Real estate agents have to get creative with tricky issues and sometimes, even trickier personalities. So, what makes someone suited for this business? Our Storii Time hosts, Saad and Mike dive into it on this episode
Mike: Ta da.
Saad: It’s magic. It’s a necessity for you to be here for our weekly IG live.
Mike: I was thinking the same thing when we were talking about the topic. I’m glad to know that. Good musical choice by you. I’m glad it was available on Pandora.
Saad: But the real story of that post was the poor execution by these, AI platforms. I was very disappointed.
Mike: I looked haggard, like a little cherub.
Saad: What was crazy was that, like, I kept asking the AI to make adjustments. I kept asking, like, ChatGPT, Gemini, I used both of them, I was like, , change this, change that. Eventually, they were like, we can’t make any more changes because our system the system is not made to, like, accommodate and by the way, I would make one request, and then I’d, like, start a whole new one and make the same request.
Saad: One time, it would actually do it. That’s why the next time it didn’t. It’s as if the AI was getting sick of it.
Mike: This is what you look like, sir.
Saad: Deal with it. Did you feed it an image of us?
Saad: So I didn’t. I’ve for reference. Gemini, I mean, it’s Google. Like, they you can I would say Saad Munir and Mike Sokolowski of Torii Homes, like, that’s easily searchable? Pretty easily pop up images because we’re such celebrities.
Mike: Lazy ass AI. I know. We’re everywhere.
Saad: Alright. So, let’s get into it. , bare necessities, agent necessities.
Saad: there’s the obvious ones we’re talking about…
Mike: A driver’s license. A car. No criminal record. Well, actually, I don’t even know about that.
Saad: Yeah. That’s not so accurate. Probably not. I mean, but the car thing, actually, what? That’s an interesting one. You at least need access to a car.
Saad: I know of some people. I’ve heard of some people, like, not on our team and not anybody I’ve worked with directly. But, like, yeah, like, this person doesn’t have a car. Like, she would Uber to showings and things like that.
Mike: That’s amazing.
Saad: It is amazing, isn’t it? That’s a lot of money out of it. I never met that person, but, like, wow. That’s commitment. I mean, get having a car is a commitment too, but still, like, you’re not doing it just for, not getting a car usually just for wor or real estate activities. So, yeah, I mean, access to a car, important. Driver’s license, almost a must, I think. Real estate license, you might need to get that.
Mike: ? Which it’s probably tougher to get your driver’s license than your real estate license.
Saad: Yes. I would agree.And a cell phone.
Mike: And a cell phone.
Saad: You need those things. You need those. I mean, like, you need those things, in order to, like, baseline, do anything in this business or maybe just be a human being.
Mike: I’m doing this on the phone.
Saad: et’s get into the not-so-obvious ones. This is gonna be a lot more fun, I think. And, , brokerage specific, I think. And individualistic too.
Saad: Like, I mean, obviously, you and I, we’ve been working together for several years now, and see eye to eye on a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that, like, we’re that, like, we naturally will have some differences in terms of how we run our businesses and things like that. But what are some of the not-so-obvious things, Mike, for you that you think are critical for an agent to be successful?
Mike: I would say an even temperament or at least the ability to absorb fluctuating temperaments around you, and be calm about that. You have to deliver if you gotta deliver bad news or news that might upset somebody, best to do it at that moment immediately than let time pass.
Mike: That’s when I’ve always had the most anxiety. I realized that it was only I who was like, oh, I’ll wait, like, a half hour. There’s no reason why I’m waiting a half hour, but that anxiety builds at that point. So you just give them the facts straight up and talk it out. So I’d say that, like, as , there probably are introverted people that succeed here, but, like, , for the most part, you gotta consistently talk to people.
Mike: Communication is definitely the main crux of this whole thing because you’re the point person on a transaction that has probably six or seven different parties that are involved in it….human beings that you’re gonna interact with is different, and especially when that’s such high stakes as a real estate transaction.
Saad: I think Mike made a really good point. It’s not even something I thought of was that, like, you need to be able to, like, handle that and that’s part of the high flows. You might have certain news that some that for some part of the transaction, they feel great about. And then somebody else, they’re not, like, gonna be excited about that news. How do you handle? Those are two obviously, totally different conversations, and you have to be able to say, this is a must. So that’s a good one. I think, another thing that, is important is, a team. I think you need when you start.
Mike: Yeah.Definitely.
Saad: You need mentorship. You need coverage. You need, partners that you can ask questions. Like, , we’re talking, like, lenders, attorneys, inspectors. Like, we don’t know everything. Sometimes we pretend to, but we don’t know everything. We have to message Like, look, I’ve got somebody I can ping to get that question for you, and I’ll have an answer for you by the end of the day or in a couple hours or what have you. I think having a good team is good for culture. Like, you don’t wanna be on an island behind business. It’s already isolating.
