Ep045: 59 Rules for Becoming a Top 1% Real Estate Professional (Part Three)

Chris McAllister: Welcome to the Connect, Practice, Track, and Grow podcast. I’m Chris McAllister with ROOST Real Estate Company, and it’s my job to create and coach business opportunities and strategies that support and add value to the lives of real estate professionals. And I’m here today, as always, with my co-host, Laci LeBlanc.

Good morning, Laci. 

Laci LeBlanc: Good morning, Chris. 

Chris McAllister: So today we’re gonna continue on, excuse me, our six-episode series that’s based on my new book that should be coming out any minute now, 59 Rules for Becoming a Top 1% Real Estate Professional. And this episode is grounded in part three of the book, and part three is called Practice: The Daily Disciplines of a Professional.

So this is the part of the book where things usually get a little bit uncomfortable, I guess. Maybe that’s not the right word, but the, but it’s because, practice is, it’s not necessarily aspirational. It’s not exactly sexy. I’m not even sure it’s always motivational, but, practice is the day-to-day [00:01:00] discipline of doing the work and doing good work even when nobody’s watching.

And I’m, I’m really intentional about using the word practice here because your professional practice as, as a real estate professional is no different than the practice of, say, a doctor or a lawyer or a, a CPA. You know, y- the, the, the worth and the value you provide in the markpl- marketplace is just as val- valuable and many times more so.

But I just wanna stress that when it comes to practice, that what you do behind the scenes, just like a doctor or a lawyer does, is just th- is just as important and probably more important than what your client actually sees 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I think this reminds me, my kids are doing, we make them do like a book every summer.

Uh, and this year they’re doing The Seven Habits of Happy Teens. 

Chris McAllister: Oh, 

Laci LeBlanc: very good. And this reminds me of, um, the h- like practice and [00:02:00] habit, right? Like, you can’t form a habit without practice. You have to practice it. You have to do it. Like the first chapter of the book is, you know, if you, if you practice something for 30 days, then it becomes a habit.

Um, and then you, you can do it without even thinking about it. So I think maybe that’s aspirational and motivational, right? Sure. Like if you practice something for a certain amount of time, it becomes a habit, and then it doesn’t- Mm-hmm … feel quite so daunting. 

Chris McAllister: There’s just not a lot of, there’s not a lot of fun, shiny objects that go along with practice, right?

It, it, it, it really is the part of the, you know, the connect- It’s the work, Chris … the contract, the growth. It’s doing the work. That’s right. It’s about doing the work, and sometimes we’ve gotta clock in and do the work, so that’s what this is about. 

Laci LeBlanc: There are no shortcuts, unfortunately, to the work section of the book.

Um, but you open this section with rule number 21, and that’s working one-on-one with clients is only part of the job. So talk to me about that. Why’d you start there? 

Chris McAllister: Well, I think most agents think, or a lot of agents think that the job is the client [00:03:00] interaction and no question that performance is a big part of the job.

You know, the, the, the… and that performance includes, you know, showing houses, listing houses, negotiating, and that’s all what we would call, you know, the front stage part of the performance, right? But ru- rule 21, it’s really about the backstage part of the performance. It’s the research, the preparations, putting systems in place, doing the follow-up.

And, and doing that backstage work that makes up, I’m gonna say, at least 80% of the practice, that’s where the top 1% of, uh, real estate professionals really separate themselves from everybody else. The top 1% know that the client experience is built long before the appointment ever happens.

And when you skip the backstage, the front stage not only feels sloppy to you, but it looks sloppy and feels sloppy to the clients as well, even if they [00:04:00] can’t quite articulate why. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, that’s a really good point, and it leads right into the next rule, which is, in true Chris style, phrased pretty bluntly, the boring shit makes everything else possible, which if I could teach my kids one thing through the summer, their habits and their practice, this would be it.

Chris McAllister: Yeah. Well, it’s true though, right? It… A lot of people don’t… A, a lot of folks in the real estate business really are just fantastic at lighting up a room, you know, making people feel like the most important, people out there that, you know, things that, you know, are just to me a superpower.

But that superpower, you know, that has to be balanced with, you know, the, the preparation, the research, the practice, the, you know, the, the boring shit, and, uh, the, there’s just no getting around it. The best of us are really, really, really good at both, even though they may have a passion for one or the other.

So rule 22, which is again, the boring shit makes everything else [00:05:00] possible, exists because everybody likes the exciting moments, right? Everybody loves, you know, getting, getting something, uh, getting an agreement signed, getting a contract in place, but most of us don’t want to have to do the boring work that creates those exciting moments, and, you know, that boring work, again, it’s follow-up, it’s database updates, it’s, it’s the paperwork, even if that paperwork is all online in Dotloop.

