say, "This is why this culture is really great," what would it be?

Alex Vincent: "Why is this culture really rare?" Well, you know, we are all workaholics, if you will. And we all like to play hard.

Robby T: Sure.

Alex Vincent: And I think that's been really awesome to be a part of over the past couple of years. You know I'm also, like I said, I've known a couple of teammates before I even joined. So, you know. Opening day, baseball season's a huge day for us. We all take off, we all go out, we all cannot remember the next day.

Robby T: Yes.

Alex Vincent: You know, it's things like that. Some of us are very family-oriented. Me, personally, I was just out for the past four months. Had a...

Nate Joens: All right. What is up everybody? My name is Nate, I'm with Structurely. We have an exciting webinar today that we're getting started finally on this beautiful spring day out of Iowa.

Robby T: Oh, yeah.

Nate Joens: We are joined by Robby T and LeaAnne today. Robby, would you like to kick us off?

Robby T: Hey, first off we got to celebrate the fact that we have no tech issues today. Sometimes tech is a pain. Funny part is as well, I was just on another webinar right before this about snap offers and we had some little tech issues. So major celebration. Other thing is, we have no snow in Fargo so life is fantastic.

Robby T: Hey, excited as heck to have a bunch of you join us today. We have one of the supreme ISAs, not just in real estate. LeaAnne also served as an ISA, and tell me if I'm wrong LeaAnne, but in the car industry. So I got to hear about that.

LeaAnne Ledford: I did.

Robby T: And now you've transitioned into basically being the lead ISA and overseeing your department, so would love to hear about that, but LeaAnne introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you.

LeaAnne Ledford: Hey, so I'm LeaAnne from Johnson City, Tennessee. I have been, collectively, from the car dealership to real estate, in this whole phone conversion thing, for several years now.

LeaAnne Ledford: Started out at [inaudible 00:01:33] Developments. When you say seven years, it's a long time. I mean, that's older than my kid, but obviously I like it so ...

LeaAnne Ledford: I started out business development internet sales in a car dealership. Very high volume car sales. I'm talking 30/40 car sold a week. Sometimes 300 a month. So I was one of two, and then our department with the help of the two that were there slowly grew to about six to eight at all times back there.

LeaAnne Ledford: I came into real estate in 2016. August, 2016 was my first month, and I'll be honest with you, I started out with these high hopes thinking, "Hey, I'm going to go here, and I'm going to crush it." Not only my teams only ISA. I was the only [inaudible 00:02:26] in our entire market. So I had no one around me. No one in our whole area knew what an ISA was supposed to do.

LeaAnne Ledford: These were big dreams and I sucked. I sucked. I almost left the industry altogether and the only thing that saved me was going to Family Reunion in Vegas in 2017.

LeaAnne Ledford: Since then I've been in it. I did my whole first year and went from having three closes from August to December in 2016 to having 74 the next following year.

LeaAnne Ledford: I'm on my own and kind of self trained, built all of our systems and then the next following year worked part-time. So half the hours, half the dials and got 101 closings.

LeaAnne Ledford: So-

Robby T: I love it. LeaAnne that's a good introduction. Lots to hit on there. You have a fascinating story. If you don't mind, I'd love to go back to the car dealership ISA stuff because-

LeaAnne Ledford: I don't go back there, but yeah we could do the talk.

Robby T: Well, we're going to go back for a minute. What's funny is we started this ISA stuff all about being an ISA in the real estate ball game, and I think you probably agree that the skills that we talk about and the skills that you're going to talk about, it's not just the one industry if I had to guess. So give us some insight. You said you were doing 300 car sales in a month?

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah.

Robby T: What does that mean? I don't understand that. Give me some insight there.

LeaAnne Ledford: So our dealership was the number one volume Toyota dealership in all of the east pretty much. We were doing 300 sales a month. Roughly 65 to 70 percent of those sales at all time were coming out of our internet sales department. We, much like an ISA in real estate, we got the leads.

LeaAnne Ledford: We were the first person speed to lead on that in a matter of seconds and then we would nurture them. Not quite long as we nurtured real estate. I was used to the gratification of setting an appointment today, and it goes under contract, they drive away today. So that was the difference. That was the game changer was coming in here and saying, "I'm going to talk to these people for two years? Two years?"