Mike: I think, like, when I’m away from people for a while or not talking to, like, the team or the partners as often…it’s a certain rhythm you have to be in. It’s easier solo to, like, not have needs to be, like, showing off the characteristics that will help the deal. Like, your personality, not just, like, being jovial and fond and whatever. Your personality in terms of, like, how on top of things you are, how directly you can communicate, and all that stuff is not like a for me, it is there a lot of times, but it definitely takes some prep work in the morning to, like, lock in to stuff.
Saad: I mean, and with that prep work, like, for you, what does that look like? How do you lock in? Because that’s one thing I’m gonna wanna close a little bit later talking about…you do that prep work because you’re committed. You’re committed to a lot of different things, which you touched on, but, like, what do you do to prep for the day?
Mike: I’ve picked up bits here and there, I mean, exercise is important. Not to say that I do it every morning…getting the blood flowing gets you a little more animated so that you can talk to people, so you’re not flat, doing that. Have picked up meditation over the years. Another thing that’s not an everyday thing, but, like, sometimes it just thoughts can be so intrusive that you need to, like, settle down and realize that most of the shit’s made up in your brain, and you can let it pass. And then the main thing is, like, taking action outside because a problem might seem, like, much bigger than it is when you’re not in it doing the little bits to help advance it or solve it or move it forward, on that. So, like, getting into it immediately and don’t, like, hypothesize too much on what should be done.
Saad: Avoid the analysis paralysis kind of…
Mike: It’s tough.
Saad: And that’s Mike Sokolowski giving us all a life lesson. You’re right. It is tough. I mean, it’s human nature. We’re human, and that’s our nature to overanalyze and, especially when you’re in the people business. 100%, I think Mike hit on something as he was talking about, like, the exercise and meditation and what have you. I think it’s really important to carve out time in your day.
Saad: Yo Yo seven sixteen JP benched three. What’s going on, guys? Thank you for joining.
Mike: What’s up?
Saad: We’re talking about agent necessities. We’re talking about the things that agents need to be successful. Mike just talked about some of the things that he does to lock in, for the day because that’s super important. And I think that goes to one of the points I wanted to bring up…carving out time for yourself.
Saad: Making sure you commit to that time, whether it’s to, , like, obviously, to exercise and for your health, but for your family, having the ability to say no. That’s actually a huge one. There’s so much, there’s so much stuff going on, especially once you get kinda cooking in this business.
Saad: Like, it’s easy to feel like you need to do everything to keep things going, like, once, like, a few deals close in the next couple of weeks and stuff like that. Don’t feel like you have to do everything. So you can kinda just, like, have some time for yourself and for your loved ones and what have you. So, I think that’s a really good point you made. I think organization tools are a must. Yes. I was talking to our coach, Matt, earlier before you jumped on… talking about what I mentioned was the idea of a CRM is something that’s honestly, like, it seems that we’re ultimately new in real estate. Like, much newer in real estate than it has been in sales in general.
Saad: And I’ve been in sales my whole life, and I’ve been using CRM tools since day one. But, if you’re a real estate agent not using a CRM you’re in trouble. You need to use a CRM to stay organized, and even if you are generally organized, to stay efficient.
Saad: it’s really, really important. You need to be organized in terms of your calendar. You need to be organized in terms of your contacts, in terms of your expenses.
Saad: You mentioned communication earlier, be organized on that, who you communicating with, when, and having systems in place for that. That’s something that I think gets lost on the wayside, Like, if people talk about marketing, people talk about staying informed and education and all that kind of stuff. But the organization piece, like, to really be a good business person… you need to have organization. It’s gonna help you organize. And probably best to start by you organizing yourself. So, the next piece was marketing plan.
Saad: Mike, how important do you think a marketing plan is for success in this business?
Mike: I think it makes things a lot easier if when you’re gonna get yourself in front of people and what that might look like in the different avenues that it might take. I think from the earlier talk the paralysis by analysis, you can, one, try to mimic anything that’s online and go with trends and things like that. And there is usefulness to knowing, like, what’s up in terms of how people are consuming things and if you’re a video versus a carousel versus a single post versus a story, whatever. Those are all, like, metrics that you can, test and follow and adjust accordingly. But I think that chasing the trends online is useless unless it fits with you.
Mike: If there’s something like, oh, yeah. Like, we should hop on that because that’s more our speed. Trying to keep up with, like, the trending music and what the new dance is stupid…like, pranks and trends and stuff like that. It just dilutes who you actually are.
