(Replay Ep. 98) Easy Deals Are Dead: The Hard Skills That Drive Today's Real Estate Success with Mie Yamashita

MIe [00:00:00] 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's 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.

MIe And so whether you are, you know, recruiting, whether you are in production or you're leading agents, and how do I navigate teaching them how to build up their skillset? You really need to un help them understand how to identify where their gaps are and then give them ample opportunities to. Practice that skillset to really develop it.

MIe 'cause it doesn't just happen. You really have to work at it.

Nick Welcome back to the Reside Platform podcast. I'm your host, Nick McLean. I'm here with Mia Yamashita.

MIe Hey, how's it going?

Nick That's the first time I've ever said your last name.

MIe That's a very, it's a very Japanese last name.

Nick It's very Japanese and we know each other 'cause we work together at the reside [00:01:00] platform and we've been improving agents development and their skills so they could sell more homes.

Nick And we we're, we thought we'd do this podcast in the moment because we have been doing something called. Script Inferno 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, is doing family reunion or just got done with family reunion as we're launching this.

Nick You said is the first time you haven't gone in a decade or something?

MIe Yeah, seven years.

Nick Seven years. Yeah. He, 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. Yeah. And hard deals require skills.

MIe Mm-hmm.

Nick So what's your take on that [00:02:00] headline, number one, Mia as an agent, a developer of agents and skills, and how that translates to sales. Um, and role play, and then how to do a role play.

MIe Yeah.

Nick How often, how long with who and how

MIe should I speak to a group context and a one-on-one context. Okay, so, so the, I'll talk about group first.

MIe Um, one of the things that, that, uh, we really, um, push in our, um, reside sales training, uh, rise, which is reside intensive sales experience that we do with all of our agents and our team owners, is, um, the benefits of role play. And it's not just like this pitch for role play so good and you need to do it because it makes you better, but we really, uh, 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.

MIe But it's not just in that, [00:03:00] that initial conversation that you have with a, you know, potential pat, potential client or lead. It's also in. Um, you know, the consultation. Do you know what to say and how to get through the consultation? It's also in the, um, uh, the pricing conversation or how to work through negotiations, how to keep a deal together, and so role play, whether in a group setting or one-on-one is so much more than just, do you know how to intro a phone conversation?

MIe 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 skillset gaps? And I think the, the other thing that I'll mention, and we can open the conversation up further is it's not just for new agents.

MIe 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, you know, a potential client. No one is above sharpening their sword. No one is above getting [00:04:00] better and, and dialing in on their opportunities.

MIe And so whether you are, you know, recruiting, whether you are in production or, or you're leading agents, and how do I. You know, navigate, you know, uh, teaching them how to build up, build up their skillset. You really need to un help them understand how to identify where their gaps are and um, and then give them ample opportunities to practice that skillset to really develop it.

MIe Because it doesn't just happen. You really have to work at it.

Nick Yeah. And role play is, should be part of the culture of a real estate team. Broke reach, and let me explain that. You might ask, how often should I do roleplay? And I think everyone should schedule 30 minutes of role play a day, especially new agents.

Nick But I also think experienced agents should be roleplay now. We, we do that in the morning. Obviously you'd wanna do that in the morning before you get on the phone to sharpen your skills, get your mindset right, be [00:05:00] prepared for objections that you're likely to handle. But you make a really good point, Mia.

Nick It's not just ring, ring, ring. Hi. I am 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? Like that is 1 0 1 roleplay. I get it. That's why your experienced agents don't wanna do roleplay anymore. But what about roleplaying? How to present the comparable market analysis to a seller?

Nick How to role play, how to get a higher commission. Because your experienced 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.

Nick You know, how do you role play every single scenario? Presenting to the listing agent, presenting to the buyer's agent, presenting a counter offer, [00:06:00] 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.

Nick Obviously we want to increase conversion rates, so you might wanna start there. Do you have any other tips in terms of role I 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.

MIe We, we were joking that like after all these years, we finally figured out how to get people to, to, to phrase it, to say, so instead it was like, who wants to go first, which is my normal go-to.

