West USA Weekly Podcast | Ep. 89 | Featuring Brandon Wise (3.10.25)

In this episode of the West USA Monday Morning Podcast, the team discusses maximizing networking events for real estate agents, providing valuable tips and strategies. They emphasize the importance of CRM systems, featuring Brandon Wise, CEO of WiseAgent, who showcases how their CRM can streamline client management, from landing pages to automated follow-ups. Stay tuned for market updates, mortgage minutes, and upcoming events. Don't miss this insightful session packed with practical knowledge to enhance your real estate business.

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Transcript

West USA Weekly - The Podcast 3.10.25

[00:00:00] Good morning, West USA. Welcome to another edition of our Monday morning podcast, man. Appreciate everybody joining us today. It's going to be it's going to be a great morning. Got the crew here. Well, let's see what we got. I, this is always my favorite time of the entire podcast, just to see what exactly I'm doing, but I don't know, I don't know.

But we got Todd well, we got Todd, I was going to go with Todd Baker. But that's you know, we got Tom. I answer to a number of things. Not necessarily all nights. Not always. All right, we got Tom Menard here to give us a look at the numbers, Matt Baker team to give us our mortgage minute, and I'm going to give three tips to maximizing networking events.

When we're at a networking event, how do we how do we maximize and take advantage of it and actually accomplish something? And we've got a good friend of ours. Man, we talk about CRMs all the time, and we talk about WiseAgent all the time, and we got the founder and CEO of WiseAgent, Brandon Weiss, in the house, so we're looking forward to that.

As always, if you've got any comments or [00:01:00] questions, please feel free to email us at podcast at westusa. com. Alright, let's jump into the announcements. Our Goodyear office meeting is coming up tomorrow from 10 to 11. 30. I think Claudia will be there, but also one of my favorite commercial agents, Tom Wolfe.

So, all of you that hop on the Facebook groups and say, Hey, I need help with commercial, this is who I say to call. So, join yeah, go to your office tomorrow at the Palm Valley Community Center. Arrowhead, happy hour this Wednesday from 4. 30 to 6. 30 at Ajo Al's, one of my favorite Mexican places in Arizona.

That's fantastic. So that is coming up on Wednesday. Well, this is probably the only one that's not going to be including alcohol. But we've got Todd Menard's CE class, free CE class, all virtual, three hours of fair housing this Wednesday from 9 to 12. And as always, all of the events that we go through are on the west USA calendar.

Just go to the dashboard, or if you're not with West USA you can just go to west usa [00:02:00] calendar.com and you can attend any of these. Our Toki office meeting featuring Dean Becker's coming up Thursday from 10 30 to 11. 30 lunch by Sonia. Mm, yeah, it's pretty good. I got to see what I'm doing on Thursday.

All right. Our Scottsdale happy hour this Thursday from 4 30 to 6 30 at a local Patron. So make sure you put that on your calendars and our Scottsdale office meeting. Oh man, I was going to do something with that picture. I was going to throw something up there with you, Nick. I forgot. But anyway, so we got a mystery, a special guest coming up breakfast will be served, and it doesn't matter who the guest is Kyle Faust will be there, so that's all you need to know.

So that is Wednesday from 10 to 11, 15 a. m. Transaction desk and dashboard training every second Monday, so, we have a morning session, I can't, it's hard to see with that kick. Get that camera there from 10 to 12 and this afternoon from 3 to 4 p. m. You know, Hey, [00:03:00] a quick thing about this is that, you know, a lot of times people think training is entry level.

I mean, Emma's mastered this. I mean, if you want to know how to take your, you know, to, to get the most out of it, this is why you want to go. Alrighty. And I have found one of the hardest, most challenging aspects of being a real estate agent. Is when you're going on a listing appointment, it's truly establishing value and, and comping property.

So we're doing a very special CE class next Wednesday up here at the North Phoenix office. It's understanding the appraisal process. And at the end of the day, the house is worth only what somebody's willing to pay for it. Based on what the bank is willing to loan on it, based on what it appraises at, right?

And that's how much the house is worth. So this is an opportunity to learn from a very qualified appraiser just to take a look at how appraisers appraise properties and establish value. So that's gonna be from nine to 12. This is a CE class as well. [00:04:00] So you can go to six figure events or scan that QR code to register for that class.

All right, Todd, take it away. Oh boy. I get to follow another trainer. That's awesome. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We got some really cool stuff happening in the marketplace. I hope you're feeling it. But let's get right into those numbers. Thanks for joining us today. Today we're going over the Greater Phoenix Metro market statistics for the week ending March 10th.

Here we go. 85 days closed on market this past week, a 5. 7 months supply. Absorption rate is at 17. 34. Average list price this past week was 778, 841. Average Sale price this past week was six hundred and sixty eight thousand six twenty eight in our list price to sell price retention at ninety seven point two four Active inventory not wrong up two point three percent twenty five thousand two hundred and fifty seven properties available Pending is at forty three thirty and closed units.

Now. This is the month to date of march at fourteen thirteen Stay with us later today. You will see on the dashboard the [00:05:00] statistics for a month and for February. New listing taken, 2, 594, 2. 9 percent increase, a 102, 000

gain for closed. Lower left hand range categories that shrunk, which was our 3 to 5 million category. Other than that, every single category had an increase in inventory. So this is active inventory. Taking a look at the in total, MLS, we're sitting at 0 to 600, 000 at 65. 75 percent that's down just a little bit.

600 to a million at 20. 43, and a million and up at 13. 83. So here's our spreadsheet. We take a look and compare. On the left hand side, very, very top, you'll see our rule of thumb way over on the left hand side inside that red box. 2, 400. That's what we're shooting for. We're always shooting for 2, 400. We've been shooting for 2, 400 for 30 years of me doing this, but I will tell you this.

This is because all those numbers on the left hand side represent what's called a balanced market It doesn't say that prices aren't high. It doesn't say [00:06:00] inflation isn't strong or weak. It doesn't say economy's good or bad This is strictly Inventory speaking, if you want to uncloud yourself from all of the things that you're hearing in the media, this is where you go.

