The Agent Podcast EP 90 Stuart Sim
How To Manage Your Database
[00:00:00] Stuart Sim: I got that lead from Zillow in 2016 and it's being nurtured for me and now they're ready to transact. And I've done a good job, and I always use my realtor as an example here. So I bought a home in this home that I'm living in. Call it 2010 and you know, we're 12 years in, so tick. I've bought a couple of other properties outside this one and I've done my thing, but that real estate agent never interacted with me whatsoever.
[00:00:28] Stuart Sim: I never got an email from him. I never get a text message from him with relevant information about my market. Or markets that I might be interested in buying a rental property. All I got from him is a calendar. Every Christmas. I still get it. It's, it's on the wall by our, you know, washing machine. But I'll never do business with that guy again, right?
[00:00:46] Stuart Sim: I'm looking for someone who's gonna provide me with the information that I need to make a strong decision.
[00:01:24] Ray Sjolseth: Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Agent Podcast Today I'm here with my buddy, Stuart. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:30] Stuart Sim: Thanks for having me, Raymond. I'm super happy to be here and talking all things real estate.
[00:01:36] Ray Sjolseth: Stuart, why real estate?
[00:01:38] Stuart Sim: So that's a good story for sure. From my perspective. So I've been in CRM and database sales for the last 25 years, and I had an opportunity in 2011 I had actually sold move. A software product. And when they were looking for a new director of sales for the top producer brand, they approached me and I jumped in took a, took a leap of faith started working for Move or realtor.com.
[00:02:07] Stuart Sim: And I fell in love with the industry. Honestly. You got great people. You've got lots of opportunity to grow your career. But the whole concept of real estate for me, really is interesting because it is a builder of wealth. So for myself, I have learned incredible amounts to the point where I've actually bought properties, sold properties.
[00:02:26] Stuart Sim: I have a couple of, you know, rental properties and my, my personal dream is to actually have a property on a beautiful lake here in British Columbia. Where I spend the majority of my time.
[00:02:36] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. So, Stuart, let's talk about what you do. You're with.
[00:02:41] Stuart Sim: I am, I am the Vice President of Industry Development with chime which means I'm the guy that's out there as the face of the company promoting the company at real estate events meeting with large franchises to really expand what Chime does.
[00:02:56] Stuart Sim: Now, if you're not famil familiar with Chime it is a full. [00:03:00] Real estate technology stack, starting with IDX website, crm, long-term follow up, email marketing, text marketing, social media market. Backend transaction management. We have a killer CMA product. So when you think about the structure of a regular brokerage that are using somewhere between 12 and 15 different technologies to do each piece of that, we're trying to do it all in one.
[00:03:23] Stuart Sim: Now, the pieces that we do exceptionally well, we're, we're really good at, but then the ones we're not, we go and integrate with other people. So for instance, if you look at lead generations, we have a direct integration. Realtor.com with Zillow, with homes.com, and then we have 55 other lead vendors that we work with to get your leads into the system so we can start that long term conversion and.
[00:03:48] Stuart Sim: Maturing those, those people to make sure that they do business with you. And if it's not today, it's sometime within the next six to seven years or the, the cycle of buying real estate. So, you know, people often in real estate talk about the top of funnel. I believe that, yeah, sure. You do have to have leads coming into the system and you have to have a plan and goal set around that.
[00:04:09] Stuart Sim: But ultimately you have to worry about. Your database long term, because each one of those individuals cost money to get into a database and it costs money to nurture them, but long term, you wanna make sure that you're converting more customers than you're losing. So that's really what Chime is all about converting people to the best of our ability.
[00:04:28] Ray Sjolseth: Stuart, how did you end up at Chime?
[00:04:31] Stuart Sim: It's a good story. So when I left realtor.com, I started my own company called Modern Agent which was a social media app to help real estate agents with content and postings on a regular basis with Facebook and Instagram. And we've been. Gobbled up by chime and I took on that role because one of the things, so Chime is an amazing technology.
