Navigating Real Estate Challenges: Expert Insights from Tanya Bugbee

00:00:16 - Mike Mills

Professionals out there. So, are you ready for 2023 to be over? Are you strongly considering finding a new career path outside of real estate in two and 24? Well, before you make any impulse decisions, I want you to listen to what we have to say today. Real estate was very easy for the last several years, but this year, and probably next year, will be filled with all new challenges and obstacles that will cause many agents to walk away and never look back. But I'm here to tell you that opportunity is here if you know where to look for it. And today's episode is going to help you find it. So welcome to Mike Mills Mortgage and Finance podcast, where we come to you every week with experts in the real estate industry who will help you not only survive, but thrive in this new, challenging market. I'm your host, Mike Mills, and today we've got a special guest who's going to help us show you how to set up 2024 for one of the best years of your career. But it will not be easy, and it will take some real hard evaluation of your business that might be tough for you to come to grips with. But if you can, you'll have the opportunity for success in a market where other agents are hanging it up. Now, before we dive into today's lesson in perseverance, remember, if you find value in these conversations, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast platform or go check me out on Mike Mills Mortgage and Finance and finance on YouTube for more exclusive content. Can't talk today? Subscribing and sharing these episodes with friends ensures you stay updated on everything happening in the market and allows me to continue to provide content that will help you create the real estate career you've always wanted. So my guest today is Tanya Bugbee. Tanya is a real estate coach and consultant with over 20 years of experience as an executive leader and business owner and over ten years of experience as a business coach. She coaches brokers, agents and business owners from all walks of life. Now, she's not going to sugarcoat things, but what she will do is show you how to get through this market and come out the other side with a business that's even better than the best years to date. Tanya, how are we doing? Let me get back on that roll. Hey, how's it going?

00:02:14 - Tanya Bugbee

It's going great.

00:02:16 - Mike Mills

Good. I'm glad to hear. Now we're going to get into who you are and how you got to where you're at and throw out those credentials. So everybody kind of understands that, but I always like to put a little meat right at the very front of this thing, because I want people to be able to pop in here and understand, okay, what are we going to talk about? So, before we get into your credentials, I just want you to give me a broad list of three strategies that you are telling all of your clients right now for maintaining or even growing your real estate business for 2024 and beyond. So we'll dive deeper into them kind of, as we get started. But I just want you to give me some high level points that we're going to talk about today.

00:02:53 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, I really want real estate agents to go a little deeper than just their mindset. I tell them about their mindset, their heart set, like, we're going to do this, this is doable, I'm going to rock this, because there are going to be agents who don't have that and that are going to get out of the market. So we got to get our mind right, and then we really do need to work at the strategies. And there is not a one size fits all strategy for my clients. So I want everybody to dig deeper and work really hard with their database. Right. Their sphere, however they want to word it. And there's more. We really do need to roll up our sleeves and work harder than we've worked, especially the last three years. Right. I mean, through COVID. So we really need to roll up our sleeves and get to work. And is that networking? Is that going out into the community and sponsoring events? Again, how I coach my single gal that has two kids under three, it doesn't look like anything like my single 50 year old guy that's in coaching. Right. So there is not just a one thing, but we are all rolling up our sleeves and coming up with the strategies now, literally right now, I need to have their plans and we're working on them.

00:04:05 - Mike Mills

So what you're saying then, essentially is, number one, we got to get our head in the right place. And you can't be doom and gloom, but it also can't be unrealistic in thinking that the world's just going to continue humming along like it always has been. Right? Things are changing and you got to be aware of it. The second thing is you've got to up your marketing game, whether that be your database, your open houses, whatever it is that you're good at. You can't be good at all things, but you can be good at one or two things and really hone in on those. And then the third thing is, which sounds simple, but again, I don't think everybody really grasps this is you're going to have to work. Right? You can't just sit at home and wait for your phone to ring or don't go out and mingle amongst the people. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and you're going to have to work. Right?

00:04:55 - Tanya Bugbee

Absolutely. What I will say as a visual to a lot of people that I either coach or talk to is like, if a CEO was in the helicopter hovering over your business and they're watching you after a couple of weeks, would they hire you or fire you?

00:05:09 - Mike Mills

Right.

00:05:10 - Tanya Bugbee

And so many people are like, oh, my God, I'm fired. Or maybe I'm on a performance improvement plan. Most people will say, no way. I mean, no, I wouldn't get hired. I'm probably working 5 hours a week. And that's not a CEO because we are CEOs, right? You are. I am. And if all we're doing is putting 5 hours a week on growing our business. Yeah, I deserve to be fired.

00:05:36 - Mike Mills

Yeah. And that's a hard thing for a lot of people, is you have to take a hard look at what you're doing on a day to day basis. Your daily activities, your daily habits, because everything's always easy to put off to tomorrow. Well, I'll do that tomorrow. Oh, this thing came up, so I'm going to have to handle that tomorrow. And the easy stuff to put out and, look, I'm guilty of this just as much as anybody else is, is the little fires that come in front of you right then that you handle. You have that feeling like, look, I took care of this. I accomplished something today, right? I had these things that came up. I took care of them. And you could walk away from your day feeling like, all right, I wasn't lazy today. I did things, but more often than not, those things are distractions from the things that are really going to help you grow your business. And they're easy distractions because the other stuff that you don't want to do is hard. So as a human being, your nature is to just go, well, I can complete this task in 30 minutes and I'm done. And I have that. It's like that dopamine hit. I've got that sense of accomplishment. Or I can go sit down and do my planning, which is going to take me hours, which I don't feel comfortable doing, which I don't have any help, and I don't know where I'm starting. And I got to go on YouTube and figure out what they're going to do. And I don't have anybody to call and I don't know what. Okay, let me go feed the dogs and clean the pool.

00:06:46 - Tanya Bugbee

Lately, I can tell.

00:06:47 - Mike Mills

Yes. Look, hey, lenders, too. We're all suffering out here. It's not sunshine and roses for me, either, so it's all a challenge. All right, well, we're going to dive into that a little bit more here in a second. But before we do that, I want you to tell everybody about yourself. I want you to let them know where you came from, what your background is. Why should I be listening to you, Tanya? What do you know? Give us a little bit of meat there so we can explain to everybody where you're coming from and where you've gained your experience.

00:07:20 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah, I've really learned to love my past, where for a while there, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've done so many. And I've not just had one path. Hey, when I grew up, actually, when I was in high school, I wanted to be president of the United States. Oh, hey, great. I got a full right to Georgetown. I'm going to go into politics. Right? And what I did is I met a guy.

00:07:39 - Mike Mills

Hi, NancY. How are you? Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

00:07:42 - Tanya Bugbee

I met a guy and ended up sailing, living on a sailboat for eight years.

00:07:47 - Mike Mills

I bet your mom loved, huh? You met a dude and traveled the world on a sailboat. Yeah.

00:07:51 - Tanya Bugbee

Oh, no. My know, I didn't call her for years.

00:07:54 - Mike Mills

Yeah, I'm sure she was thrilled. Your parents love that one, I bet.

00:07:56 - Tanya Bugbee

Nope. Gave up a full ride to Georgetown. And there you go. Then I got into flying because my boyfriend at the time was also a pilot. So I got into flying and I ran a flight school. So I had one of the most successful flight schools in Maine and got my credentials around flying, and I loved it. And then we got divorced. He got the flight school and I went off. Right. So the corporate trainer for Jenny Craig. So I coached. I.

00:08:25 - Mike Mills

That's a hard thing by the know. I remember Jenny Craig. Is Jenny Craig still around?

00:08:31 - Tanya Bugbee

She sold her business. It might still be called Jenny Craig, but she's not there anymore.

00:08:36 - Mike Mills

Well, I remember that time period. For whatever reason. I don't know why that sticks out of my head, but especially when you're working with executives and you're working with people that, quote, unquote, know everything, they got it all figured out already and you're trying to tell them how to get healthy and how to eat better and how to take care of their body. Why is this even a thing? I can imagine the challenges that comes with that type of coaching that you're dealing with somebody like that that is not used to someone else telling them how to change their behavior, right?