LeaAnne Ledford: Back there it was two weeks or they've made a decision and they're gone, but when you put it together and you look at the role, and you look at what's important, and you look at what it takes to actually help people to their goals that they reached out to you to get help for, it's the same. You can equate it to restaurant industry, car sales, anywhere. It's the same concept of listening to people, coming up with a solution, and making a pathway to get them there.

Robby T: Gosh. Listen, create solution, create a game plan or a pathway.

LeaAnne Ledford: Yeah.

Rob...

April Martin: Awesome. My name is April and I'm with the Dani Blain Real Estate Team. I was a full time ISA for three years. Now I am currently part-time ISA and part-time ISA manager. So, I used to do live ISA-ing from morning until noon, and from noon until the evening, I am managing, training, and overseeing the platform, and our agents, and leads. Currently, my stats are, forgive me they change all the time so I've got to look.

Robby T: That's funny.

April Martin: It's true. I can't keep track of the numbers. Over 113,000 calls made, over 60,000 emails sent, over 47,000 texts. Are you still there?

Nate Joens: I kind of am. Can you see me?

April Martin: No, I don't see you and I see a pan of Robby still.

Nate Joens: I do too. I think Robby has sufficiently broken this.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: Okay. Well, Robby's just going to be there smiling I guess since I can't seem to get rid of him.

April Martin: Okay.

Nate Joens: So I guess just keep going.

April Martin: I am at roughly 1,300 appointments set, and a little bit over 400 closings year to date.

Nate Joens: Okay. Great. So, can you tell us a little bit about your current role today and maybe how it's changed since you started with your team?

April Martin: Sure, absolutely. I was privileged to come on board with Kevin Blain himself, I was his original ISA, so founder from the beginning. I got the pleasure to go over and travel and see Robby, and Jim, and Eric and train with them personally. They've been a huge blessing in our life.

April Martin: From the beginning, from just not really knowing how to do it, or what to do, or what to expect, to today, I oversee four other ISA and we do currently manage and have managed up to 50 agents and 30-40 taking leads. So, my mornings are pretty busy. I come in at 7:30am, and pretty much do my leads, and my sales as an ISA until around noon. At around noon, I check out and I put on the management hat and making sure our ISA's are accountable. I'm going over current appointments set with them.

April Martin: We're trying to hold a pretty high standard for what the appointments set look like for our agents. I'm taking a look at who's converting. I am also looking at our different agents conversions. So, more of a management role and also providing training for the ISA's, because I've bene in this role three years. And since, the role is pretty ne overall in the industry, I think it's kind of up to ourselves to consistently grow and find new material. We're constantly trying new things and seeing what works. Just constantly providing new ways for our ISA's to get better.

Nate Joens: That's awesome. Could you, first of all, what are come of the tech tools you're using today. You'd mentioned you start the morning with your leads. Where are those leads coming from? Are they different than the ISA leads that they're working come noon? Kind of what's your lead, set the state a little but on your tech scene.

April Martin: Sure, so we have a basic CRM. We use Sync here. I know all ISA's and every team is different, that's one thing I've learned by studying ISA's the way I do. Is that, all teams are different, very unique and I would say some specialize in some things. We specialize in typical online leads such as Zillow, Realtor.com, Facebook, Facebook back at you, Dave Ramsey. Those are some of our traditional lead sources. My day, when I come in, any new leads on the platform, there's typically two of us at all times so, shifts tart from 7:30 until 4:00, and then one comes in from 12:30 until 9:00. All leads are round robin amongst the ISA's so typically everybody is getting a consistent new lead source a day. New leads, fresh leads, if you will.

April Martin: Then we also might have something a little different than a lot of teams. Because of our team size and the amount of conversions we do, we do do a lot of advertising. So, we do have a hotline and that phone does ring. And so typically whomever has that hotline, it's something you usually have to earn because you have to be very quick, because those are coming in live. You've got to be very, I know this is a hard thing to measure, but you've got to be very intuitive, and you've got to be very good with people skills and getting them to talk. Because, that phone can ring up to once every 15 minutes.

