Unpacking Success- Real Estate Insights with Justin and Ibrahim
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This is Wake Up To Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham.

Hey, what's up, everybody? I am back. And as promised, I told you guys that I'd have two of my homies on here, two of the smartest guys I know in real estate to talk about how they built their business. And we're going to dive deep into it. So I got my two Canadian brothers today, Justin Haver and my good friend, Abraham Hussein. Did I say your name right?

All right. Cause we can edit that if not. And I've been trying to convince Abraham to get to 11 with me in Miami, but still hasn't happened. So maybe after this episode, he will. So these guys were in business together at EXP. One of the big reasons that I decided to join with it was these two, but I,

But I want to go behind the curtain a little bit today. So Ibrahim, you know, you run a really big business in Canada. Just kind of give us the background, kind of the blueprint of like, what do you think has made you successful? What has been kind of part of why you've grown and done so well? Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. It's the idea that tomorrow is never promised. Success is not an option. Failure is not an option.

So growing up, playing soccer, finishing, getting into law school, practicing law career after the fact, it's the idea, if you're not first, you're last. And number two is the second loser, is the first loser. Number two is the first loser. So that is the mindset I always embody and the hat I'm always wearing. So if I'm doing something, it will have to work out. So that mindset of pursuing perfection day in and day out,

knowing that we'll never be perfect but the fact that we're chasing it is fulfilling on its own so um that's a mindset thing what do you think which is great what do you think kind of tactically what do you think that you guys do um you know can be anything that that helps make you successful um i i look at this as like i'm a culture creator and greatness extractor in the sense of

Community is my number one thing. If I have a superpower, it's building community and building a long-term relationship, meaningful relationship that makes people feel proud to be part of the community that we're building. That's on a team level, Finite Real Estate, or on a Beyond Real Estate level, which is our organization, EXB. I get the privilege of hanging out with people like you guys, people that I learn from and contribute to.

Yeah, so I'll say a greatness extractor is anybody that will work with me closely. They will experience a degree of discomfort to push them to be the best version of themselves and always striving for that. Be the best version they can possibly be.

What do you, what do you, what are you guys doing right now that you think is working just, you know, in the field buying and selling houses? What do you think that's working for you versus somebody that's, that's listening to this, that's struggling with their business? What do you, what are you doing? What are your agents doing? That's working. Justin, you want to go with that?

Well, you know what? They're simply following a tested and proven process that we have obviously cultivated and developed over 20 years in this business. And, you know, again, helping the agents out

you know, create that five-star client experience. And we're always in the marketplace to solve our clients' problems, whether that is a buyer, seller, or an investor, making sure that they make informed decisions. And, you know, I'm a big believer that in this business, what you put in is what you get out. And I think the reason why a lot of agents perhaps struggle is because they're lost. They may not necessarily have the support or the blueprint to

to success. But then at the same time, when they have the blueprint, you lay that out for them, they got to have the want, they got to have the drive, they got to have the fire in the belly in order to, you know, follow that blueprint to execute on the plan. And, you know, we all see on social media, everybody's posting, you know, hey, I sold the house, I sold the house, but that doesn't show all the hard work that goes in behind the scenes.

We don't tend to post pictures when we're sitting in our CRM, dialing, connecting with people in our database day in and day out, building those relationships, nurturing them along and setting those appointments. Opening doors, showing houses, sitting at listening presentations, negotiating offers. That's the fun part.

But it's also doing the boring, mundane stuff is what really drives a business. And for myself now, in February, it'll be 20 years in this business. And the countless hours that I put in, and even when I was starting out in building the business, I knew that generating leads and opportunities is something that I needed. So I wasn't going to be part of that 87% that failed in the first five years.

