The Long Run | Ben Andrews

Staying in business and thriving in business, regardless of whether the market is up, down or sideways is every real estate agent's desire.
It requires a certain mindset, skillset and set of daily practices, rigorously executed. It requires a particular discipline and stamina that many are not willing to sustain.

Show Notes

Here, we talk about what it takes to make it and to make it great... no matter the circumstances.

Ben Andrews has been a top producing real estate agent for several decades. Before that he was a legendary runner at the University of Oregon, breaking the once impossible, 4-minute mile barrier.

Recently, Ben authored his compelling life and business story, The Long Run.

Ben will be sharing the principles he's learned from his incredible journey that apply to succeeding in today's market so that you can enjoy both success and significance now and in the long run.

Links:
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Creators and Guests

Host

Justin Stoddart

What is Think Bigger Real Estate?

The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.

Justin Stoddart 0:00
Today we talk about how to persevere in business. We are in a market that you must have the skill set, I have the best guests that I know that I could possibly come up with to teach you the lessons of perseverance. He's the author of the long run, lessons in perseverance both in running in business and in life. His name is Ben Andrews, you are not gonna want to miss this episode. I am thrilled to have been here with us today. Stay tuned. So the big question is this, how do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously seek success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddart. And this is the Think bigger real estate show. No matter what you want to do in life, if it's going to be impactful, it's going to have some adversity, it's going to have some resistance. That's just the nature of doing great things. And the real estate market right now is thinning the herd. It's identifying who is willing to persevere, who's willing to have the right mindset, the right habits set, and the right skill set. And today, we're gonna go deep on those topics. For those of you that tried to tune in yesterday and had some tech issues, we're grateful that you're back. It's worth it. I'm telling you, it's worth it. What I learned from Ben and you all missed out on you're gonna hear today. Again, today's guest His name is Ben Andrews. He's a legend in his own right. Again, he's the author of the long run. That's just his most recent accomplishment. His life is riddled with all kinds of accomplishments prior to that, and lessons in perseverance. Ben Andrews, my good friend, it's a pleasure to have you on the show today. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, too. And I can hear you we can hear you loud and clear. Yes. So Matt, I'm thrilled to have you here. I know you. Funny. Just two nights ago, I opened up a blog post or an email from someone who's had a massive impact upon me, Brian Buffini, I know the same is true of you. And who is the highlighting, but lo and behold, Ben Andrews, how the year was 2008. And you and your wife, I think, maybe sold a couple of homes that year, and we're struggling big time wondering if you were gonna make it. And now here you are selling close to 75 homes this past year, 72 homes this past year, and just doing some amazing things in the real estate industry. I'm excited to talk about perseverance. So let's get right into this. Let's give the folks what they came here for. Which is not just to look at your amazing hair. But it's more than that. It's really a look at how do we how do we take the lessons that you've learned, and in a short period of time, help them understand how to persevere so let's let's dive into that. Let's take take us back Ben to 2008. What were you feeling? What were you experiencing? And then walk us through how you pulled through that?

Ben Andrews 2:53
Sure. Well, first of all, I was feeling like a loser. I mean, if there's one word that would have identified who I was, at that time, I just felt like a loser. I wasn't providing at home, I wasn't providing for my family. I wasn't providing any sort of future. We were six, seven months behind on our mortgage, we were several months behind on our HOA dues to the point where we weren't really invited to our HOA meetings anymore. And it took me a hard long look in the mirror to say there's something you're not doing right. And you can change it, but you have to do it. My wife was really good at the relationships. My parents who preceded us in the business were very good at the relationships. And I felt as though I was a salesman, and I didn't want my friends to think I was salesy. So I just focused on internet leads. And that was my bread and butter. But when the loaf goes away, there's no butter to be spread. And so I was left exposed, you know, the market might have told me in 2006 2005 2007 Oh, Ben Anders, you're worth $225,000 a year? Well, I'm not the market was worth that. And when 2008 hit I think we made $26,000 before taxes. It was a rough year. And that's what been Andrews was worth to the market. So it was it was a rough time.

Justin Stoddart 4:20
But that's a one. I want to that to sink in a little bit for everybody like not $26,000 from from one commission check not $26,000 in one month. That was for the year. Right. That's tough, right. And there's some agents right now, like this is not a laughing matter. There's agents out there right now that are experiencing that. But I want to drive home a certain point here because you and I are absolutely the same page that that warm market is better than cold market right now. Some would disagree, but this is this is my show. So we're going to go with that. Right. But you experienced when a market started to turn internet leads followed suit. Is that true? Is that what you saw? Absolutely.