[00:04:53] Stuart Sim: I gotta be honest with you. When I look at real estate, and I've been doing this now for close to 15 years Technology [00:05:00] is fantastic. Where we've kind of failed a little bit is building the brand. And so what I'm doing is I'm out there building the brand on behalf of the company and it's really starting to come to fruition now with some, you know, we were talking before about some of the large partnerships that we're, we're building and, you know, we, we have.
[00:05:17] Stuart Sim: Relationships with Keller Williams, we have relationships with Remax Exit Realty, the real broker, x P. So you know, whether you're a real estate agent or a broker at any of those brands, we're, we're out there ready to help you get to the next level. And that's just from basic c r m, right? Through recruiting which is so important in today's day and age when you know the agent count is dropping.
[00:05:38] Stuart Sim: So you've gotta replace agents and hopefully you're replacing them with better.
[00:05:42] Ray Sjolseth: Stuart, what do you think some misconceptions are out there around CRMs and quote unquote systems?
[00:05:50] Stuart Sim: Yeah, so. One of the things I used to hear all the time, like when I was listening to calls, I had a sales team of 50 people, a top producer.
[00:05:59] Stuart Sim: The frustrations around getting set up properly, it's too complicated to use. The reality is today with all the AI that's built in is that these systems now should be taking a lot of the heavy liftings off an agent's shoulder. And I think a lot of the perception out there is that they are complicated, and they are cost prohibitive in some ways, but the reality is if you're using a CRM system or a full platform properly, It's going to help your business.
[00:06:29] Stuart Sim: So for instance, I'll give you an example. We have a, I have a friend of mine who uses Chime. They have around 10,000 people in their database. There's no way, as a real estate agent, you're gonna be able to pick up the phone 10,000 times in a year and talk to each one of those people. So what you need to do is have your system be reaching out to those people with relevant information about whether it's your market.
[00:06:54] Stuart Sim: Something that's going on with interest rates. The market in general, and it's not just about listing properties or anything like that, but when you're having that initial listing presentation, you should be taking notes about someone's plans for the future. And whether that's, like I said, you know, I wanna have a beautiful property on a lake, or I want to get into the rental property.
[00:07:16] Stuart Sim: You should be sending information that's relevant to that conversation, and you can do that through a really good system. Now as you're trying to grow your business, you should also have the capability to not only mass email, but also mass text intertwined with your social media. So that message is consistent across the board.
[00:07:34] Stuart Sim: Once you're set up properly with the system, then you can start expanding. So one of the things I love because I come from social media. For instance, using your past customers to write a really good testimonial for you. And that using that to promote your business and getting people to share your social media posts, you know, you shouldn't have a fear as a realtor to ask a past customer if they've had a good experience to promote you on social media cuz they're watching you, you know, a hundred percent.
[00:08:01] Stuart Sim: So, you know, overall I think it's a fear of technology, but really in this day and age, you've gotta embrace it and grow with it. So as new features and functioning functions come out, like look at the latest thing, right? Chat, G p T you could write a, you could ask chat, P G P T to write a listing.
[00:08:20] Stuart Sim: Description of a specific property and it'll bang one out, no problem. And that's just an example of, you know, these past fears of, oh my God, how do I do this and what do I do different for this specific property? There's all this technology that needs to be, let's call it, enveloped by the real estate industry and embraced so we can do a better job, not only, not only promoting our own.
[00:08:42] Stuart Sim: As a real estate agent, our broker, cuz you know, you know, Raymond, it's super competitive, right? You've been in the industry a while, so you need to understand that this technology is here to help you, right? We're not, we're not just there to collect, you know, X amount of dollars per month. We want to make sure that that ROI is realized.
[00:09:01] Stuart Sim: Sorry that was a bit long-winded, but you know, I'm a little passionate about it.
[00:09:05] Ray Sjolseth: That's okay. You know, I see it all the time where agents are asking a million people in Facebook groups, what CRM do you use? Which one is best? Oh, that's expensive, yada, yada, yada. And ultimately, they make a choice, but then they never use it.