So this is a question to both of you guys. Ibrahim, I'll ask you first and Justin, you come behind him. Um,

The agents that are doing well on your team, what are they doing? I was going to answer that part of the first question. It's we never deviate from the basics. Everybody says that get back to the basics. The question is, why would you ever leave them to begin with? And then that thing is turned around and then like, oh, I have to go back to the basics. So we always mind the fall of that. We never get back from the basics. And we always look at the three characteristic traits for top producers, top performers in any industry that has to do with sales.

they're very boring, they're very predictable, and they say the same thing over and over and over. And the ones that are struggling, not because they're lazy people or something, but they're innovators and they're not predictable and they change their

They change their words every time they open their mouth. Every time they have to do something new, have to do something new and being innovative. So we're... We kind of like dumb it down. And that's the smartest thing to do actually is dumb it down and stick with the basics and never deviate from that. So you... I mean, consistency, right? You would say one of the reasons you're successful people are consistent. 150%. Yes. And it's...

What you told me that one time, the way you phrased it is consistency is the toughest thing on the planet Earth for a human being. The toughest thing for a human being is to be consistent. So I'm like, yeah, it's true. Just a good way to put it. And then also for people to realize that focus is their superpower. We live in a world of distractions, right? And the top producing agents on my team, they're incredibly focused on

And committed to doing the prospecting every single day, minimum two hours. Our top agent does between 75 and 87 transactions a year consistently. They've been with me for over 12 years. Every single day, sitting in our database, calling, nurturing everybody in our database. Every day, there's practicing involved.

you know learning something new it's practicing the listening presentation constantly fine-tuning their skill set they also actually show up to all the training that we provide in the office every single week show up to the meeting this person also sits front row in every single meeting taking notes

And at the same time, also is the one that is contributing back to the organization, helping others, teaching others as well. And I think those are some of the things that is applicable if you want to be a top producer. The highest level of mastery is when you are actually able to teach your craft to someone else and leaning into the team and the organization of all the resources that you have. And I can assure you that if you look in any organization, the people that lean in the most are

show up the most, also do the most production. So are you saying that she's very predictable? You can predict what she's going to do every day? 100%. Would you say that other people look at what she's doing over and over is like very boring? Well, I mean, if you want to do anything at a high level in any industry, you have to do the repetitive stuff over and over again. And I think that's, and again, like, because, you know what I say, like being in real estate, it's like sitting in a classroom of human behavior.

Right. We're dealing with we're sitting there dealing with our clients, buyers. They're always sitting in fear and doubt. They're always concerned. It's not the right time to buy. Oh, my God, I'm going to have a mortgage for the next 30 years. What if I lose my job? I can't pay. So so they're kind of sitting there on pins and needles. Sellers. I mean, again, some of them are sitting in denial. Perhaps they're sitting in financial crisis.

pressure or stresses, right? So they're making a decision based on emotion to sell their home. And then obviously losing their home is emotional as well, because again, they've built many incredible memories.

We're also dealing with the agents on the other side of the transaction during negotiations. We all know that every single agent out in the universe are all cool, calm, collect, and there's no emotion involved in the transaction, right? At the end of the day, we also got to deal with our own emotions on how to navigate all these different challenges and emotions that all the other people around us are navigating. So it's incredibly important for us to

I think, get a deep understanding of how we operate emotionally so that we can understand the emotions of the people that we deal with each and every day. And, you know, again, it's a fascinating business to be in when you sit there and look at the human behavior aspect of it, especially in residential real estate.

Yeah. I want to make a comment on what both of you guys said. The cool thing too, about what you said about your top producer is here's the coolest part of the predictability. Her income is predictable.

Right. So it's not subject to the ebbs and flows of the market, which is what I tell my agents all the time. You know, when you won is when your income becomes predictable and you're not subject to the swings in the market. So the for all of you that are listening to this, if you're an agent or you run a team, right.

and you're, you're an agent and your team leader is saying this shit to you and you're not listening. Well, becoming really boring and doing the mundane stuff you got to do every day. You know what it does for you? It makes your income predictable. I don't know about you feel a lot better when I know how much money I got coming in, regardless of what's going to happen in the world every single month. Yeah. And Brandon, you touch on something really valuable there as well. It's like,

For real estate agents, they're used to riding the roller coaster, the peaks and valley of income. And they know that, and this is a very common behavior of a lot of agents, January 1st starts, they're like, oh man, I got to get to work. They start diving into their database, calling their clients and start, again, working in the business. So then they can have a predictable paycheck 60 to 90 days down the road.