It’s, it’s the education, right? It’s, it’s the sharpening the saw to quote, Covey that, uh, the kids are looking at this, this summer. So it’s all preparation. I think for most real estate professionals, they don’t see that part of… as glamorous, but I think we all understand how important it is.

And the other idea that, uh, you know, I wanna try to convey is there is a certain, freedom in, in getting the disciplines in place and the habits in place to make sure that the backstage functions are always working, without fail and are there to [00:06:00] support your front stage business, right?

When the boring work is, you know, systematized, scheduled, time blocked, y- you… Checklists, right? Something as boring as checklists. When you, when you put those systems and processes in place, you end up with way fewer emergencies. You have way fewer fires to put out, and your business and your income becomes far, far more predictable.

Every out of the blue, happy, wonderful call from a client that results in a, a new relationship and ultimately a big check, I can tell you, every one of those calls only occurred because of all the boring stuff that went on, you know, days, weeks, months, sometimes years earlier. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I really love the discipline creates freedom idea that you mentioned.

I think, you know, in financial planning, they’ll talk about how, you know, y- you invest in yourself, right? You make sure that your investments are right so that when an opportunity comes along, we talk about this in, property management and investing, in real [00:07:00] estate as well, but when the right opportunity comes along, you have the bandwidth, you have the resources to invest- Right

in that opportunity, to take advantage of that opportunity. And that’s how I see this. If you’re disciplined in your daily practice of real estate, then when an opportunity comes along, you don’t have to say, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got so many things going. I’m behind on this, I’m behind on that. I owe this client this.”

If it’s all taken care of in the practice, then you can take advantage of that opportunity, whatever it is that comes up, whether it’s, you know, referring property management clients back to ROOST, like we do with Hey Chris. You know, there are some agents who probably feel like, yeah, that would be a great, extra source of income, um, but I’m just so slammed right now that I can’t, I can’t think about it.

Right. But you want to have the freedom to be able to take advantage of these opportunities as they come along. So, that makes the boring shit seem a little less boring to me. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. No, uh, the fact is, the boring stuff is super profitable. It’s just not that all exciting for a lot of people to actually 

Laci LeBlanc: [00:08:00] do it.

Do you have to do it yourself? Is this one of the things that you have to do yourself? Well- Or is this something that if your skill set is just not, if this is not your skill set, can you get help from somebody else, or do you think it’s important that an agent do this part themselves? 

Chris McAllister: Uh, I think if you’re less than two years in the business, you need to be doing it yourself so you learn and understand exactly what it is that needs to be done, and you learn what you need to do your best front stage work.

If you don’t learn to do it yourself and understand what’s involved, it’s gonna be very, very hard for you to teach somebody to do the work that you need done in the way you want it done, that supports your unique style of, of practice. So. 

I do think it’s critical that when you’re first starting out that you learn every part of the business. That doesn’t mean you have to do every part of the business for the rest of your career. You know, I think we’ve talked about this before. You know, my– I was a few months into my first year, and I did hire a 10-hour-a-week person to help me get marketing materials out every [00:09:00] week to people I met at open houses or, and passing out business cards and so forth.

So I did, my very, very first person who was helping me was more of a marketing clerical, and that was what I needed at the time because I, I figured out how to do it. I actually rewrote all the letters. This was back, I was using Top Producer before we met Buffini and Company, and this was when Top Producer was only on a desktop.

So I, you know, part of my backstage was I rewrote every form letter that came with Top Producer. I made it match who I was, what the kind of business I wanted to do, where we worked, and so forth. And then once I got that set up the way I wanted it, then I was able to bring somebody in to actually run off those letters, you know, address the envelopes, get them to the post office, and so forth.

But I would just encourage everybody that it’s really, really hard to be successful if you’re gonna skip at least learning and understanding what’s involved in the backstage part. And then once you hire your first assistant or your first [00:10:00] buyer’s agent, then your transaction coordinator, before you know it, you have a team, and then, you know, someday you’re thinking about buying a brokerage.

All that stuff is absolutely right. You wanna get help, and there’s a rule in, uh, one of these 59 speaks to that, I guarantee you, as we get closer. But in the short term, I can’t stress this enough. I think anybody who’s ever been successful at this business for the long term They learned everything, and they learned by doing it.

So I’ll try to shut this TED Talk down so we can get on to rule 23. 

Laci LeBlanc: No, I think it’s great. I think that’s exactly what, what people are expecting to hear, is the real deal, and your experience certainly, um, is valuable here. But back to rule 23. Shift gears a bit. Put your phone down. Um, so this seems to me it’s, like, about being present.

That’s what we normally talk about when we’re talking about putting down your phone. Um, how, why does that belong in this chapter on practice? 

Chris McAllister: This is super tactical, right? But th- this is what I want everybody to do, you know, the moment that they, are actually face-to-face [00:11:00] with, with, with a potential client or, or, you know, even a, a, a team member and so forth, right?

