Justin Stoddart
Hey, and welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddard, excited today to teach you specifically what you need to do in order to be successful in your first real in your first year of real estate, whether you're brand new, or whether you want to start over, like hit the reset button, let's do this again. I want my next year to be fantastic. I have the ultimate guest to help you do just that today.
Justin Stoddart
Before we go there. Before I tease you anymore with who this is. I'm going to remind you that inside of the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, we go deep with these topics. The conversation continues after the interview to where you can engage and get your questions answered. So join us over there if you're not there yet.
Justin Stoddart
Back to today's guest, Her name is Shelly Zavitz. Not only is she an amazing real estate agent, best selling author. She's an amazing human being obviously adore love this lady. She's fantastic. And I'm honored to have her on the show today. Shelley, thanks for coming on. Again, the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.
Shelley Zavitz
Thanks for having me. That is so nice.
Justin Stoddart
You know I mean, you know, I mean that that that's not just... So you know, that's how I actually feel about you.
Shelley Zavitz
So yeah, back atcha.
Justin Stoddart
So for those who don't know, Shelley, again, I kind of give a quick bio here, shall he tell us a little bit about maybe how you got into the real estate industry cuz I think this will give some context to where you're coming from, and maybe why people should listen to you, which I think they have all the reason the word listening.
Shelley Zavitz
The jury's out on that, by the way. All right. I was in Canada in broadcasting for 15 years, I got married, I came down to Portland, Oregon. And one of the things that I decided when I got here was that I wasn't gonna stay in radio. And what was the thing that I really liked doing outside of that, and I used to remodel condos in Vancouver, BC with a partner. I was like, I really like real estate. I'm going to do that. And I went down the exact same road every single person does, and all the real estate agents watching this like, Huh, right. And I knew for people when I moved to Portland, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna start a referral business. It's gonna be gigantic, I'm going to be amazing. And then I really I mean, to buy for across the face the reality of what it is to build a business, a startup business, in real estate, right?
Shelley Zavitz
So I did all the hurdles that you do in the first year and second year, and I really decided that I was like, I was gonna go big. So I wanted to be Rookie of the Year for my company. At the time, I worked for the Hasson Company, they were amazing to me. And of course, I mean, why couldn't I do that? Until I realized that you actually have to have a database to do anything. So I made it to the end of that rookie race and learned so much about myself about business, but mostly about myself and who I am in the world.
Shelley Zavitz
And I wrote a book about it. And it's a bunch of stories. So what I used to do was write for radio. So please, no, it's not. I'm not a serious person. I just, I don't know how to do that. So it's a bunch of stories to staple some points about the principles of building a business in real estate. And I launched that in 2019. I got a publisher of his Herrmann house that took me on it was great. And we sold out the first 1000 copies in two weeks. Remarkable, right? I thought, like me, and my mother would read it, and then I would like to send it to you. So thanks for reading.
Justin Stoddart
I did and I loved it, by the way. No, the book is new agent 365, like your first three to 65 days in real estate, how to be successful. It's actually not only super informational, and helpful, but it's really entertaining. You're a great writer. Thank you. Actually, I found myself oftentimes just totally laughing because it's you bring some of the funniest stories. It's like I oftentimes hear agents will say, I wish I would have written a book about my time in real estate because the stories are unbelievable and like you actually did and it's so good to hear the things that you're learning all interwoven into this internal dialogue versus like all these like hit your head against the wall here and learn this lesson here. Like it's really a great read so do that hasn't read it hasn't that doesn't have their copy of it. Please go find it. It's a fantastic book.
Shelley Zavitz
Thanks, Justin.
Justin Stoddart
And, and no, like, I used to write parody songs and stuff. Like it's not. I can't be serious. I do. I am serious in some parts. But I mean, we're, I think that we lose track of the fact we deal with a lot of money as real estate agents, but we lose sight that, you know, we're not doing brain surgery here. No one is going to die. You know, and we take it away. A little bit serious. So I thought we'd lighten it up a little bit. The response to the book was incredible. We just passed 10,000 copies sold since June 2019. And I started to get feedback from new agents. And they first were thanking me just for writing it because it gave them a sense of actually what they were feeling was acknowledged, you know, it's a rite of passage, the first year is terrible the end. Like that's just true. So you don't need to read the book there. We did, it.
Shelley Zavitz
So I started to pay attention to what they were asking me. And it was like, it was letters to my office, it was posted on Instagram, private messages to Facebook, just. And they were asking for more information not about transacting real estate, but it was about how do I build my business? And how do I be successful and I'm super scared, and all the things that we all feel when we start something new.
Shelley Zavitz
And I got thinking about it, and then I dive into some statistics. And I learned from NAR that 84% of agents start their business without any business, retail finance experience. So here we are, we're licensing people. And then what about the business part? Right. So then that led me to the program that I was talking to you about? I went to Stephanie Chamblee first and I said, Hey, you know, this is really weird that this is happening. This is the feedback that I'm getting. What do you think? Because I am not a trainer, right? That's not what I do. I sell real estate. But what do you think about finding all of the right people to teach? And I had, I had an idea of what 12 topics I felt should be taught to start up a business. And we went together to these people. And we said This is what we want to do. We want to make it super affordable for everyone. Because new agents, you know, you're starting a business. Anytime you launch anything, it's expensive. So how could we do it in an affordable way? Because we all know, training? I mean, come on. It's expensive, right? So we went to these trainers. And we said we want to do this great thing. We want to do 12 weeks of training for new agents to help them build a business like a blueprint of it. And then whatever brokerage they're with, they can build up on top of that, but how do we get the foundation there first, right? Because we can make a solid impact on the industry. If we just gave more information off the top? I think it's not a secret. Why are we keeping it a secret? So we went to those 12 people, every single one of them said yes, and its New Agent 365 Missions was launched in September like we did our first round, it was awesome. There's kind of a gaming component to it, which is nice. And, and I'm excited because I have to say that this is I get a lot of recognition about this. But this is a...