But what is the first thing that they start to do when they get busy with appointments? They stop prospecting. It's behavior, right? Path to least resistance. Nobody wants to do the boring stuff. They want to be out there showing houses. And if you want to have that predictable income, and they're what I see of the most successful agents in the industry,

They actually treat their prospecting like an appointment. It's set in their calendar. There's nothing that will deviate them from that appointment. That is a commitment to their future. That is a commitment to their family. That is a commitment to their future income. Right. And you've got to be incredibly disciplined to keep that in your calendar and be prospecting when you're supposed to be prospecting, because that is actually where you make your money.

showing houses, opening doors, writing offers. That is just a by-product of you doing the difficult stuff. Yeah. Great information. I'm going to switch for a second. Both of you guys have scaled,

on the people side, right? A lot of people from the outside look at, would look at your guys' organization and like, man, how did you guys do that? So I'm going to pose the question. I mean, both of you guys run large organizations from a people standpoint. How did you grow from,

to the amount of people that you guys have now, because I mean, that's a, people get lost in the sauce, so to speak of, they just don't know how to get to that next hump or that next level to grow from the people side, like both of you have. Yes. If, if, if one of the listeners here is as a team or thinking of building a team, I want to grow a team of like 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 people. The single most important thing that I've learned is the emotional equity and

the emotional equity, not a financial equity, none of this is emotional equity is the bond between the people that you will, futurely speaking, get in business with

and you as a leadership and how much emotional equity are you building in the emotional equity bank account between you and them that is direct correlation between how long would they stay in the company and the internal referral between the people and the team or the company bringing outside people to come and work with the company because they know

I'm working at a place that I had emotional equity at, that I will never find anywhere else. Surprisingly, I've only ever recruited three people. And in the sense of like a direct ask, "Hey, Brandon, I like you so much. Let's see how would that look like for us to work together." That happened only three people. Fast forward to today, we have 68 human beings on the team, including the staff and everything. Every single one of them came through somebody else on the team.

So it's a lot easier to look at it that way, but it's a lot of work in building and fueling that relationship with every single one of those people to feel like I belong to that place. I belong. And we're loud about it. We're loud about it in a sense of showing people outside what we're doing inside and what our people feel and what they have to say about that. And that's how we build the business from inside out, not outside in.

And I think it's, you know, also really important for you to kind of sit and reflect on why do you want to build a team and why do you want to have a large team? We all know that, you know, by adding more people to an organization as team leaders, it adds more responsibility. You know, I look at myself as I have the responsibility to provide for nearly 100 families, for them to put food on the table and roof over their head.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to make more money. It just means more responsibility. Let's be clear. Madding people doesn't necessarily make you more money. No, it doesn't. I mean, it's essentially could become a liability.

and an expense for you as a team leader. So I think it's incredibly important for you to understand your why. Why do you want to build a team? Why do you want to grow a team? You know, for myself, my why has changed over the last 20 years. Now it's about me, you know, partnering with agents where I can have an impact on their professional and personal life

and ensuring that they're developing, building a solid foundation for their real estate business because they've partnered with a team and they're using a team as a vehicle to create memorable life experiences for themselves and their family. And when I have an agent, perhaps I was an agent, one example, sole agent for 12 years on their own, selling four or five homes a year. That is the average number of transactions that somebody sells in my market on an annual basis.

come onto the home, you see that they buy into the training, the systems, the brand, and all the things that the team has to offer. They transform their business to now selling consistently over 40 homes a year. And what kind of an impact do you think that has on that person's family? Massive.

from an income standpoint. That is something that is incredibly fulfilling to myself. It's like seeing the impact that other people have on their families by partnering with a team. And that puts nothing but a big smile on my face and gives me the feel goods, so to speak. And

you know it's not something that happened overnight and i think that if you are looking at building a team you got to be able to provide them with the opportunities as well and if you don't have the business to provide for yourself and your family i don't think you're in the spot to add people onto your team many people think that if they just add more they're going to get more business but i believe that if you're going to be bringing any value to these people you need to be able to help them grow their business

See, Brandon, I have an idea I would love to share with everybody that, you know what, I want to build a team because I want to make a real impact. I want to leave a legacy. I want to make a change in people's lives and all of that stuff. This is good. Are you playing the game or are you playing the real game? If you're playing the real game, the real game is there will be a day, and I'm always, always 150% conscious of that, is at some point in time, we're all going to die.

