EP 1: How To Succeed As An Introvert Real Estate Agent
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certain people are just kind of wired differently. And I had never heard this before. So reading that book was, that was the pivot. You know, that was the eye-opening moment for me in my life and that translated into my business. Welcome to the B Word, a podcast for women who want to unlock the clarity needed to put your big girl panties on and rock your real estate career like the true boss you are.

I'm Joanne Bolt, your host, and together we'll dive into the things your broker doesn't teach you in order to own your own truth, disown the things getting in your way to finding your place, and stop apologizing for the obstacles you have to overcome along the way.

I am so thrilled today to be talking to one of my favorite women in the industry. Her name is Ashley Harwood. And, you know, when we talk a lot about finding your space as a female entrepreneur in the real estate world and finding your voice, most of us assume we're talking about being an extrovert.

But this lady here, she has nailed it down for those of you that are actually introverts in a very social business. So welcome to the podcast, Ashley. We are thrilled to have you here today. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Awesome. Well, let's take a little peek behind the curtain and give us a little background about yourself and how you got into the industry and sort of what led you up to where you are today. Sure. So I have a background.

It started in retail, as most of us do straight out of college. And I realized quickly that was not a long-term solution for me. So I got into real estate in 2013 and I jumped in full-time, got myself into training, did all the things. And

and really didn't see a lot of success right away. My first year, I only sold one house. And that was very disheartening. It was really hard. I was doing all the things I was trained to do, making a ton of calls, doing some door knocking, and then also going to networking events every evening. And I was just doing all of it at once. And it was exhausting. And I

I expected that my colleagues were seeing. So fast forward a couple of years, I started seeing a therapist just because I was so anxious about, I didn't know what. And she recommended the book Quiet by Susan Cain.

which is not a real estate or sales book at all. It's about being an introvert and how that affects a person's energy and how certain people are just kind of wired differently. And I had never heard this before. So reading that book was, that was the pivot. You know, that was the eye-opening moment for me in my life. And that translated into my business.

So I realized that I had to stop doing the things that were not working for me and amp up the things that I enjoyed and that were working and that still fit my personality. And that ended up being for me, that was more of the networking side. The year that I did that and made those changes, my business blew up.

And I did a lot more business and ended up capping. I was with Keller Williams. So they have this like capping model. So that was a huge milestone for me in the business because it had been a goal all along.

Then, you know, I'm kind of going along building this great career and I hit sort of a plateau where I realized I needed to either start hiring people and build a team as we do, you know, as we are prone to do in real estate, as we are kind of conditioned to do. And I realized I didn't.

Didn't want that. You know, it wouldn't have been a good use of my energy to be managing people and hiring them and be responsible for their livelihood. That was not my path. So my coach at the time helped me develop this company where we help the introverts in the world. I realized that I had struggled so much for so many years and it didn't have to be that way. So my mission now is just to help the agents out there. And there are a lot, half the population are introverts.

help those who are using the tools they have and they're not working and they need some other tools. Yeah. Okay. So I read a statistic one time and it really did actually appeal to me because people will be shocked to know this, but I'm way more of an introvert than anyone ever gives me credit for. Like I will walk into a room

crowded with people, but I am much more likely to kind of stay back by the wall and let people come to me versus just be the person who meets everyone in the room within five seconds. So I read a statistic that said, I don't remember what it was. It was like 60%, but it was shocking.

highly successful real estate agents are actually introverts and not extroverts. And I remember reading that and thinking, you've got to be kidding, right? Like we're social creatures as real estate agents. We're taught to meet everyone, shake a lot of hands, kiss the babies. You know, you got to know everyone in order to sell the homes. And yet your coach looked at you and said, Ashley, you're an introvert and let's utilize that, right? So now that you've started the Move Over Extroverts community, which-

I love that. By the way, that is a fantastic name for it. What are you seeing as people come out of the woodwork work and join in your Facebook group and get involved in your coaching? Are they surprised to find themselves introverts? A lot of them are. Yes. There's kind of a few different segments. One segment knows they're introverts. They're very self-aware. They've done the research. They know this is where they are. They just need some help.

