Easy Deals Are Dead—Time to Fight for Your Sales with Mie Yamashita

[00:00:00] Mie: And I don't care if you've been in the business for 20 years and you're like Nick and you've sold 5, 000 plus homes. Or you're a brand new agent who has never spoken to, you know, a potential client. No one is above sharpening their sword. No one is above getting better and dialing in on their opportunities.

[00:00:15] Mie: And so whether you're, you know, recruiting, whether you're in production or you're leading agents and how do I navigate teaching them how to build up their skill set? You really need to help them understand how to identify where their gaps are, and then give them ample opportunities to practice that skill set to really develop it.

[00:00:33] Mie: Cause it doesn't just happen. You really have to work at it.

[00:00:41] Nick: Welcome back to the reside platform podcast. I'm your host, Nick McLean. I'm here with Mia Yamashita.

[00:00:48] Mie: Hey, how's it going?

[00:00:50] Nick: That's the first time I've ever said your last name. That's

[00:00:52] Mie: a very, it's a very Japanese last name.

[00:00:54] Nick: It's very Japanese at the end. We know each other because we work together at the reside platform and we've been improving agents development and their skills so they can sell more homes.

[00:01:05] Nick: And we were, we thought we'd do this podcast in the moment because we have been doing something called. Every single week we do role play with agents across North America, Canada, and the United States to improve their skills. And it's perfect timing because Gary Keller, I don't know if he's doing Keller Williams doing family reunion or just got done with family reunion as we're launching this.

[00:01:30] Nick: You said it's the first time you haven't gone in a decade or something.

[00:01:33] Mie: Yeah, seven years.

[00:01:34] Nick: Seven years. he posted brilliantly timely, but we also know this to be true. Easy deals are dead. So there we go. If easy deals are dead, that means hard deals. Are alive and hard deals require skills. So what's your take on that headline?

[00:02:00] Nick: Number one, Mia, as an agent, a developer of agents and skills and how that translates to sales and role play and then how to do a role play.

[00:02:09] Mie: How

[00:02:11] Nick: often, how long with who and how

[00:02:14] Mie: I'll talk about group first. one of the things that, , we really, push in our, reside sales training, uh, rise, which is reside intensive sales experience that we do with all of our agents and our team owners.

[00:02:26] Mie: Is, the benefits of roleplay. And it's not just like this pitch for roleplay so good and you need to do it because it makes you better, but we really, drill down into the nitty gritty of how impactful it is in your overall dollar per hour and how your skillset makes a massive impact on the amount of time you spend in the results you get from the time that you spend.

[00:02:45] Mie: But it's not just in that, that initial conversation that you have with a potential lead potential client lead, it's also in. the consultation, do you know what to say and how to get through the consultation? It's also in the,the pricing conversation or how to work through negotiations, how to keep a deal together.

[00:03:05] Mie: And so role playing, whether in a group setting or one on one is so much more than just, how to intro a phone conversation. It is, do you know how to navigate from the day you pick up the phone to the day you hit the closing table and do you actually have a concept or an awareness around your skill set gaps?

[00:03:24] Mie: And I think the other thing that I'll mention and we can open the conversation up further is it's not just for new agents. And I don't care if you've been in the business for 20 years and you, you're like Nick, and you've sold 5,000 plus homes, or you're a brand new agent who's never spoken to, a potential client.

[00:03:41] Mie: No one is above sharpening their sword. No one is above getting better and, and dialing in on their opportunities. And so whether you are, recruiting, whether you are in production or, or you're leading agents, and how do I. navigate, teaching them how to build up, build up their skill set.

[00:03:57] Mie: You really need to help them understand how to identify where their gaps are and, and then give them ample opportunities to practice that skill set to really develop it. Cause it doesn't just happen. You really have to work at

[00:04:10] Nick: it. Yeah. And role play is, should be part of the culture of a real estate team brokerage.

[00:04:18] Nick: And let me explain that. You might ask how often should I do role play? And I think everyone should schedule 30 minutes of role play a day, especially new agents. But I also think experienced agents should be role playing. We do that in the morning. Obviously, you'd want to do that in the morning before you get on the phone to sharpen your skills, get your mindset right, be prepared for objections that you're likely to handle.