00:09:04 - Tanya Bugbee

Yes. And so I did that. And then when I got married, and I have two phenomenal daughters who are 25 and 27, he was into the restaurant business. So we owned a restaurant. We had a restaurant in California, and then I didn't like it. We had a very successful restaurant, but I was just miserable dealing with that from very aware. So my mom's a real estate agent. She still is. My mom's 82 and still very active in Northern California. So I got my real estate license and it was a hobby for me. And he's my ex now, but my ex's income was our primary income. And then we got divorced and he went back to Maine. And I'm in Houston, Texas, with two young girls, young teenagers, and I'm treating my business like a hobby. I close a couple of homes a year. So my mom, I actually listened to my mom this time, which is rare, and she said, you need a business coach. So I did. I hired a real estate coach and the rest is history for me. I went from being at the bottom of the ladder to number two in just a couple of years, closing between 50 and 60 homes a year, raising my kids, watching them swim, watching them dance. I really was scared. So that fear fueled me. And one of my superpowers is my drive. So that was not okay for me to be at the bottom of the ladder. So I really give a lot of credit to my coach at that time who coached me at least seven years through my real estate career in Houston. But I've been licensed in Florida, California, Houston, again with my ex being in the real estate business. He was a corporate trainer for Burger King, and we were married 22 years. So before he owned his own businesses, we moved a lot through the corporation. So I have started databases over three times.

00:10:53 - Mike Mills

Oh, wow. Okay, so you're a database master then. You've been doing that.

00:10:58 - Tanya Bugbee

The third one was Houston, and. Yes, and I had no choice.

00:11:03 - Mike Mills

Well, I think the drive component, which is something that I don't know that you can teach people that necessarily. I think you can create habits around it to make you better at it, for sure. But I don't know that you can take someone who doesn't have a big motor and create that within them. I think that's a difficult thing to do. But what people don't realize, I think, too, is that people that do have that drive and have that motor. It's almost like you called it a superpower. I think that's perfect because it's not like you come out of the womb knowing how to use this superpower. Right. You don't just come out knowing what, I've got all this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I don't know how into comics and superheroes you are, but, you know, Cyclops from the X Men, you know, that is so he wears this thing on his eyes that shoots out this red laser beam, and he kind of controls it with different things or whatever. But if he takes that thing off and opens his eyes, it just spreads everywhere. Right. It's destructive, basically. And I look at that as kind of the same thing. Whereas if you don't learn how to control that superpower of that drive, which is great, then it can actually be kryptonite.

00:12:16 - Tanya Bugbee

I call it. It becomes kryptonite. Right. Yes. Right. I saw Marianne was on the call. So Marianne's superpower, because I know Marianne is not so much her drive, but her superpower is her ability and authenticity on giving.

00:12:33 - Mike Mills

Yeah.

00:12:34 - Tanya Bugbee

Right. So that's why she's such a phenomenal real estate agent, if it's the same Marianne, because I can't. So. So maybe it's not the competitive drive that Tanya Bugbee has, but her ability to give, however she can go into the kryptonite phase of that.

00:12:49 - Mike Mills

You give too much and too much of your time. And I think that's the thing that, especially with coaches, what they help with is because it's very difficult for a person to. We all know kind of what we're good at and kind of what we're not. I mean, I don't think anybody's ignorant to their strengths and weaknesses completely, but I think where we get ignorant to it is we don't know what the impact of those. Sometimes we have this strength. I'm really good at this. And you're like, yeah, you are really good at that, but that thing that you're really good at is causing you problems over here. And, yes, we want to continue the focus or keep it here, but you've got to figure out how to mitigate these other issues that it's causing because it's taking away from what you're trying to accomplish. And if you don't have an objective set of eyes looking at you and talking to you on a regular basis, it's one thing to sit down with somebody for 30 minutes or 45 minutes and them to tell you, oh, well, tell me about yourself. And you're like, oh, you're probably this and you're probably that. Oh, you're this personality trait. Take this little test and I'm going to tell you everything there is to know about you. There's some validity to that a little bit, but not really. I think that's why therapy, for people that go to therapy is so important, because they go every week or every month, and you're constantly learning new things about yourself. But the person that you're talking to, your coach, your therapist, whoever they are, also learning more and more about you and helping you evaluate things from an outside perspective, which is really important, I think, in any type of business.

00:14:16 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah, absolutely. And helping them discover their own superpowers, where kryptonite comes in and holding up the mirror. Because a lot of times what's getting in our way is that face that you're looking at in the mirror.

00:14:30 - Mike Mills

Yes. Most of the time, I would say it's usually us.

00:14:34 - Tanya Bugbee

And I can't always want to blame.

00:14:35 - Mike Mills

Other things, but it's always us. Yeah, that's a lesson I beat into my kids heads all the time because they'll come to me and say, oh, well, this is happening, or that's happening. And I'm like, okay, well, what are you going to do about it? And they're like, well, I'm like, but nothing. It's happened, or it did happen, or whatever the case may be, or this person said that. So what are you going to do? It's your choice. All you can control is what you do in response to this particular situation. So Dad's not going to feel sorry for it. That's usually why they don't come to me. They go talk to mom because she'll hug.

00:15:03 - Tanya Bugbee

Compassionate.

00:15:04 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Dad's not the compassionate one. I'm not the feel sorry for you guy. We're not going to have a pity party. If you're calling dad. If you want solutions and you want to help work through the problem, talk to dad. You want to hug and tell you everything's going to be all right, don't call me because it's not going to work getting to some of these strategies. So you said specifically when we were talking in the beginning, and you brought it up again about dAtabases. I, too, am a big proponent of databases. I think that if managed correctly and maintained very well, it can really revolutionize your business. But I think what a lot of people assume is that it's going to happen tomorrow, and more often than not. It's a compounding effect, just like investing or anything else that your business database that you establish, you have to create good habits up front. But that database, if managed and monitored correctly, can be the lifeblood of your business for the next 20 years. And I think that's where people don't have the stomach, the fortitude for the database piece, because they do it. And, okay, they're excited about it. I'm going to track this, I'm going to do that. And then they look up in three months and they've completely fallen off the wagon, like going to the gym or whatever. And now their database is in shambles again, and they're like, it's too hard to fix. Someone's going to walk away. So talk a little bit about that.

00:16:18 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, you hit the nail on the head. So they're like, okay, we're going to close. They close. We have a plan. And the biggest objection I get is I'm going to sound salesy. They know why I'm calling. They want more business, so I don't want to sound salesy. So what else can I do? And then what happens when we talk through it and they get ready to pick up the phone? It's been three months, six months, sometimes a year that they've called their client, and they're like, well, now what do I say? Sorry I haven't stayed in touch. Yes, we fall on the sword at that point, but we are in sales and there are ways, again, when I know my client and I know their superpowers, and I can only push so far, right. I don't want them throwing up. I'm okay if they're queasy, but throwing up is not okay. Pick up the phone and ask what you can do to help. Do you have boxes in your garage from unpacking? Can I come pick up those boxes for you? It doesn't have to be a sales call. It needs to be, can I help you call and when I can get them to grasp that better. But not everybody does say, well, they still know why I'm calling.

00:17:25 - Mike Mills

No, well, but some of that, too, I think you would say as well. Is that part of maybe being aware of what's going on in the industry or being aware of what's happening in the news or not big topics, but smaller things. Like, for example, November 7 was the property tax vote here in Texas, where we voted on bringing down property taxes. And it passed. I saw the results. It was like 85% to 15%. I'm like, who are these 15% that are voting to keep their taxes high, but whatever. So I'm like, who are these aliens that are landing down here doing this? But either way, that's a reason to pick up the phone and call your past client database and say, hey, make sure you go out and vote because this is going to affect your property tax. I mean, perfect reason built in. And I would imagine if you're involved in your business and you're paying attention to what's happening around it, that you're going to have reasons to call people all the time if you look for them. Right?