No ifs or buts. So now as a leader, ask yourself a question. If you were to die tomorrow, would everybody that's doing business with you come in walking your funeral?

Pass for a second because only people that will go to other people's funeral is blood-related or close families and whatnot. So if you're saying that I'm impacting people's lives and so on and so forth, would they come in and walk in your funeral? If the answer is no, you have a lot of work to do. That's just between you and yourself, including me. I'm always conscious about that because

That is the real test that we're going to take. And then, unfortunately, we're not going to be here to see the result of the test. Our families will be here to see the result. And then they will be able to, you know what? My brother, my dad, my mom, whatever. Yeah, they were real deal. Look how many people walking in funeral. It's like a protest, you know? When they said they were changing people's life, when they said they were making a real impact, they were actually not lying to me. I can see that right now. We will not be here to see the result of that test, but every single one of us will take that test.

just be prepared for the results. Yeah, that's true. I mean, for real, um, switch switching really quick because both of you guys are really good at this. And I think this is important for people that are listening to understand. So both of you have built a brand, right? I've built a brand. You both have built a brand, like talk about the importance of marketing and building a brand as, as it relates to how it's made you guys successful scaling your companies.

I'll let Justin go more deeper than that because he will, I will learn, like all of us can learn from him for God's sakes, you know, whatever city he lives in. And hey, listen, for all of you that are listening, like this is three busy entrepreneurs. I mean, this is real shit. We keep it real on the show. Abraham is in the freaking airport right now as he's doing this. I'm at the airport and the plane is about to take off in six minutes. My wife keeps calling me.

Hey, if you got to give it, give us one last answer and then we'll let you go. I'll give you one last time. I'll give you one last answer. The brand that I've built and the advertising I have done, I've built everything I've done through a walking billboards. I,

focused on the individual that works in the company to be walking billboards for the brand anywhere they go, they end up to. So they're advertising for the brand all the time. Doesn't matter where they go, doesn't matter what the company does for them. That is my method of marketing. Just kind of in a summary. You can test that through one word, which is retention. That's the only way you can test all of this, if it's working or not, is the retention of the people at the company.

and the referral rate internally from the people that bring other people in because retention is the truth from the experience based on how truthful and how good the experience is. Medina, I'm working baby. Okay. Great, great.

You're about to get in trouble. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That man is about to leave. Yeah. So that's where, that's how we built the business. It's making a walking billboard and a magnetic to top producing people and high top talent people. Just be a magnet for them. 2,000 people inside the company. Awesome, brother. Hey, go catch your plane. I don't want to make you miss your plane. I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you. God bless.

Wake up to wealth, you guys, tomorrow morning. I'm going to go to Stephen Dublin. I'm going to wake up to wealth as well. God bless you guys. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.

What about you, Justin? What's your answer to, you know, what's helped you and made you successful from a branding standpoint? And what do you think that impact's been on your business? Well, you know, again, it's something that has evolved over time. And, you know, when I first started in a business, I started building my own lead generating machines such as websites.

where, you know, again, I focus a lot on search engine optimization, making sure that my websites, you know, rank near the top. And it was actually an obsession of mine for many, many years. And, you know, at the same time when I was just focused on one avenue of generating business. And one of the things that I realized that was I was actually at the mercy of Google, because if there was an algorithm in Google that

which happened where I had a website. I woke up one day and the website traffic just disappeared overnight. That website was generating 30 to 40 leads a day consistently. Woke up one morning, it was gone. Unfortunately, and a lesson in that is I had hired the wrong people to do my search engine optimization. I think it's always important to make sure that you

You have the right vendors and partners working for you, promoting your business, especially when it comes to marketing. And that's where I made a conscious decision to diving more into building the personal brand for the team. To me, it is an honor and privilege to get to do what I do each and every day, and that is to build the most trusted brand in the marketplace where there's minimal sales language required by my team partners in order to get the business going.