[00:04:47] Nick: But you make a really good point, Mia. It's not just ring, ring, ring. Hi, I'm calling you because you just signed up on our website. Oh, I'm just browsing. Oh, you're just browsing. What areas you browsing in? that is 101 role play. I get it. That's why your experienced agents don't want to do role play anymore.

[00:05:09] Nick: But what about role playing? How to present the comparable market analysis to a seller? How to role play? How to get a higher commission? Because your experience agents probably get the same old commission all the time. So let's role play and challenge you and come at me with a higher commission so that you're prepared to even say it out loud because you've never said it before and then negotiate.

[00:05:35] Nick: how do you role play every single scenario, presenting to the listing agent, presenting to the buyer's agent, presenting a counter offer, delivering a low ball offer, delivering right. A counter offer that's not to your buyer's expectations, right? So you can get really detailed in the role play.

[00:05:53] Nick: Obviously when we want to increase conversion rates. So you might want to start there. Do you have any other tips in terms of role play? I think me as one of the best in terms of like games, you can play to keep it entertaining and fun and how to get people to volunteer to even say yes.

[00:06:11] Silence: We were

[00:06:13] Mie: joking that, after all these years, we finally figured out how to get people to phrase it to say. So instead, it was like, who wants to go first, which is my normal go to now. I say, who wants to improve their skills today? Or who's who's going to stand out and get better today? so that was a, that was a definite game changer.

[00:06:29] Mie: So as far as a group roleplay goes, I, I agree on the 30 minutes for one on ones. I like to see 15 minute one on one roleplays, but we can talk about one on ones at a, today or another time. But for, for the group roleplays, there's a few different ways you can play it depending on the dynamic. Now, Nick and I run a weekly script infernal for 30 minutes.

[00:06:49] Mie: With the agents and team owners in our organization, and we are exclusively on zoom. And so you can gamify things on a zoom a little bit differently than if you were in person, there are some things that you can do in person that are a lot more fun, like different in person drills. But if we're if we're talking about just being on zoom, and how can I do something either in zoom or in person on zoom or in person?

[00:07:13] Mie: One is, I like the I call it the roleplay snake. Where we, we go in a, a snake figure and we give an objection and they have to come up with a question for the objection. So instead of handling the objection, we teach them how to reframe it. So if I was to give the objection, any objection, I'm just looking instead of saying, Oh, you're just looking.

[00:07:37] Mie: That's great. Most of our clients, our best clients start out that way. It's a great time to get started. Now I'm handling the objection versus. You're, you're just looking excellent. Are you local to the area or are you moving? And so, we'll do a, you have to come up with a different question and we give them different objections.

[00:07:54] Mie: And if you can't come up with an objection, you're out. If you repeat the, or the question, excuse me, you're, you're out. So there's ways to gamify it. That's 1 way. head to head battles is really fun. we also recently did a, like where you try, it's called that's right, where, you try to understand what they mean by, they get very limited information, they're, they're prepped ahead of time, they get very limited information and the other agents have to try and understand what their three top motivators are based on that limited information.

[00:08:24] Mie: And when they finally get it right, they can say. That's right. But they have to ask a series of questions to get there. So that's, a few of them.

[00:08:31] Nick: Those are really, really good. And one I learned from Carrie Shoal, who's been on our podcast before, and in the show notes, we'll probably put that episode.

[00:08:39] Nick: She had this hot potato where she literally has. A stuffed animal or something, or like a nerf football or nerf ball. And it's in, this is live. So it's not zoom, but you could do it on zoom. If you just call people out and you're drilling a script or they need to pick up where the last person left off.

[00:08:59] Nick: Cause oftentimes, so here's how it works. It's okay, I'm just browsing. And then You have to, the person needs to ask the next question and then they ask the question and then the person responds. So it's the same buyer or the same seller. But then you're constantly, they have to throw the ball back to the leader and then they throw it to a new person.

[00:09:19] Nick: What's nice about that is it gets the entire group listening because oftentimes in role play where you have a battle going, people check out.