MIe Now I say, who wants to improve their skills today? Or who's gonna, who's gonna stand out and get better today? Um, so that was a, that was a, a definite game changer. So as far as a group role play goes, um, I, I agree on the 30 minutes for one-on-ones, I like to see 15 minute one-on-one role plays, but we can talk about one-on-ones at a today or another time.

MIe But for, for the group role [00:07:00] plays, um, there's a few different ways you can play it, depending on the dynamic. Now, um, Nick and I run a weekly script inferno for 30 minutes. With the agents and team owners in our organization. And we are, uh, exclusively on Zoom. And so you can gamify things on a Zoom a little bit differently, um, than if you were in person.

MIe 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, um, just being on Zoom and how can I do something either in Zoom or in person on Zoom or in person one is, um, I like the, uh, I call it the role play snake. Where we, we go in a, you know, a snake figure and we give an objection and they have to come up with a question for the objection.

MIe 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 know, it's, you're just looking. That's great. Um, most of our [00:08:00] clients, our best clients start out that way. It's a great time to get started. Now I'm handling the objection versus.

MIe You're, uh, you're just looking excellent. Are you local to the area or are you moving in? And so, um, we'll do like a, you know, you have to come up with a different question and we give them different objections. 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.

MIe So there's ways to gamify it. That's one way. Um, head-to-head battles is really fun. Um, we also recently did a, um, like where you try it's called, that's right. Where, um, 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.

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, you know, a few of them.

Nick Those are really, really good. And one I learned from Carrie [00:09:00] Schul, who's been on our podcast before, and in the show notes, we'll probably put that episode, she had this hot potato where she literally has.

Nick 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. 'cause oftentimes, so here's how it works. It's like, okay, I'm just browsing and then.

Nick You have to, you know, the, 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. 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.

MIe Yeah,

Nick they're distracted, especially on Zoom. They pretend they're paying attention. They're not paying attention. Right. [00:10:00] So the hot potato is awesome and it's fun and it's energetic and you can keep it going. People get stumped and you can, okay, throw it to somebody, you pick it up where you left off. So I really love that.

Nick 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 are gonna ask somebody to give feedback.

MIe Mm-hmm.

Nick So it's nice that the team leader's there to give feedback, but don't always be the one jumping in.

MIe Yeah.

Nick Let other people do it. In fact, if I see somebody not paying attention, guess who I'm gonna call out to give feedback on that role play. I'm, I'm gonna send a message. Oh, I noticed you weren't paying attention, Jessica. Get some feedback and she's gonna be stumped, right? Yeah. I mean, you have to control this.

Nick The other thing, and I don't, [00:11:00] 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. Hmm. So I was the one to role play. I was the agent, I was the, you know what I mean? Like I wanted to show them how it's done.

Nick Yeah. 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. Yeah. But then we give really good feedback.

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.

Nick Mm. Is that, and I learned that, 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, and tweak some technique, tonality, um, principles that we might have on role play. [00:12:00] Yeah. And that's where we, where we differ me, is I wanna drill. Specific standardized language and you teach more of a holistic, you know, approach.

Nick That's what

MIe makes the dynamic so good in script inferno is we are. Nick and I could not be more different, but we have alignment in all of the most important areas. Like we we're very passionate about agent development, we're very passionate about the skillset. And I think that, um, his pragmatism, you know, and my, you know, holistics I like, I think they actually have this beautiful synergy.

MIe Our agents, because they're all, by the way, they're all different and they're working with people that are all different. Um, I, my big focus in, um, uh, all of my training is always conversion competency. Um, because agents tend to flock to just tell me exactly what to say. And when I was, uh, an inside sales agent where I got started in real estate.

MIe I used to have my, um, scripts on the wall, you know, like, and when I would be, um, a role [00:13:00] or, uh, making calls, I would be scanning the wall to try and find, you know, 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.

MIe I could, I, I developed a competency on understanding what the person was saying. Um, and so you give, providing them the language and me providing them, you know, the know-how to, how to use the language, I think has been really effective.

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

Nick So think about these opportunities organically that show up in your office. That our role play opportunities instead of the structured setting. Give you an example. You know, Hey Nick, I got a question. Oh, what's your question? Well, um, I am writing an offer. Oh, you're writing an [00:14:00] offer. Awesome. What are you writing an offer on?