Nate Joens: And how may ISA's do you have? I'm sorry if I missed that.

April Martin: That's okay. It's me and four others, so four and a half.

Nate Joens: Okay, and what are their ranges of experience?

April Martin: I have one that's been here two years, and then two that have been here one year, and one that's brand new that we're currently on.

Nate Joens: And so, you know, this is probably a little bit a deeper question that I want to continue to dive into, but you had mentioned that getting access to the hotline is a high priv...

Nate Joens: Hi. Welcome everybody. We're finally going to get this thing started. I was just waiting for a train to pass, so if you happen to hear me ... Hear some loud rumbling it could still be a train. Welcome from the great State of Iowa. My name is Nate, I'm the CoFounder of Structurely - one of your co-host today. I am with Structurely, we're really excited to kick off our conversations with the top ISA series. This is the first episode, starting off right with one of the best in the country. This will be a seven part series with some of the top ISAs in the country. Myself and Robby, with Hatch Coaching will be interviewing them. You can catch all of these on our YouTube channel, we'll be recording them so you'll be able to catch up on them at any point afterwards and also will be available on Real Estate ISA Radio. We're really excited to get this one kicked off today. Robby, tell us who we got here.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, again Robby T. here with Hatch Coaching. I want to start a fight with you real quick Nate, you would said one of the best and I'm going to say we wanted to do this series right by bringing the best to the table. We got the man, the myth, the legend, Jim Rentfrow. I call him Jimmy. I probably make a nickname out for you every other day and I'm sorry for it. I just want to tell you guys a little bit about Jim before we get into the ISA stuff, stack pro. I have the pleasure of being an ISA alongside Jim. Jim isn't just a top producing ISA. He is this guy with a massive heart, too big a heart sometimes and we've had to call you on that.

Robby T: Jim is truly one of the best people I know. I'm so excited for today because you guys get to hear from his mouth, his approach, what he thinks of this ISA role, how he's been successful? We got a great list of questions for all of you and the ones that we've created. Before we get into that, I always like to start with numbers. We're going to start with this, Jim. Tell us a little bit about your numbers. You started as an ISA, how long ago and just give us [crosstalk 00:02:29].

Jim Rentfrow: I started in July 2014 and I think July '17, was my freedom day, as I call it, the day I came over and started over here. Since then, 331,600 dials, about 43,000 emails I've sent, 49,000 texts. The emails and texts have been since we started tracking, which was what, Robby? 2016 I think when we started tracking those numbers.

Robby T: Yeah.

Jim Rentfrow: I think I roughly have spoke to about 18,000 people and have set 1700, 1800 appointments and I have 706 closings as of right now. I popped into CT and checked it out right before this. My volume is about 155 million since I started. Yeah, I've done right.

Robby T: You're scrub. You're terrible.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Jimmy lumped a lot in there, so let's just make sure everybody heard that. I'm just going to ask directly, and I want you to tell me the number.

Jim Rentfrow: 330,000.

Robby T: Roughly, how many calls have you brought in? 333,000.

Jim Rentfrow: 18,000.

Robby T: Right. How many rough contacts, give or take?

Jim Rentfrow: About 700.

Robby T: 18,000. How many appointments?

Jim Rentfrow: Little over. Seven or six.

Robby T: Then 700 some closings, correct?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah, pretty much.

Robby T: You're like a real estate team and other yourself.

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah.

Robby T: Awesome. Well, I love it. well, thank you for sharing that. I want to start here. I want to start very 10,000 foot view with this today. What do you view your role as? You're an ISA and ISA is just inside sales agent, but what the heck does that mean to you, Jim? What is your role on a team? How do you describe it? What are you doing every day? What does ISA mean to you?

Jim Rentfrow: I struggle with this because the industry looks us ISA as the starting point, the lowliest of the lowly and the way I look at it ISA is I am basically the coal in the steam engine. If I don't put the coal in, this train doesn't go anywhere, nobody's dreams come true. While that's a lot of pressure, it is also really liberating because whatever I do has impact and that's the reason I came to this job is the ISA is the impact person. It is who drives the ship, it is who makes this whole thing work. Eric and I have talked in its description too of, we're the insurance policy on the database, we're the insurance policy on the money spent, but really the way I look at it is we're the coal that makes this whole thing work.