[00:09:28] Silence: Yeah. They're

[00:09:28] Nick: distracted, especially on zoom. They pretend they're paying attention. They're not paying attention. So the hot potato is awesome and it's fun and it's energetic and you can keep it going.

[00:09:39] Nick: People get stumped and you can, okay, throw it to somebody, you pick it up where you left off. So I really love that. That's really, really fun. The other thing about like when you have people head to head or just role playing and everyone's watching is. Make sure there's a culture of giving feedback so that they are required to pay attention because you're gonna ask somebody to give feedback.

[00:10:07] Nick: So it's nice that the team leader is there to give feedback, but don't always be the one jumping in.

[00:10:12] Silence: Yeah.

[00:10:13] Nick: Let other people do it. In fact, if I see somebody not paying attention, guess who I'm going to call out to give feedback on that role play? I'm, I'm going to send a message. Oh, I noticed you weren't paying attention, Jessica feedback, and she's going to be stumped, right?

[00:10:32] Nick: I mean, you have to control this. The other thing, and I don't, I want to get your opinion on this Mia is. An early leader, an early team leader like myself, when I was early in my days, I wanted to lead by example on everything. So I was the one to role play. I was the agent. I was the, you know what I mean?

[00:10:54] Nick: Like I wanted to show them how it's done. And now with our script Inferno, it's kind of nice. Like we're rare. We don't really role play. We're facilitating it. But then we give really good feedback.

[00:11:07] Mie: I think that is leading by example, by the way, like that's, that is the more effective form of leading by example is that you're showing up to the activity, but you're not taking up all the space and stealing their struggle.

[00:11:20] Nick: I learned that from you is just allow them to do it and stumble and, and work it out and then come in there and tweak some technique, tonality, principles that we might have on role play where we, where we differ. Mia is I want to drill. Specific standardized language, and you teach more of a holistic approach.

[00:11:46] Mie: That's what makes the dynamics so good in script Inferno is we're Nick and I could not be more different, but we have alignment and all of the most important areas like we were very passionate about agent development. We're very passionate about the skill set, and I think that, his pragmatism, and my holistic, I think they actually have this beautiful synergy.

[00:12:05] Mie: For our agents, because they're all, by the way, they're all different. And they're working with people that are all different. I, my big focus in,all of my training is always conversion competency, because agents tend to flock to just tell me exactly what to say. And when I was, an inside sales agent.

[00:12:22] Mie: Where I got started in real estate, I used to have my, scripts on the wall, and when I would be, making calls, I would be scanning the wall to try and find, the right objection handler. And I mean, don't get me wrong that that worked. For a while for what it needed to, but eventually I learned how to craft these responses without even having to really know what the answer was for the objection.

[00:12:45] Mie: I could, I could, I developed a competency on understanding what the person was saying. and so you give providing them the language and me providing them, the know how to how to use the language. I think it has been really effective.

[00:13:01] Nick: It's very, very effective. I had an idea recently. And when it comes to role play, oftentimes God and minutes are opportunities for role plays too.

[00:13:10] Nick: So think about these opportunities organically that show up in your office that are role play opportunities instead of the structure setting. Give me an example. Hey, Nick, I got a question. Oh, what's your question? Well, I'm writing an offer. Oh, you're writing an offer. Awesome. What are you writing an offer on?

[00:13:27] Nick: And they tell me, okay, great. What's your question? Here's my question. Okay. I, I may or may not answer that question. Typically I don't want to answer the question. I'm going to say, what do you think the answer is? Right. And that's really key. And then it's okay, now that we've talked about this scenario, let's talk about next steps.

[00:13:49] Nick: You're about to call the next person. That's. Let's play it. Let's play this out before it happens. You have a listing appointment. Awesome. Let's play this out. I'm always playing things out now. If it's after the fact, like an AA or after action review, they call me Nick. I don't know. I need some, I need some help, right?

[00:14:14] Nick: This didn't go well, or what should I do next? I screwed up or it went well. Awesome. Take me through it. Take me through line by line. The, the, the conversation. I want them to reflect on that. I think, I think reflection on what actually transpired is a sense of role play. Now let's do it again. If you were to do it again, how would it be different?