But 2, 594, we are well ahead last couple of weeks of our 2, 400 that we've been striving for, which is saying whenever it goes above 2, 400, this is saying sellers have confidence in the market or they could be distressed and need to sell. But if you look down in the gray area just a little bit lower than that, you'll see that, you know, Although there are some people, unfortunately, that are distressed the majority, 99.

5 percent of the market is not. So, 2, 594. 22, look at last year over in the salmon color, 2, 128 list properties were listed this past week, and only 1, 979, this market is starting to be a hot market. Looking at active, 2, 500 25, 257, again, over. 25, 000. Mike, I'm just going to call back to [00:07:00] maybe a four or five year ago podcast we did, and you asked me a question.

You said, Todd, what does the market really have to have for listing inventory for it to be somewhat balanced? I said, it can be no less than 25, 000. Now armless is reporting a much higher number because they include pending, which I don't in this number. They also include under contract accepting backup offers, which I do not.

And also they include contingent sales, which I do not. So this is legitimately 25, 257 active properties that are available in the marketplace compared to 17, 500. Now this is going to matter because when we get down to month supply, you're going to say, how the heck can we have such a high month supply?

It's because we have 8, 000 more properties in inventory than we had. Last year, this same time. So of that 25, 257, 866 of those are coming soon. 19, 005 in the single family non distressed, excuse me 3, 120 new home [00:08:00] construction. 25, 063 non distressed properties again. I'd be remiss not to show you how these distressed properties have increased two years ago that we only had 24 short sales.

Now we have 116. You know, again, Mike has been talking about this particular topic. But again you know, I always have a tendency to say if it's less than one tenth of one, excuse me, if it's less than one percent of the MLS, then it's not something that is a crisis as far as it's concerned. Who's it a crisis to?

Unfortunately, those people going through it. And that's why we always recommend to go to Claudia's short sale class. Taking a look at pending. Pending is another indicator. It's another key point and pending is how many buyers are in the marketplace. Do we have more buyers than we had last year?

Last week, you know, last month, two years ago. So we're at 4330. Our special number wherever on the left is 5, 500. We're not there. We have been near there, but we're at 4, last week, 5, [00:09:00] 209 last year. It doesn't sound like it's too ridiculous because slides rise a little further into the blue and you look under January, 2024, which is the first.

Blue column on the left on the right hand side of that 6397. So six over 5, 500 is not unusual. It's just, it's been unusual since COVID. So we really need to you know, try and work on, on eliminating the myths that are out there in the marketplace closed inventory for the month. Too early to really report on looking at month's supply because we have such a large inventory and there are still fewer buyers in the market actually entering into pending scenarios.

We're at a 5. 7 month supply right now. So if you look at month's supply, you've always been told if it's under two months, we're in a seller's market. If it's over four months, we're in a buyer's market, or excuse me, if it was under four, we were in a. Sellers market, if it was over six, we were in a buyer's market.

Well, that type of numbers haven't worked since the 2000 started. So realistically, if [00:10:00] you're under two months, you're in a seller's market. If you're over four months, you're in a buyer's market. And we're at 5. 7 sellers are having to negotiate. right now in order to get their properties under contract.

That's what that means. Median price for 78 again. That's not a point in time really to look at because you know, we're dealing with just what's closed this past week. However, it is something to stay in, you know, Up on abreast of what's going on. And then the last two sets of numbers are going to be the average days on market for sold is at 85.

It, it just creeped up a little bit. 70 is real, really where we want. We might have had something over this week happen. I'm not really sure. I know interest rates. We'll see. Matt's coming up. But if you slide your eyes to the right, you see, we've been 76 last week, 74 the year before, 74 the year before.

So again in the seventies is really what we want. And then the final thing, which really is the big indicators here, as far as are the sellers negotiating or not, is our list prices, sale price retention at the time that the deal opens escrow, that the seller has accepted the offer. [00:11:00] What was the difference between the list price at the time they accepted it and the sale price on the contract?

Well, 97. 8 way over on the left hand side is been the rule of thumb. a thumb number for a long time, meaning the average market sellers negotiate about 2%, 2. 2%. And that does not take into consideration anything to do with the concessions line. That is just the discount in the list price at the time the person purchased it.

And this isn't always, this isn't. Also, original list price, so we're not dealing with people who have overpriced their home, finally came to the realization and lowered it and then sold it. This is the time, at the time that the offer was done. So we're at 97. 2, which means the average this past week was the sellers gave up a half a percent more this past week than they did the week before.

So what we're looking for is really for Sellers to move their product right now. It's a good time for a buyer. You can not only you know, get your As much assistance as possible the different lending types But you can also get the sellers to consent to provide increased concessions. So there you go Check take your pick.

[00:12:00] Do you want it off the price or do you need it inside the deal? I just need it sold. I just need it gone. Just, bye bye. Need the money in my pocket. Thanks everybody. Alright, thanks Todd. As always, I'm bringing Matt Baker. Matt what's going on with rates, man? Well, you know, we've we've maintained that's the good news, right?

In the sixes and And I always like to remind people, we can get a rate in the five and we can get a rate in the sevens and every eighth of a percent in between. And what really comes down to is the cost of the rate is what ebbs and flows. But listen, it's nice to have sixes across the board. It'd be nice if we're five across the board.

I'll talk a little bit about what's to come and why I think maybe that won't happen, but we'll, we'll, we'll talk more about it, but you know, they've made a nice run. I mean, and you're finally starting to see the media catch up to that. Remember it's always the delay, right? Like, like these days where the market ebbs and flows, that doesn't often get reported to like a week later.

So they're just now talking about rates hitting their best levels. But as you can see real time, we've come off of that a little bit. That's where that red [00:13:00] comes in there at the far right. And so yeah, you got to temper that a little bit of like with the media is a lot of it is going to be. Slightly delayed.

But some of the benefits that we've seen over the last week, and we talked about this last week is the jobs number. And so on that left side, you see the BLS jobs report that came out Friday, and that was 4. 1. And you remember unemployment rate ticking up is good for rates, you know, because that means, oh, the economy slowing down.