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 wanna answer the question. I wanna say, what do you think the answer is? Right, and that's really key. And then it's like, okay, now that we've talked about this scenario, let's talk about next steps.

Nick You're about to call the next person. Let's role play that. Let's play, 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, I don't know. I need some, I need some help, right?

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, [00:15:00] I think reflection on what actually transpired is a, a sense of role play. Now let's do it again. If you were to do it again, how would it be different?

Nick Let's pretend I'm the seller. Come to me. Right. Gave me a go.

MIe Uh, the, the a r is, is the feedback, you know, that you would typically get in the role play. It's, it's watching the tapes.

Nick Mm-hmm.

MIe After the football game,

Nick and then it's like, let's do it again. If you could do it, let's do it again. Right now, I'm the seller.

Nick I got a sense, let's do it again. Um, 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? Everyone, here's the scenario. Let me play it out for you, okay? I'm not gonna tell you the outcome, okay?

Nick Sarah, don't tell 'em. Okay? Now that's, that's Susan. And you know Corey, you're gonna [00:16:00] play it out. I wanna see what happens. I wanna 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. It's not a hundred percent the same all the time.

MIe No. When we role play practice, we, I always let them know it's never gonna be this way in real life. You don't need it to this way in real life. That's not the, that's not the goal. The goal is, and I, I, okay. I have like two things that I, that you said that I really wanna remember to come back to, um, if we end up having the time, but I, I, I wanna say this first.

MIe The, when, when my I teach role play, I, um, compare it to a GP. When I am, um, let's say I, I moved to a new town. I'm starting a new job. I have to be at my work, uh, be at work at 9:00 AM I can't be later. I'll get fired when, uh, but I don't know how to get there. I'm plugging the direction or the address into [00:17:00] the Google Maps or Apple Maps, and I'm gonna follow every single prompt that it tells me.

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 gonna be following the directions exactly verbatim that the, um, you know, the maps tells me over time though, as I go, I'm gonna start internalizing this route.

MIe I'm gonna start recognizing landmarks. I'm gonna start you noticing the line of trees and my turn is coming. I'm gonna look at the GPSA little bit less and a little bit less until eventually I have it memorized. And internalized. And now I, you know, I've done this right enough times that I know I can take this back road over here and it'll get me there faster.

MIe Or, you know, I can avoid, you know, an issue over here, traffic over here, and I know you know, a different route to get there. And that's when you can start to customize, you know, 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 [00:18:00] oftentimes more likely than not, sabotage your ability to get to the close.

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, it's that I know how to get to the end destination no matter where I, no matter which way it takes me.

Nick Yeah. And if you can, what happens is you. You start seeing pa, 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 'em phases of flight because when I was a pilot, there's bef, you know, before taxi checklists, taxi checklists before takeoff checklist, takeoff checklist after takeoff checklist, cruise checklist.

Nick Dissent approach. Dissent before [00:19:00] landing. Landing after landing. Like there's all these phases and there's some things you do on an earlier checklist that affects a later checklist. 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.

Nick Right. So for me it's, there's the script on the phone, and then there's the 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. You can only unlock the pre-appointment script when you set the appointment on the phone and that sets up your appointment.

Nick And then you have the pre-appointment preparation items, and then you have the appointment script and 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 things. [00:20:00] Okay. Awesome. Take me to the next step now.

Nick 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, you know, take me through that. Right? And 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 of.

Nick I wanna look at what didn't you ask. 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 do the next step. So I wanna, because I think we're getting to the same point, Mia, we're, we're increasing their ability to have a, a awareness.

Nick You know, they're not bogged down into what to say and, how do I say it? How do I overcome things? They can, they, they have a better level of awareness, which allows them to make better decisions. The field [00:21:00] without Mia around watching.

MIe That's what's so powerful. This the thing I was gonna say earlier when, um, when you did the, like you put him on the spot with the script, they don't wanna do it in that moment.

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 neuropathways 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, doing the script, it's not this punishment to embarrass them.

MIe 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 um, uh, behavior pattern to actually ask for the business to go a little bit further.

MIe So the more that you put them in these uncomfortable situations and inconvenient situations, the more their tenacity is going to expand and, and [00:22:00] develop, because. They're, they're building the skillset for it. I thought it was so good that you do that. Like I, um, I love that you review it, and I love that you look at like, what didn't we say?