that into this highly social, highly outgoing business and what does that look like? And it absolutely can be done, by the way. And

And then there's this other group of people who had no idea that they were introverts. And what they're doing is they're, they're acting like extroverts and they're not managing their energy well. And that's why they are finding themselves burnt out all the time. And so for them, it's, that was where I was at. I was one of those. And I said,

when I started this business, just like you, people didn't believe it. They were like, what are you talking about? You're not an introvert. I see you everywhere going to all the events. Like that's yeah, it's true. And when I get home, I crash and I can't talk to anyone. I'm done. I am done. Right. So, so for that group of people, the first thing they feel is relief.

Because they realize that, oh, I don't have to be on all the time. And if I make some changes, then I get to reclaim some of my energy. So it's really important for that group of people, because then they're able to avoid burnout. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now you've moved out of production, am I correct? And into you are running the move over extroverts.

Yeah. It's a public group on Facebook. So it's, it's a Facebook group. I also teach workshops and I do one-on-one coaching. So that's sort of what the model looks like right now. Okay. And I found the public Facebook group. How did you grow your community as quickly as you did? Or was it just one of those when people figured out that this is not something anyone else has done word of mouth traveled this for you? I wish it was word of mouth. I wish it was more

word of mouth. It's a little bit word of mouth, but mostly it's, it was me realizing, well, let me back up. So when I started the group, I would go through and invite my Facebook friends and I would sit there. And if you're familiar with the desk profile, I'm a very high C. So I'm analyzing everything. I'd sit there and look and look at this person. Do I think they're an introvert? I don't really know. Maybe I should invite them. But if I invite them,

And they're not, maybe they'll be offended or they'll think I'm weird or something. And so I was getting in my own way. And then I just hit this moment where I was like, wait a minute, I have 4,000 friends on Facebook. Most of them are realtors. Why don't I just come through and invite? Blanket invite. As many as Facebook will let me, because it does cut you off after a certain point.

So I just started inviting as many agents as I was friends with, and I would let them decide if they want to join or not. And then I had to just get over it. Nobody's going to be offended that, you know, we get invited to groups all the time. It's not a big deal. I think the beauty of growing your business via the Facebook group is you extend the invitation. It's their decision to join the group or not.

you know, and if it's not something that's interesting to them, they're not going to join or they join and then hop back out in three days, which I know on the dis profile, you're probably analyzing that as well. You know, but that is the beauty of creating a Facebook group. It is. Yeah. And everyone's welcome to, you know, there are some extroverts in the group who are there, you know, just be part of the community. So it's, it's a really, it's been a really lovely experience and I just can't wait to keep growing it. We have, we,

I think there are over a million licensed agents in the United States alone and about half or more, 60% are introverts. So we have a long way to go. All right. So you have a coaching program. What, what do you coach to? What does the program look like? How are you growing that aspect of your business?

So it took me a long time to launch a coaching program because I was very much against it for so long. I didn't want it to look like everything else. And so what it looks like is it's very specific. It is let's put together your lead gen plan and it's your lead gen plan, not my lead gen plan.

Ooh, that is so, so good to realize. I see this all the time, you know, all the successful agents and it makes sense, right? This worked for me. So you should try it too. The problem is that doesn't work for a lot of people because you're different, right? So what I help people with is we dig into,

Where are they already spending time? What opportunities do they have where they're already talking to people? How do we turn that into lead gen? So that's really what I help people with. Okay. So you're going to help draw out their strengths and then develop a more personalized plan for them to utilize their strengths. Yeah. And you have a lot of ideas. I'm assuming if you have those introverts who are like, yeah, I'm not going to door knock and I'm not calling expired clients.

And I don't want to be on video on social media every five seconds, like the social media real estate agents. What are like, what are the tips in your toolbox that you help them determine what the right legion is for them? So the first thing is to tell them that if you are really against doing something, don't do it.