And so they come off of that. So the jobs report on the left and the right That's the ADP private number. We're both sort of underwhelming to the market. Now you wonder, well, gosh, if the jobs report was so good for rates on Friday, why didn't the market move? And yeah, well, the challenges, all the other stuff that's out there talking about it, tariffs and this and that, and global pressures, Germany's rates reductions.

Like there's lots of the factors at play. And, and if you want more, we'll talk about the, the housing pulse that we do, where we. Deep dive into economy, housing, and rates. [00:14:00] And then, you know, I talked about this last week, the home in five Platinum's back, right? 5. 7%, 4 percent talk about renters, right?

These are our buyers that could be out there adding to the buyer pool, getting independent, and this is the opportunity. Guild last year, over half of the business that we did of all purchase transactions was first time home buyers. There is a big opportunity to get them in them. They don't have to sell to buy.

They they're ready. They're ready in. And so. I just need your photo. But if you want to do a co branded flyer, this is me and my partner, Nathan. But you know, that could be your real estate photo. And so we can co brand the stuff. I just need your info. If you want to put that out there, I feel like it is a good time to be updating your buyers on that.

And then, you know, kind of economy talk let's talk about tariffs. And so, you know, I'm getting a lot of questions about what does that do? Well, on the short term, it's actually helped bonds briefly, as you can see over the last couple of weeks, because rates have improved because of the uncertainty, any kind of uncertainty in the [00:15:00] market can lead to better interest rates, but tariffs could drive up prices.

And this is the dichotomy in the market is. Are they or aren't they and nobody really knows and they're all just throwing, you know Proverbial stuff against the wall to see what the market is going to react or not React to now inflation The kryptonite, is the kryptonite to mortgage rates And so if tariffs drive up prices and that's passed on to the consumer that could inflation and that's why you're seeing Some wild swings day to day.

Like just the other day, I can go back to that chart, but you'll see, you know, the, the let me see if I can do that. You can, you'll see these wild red lines and green lines. That's the movement in the day. So there's lots happening in the day based off of one market or the other. And so. You know, the clear thing, or it's really unclear what the impact on short and long term will that have on rates.

And so for rates to really go [00:16:00] lower, you have to quell that fear of inflation risk. Because as long as that inflation potential risk is there, I think rates will be anchored. And they're talking about, well, these tariffs could be the famous word transitory, which is It's basically a temporary setback, but you don't really know.

Nobody really knows. And so you're seeing a lot of retaliatory tariffs and all this movement. The bottom line is that you need to go out and buy it. And because buying real estate, you know, again, you see the stock market ebbs and flows, you know, thousand points, you know, lots of movement. Well, one way to take is take your money out of there and go buy a house with it because there's an opportunity.

In the real estate market and then do a deeper dive on Wednesday, economy, housing, and rates where we do this just register at bookspanbaker. com pulse. And then as always, there's my contact card. If you have questions, well, a lot of people don't know this but Nick's mom pays me a monthly salary just to hang out with him and be nice to him.

And so I'm [00:17:00] going to start charging her tariff. Oh, I think it's only fair charity though. Wait, I don't know. I don't know where you're going with that No All right. Thanks matt. Appreciate you. Thanks for being here, buddy. Yeah. Wow. Lots of good information Let's not derail it with whatever that was All right, let's jump into the three pack.

You know, one of, you know, for us as agents, it's imperative that we sit down and identify, you know, especially every year when we, when we re evaluate our, a business plan. But, you know, each agent should have three to five, I think, solid lead sources that, that they've identified. These are gonna be where I'm primarily gonna get my leads.

And I think networking events, If you know how to work them properly, I think networking events can be a massive lead source for us as agents. And so it's one thing to show up to a networking event. It's another thing to show up to a networking event with a strategy and a plan of, of what is [00:18:00] going to happen.

So that's what we're going to talk about. So I I recommend it, and I just went through this with my team last week because I love networking events. I get, I get a lot of business from networking events, but I think it's an, I think it's imperative that as real estate professionals that we are identifying and attending a couple of networking events per month.

So what are networking events? It could be anything where there's groups of people. It could be, you know, kids activities, whether it's sports. Activity or a school activity could be a professional networking event that a lot of us go to. It can be, it can be happy hours, and, and I, and I could have probably just on some of these put non agent in a parenthesis on a lot of these.

We're not talking about the office happy hours, right? That's a different type of networking, but I'm, I'm talking about other happy hour events where there are particular potential buyers and sellers there that you can communicate can be a non agent type conferences. It can be, you know, parties, whether it's you know, a [00:19:00] neighborhood events or neighborhood parties or Christmas parties or birthday parties.

And, and so when you get that opportunity to go to a party, cause that's my initial response when my wife's like, Hey, we're going to a party, I'm like, ah, crap, I don't want to go. go to another party, but then I got to flip the switch, okay? I'm selling real estate, so, this now presents an opportunity to connect with buyers and sellers and toddlers.

There's just a gazillion types of networking events that we could include in this list. You know, I was, I thought when we started off with a three pack, I was going to end up having to say, You know, networking events sounds like it's a job, you know, it sounds like I got to get up and I got to go to work, but the reality is that you're if once you've internalized that you're a real estate agent, you know, you've kind of got to carry that persona.

Always with you. You've got to be prepared to turn it on in a shopping center if somebody comes up and asks you a question, right? So when you go into these other [00:20:00] activities you have to consider the fact, what's the likelihood that someone in this group is going to want to have a conversation about real estate?

Well, potentially pretty good, but they just don't want to talk to someone who identifies themselves as a realtor. How many times, Mike, have you said that? Yeah, nobody wants to talk to a realtor, but everybody wants to talk to a realtor. But the moment that you bring up something like, you know, I don't know, just some of, some things are in the news.

So you say, Oh, okay, potential tariff on Canadian lumber. What's that going to do to America? Well, chicken littles falling, the sky's going to, well, you need an answer. You need to be prepared to have an answer that promotes business and promotes the reason like, well, then you better get a house now before.

Yeah, plumber goes up. But anyway, those are the types of things, but I was happy to see that it was not just business events. It's everywhere in anything that you go everywhere. It could be golf, it could, oh my God. Well, if it's golf, then it's a write off. So you can, you can prepare for that. Well, bro, the way we all met Cindy, my my, I know I was here, here a couple weeks ago.