Robby T: I love it, Jim. That's a great analogy. We've talked a lot about insurance policy. What the heck does that mean? I think we all understand that you guys are really the engine, the steam engine, you're putting that colon and making the whole machine work. When you say insurance policy, what the heck is that?

Jim Rentfrow: Yeah. I mean, wh...

Nate Joens: [00:00:03] Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens. I am the CEO and co-founder at Structurely we've got a really exciting episode today of the ISA radio with our friends at Hatch coaching Hatch realty Erik Hatch Robby Trefethren guys. Can you tell us a little bit about your business. Robby I I'm very bad at pronouncing your last name Colorado everyone is you crossed it and there's a reason I sort of go by Robert T. Yep. It's the first time I've actually tried to pronounce it live. So we did you that well and the guy's house as he says it.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:38] His last name sounds like a pharmaceutical drug trial here. I've heard that one. It's great. So thank you for the introduction.

Erik Hatch: [00:00:46] And it should be known that Robby and I are huge fans of Structurely you're not even paying us to say that we just simply like you guys a lot and we think that what you're doing in the ISA and artificial intelligence world are game changing. So really elated to be partnering with you on this here at here in Fargo North Dakota. We have a couple of different ventures that are rolling out and it all started with Hatch Realty. We run our real estate company as a team. So our team consists right now of 35 people that includes three expansion markets. We run a different model than most people do even that are running teams. In 2018 we did six hundred and sixty foreclosed transactions just a hair under 5 million in volume 5 million of GCI and just over 150 million in volume. So we've had a fun run of things so far about three and a half years ago I had been getting coached and I was doing some coaching on the side and really felt like we had a unique voice in the market and it was different than what other people were doing and so especially with Robby by my side and I'll let Robby share his story and his journey. But what happened is we saw that there was a need and an opportunity for us to try to influence an impact in the best possible way. And so that's We curated Hatch coaching now. We we catered to some of the top coaching clients some of the top realtors in the country and we are honored to be a part of it. So Robby Your journey has been similar but different.

Robby Trefethren: [00:02:24] Yeah I started up a team back. Jeez it would be January of 2014. Does that sound right. I mixed up all the years a while ago and I started on the team as an as an ISA which is why we created this whole of the ISA radio and everything goes along with it. And when I came into the game I remember my first day I walked in and Erik kind of gave me a remember the script book right and old school script book filled with I would refer to it as a bunch of junk because it was all focused on I like to say manipulating and coercing and really trying to take advantage of the other person.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:05] And what I found was I wanted to create a way that really put the other person first because I think that's a better way and a more sustainable way to do business. And in my heart it felt right. So went down that route and now we had some major success. We have an ISA Department now with five full time ISAs of course.

Robby Trefethren: [00:03:26] And they were featured on one of the other podcasts as well. And I have the privilege and honor of coaching most or a lot of the top teams and ISAs teams throughout the country. So that's awesome.

Nate Joens: [00:03:41] Yeah. For everyone listening. Definitely check out the sixth episode of the ISA radio so you can hear firsthand from from these ISAs with hatches as we referred to them on the episode. The actual rainmakers.

Erik Hatch: [00:03:56] Thanks for that. Yeah I agree 100 percent man.

Nate Joens: [00:04:00] Yep awesome. So we're we're switching this one up a little bit today not necessarily ISA focus not necessarily script focus but kind of giving you the inside look into the culture that has been built at hatch from the rainmaker himself. Mr. ERIK Hatch I want to do a rainmaker or I may go. We'll just get everyone's kind of a rainmaker right now so we're gonna kind of dive into culture and how you can build culture successfully.

Nate Joens: [00:04:47] Like the guys that Hatch have they might not agree that they have had it had it figured out from the start.

Nate Joens: [00:04:55] But as we like to say every time here we've kind of fumbled forward and figured out the right culture to attract and retain some of the top producing talent in the industry. So guys can you kind of tell me a little bit about the culture at hatch and kind of how you got there wher...