so that they can then again impact our clients and impact their families and the community because of the charitable things that we do back in the community where we've donated over a million dollars back into the community. And I think that building a brand is something that takes time. It's about consistency. It's about testing, checking the results, going back to the drawing board, and then again, reviewing and constantly tweaking the messaging to the market

And for myself, I mean, probably build one of the biggest personal brands in the marketplace and in real estate. I mean, I think that is one of the things that we all got to do is we got to build a personal brand and then create the experience that follows through on that and a reputation of delivering results.

no matter what the market conditions are. So, you know, we advertise TV, radio, billboards, online, all the social media channels, a lot of digital marketing. And, you know, we do between six to 700 million impressions in the marketplace. And, and, you know, again, a marketing budget that is, you know,

Not small by any shape or form. It's several seven figures annually. But it is also building a business and a brand that's memorable where even if I'm walking on the street, I can have a car stop me and they get out of the car like, hey, we're looking at selling our house. Right.

Because I'm recognized, because they have seen our advertising and because of the reputation that we have in the marketplace, that is, in my opinion, the power of a personal brand when strangers talk to you like they know you and they also stop you and say, hey, I want you to sell my house. And I mean, that's what I do experience in the oil market as well, because I mean, we do some very similar market strategies, right? And it has an impact.

But it's not something that you do, you know, in a month. It is something that you pour into year after year. And again, we talked about consistency earlier on. You have to be consistent with your marketing, with the messaging. And sometimes it takes a few years before you even start to see an ROI on any of the investments that we make today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So going back to your top producing agent, I would imagine she probably does some marketing and branding for her business too. No, all the agents on my team, they just solely rely on. On your marketing. Yeah. Now I'm a team leader that I don't sit there and chair pick any of the leads that are generated by the business. Even my past clients, I make sure that I partner with one of my members of my team so that they can benefit from my book of business.

Right. So I go in as a partnership, making sure that our clients feel like they're in good hands. I transfer the trust to our partners so that they can then create that one on one client experience from start to finish.

Right. Because we both haven't figured out cloning yet. It'd be cool if we did. Right. Which again, and I think that's, again, part of the commitment that I make to all the agents that, you know, join and partner with a team is I'm in the business of generating opportunities for them and a brand so that they can conduct a business and have a steady flow of business so they can have that stability in their business.

Yeah. I mean, I know there's so many lessons you could give, but what do you think, what's another kind of,

either lesson or principle, or just one thing that you think is, is kind of the recipe behind why you have been so successful as a team leader. And then why, um, you guys as a company have been successful because you've sustained over a long period of time, a lot of different markets, a lot of different ups and downs. Um,

But your production and your growth has been consistent. You know, what do you think if you could give the listeners one thing, what's behind that? Well, you know, the one thing and there was a this was advice that I was given very early on in my career. And I was always invest back into your business.

minimum 25% of your commissions. I do not recall who told me or who gave me that advice, but that is something that I've consistently done and even more so today than ever.

you know i now invest monthly what i used to dream about earning in a single year it's funny how that happens yeah right and i mean you know this just as well as i do it's you know constantly investing back in your business rather than going out buying you know that fancy bag or shoes or whatever you got to put the money back in your business you got to continue to drive

marketing to build future pipeline for your business. And, you know, again, it can be scary. I remember one of the, it was actually the second website that I built and a second website that built was with real estate webmasters, still a client of theirs today now for 17 years. And I remember first and foremost, it was,

building custom website, which was a pretty significant amount back in those days. I think it was like 16,000 USD for us Canadians. It's more than 16 grand. And then I also made a commitment to invest into search engine optimization for that website. And now it's to the tune of four grand a month. To put things into context, my mortgage payment

back then in 2007 was a thousand bucks a month. So that was a lot of money. Four times what I was spending on my own home on search engine optimization, which is something that I actually don't get an ROI on right out of the gate. You have

Again, it takes a couple of years before you start seeing that result. And even today, it's even more competitive than ever when you do search engine optimization. But, you know, again, this has also been such a big foundation of my business is building out these websites. And essentially, I mean, for you American listeners, I built my own Zillow. Like I have one website that I can contribute millions of dollars a year in GCI.

where the website has an average ranking of number two in all thousands of search queries in Google. Now, then I also know how to leverage these assets, not only to generate buyers, but also leverage that towards sellers. And, you know, I've also obviously acquired a lot of domains. You know, I own and run Calgary.com. No better place to look for Calgary real estate than on Calgary.com.