Because presence in and of itself, that is practice. It’s certainly part of the practice of real estate, but I’ll go so far that as to say that presence is a practice in itself. So rule 23, put your phone down. It’s about treating, paying attention, being present, being belly to belly, looking somebody in the eye as a professional skill, right?

In a world where everybody’s distracted, right? You know, giving somebody your full undivided attention is insanely rare, and it’s very powerful. Clients may not notice that you, y- may not notice consciously that you didn’t check your phone during a meeting or you weren’t constantly distracted by a vibrating phone, but they’re gonna, they’re gonna know it.

They’re gonna feel it on, at a subconscious level. So being present, being focused, making that person that you’re having that [00:12:00] interaction with know that they’re the most important in your world right now, that is the most powerful thing that you can do, and it’s honestly, it’s not an easy thing to do, but it kind of is the easiest thing we can do, is to, you know, leave the phone in the car or in your bag or what have you when, uh, you get a chance to be face-to-face with somebody.

Presence builds trust faster than any script, any piece of marketing, anything you can ever have, say, do, or present. So giving somebody the gift of your undivided attention I think is, uh, it’s rare a- and I truly believe it’s very powerful. 

Laci LeBlanc: And there’s always a point we get to in these rule conversations where I think, “Hmm, are we t- are we talking about just real estate, or are we talking about life here?”

And I think we’re at that point now but rule number 24, another really good one. Passing the exam doesn’t make you a pro. Tell me about it. 

Chris McAllister: I think that rule exists to shatter a [00:13:00] dangerous illusion. I think that from the outside looking in, maybe not so much these days where the market’s tougher, but w- a- and when, when the market’s good, you know, and, and everything looks easy everybody thinks, “What a great business to be in,” you know, uh, “Anybody can do this.”

You know, you, you’ve heard it all before, and those of us who have been in the business longer than two, three, four, five years, we just know flat out that is just not true, right? So, you know, when people are… When the market’s like that, you know, and we’re flying high and everybody, you know, we’re making it look easy you get a lot of people out there who think, “Wow, I’m gonna get a real estate license, and I’m gonna get rich.”

And, uh, you know, rule 24 is designed to just hopefully shatter that illusion because it’s dangerous. I mean, let’s face it, right? The licensing exam teaches you compliance, absolutely nothing else. A licensing exam doesn’t teach you a thing about competence. It doesn’t teach you a thing about lead generation.

It doesn’t [00:14:00] teach you a thing about communication. It doesn’t teach you a thing about negotiation. It doesn’t teach you a thing about managing your money or running your own business. It is truly 100% about how to get and keep your license and stay out of trouble with the state of Ohio. And passing that exam, as hard as it is in a lot of states, it certainly doesn’t make you a real estate professional.

So I just, I just, I sound like a cranky old man, so forgive me, but there is nothing about passing that test. It’s just the beginning of the very, very beginning, right? So passing the exam gets you a license, but practice makes you a professional, and if you stop learning after you pass that test, you’re gonna stall really, really, really fast and, you know, there’s a good chance you won’t last the first year in real estate.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I think that this is a place where I see choosing the right brokerage as a really good starting point [00:15:00] to you know, you pass the exam, you have to have a sponsoring broker, right, no matter where you’re at more than likely. And I just feel like, you know, that kind of sets you up for success.

Does that make sense? 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. No, there’s no question. I mean, I, I think you wanna have a… Y-y-y-you know, I can’t help but go back to, you know, how we do it. We teach two different things, right? We teach compliance, and we teach you how to, how to find somebody to work with, right? You know, so compliance is here’s how you work DotLoop, here’s what a contract looks like, you know, all the things that the Board of Realtor teaches and, and anybody who’s got any experience can teach you.

But then there’s the other piece of the puzzle in which we partner with Buffini and Company and, and everybody that comes to our brokerage, uh, takes 100 Days to Greatness. You know, we show you how to surface somebody to to find somebody that is excited to work with you so that you can get your first property under contract in the first 100 days after you get your license.

So again, it’s two types of, of of training. There’s [00:16:00] the compliance piece, and then there’s really what starts off as the marketing piece. If you don’t get that marketing piece fixed, right? If you don’t– It’s a chicken and the egg thing. If you don’t have somebody to work with, you don’t get to hone your practice, right?

But it’s almost useless to start working on your practice. Uh, that, that’s not, that’s a little strong. But it’s really hard to get really, really good at your practice without having somebody to work with, right? And vi- and vice versa. But Rule 25 is about accreditation. And the rule, again it’s a little strong, but accreditation will get you nowhere.

And I say this because it’s, it’s sort of like an extension of getting your real estate license. All those, all those different accreditations you can get, I’m not saying that the knowledge isn’t valuable and, you know, the NAR and the state boards of realtors, you know, they offer, buyer accreditation, agent accreditation.