[00:14:37] Nick: Let's pretend I'm the seller come to me, right? Give me a go.

[00:14:42] Mie: The AAR is the feedback, that you would typically get in the role play. It's watching the tapes.

[00:14:47] Nick: and then it's let's do it again if you could do it, let's do it again right now. I'm the seller, right? I got a sense. Let's do it again.

[00:14:58] Nick: and in a group setting, this works really well with actual case studies. Where you don't give them the outcome, but you might have somebody Sarah has a question. Sarah had a scenario happen to him. Hey everyone. Here's the scenario. Let me play it out for you. Okay, I'm not gonna tell you the outcome.

[00:15:15] Nick: Okay, Sarah Don't tell him. Okay. Now that's that's Susan and Cory you're gonna play it out and I want to see what happens I want to see what happens, right? Because the result isn't always the same. Here's the thing about real estate. You can do everything right. And the result can be different.

[00:15:36] Nick: It's not a hundred percent the same all the time.

[00:15:41] Mie: No. When we all play practice, we, I always let them know. It's never going to be this way in real life. You don't need it to be this way in real life. That's not the, that's not the goal. The goal is, and I, I, okay, I have two things that I, that you said that I really want to remember to come back to if we end up having the time, but I, I want to say this first.

[00:16:01] Mie: The, when, when I teach roleplay, I compare it to a GPS. When I am, let's say I, I moved to a new town. I'm starting a new job. I have to be at my work, be at work at 9:00 AM I can't be later. I'll get fired when, but I don't know how to get there. I'm plugging the direction or the address into the Google Maps or Apple Maps, and I'm gonna follow every single prompt that it tells me.

[00:16:23] Mie: If it tells me to go left here, I'm gonna go left here. If it says right in two 50 feet, I'm going right in two 50 feet. And every time I take that trip. For a while, I'm going to be following the directions exactly verbatim that ,the maps tells me. Over time though, as I go, I'm going to start internalizing this route.

[00:16:42] Mie: I'm going to start recognizing landmarks. I'm going to start noticing the line of trees and my turn is coming. I'm going to look at the GPS a little bit less and a little bit less until eventually I have it memorized. And internalized. And now I, I've done this run enough times that I know I can take this back road over here and it'll get me there faster.

[00:17:00] Mie: Or, I can avoid, an issue over here, traffic over here. And I know, a different route to get there. And that's when you can start to customize, the route. And so when people are learning scripts. It's not about trying to make the script go exactly as planned in real life, which, by the way, will oftentimes more likely than not sabotage your ability to get to the close.

[00:17:20] Mie: I just need to learn how to actually get to the close when I get thrown off the route. And that's why I have to memorize how to get there. And then I can in turn that will in turn help me internalize it. And then I can customize that route. So scripting is not about trying to make it. Be exactly the way I think it should be in real life and get a specific outcome.

[00:17:41] Mie: It's that I know how to get to the end destination, no matter where, no matter which way it takes me. Yeah.

[00:17:45] Nick: And if you can, what happens is you, you start seeing Pat, they start picking up on some patterns too. And in real life too, but they also need to know that you need to practice multiple phases. I call them phases of flight, because when I was a pilot, there's,before taxi checklist, taxi checklist, before takeoff checklist, takeoff checklist, after takeoff checklist, cruise checklist, descent, approach, descent, before landing, landing, after landing.

[00:18:17] Nick: there's all these phases. And there's some things you do.

[00:18:27] Nick: So there's, there's things you say on that initial phone call that set you up for the buyer consultation or the listing consultation. Right? So for me, it's, there's the script on the phone and then there's a script. The script on the phone to get the appointment, then there's the script on the phone to set up the appointment, which is called the pre appointment script, and you can only unlock the pre appointment script when you set the appointment on the phone, and that sets up your appointment.

[00:18:59] Nick: And then you have the pre appointment preparation items, and then you have the appointment script in the consultation. So you have all these things. So sometimes let's say I have a successful role play and they set the appointment. And they may have skipped a couple of things. Awesome. Take me to the next step.