So I look at these websites as assets, especially when we're able to drive traffic to them. And when you sit down in front of a seller, it's like any realtor can say that they can promote their seller's home on a website. But do they have any traffic to that website? And I'd be like, I have a website, but I don't have any traffic. That's like telling a homeowner that we're going to promote your listing on a billboard in the desert.

Nobody's going to get it, right? So it's all about, again, investing back into your business, making sure that

You stick with the course. I mean, sure, there's sometimes that you will pivot because, again, you're able to do lead attribution, what it costs you to acquire that opportunity, how long did it take for it to transact, does it make financial sense to carry on down that road, and then also going in and inspecting every step of the process, have you really taken full advantage of that? And as an industry, the average agent makes 1.2 calls per lead

We can do a heck of a lot better than that. Yeah. 80% of sales happening in a call six to 12. So why aren't you calling that lead at least 12 times? And we know that, you know, when we, as an organization, it was one year, we averaged 26 contact attempts per lead. We did a lot of business. Yeah. I was going to say, what was the result of that?

Well, the result of that was nearly 2000 transactions. The average is 33 homes a year. That's a pretty high average for a team of 60 agents. Yeah, I'd say so. It's not, it's not difficult. We make it difficult. You know, it's doing the mundane, doing the simple stuff, doing the boring stuff is what's going to make you the money and grow your business. It's just, everybody thinks that there's an easier way or a shiny object way when that shit is just not real.

Well, you know, I was talking to a newer agent in the marketplace a little while ago and they achieved some pretty good success. And I asked, OK, what did you do to get that success? I said, you know, I did a lot of door knocking, but I don't want to do that anymore.

I'm like, well, if you found something that you're good at and something that works and you're making six plus figures a year, why stop doing that? Right. Keep doing that and maybe add an additional stream of leads and opportunities, but don't completely shift your business. And I think that's that's what happens a lot in this business is you have agents that are chasing the shiny object. You know, it's like sometimes this may sound wrong, but we're like a herd of cows.

Right. We'll go to the field where the grass is green. They're all going to start eating that same field. And then everybody goes, oh, there's more grass over here. So now everybody goes over here. Yeah, that's the truth. I think if you find something that works, and I mean, again, this is applicable to any business. If you find something that works, double or triple down on that and get really good at it. And I mean, let me ask you, I mean, what are some of the things that you have done in your business that you can attest has been the foundation of your success today?

So, I mean, you know, I think it's, I think people...

the marketing side and the, you know, the building a building, a personal brand and building a brand that is strong in your market like you've done and we've done, you can't quantify the value on that. It will pay you for the rest of your life. So being consistent around marketing, it's no different than phone calls. You know, what happens is people will

you know, they don't want the long game. No one, no one is in it for the long game. They want to put a couple of things out on social media, nothing comes out of it and they stop or, you know, they make phone calls one day, nothing comes out of it and they stop. So, you know, I think, um,

that's made us consist or, you know, made us really a brand is consistency around everything we do, consistency around our branding, consistency around our effort. And just being nonstop having the mission front and center. And another thing that I think we were, we've always been really good at is we are,

we are neurotic about the customer service aspect. So it's like, if, you know, and, and the follow-up after the deal is done. So, you know, if I want to grow a huge business, you know, if I do a good job for you, I'm going to get everybody in your family, your cousin, your brother, and then their family and then their network. And so I think sometimes in this business, it

It gets overlooked how much it matters, how good you need to be in the transaction and how good your customer service needs to be. Because that for me personally, I can't recall. It's not been that many years.

I did a deal off a paid lead. That's been for my agents. My business to this day is still several hundred transactions a year from past clients, referrals from past clients, because as I was building my business, I was so neurotic about providing a good experience that I made a lasting impact on people. And then they just kept referring business to me.