Ben Andrews 4:53
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was to me it was how do I say it was the In the past a path of least resistance, it was easy, you know, I got a lead coming in, and I'm going to chase it. The problem with that is when they see a, when they can save some money, when they can get something a little sexier, they're out. And so for me, I was left with no skill set, really, I didn't know how to negotiate. But the and when I say negotiate, I didn't know how to relay my value. What is building interest value proposition? Today, my mission statement is, I'm going to out care my competition period. That's it, I might not get you the best deal. But I'm going to out care. And I think with care comes results. And at the time, I didn't have that at the time it was if I don't do a good job for you, I got another one emailing me in an hour. This is before Zillow, this is before all these other platforms. And a warm market is so much easier because people are coming to you, because they do like you because they do trust you. And it just, it made life easier. You know, I wasn't chasing anything.

Justin Stoddart 6:07
You know, I've had this observation, as I've heard, right, as you know, I coach agents as well. And the thing that stood out to me is that this same concept is happening right now are internet leads that were once good and abundant, are bad and people scratch their heads. Like why is that happening? And I I believe it has something to do with this is that in a market like this, people are getting their news from the internet. And people don't read articles, they read headlines in markets like this. news outlets who which let's be honest, they're selling news. They're not. They're not. That's what they're selling. And so the the way that they sell it is by taking the most sensational component of any market, and they're making a headline out of it. And now that is that's the only thing that people are reading. They're not very few people actually read the article, they only read the headlines. And so they're a tainted lead, because the only they're reading these sensationalized versions of what's happening in the market. So those same people who have now this very limited perspective on the market, sensationalized perspective on the market, are now a lead. And it's like they're jaded, man, they're like, they're not gonna be the lead, they think the sky is falling, the bubble is gonna pop on and on and on. Right? Whereas they don't have someone who actually cares for them saying, let's personalize that for you. Like, first of all, let me give you all the data, the entire article, and how this specifically applies to you, which is what happens when you care for somebody, right? When you have someone who actually cares, not just in closing the deal, but in getting that you the best outcome, which is now what you've pivoted to. It's a totally different experience for people, right? Totally didn't experience which is killer, killer. Absolutely. So this pivot happened, right, and I would recommend anybody out there that's like, Man, my internet leads to a great, maybe it's time that you go back to warm market, right? Maybe it's time that you take a look at, maybe I need some some referral systems in place to actually take care of people. And I loved how you said, then I really went from a value proposition to a mission statement, like that says a lot about like how far you've come, right. It's like, there's nothing wrong with value propositions, I think that's a strong thing every business should have. But now you're you're much deeper than that. It's about actually serving people like being on a mission to help them get what's best for that, which is super cool.

Ben Andrews 8:10
Super cool. Well, it's interesting today, I had a sign call, I haven't had a sign call in six months. It just, that's not the wheelhouse I live in, I get referrals. And I honestly, I don't get a lot of sign calls I had to today. And interestingly, I asked the woman and the gentleman who called me a couple hours later, how many realtors have not called you back? And the woman said two and the gentleman said four. And the gentleman asked me, why did you ask that question? I said, because I was that guy 1214 years ago, because I was getting scared. And I didn't want to call the person back and get my butt kicked, because I knew it was a bad lead. And so I think we're back to that same market where the market will will level itself out. But realtors will also fall to the lowest denominator as well. And it's, if you just call and care you you're gonna be one step ahead of your competition. Yeah.

Justin Stoddart 9:11
And I think there's a great a great scripture that, that you'll probably recognize that love casts out all fear, right? And I think when we hear that, it's like, you know, if you're, if you're fearful, right, if you're fearful right now about what's happening in the market. And maybe because you just like there needs to be an increase of care of love for the people that you serve. And I think that there's some probably wisdom for all of us to kind of ponder on that.

Ben Andrews 9:33
Years ago, I will say, my team and I, we flew back to New York and tried to meet with Barbara Corcoran. And we got her assistant. And I told the guy said, Man, you know, respectfully, I didn't fly back here to meet with you. I flew back to meet with Barbara Corcoran. And he said, Well, if you've ever run your team route, you'll know that the admin Ron knows more of what's going on in the team lead in some cases. But one of the things that he left us with is he said As in a good market, people don't need information. In a bad market, people want information. In a in between market, people need information. And that is where you can make or break your career. And so I'm looking at myself now, as a rookie, I'm approaching this market as a rookie to say, Okay, I'm gonna make myself a business out of the next 12 months, because it's a in between market and no one really knows what's going on. And this is when we get to shine and be professionals.