Everything listen to here is a write off fact. Mike's writing this podcast, podcast off. She says, I write all [00:21:00] of this stuff off as advertising. Apparently he also writes off whenever he and I do events together. So that was fun to learn. It's intentionality. I mean, a hundred percent of these, these events.

Yes. Nobody likes extra events. No one likes their Sunday when there's football on to be caught up with going to a four year old's birthday party from one to five o'clock in the afternoon. You have stuff to get off your chest this morning. I mean, that sounds, that sounds personal. Sean is not listening to this issue.

We have a very hard and fast rule in my house. Birthday parties are Saturday from 10 to 1130 AM. If they're outside that window, we ain't going FYI. So husband of the year, right? But these are things that agents consistently don't think about, salespeople need to be thinking about. If there's an event in the neighborhood, you want to walk over there, you want to have a conversation.

Because the person farming that neighborhood, you better believe they're there, and they probably sponsored it. If they didn't, they brought a whole bunch of snacks for the kids. Alright, so let's get into some of the strategies, because for me, and this is just me personally, and Clay Faust is going to be rolling over in his grave on when I say this I'm not, I'm not showing up to these wearing my [00:22:00] name badge and I'm not showing out there showing up with the intent of I've got to hand out all of my business cards because I'm wanting to have deeper real estate conversations.

And so that leads to point number two is, and I call it shrink the room. And what I mean by shrink the room, it's, it's identifying ahead of time what your goal is. Okay. I can walk into a room and there's a hundred people there, and it can be incredibly overwhelming. It can be incredibly daunting. And then I can easily just get into that mode.

Okay, I just got to introduce myself to all 100 people, hand out my business cards to all 100 people, and hope that they're going to call me back. And it doesn't quite work that way. You don't have to connect and meet everyone. So what I do when I'm going to a certain event, I'm determining how many people I think are going to be there.

And how long is the event because how long the event is going to determine how many quality connections and quality real estate conversations that I can have. So I determine ahead of time of how many connections I want to [00:23:00] make and I'm just satisfied it. If I'm, if I'm showing up to event, there's a hundred people, but the event's an hour long.

If I walk away with two quality connections and I say that is my goal ahead of time, that's shrinking the room and I feel pretty good about the other 98 people. It is what it is. I'd rather have quality conversations over quantity. And, and then I just start the conversations easy. What do you do for a living?

Yeah, let them talk about what they do for a living because chances are they're gonna reciprocate that and they're gonna ask you what you do for a living. So if you walk into a room of a hundred people You don't need to feel overwhelmed or intimidated, you just need to reach your goal. You know, and it's kind of like there's like a high school or a grammar school gymnasium on, on some kind of dance night, you know?

I mean, you got all the people lining the walls, but then you got people dancing. And the people that are dancing are comfortable being who they are, and they're out there doing it. And the people that aren't are the ones that are fear, in fear of that interaction. It's the same kind of thing that you brought from your childhood that you don't [00:24:00] even realize it into these kinds of environments.

And, and it's because, and it's simple though. You know, if you want to learn, go around the groups of people that are listening to it. The larger groups of people that are listening to one person talk. Because there's a good tendency that you got learning people in that group. And you've got one person that you probably want to get to know, which is the person that's doing the most of the talking.

And so you can kind of look at the room. This is just what I've always done, Mike. You and I go way, way back with this. But you know, to shrink the room, you have to identify, okay. And then, and sometimes you may not have. A specific number before you go into the room, but you can scan the room when you first get there, and you can develop it.

Well, yeah, but I still think, I think goals are everything, and it's a, and the goal is, this is my minimum. And you have to walk in having a minimum. I want to walk away with a minimum of X connections, but you know, the operative term here, Nick, is shrink. Yeah. That was funny. Honey the foreshadowing on your three pack with having our, our [00:25:00] friend in the room today is, is, is fun, cause usually we would start talking about CRMs, but I'm gonna not talk about that right now and give it a little minute.

But yeah, I mean, I'm definitely the guy sittin against the wall, not wanting to go on the dance floor, but when you're in this environment and you're intentional in what your goals are, and you wanna have conversations, if you're not comfortable, which I'm usually not, You're just having questions. Ask questions to those people.

Walk up, hey, is your child here? Oh, hey, what brought you to this event today? You know, weather's crazy. Do you see the rain? I mean, you just start asking questions and that opens up conversation because the one thing people love to do is talk about themselves. So you get them talking about themselves and you're not really having to do any work.

They're gonna ask you what do you do for a living or what do you think about x and y and you can easily turn the conversation into a real estate focused conversation. Not that you're gonna represent them in a buying a cell. You're just having questions. Real estate focused conversations. Yeah, when I get home at night, if I, if I walk through the door and my wife hands me a bourbon, I know we're going dancing.

Because that's the only way she's going to get me out on the dance floor. I gotta, I [00:26:00] gotta get juice. Sounds like a new song. Alright, and know your intent. So, we, we've shrunk the room, we've set the goal. I want to meet two or three people. The goal again is not to hand out business cards to everyone.

Just stop it. I don't even carry your business cards. Correct. Your primary goal. It's not to give your data. Your primary goal is to collect the data. So if I set my goal at this event is two quality connections, I'm going to have two deeper real estate conversations, then I know it was a success if I walk away and I've collected their name, phone number, and possibly their email.

And then Immediately, that information has to get thrown into your CRM system, and then from there then once, and I think this is sometimes, sometimes we're good at this, sometimes we're collect, we're great at collecting names and phone numbers, we do great at open house events or whatever the case is, but then we got to develop our follow up cadence, and this is where your, your CRM system can help you, how often, how frequently are you going to continue to connect with that [00:27:00] person, just because they don't buy a house from you in the future.

First two weeks doesn't mean that they're not going to be looking to transact in the next 12 months. Well, and I think that's the same thing with this word that we use in the marketplace, which is convert converting. You know, I think we try to over convert and I think what we need to do is to have just regular conversations with people until those conversations.

open up an opportunity to have a conversation that you'd prefer to have, like maybe real estate or investing or interest rates or any of those types of topics. But again, I think that ultimately when you, when you, if you go in with the intention to, you know, flyer the room with your information, you're not the most interesting person in the room.