[00:09:18] Ray Sjolseth: Right? They mistake iCloud or you know, outlook, outlook, outlook. Outlook for their contact management system. Yeah. And like. How do you get somebody to actually take the time and set up their C R m? Because it is a process, right? You don't just turn it on. It is a process to set it up. Step one is setting up the basic functions and features personalized to you.
[00:09:44] Ray Sjolseth: Step two, upload your contacts. Step three, start a nurture sequence, right? Step four, yep. Get some templates set up for broadcast, kind of impromptu listings currently on market, you know, whatever. Nobody wants to do that work. I see it all the time. They either don't want to, don't know how are overwhelmed or afraid, or in a hurry to get the next deal, so they're not thinking long term.
[00:10:11] Ray Sjolseth: Can you shed any light on that?
[00:10:13] Stuart Sim: Yeah, I can. And honestly if I look at CRM and I go back 20 years, right? So let's look at some stats. First of all. So in 2005, there was 6 million homes sold in North America, and those homes generated 6 million leads, which basically means one lead per home, right? As we've advanced technology and the consumer has become much more aware of what's going on in the real estate market, not only.
[00:10:39] Stuart Sim: Covid was incredible as an education for the average consumer, but the 10 years leading up to Covid where people were embracing sites like Zillow, sites like Trulia, sites like realtor.com to find out more information about certain proc properties in 2019. There was still 6 million homes sold in North America, and those 6 million homes generated 110 million leads.
[00:11:07] Stuart Sim: So what that tells me is the consumer has become much more educated, and as the consumer becomes much more educated, guess what? The real estate agent, real estate broker must also keep up with those industry trends and what's going on with the consumer. So as you are. Fearful about getting that technology set up.
[00:11:32] Stuart Sim: The consumer is on your website browsing, looking for information that because you're not set up properly they're not getting the right experience. From a particular website, and I'm not saying that's everybody, but that's definitely one of the places where it starts because everybody's using Google.
[00:11:50] Stuart Sim: They're, they're putting in realtor names. They're asking, send me a realtor from Austin, Texas. All kinds of stuff. So, Sorry, again, it's a long-winded answer, but this is where the technology really jumps in because, and I'll use my friend as my, my friend again, as an example. He's a, he's an avid hockey player, so he's on the ice three or four times a week, and each one of those sessions is somewhere between an hour and a half and two, two hours.
[00:12:13] Stuart Sim: So, In that time, he's getting text messages from potential customers who are on his website. He's using the AI technology to answer that person immediately and having, starting to have that conversation so they're not missing out because it's all time to lead, right? So if someone's on your website, you need to be engaging with them within the first, I, I say two minutes, but people will say five minutes, right?
[00:12:38] Stuart Sim: Otherwise, you've got four other realtors in the Austin area that are picking up the. Or sending a text message or doing all that stuff. If you're not doing that. So if you're not taking the time and yeah, you know what, it is gonna take somewhere between two and four hours to set up a system to get it to start to work for you.
[00:12:58] Stuart Sim: But once you get it to start working and you're seeing the results, Most real estate agents are willing to jump in a little deeper. Then they start sending set, setting up their email campaigns. Their social media is linked directly to the product. So again, you're now getting a full sphere. Now, the fear of that time, And again, I hear this story all the time is that, oh, I don't have enough time in my day.
[00:13:20] Stuart Sim: I can't. I'm in my car all the time. But the reality is you've got those hours before business and you've got those hours after business when most C R M companies are willing to work with you to get upset, set up properly. Now where we failed as an industry. Is not doing, is not making sure that those commitments are met from a training online, you know, where someone can download a tutorial on how to get set up properly.
[00:13:46] Stuart Sim: Using thought leadership to help people understand the concept of. Long-term follow up, long-term nurturing, as well as that top of funnel side of things. So it's crucial if you're going to spend money on a C [00:14:00] R M, if you're gonna take the time to evaluate c r m and I would, you know, in this day and age, I would only probably evaluate three or four because they're, they're, they're just moving so much faster than the others.