They offer every type of accreditation that, that you can imagine, and you can take those, you can pay for those, and you can get all those little initials on the back of your business card. But I can tell you, all those little initials don’t [00:17:00] close deals. I mean, if you know me at all, you know that the Rule 25 isn’t a, isn’t anti-education, it’s anti-credential worship.

Clients just don’t care, the number of letters or acronyms or whatever it is that you have on your business card next to, next to your name and the, and the, and the Realtor are. These people are hiring you because you’re, you’re competent, you’re prepared, and you have confidence in your personal ability to get them what they want when it comes to buying or selling a house.

So- If a class builds a real skill that you’re gonna use immediately to build your business or help a client, I want you to take it, right? And if that’s, and that involves an accredita- accreditation, I want you to go for it. I took a lot of those early on in my career as well. But the, the real message behind rule 25 is don’t try to hide behind the certifications or accreditations thinking that they’re gonna be a shortcut to building a professional [00:18:00] practice.

They’re a nice extra thing to do. It’s a good… it’s great knowledge, but you’ve still gotta put it to, to use, right? And that means it’s, it’s just part of your path to mastering your craft and getting really, really good at your practice. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Well, I think the next rule is one that is easy to gloss over, uh, since we’ve all been working remotely, at least- Yeah

part of the time. Indeed. I’ve been working remotely for, you know, 15 years at this point. Um, but, uh, most of us have been working remotely in, in one sense or another, at least part-time since 2020. Um, but rule number 26 is your office is wherever you are. So I think it’s more important than people think.

Talk to me about this one. 

Chris McAllister: Well, I think, uh, I think this is about professional readiness, right? Uh, y- your office is where you are. Real estate, it is mobile. I- it’s unpredictable, and it’s client driven, right? Top professionals are never [00:19:00] scrambling to be, to be able to, quote, “perform” because they think and they plan ahead, right?

You know, the best of us, we probably have an office at home. It’s an easy place to go. It’s g- you know, hopefully it’s quiet. You can work, in the morning before the family gets up or into the evening after the family goes to bed, whatever. They, you know, have the right laptop. They have the right phone.

They have the right, you know, tools in their, in their mobile office backpack to, you know, service any client, whether it’s at their house or if they’re meeting at a coffee shop or an attorney’s office or whatever, right? I mean, it, it– th- this is also a bit more tactical. But your office is where you are also means that, you know, just because you’ve got a home office and just because you’re completely mobile and, and you can work in every Starbucks across the country, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in the office space that your brokerage provides or that you provide for yourself.

Because there are [00:20:00] times when it does make sense to have, a, a great, warm, welcoming place that sort of validates your, uh, professional existence to meet clients and so forth. And of course, when you’re in the office, even if it’s just to, you know, drop off a file and, and pick up a check, there’s always that chance to, you know, have some interaction with other people on the team other agents working in the office and so forth.

But the point of the rule is you gotta be prepared, and the best of us can work anywhere at any time. Doesn’t mean they should, doesn’t mean we throw all the boundaries out the window, but you want your equipment, you want, you know, y- literally the, the backpack or office suitcase that you carry, everything has to be set up in furtherance of you being able to be Present and uh, and provide a, a, almost basically a professional performance at any time, whether, no matter where you are.

So I think I’ve sort of [00:21:00] beat the, beat this one to death a little bit, Laci. But, you know, it’s not about carrying more stuff, but it is about anticipation, right? Y- you wanna visualize scenarios before they happen so you can stay calm when they do, right? If you’re lucky enough to meet somebody and they wanna talk to you right now, and you can go next door to the Starbucks and sit down and do it, go to the…

You know, if you’re, they wanna list your house and they invite you over to sit at the kitchen table and get the work done, I just want you to be ready. And that’s why the best of the best look good and smooth under pressure, and they make it look easy, and it’s not because they’re lucky. It’s just because they’re ready, and they’re ready to the tiniest detail of their work life.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah. Just to, you know, you anticipate things that are gonna happen out there. And if, like you said, if you just run into somebody and they wanna do business with you, do you have the form they need to sign for agency? Do you have, um, you know, an example of what you’ve done- Yeah … with other homes? Do you have…

I mean, and it’s a lot, right? It’s- And, you 

Chris McAllister: know, the other, the other thing is, and this gets us back to a marketing thing and, and, and less about just the, you know, quote, “the compliance piece.” You know, the, the biggest thing that we teach our [00:22:00] agents comes straight from Bohemian company, right? It’s, it’s the most important thing you can do as a real estate professional is focus on your client touches, right?