You want to be. The most interesting person in the room and sometimes that starts with a conversation of one with a wallflower. But at the same token as people listen and overhear you, you may end up being if you are careful with what you say the most interesting person in the room. And I would just remember always, the goal is to [00:28:00] collect data.

You're working with individuals, human beings, that have their own timelines on when they're going to transact, if they are at all. So, yes, the cadence is very, very important, because you need to be in front of them when they decide to make that decision. But you can't get discouraged, like Mike said, if in two weeks, or even six months, a year, they're not ready to transact.

When they are, if you do your job correctly, they're gonna transact with you. Well, it made me think about the conversion thing that I was talking about, and I Kind of didn't finish the second half of the topic. So thank you for doing that. But the point really boils down to you know, if, if you just end up wanting to have conversations with people and, and you want to collect their information, the best way to collect their information is to go over and say hello.

And if you don't go over and say hello, you, you're not going to get there. Yeah, and I can't, I can't tell you how many times that I will, I will start, I'll have somebody in my, my database, somebody in my CRM raise their hand and reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm ready to buy or I'm ready to sell. [00:29:00] And I first met them two years prior.

It's incredibly. And if I didn't establish my cadence and I wasn't continuing the follow up, there's no way in heck they would have ever remembered me if I wasn't staying top of mind and I, I wasn't following up. And the goal too is it might not be Mike, just, you know, them that's interested in buying a home.

It could be, you know, somebody that they know or they bump into and by being on purpose here, you could get other businesses as well. As well. All right. Well, that is our three pack. The maximizing networking events. All right. As promised, we have Brandon Weisen. He is the founder and is your official position, Brandon CEO CEO.

All right. CEO. Nick's new official title is West USA's Wallflower. So that's perfect. Okay. We're going to add that to the list. Yeah, add that to the list. Just anyways. So we, Brandon, we, the three of us here, we talk about. I mean, almost [00:30:00] every three pack that we do we somehow mentioned CRM because for me the CR, your CRM is the lifeblood of the, your business.

You can't. You can't, if I'm working and I only know five people, I don't need anything. I can keep track of that. But you start doing open houses, five people turn into 20, turn into 50, turn into 500, turn into a thousand. I think I got like 10, 000 people in my CRM system at this point. There's no way to manage that.

What how do you define why we need CRMs? Yeah. Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me here today. I appreciate it and happy to be here. And yeah, defining CRM. I think, I think everybody out there already knows you need to be doing this. It's just a matter of you're not doing it. And, and we've, we've put a system together to make it easy enough that if you, if you build a habit around this, it's going to work, [00:31:00] but over and over.

When we're talking to people, everyone knows you need to be everything that they've talked about today. It's just wisdom flying out. You need to be doing it, but you're not taking the time to build, make it a habit to log into your CRM every day. And that's what we've Kind of gone and made it easy where you don't have to learn the whole thing all at once Just piece by piece as you need it You can come in and and then when you get stuck You know that I can hit a button and there's someone on the other side that'll walk me through and I think that's where we really Separate ourselves from a lot of the other ones What do you say to the agent because I'm going to be honest with you, not every, not every single agent listening to this has a CRM system or they just they don't want to invest the 32 or 34 a month in it because they seem, it seems like a lot of money.

What is your response to the agent that hasn't tried a CRM or doesn't believe that they, they need a CRM? I think it's, it's kind of like anything else in life that we know we need to do. It always comes back [00:32:00] to being consistent and, and the way that you're going to take anything to another level is you have to have a system around it.

So I was just talking to another real estate coach and he said, if you've done something three times. That tells you, you need to have a system around it. And so kind of like, you know, that's, that's where, where we get with a CRM is it's not just that, Hey, how do I generate new leads by networking? You know, these are great ideas, but then what happens when lead comes in?

We need to stay in touch for up to two, three years before it's going to converse sometimes, because this is really, the business is about building relationships and what a CRM does is it helps you to. Put a system around building relationships. So it's not just getting the leads in, it's staying in touch with them until they're ready to buy or sell or give you a referral and then walking you through the transaction so that you actually overperform and create that scenario where they like you and they want to refer you out and they know your name by the time you're done and [00:33:00] then.

You got to stay in touch after the, after the transaction is over so that you can get that referral and repeat business. And so it's putting each piece into little systems, mini systems in one place so you can log in every day and you know, Hey, here's all the past, the present, the current stuff I have to do all organized in a nice way so I can.

All right, before we, before we let you kind of walk us through a wise agent dashboard and, and some of the bells and whistles, we were talking about this before the show that, That we are learning, like, there's I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna call them out, just to say, you know, like one of, one of the CRMs that we have a lot of agents here at WestUSA using is one that's called LionDesk, and I know there's some others out there.

And they are now, and I, and I, I learned this about LionDesk last week, that unless you're grandfathered in you no longer can text out of your CRM. And this is a, this is a huge deal, [00:34:00] because oftentimes, especially, When you got a, you know, a couple hundred people that you want to text to at the same time and, or you want a place that's managing the responses, you, you, you need to be able to text out of your CRM and, and WISEagent could, could one day wake up to be one of the only CRM systems that allows agents to text out of its system.

Correct. Yeah, we, we actually Looked at it two years ago. We started putting all the, all the technology behind to make, make sure that we, we would follow all the rules. And as you guys are doing the mass texting out, we've got all the stops in place to make sure they can easily unsubscribe and on the email and the text messaging.

Of course, now they, they delayed it a year. So everyone else has a year, but we're ahead of the game at wise agent. When you do. Turn on your mass texting. It's going to take, it's not just an immediate thing because you're going to have to jump through all the hoops, but we've, we've got someone there to walk you through that and set it up correctly so that once you do start the texting and the emailing on a, [00:35:00] on a mass level, you're not going to get in trouble and we make it easy to do.

And so you're not, When you, when you send a text out, for instance, and maybe send it out to a hundred people, when you send a text out, people are gunning to want a reply. If you're, if you, if they reply back to you, you started the conversation. You can't just wait another day to get back. So you've kind of got to be organized as you start these mass tech systems.