00:18:23 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah. When I was in real estate in Texas, now it's been ten years since I've been licensed, so the rules may have changed, but I know in February, I called all my clients, my past clients from that year, for homesteading. It's like, we got to get you homesteaded. Right? So there is always a reason. Or you saw somebody do something on Facebook, or if you're listening and you're closing and say, yeah, give us six months, we're going to upgrade this kitchen, then call them five months late. Well, I want you to call. You don't want you to wait five months, but at that five month part. Hey, do you need a contractor? Can I send you some referrals for some people to help you upgrade your kitchen? With my clients right now, they're pulling out their 2024 calendar and putting reasons to call every single month. If it's gratitude, right now it's all around gratitude.

00:19:07 - Mike Mills

Yes. And that planning thing is a big piece, because if you put in your calendar and you set out to say, here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to call on this date, and you block it out and you make an appointment with yourself. That's everybody's favorite term. But when you do that, it puts the onus on you at that point to not come up with fires that you have to put out that day because it's on your calendar, you have to do it. That's what you set out to do. And if you don't, then you feel like crap because you're like, man, well.

00:19:32 - Tanya Bugbee

All of a sudden, they just have a brain fart and they can't think of the reason to call. Right. So we're coming up with the reasons now and again. Watch them on social media, stay in touch. Their kid just graduated summa cum laude. Send them a note and congratulate them.

00:19:46 - Mike Mills

Right? Come up with reasons. All right, so on the database still, too. What are you kind of your best practices when it comes to the habits and processes of maintaining your database. Right. And we understand the importance of it, the understanding of calling and touching base with your clients. But when it comes down to the actual day to day or month to month activities, what are you coaching your clients on how that they can best manage that process so they get the most amount of data that they can get?

00:20:15 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah, great question. First of all, they need to have a CRM. And if they don't like, some of my newbies might have an Excel spreadsheet. Ultimately, I'd like them to have a CRM, better than nothing, but they can have an excel spreadsheet. We can still do this and they can put it into their Google calendar. I want them calling that first month after close, the beginning of every month. They have a system and it's like, okay, who do I need to call one month after close, six months after close. Their anniversaries. I want all your anniversaries. One year, two year, three year. If they're at a three year anniversary, call and offer a CMA so they have a list at the beginning of every month. These are the non negotiable calls to get done. Right. Then go talk to your pending. Because my goal for my clients is they get a referral before they close. So we've got to have some confirmation around that. And then go look at your pipeline on your actives. Just love on them. Love on them. Customer service. What do they need to make their move seamless? They need a dog walker. Help them. And then you have your potentials that I want them to call. So when they have the first of every single month, they go through that piece backwards right into their database. And then there's the other reasons to call, like homesteading or it's Mother's Day. But they have a list every month.

00:21:33 - Mike Mills

Yeah. So there's not a whole lot of times where there isn't a reason to call somebody is what it sounds like to me.

00:21:39 - Tanya Bugbee

I hope you're not. And it's authentic. I mean, I want you to say, hey, it's been six months. How's the house? Do a house. You know how doctors used to do house calls? Do a house call. How's the house? What do you need? Don't forget you have a home warranty.

00:21:53 - Mike Mills

Yeah. And it's difficult too, because if they've never done it before, they don't do it very often. I think it's a struggle for people because they feel uncomfortable. It's kind of like the old school door knocking where you would go through a neighborhood and you need to do this, you need to do that, whatever. That's a challenge for people. But once they do it and that fear is stripped away, where they've made ten or 15 calls and they all went great because that's how they go. Very rarely. It's like one of a couple of things going to happen. Either they're going to hang up or, excuse me, they're not going to answer because they're not there and you leave a voicemail or whatever. Right. Or text them or they are going to answer and you're going to have a short conversation, maybe, how are you doing? They might be busy or in the middle of something, or maybe they just don't have a lot to say or whatever, or it's going to be a really great conversation and you're going to be so glad that you call them. Now, all three of those scenarios did not end up with you getting stabbed in the heart and dying. Right? You're fine.

00:22:47 - Tanya Bugbee

You're fine. And 99% of the time I'll have clients like, I don't know what took me so long. They loved hearing from me. We were on the phone for 20 minutes. I'm like, well, I don't need you to be on the phone for 45 minutes. That's not the goal. But they don't regret it when they do it.

00:23:01 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well. And more often than not, we're in such a disconnected world sometimes. Now, we're more connected with social media, but we're even less connected because of it. And actually speaking with someone and having a conversation with them versus just texting them or messaging them on Facebook, which is, again, it's better than nothing, right? But that personal touch, that phone call, that letter, that card or whatever, that's another thing that Marianne's great at, is she's always writing, I get thank you notes from Marianne all the time.

00:23:30 - Tanya Bugbee

So into customer service and pleasing her people. Marianne, on a scale of one to ten, is a twelve.

00:23:35 - Mike Mills

Yeah, she's great at that. But that personal touch is what is missing in a lot of people. So you're shocked that when you pick up the phone and call somebody just to say hi, you have a reason to call homesteading or Happy birthday or whatever. But they're like, hey, how's it going? I talked in a while. How's the family? All that kind of stuff. You get through all that and then you walk away from it. You feel good. It's like, oh, that was a great conversation. I'm glad I had it. You mentioned something about getting a referral through the process of the contract. And I think that's a big point to hit on, too, because often we think, okay, well, I'll just get with them at the end and be like, hey, I want to get this taken care of. But we lose sight of the fact that the most excited they are about buying their home is when they're actually going through the process. Right, right. So speak to a little bit about how you coach people on asking for referrals when they're going through the contract process.

00:24:28 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah. So I wait till they actually get past probably the home inspection period. Right. And again, it's like, how Are we knocking their socks off? How are we providing service? It is about negotiating, obviously, and getting them into a home. But again, what can they do to make their move seamless? Do they need a dog walker? They need a referral for a swim coach or whatever that is. So you're helping your clients and then, yeah, once we're under contract, just let them know I work by referral and I'd love to duplicate you guys. You're wonderful to work with. You've got to know great people. My goal is that before I hand you keys to your new home, that you send me somebody to work with.

00:25:08 - Mike Mills

Right. Yes. Well, I've worked with an agent before that. She talks about, actually, she does kind of a similar thing, but with surveys. So surveys are a big part of her business. She's very focused on, you know, if you don't know how. Survey is the wrong question. I'm sorry, can't talk today. Wrong word. Reviews. I'm sorry, reviews. So Google reviews are a big portion of a big part of her business. And so when she starts from the very beginning, meeting her clients, the first time it does her presentation, she'll say something along the lines of, at the end of this, you're going to think that I did such a great job that you can't wait to give me a five star review. Right? She's doing it as a joke. It's not like she's not in there in her little business suit going, you're going to be suit. It's like, hey, by the way, we're done with this. You're going to think I'm awesome, blah, blah, blah. She does that. And then when she has the inspection, after they finish that, she's like, inspection looks great. This house looks like it's a five star review coming our way right away.

00:26:10 - Tanya Bugbee

Exactly.

00:26:11 - Mike Mills

Just hitting them with that drip all the way through and then when she shows up to closing, usually she asks them to sends them something and asks them to do the review before closing. But if they haven't, she shows up to closing with a little QR code and she's like, here you go. But at that point, if people are uncomfortable, excuse me, they're uncomfortable going into that situation, they think. But at that point, she's made it kind of like a joke to a certain extent, that it's taken all of the uncomfortableness or the awkwardness or whatever you think there might be, it's gone because she's said it so many times that they're like, oh, there's that five star review. Yes. And so it's like, whether it's that or whether it's, by the time we're done with this, you're going to be sending me, all your friends to buy and sell their homes. You know what I mean? Whatever you want to adapt it to pick your path. But if you hit that all the way through the entire process, it doesn't become at the end where you're like, so if you or your friends are.