Your calls, your notes, your pop-bys, and so forth. How many people are you gonna add to your database this week? And something as simple as making sure that you keep, branded pop-by gifts in the trunk of your car always or you know, a little couple of things in your backpack that you can hand to somebody in a moment’s notice with your business card on it.

That also is what preparation is about, right? It’s, it’s, it’s being prepared to, I mean, I’ll even go so far as you get a little bit of downtime because somebody’s late or this and that, and you, you keep some blank note cards in your, in, in your, uh, backpack, and you sit down and you write a personal note.

It’s about being prepared literally for everything, but it’s, it’s also being prepared to continue to make those connections that we, you know, we talked about a lot in the previous episode. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I mean, uh, we’ve talked a lot about preparation in general, and for somebody [00:23:00] like me, I love to prepare, right?

I love to make a list. I love to- Me too … organize things. Like, I love crafts, but I really love, like, buying craft supplies- 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. … 

Laci LeBlanc: and preparing to do the craft as much as I do the actual craft itself. So there is maybe a point where a lot of preparation can become, um, a negative. Yeah. So rule 27 says, “Learn by doing.”

Um, so how does that kind of fit with the mindset of the preparation? 

Chris McAllister: I have to admit, I too get excited about getting ready to get ready, and, uh- 

Laci LeBlanc: Give me a spreadsheet. Yeah, give me all the good- That’s right. I wanna plan the trip. Like, I don’t even have to go on the trip. Sometimes I could just plan it.

Chris McAllister: Yeah, and I, I want all of us to be prepared and, and but preparation without action is what they call procrastination, right? Uh, uh, that, that’s just what it is. And you can prepare all you want, but at some point you’ve got to just take the plunge, right? I don’t care how cold that water looks to be, you’ve gotta jump in the pool.

So rule 20 [00:24:00] za- 20– rule 27, learn by zoo- doing, exists because real competence is earned in the field and it’s earned by doing. You can read, you can study, you can role play, you can take classes, but growth happens when you make the call, right? When you go on the appointment, when you write that offer. Know wh- y- you gotta prep, you gotta know what to expect.

You’ve, you’ve gotta have some basic background, but nothing takes you to the nuckel- next level by actually having an opportunity to do that work, to perform for a client. You know, again, I, uh, call it analysis paralysis, whatever you want, but you– I want you to be prepared. But at some point, you know, if you’re 70% of the way there, 80%’s probably fantastic.

You just gotta dive in. You gotta pick up the phone. You gotta make the call. You gotta make something happen. So you learn way faster by doing. Y- here’s the s- here’s the formula, right? First of all, you gotta [00:25:00] prepare. But then you gotta make the call. You gotta do it. And as soon as you do it, you need to step back and you need to think about what went right, what went wrong, right?

You’ve got to reflect on it. You’ve gotta decide, okay, I’m gonna do this a little differently this time. I’m not gonna do that next time. And then you gotta make another call, and you gotta go out and do it again, right? You learn by doing, reflecting, and doing it again, and you got to do it intentionally, right?

It’s gotta be a conscious act. And again, the agents who wait until they feel ready to pick up the phone and make something happen, they’re the ones that almost never pick up the phone to make something happen. They just sit and wait and wait and wait for somebody to come to them, and they don’t last the first couple of years either.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, this reminds me of door knocking. Um, as a marketer, you know, I’ve done a lot of different types of marketing and, and door to door is one of them. And it reminds me of, the script that we put together before we went out to knock those first doors. I remember it was, I was in mosquito control.

It was middle of [00:26:00] July in Georgia, and I was pregnant. And I was so excited to go and knock on these doors. We had these scripts we had talked about for, you know, months how we thought this would go, right? The very first door we knocked on, we follow the script, it goes completely awry. Like, there’s, not in a bad way, right?

Just the conversation was absolutely 98% different than what we had mapped it out and how we thought it would go. Um, and the great part about it was we got to step back after that conversation, we got to look at how it went, we got to immediately go and do it again. Yeah. And immediately at that next door, implement kind of the changes that we…

‘Cause we had prepared and prepared and prepared, but nothing prepared us for how the conversations would actually go- Yeah, right … a- once we got there. And that’s including, you know, years of having conversations on the phone with people and years of meeting people at events, and, but the door-to-door conversation was entirely different in a great way.

So all of that preparation [00:27:00] wasn’t for nothing, but as it turns out, you know, there were very different conversations we were having at the door. Um, but having the opportunity to go and do it, and then step back, reflect on it immediately, and then go and do it all over again right there, I mean, the learning curve was meant…

Like, by the fifth door, we knew what we needed to say. Yeah. And it didn’t look a lot like what we had planned to say in the beginning. Yeah. Right. Um, so it’s so powerful and, but it’s such a hard step to take, to make that call, to knock on that door, you know, to show up at that networking event or whatever it is.