MIe And I love even more. So the feedback piece. Um, and that's a big thing in our one-on-one role plays that we do in Rise, um, 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 three times. They don't handle the objection till they've heard it the third time.

MIe They could follow very specific steps. And at the end, they're required to give feedback and e 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.

MIe It's not about necessarily, you know, 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. [00:23:00] It's 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, because I'm gonna be encountering that every single day.

MIe 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, and I need to learn how to communicate to someone like that moving forward.

MIe So that feedback should facilitate several things. So when you get the group giving you good feedback, I think that's so invaluable

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

MIe Oh yeah. We have a, we have a specific rule with that. Honesty without tact is cruel. You [00:24:00] 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. Your truth, your subjective truth.

Nick Yeah. And as a team leader, this is, you're not doing role play to prove how good you are.

Nick Your ego's gonna wanna show everyone how to, how it's done. And, and your goal is to make 'em better. And guess what? They're probably not gonna be very good. So I'll give you, I'll give you a tip that it's taken me years to figure this one out Is, and I, I see you to do this too, Mia, so I wanna know your language to get them to do this is.

Nick Let's try that again. You know 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 like, okay. Okay. Pause for a second everybody. Alright, let's go back to that question or that comment that, you know, Anthony said this, I want you to do it again.

Nick This time though, I [00:25:00] want you to rephrase it. I want you to say it with a smile on your face. No, no, no. Sit. Sit up, snake. Gimme a smile. Let's do this again. Right? And sometimes it's just little tweaks on like posture. Forward, looking forward, that's changing the tone and those little tweaks, slow down, slate slower, and then, and then have 'em do that snapshot.

Nick Stop it. And if it was truly better. You feel that? Is that a little bit better 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.

Nick 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. So that's the cool thing about in the, when I was a pilot, the simulator was that way. The [00:26:00] simulator allowed you to rewind, okay, you botched that landing, go back. But in a real airplane, you can't get that re that rapid learning, you know?

Nick And it is that at the moment of the failure and to go back and to do it again, that's when myelin, this is when we actually can reprogram our neurological pathways and, and create myelin 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.

Nick It's not, does that, does, am I making sense there?

MIe You a hundred percent are. And, and, um, 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.

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, um, I'm, my lens or my [00:27:00] filter is always. Like 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 a, I'm not a football drill coach, right?

MIe It's not like drop down and gimme 20 and, and run that play again. You suck. It's like 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 repeat it five times.

MIe That's a part of the process.

Nick Yeah, for sure. And you've, you've done this a few times, haven't you, when you, when you want them to try something over again, how, how do you, do you know what I'm saying? How do you ask 'em to do that?

MIe So, um, I, I like to, to use and so I give them the feedback. I, uh, I tell them what I, what they like to see them, uh, or what they did well.

MIe I, and here's what I want you to improve. Here's how I would do that, or here's how you could try it, or here's an example, or could you try this? If they really have a a gap, that, and we have the time and the space to work on it. [00:28:00] I won't be as direct as that. I'll ask questions. What do you think is a better way we could ask that?

MIe How can I work phrase that differently, where I don't use why a, as the starting point, or how can I phrase that differently where it's not closed ended? So if I've got time and space, like for, for like, if we had plenty of time to go through the role play, I'm gonna walk them through with questions. If we're wrapping up at the end of script Inferno and, and it's like, Hey, we gotta go, I'm gonna 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, I want you to try and change this moving forward.

MIe Can you try it like this? Let's go.

Nick I was talking to Dustin Runyon, who's been on the podcast recently, and he was talking about his core values to a certain extent, and he said, you know, he says it on every meeting, so there's always the leaders rep past, you have to repeat yourself. It's just part of the thing.

Nick And then I also said like, 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 [00:29:00] acronym would be, uh, PPC. So, so next time say PP, C. And then P is principle based. P is performance and Cs. You know, something else, right? I, I don't know, I didn't remember his PPC, but we, you know, give them ways to learn things more easily.

Nick One thing that you gotta do is a leader. You gotta learn how to learn and you gotta learn how other people learn. That's being a teacher, you know, teachers actually went to school to help. Learn how to teach people, kids thank goodness they did. Um, and they just didn't by trial and error. So being a team leader, it's like, it's a challenge.