00:27:07 - Tanya Bugbee

Ever looking for an agent, oops, I forgot to ask. And they'll say, yeah, bad, close, but I forgot to ask. Right. And you have to have fun with it. I don't want it to be scripted. It's like before I hand you keys to this house and you want this key, right? Just have fun with it. And one time I want you to say it face to face right in front of them. But then maybe it might be a note or maybe it's a text or it's a QR code at some point, but have fun with it.

00:27:33 - Mike Mills

Do you all have any tactics or tactics, wrong word maybe, but ways that you coach your clients to. So you're always going to have the email, right? Because you're sending them stuff back and forth. You're typically going to have their phone number. So that's there. Obviously you have their name, you're going to have their new home address because they're moving into it. Right. But things like their birth date maybe, or their anniversary, like of their marriage or their kids birthdays or their hobbies, is there anything that you coach people on trying to gather and how to gather that information in? Not as intrusive way.

00:28:07 - Tanya Bugbee

Right. Well, a lot of my clients will just have an information form that they hand them when they're onboarding them as a new buyer. Or maybe the seller. Depends. If the seller is moving to Alaska, you might not need as much information right. If you're in Texas. So onboarding on Facebook, if they're on Facebook, the birthday is right there on Facebook. If they put it in. Right. Maybe they didn't put the birthday in. Right. Just ask.

00:28:29 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Well, that database can be such a powerful thing that if you really focus on it and make it a part of your day to day activities where, I mean, look, how many clients is an agent actually working with in a 30 day period of time, right? Maybe five to ten in a good period of time. Like, they may not be closing, but maybe they're looking or they're listing or whatever, but it's not like it's 100, right? We're talking less than double digits, right? Ten to 20 maybe at the most. Well, in that period, if you're doing real estate activities, it doesn't take very long to go on Facebook and find out all you need to know about them. It doesn't take very long to do a little. It doesn't take very long to fill out your excel spreadsheet and upload it into your system. It's that focus on a particular task and making that a priority. Because we just all chase squirrels all day long, that if you implant it into your daily routine, whether it is every morning when I wake up before I have my cup of coffee, I'm going to put three people in my database, or every night before I go eat dinner or stop working at 430, it's on my calendar, I'm going to input two people or I'm going to research my three clients and make sure I have all their data. Because if your data is robust and you have a lot of information, it opens up the door for so many points of contact and so many reasons why you can stay in touch.

00:29:44 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah. Okay. So any client, if they're listening to this or they listen to this in the future, Mike, and I'm going to say this, they're going to roll their eyes. Every single one of my clients, I encourage them strongly to have a checklist.

00:29:55 - Mike Mills

Yeah, checklists are great.

00:29:57 - Tanya Bugbee

Just checklist, checklist, everything. Have a roadmap. Have a checklist. When you're pending on my checklist. Okay. I want to start doing the pending dialogue. I want to get a referral before we cloSe. Have it on a checklist. It makes your life easier than keeping everything up here. And at some point, the goal is to have somebody helping you. Right. If it's an assistant who could be helping you with these things and they can't read your mind, so have it on a checklist. Make your life.

00:30:25 - Mike Mills

That's your process. Right? One of my favorite books. I don't know if you've read it before. I'm sure you probably have atomic habits. I love this.

00:30:32 - Tanya Bugbee

One of my favorites.

00:30:33 - Mike Mills

And one of the main points of the book is it kind of talks trash about goals in a roundabout way. Right? It's like, goals, goals, goals. Who cares, right? Goals don't matter. What matters is the process that you build to achieve that goal.

00:30:47 - Tanya Bugbee

Absolutely.

00:30:48 - Mike Mills

That's the point, right? Because the goal means nothing if you don't have a roadmap to get there. And what you're talking about with the checklist, people hate the checklist. But. But what it is, is. And there's a guy that I really like. There was a book written about him, sort of. But he's on Twitter a lot. He's like a venture capitalist. His name is Novel Ravicant. If you don't know who he is, just check him out. He's great. And he has a lot of, if you go to his Twitter feed, he's a quote guy. He'll give some sort of, I want to call him inspirational quotes, but just things that he believes and says. And he did this Twitter storm where he had like 100 of them all out. Well, they wrote a book about it. But anyway, in this he talks about leverage, and leverage being a way to grow and compound your business. And leverage comes basically in three forms. You have leverage of people, which is collaboration. So you have people that work for you, people that you pay, your friends, your family, whatever. That's collaboration. You have capital, right? Capital is money. So if you have money to spend on a coach or you have money to spend on a software system for your business, or whatever the case may be, that's capital. That's another form of leverage. And then last one that he talks about is coding. Now, in his world, because he's a software guy, he talks about coding in the sense of, I can create this program that I can sell to people or that they can buy, that they can use and work through, and I don't have to be involved. In other words, I'm out of the process, so it's making money for me when I'm not there. Right. Well, I look at that as coding, as no different than coding your business. You can code processes into your business that will create habits and practices that not only can you do without thinking, it can be automatic for you, because it's just there. Something that you do every day. But also, like you said, when you're ready to take a step back and hire someone to do things for you. You've already built the code or the software or the process to hand over to them that anybody can do as long as you've put it together well. And none of that happens if you don't write things down. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do that. You're like, well, I know how to do this. Okay, that's fine, but. Right? I mean, it's like brushing your teeth. First you have to put the toothbrush on the toothbrush, then you have to brush your teeth. It's like, well, that sounds simplicity or whatever. It's like, yes, it is. But when you're four years old, it's not. Right. And so as you grow in your business, these things become more and more complicated. And yeah, you might have written a process to set up your listing that you never have to look at because you've done it 100 times or 1000 times, but it's there and it's coded into your work and you can then duplicate that over and over and not have to duplicate yourself.

00:33:17 - Tanya Bugbee

Right. Or. Yes. And when clients will say, well, I got this new listing and I don't want to put anything out in the universe, too, too negative. But my mom had got COVID and then my daughter is really sick, so I didn't do anything. I just couldn't think. I didn't do anything to market this listing because I want them with my clients. If you get a listing, I want another one in that neighborhood or somebody in the neighborhood who knows somebody who wants to sell. But so there's really specific marketing to do that. And so many times it's like, well, I didn't do it. If it's in writing and you're following a checklist when bullets are flying, as long as you can look at that checklist, at least some of it will get done.

00:34:06 - Mike Mills

Yes. And you're going to miss things. Like you said, some of it you're going to miss, but that's okay, right? Because it's there and you can always go back to it. If you do miss it versus it's not there, it falls off your radar completely and then you never think about it again.

00:34:19 - Tanya Bugbee

No, that's why we want listings. Right. So we can get more listings. So do the five steps to get another listing and I get life happens. And maybe I did two out of the five, but I don't want zero.

00:34:32 - Mike Mills

Yeah, it's better than zero. Even if you're going to get back on, I mean, it's like anything. Nobody's perfect at everything all the time. We're just always trying to get a little bit better every day and better at what we're doing and the process that we build and everything else. I mean, I tell agents often whenever they refer me clients, they'll send me somebody to call or they'll say, hey, I talked to so and so or whatever, and then I'll shoot them a text or I'll call them and leave a voicemail if they don't answer or whatever. And then I'll check back with the agent a couple of days later and I'm like, hey, I haven't heard from so and so. I reached out to them again, just letting you know I kind of keep them in the or was trying to touch base with them. Have you heard from them? And they're like, man, I don't understand. They were so ready to go as soon as I got off the phone with them. I called you and you sent a message. I'm like, I know, but you have to understand that life happens, like you said, right? Life happens. And that person might have been sitting at their desk at home looking on Zillow or looking through MLS and going, man, I really think I want to buy a house. And maybe we're listing ours or whaTever. And then you talk to them, they're excited, they're ready to go, they hang up the phone and then their kid walks in the door and broke their arm or their husband comes home and lost their job or whatever the case may be. And then their whole attention and focus is on something completely different. And all it took was one little thing to happen in their life and that occurred. And you have to understand that and build systems around that to know that just because you called them and they weren't interested right then doesn't mean they're not going to be interested in two months or three weeks or six months or whatever.