It’s so difficult. It’s so much easier to sit there and continue to write and rewrite your list and, recheck and check everything that you’ve done. Um, so I, I can see how folks certainly never get there, but- 

Chris McAllister: Yeah … 

Laci LeBlanc: once you do, man, is it rewarding. 

Chris McAllister: But that goes back to why it’s so critical that y- you know, your work life, especially as a newer agent, focuses on how to find people to work with.

Because just like, you know, in, in your example, you know, you’re gonna knock on this door, you’re gonna learn something, you’re [00:28:00] gonna knock on the next door, you’re gonna try something different, right? And that’s exactly what happens when you get the opportunity to, to list a house. The problem is it takes many, many, many houses that you have to list before you realize exactly the best way for you to do it and to take best care of your clients, or how to show and sell a house.

How, you know, there’s so many things in real estate that require doing and some repetition before you can get really, really good at it, and that goes back to why it’s so critical that you know, when you’re a new agent or an established agent, that you just continue to focus on, on the marketing piece of it so that you always have new leads coming in that you can potentially work with, and quite frankly, practice on.

Laci LeBlanc: Well, that’s not all that different from rule 28. Rule 28 talks about continuing education and how to use that the right way. Most agents I feel like just check a box. Well, how do you feel about that? 

Chris McAllister: I get so angry about the whole continuing education industrial complex, you know? Uh, I, you know, you know, w- when I [00:29:00] started, we didn’t have, uh, online classes, right?

Uh, and, and some of those classes were tough, right? You’d sit for three hours, and there was many, many times I just wanted to stick sharp sticks in my eye. It was just so excruciating. But there are also times when I learned so many great things that I’ve carried with me forever and ever, and I do feel like continuing ed has lost any value it ever had because, you know, at this point, you can sign up online.

You can just keep hitting the forward button. You can watch a couple of videos. You can answer 10 questions, w- m- multiple chances to get the 70% of those questions right, and then poof, lo and behold you’re, y- you’ve complied, right? And you get to keep your license for another three years. But it kind of goes back to our previous discussion that continuing education is really, it’s 100% about compliance.

My challenge to anybody listening here is you want to make continuing education work for you, right? If you’re gonna have to sit for 30 hours or however many hours it is in [00:30:00] your state every two, three years, then do some advanced planning. Look for something that’s actually gonna interest you. Look for something that’s actually going to help you do a better job for your clients.

That will still give you the, the credit that you need. And more often than not, in my experience, I bet you at least half of my continuing education hours I’m excited about taking, I, I chose to take, I learned something, and honestly, the other half of them are, are truly about compliance. I just, I just want you, when it comes to continuing education, to be conscious, plan ahead, make the most of the f- uh, ma- make the most of the of the requirement so that you actually take something away from it instead of just sitting there like an automaton checking the forward button and, uh, hoping you get to print out your certificate at the end of the two-hour period.

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I d- as somebody who values education, and we, I mean, all we do is educate, right? Like, that’s our whole, our whole strategy, Chris, is is- Yeah … education. Yeah. [00:31:00] So obviously not anti-education, as you mentioned before, but it does have to have meaning. Yeah. And the, the way you view it, right, the lens you view it through is, can make all the difference.

I keep thinking about, like, different niches and, you know, how different agents have different interests and, you know, I, there are so many opportunities out there. But all that aside, let’s move on to rule 29. This one surprised me a little bit as a creative person and, all of the agents that I know personally are very unique individuals.

They’re creative people. They have such great ideas. And rule 29 is copy everything, which sounds like the exact opposite of every agent I know, who is, prides themselves on being very original and, you know, doing business their own way and bringing their own personality to it. 

Chris McAllister: And I applaud that. But having said that, Especially at the beginning of your career, Laci, originality is overrated because sadly, so much of what you have to learn early on is about compliance, right?

It, it is [00:32:00] about understanding real estate law. It’s about holding onto your license and so forth. But you can also think about rule 29, copy everything, as about efficiency. And the fact is, you know, again, a life lesson, success leaves clues, right? And there are always people you’re gonna be able to find in this industry that, you know, you’re gonna relate to and that, whether they know it or not, um, you know, to some degree they’re gonna model the way for you going forward.

So I want you to copy the things that work, right? You know, whether it’s scripts, whether it’s systems, whether it’s marketing campaigns. And my advice is when you’re copying, do it verbatim, right? At least try to do it the, the way it’s been successful for other people. And then once you do that and you’ve honestly copied it, to the letter, and you’ve understood it you know the whys and, and so forth behind it, then I want you to adapt it to your voice, and then it’s gonna become [00:33:00] incredibly powerful for you, right?

But copying everything, uh, everything that makes sense, everything that works for other people, obviously you’re not gonna copy the bad stuff, but, copying shortens your learning curve. And when you adapt what you’ve learned to your personal way of doing business, your unique ability and so forth, that’s when your personal authenticity comes back in, and that’s when, you know, you really, you, you really start to set people up to not just know you and, and like you, but to also trust you and to trust your competency and your professionalism.