Saad: Yeah.
Mike: So, we talk at it from an angle of, does this fit us? And then we go and do that.
Saad: Every brokerage is different, but every agent is different. And so when I said marketing plan, it’s not like your team’s marketing plan. It’s your marketing plan. And like, there might be some like general, like pillars or tenants or whatever you wanna call them for a marketing plan, but it’s really yours. And it’s gonna be unique to you. And to your point, it’s gotta be thought out and it’s gonna be you. And if it’s not, it’s not a plan. It’s like copying and pasting, plagiarizing in this business never works.
Saad: It could be a fad. And you wanna kinda, like, do something related to that or something, within the confines of your plan and how you wanna present yourself both as a brand and as an agent. And I think it’s not gonna be perfect every time. It does but if you keep doing it, and you keep that in the back of your mind, your entire plan will come together in a flywheel type of way.
Saad: And I think, again, I think that’s critical for long-term success in this business.
Mike: there’s a lot of systems that talk about, like, diet and exercise plans and weight loss in the same way of…just follow one of them.
Saad: Yep.
Mike: Let’s stick to that one. They’re all probably proven to work at a point. You have, like, Keller Williams has the I’m gonna screw this up. It was, like, ingrained in my head, like, the the 32 touch system or something like that where, like, either by mail or by text or by phone call or by email or by social media and however you wanna break it out, you get in touch with somebody, like, once a month in some way, and you organize it by letters of the alphabet. That’s a very simple system. Keep it simple. Keep it as simple as possible for yourself.
Saad: Yeah. It prevents being overwhelmed. It prevents that negative self-talk to be like, oh, I don’t have time for that, my system’s better than that. That stuff’s not gonna help you.
Mike: What a difficult dragon to slay.
Saad: I think another not-so-obvious thing that you need to succeed is support. From people that depend on you, obviously, your family, that’s really important. The reason I bring that up is because this business is unlike a lot of others. Like, you’re working potentially seven days a week…likely seven days a week. Busy. Even on vacation, you’re, like, answering messages and things like that. There’s so many reels and memes made about this. What it’s like to date a real estate agent and you’re at dinner with them and they could pick up the call on the phone trying to negotiate a deal. That happens sometimes.
Saad: So, I think support from your team, but at the same time, being able to be a master of your calendar and compartmentalizing and making sure that you have time for both of those important things is very, very important. And it takes time to master that. I mean, I haven’t even mastered it. My wife will tell you.
Mike: It’s all tweaks and adjustments of all that stuff. If I see an email from you at 2AM, I know you might be tired the next day.
Saad: It’s a possibility.
Mike: Same thing for me.
Saad: Mike, how important do you think social media is…just general social media? Forget the channel, but, for success in real estate.
Mike: Indispensable. At this point, in-person interactions have gone, and it’s an unfortunate part of, like, just living in this day.
Saad: Jackie, what’s up? How you doing? Jackie What’s up? Jackie just joined.
Mike: Alright. What’s up, Jackie?
Saad: I agree. I think social media is to the point where, if you’re not on it, if and if you’re not consistent with it, you’re losing a really, really easy way to stay top of mind with your sphere, the people who follow you, the people who engage with you. If you’re not consistent with that, regardless of what the medium is, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, whatever. If you’re not consistent with it, like, and if you’re not on it, then you have to work that much harder to stay top of mind.
Saad: Social media as a kind of, like, cesspool as it is, like, it’s it’s it’s a great tool if you use it right.
Mike: Yeah. Now the difficulty of what people put out and how and what they choose to post reveals more about what they’re choosing to post than probably what it actually is themselves.
Mike: It’s the same, like, surface-level stuff. Like, I get it. A nice dock with a boat is nice or whatever. But if that’s all you see, I don’t know this person at all. Iit’s just flash.
Mike: I like when people have a perspective on things, like a different perspective, and you get the insight as to how they’re thinking.
Saad: Absolutely. And I’ll say this too…for any aspiring agent, if you’re already an agent, like, the follow count doesn’t matter. I’ve seen people who have many, many followers who struggle to do deals.
Saad: And I’ve seen people who don’t have many followers, but have an engaged following. They do really well. So, understand the difference.
Mike: It’s supplemental. 100%.
Saad: Yeah. And I think that’s understanding the difference and understandingwhat you wanna do with your following, so to speak and how to stick to it. Have a plan. We talked about that before. This is all related, by the way. So, if you do this right, it’s kinda clockwork as you kinda get some reps in.