Justin Stoddart 10:31
But I love how kind of our three promises of today's episode are all kind of merging together here is that getting really your your hands and fingers dirty, and learning the market and doing the homework caring enough to do that will actually cause any concern about the market go away, right? When you get prepared, you won't fear you will be in a good spot. Because you know, you can serve people and you want to serve them at a at a really high level, which is what I hear you telling us to do is like agents, if you want to be in business for the long run, and to get Ben's book, there's all kinds of reasons behind that book. You can find it on Amazon. But but in addition to that, like get them in, like learn the business, pretend like Ben, who's been at this for a long time at a really high level, and start over, like what's really happening right now. Like peel away the assumptions what's really happening. And I love that I was speaking at a economic summit today wasn't the keynote, but they invited me up to things going on prepared. But I gave the illustration that when I was a kid, my mom loved our our family doctor. And she and I think about why is because I had a seed Ward on my hand. Anyway, and he was up on the wall, he was drawn out on the wall like we here's what it looks like, and we're gonna freeze this thing off. My mom was like, Wow, that's so helpful, right? You know, from a medical background, I think this market is a complex issue, right? It's kind of a medical thing, to most people in the sense that it's a little bit mysterious. And somebody that can take the time, have the care, have the patience, and the concern to really go in and draw something out on the wall with their finger be like, here's what's really happening. And here's why it's happening here. Does that mean next, we'll just put you so you know, so much further ahead of the competition, because most people either don't care or they haven't done the work to really be able to explain the complex into something really simple like that.

Ben Andrews 12:19
Right? Yep. Don't use, don't use inside terms on the outside, right? You don't want to use the terms that we all talk about within our community of realtors. With your clients, they don't know what you're talking about. They feel dumb, they feel inferior. And now you're gonna have a hostile experience the whole way through.

Justin Stoddart 12:39
But that's really good, Ben. I love that.

Ben Andrews 12:42
Let's talk for days, Justin.

Justin Stoddart 12:46
And I'm we're gonna keep talking for days, eventually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get all these out of you. Let's, let's go. By the way, let's let's make a kind of our big announcement that we promise. Right. So for those of you that are anywhere near the Portland market on October 19, we're doing a very special event, it's going to be a an event hosted by Think bigger real estate keynoting at that event is going to be Ben Andrews, he's gonna go much deeper on the topics and we're not gonna have time to cover today, you're gonna walk out of there with a bulletproof plan on how to dominate in q4, and 23. And it's going to be awesome. So again, stay tuned for more details, but save the day, the morning of October the 19th. It's a Wednesday, excited and thrilled and honored to have been answers. Help us really deliver some big value everybody that attends that today. On that day. Ben, let's go to back to mindset. So for those that don't know, this about Ben, Ben broke the once impossible, four minute mile barrier. Yeah, that was this guy. And not only did he do that, but he's gone on again to overcome some incredible adversity again, back to plug in the book, go back and read the stories. They're incredible. But he really has mastered like overcoming and persevering through difficult times. So in this market right now, Ben, some are questioning right, like deals that they had moving towards closing blew up, right interest rates going up as high as they did as fast as they did, has really given some people some whiplash and caused some some grief and some interruptions and kind of what people were planning on what they're doing. What What advice would you have, having been through what you've been there, I've done what you've done, to give us some, some a skill set really around improving our mindset during challenging times.