Laci LeBlanc: The same way your friends and family would, um, which leads us to rule number 30, which is maybe one of my favorites. It’s very specific. Yeah. I feel like there’s probably a story that goes along with this, personal story. Yeah. But it’s friends and family sign twice. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah, so I, I, I know I went through this early in my career [00:34:00] and, um- You know, sometimes I think we either expect more from friends and family, or we might take liberties with friends and family.

And sometimes that familiarity can create risk, right? So this rule really exists to protect your relationships. So when you work with your friends or your family, professionalism matters more, not less. And I would even go so far as to say that compliance matters more, not less, right? You know, it’s, it’s much– I think it’s easier, and maybe this is just me and I’ve got serious issues, but I think it’s easier to, you know, maybe not be so focused on the compliance piece when it’s friends and family because, you know, Aunt Nancy’s not gonna sue me, right, if I make a mistake or what have you.

I– And I, I did have a couple of [00:35:00] situations early on where, you know, I, I thought I was doing exactly what my client who was a friend wanted, and I never expected that they would be in the least bit duplicitous or even change their mind, right? And there was a couple of situations, and I don’t want to get too deeply into the details, where you know, I had a guy that I worked with, and he really did change his mind, and it surprised me, and there was no good reason.

And I had taken a shortcut, I had made some assumptions and, uh, basically I had missed a signature. And, you know, it, it, it wasn’t the kind of situation where I could go back to this person and say, “Hey, I need you to sign this. I forgot.” Because they had already moved on from what they committed to doing early on, right?

So i- I sound like I’m badmouthing compliance, I’m not. Compliance is critical. Compliance is, is what keeps you in the game. Where I’m critical of is [00:36:00] when agents or brokerages get so focused on compliance that they never get out in the world and, and help anybody buy and sell houses. So friends and family sign twice means that there are no shortcuts, there are no assumptions, there are no relaxed standards.

Whatever you would do for a client that you just were referred or, or, or just, picked up as part of your sphere of influence or, or niche, however you would treat that client is exactly how I want you to, to treat personal friends and family, even if it’s mom, right? If someone’s gonna trust you with their biggest asset, you owe them your best work and th- and that means that you are just as compliant with friends and family as you are for anybody else.

Laci LeBlanc: I think that’s gonna be a tough one for folks. I think that they’re… you’re not alone, that there’s automatically some relaxation that happens when you’re working with somebody that you know well. But yeah, I think it’s exactly right that the, the risk is higher not just because, you know, there’s relaxed- feelings there, but because, you [00:37:00] know, there’s a whole relationship at risk.

Chris McAllister: There’s comfort, there’s familiarity, right? Right. There’s… But you’re doing, you’re, you’re interacting with this person in a way that you’ve never interacted with them before. You don’t know how they are in a business situation or a business transaction, and you’ve got to protect yourself, and you’ve got to protect them.

So, you know, the more- And the 

Laci LeBlanc: relationship in underneath, right? Yeah. If you lose a client that you just met yesterday- Yes … that’s one thing. If you s- lose somebody that’s a friend or a family member over a, a, a real estate deal, then that’s a whole entirely different thing,

Chris McAllister: and the other, the other thing I will say, too, and this is sort of related, it’s sort of not.

But there’s a lot of folks out there, especially new agents, where, you know, when we talk about, “Okay, we’re gonna in- introduce you to the market. I need you to, you know, make a list of everybody you know. We’re gonna start sending them ROOST Ramblings every month. You know, we’re gonna get them on in your database.

We’re gonna treat them as a, as a potential referral source.” And then, uh, the professional, the friends and family tw- sign twice I think is pretty obvious, but the professionalism of including your [00:38:00] friends and family in your professional outreach is also something that I think everybody should learn to get comfortable doing, right?

And not be embarrassed about it, right? If, i- i- i- i- if you’re embarrassed about how you’re coming, if you’re too embarrassed , if you don’t feel great enough about your, your marketing materials that you’re not gonna include your friends and family, you’ve probably got a problem with the marketing materials.

So, you know, friends and family sign tw- uh, uh, sign twice works both ways. Yes, you want to be compliant. Yes, you want to be a professional. You want to follow all the rules. But I would say you want to include everybody who’s a potential referral source for you in your marketing materials and campaigns, and you want to send them personal notes and so forth.

They’re not gonna think it’s weird. They’re gonna think that you’re trying really, really hard, and they’re gonna be that much more comfortable finding you somebody to, helping you find somebody to work with. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, there’s accountability there. I love that. And then we’ve got one more rule for this section.