[00:14:11] Stuart Sim: Once you've evaluated, you've made your choice. Make that commitment to guarantee that you've got everything set up. And like you said, the first couple of steps are super easy. Getting your data in, getting, you know, the original, your original website linked to your c r m, that's, that's easy stuff. It takes very little time.
[00:14:28] Stuart Sim: But then dedicate yourself, you know, an hour or two per week where you're learning about the system and growing with it. So maybe you just start with the AI and the nurturing. And then a month later you add the email campaigns. A month after that, you add the text message campaigns, and a month after that, you go down the social media path because all these things are gonna be crucial to your business long term.
[00:14:49] Stuart Sim: If you wanna survive as a realtor and we'll call these tough times, you know, interest rates are rising low inventory, and, and we don't know how long that's gonna last. So you wanna make sure you're getting. At least invited to the party for most of your listings, right? So if you're not building your brand and building your brand isn't a bus bench on the side of the road or a sign in front of your current listings, it's, it's being out in the marketplace and understanding what's going on in your local marketplace, understanding the pricing what's happening with, where people can get the best mortgage broker to give them the best long-term mortgage rate.
[00:15:27] Stuart Sim: Getting involved heavily in the community where your brand is then known.
[00:15:31] Ray Sjolseth: I love that. So much wealth there. Stuart, what are, what are some things that differentiates chimes specifically from other CRMs out there that are important that agents know that they may not find by going to the website?
[00:15:47] Ray Sjolseth: Right. Because I'll be honest, if I go to the. Right, and I start poking around products and all that stuff. If I don't know exactly what I'm looking at, I'm like, okay, where do I start? What's next? Right? So what are some of the things that are different that can really, yeah, it.
[00:16:03] Stuart Sim: It's a great question. It's, it's a fantastic question.
[00:16:06] Stuart Sim: So the first thing I would say is we are truly a full system. So we start with IDX website, right? So if you subscribe to Chime, you get the full system you're getting start with the IDX website which is your main place where you're gonna find leads. If you're not buying leads from a third party which funnels all that information into the crm.
[00:16:24] Stuart Sim: In the meantime, you've got the AI part of it. That's e exactly. Spending time with those individuals when you're not available to make sure that they remain interested until you can pick up the phone or text them or do whatever you wanna do. Our system is all built off. Google learning, Google Machine learning.
[00:16:41] Stuart Sim: So the system learns off your habits and the way you do business. So once you start engaging with the system, it's gonna start behaving like you and responding like you. The worst thing I see realtors doing is when they don't set up a system properly is they've got you know, we call our AI bot Anna.
[00:17:02] Stuart Sim: So Anna is responding. If you don't set it up to say, Hey, this is Raymond. What can I do for you today? Oh, you're looking for a property in south Chicago? Let me find that for you. Let me give you some ideas. Here are three properties. It'll do that. The AI will do all that for you today. That is a huge differentiator from most of the CRM systems that are out there.
[00:17:25] Stuart Sim: Most important thing is that long-term follow up. So again, if you've got a ton of people in your database, let the I the AI take over and nurture those people and when they're ready, transact, you can actually jump in and start working those people like you would any other listing? It gives you an advantage over the competitor who is trying to pick up the phone 10,000 times a year.
[00:17:46] Stuart Sim: It just doesn't happen. And then when you think about moving through that funnel email marketing, text message, marketing, social media, building your brand out, we're gonna help you do all that. As an organization, we're kind of dedicated to that now. I'm gonna be dead honest with you right now. We have so many people coming in the door.
[00:18:03] Stuart Sim: We have about 53,000 customers right now. We're growing our customer service team to meet those needs. Like that's where we're, sadly, we're falling behind a little bit, but right now, as we grow, we'll get to the point where we're delivering on all those service promises. And that's really, when you're thinking about crm, you've gotta have.
[00:18:21] Stuart Sim: Kohe, you gotta have a cohesiveness between your customer service rep and yourself. So you're learning every time we do a release about the benefits of what the product does. And I think that's where Chime is a leader. We're, we're, we're, we're building stuff today that people will, will be embracing for years to come.