You know, you touch on something really good there. And I think a lot of agents get in the business, especially if they're into generating leads for their business. They become very transactional and maybe they don't understand the future value of one opportunity because, you know, here in Canada, for instance, the average Canadian moves seven times. So if you help a first time homebuyer acquiring their first home,

they're likely to move an additional seven times. Well, guess what? That's a total of 14 transaction sites. Now, are you looking at that as a client for life that's going to sell, buy, sell and transact with you 14 times in their lifetime? And are you really treating them like they are your mother or your grandmother and really loving on that relationship and nurturing that relationship? Now, if you do an exceptional job at that,

and staying in touch with them and making them feel special, chances are they're probably going to send you a few referrals in a lifetime. So let's say that you send them, you know, they send you 10 referrals in a lifetime and you do the same thing with those people. So for instance, if you have like here in Canada, I mean, we get a little less commissions than what you guys get down in the U.S.,

It works out to be about 1.78% per side. So on today's dollar in a $600,000 house, that's $11,000 commission check. So following that $11,000 commission check, the value of one opportunity, if they transact with you 14 times in a lifetime and they send you 10 referrals, that's $1.7 million. Are you looking at that lead as $1.7 million for your future, for you and your family?

That's what we got to think. - Now that you're a hundred percent right. I mean, I can't stress that enough. And I say that to my agents too, I'm blue in the face is I'm like, look, if you do this right for your first few years and yeah, you're going to have to really grind and go hard. But if you do this right, you'll be set up for life because several hundred clients will refer you one to two transactions a year and you can wake up every day

And have 50 to 60 transactions built in without you doing anything. And then if you are, if you do all the things that me and you still do and don't deviate from and you be consistent, well, then that's how you get to 7,500 transactions a year. And for most people here in the States, that's life-changing money and financial freedom. Same in Canada. And it sounds too simple to be real, but that's the reality of what it is.

And those referrals are so simple to convert because they've already been, you know, again, recommended by trust. They're already sold. They're sold. They're sold on you because the know, like, and trust has already been built from the client you already did business with. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Brandon, what's one thing you would recommend to someone who is sitting in their business right now struggling? We know that it's the time of year where the seasonality will kick into the real estate business and some agents may be sitting there under a lot of financial pressure.

What's something that you would recommend for them to do? So I think it's, you know, again, it's, this is going to sound really simple, but if you have a database, right. And if you have a cell phone, which you more than likely do, and you're on social media, you know, if you, if you can go into your database every single day,

and work that database, there's deals in it. I promise you. And if you can learn to communicate to your database, add value, send emails out of value, talking about the real estate market, be consistent in your database, and then go on social media and provide value, then you're going to win.

And the problem that I think everyone has is everyone wants instant gratification. They want a result based on, I did this, I want the return today. And by thinking like that,

is probably what got them in the position that they're in because they're not consistent around their activity. And so then their income ebbs and flows with the marketplace. So then their income becomes seasonal. Well, your income does not become seasonal. If look, if you do two things every single day over a long period of time, you have more business than you can ever imagine.

Be in your database and communicate to your database. Give value on social media around what you do. Over long periods of time, you will win. Number one, because you're talking to enough people that are going to do a transaction to you. And number two, because your competition is not willing to do it. And then over time, social media will help you build a brand. And then that's when the game can really change. It's just that everybody quits too soon.

And if you're sitting in the pain right now, understand if you're listening to this, my first year in real estate, I made $18,000 and I wanted to quit. Right. It was, it was horrible, horrible experience. My second year, I mean, way, way more. And then I never looked back. Right. But I had to go through the compounding effect of the first year to get to the second year.

And I'm considered really good at what I do. But again, it took me a year to learn the ropes and then get the compounding effect to get to my second year. If I quit, me and you wouldn't be sitting here talking today. Correct. I'm glad you didn't. Right. And, you know, every one of us that have gotten into this business has had multiple moments of wanting to quit.

But the one thing is that we we think about each and every day is failure is not an option. And it's important to kind of look at the failures. I mean, we're all going to have failures in life personally and professionally. But I think it's incredibly important to take a moment when you have those failures, reflect on what was a lesson. What did you learn? And then what is the next approach to get you up the mountain?