00:35:59 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah, and we got to get them refocused. And just to build on something, you said, when a realtor for you sends their client your information, I am just going to coach you up on this one. Get them to do a three way text or a three way email and do an introduction. Don't just send it out into the universe because like you say that your realtor might have handed them your business card, but it got lost underneath the.

00:36:24 - Mike Mills

Car seat or something all the time.

00:36:26 - Tanya Bugbee

Yes, right. Or it gets lost somewhere in that hole of that purse or whatever. So please do. A three way intro is way more powerful and.

00:36:35 - Mike Mills

Yeah, yeah. Well, and then everybody's kind know in a nice way, accountable to each other. Right. Because then you're on there, the clients on there, the lender, the insurance, whoever's on, you know, if I don't respond right away, you're like, hey, Mike, I sent you this message. What are you doing? Right? You need to be talking to this person. Or if I send a message right away and then we don't hear from the client for two days, we're like, hey, man, we're all here. Let us know if you need know. So everybody's kind creates. I love that because it creates a certain amount of accountability for everyone.

00:37:06 - Tanya Bugbee

And it's not a stranger calling a stranger. Right. It's a nice, soft introduction. Like, here's Mike. He's great. Want to introduce you. You both love. It's just, it's nice.

00:37:20 - Mike Mills

So I want to pivot just a little bit because we're in, obviously an entirely new world here. Right. The markets change dramatically. So what are you telling your clients right now as far as how to deal with these challenges when you're looking at high interest rates, high home prices, people a little bit less ready to sell or maybe even less excited to buy? What kind of strategies for touching base with clients and walking them through this? Are you giving your coaching clients to kind of help them navigate this quite a bit?

00:37:55 - Tanya Bugbee

First and foremost is really rolling up our sleeves and getting to work and staying in touch with their database because they're just as confused and scared about the interest rate. I ask if my clients go to answerthepublic.com and you can Google what the homeowners are Googling and it'll tell you interest rates is the number one Googled item right now. Then get with your lender and do a video. Get on a live with Mike. Right. Educate your people. So don't hide from what they're Googling. So find out what your buyers and sellers are Googling and deal with it in a phone conversation and a live with somebody. So being in touch, not hiding.

00:38:40 - Mike Mills

Yes.

00:38:40 - Tanya Bugbee

Right.

00:38:41 - Mike Mills

Get out there in the public, let.

00:38:42 - Tanya Bugbee

Everybody know what you're doing and be their lighthouse.

00:38:45 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Are you seeing a lot of pushback on still with social media as far as getting out there? I know, but what is it that makes that such a challenge? Because the impact of it, it can't be understated. So I'm just curious what you're telling your folks that are really pushing back on you. With that.

00:39:08 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, what's one step? Can you do a video with somebody? I have one person who doesn't like how they look on video. Okay. Can we go to the house and maybe stand in front of the house and show the curb appeal and say something? Or do you need handholding and do one with Mike? So I have to figure out what's going to help with that one step. Some people just flat out refuse to go on video. Well, then, okay, let's get on Instagram. Let's get on Facebook. Let's do some posts.

00:39:40 - Mike Mills

Do you think it's a little bit lack of just involvement? Because especially, look, I'm a part of the older generation these days. I'm 45. So is it us old folks that just don't want to change what we do and we don't want to go on social media and we think it's a waste of time or whatever? I know there's a certain level of being uncomfortable with it. Do you think it's more about uncomfortability or do you think it's people just like, there's no purpose to that? It doesn't do any good?

00:40:06 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, again, that's what's between our two ears. Yes. And so you're a baby for me. I'm 60. Right. And so I'm here live. I do video. I have a live show. That's my coach pushing me out of the nest. If I have a more mature client, they're like, well, my clients aren't on video.

00:40:24 - Mike Mills

Yeah.

00:40:25 - Tanya Bugbee

And I promise you they are 80 year olds. Because my mother is 82 and she's still a real estate agent. I promise you she scrolls through Instagram or Facebook reels. Right.

00:40:34 - Mike Mills

There's a reason that the Facebook scams get everybody. Because the old folks are always on Facebook.

00:40:39 - Tanya Bugbee

Yes. So I promise you my mom's on Facebook scrolling through reels. Right. So they're there. But the self talk is my clients aren't.

00:40:50 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Yeah. Which is not true. It's just not. Yeah. And that's the hard part, is when someone says something like that, it's like, look, the sun is blue. You're like, no, it's not. I don't know what to say to that. It's not blue, it's yellow or whatever. But it is a challenge whenever you have somebody that just is kind of obstinate about it. But I think what a lot of people struggle with is that the concept of social media and it being where you're going to go viral or you're going to have a million views or whatever, especially in the terms of a business is not the point. Right. That is not the .1 of your other coaching clients, Cody Durham, who is. I'm helping him do a podcast with.

00:41:35 - Tanya Bugbee

Don't tell him, but he's one of my favorite.

00:41:36 - Mike Mills

Yeah, no, no, Cody's great. He's a great dude. But we talked a little. He wanted to do, or he had come to me and said, I'm thinking about doing a podcast. I'm like, you absolutely should, 100%. And one of the things that we were talking about in that was, I.

00:41:49 - Tanya Bugbee

Wonder who pushed him to do that.

00:41:51 - Mike Mills

You did. Yes, 100%. He's like, Tanya, she's like, I got to do this. I'm like, yes, I know. I agree. Yes, you absolutely should. But he came to me originally, and he was know, we want to walk through people about what to expect when they get their roof inspected, know if they make a claim, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, you got three episodes there, so what else are you going to do? And he's like, well, I don't know, actually. And I said, okay, so here's the thing about this podcast platform is if you're doing a podcast for a consumer that's going to purchase or use the roof or whatever, you're not going to get, because people don't care about their roof until they need something done, and they're not going to go listen to a 45 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever podcast about it. But what you can do is you can create a podcast that's about your industry, and you can talk to other roofers and other people in your industry, because insurance. Because there's a lot of information that goes back and forth that people in the business want to hear and want to find out, because everybody's always trying to educate themselves. And what that does for you is that endears you to clients. Because then if they do go look for you when they're ready to get something done, they see that you're everywhere, right? You have a podcast. You do little clips. Every once in a while, you post stuff on Facebook. Because social media is more about third party validation than it is about trying to go viral or be somebody that everybody's looking at. It's more when your clients, for you example, too, right?

00:43:16 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah.

00:43:17 - Mike Mills

Is it weekly or is it monthly? It's weekly, right. Alive every week.

00:43:21 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah. I stopped for a couple of months for personal reasons, and so I'm going back live next week. And it is. It's every Thursday. 04:00 p.m. Pacific and I revamped it. So yes, I go live and I'll get that out there in the next couple of days.

00:43:37 - Mike Mills

But your live is there for if clients and potential coaching clients want to find out more about you, right? They need to see you. They need to hear what you have to say.

00:43:48 - Tanya Bugbee

They need to know your personality. Gives you a lot of credibility. Gives me credibility. Most of my business I get through referrals and a little bit through social media and they're going to Google me. Right. So even if it's a referral, the first thing they're going to do is Tanya Bugbee coach and they'll see that I'm active on LinkedIn and have 6000 followers and stuff like that. So the credibility piece is important.

00:44:11 - Mike Mills

Right? And that's what I think the agents miss on, is that they think, well, I'm making a video for people to watch. It's like, no, even if nobody watches it, but two people, it doesn't matter because, well, all you're doing is you're basically just putting your resume out online. It's essentially what it. And so somebody wants to go to LinkedIn or someone goes to YouTube or someone goes to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever and they look for you or just Google you, then you're going to pop up and they're going to see you. They're going to go, okay, I see this person. I see who they are. I see what they talk about. Now does that mean they may go, I don't think I'm going to gel with that guy or that gal. Right? Absolutely.

00:44:45 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, it will happen. We attract the right clients. And you're right, I believe in coaching. I have a coach. Right. But it doesn't mean I haven't interviewed them. It's like he's not a good match. Yes, he or she's a great match. Right? Yeah.