[00:18:39] Ray Sjolseth: Stuart, I think one of the important things to point out is where Chime started, right? Chime started as a lead generation.
[00:18:46] Stuart Sim: Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah. And yeah, we, we don't call ourselves that today, right? So it, it's not something we, we have a lead generation department, but the reality of it is we really consider ourselves a conversion engine and long-term follow-up and nurturing tool.
[00:19:02] Stuart Sim: And that's why we've chosen to integrate with a, to a bunch of the top lead brands, right? So the realtor dot coms, the Zillows, so you're paying lots of money for those leads. They're coming into the system and they're being nurtured long. Right. So your r o ROI on those becomes better and you might have to look at, you know, six years down the road or seven years down the road.
[00:19:22] Stuart Sim: Wow. I got that lead from Zillow in 2016 and it's being nurtured for me and now they're ready to transact. And I've done a good job, and I always use my realtor as an example here. So I bought a home in this home that I'm living in. Call it 2010 and you know, we're 12 years in, so tick. I've bought a couple of other properties outside this one and I've done my thing, but that real estate agent never interacted with me whatsoever.
[00:19:50] Stuart Sim: I never got an email from him. I never get a text message from him with relevant information about my market. Or markets that I might be interested in buying a rental property. All I got from him is a calendar. Every Christmas. I still get it. It's, it's on the wall by our, you know, washing machine. But I'll never do business with that guy again, right?
[00:20:08] Stuart Sim: I'm looking for someone who's gonna provide me with the information that I need to make a strong decision. But he was also gonna get me, whether I'm selling a home or I'm buying a home, getting me the best price that he can possibly. Right. So prices have gone up dramatically in the last three or four years.
[00:20:30] Stuart Sim: Well, why? If a home sold in 2019 for a million dollars and today they're promoting it for 1.4, that's a huge increase. What's why so much value? Why so, Mr. Realtor, I want you to go in there and help me get the best price. And is that 1.32 is. What is it, right? Help me. Help me understand why I'm paying that much more over a four year deal.
[00:20:54] Stuart Sim: So that's where the education of the real estate agent and the industry is gonna change. And trust me, these young people that are embracing technology and coming into the industry with lots of knowledge and technology knowledge are gonna be the ones that come out ahead.
[00:21:08] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah. So if we use the term customer acquisition cost, the goal is to get the customer acquisition cost as close to zero as possible so that when it comes time to serve that customer, they're literally paying you to serve them.
[00:21:22] Stuart Sim: Correct? Right? Correct. And I believe that long term goal of real estate should be get away from commissions, cuz we're gonna get away from it at some point. But into the, into a role where you're like a lawyer or an accountant where you're being. For your knowledge. We also have to start looking as the industry in a different way.
[00:21:38] Stuart Sim: So a lot of the brokers that I talk to, and I talk to a lot of them, cuz I'm the guy that's at a lot of the trade shows and I'm speaking to them live, we used to look at everything as cost per lead, right? Mm-hmm. How much did you pay for those Zillow leads? So Leo Zillow sends you 10 leads and it costs you $10,000 a year to be part of Zillow and one of those transacts.
[00:22:00] Stuart Sim: What's your cost per transaction? It's $10,000. Right. So most brokerage now are looking at that cost per transaction. So if I'm spending X amount with a lead generation tool, or if I'm spending X amount, this is my budget, these are my goals, how am I gonna hit them? How much does it cost me per, per, per transaction?
[00:22:19] Stuart Sim: If I'm buying Zillow, if I'm buying realtor.com, if I'm, you know, if I'm buying leads from Chime it doesn't matter where they're coming from. But long term, your system's gonna help you build up that cost per transaction and you're gonna be able to identify that super easy. Because it's gathering all that data, you're able to report on it.
[00:22:37] Stuart Sim: So you know, that's probably a little more advanced than most real, most real estates are gonna get to. But brokerages absolutely have to start thinking with that kind of mindset. Is that okay? Man, it's hard to make money as a brokerage. So what is my cost per transaction for Raymond you know, moving down the road as a real estate broker, working with re max.