[00:19:18] Nick: Now take me to the next step. You are now meeting with Bob in the office. role play that for me right now, based on the conversation and information, take me through that right now. I get to see how they're gonna fumble along and what, what, what information didn't you get? Oftentimes on role play, it's what you said and what you acquired.

[00:19:41] Nick: I want to look at what didn't you ask? And what information didn't you acquire because it's rarely what you said that screwed it up. It's what you didn't say that didn't get you to the next step. So I want to, I think we're getting to the same point, man. We're, we're increasing their ability to have a awareness.

[00:20:03] Nick: they're not bogged down into the, what to say and how do I say, and how do I overcome things? They can make, they have a better level of awareness, which allows them to make better decisions. In the field without Mia around watching,

[00:20:18] Mie: that's what's so powerful. This is the thing I was going to say earlier when, when you did the, like you put them on the spot with the script, they don't want to do it in that moment.

[00:20:28] Mie: It's going to be highly uncomfortable and, and it's also going to be extremely inconvenient. And physiologically what's happening in the brain is there's some resistance showing up and the neural pathways resisting the discomfort. And when you put them on the spot like that, when you, when you're saying, hey, let's go right now, I'm doing the script.

[00:20:47] Mie: It's not this punishment to embarrass them, but you're actually developing their resiliency, which is going to help them overcome some of the resistance they get in these conversations, the objections that they experience in these conversations, the courage and the, and the,behavior pattern. To actually ask for the business to go a little bit further.

[00:21:05] Mie: So the more that you put them in these uncomfortable situations and inconvenient situations, the more their tenacity is going to expand and develop. They're, they're building a skill set for it. I thought it was so good that you do that. I, I love that you review it and I love that you look at, what didn't we say?

[00:21:23] Mie: And I love even more so the feedback piece. and that's a big thing in our one on one role plays that we do in Rise. is there's a there's a checklist of this role play structure. There's 10 steps inside of the role play structure where they have to ask for the appointment 3 times. They don't handle the objection till they've heard it the 3rd time.

[00:21:41] Mie: They could follow very specific steps. And at the end, they're required to give feedback and everyone has to get feedback. You start with what you thought they did well, and you always end it with, here's what you could work on. And I, and one of the rules is you have to give them something to work on.

[00:21:58] Mie: It's not about necessarily, as the, as the agent on the receiving end, it's not about how I'm, I'm bad at this. Or what I'm not doing well enough necessarily, although that can show up. It is how did this person who's not me perceive me? How did they hear me through their filter so that I can learn how to communicate with people that aren't me or that think differently than me?

[00:22:20] Mie: Because I'm going to be encountering that every single day. And so I tell them to, when they take that feedback, I said that when you, you turn it on yourself, when you hear the same feedback over and over and over again, now you can say, okay. This is about me. I need to work on this versus this is how they heard it.

[00:22:39] Mie: And I need to learn how to communicate to someone like that moving forward. So that feedback should facilitate several things. So when you get the group giving you good feedback, I think that's so invaluable

[00:22:49] Nick: and so valuable. I want to go over some tips on how not to criticize.create a culture of judgment, cause you can, you can give feedback in a way that they'll never want to do it again.

[00:23:01] Mie: Oh yeah. We have a, we have a specific rule with that. Honesty without tact is cruel. You give your feedback through the filter of how can I truly empower this person to be better? And you, you remove your ego from the feedback and you don't weaponize truth.

[00:23:19] Nick: Yeah. And as a team leader, this is, you're not doing role play to prove how good you are.

[00:23:23] Nick: Your ego is going to want to show everyone how to, how it's done and, and your goals that make them better. And guess what? They're probably not going to be very good. So I'll give you, I'll give you a tip that. It's taking me years to figure this one out is, and I, I see you to do this to me. So I want to know your language to get them to do this is let's try that again.

[00:23:48] Nick: this, this, okay. This time I want you, I want you to rewind, go back to this section. This is the cool thing about role play is okay, okay. Pause for a second, everybody. All right. Let's go back to that question or that comment that, Anthony said this, I want you to do it again. This time though, I want you to rephrase it.