Because I think it's constantly learning from those failures that's going to help you achieve success. And it is important to also not have a plan B. Because I find that the agents that get into this business, I'm just going to try real estate. I'm going to see how it goes. No, you got to burn the boats and you really got to be committed to it. And again, there's no better industry to be a part of where you can get the biggest ROI in exchange for your time.

where you can get paid like a professional athlete. You can be paid like a doctor if you want to put in the work. You don't have to put in 12 years of education and have a massive student loan or debt. Real estate is very simple. And a lot of times we tend to overthink it and complicate it. We're human beings after all, right? And I think, you know, you touched on something like simplify to amplify.

Right. Do the repetition stuff. One of the things that I even said to some agents as well, it's like, do you buy a cup of coffee every day?

A lot of agents do. They got to have that Starbucks. Now, you create a habit around that. So every time you buy a Starbucks, you call one of your past clients. Better yet, send them a personalized video. Let them know that you're just thinking about them. You don't have to try to sell them anything. Just build. That's money. I like that. Connect with them. Ask them about their family, vacations. Add them all as friends on Facebook. And even on Facebook, I mean, how many people comment, happy birthday, Brandon, on your birthday?

It gets overwhelming. How many people send you a personalized video? You remember the person that sends you that personalized video. So even do that, go into your Facebook Messenger, send everybody a personalized video on their birthday.

I can guarantee you will get business from that guaranteed. If you do that. Oh, dude. A hundred percent. This is all really, really good stuff. We always in the show the same way, but I actually want to do this a little bit different just because you've given so much really good knowledge. I always say,

what does wake up to wealth mean to you? What, what I want to do today, just because of where this conversation is going, somebody that's an agent that's out there. How do they get, how do they get to the point of me and you where they are waking up to wealth? You know, I think connect with people that have gone where you want to go learn from them, be a sponge,

You know, again, I have gone to conferences and those conferences have changed my life. I've changed my life. Edit that. Not because of what I heard in the sessions, but because of the people that I've met and their relationships that I've built transformed my business. You know, I still remember going to a conference in Miami Beach in September of 2012, where I met a few people and I sat around a...

little hole in the wall, Cuban restaurant. And we were collaborating and talking about our businesses. And that set off a light bulb in my head of, wow, what a massive opportunity I'm sitting on that I'm not taking advantage of. And then again, the collaboration and the friendships and the relationships that we build

where people like, here's how I do this. And you know, me and you met many years ago at the couch in Vegas. - Yep. And dude, that conversation made me millions of dollars. And because of you connected me with media, Matt Wagner, shout out to Matt Wagner,

And I thought it was BS. And you're like, no, dude, you need to do it. And that changed the trajectory of our business substantially. One phone call. Yeah. Right. Because you knew that it worked for me in my business. You just had to locate that in your market.

And then again, that's the power of finding someone or again, the collaboration of meeting someone at a conference or learning from those people that are doing something that you want to do. Because if it's working for them, chances are it can work from you. You know, I'm also incredibly fortunate to collaborate with other top agents across North America as well from all different brands.

And we chat almost on a daily basis. Like, hey, try this. This works really well for me. I'm seeing this work now. Okay, I'll put that idea back into my business. But I may put a little bit of a spin on it. And then I may get even better results. And then I go back and I'm like, well, this is what I did. And they're like, oh, shit, that's really good. I'm going to now change my process to that as well. So it's conflict testing and trying and collaborating. And, you know, again, find...

You are the result of the five people you surround yourself with. Surround people and sit at the tables where you are uncomfortable, but you are also honored to be sitting and invited to that table. Even when we were in Miami, when I was invited to sit at a table with you and some of your business partners, I'm like, holy shit, these guys are doing some pretty big, massive stuff where I then become sponge-sized.

And I just soak it all in. And what can I learn? How can I apply this to this? How can I apply this to my business model? And how can I impact the people that I have the honor and privilege to lead?

Yeah. Well, that's a great answer. Hey, I, I greatly, I know how busy you are. I appreciate you and Ibrahim being on. I'm super excited to be in business with you guys at the XP. Very, very thankful that get to hang out with you guys on a regular basis. And I thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me. And again, always an honor and appreciate you, Brandon.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.