[00:22:58] Ray Sjolseth: So what do you think, on, on that note, let's segue, let's future pace, right? What do you think the next three to five years looks like for real estate and real estate technology being adopted in the marketplace? Yeah.
[00:23:12] Stuart Sim: Obviously because I'm a. Technology guy. I, I believe that technology is gonna lead the way.
[00:23:18] Stuart Sim: Over the next three to five years, you're gonna see a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the technology space. You're already seeing that with the core logics, the co-stars, the Lone star lone Wolff, spying lots of people, smaller organizations and building the tech stacks. Now we have a different view because we build everything.
[00:23:36] Stuart Sim: So we don't go out and buy smaller companies and merge them in we build everything from within. We have about 150 developers. And when I think about the next five years, and I think about our roadmap, you know, AI is massive in that roadmap, but there's other things. A consumer app that's tied to Chime is one of the next things that's gonna be released.
[00:23:57] Stuart Sim: So the consumer can interact with Chime, similar [00:24:00] like it would with a Zillow you know, very. In-depth content, market information. So as an agent, that's gonna be part of the benefit. So the consumer is gonna be much more heavily focused as well as the MLSs. So MLSs, you've seen them go from 850 organizations down to 500 organizations because they're merging together to create a better system not only for the consumer, but for the real estate agent and the real estate community in specific markets.
[00:24:27] Stuart Sim: So technology is gonna be a huge piece. Now from an industry perspective, you know, you're already seeing a drop in the agent count In North America, it's gone from 1.8 to about 1.6 million over the last literally year. So, I think you're gonna get a consolidation of a lot of these brokerages are gonna come together driven by technology.
[00:24:49] Stuart Sim: A lot of the smaller ones will get taken up by the big ones. And a lot of the big ones, and I'll use a couple of examples, like Realogy Keller Williams Remax, they've all tried to embrace technology and I would all, I basically say they've all failed. But they need to go work with true technology companies to build a platform that makes a ton of.
[00:25:08] Stuart Sim: For their agents. And if you look at real estate, Realogy, they've got eight different brands. And, and, and all those agents are different in those different brands, but they're trying to use one piece of technology, right? They're trying to use Moxie Works for everybody and it just doesn't work because they've got luxury people.
[00:25:22] Stuart Sim: They've got You know, a whole pile of different Century 21 is a completely different animal than some of their other companies. And Keller Williams has, you know, spent 500 million on command and they've got, you know, 9% adoption. So. People are looking for good technology. They're spending money on good technology.
[00:25:41] Stuart Sim: And if even you turn around and you say, we're gonna give you it they're still gonna be like, yeah, but it doesn't work. So how does that help me? So I'm gonna go spend the hundred dollars on another C RM system because I can afford the a hundred dollars and embrace the one that I need to. But I think what you're gonna see is a consolidation between technology and the real estate companies to give the right.
[00:26:03] Stuart Sim: Features and functionality, they're gonna help grow over the next five years. As the consumer becomes even more educated, which is almost hard to say than they are today. They're gonna be and they're gonna be going to agents. And if an agent can't answer that question, you're not gonna get the listing.
[00:26:18] Stuart Sim: So technology will play a massive role. I think you'll see a, a shift in the average realtor. Bio, let's call it younger, more aggressive technology wise. I think a lot of agents that aren't embracing technology will get pushed out of the industry. So my advice is embrace now for long-term success.
[00:26:39] Ray Sjolseth: I think it's true. I think that it's interesting, right, because Remax is a great example that acquired all of these. Smaller technology and tech companies to bring this tech stack together of products that nobody uses.
[00:26:52] Ray Sjolseth: Bouch, the legendary bouche.
[00:26:55] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah.
[00:26:58] Stuart Sim: Ah, now they've gone down.
[00:27:00] Stuart Sim: Now they've gone down the path with KV core which is a good choice because you know what? I, I gotta be honest with you. If I was to say, if you're not gonna go with Chime, go with KV core, because when I think about the brains behind that technology, it's great. But it's all about adoption. So what are, what are they providing?