[00:24:09] Nick: I want you to say it with a smile on your face. No, no, no. Sid, sit up, give me a smile. Let's do this again. Right. And sometimes it's just little tweaks on like posture. Looking forward, changing the tone in those little tweaks, slow down slate slower, and then, and then have them do that snapshot, stop it. And if it was truly better, you feel that is a little bit better.

[00:24:41] Nick: Everyone else. Did you see, did you hear the difference? Did you feel that difference? Oh, you're getting better. And then you can be like, Oh, you're getting better. Do it again. Oh, the third time's even better. Do it again. The fourth time's amazing. Do it again. The fifth, you got it, you got it. Now we can move on because we know repetition is the mother of all skill.

[00:25:01] Nick: So that's the cool thing about in this, when I was a pilot, the simulator was that way. The simulator allowed you to rewind. Okay. You botched that landing. Go back in a real airplane. You can't get that, that rapid learning,and it's that at the moment of the failure and to go back and do, do it again.

[00:25:22] Nick: That's when Mylan, this is when we actually can reprogram our neurological pathways and create Mylan and memory is by being able to do it over and over again, quickly without, without hurting ourselves. That's what a role play is. It's now. Does it, does it, am I making sense there?

[00:25:38] Mie: No, a hundred percent are.

[00:25:40] Mie: And, and, I think that the way that you get to that as a leader, because to make someone do something over and over and over again, and it benefit them, most leaders go into that dynamic, having an expectation of what it should feel like, look like, be like, and they become emotionally charged when it doesn't go that way.

[00:25:58] Mie: And I think that's where our ego can step in and get in the way of actually being effective in this. And so, I'm my lens or my filter is always.I, I make a generous assumption about them. I truly want them to get better. It's not about how can I, I'm not, I'm not a football drill coach, right? It's not drop down and give me 20 and, and run that play again.

[00:26:19] Mie: You suck. It's you can be unemotional about it and detach from what it's supposed to look or feel like, then you really get to show up at, at their, in their best interest. So I don't have to get frustrated when I have to have them repeated five times. That's a

[00:26:35] Nick: Yeah, for sure. And you've, you've done this a few times, haven't you?

[00:26:38] Nick: When you, when you want them to try something over again, how do you, do you know what I'm saying? How do you ask them to do that?

[00:26:44] Mie: So, I like to, to use and so I give them the feedback. I, I tell them what I would like to see them, or what they did well. I and here's what I want you to improve. Here's how I would do that.

[00:26:54] Mie: Or here's how you could try it. Or here's an example. Or could you try this? If they really have a gap that and we have the time and the space to work on it. I won't be as direct as that. I'll ask questions. What do you think is a better way we could ask that? How can I work phrase that differently where I don't use why as the starting point?

[00:27:13] Mie: How can I phrase that differently where it's not closed ended? So if I've got time and space, for, for, if we had plenty of time to go through the role play, I'm going to walk them through with questions. If we're wrapping up at the end of Script Inferno and it's Hey, we got to go, I'm going to say, Oh, I like, I like that you did this, or I can see that you're really understanding the concept and not, but, and I want you to try and change this moving forward.

[00:27:36] Mie: Can you try it like this? Let's go.

[00:27:38] Nick: I was talking to Dustin running, who's been on the podcast recently, and he was talking about his core values to a certain extent. And he said, he says it on every meeting. So there's always the leaders repast. You have to repeat yourself. It's just part of the thing.

[00:27:52] Nick: And then I also said well, we also need to make it easier for them to learn, right? So your core values are, he told me his core values and the acronym would be, PPC. I, so, so next time say PPC and then P is principal based P is performance and sees, something else. Right. I, I don't know. I didn't remember his PPC, but we, give them ways to learn things more easily.

[00:28:20] Nick: One thing that you got to do as a leader, you got to learn how to learn and you got to learn how other people learn. That's being a teacher. teachers actually went to school to help. Learn how to teach people kids. Thank goodness. They did. and they just didn't buy trial and error. So being a team leader, it's it's a challenge.

[00:28:35] Nick: Now there's a book that I recommend and you might have a book and we can end with that. But Josh Waitzkin, if you're a Tim Ferriss fan is a friend of Tim Ferriss and he, the, the, the movie and book searching for Bobby Fisher was based on Josh Waitzkin.yeah, yeah. Searching for Bobby Fisher. He was supposed to be the next Bobby Fisher chess protege.