00:45:02 - Mike Mills

So what type of, speaking of technology, because everybody's terrified of social media and videos, but got to get there if you're not there. The other side of technology is there are a lot of apps, there's lots of software programs these days. There are lots of tools that are available that can really streamline. I use AI more. I could literally run a class on AI. I'm a chat GPT veteran. What other tools, or if you want to speak to that One too, that you recommend to agents to use to kind of make their job easier to streamline everything. I mean, you mentioned CRMs earlier. Are there any particular ones that you think are great what are your thoughts on that?

00:45:40 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, as far as I'm going to go to chat GPT first and AI, I highly recommend it. And I know a lot of agents. The first thing they did was their MLS descriptions, right? And they're loving MLS descriptions. But that's great for a newsletter, it's great for a video topic or ask chat to GPT. What are the top things buyers are looking for right now? GPT will tell you.

00:46:03 - Mike Mills

Yes, it will.

00:46:03 - Tanya Bugbee

It will absolutely tell you really fast. I use it all the time. It helps me with my LinkedIn posts. But I will say, I'm writing for LinkedIn. I'm a business coach. Here's my topic, right? I take it, I put it into a word doc and then I make it my own. Yes, absolutely right. I do not take it directly from Chat GPT. I then put it in, I put my own flare. I use a lot of sailing metaphors or I'll use superpower metaphors. So I put my own flair in it. Highly recommend it.

00:46:35 - Mike Mills

Chat GPT Specifically, I use it a lot for the podcast because what I will do is like the little video that I shot today or last night, I was a little behind the eight ball because I moved it up a day that I'm used to. So I'm like running the last minute to get all done, but my little promo video that I did, which those things do great because they do well after people see them, then they go find whatever. But I'll take the script that I wrote for that on what I was going to say, and I'll just plug that into Chat GPT and I'll say, okay, I wrote the script usually, but then I'll go, here's the episode I'm going to do. Create a LinkedIn post promoting this episode or create a Facebook real caption. And it does it. I just copy and paste. And for little things like that, that can really, you'd be surprised. Doing stuff like that can take you ten or 15 minutes. Okay, well, no, I don't want to word it like that. And you're sitting there and thinking, but if I Read through it and it's like, that's good enough, take that, put it in there. But what it also does, which is what you said, is that exact same. Like I can take the transcript of this podcast and I can take a paragraph or two, and I can take the transcript, just stuff that we said, drop it in chat GPT and say, create a blog post or article about this particular subject and it'll write out a very professional, very eloquent article that, just like you, I will go in and I will edit and I will make sure it doesn't sound like me and doesn't sound like somebody else, but it gives you the framework so you don't have to spend hours doing this. And it can literally write an entire blog, an entire article, an entire post for you in 30 seconds, and you can edit it in about two minutes. And now you have all this content from one little thing.

00:48:11 - Tanya Bugbee

Yeah, that's another great tip. I have a mastermind group, so everybody I coach can get the third Friday every month. My clients get on a call, right? So they get to know each other. Most are realtors, lenders, but not everybody. Like you said, Cody's a roofer. I coach an attorney. They can all get on and just like, what's happening? Well, I need help. Any great ideas, and I will sit there in the chat and go, this was a post because someone was saying, hey, I have a buyer. We wrote an offer, they changed their mind. We wrote an offer, they changed their mind. Third time. I now have to have a conversation. We can't keep doing that. That's a post. Yes, right? I'm like, I need a little sign that says, that's a post.

00:48:50 - Mike Mills

Yes. You should, by the way, you should get a sign every time on the call. You just hold it up. You don't have to say it.

00:48:59 - Tanya Bugbee

My clients are ghosting me. I keep texting them. Well, what do you do when clients ghost you? How do you prevent that from happening? That's a post, right?

00:49:07 - Mike Mills

Post, yes.

00:49:08 - Tanya Bugbee

But put it into chat, GPT, they'll get you going. Because not everybody is creative that way. I'm not. I know my superpowers in coaching and I know my kryptonite in writing. Right. So I love tat. GPT.

00:49:20 - Mike Mills

No, it has a ton of benefits to you and you should get really familiar with it. Hey, Marianne, how are you doing? She popped in there. So, any other types of apps for planning or scheduling or, you know, is there a CRM that you think is especially good?

00:49:34 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, there are a lot of good know. I worked for Buffying company as one of their top coaches for seven years, so I know that CRM very well. However, a lot of my clients use whatever their broker uses. So if it's KVCore, whatever, I just want them to use a CRM on a coach call. When we're on Zoom, they can share their screen, log me in, and I can help them with their pipeline. But have something, right. I'm not going to tell them what to use. There are some programs, I have a lot of clients that have teams, right? So they'll use a program for Tanya because Tanya can create a roadmap. So from the day you meet somebody, when do I do this? When do I do that? When do I remind them to turn on or off utilities? Tanya creates a phenomenal roadmap and you can color code it or this is what my assistant's going to do. This is what I do. And Tanya will then give the right person the reminder. So anything like that to make your life easier. I have one client who's phenomenal, and he uses Google, Google Calendar, Google reminders. It's all, I mean, he shows me his calendar and it blows me away. He puts me to shame with everything, how it's color coded and he has anniversary reminders six months after closed. Know, his brain works that way for Google. So I can't tell you what to, again, use something and I'll adapt to it.

00:50:58 - Mike Mills

There's a great tool that I just recently discovered that I love. Now I'm actually my daughter because she's 16 and she has to have a job now because I told her, I'm like, look, there's no free ride in this world. Like, you're going to have to figure, you got a car, you got to pay for gas and insurance, you want to run town. Like, you got to figure it out. And of course, these days, because maybe my wife and I didn't parent the best, they don't have a real good understanding of what work is. And so we're going to get them out into the world. They're going to figure it out really quickly. But I've been trying to create, I kind of drive home to her, like, look, you don't want to work for other people. You want to work for yourself and create your own path, but you're going to have to work for other people and you know how to do it. So she's doing some stuff for me. Well, with her, and we're very much the same. We're the same human being, which, know, I'm sure you know, when you're mixing with somebody that's like you in a doesn't, it doesn't always go well. So we butt heads a lot. So what I found was, and I found this was Tim Ferriss is a podcast that I listen to a lot of times, and he has guys from, and I don't even remember where this guy was from, but they were talking about processes because I'm obsessed with that kind of stuff. And one of the tools that he talked about is something called Loom. Have you heard of Loom?

00:52:07 - Tanya Bugbee

Do you know what? It's similar. That's another program. I think it's great.

00:52:12 - Mike Mills

It is awesome because it sounds like you look at it and it's not even what it is. It's how you use it that's so impressive. Or how people use it. Because if you just were to tell me, okay, there's a thing that you can download on your computer that will record you and it will record your screen at the same time. And you can send people videos. You're like, okay, well, I mean, there's a lot of things that do that. I could record it on my phone, like, who cares? But when you put it into the context of, let's say, with a real estate agent, right, and you're going to pull up your one to four contract, and you're going to record yourself filling out the contract for your client on an offer that you're about to submit. Okay. And as you go through that, you're going to narrate what you're doing. All right, I'm putting in the address. Oh, I got to make sure I look up what the description is. So I go to the county website and I copy and paste it. Here's where the county website is. This house is in this county. I go to this page, I find it here, and then I put it in. And then I go down to this part and I check this box because of blah, blah, blah, and I put the price in. And then I call the lender to make sure I got this information. And you go through the whole entire thing. Well, what you've just done when you've created that is back to what we were talking, talking about a minute ago. You've just created a process for your business that you can now have forever because any other person. Loom. Yes, Nancy Loom. L-O-O-M. Any person that works for you. Any person like your contract, you know, because remember back in the day where when you had to train somebody, you had to go sit with them for like 2 hours and go through like, no, click that or walk them through. You don't have to do that anymore. Now you can. Like with my daughter, I was telling her how to update old podcasts and change some of the titles and put in descriptions. And I use an AI software that does that and download how to download stuff from Streamyard and put it in. So all I did was I created like five looms for all of these steps. And I sent them all to her and gave her just a brief description of what I wanted to do, and she had zero questions for me. It was a very complicated thing that I was having to do, especially if you've never done it before. Right. But because I laid it all out very plainly, it was coming from my words, and I'd never have to recreate that. And the really cool thing about Loom, that particular program, because it's designed for this, is that on the paid feature, there's an AI piece of it that will take what you said. It'll transcript your entire video and create a bullet point line out for it. So if you want to have it in text and you want to have it in video, you have both. And you literally just did what you always do, which is fill out a contract and you talked about it, why you did it, and now you have this process that you've created in no time at all, right?