[00:27:16] Stuart Sim: To the agents with that basic KV core model, probably not that much. So the agent's gonna be looking for more, it's gonna be more costly. But you know, in the meantime, Remax has wasted seven years on Bourge. And that technology gap has grown. And it's, it's, it's enabled other companies like.
[00:27:33] Stuart Sim: Let's just say x P the real broker to come into the marketplace and be a disruptor and grow their businesses very quickly. EXP has gone from a small organization in 2016 to 90,000 agents today. The real broker, which has only been in business really since 2019, has gone from zero to 10. Agents under their banner because they have a new financial model.
[00:27:57] Stuart Sim: You know, you're not paying for your desk every month. It's more of that pyramid style. Mm-hmm. So people have an opportunity to have a different source of income. And in the meantime, you've seen the Keller Williams and you've seen The re maxes fall behind a little bit. And then you, they've also, you, you've also introduced the IBUs, right?
[00:28:15] Stuart Sim: So IBUs bring a whole different solution to the problem, let's call it, right? Zillow failed at it and Open Door hasn't done a great job. But then you've got these new people who are a little bit smarter and they're embracing the agent, right? So they're saying, Hey, let's partner with the agents and let's really drive that business.
[00:28:30] Stuart Sim: And the agents are like, wow, you're gonna deliver me a listing and it's only gonna cost me 30%. I'm. Because otherwise I, I'm gonna struggle to find the 15 people that I need to add to my database every week. So, All these things, all these pieces that we've talked about are what's gonna happen to the industry over the next five years, right?
[00:28:50] Stuart Sim: People are telling me now, there's some interesting conversations. Our IBUs even gonna be around in five years, right? Because they haven't grown quick enough. They've, they're only holding about [00:29:00] 2% of the market. My belief is the opposite. I think they will, as the agent community, embraces them a little bit more.
[00:29:06] Stuart Sim: And as we a little, as the average agent starts to struggle more with getting listings, I think you're gonna see that iyer. Grow, but it's gonna look a little bit different. You know, everything's gonna shift, everything's gonna change a little bit. And I think companies like Zillow, who will, who will tend to switch to mortgage, mortgage will play a bigger part of it.
[00:29:26] Stuart Sim: A lot of our companies technology companies are looking at mortgage, looking at. Property management different ways to grow a business, but at the same time, we're also thinking about how can we take, you know, for instance, let's take property management. Today, only about 18% of real estate agents dabble in the rental market, but the reality is every rental could be a buyer at some point.
[00:29:47] Stuart Sim: Mm-hmm. So why, why wouldn't you? So property, property management then, then becomes key. And obviously mortgage is also something else that's very key, right? Mortgages are down crazy low numbers that we haven't seen in a long time, but they're gonna turn around at some point and you need to be ready as an agent or a broker to embrace that.
[00:30:06] Stuart Sim: And then you also start thinking outside of the box and saying, you know what? I should dabble in rentals, but yeah, I'm only gonna make 200 bucks off that. But long term, I could have that client for life and they could do four transac. So it's a little different thought process than, you know, you might typically get from a technology guy, but I'm starting to understand more about the future of the industry and where I think it needs to go.
[00:30:27] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's interesting on, in our business, my wife and I is, I do things different than most. I have two email buckets. One is broadcast. This is what I need to share. Now here's a new restaurant, here's a new listing. You know, check out. Local community asset or event, whatever.
[00:30:45] Ray Sjolseth: And then there's a nurture bucket, and that nurture bucket isn't real estate related at all. It's all community driven and the goal is that it's evergreen. So I can just stack emails for years and years and years.
[00:30:55] Stuart Sim: Yeah. A a and that's a good way of doing it because ultimately what you're gonna do, the way you're running your business is you're gonna grow your brand, right?
[00:31:03] Stuart Sim: And your brand is gonna become so relevant in your market. That's what, that's what people turn to, right? And that's where I believe that inj in, in. Agents can distinguish themselves from other agents, right? Being smarter playing a different game being incredibly smart about your market and understanding every question that might confront you in a listing appointment.