And I'm not sure how it works. Cause I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a techie guy, but I love it.

And a hundred text messages. So it's, it's magic, right? I don't have to go into my dashboard to see the responses. They just pop up on my phone. It's, it's amazing. So I know who's interacting with me. So it's great. And it works the other way too, is that maybe you send it out and you go out to show houses.

If you have an assistant there, they can be on the dashboard answering all the texts as they come in from a keyboard. You know, they don't have to do it from their, from their phone. So it really works well depending how, either [00:36:00] way you have it set up. To make sure that and, and then, and then the other piece of whenever you're, you're communicating is to keep those notes so that, you know, date and timestamp notes of every email, every conversation, every text so that a month from now, when I, when I go see you at that soccer game, I can, I can refresh myself before I walk in and I know exactly what you were talking about a month ago about your neighbor possibly wanting to list and, you You know, I was listening and we're right on the same page, even though I've talked to a thousand people since then.

The notes are super important. I don't know how many times my wife and I are going to an event and we're going to meet a spouse that we've met before, but we forget their name. So one of us is on Facebook trying to remember that having that in the CRM. It's a, it's a life tip. But I thought you were going to tell us that you had your wife in your CRM.

And just to remember, remember all the things you promised texts in the morning tells me exactly what we got going on, but on the, on the bulk tech setup, I don't want to walk past this because it is, it's a challenge. And we've had to do this with multiple companies, this, the last eight ish months, wise agent.

Far and above made it the simplest [00:37:00] process to get the bulk texting, all the hoops that we had to jump through. Many companies went through it, and I had to, I was directly involved in every single one. The amount of time it took to do Wise Agent was a sixteenth of what it took for other companies. So thank you for you guys and what you did to make that easy.

All right, so let's let's jump into the dashboard. I'm just gonna implore every, every agent, if you don't have a CRM or you're working with a CRM that you're not happy with and does not allow texting anymore, to go to westusacrm. com. And and get signed up. But this is Brandon. He is the founder and CEO of WiseAgent, the, our our preferred CRM partnership, I should say here at West USA.

So, so the app, so this is what it looks like when I go to a wiseagent. com. This is what it looks like. And just to jump right into the pricing. I want to let you all know, we have had a, a real soft spot in our heart for West USA. being local in Arizona. We've always felt you [00:38:00] guys are just a great partner.

And so we have not raised our prices on West USA. We've been raising our prices continually since 2019. We've had you guys locked in at 32. And what we've actually seen is kind of what Claudia was talking about last week is that when the price is so low, people don't find value in it. And so This right here, this is your last chance.

You guys, you're never going to have the price of 32 a month. Again, April 1st, they're going up and we're not going to go back. We're going to raise it up to the normal pricing was still only 49 a month to run your entire company on your, your, your entire business that you'll have with you throughout your entire career in one system, but take advantage of it now today, everything I'm going to show you.

You can get started 14 days free for only 32 a month. And that ends April 1st, just to give you guys, and that's, is the lowest price in the country. So, so here we're, when we log into into white station, just kind of show you what a dashboard looks like. This is what you're looking at. And right off [00:39:00] the top, you're going to be able to see your numbers, you know, and that's so important that you're able to track all your, all your commissions and.

And everything as, as they're coming up, but just know the the way it's set up is that when you log in, you're, you're seeing your numbers. And then over here on the left side is going to be kind of your, your dashboard that has all the different features. So as you scroll through and see everything you have to do on that day, the day planner, the leads.

It's the task that everyone you need to call and all your transactions, birthdays, important, all that stuff is just on your front page, right? When you log in, but kind of, I thought going back to, to the theme of the day, the networking and doing events. And by the way, I was at the gym this morning and, and look good by the way.

Thank you. Try it. But if you do, if you do things that you like to do, like. We go to church and get active or, or be in these, in these groups, it creates consistency and the people see you over and over and they get much more familiar. So instead of just going to the birthday where everyone is [00:40:00] is not a familiar face, I feel like it's a lot easier if you're going to the gym at the same time every day, everyone gets to know you and.

People walk up and constantly ask me, Hey, aren't you in real estate? Thinking I'm a realtor and I'm not, so I end up giving a lot of referrals out, but it's just the consistency. But here we are. So we're going to just start off with, let's, let's talk about events. And so one of the events you all should be doing would be it would be holding open houses.

And so one of the things you're going to want to do when you hold an open house is, Before you start, you need to kind of do some preparation and let's create a landing page that's going to be at that open house. So right when they walk in, instead of asking them to sign in on a piece of paper go in your CRM and create a nice little landing page so that when they walk in, they can use their phone or their iPad and you get their information, but you also can ask a lot of yes or no questions and get a lot more information that you're not going to get on a piece of paper and then.

As soon as they hit submit [00:41:00] on, on any kind of landing page out of your CRM, all that information is going to go immediate, immediately into your CRM where it's going to, where it's going to live now. And so, now you don't have to worry about when you get home at night, entering all those numbers on from a piece of paper into your CRM.

It's already there. And what happens, you guys, is that as you're, as you're creating that. You're going to be able to first set up all your lead rules. So I'm going to do an open house tomorrow. I already know I'm going to do it. So everyone that goes through that open house, as I collect their information, I want to already pre plan a system that's going to walk through.

So when they walk out, I'm texting him saying, Hey, thanks for stopping by that night. I'm getting it. They're getting an email from me or giving them my information. And so you can, you, you kind of. Again, you just kind of pre think it out and we're setting up a system. Now we don't have to do anything when we're tired.

After we locked the door, we leave and we know every single person is getting touched [00:42:00] the way that they should. And it's basically just going through and saying, Hey, as soon as they walk out, do we want them to get an email? What is that going to say? And then same thing is, are they going to get a text message and everything's going to use their name in it?

So it's going to say, you know, Hey Mike, thanks for stopping by. And then, and then that night he's going to get an email the next morning. And so. You go and set these, set these systems up and you're going to, it takes a huge weight off of your shoulders. For one, when you get organized and your business is running on systems, you know, you all know you need to be doing it, but now you know, Hey, everyone that came through my open house has already got a text from me today, you know, so those are really big, big things that you get aside from.