And we should be so basic, right? It should be. But for people who've been in the business for a while, it's been kind of hammered into their brains. Like if you're struggling with something and it's not working, do more of it. That's just not usually the right answer. I would agree. I can't wait to see like the real estate community, the real estate world sort of evolved past where it's been, where, you know, you do get your license. You're told to do one, two, three, four things. It'll make you successful.

And then when those don't work, people just look at you and say, well, practice your scripts or do more hours of lead generation. And I do think that the world has changed and we really should focus more on the individual agent and say, you were really good at this. Let's focus on that and ignore the rest of the noise around you. So kudos to you for doing that.

Thank you. Thank you. I mean, that's really the core of it. And I'm happy to share some, some tips. The biggest tip is just look at where you're already interacting with people.

especially the people I know we have your communities as women. So women who are, you know, raising children, there are so many opportunities to talk to other adults when you're raising children. Right. And you have so much more in common with those adults than the random people that you're trying to call on the expired list. Right. Exactly. So utilize those relationships and build them. And, and,

You might have to step outside the comfort zone for just a little bit to start that conversation. And that's okay. You can step outside the comfort zone and then come right back to it.

All right. So let's, let's talk about the female aspect of this. Cause that is what we focus on a lot in, in our group is it's the challenges that women face that the men don't, and we love our men. Don't get us wrong, but do you see, um, or have you even noticed, do you have more women who are introverts or male introverts? And are there any differences in the challenges that they, that they face? It's been about 50, 50. Interesting. Okay. I, I,

Which surprised me because I thought it would be a lot more women just because I assumed that women would be more kind of in touch with that side of themselves. You know, it's a little more touchy feely this, these conversations. But I have had a lot of men who are interested as well. And they feel relieved too, because I think the pressure on men is more, it's more pressure to go and be the hardcore salesman making all the calls, you know? Yeah.

So it's almost more okay for the women in their mind, at least to like take that step back and be a little bit more, more shy and introverted. And the men feel more of the pressure to get out there and be in front of everyone. Maybe more relational. I think it's more acceptable for women to be more relationship focused.

Oh, I like that. Okay. I think that's kind of the difference where men might feel more pressure to, to be more like cold calling focused. So for women, I think, I think that's a great thing to, you know, just dive into that relational aspect and, and how do we build those relationships? How do we build it? Yeah. And it really, it's just meeting enough people and then keeping in touch with them because when you meet someone, you're,

it's pretty easy, especially for women. It's easy to build rapport pretty quickly for most of us. We do this all the time. The challenge is to keep in touch with them often enough that when three years go by and they're finally ready to move, they think of you. That's a challenge. Not coming across as that sales pitchy real estate agent, but rather as the friend. Right. I love that. Starting as a friend first, because people are always going to want to work with

a friend if they can, you know? Right. Okay. So let's shift gears just a little bit. You recently got to present at Inman Connect. Am I right in that? I think I saw that, read it, tuned into it. Walk me through that journey because I know how excited you were when you got the call. Did you feel like you'd finally kind of made it in your niche when you got that phone call and how did you prepare for that event?

I did. Yes. Speaking at Inman had been a goal of mine ever since I started this business. And to be able to achieve that over the summer, it was 90% like, yes, I made it. The 10% that was missing was it was a virtual event. Okay.

I was so excited to go be on a stage, but because of where the world was, it was virtual. However, it was still amazing. And it felt like such a huge accomplishment. I think I had about 7,000 people register for my session. You know, my whole goal is spreading this message and reaching as many people as possible. And so to be able to, you know, tap into that platform and that audience, that was just amazing. Um,

And I didn't really have to prepare all that much because I've been teaching this workshop for so long, for over two years now. I kind of have the material down. The interesting thing about the Inman experience was I was on a panel with a gentleman who built his business door knocking. So they kind of had a question, right? Yeah.