Ben Andrews 14:29
So the first thing is to read the book, What to Say When You Talk To Yourself by Shad Helmstetter That book changed my life. And it's a book about what you say when you talk to yourself 96% Of all communication ourself is internal. And about 92% of that is negative that just how we're designed unfortunately. So we have to get ahead of that and figure out how to talk to ourselves in a positive manner. The other thing as far as As an exercise to do, I do this about once a week is I will draw a big circle. And I will say, here are the things that I can control, I can control what I eat today, I can control. You know what time I go to bed, I can't control the market, I can't control interest rates, I can't control of a client that's going to call me back, I can't control if this realtor is going to be easy to work with. But I can control how I'm going to treat them, which will, in turn, make them maybe a little more communicative with me. Focusing on what you can control just takes the weight off. My coach used to do this with me in college and say, you know, then what can you control? Well, you're running against the number one miler in the World Next Week, Kevin Sullivan from Canada, how in the world are you going to beat him? And then some about two weeks out? As Coach, you know, he's got this. He's got that and all the things that I didn't have. And he said, Ben, what do you have? I don't remember for those two weeks, I ran a ton by myself. He had me just disciplined. The team's doing workouts. And I'm running in late Lane eight all by myself. And I remember just out on the roads do in different parts of my run, just saying that Andrew is here, because he's known for his kick, 200 meters to go, here he comes. And sure enough, two weeks later, when I raised Kevin Sullivan, he blew the doors off of me by the chance he ran the fastest world and fastest time in the world that year. But I improved eight seconds in that one race. And it was in the last 200 meters that I passed for people and ran one of the fastest times in the United States that year. But it was all of the self talk that I told myself, I've got this great kick, I'm gonna go with 200 meters to go, I'm gonna pass everyone on the term. And that's exactly what I did, I almost manifested it. But it was because my brain had already come to the conclusion that this is what's going to happen, we just got to get in the position to do it. So talking to yourself in a very positive way. Another discipline that I use is the Five Minute Journal. It's a very simple, very simple, concise way to book in your day with positivity. There's studies that show that when you journal about the positive things that you did throughout the day, and the things that you could have done better the things that you that you enjoyed, you get to relive them in your REM sleep, and the things that you didn't do good that you could have done better. Those are things that you actually work out in your brain while you're asleep. And so when you wake up, your subconscious doesn't remember the negative, it remembers hit. I wasn't great on this. But I did better, even though you didn't do anything because I've got asleep. The mind is the most important muscle we've got. It's not even a muscle, but it's just a thing. So getting ahead of it and almost playing games with yourself on how to trick your mind. That would be the biggest thing for mindset.

Justin Stoddart 17:59
So it's such a powerful insight. Part of your book that I love that was actually just revisiting it, you went through some pretty serious adversity as as a youth, I won't spill the beans on what that was, but to the point where you needed some counseling. And in that story, your your your counselor would would talk about you would start to share some of your fears. And he would ground you and say, Is that real right now? Right? Is that real now? Or is that what could be in the future? Talk to us about maybe how that shows up? Also, when agents start to let their mind run away, like a runaway freight train with what's real and what could be real? Is that something that you still utilize today?

Ben Andrews 18:38
Well, I hate to sound like a rookie author. But it's beyond humbling for people to reference my book, and then actually pull something out of it that they actually read. So thank you appreciate that, man. It's super humbling. I do. I absolutely do. And you know, I'm not perfect by any means I still have pitfalls in my life. But what I try to do as I approach different scenarios is what is the best scenario out of this situation? Not focusing on what is the worst? What is the best? Now the best could be a lot of different things that could have some negative concept consequences. But I always try to focus on the positive. And is this scenario real? Are interest rates going to go to 10%? Am I I had a buyer today that was all freaked out and interest rates are gonna go to 10%. They say by the end of the year, and I said, but are they today? Is that a fact today? So the same thing my counsel was using? He said, Well, no. Then I guess we should just sign their counteroffer. I think we should you know, so I owe Mr. Steven a referral fee, I think because I'm still using the practices that he gave me from from 30 years ago.

Justin Stoddart 19:48
I do believe that that's a pitfall that we all fall into is for some reason, maybe the same reason why our eyes always look to the sensationalized media headlines is in our heads. creates a very similar experience of like, okay, what's the worst case scenario that could happen? And for some reason, we pull the worst case scenario into today. And then we even look at the past and look at our biggest blunders, and we pull them into today. And we wonder why we don't show up being our best when we're, like, weighted down by the worst of yesterday. And the worst of tomorrow. Like, Wonder Man, you got a heavy load, like, like a mule with like, a bunch of packs on you, like, start to unload that stuff, like the past is gone. Learn from it. The future what's what would like what's the best case? Scenario? I love that, like that's it? That's a whole different perspective. Like, what if? What if, what if this were to happen? Like, how much lighter and confident would you be to actually because even today, what we do now will have a direct impact upon what we get in the future. And so we have to protect the now we have to protect the present, right? Because if not, then all these other things will wait us down and allow us to perform at a level that does actually give us a bad future, as opposed to my mom inspired you. Yeah,