00:54:45 - Tanya Bugbee

Yes. And when you have an assistant and they leave for whatever reason, either they get fired or they get pregnant or they're being transferred or whatever. Right. You have it all right there for your next assistant because I can't tell you the overwhelm. I'm coaching somebody right now whose assistant didn't quite work, and so she's hiring a new one. Fortunately, she listened to 80% of the advice was, have your assistant create her job. And I say this very respectfully, but remember those books for dummies? Microsoft for dummies. I want that for your assistant's job. Because as much as you might love your assistant, doesn't mean they're not going to retire or they're working for you forever, or they get pregnant, whatever it is. Now you have this book for your next assistant. Loom would be great.

00:55:30 - Mike Mills

Yeah, no, that tool for me, I'm like, I'm using it all the time now. I have a loom addiction. I think it's a problem.

00:55:38 - Tanya Bugbee

I haven't started using it, but now you've inspired me to do that. I have a VA for my.

00:55:43 - Mike Mills

It wasn't, again, if somebody had put it to me to where, hey, there's this thing you can get on your, know, you download Google. It's an, you know, record your video, know, record your screen while you're doing stuff, I'd be mean. That sounds. I've seen other things like that. But when I listened to the Tim Ferriss podcast and this guy was discussing how they used it in their application of it, that's the part that I was like, oh, my. Like, I didn't even think about it like that. Right. And so once you put things, and again, this goes back to the coaching side of things, is when you were talking about earlier, about having your sessions everywhere, you do, like, a group call. Right? What did you call it?

00:56:21 - Tanya Bugbee

Your mastermind calls.

00:56:22 - Mike Mills

Mastermind call, yeah. So when you do your mastermind call, you have years and hours of experience of things all on one place at one time. And the amount of information that you can pick up from that, the amount of stuff that you can get and the knowledge that you get from those calls and from those talks is immeasurable because you would have to spend hours on YouTube or any kind of online service trying to answer this question that you're trying to answer versus sitting in a room with 20 or 30 other professionals that have been doing things. And I guarantee you someone's going to have an answer to that question. It may not be the perfect answer, but they're going to have something that's going to get you started down the right road.

00:57:00 - Tanya Bugbee

Right, exactly. That answer might not, like you said, might not be the answer, but it's going to spark that next answer that you didn't even think of. The mastermind calls are great. I coach a lot of real estate agents, so sometimes it's hard for everybody to show up, but when a lot show up, magic happens. Right.

00:57:23 - Mike Mills

I hope you record all those.

00:57:25 - Tanya Bugbee

I do. I tend not to share them, though.

00:57:28 - Mike Mills

No, you don't have to share them. It's for your own purpose.

00:57:30 - Tanya Bugbee

I don't want to show up. It's like, LaTanya's going to record it and I can just listen to it. But, no, you got to show up to make the magic happen. Right. So, yes, I record them, but I don't want to.

00:57:40 - Mike Mills

Then that way it comes. Yeah, no, I get that 100%.

00:57:43 - Tanya Bugbee

I'm just saying that I record them. Obviously, they know I'm recording it.

00:57:46 - Mike Mills

Well, you can take those recordings, and then you can turn those into all kinds of stuff for your business as well.

00:57:51 - Tanya Bugbee

For that, in every single one, there's probably 20 in every single mastermind call for me and for my clients. But I coach brokers that share stuff to newbies. The sharing in the community that I've created. I don't want to say I created. Let me backtrack that. That we've created.

00:58:12 - Mike Mills

Yes.

00:58:12 - Tanya Bugbee

Because I do very little of the work in those mastermind calls.

00:58:15 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, I mean, the work is putting the people together, and that, again, goes back to what I was talking about, the leverage, the three C's of leverage. That is collaboration. That's what that one is. When you get that many brains in a room, you're going to come up with a lot of good things and good ideas. Now, again, back to the very beginning of what we said. Ideas are awesome, ideas are great, goals are amazing. But if you don't act on those and create steps to get there, then it don't matter even if you plan it.

00:58:44 - Tanya Bugbee

Right. I can spend hours planning all of 2024 and planning their marketing, but they've got to execute it. Yeah, that's my next business. Hire me for 90 days, fly me to Dallas, and I'll do it for you for 90 days. I'm really good.

00:58:57 - Mike Mills

Just to show you how it works.

00:58:59 - Tanya Bugbee

To show you how it works.

00:59:00 - Mike Mills

Yes, absolutely. So we're almost at an hour, and I want to be respectful of your time because I know you got a lot of stuff going on. But two other things before we go. Number one is, and I'll tell you what number two is happening, but number one is take your crystal ball out. You talk to agents all the time. You pay attention to all this stuff. And again, we're not doom and gloom here, but we are reality. Where is our real estate market going to be headed over the next five to ten years? Are we getting back to super low rates and everybody's selling a bunch of homes or where are we going with that?

00:59:32 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, I wish I had a crystal ball for you, Mike. Yeah, I know. You're not going to go back to three or 2% rates. No. Right. What I do know is that we have to get back to work. We lost a lot of muscles on customer service, negotiation skills, all kinds of things that we lost during COVID So what I do foresee is the agents that are going to make it are the ones that lean into community, the ones that lean into coaching, the ones that really take. Yes. I'm running a business, and I better be working 20 hours a week on growing my database and marketing, not just working in the business. So is real estate here to stay? Yes. Is it changing? Yes, of course. We haven't talked much about NAr. There are a lot of things, and they're appealing. Some of the things that's happening through the NAR litigation. I don't know what's going to happen, but is buyer agency going to change? Yes.

01:00:29 - Mike Mills

Well, we're going to dive into NAr. I think we talked a little bit next time on your side of things. We're going to Discuss that because I got all kinds of opinions on that as well. And then the last thing I want to ask you then, too, is if a new client calls you and says, hey, Tanya, I'm ready to take the plunge. I really need some coaching because I got to. And even the word coaching, sometimes I struggle. It's. I like the word accountability, because, again, it's one thing to have plans and goals and even processes, but if you don't have yourself or someone accountable to you to say, hey, did you do it? Because even I've talked to Mary Ann before. She's like, I got to call Tanya today, and she's going to ask me if I did the thing that I told her I was going to do last week and I haven't done anything.

01:01:11 - Tanya Bugbee

Marianne does 90% of her action steps. Everybody I coach. Right. Marianne is on the top of the list of who gets things done. Yeah.

01:01:19 - Mike Mills

But she still struggles with it.

01:01:21 - Tanya Bugbee

Know. I know.

01:01:22 - Mike Mills

So what would you tell somebody coming to, to, how is your program set up and what are your goals when you get a new client?