So you're over there like, no, you don't have to door knock. And he's like, yeah, you do. Right. So I had to tweak it a little bit. Yeah.

but it worked really well. Like he's a great guy and he's doing amazing things. And the moderator was really great and gave us both kind of equal time. So it all worked out really well. All right. So coming out of the Inman event, have you seen any change in your business, any growth or do you have new goals? A little bit. There was more interest. I was looking at the traffic on my website and there were some spikes after the event, which is great. As far as goals go,

I've really reframed how I'm setting goals. I'm not really setting goals on I'm

I'm going to, you know, have this many clients or whatever. I'm setting goals based on my activities and that way I have more control over it. Very cool. So what's next in the pipeline for Ashley? You've got coaching, you've got classes and workshops that you travel around the country and teach if someone wants to book that. And we'll, we'll put links up to that underneath the podcast. What else is in your back pocket? What have you got coming up for us? Yeah.

Well, the thing I'm thinking about right now is potentially in the spring hosting a virtual summit for introverted agents. Okay. And what was, what do you envision that looking like? I envision getting some, some big players, some big names. You're going to bring in the extroverts or just the introvert big players? Um,

I want to bring in the people who are really introverts, but people would be surprised by it. That's a good idea. And there are a lot of them. I think that would be super well received given the amount of people in your community. I can't imagine it wouldn't sell out in a heartbeat. Yeah, I hope so. All right. So how many workshops do you typically teach a year?

Where are they? Are you all over the United States? I've been teaching about one or two a month. I do have the capacity in my schedule to do a little bit more than that. I think one a week would be kind of my max. So that's what I'm ramping up to do. There are 90 minutes. So it's very easy to just everybody hop on Zoom. It's one hour of classroom style and then 30 minute lead gen alternatives mastermind.

So is the basics of the class, the 90 minutes, learning your lead gen strategy, or is it also tactics on how to work in an extroverted world? Or if someone was listening to this today and thinking, should I hire Ashley to come in and talk to my team or my office or my brokerage? You know, what would they expect to get out of the 90 minutes? So there's three main pillars to the class. It starts with we talk about strategy.

being an introvert and how that affects your energy. So energy management to avoid burning out. Okay. And then we shift gears into how does that translate to the calendar? Okay.

So we get very tactical. And then third, we spend a lot of time talking about lead gen and alternatives to the traditional methods. And then I take people through this exercise where they write down everything they're doing for lead gen and then in the class make some decisions about what to get rid of and what they can add. So it's like a little mini coaching session in the workshop. Yeah.

Fantastic. Okay. So Ashley, our time is winding up very quickly, but how can someone find you? What is your preferred method of communication? Because I know for me, it's Instagram. For some people it's Facebook, you know, please don't email me. It'll get lost in the world of my inbox, you know, but for you, it might be something different. So what way works for you best to get in contact?

So I'm kind of all over the place. Um, my website is great. Move over extroverts.com. That's where all the information is. So kind of start there and then see what you might be interested in, whether it's, um, a work, you can attend a workshop too. So I, I host my own workshops if individuals want to come to those. So it doesn't have to be within an office. Um,

or interested in coaching, whatever, all that's on the website. I'm on Facebook more than Instagram. Okay. They do check both pretty regularly. So I would say Facebook, if they want to come and join the group, it's called introverts in real estate. It's pretty easy to find. Yeah, absolutely. And so that's the public group where they can start building their community of introverts and then decide maybe if they want to go into the next step of coaching or not. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I know most of our introverts out there are like, wait a minute, hang on. I want to like slowly walk into this and not have anyone really realize I'm, I'm looking into this. So probably the easiest bet would be step your toe in, in the Facebook group and then head for coaching or. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm always happy to have, you know, a private call with people as well, if they have questions.

Awesome. Well, Ashley, you are delightful as always to talk to you. Thanks for letting us take a peek behind the curtain of the Move Over Extroverts momentum that you are running here. It is truly, truly one of those niche areas that nobody else I've seen is doing. And so that's why we wanted to bring you on today because you are a powerful woman who has realized who you are and what you're best at. And so thank you for sharing that with us today. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and thank you all for listening. All right. Until next time.

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