Ben Andrews 21:00
my mom who got me into this business, she she used to start so many conversations with me as a kid, so many as a young kid. But what's the best scenario that's gonna come out of this? What's the best scenario? What's the best thing that's gonna happen today? And I would just go into the day knowing that, well, this is going to happen, because it's the best thing that can happen. And it just having that mindset in, through my own blunders, I've had to reteach myself the same principles. But when you approach that you are going through life and now you're, you're interacting, you know, we're all pebbles on a pond, right? We get to then create more positivity activity for other people around us because we're not walking around with like, the Pack Mule is saying, Well, this could happen. This could happen. What was me? If you're going out with abundance, you're going to be able to give it out in Los man, I

Justin Stoddart 21:53
love that. He talked a little bit about morning routine. I know when we spoke yesterday, you talked about how important that is. Would you go into that a little bit about how this really builds a foundation for everything else.

Ben Andrews 22:08
So you know, for me, I'm, I'm a man of faith. So I will start my day with prayer before I ever get out of bed. Before my two feet hit the ground. I'm I'm in prayer. I'm doing acts of gratitude. Lord, thank You for this, this this some of the little things this morning was for the pillow I have a Love My Pillow. Once again, I've been thinking about my pillow all day because I'm excited to lay on it again. Beyond that, I get up I do some exercises, some stretching. This is all before I leave the bedroom. It's just It gets me grounded before I go out and take on the world. So I've essentially I'm putting on the armor of Ben Andrews, where I'm getting my mind right, spiritually. I'm getting my mind right. With my journaling. I'm getting my Ryan right with flexibility. I'm also when I'm when I'm doing my stretching, I'm thinking about how far could my mind stretch to the unknown, like, what is possible for Ben Andrews, and then I'm ready to take on the world. And it's just it's a lot of little disciplines that add up to a pretty good day. But it all happens before I leave the bedroom before I leave the house. I'm a Wim Hof guy, I'm doing cold showers. If you haven't looked into that, it's a it's a weird deal. But it's fascinating. And I find myself doing these breathing exercises when I'm stressed out. It's all about the cold shower routine. So if whoever's listening if you haven't checked that out, check it out. It's it's a real thing. And it's so helpful.

Justin Stoddart 23:52
You know, the intentionality with what you speak about your mornings. You know, we've we've talked about how this is such a foundation, right? We're going to move here into this episode really talking about the habits. But I would argue that if you don't have the foundation in place where these your body, your mind, your spirit, your heart are taken care of in advance, like you're not showing up in a position to race. It's kind of like, Ben, you're running here in five minutes. Like I'm not warmed up coach. I'm not I haven't even trained like what like I can't I can't do it now. Your performance, like pulling another another story out of your book when when a competitive coach kept you out late at night? Yeah, so that you would bomb the next day. It's kind of like not having a morning routine is very similar to that. Like we're kind of sabotaging ourselves to not be able to perform at our highest level. I know for me, as soon as I get in my office, and the clock strikes about 839 o'clock like I better have all the stuff that I really wanted to do for the day out Out of the way or I'm going to start getting demands from me. And so for me, it's, it's, it's fairly similar to you and I hit those those four areas right body, mind, heart and spirit. And then I have a very specific plan for, for my business, the kind of the one thing I do in my business. And without that I'm really like a ship without a rudder. It's kinda like, Okay, who needs me, okay, what emails are coming in? What texts are coming and I'm just floating around. There's nothing intentional about my business. I look up and I'm like, I'm not where I want to be this month. Why not? Oh, I see. Because I was a courier for everybody else and couriers paid very well. Right.