[00:28:57] Nick: But anyways, as a grown man, he, he wrote a book called the art of learning and it's about learning. And, it's fantastic because chess. They may, they, they, you don't just play a bunch of games of chess that will help, but what they do is they will set up scenarios within the chess board and you have to work your way through it.

[00:29:20] Nick: And there's the beginning, middle and end moves. There's more moves than that, but there's opening moves, middle moves and end move that you can set up on the board and you have to figure out how to get through it. I don't know. There was a Netflix special on chess too. That was really, really good with that, that woman.

[00:29:35] Nick: Yeah, the queen gambit. So the reason I bring this up is because Josh worked on end moves. Everyone was working on the opening move over and over and over. It was like, who could have the coolest, best, quickest opening moves and stumped the person. And he worked on the And move. So all he had to do was survive the opening and get to the end moves and he would crush them because that's where he practiced and he knew other people weren't practicing the end moves.

[00:30:04] Nick: They were practice open. So he didn't want to be the best at openings. He just wanted to survive that and make it to the end and grind them out. Well, that was brilliant because it was also like I was training my agents open. We could never get through openers, openers, openers, openers, openers. And then I had a bunch of a team that couldn't close.

[00:30:23] Nick: No wonder they can't close. They never get to practice. They never get there.

[00:30:27] Mie: Yeah, and I see this over and over. If they don't know how to close, they'll actually avoid, they'll sabotage. They won't even go for the appointment because they won't know what to do in the appointment. They won't ask for the close because they won't know what to say or what to do once they get the yes.

[00:30:40] Mie: And so, you've got to, you've got to, give them The skills and the cotton and help them in the competency of knowing how to what they do when they get the yes, what do I actually do from here? We, we sometimes think okay, when you get there, just you'll come to me and I'll help you get through it.

[00:30:56] Mie: Just get them to the yes. And, and that fear alone can help them self sabotage their ability yes.

[00:31:02] Nick: Yeah. When we're doing script and photo that we, there's often times where we see these opening. That was your opening for the close. That was your opportunity. And they, they didn't see it, but it's no, at that moment, it's like, when can we meet?

[00:31:14] Nick: Let's meet tomorrow. Let's move forward. And practicing that closing when that door opens, they need to know when to walk through it.

[00:31:23] Mie: Yeah. Or like when the door's not open, don't pound it down, so then we'll get people that do it right after that. And I was like, okay, love that you went for it.

[00:31:31] Mie: And let's find a way to get there a little bit more. That's

[00:31:35] Nick: funny. That's right. A couple of weeks ago, we just had some killers. They were just going for the clothes. Like I wasn't, and we're like, well, you're going a little hard actually. You need to warm them up indirect report, take a different angle, tie down, close, take back, close, direct indirect soft.

[00:31:51] Nick: And so they learn these different closing techniques over time. It's like jujitsu, right? You have different methods of submission and how you get there is the nuance and the fun of it. And I think we like it because it's an art form. I truly think it's an art form. I think sales is an art form. I think it's a, or another analogy is sales is a, is a language just like

[00:32:14] Mie: just thinking that.

[00:32:15] Nick: Yeah. It's just like French, Spanish, English. It's a language and it's foreign. Even though, English not very well, you need to learn sales.

[00:32:26] Silence: Yeah.

[00:32:27] Nick: Right. And that's why if I'm recruiting an agent from outside of the industry, if they already know sales, not, not, not they have charisma. Right. They actually know the art and the science of the sale deal making.

[00:32:42] Nick: There are seven years ahead of someone that doesn't. Oh yeah. and you just have to realize that I was talking to Kim, who's been with me for 11 years. I said, how many hours do you think it takes in training to get an agent to a level of good? I'm not saying good. I'm saying Good. Like good. Like you'd give them a good lead.

[00:33:04] Nick: And we came up with 400 hours, 400 hours of sales, repetition, skill experience. I don't know if, there's a 10, 000 hour mastery level, but I'm like just the level of good. And so if you think about 30 minutes a day of role play, ah, it's going to take a while.