01:01:31 - Tanya Bugbee

When I get a new client, I want to know their vision and what they like, what they don't like, what their superpowers are. So a lot of the first hour or 2 hours is really diving in, finding where their confidence level is, their belief system on sales, and then I know where to start. Like, I have to meet them where they're at. So I need to know where they're at. Right. And it's not just, I've closed four homes and I'm making 60,000. I mean, yes, I want to know that, too, but there's so much more. And then I want to know the end. And then my job is to get them there. Right. We're both driving in the front seat of the car. Right. Like when you fly an airplane. When I was learning to fly, I sat in the pilot seat. The copilot still had full control. Right. So it's kind of like we're both there, and I've got to figure out the plan. And sometimes the first plan doesn't work. It's like the analogy I use on this is like, you'll get the keto diet or the grapefruit diet, and someone will do the grapefruit diet, and it didn't work. So I cAn't diet. No. We got to come up with Plan B. Maybe it's Plan Z, and I don't want it to take two years to figure it out. I want it maybe best to do that in two or three coach calls, but I'm pretty good at figuring out where their superpowers are. And we start with that plan and then they have to execute it. And then if they're not executing it, it's my job to find out what's the obstacle. Is it fear of success, fear of failure, fear of rejection, time blocking? I know that sounds super simple, but it's not for some people. Some people don't see time the way I see time. So I've got to really dive into what's the obstacles that are getting in the way so that we get to the end. And then what's next after that, Mary, what next? She's got a big. What's next?

01:03:23 - Mike Mills

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I mean, it's something, the coaching aspect of things, I think it's great. As a coach, you have a coach everybody needs. I mean, we all have coaches all the way through life. We just don't look at it like that. Because when we're children, we have our parents, right? Our parents are coaching us on how to live life. If you say, well, my mom and dad, but there was somebody in your life, it could have been a coach or it could have been a teacher or it could have been an uncle or a close family friend or whatever, but in your adolescence, growing up, there was somebody there that was helping you guide through life. Maybe they didn't give you the best advice, but they were doing their best, right? And then when you get to college years, your 18 to 25 year old or 28 year old, many times there isn't somebody guiding you, right? You're kind of out there on your own, and that tends to be when you make the biggest mistakes, which those mistakes tend to be your coach, by the way. Right?

01:04:16 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, mistakes are good. We learn from them. There's nothing wrong with them.

01:04:20 - Mike Mills

So you have that point in your life where the mistakes are piling up because you're doing a lot of stupid things because your brain is not fully developed and it's just part of life. HopefuLly the mistakes aren't too damaging, but you learn from those, right? And that's what happens. And then we get to this point where I kind of think, thinking about it, that's where this whole idea of a midlife crisis comes from, where someone gets you and they're like, what am I doing? Where am I wandering through? Because there's nobody there. The mentor thing was a big thing for a very long time in society, where you had somebody, if you were going to be a blacksmith and that's what you wanted to be. You worked under an extremely experienced blacksmith, and they were going to show you how it all worked, and they were there and you weren't making a lot of money or whatever, but you were figuring it out. You were learning from somebody. That's where the entire Star wars thing, it's the Jedi master and the Padawa. You have to have somebody that's helping you guide your way through, and if you don't, then it's going to be a real struggle. There are people that exist that don't need it, right? They can just.

01:05:19 - Tanya Bugbee

Or they became very successful. It just took them longer. Right. Coaches tend to make things more efficient, more effective. We can see some speed bumps, but it doesn't mean you're not going to get there. I don't want people to think they can't get there. It just might take longer or it's harder, or you got distracted by lots of shiny objects that we help you not get distracted by. But I'll give you a great example. Yesterday, I was on my coach call, and I've had a family member that's had some major health problems. So I stopped my live show, and I was talking to my coach yesterday, saying, you know, I got to get out there, and I don't know how to. I'm really struggling with getting back out there, and I'm on social media, and what am I going to. Just like, my coach helped me see the forest past the trees. Tanya, get back on your live. It's right there in front of me. Right. But I'm like, I'm not sure what I need to do right now. And I was really struggling with that, and it was just right in front of me.

01:06:11 - Mike Mills

But having somebody point that out makes a huge difference.

01:06:15 - Tanya Bugbee

I probably would have figured it out a few weeks down the road or a month down the road, but again, I wasn't in a place to see it. And he showed me, like, yeah, get back on your lives. And I'm like, okay, next Thursday. Yeah.

01:06:28 - Mike Mills

Well, even if I'm using the blacksmith analogy, right. Can you figure out how to mold iron and stuff? Yeah, of course you can figure it out. I mean, if you've seen a general thing of how it works, you'll get there. It might take you a really long time to get there and a lot of toiling and in trouble to get there, but you can get there. But my point is saying that not everybody needs it. I think that's a very small segment of the population that just knows how to get there, and we'll figure it out. I think most of us need somebody in our life, whether it's a coach or whether it's a mentor or whatever you want to call it, that is someone there that's constantly pushing you just a little bit further. You got to go a little bit more. I mean, there's a reason that people that go to the gym and get a trainer at the gym that use those trainers regular, there's a reason they have more success than most people do, because there is a person there when they want to put that weight down one more time and go, okay, that's enough. They're like, no, you can do two.

01:07:17 - Tanya Bugbee

You got two more.

01:07:18 - Mike Mills

You can do two more. And they're like, but, no, do two more. Okay. I did it right. And now I overcame that hurdle, whereas it might have taken them mentally six months to do those two more if they didn't just have that person standing above them saying, no, you can do it. You're just not letting yourself do it. And we all need that to some degree.

01:07:36 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, another example, and I'll use myself, since coaching is so confidential. Also, I'll break confidentiality on my own story. About a year ago, my coach says, go live, Tanya. There's not enough people out there going live with what you can talk about. There's no way this 60 year old woman's not going live. Right? I'm a typical client. Right? I don't want to go live. Right.

01:07:58 - Mike Mills

I'm doing what everybody else.

01:08:01 - Tanya Bugbee

She introduced me to a phenomenal. He's a Texan. His name is Chris Hennessy. He's a live stream coach. So I actually hired him.

01:08:09 - Mike Mills

Okay.

01:08:09 - Tanya Bugbee

And I took his course, and it was about a three month course, and he gave me some one on one coaching, and he got me to go live. He pushed me out of the nest. The first time I went live was on his show, and then he promised when I went live on my own show, he'd be my guest. So I had some really great hands. So that's a baby step with the handholding. But, yeah, I was no way on this green earth, and you're getting me to go live, and here I am.

01:08:34 - Mike Mills

So there you are. Here we are, and you're live. No problem. It's not that big of a deal. It's easy stuff.

01:08:40 - Tanya Bugbee

No, I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for my coach. There's no way.

01:08:43 - Mike Mills

Got to have somebody there. Got to have somebody there pushing you. Well, Tanya, I greatly appreciate your time. Thank you for hopping on with me. I know we've had to move it a few times, so I apologize for that. So I appreciate you being flexible with me and making some adjustments. So this was great. Anybody out there looking to kind of up your game a little bit, especially as we get ready for right now is the time. If you want to start in January or February, you're going to be behind. You're going to be too late. You got to start now because it's going to make all the difference in the world. And whether you call Tanya or you have anybody that you can reach out to that can be that mentor and be that person that's going to guide you along the way, I think we all need that, and I think we're all better people if we can get it accomplished. Tanya, I appreciate your time. Anything you want to say before we go?

01:09:24 - Tanya Bugbee

Well, what I want to say is thank you to you, Mike. And I know I saw some NAR statistics the other day on how many realtors will be getting out of the market in 2024. And it's a lot. The numbers are huge. And I don't want any of you who are listening to be that stat. So get the help you need so that you're not one of those NAR statistics.

01:09:41 - Mike Mills

Well, and like I said in the very beginning, anytime there's difficulty, there's always room for opportunity, and you just have to find it and know where to look for. You know, there's a lot of people out there that can help you do so. All right, guys, have a great week and we will come back next week. I will actually have Amy Cornell. She's a local broker here in Arlington. I've actually had her on here a couple of times, but she's been in the real estate industry for 25 years, title Mortgage Broker. She's done it all. And she's very involved. She ran for mayor. She was very involved in Arbor. So she knows all kinds of stuff about Nar and what's going on there. So we're going to really dive deep into that because I have all kinds of opinions on this and so does she. And then also, too, at some point, I think Tanya and I are going to hop on, on one of her lives and we're going to talk about this as well. So if you want to know what's going on with that and kind of get the ins and outs on how it's going to affect you, come check it out. All right, guys, have a great weekend. We'll see you next time. Bye.