Ben Andrews 25:34
Exactly. Yeah. You know, I just got back from London, England. I was there with my mom, we went over for the, for the Queen's funeral, which was a bucket list thing I did with my mom, so much fun. But we were, we were touring the Tower of London. And it was built in like, 1080 1080. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I asked the our tour guide, I said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, this teenager, you gotta be kidding me. Like, where's the documentation on this? And I said, How in the world? Do I have home inspections blow up or a 1973 ranch and Beaverton and you've got a Tower of London here from over 1000 years ago? How is that possible? And he said, well come over here. I'm going to show you something. He pulled me around. He said, It's It's this. It's the foundation. I said, yeah, yeah, we have foundations in the United States. Also, what's different about this one, he said, this one's different. Because it was not worried about the weather, it was worried about the elements, you see, there was a moat that was all around this entire structure. So we were not only concerned about the weight of what was above us, we were not concerned about the wind, we were not only concerned about the water, we were concerned about all of it. And when you take all of that, and you create a foundation, it can stand over 1000 years. Now, how was your thing? BEAVERTON, you know, you couldn't pronounce it. But to me, that was like, okay, that's mind body, spirit soul, that I have to get my foundation, my armor on every day, because everything's coming at us. And now it comes out as so quickly, my team gets a little frustrated with me because I don't respond to text messages so quickly. Because I don't have alerts on I don't have a single alert on my phone. Unless it's my mom, my dad, my brother, my wife, my son calling. That's it, that's the only alert that I have on my phone. And it for me, it works because I, I'm a DD and I'll get super distracted. And so I had to create those boundaries within my own life to say, okay, when I look at my phone a lot in a lie, but if it's me directing it, not directing me, Brian Buffini once said, an outgoing call to a client is going to take two minutes to shore up an issue, an incoming call about the same issue is going to take 20 minutes. And so I tried to get on the offensive that and say, Okay, what does that how does that relate to Ben Andrews? Well, if people are coming to me, it's going to be 20 minutes, because it's always going to be going on but if I can say, I'm going to look at my phone when I want. Okay, two minutes, boom, I don't have anything. Okay, good. I'm good to go.

Justin Stoddart 28:17
And defense versus offense, right. All right. Yeah. So good, man, let's, let's cover how are you for time you doing? All right. I'm good. I'm good. Okay, let's go. Let's I want to hit here on habits. I was talking about the morning routine habits, the business habits. And you you had a fundament pivot in 2008, in which you went from transactional to relational. And there was a shift inside of you about what conversations to people were about. Right? Instead of just getting something from them, it became much deeper than that, which really probably very consistent with the value proposition shifting to the mission, right, as you started to bring the humanity of people's lives into it. But talk to us a little bit about that. What that looks like from a habit standpoint.

Ben Andrews 29:00
Yeah, you know, for me, it started with calls, I would just call people to see how they were doing. That was the number one thing it was like, I'm gonna make three calls today. That's, I'm gonna win the day. And it got back to my coach telling me that never gonna run a four minute mile if you don't do your morning run. And I said, Coach, I'm running 50 miles a week, a three minute morning run jogging is not going to do anything for me. And he said, but that is going to build your mitochondria. Because it's a slower run. It's not taxing. It's easy. But it's the easy things that that's why other people don't succeed. You got to do the little discipline, build your mitochondria. And so I thought, Okay, well, this is kind of the same thing. I just have to do the easy thing. Well, what is that I'm gonna call three people a day. And I'm, I'm gonna ask good questions. You know, Hey, Billy is playing soccer. Hey, what position is Billy playing? And oftentimes, just that second question that follow up question would lead to that reaching out to me and saying, Hey, thanks for checking in this week, Billy scored a goal this weekend. Now, if I would have just called and said, How are things? Hey, do you know anyone thinking of buying or selling a home? I wouldn't have been on his mind I would have been on his radar. But the fact that's how are your kids doing? And then he told me something. And then I took more interest, and said, Well, what position does he play? Now he's thinking about me when I'm not even around. And that's not a business principle. That's a life principle is love on people. And if you do it enough, you're gonna make this world a lot better place. So, for me the daily Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Justin Stoddart 30:37
I'm gonna say and how much better is your world, right? Instead of calls where it feels like, rejected. Now I don't want to buy or sell. But it's like, talk about Billy like in soccer. And right. I mean, it's continue on.