Saad: A couple other, no brainers, and we got a few minutes. So, you need an accountant. Like, eventually, as you start doing some deals, make sure you’re doing your taxes properly and saving as much money as possible and putting your money into the right accounts. We did a little impromptu financial planning session the other day.
Saad: One thing Mike and I are trying to work on, not a must, but I think it’s important in terms of having clarity on your goals, is the whole concept of putting pen to paper and writing things down in a vision board. Adding a vision board, we were brought on to that idea, a couple of months ago. We haven’t done it yet, admittedly.But, it’s something that Mike and I will do.
Saad: It’s important for us to put that stuff down for ourselves. But since Mike and I work together so closely, it’s important for each for us to know about each other’s goals so we can do what we need to do to support each other and do the same for our agents.
Saad: Eventually, our goal is that all our agents are doing this. But, it’s not fair for us to ask our agents to do it until we do it ourselves.
Mike: Until we do it. Tell me about your dreams.
Saad: Exactly. I think, one last thing, Mike, I wanna get your thoughts on is commitment. We touched on this, early on in the live, but think there’s a quote There was something somebody that said this at a conference I was at, a couple of weeks ago. Everyone is interested in real estate, but the question is whether you are committed.
Mike: Yeah.
Saad: that really spoke to me. I was like you’re right, you go to any , any event, you go to any kind of dinner party…you’re at Thanksgiving, you’re at your family’s house…people talking about real estate everywhere. So everyone’s got interest in it. People are like, oh, so you’re selling the house, this person bought up the street. There are signs everywhere. Everyone’s interested in real estate. But, do you have a commitment to your clients? Do you have a commitment to staying top of mind in the marketing piece of it? Do you have a commitment to showing up to events and using your evenings and your weekends to build your brand and build your business to support your family. Commitment to being a student of the industry because things are changing all the time, even just in the last year plus. Like, twelve, thirteen months, two major things have changed in the industry. Do you have the people around you to support you on that stuff?
Saad: Then Mike said something earlier about highs and lows. Like, you gotta commit weathering them. You have to have commitment to staying steady. And if you don’t have any of those things, if you don’t have any of those things, you definitely should not be an agent.
Saad: But if you’re missing one or two of those, it can be a problem. So, I think all that stuff is critical to success inthis business. I’m pretty sure you agree, but is there anything else commitment-wise that you would mention is particularly important, as one tries to grow their business?
Mike: I think that the commitment is the anticipation of needs and problems on the horizon. And if you’re willing to, like…I think we talked about it on the prior pod… but had some people freak out about the structure of their basement. And so I picked up on the weekend, and then by Monday, I had organized something where me and the inspector and are back out at that property. Some people would be like, it’s fine. It’s too late in the process because they have no protection for it. It was just like a freak out. But, I was like, okay. Like, the only way I can quell these fears is by going back out to the property and then calling in. I was just like, can you help me help my clients so this is a smooth last ten days?
Mike: Like, we’re aware of the situation. I’m not trying to be sneaky here. Commitment if you can start to see in advance, that helps out a lot of people.
Saad: Yeah. That’s commitment to your clients and providing you the service. Like, if you do that, this other stuff…thinking ahead and being like, oh, I know this is bothering my clients, and, like, I know I wanna jump on it and leverage my my team and leverage my, like, the partnerships we have and and make sure that they have a good experience, that they’re feeling good about it. I don’t want to say things like, oh, it’s gonna be fine and then this happens all the time. That doesn’t make people feel better.
Saad: SoI think that’s, that’s really important. And just as in something as a whole, like, if you’re trying to get into this business, if you are in this business, you should ask yourself that question.
Saad: Like, how committed are you to this, because if you’re not, Mike and I will eat your lunch. We have to wait.
Saad: But in all seriousness, I think it’s a tough job. It’s a tough job, and it’s not for everybody, and that’s okay. But that is, I think, something that we’re gonna ask you, like, any anytime an agent’s trying to join Torii, that’s gonna be, like, something that we ask everybody.
Saad: There’s a good reason for it because not everybody’s gonna have the level of commitment that is required to provide the level of service that clients not just want but need, especially in Greater Boston, but in general.
Saad: So, do you have any last last words, Mike? I think we covered everything.
Mike: I’m out.
Saad: That’s it. Alright. That’s it. Stay committed to joining us next week on Storii Time and every week thereafter. Stay committed to Storii Time.
Mike: Be here or be square.
Saad: And, he’s Mike. I’m Saad. This is Storii Time. Peace out.
Mike: Bye, everybody.
Saad: Bye bye.
This Instagram live is transcribed for your easy reading. If you want to catch Storii Time live, every week, follow @saadmun1r and @photolowski on Instagram.