Giving the, the, the support and service that, that you really should be doing. Yeah, I would say that most of the agents that are, are most of the people walking through open houses, and if they're going to go through a couple over that weekend, if you are doing this for your open house, you're probably the only agent doing it for your open house.

So you're going to stand [00:43:00] above the rest. You're the one that they're going to remember because they're going to get those notifications after the fact. And then my question on the open house landing page. So I walk into an open house. How, how does, how does An attendee get to the landing page, are we creating a QR code or something like that?

Great question, yeah, yeah, so we'll have it, we'll have a QR code and we can help you set that up so you can say, Hey, scan this piece of paper, you know, you have a flyer sitting there, scan this piece of paper and you can sign in on your phone and you basically just say, you know, the seller is requesting before you walk through their house that you sign in.

And no one everyone's used to it. They don't have a problem with it. You can have an iPad sitting there if with the, with the the landing page on it. So they can just sign in from that sign in from their phone from your laptop. So it's really easy. Get, you know, definitely have a QR code so you can have multiple people signing in at the same time.

And of course you can use the system to make the flyer with the QR code and we can help you do that as well. And now, now let's say we've, we've gone down [00:44:00] the road, we've been staying in touch and they call. Yeah. Or they text and say, Hey, I am ready to. Start, start, let's get into a transaction or I want you to come over and talk to me about listing my house.

That's when you're going to kick in the, the transaction checklist that I know is, is such a, a, a valuable piece. This is a game changer that so many people are missing. We have the transaction checklist for buyers or for sellers that you'll just kind of take ours and edit, but it really is so many things you need to do on each transaction to really do it right and make sure you're going to get the referrals after the transaction.

So you're always trying to Give that service that you would want when you bought your first home. And I think that's a lot of people forget that. And, and what happens is it kind of starts walking you through all the different critical dates, the important landing pages, and it starts with the pre listing, what are all the things before you even get to their house that you need to do, and as you're doing each step and checking it off, it's recording it for the rest of your [00:45:00] career.

You're going to have a record of everything you did and when you did it on that transaction. And same thing all the way through. Every single little piece on the listing. And then of course another big piece is after you get it under contract and then post listing after listening, how do you stay in touch?

But here's a real, real game changer for you guys is that every single year. National Association of Realtors puts out the statistics and says what's the biggest complaints and over and over and over the number one complaint is I did not get communication with my, with my agent. They, they came, they listed my house and I didn't hear, hear from them again until they brought a contract and they got my house sold.

So I was happy with them. I'll still use them again, but you know, and same thing on the buyer side. So here's what we've done for you all. We've built triggers behind these. And so now you take the time and it's again, you just set up a little time and we'll help you do it, send it to set up emails and text messages behind every single action you do.[00:46:00] 

And so as you're going through and you. Go put the lock box on, or you, or you make a flyer, whatever it is that you're doing on, on each step, as you check it off, it's going to not only date stamp it and record it for you and add notes, but now it's going to send an email to your client and say, Hey, I stopped by today and put a lock box on your house.

And the way that's going to help us at our houses is going to allow more people to get home. And then it's going to text your assistant and say. Time for you to put the sign up. So now it keeps the flow going. She puts the sign up or he puts the sign up and then it's going to send an email out to your client and say, Hey, we put the sign up today.

People know West USA sign. This is what they were going to get attention. This is how it's going to help. And then we add the flyers. And as soon as we check that off, it sends another email. So by the time you're done doing all the things you do anyway, every time you get a listing, your client has been over service.

They've gotten 30 or 40 emails explaining each thing. And you only, you wrote those maybe a year ago or six months ago. You write them once. And then every time you have a listing or a [00:47:00] buyer, it's going to keep your name and face in front of them all the way through the transaction. And that's how you're going to really.

You know, pound your name in that you are the professional and they're going to give you the referral and repeat business based on the service. Our agents, like, I'm looking at the boxes that say assigned to, because I'm looking at all this stuff. Yeah. Are, are agents that have transaction coordinators leveraging their TC to go in here and, And it kind of manages and do this stuff and make sure all this stuff goes out and kind of keeping the TC on task as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's a huge piece. So you can manage your whole team and keep everyone, everyone doing their job and let that each person in line know what's coming up for them or what you've got done, especially when you have 10 or 12 transactions going at once. You, you have to have it in a system, and this is what it is.

One thing real quick Brandon, I don't want to stop you, but we've got with agents, you've got that wide variety of, of technology know how. And so for those agents that may be more like Mr. Weinstein here, and they see this [00:48:00] stuff and they get a little nervous, you've mentioned a few times, we're gonna help you with this.

That's why I asked about my TC. A hundred percent. So that's my point. You, you said, we're going to help you with this. And then that's above and beyond the tech stack that wise age has been able to develop above and beyond being named Forbes best real estate CRM 2024. One of the main things that we focus on in, in, in our partnerships is support.

And I would say wise agent above and beyond have gone again and put that support in place because they understand that CRMs can be confusing. You just went through. A lot of things that this serum can do, and I'm sure agents like, well, there's no way I'm gonna be able to figure this out. You have people that help them figure this out with them.

They walk them through it, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's been really big to us to practice what we preach and give that same support that we're telling you to give to your clients right to you, so. We are the only technology company in the industry with 24 hour a day, seven day a week support.

Anytime you need us, there's a help button right there on the left. And you can find videos, you can walk, walk through, you know, step by step, or you can just hit the button that says contact [00:49:00] us and say, call me and your phone will ring in a few minutes and we'll be there to help you. So it really is, and I think that's, that's one of the, one of the keys is don't try to learn how to use, you don't need to learn the whole system all at once, whatever you're doing today, that's what you need to start with. So if you're going to be holding an open house tomorrow, let's help you get that set up so that you have the drips ready to go.

So you have the landing page and then you'll know how to do it next time. And then after that, it's a matter of, Hey, when we close the transaction, how do you stay in touch? I just heard Todd give 50, you know, all the the market data. If you could take that and send it out 52 times a year, that's 52 touches every week.

And Todd's putting it together for you, you know, and same thing with the, with the mortgage information. I, you know, I, I always tell agents who are, who are overwhelmed by all this, start simple. Be able to input people's names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Be able to input notes of conversations that you have.