[00:31:27] Stuart Sim: Know the answer so you can actually come across as a competent smart, different real estate agents. You know, sometimes we get a bad, we get a bad rap, you know, the industry gets a bad rap for not having the knowledge that we have for being lazy or being. You know, starting our day at 10 and finishing at two and then hitting the golf course.
[00:31:49] Stuart Sim: But the reality of it is, is that's changing. And we are becoming a very, very hardworking industry because we all understand that the next listing is gonna define our year. Right? And, you know, you talked about goal setting, you know, before we started. And for me, that's what it's all about. You know, in September, October, as an agent, you should start thinking about what are you gonna do next?
[00:32:12] Stuart Sim: And how are you going to keep the roof over your head and, you know, move forward? So, you know, how many leads do you need to pull into your CRM system a month? Where are those leads gonna come from? Am I gonna spend time locally at a business organization? Am I going to spend money on realtor.com or Zillow?
[00:32:30] Stuart Sim: Am I going to find another source, like say a roofer who does things a little bit different? Or am I gonna look at the high, the IBU concept? But you know, the reality is, and I give the number, my number is really small, by the way. When I say you need to, I need, you need to put eight people in your database every week.
[00:32:44] Stuart Sim: And where do those eight people come from? That, that's, that's a pretty small number if you ask me. Right? But if you ask 90% of the agents out there, and I'll do it, I'll be speaking at a, an event, I'll, I'll say, you know, put your hand up if you can do eight a week and. You know, it's probably less than 10% of the people.
[00:32:58] Stuart Sim: But ultimately when you can then say, if I'm driving that, it's gonna put that much business in the door, it's gonna allow me to do, I did 25 transactions last year. I'm gonna do 35 this year. And that concept is gonna let me get there. That's what they should be doing. And that's what I preach in a lot of the talks that I do.
[00:33:15] Stuart Sim: And it's not just about how Chime does it and how Chime can help you. It's really about, you know, goal. Put a plan in place that's realistic. You know, if you did 25 listings this year, you're not gonna do a hundred next year. That's not realistic. But if you say, I can do 10 more, I have the time to do 10 more.
[00:33:32] Stuart Sim: Set your goals around that. So, you know, I would love to do, you know, another one of these conversations where we talk about goal setting and how someone can you know, go from X realtor to this realtor and, you know, grow your business and become that market specific.
[00:33:49] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah, we can definitely set that up. I'd enjoy that. Okay, so I wanna be conscious of your time. Sure. If somebody is on the fence about adopting a C R M, right, like they're just not doing it, they're push the resistance is there, let's call it, what would you tell ' em?
[00:34:08] Stuart Sim: That's, that's an easy one. I'm like, if you're not working very closely with a CRM and using.
[00:34:16] Stuart Sim: 40% of the capabilities minimum, you're gonna fall behind your competitors because I can guarantee you that if you're not doing it, your competitor is, and if they're engaging with a customer within the first two minutes and it's taking you 10 or you're not at all you're gonna find yourself in a, in a bad place over the next three years because the market is gonna be super competitive and you need all the tools in place to make that a real. That's what I would say.
[00:34:45] Stuart Sim: I love it. Stuart, where can people find you and where can people find Chime?
[00:34:50] Stuart Sim: I am a heavy social media guy, so LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my, is my Preferred platform because it's it's a business platform. But you can also see me posting regularly on many, many social media sites.
[00:35:02] Stuart Sim: I'm a regular contributor to lots of different things, but LinkedIn for sure. But also, you know, go to the Chime website, chime.me if you want any information. We're actually our new website will launch later This. With much more information than it has today. But honestly if, you know, if you don't wanna reach out to Raymond and his group he has my information and I'm happy to answer any questions or get a call with anybody.
[00:35:26] Ray Sjolseth: Stewart, thanks for this today, man. This has been awesome. Appreciate you sharing.
[00:35:30] Stuart Sim: Yeah, you're very welcome. And anytime. Thanks for your time, Raymond. That was great, man. I loved it.