[00:33:22] Mie: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:23] Nick: Yeah.

[00:33:25] Mie: What do you think

[00:33:25] Nick: about that 400?

[00:33:26] Nick: I don't know if that's right, but

[00:33:28] Mie: realizing that right now, well, there is a, I mean, it's definitely not a hard and fast number, but you're probably very close to like it having to be around there because it wouldn't be just, it's not just role play either. Right. It's, it's the real life. experience and

[00:33:44] Nick: on the phone prospecting our, actual product, actual phone conversations,

[00:33:48] Mie: open door knocking, talking, actually talking to people.

[00:33:51] Mie: so yeah, I mean, I, I, that, that almost sounds like a, like low, like 400, even it could be potential that low to

[00:33:57] Nick: become a, I'll give you an example to become a private pilot, to become a, on average, it's 50, it's 50 to 60 hours.flight training, okay, to become a, to be able to land by yourself. And that's with an instructor

[00:34:18] Silence: giving

[00:34:18] Nick: you feedback that includes ground school.

[00:34:23] Nick: That includes, studying and exam taking. And there's probably, I don't know exactly right now, but there's probably a four check rides. Within that 60 hours. So you're getting a check ride, you're getting an oral exam and a practical exam throughout the gates. So I think you could probably get someone really, really, really, really good on the phone in 60 hours.

[00:34:50] Nick: If you had a plan and you gave them feedback.

[00:34:55] Mie: And you

[00:34:56] Nick: had

[00:34:56] Mie: a willing participant to do that. What's

[00:34:58] Nick: that? And

[00:34:59] Mie: you had a willing participant.

[00:35:01] Nick: Really? Yes. Yes.

[00:35:04] Mie: And you're a prime example of this. I used to work at a Buffalo Wild Wings in my twenties and we're right by Goodyear flight school. So we always had pilots coming in there that were going to school.

[00:35:15] Mie: They are dedicated. Dedicate. I mean, they went through a lot to get there. What do you think an entry level pilot makes? like they get out of school and maybe they get picked up by a commercial airline.

[00:35:25] Nick: Well, in, in 2005, my first airline job, I made 18, 600.

[00:35:33] Mie: Okay. Wow. That is about

[00:35:34] Nick: 30, 000. It's probably 30 to 40, 000.

[00:35:38] Nick: First year

[00:35:39] Mie: will be 80. Wow.

[00:35:41] Nick: Yeah. So if you're really good,

[00:35:42] Mie: you've been in it for a long time, how much can you make

[00:35:45] Nick: a couple hundred?

[00:35:48] Mie: Just let me, I have a, I have a point here and I know we're going to wrap

[00:35:53] Nick: blow up your point. It doesn't, is it going to make sense?

[00:35:55] Mie: Proven it even further your, because I know how dedicated you have to be to become a pilot.

[00:36:01] Mie: You're talking about the intricacies of the amount of time they spend just to get the license,

[00:36:06] Silence: the

[00:36:06] Mie: license, not to mention all the time that you're going to put in, like later on to get your hours where you're like, bro. Like the barrier to entry is very, very high for, an airline pilot and you have to be so dedicated and then it's yeah, you can make a couple hundred K like a new agent with like with a good sphere and a wing and a prayer could probably get to 200 K in the right market.

[00:36:27] Mie: You know what I mean? You, you can't just have a good plan for your agents. if you want to be the type of agent that, that, that can make a million dollars, if you had that level of dedication that an airline pilot has, and you follow the system and you stuck to the, and you like honed in on your craft, oh my gosh.

[00:36:47] Nick: Can

[00:36:47] Mie: you imagine that you'd be the Nick McLean's of the real estate world, sell 5, 000 plus homes. Well, this has

[00:36:52] Nick: been, this has been awesome, Mia. And it shows that we could talk about role play for a lot longer than we thought. And it definitely is required to build a skillful team that grows and develops and gives you meaning, you know, at the end of the day.

[00:37:12] Nick: You're developing human beings and that's your currency. And that's the, there's no award for that really, you know, but that's why we do it. Um, and that's why we do it at Reside too. So Mia, thank you so much.