Uh, rule number 31 is the team trap. So th- well, just like the last rule, this one’s probably gonna get some [00:39:00] reactions for folks. Um, talk to me about what is the team trap? What do you mean? 

Chris McAllister: I just think the last few years that there’s just been this massive influx of people saying, you know, the Chris McAllister team, the, you know, the Laci LeBlanc Group, right?

And I think it’s used as a marketing thing, but it’s so silly because y- so many times the people who build this, quote, team, and we don’t really know who’s on the team, but I think people think that team is… means that you’re busy, right? And so many of these folks who start these teams, especially these people who start teams and they just got their license, I don’t know what they’re doing, much less what their team members are doing, right?

So the, the whole idea of a team as a marketing gimmick, I think, is a trap. I do think teams are oversold as a shortcut. I’m all for unique ability. I’m all for having people on your… you know, that you work with that complement what you’re great at, you know, with people that are great at the things you’re not.

I think all that’s great, but you never wanna lose sight of what we talked about [00:40:00] earlier that, you know, before you hire that first person, make sure you know what the job is and make sure you understand the job and can do the job, because that’s part of just understanding the entire profession. So I do think teams get oversold as a shortcut.

You certainly don’t need to start a team to succeed, and quite frankly, you don’t need to join a team to succeed, right? And building a team early can trap you in overhead, complexity, distraction. I mean, the only reason you would ever hire somebody in the first place must build a team, much less build a team, is if you’ve got so much incoming business with people who already know, like, and trust you that you physically can’t do it, that there aren’t enough hours in the day or the week for you to take care of all those people.

That’s when you wanna start thinking about adding help or building a team, and not before. And again, before you add people, before you start thinking about a team, it’s fine to have an aspiration, right? Don’t get me wrong. But before you add people, you need to master your craft, right? You gotta get good at your profession.

You’ve gotta build a practice that’s sustainable. [00:41:00] So build your systems, do the work, reach capacity, have so much coming in that you just can’t keep up, and then maybe that’s when you add some support. So teams are an option. You should never think teams are a, a requirement, and teams are never, ever…

being a team leader is never, never a prerequisite for success, and it’s certainly not proof of success in this business. Congregation may be seated. 

Laci LeBlanc: Definitely the preachiest of all of them. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. 

Laci LeBlanc: Fitting to end on, um, because that’s part three. So sum it up for me. If you had a couple of sentences to tell me what, what this part, what the practice portion of the 59 rules is about, how would you explain it?

Chris McAllister: Well, this part three, it’s about earning the title of professional, right? Practice isn’t what you do when you feel motivated. It’s what you do every day so that clients experience consistency, confidence, and competence, right? Practice is [00:42:00] what careers are built on, or a bad practice is what, uh, careers crash upon.

How’s that? So- Yeah, that’s perfect … it’s about being a professional. It’s about making sure that your front- your backstage is just as strong as your front stage. It’s about doing the work and doing it consistently over and over and over until you become so good at it that people are just beating down your door to work with you.

Laci LeBlanc: So what’s the next step? If you’re an agent listening and you’ve identified with a lot of this, which if you’re an agent listening, you probably should identify with a lot of this. Mm-hmm. I can’t think of many agents who wouldn’t, honestly. What is the next step for an agent? Well, 

Chris McAllister: I want you to download the book, right?

And hopefully you’ve already gone through and listened to the, uh, our, our episodes for the introduction and for part one connecting. But I want you to read part three really, really slowly, rule by rule. Really stretch it out. Maybe it’s one rule a day and you make notes. And then I want you to look honestly at your daily disciplines.

[00:43:00] And I, I, and I don’t want you to uh, I don’t want you to write down what you want to do, intend to do, or will do. I want you to write down what you’re actually doing right now, day after day, week after week, right? Because in this business it’s your practice that determines your future. So I think that wraps it up today.

Laci, did, uh, we miss anything? I feel like we covered a lot, and there’s a lot more in the book and it maybe makes a lot of this make more sense. 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I mean, I do think that the book goes into some detail that we not missed here, but it’s just a different… When we have a conversation about the things that we create different things come out.

Yeah. Different situations that we didn’t think of when we were writing it or… Um, so I think that, the, I love the conversation, the podcast about the, the book, and the book as two kind of different tools, so they’re very complementary. Um- Yeah … I know we’ve got another episode coming up. Um, but you can find them all on the website, and we hope that you will.

Chris McAllister: Yep. Episode four is of the 59 rules for [00:44:00] becoming a top 1% real estate professional. It’s about systems and profitability or what we sort of call planning and tracking, right? So in the terms of connect, practice, track, and grow, episode four is about the tracking part of connect, practice, track, and grow. So hopefully, uh, you’ll hear, you’ll listen to, uh, Laci and I go through that on our next episode.

Laci LeBlanc: Can’t wait.