And then my rule of [00:50:00] thumb is you don't ever close out a profile without setting up a task reminder because this is what keeps people from falling through the cracks. That's where, if you're new to CRMs, you start with that. And that will change your business. That alone will change your business. Exactly.

And, and as you're putting each person in, it's so important that you categorize them so that you can go find these groups of people and we make it, you can categorize them by how did you find them? I met him at an open house. Well, that's one whole category of people or, or the source where you found them.

So you're, you're always able if they're your gym friends or your jujitsu friends or your church friends, that way you can send these blast email or blast texts out and it actually makes sense why you're doing it. So really important to do that. Simple tool. There's also a lot of simple tools like, like, say a monthly newsletter, that one tool you'll hear over and over again. Oh, newsletters don't work. Or, or I feel too silly to send out a recipe and, and you'll, you'll [00:51:00] hear it say it doesn't work, but the people over and over every month, we make a newsletter for you that's just simple, basic, but if you send it out.

Consistently, it won't work after three months, but after six months and a year, a hundred percent, I'm telling you, it doesn't matter what the recipe is, or even if they look at it, it's a matter of getting your name in your face, consistently in front of these people, they may not even open your newsletter, but When their neighbor says, Hey, I'm thinking about selling my house.

They'll be, you know what? My, my realtor just sent me a newsletter. Let me get you his information. So same thing with all the market data. If they are not, if you're sending something with your name and face in front of it, it doesn't even matter if they're opening it all the time. It's keeping your name in front of them.

It's just time management. If you're spending your days and you don't have a steady stream of consumers, of clients, you've got nothing better to do with your time than to invest your time into your business in learning a tool like this. Yeah, everybody says, Oh, I gotta take [00:52:00] time out of my business. We've, we tell ourselves this lie all the time that we're busy and, and really the only time we're really busy is when we're talking to a consumer, but in the meantime, if you knew you had a tool that was available to you for 32 a month that could help propel your, well, but those people will be grandfathered, right?

So good point. You know, if you knew there was that tool out there that could help you become more efficient, more effective you know, whatever that limitation may be, right. It's a no brainer, Mike. Well, it's, it's just easy, like, I'm not, I'm not the hugest fan of newsletters, because I think that we have other things that we can do that are more impactful.

But, a lot of agents aren't doing those other things, and so if, if you lack the time or the resources to do those other things that are a little bit more manual since something out like to communicate somehow, and that is pretty ding simple. It's so simple and it works. You [00:53:00] guys, you have, you just have to do it and you all know you need to be doing it.

We're just making it easy for you to do. And, and we're, we're adding new content for you. We have, we have content writers that'll help you create those drip campaigns. So if you are having a hard time figuring out what should I send to everyone that left my open house or that I met at the soccer game or from this birthday, just ask, and we'll help you even create the eight touches to send out, you know, it's, it's the, the help is there.

And I guess that brings another thing. Right now we're seeing things at work are a lot of, of picking up the phone and getting back to those touches. Send out, send out postcards. So if you, if you guys are going to your mailbox right now, there is no real estate postcards in your mailboxes. And you all remember there used to be.

So that's another thing that we can all, we can help you do is get your postcards going out. Those things are like automated. Send out, send out the baseball or the basketball or any, any kind, you name it. There's, there's touches out there and it gets your name in, in front of them. [00:54:00] Dude, how cool would it be if like you kept track of your clients, like who their favorite teams were.

And so, and Jetta sending everybody everybody a Cardinal schedule because nobody wants this. Nobody wants that. But like, you know, if you, if you knew, if you're from, if you're from Boston and you got 50 people in your CRM from Boston and now you have the ability to send them the Red Sox schedule or.

You know, or the, the Patriot schedule, how cool is that? You know, almost, if you think about it, for the price, no matter what it is, even if it's 50 a month, you've got all of these marketing resources at your fingertips. You've just developed this, and it's, you know It's fantastic. The amount of things that you offer, but I think the most important thing here is agents will mentally, please don't, don't overcomplicate this.

I highly recommend that it doesn't cost you anything to reach out and get a demo yourself. And let them have an opportunity to share with you. You can't do it in the 20 minutes we have. Because we can't [00:55:00] ask you, where do you want to start? Where are you at your business, in your business? And so, by being able to pick up the phone, have a conversation with them, know they're not going to try.

Sure, they're going to, they want you to buy the product, but they're going to make sure you understand the value proposition before you engage. And then they're going to be there to help you set it up. One of the biggest things is the setup. And so when, when you get started with the wise agent, we're going to give you a one on one onboarding.

So as you, as you get signed up, you can let us know what, what time and date you want, and then what one of our experts would get on the phone with you and do a zoom and help you for whatever your scenario is, get your database from all the places it is, get it organized, sync to your phone. Get your leads automatically coming into the system and help you set up the follow up.

Sue Fluke always talks when she's discussing West USA Realty with new licensees or anyone who's considering a move. And she says, you may not be doing it right now in your business, wouldn't you want the option? And I think that's what you get when you look at a wise agent CRM. You might not need it [00:56:00] today, but with the scalability of the system, you have the option down the line.

All right, so, currently for the remainder of March. 32 a month. You're going to go to WestUSACRM. com. We didn't get a chance into it, but we talked earlier about being able to text out of here. There's, it's a one stop shop for so much of your marketing. And, and we always talk about, Todd, staying top of mind.

You want to be top of mind. And your CRM system allows you to stay top of mind. without thinking about it. All you got to do is set it up. Brandon, thank you very much. Great, great stuff. We need to chat. And we will yeah, just go to westusacrm. com, 32 a month. Do not let April 1st come around the corner and the very least, oh my gosh, you know, the two week free trial and get the demo and so forth.

So, all right. [00:57:00] We appreciate it, Brandon. Good stuff. Leave everybody with Dude, what year was that picture? This is the only picture I have of you. He doesn't look that That was last year, come on. That was the only picture I have of you. Alright, leave you with the quote of the day. You don't close a sale, you open the door to a new opportunity.

Appreciate everybody joining us today. Go out and sell a home.