Ben Andrews 30:48
It's it's such a more fulfilling life. It doesn't feel like work. I mean, this is the best profession in the world, in my opinion. One, because you get to create your destiny every single day, you get to wake up and say, I'm going to change someone's life today. And not because I helped them buy or sell a house, it's because I called and asked about them. I think right now, something we're talking about on our team, and I'm gonna plug my computer in real quick. Sorry, this is live in effect. There we go. One of the big things we're talking about on our team is the number one asset we have coming out of a pandemic, I think this business is even easier. Because we're not talking about interest rates, we're talking about human capital. And that's what we've got human capital, we, we might not have a massive marketing budget, but we don't need it if we care. And so if we're just reaching out to the people that already have raised their hand and said, Hey, Ben, I like you, I trust you. Continue to swim in that pool. As far as disciplines and habits for business, it was calling those three people a day. And once you start to get a little momentum from there, now we're going to call for now we're going to call five. Now we're going to follow up with a personal note. I have a what I call a board of directors in my database, I have 12 people. And I'm excited for December, because I'm going to reach out to 12 new people. And what I do is I'll call and say, Hey, Justin, I know you trust me, I know you like me, I know you're going to support my business. Yes, Ben Absolutely. post on social media is the times that other agents yell at me. Or I've shown someone 13 houses and they decide to save $1,300 And they call another realtor. And so can I just depend on you that if I'm having a rough day, I'm just going to reach out to you and call you. And just I'm not going to talk about work, I'm just going to reach out. And the amount of people that like I switch it out every year. And every year Hey, can I be can I be on your board of directors again this year? I'm trying to spread the wealth. Well, hey, if you're ever having a bad day, call me. The fascinating thing Justin, is they're calling me when they have a bad day. Because they're not in the real estate industry. They're calling me a lot more than I'm calling them. It's been a, like a social science phenomenon. I am now the soft spot for them. Because I've been vulnerable to say, hey, life isn't perfect all the time, can I can I depend on you to reach out and they reach out to me, it's, it's been a great spot for me in my business. Because I do have a couple of weeks ago, I had an agent screaming at me, I'm trying to get off him. She's screaming, by the way, because she doesn't have any other deals coming. That's why she's upset. And I felt sorry for her. But during that call, I thought I'm gonna call Jason. I'm gonna call Jason the citizens calls over, which made that conversation go a lot better.

Justin Stoddart 33:56
When, you know, I believe strongly that people, people love to be cared for. And maybe just as much we love to care for others, and you give people an opportunity to have a responsibility and opportunity to serve back. And it's probably the most impactful thing we can do for them. Because we all know how we feel when we serve. Like what a brilliant idea to not only care for the people, but give them the opportunity to care for you.

Ben Andrews 34:22
Like we like each other. I'm excited to see all the people who are watching this because they're interested. So we do have the zoom connection. It's going to be we're gonna hug it out on the night team don't have to think of the 10s of millions of people or the hundreds of people that we know, that are stuck on Zoom have been stuck on zoom over the last two years with people that they don't like working with. And it's a it's a burn for eight hours, and then they get off and they got to teach the kids school. This is such an easy time, in my opinion to grow our business in our organic way. Just by The only people that we care, and then we're here and we're available. That's it. And they might not buy a house next week. But they might refer someone, and they might when the market hits them correctly, we'll have more than we know what to do with.

Justin Stoddart 35:15
Ben, you're just full of gold nuggets here. Right, buddy? I absolutely love this. I think we've hit on about everything. And maybe I'll just ask this last question. Right now we've got buyers and sellers, who are a bit at, they're holding on to last year's expectations, right. Sellers are up here. Holding on to last year's equity. Buyers are down here holding on to last year's rates. And we know this happens every time a shift happens. There's this caffeine that come down to an agreement, what have you found is a key skill set that I think every agent needs to know right now of how do they communicate effectively to get these groups to come together? Right to come to an agreement? What are you finding? What are you teaching? What are you seeing that would help an agent right now with a skill set of thriving during these times that some might find be very challenging?

Ben Andrews 36:05
Sure. So it's a great question. By the way, the image that pops into my mind is something that I talk to my my clients about. This vehicle has four tires, I am one, you are one, the sellers, one or the buyers, one, whoever the opposite party is and the other realtor. What I failed to learn early on in my career is that other agent wants a deal. That's why they took the listing. That's why they took the buyer. And I was so adversarial with that other agent, that one showed my house last week, and I thought oh, no, oh, I owe them a big sorry, I hope they hope they right. So I can apologize or call them and reach out to one apologized. But we have to be on the same team and we have to be cordial to one another. And what I understand now is that that other agent is also my client. My client is whoever I'm Reppert representing who I have a fiduciary responsibility to get the best Vito Corleone deal that I can get for them. But at the same time, I have to treat the other agent as though they're also my client. So that way, it's a smooth transaction, I did 75 deals this year, I'll do that, again. The average realtor is doing four and a half. And I need to recognize that not everyone's where I'm at, not everyone wants to be where I'm at, by the way. But I also need to understand and respect the fact that some of these people are just trying to put bread on the table. And that's where I was, and I need to consciously put myself in that position. And the other thing I try to tell my clients, and the other realtor is, hey, I know we're in the canoe, my client and I are in the backyard, we both have an or I need you and your client to row effectively as well. But we're all in this together. That's why we came together. And just having those little conversations, it really puts everyone at ease. And it lets everyone know, we're gonna get to the finish line, I gotta I should, I just got a tax of 10 minutes before we went on. That said, Thank you for the can do attitude, I know we will put this together, you've been a dream to work with you, I'm sorry, you've been a dream to communicate with. Now I got my client an extra $1,700 that my client didn't really care about. But I got it. And it was all because of the communication channel with the other agent. He'll be excited to hear about it. But he didn't really care about it. But that's my fiduciary responsibility. But I got it because the other agent and I had a good rapport with one another.

Justin Stoddart 38:43
It's almost as if Ben is that you're the agents on the other side of the deal are also clients. So you treat them as if they are your clients and you're trying to get people to come together on a transaction, it really is a paradigm shift. That shouldn't be so. So far fetched, right? It's like, wait a minute, wait, but they're on the other side of the deal. You're You're, you're negotiating against each other. Right, right. Go ahead. I

Ben Andrews 39:10
have an email that goes out and I send it to 185 realtors in the Portland market. My competition. And it's a this is what I learned in a negotiation last week. Hey, here's what I did with a client that was really struggling through divorce. Here's what it you know, whatever it is. And I've gotten some responses from agents that say, Hey, man, appreciate this, but not your audience. You're supposed to send this to your clients. I don't know how I got on your list. Well, you're on my list, because you showed my property two weeks ago, and I liked you. You're kidding. No, no, you're on my list because we did a deal two years ago, and I had a good experience and I want to pour into you because it's going to come back at some point. So, you know, again, treating, having a client appreciation program for my cooperating agents. I think it's gonna pay some big dividends down the road.

Justin Stoddart 40:04
And a brilliant idea. You know, I share with you the story of an agent that I met with he was early in the business. And he was just bragging about the fact of like, my value proposition that takes takes effective managers that do that as my value proposition is I'm going to win. Like I like like win win. Like when when we negotiate, like it was a win, lose. And that was the only way that he was going to win is if someone else lost. And it's hearing you speak. That's becoming much more obvious just how, how off that perspective is. And I haven't checked back to CVS either. Still effect I know he is still in the business. And I'm confident that at this point, he's changed his tune a little bit and realize that the other agent is not the enemy. I don't think he sees them as the clients like you do. Which is a whole nother level of kind of maturity, this industry. But what you know what a great perspective, I love that. And I think in this market, everybody can get on the same page. Everybody can can be helping each other along, things actually happen as opposed to working against each other. So Ben, I feel like you and I could could could hang out all day long. And I'd like to I'd love that. I'd love that we'd go running, but you'd have to like Wait for me.

Ben Andrews 41:13
Look at these chick chipmunk cheeks. I'm good.

Justin Stoddart 41:17
We've pasted right with each other. Anyway, it's been a total pleasure. Thank you so much for everything you've contributed to this audience. I can't wait to put you on a stage here coming up on the 19th. It's gonna be awesome. Let me just ask one more question that I asked everybody that crosses Think bigger real estate stage, which is you're a big thinker, Ben, and you're thinking even bigger all the time? What is it that you do to continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your possibilities? What does that look like?

Ben Andrews 41:42
It's for me, now it's buying, buying my time with my money. So I'm building my team out a little bit differently. So I want to Henry's 11, my son's 11. And I want to, I could kind of get emotional even thinking about that. But I want to invest in that relationship as much as I can over the next seven years. And the truth is, his buddies will be driving them for dinner. So that's thinking big for me is biding my time back so I can be with my family.

Justin Stoddart 42:15
And you're speaking, speaking right to the heart of this show that we go beyond success to significance. And you're you're a guy that embodies both. So thank you again, so much for all you've contributed everybody tuning in now or after the fact that the podcast we appreciate you and our final request? Is this. Go think bigger. Ben, thanks for helping us do that today. My friend. I appreciate it more than you know.

Ben Andrews 42:35
Thank you. Good to see you.

Justin Stoddart 42:38
If you enjoyed this episode that have a very special invitation for you, I have created a private Facebook community called successful real estate agents where the focus is going beyond success having both a successful business and a significant life. If you're not yet a member. Go sign up now.