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

Nick But [00:30:00] anyways, as, as a grown man, he, he wrote a book called The Art of Learning and it's about learning and um, it's fantastic because chess, they may, 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.

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 moves 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.

Nick That woman. 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 go over they, it was like, who could have the coolest, best, quickest opening moves and stump the person? And he worked on the end moves, so all he had to do was survive the opening [00:31:00] and get to the end moves, and he would crush 'em because that's where he practiced.

Nick And he knew other people weren't practicing the end moves, they were practicing opening. So he didn't wanna be the best at openings. He just wanted to survive that and make it to the end and grind them out. I thought it 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.

Nick Like, no wonder they can't close, they never get to practice. They never get there.

MIe Yeah. Which that, but I, and I see this over and over. If they don't know how to close, they'll actually avoid, um, they'll sabotage, they'll, they won't even go for the appointment 'cause they won't know what to do in the appointment.

MIe They won't ask for the close, but they won't know what to say or what to do once they get the, the, um, the Yes. And so you've gotta, you've got to, um, give them. The skills. Skills and the con and, 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?

MIe We, we sometimes think like, okay, when you get there, like just, you'll come to me and I'll help you get [00:32:00] through it. Just get them to the yes and, and that fear alone can help them self-sabotage their ability to even get the yes.

Nick Yeah. When we're doing script in photo that we, you know, there's often times where we see these opening.

Nick That was your opening for the close. That was your opportunity. And they, they didn't see it, but it's like, no, at that moment it's like, when can we meet? Let's meet tomorrow. Let's move forward. And practicing that closings when that door opens, you know, they need to know when to walk through it.

MIe Yeah. Or like when the door's not open, don't pound it down.

MIe You know, like, like, so then we'll get people that do it right after bat. And I was like, okay, love that you went for it. Like, and like let's find a way to get there a little bit more organically.

Nick That's funny. That's right. A couple weeks ago we just had some killers. They were just going for the clothes like it was, and we're like, well, you're going a little hard actually.

MIe Yeah,

Nick you need to warm 'em up. Indirect report, take a different angle. Tie down clothes, take back, clothes, direct, indirect, soft. And so they learn these [00:33:00] different closing techniques over time. It's like juujitsu, right? You have different methods of submission and how you get there is the nuance and the, the, the fun of it.

Nick 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 I was

MIe just thinking that.

Nick Yeah, it's just like French, Spanish, English.

MIe Mm-hmm. It's

Nick English language. It's a language and it's foreign.

Nick Even though you know English not very well, you need to learn sales.

MIe Yeah.

Nick Right. And that's why if I'm recruiting an agent from outside of the industry, if they already know sales, not a, not not, they have charisma. They actually know the art and the science of the sale deal making. They're seven years ahead of someone that doesn't.

MIe Oh, yeah.

Nick You know, 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 [00:34:00] 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 and we came up with 400 hours, 400 hours of sales.

Nick Repetition skill, experience. I don't know if you know there's the 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, huh? It's gonna take a while.

MIe Yeah.

Nick You know? Yeah. What do you think about that 400? I don't know if that's right, but

MIe izing that right now.

MIe Well, there is a, I mean, it's definitely not a hard and fast number, but you are 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, um, experience and on the

Nick phone prospecting our, you know, actual pro actual phone conversations,

MIe open door knocking, talking, actually talking to [00:35:00] people.

MIe Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, that, that almost sounds like, like a, like low, like 400 even, could be potentially a little low.

Nick Well, to become a, I'll give you an example, to become a private pilot. To become a pro, on average it's 50, it's 50 to 60 hours of flight training.

MIe Mm-hmm.

Nick Okay. To become a, to be able to land by yourself, and that's with an instructor giving you feedback that includes ground school.

Nick That includes, you know, studying

MIe mm-hmm.

Nick And exam taking. And there's probably, I don't know exactly right now, but there's probably, uh, 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 [00:36:00] phone in 60 hours.

Nick If you had a plan and you gave them feedback

MIe and you

Nick had

MIe to do that.

Nick What's that?

MIe And you had a willing participant, like, if so, because

Nick really? Yes. Yes.

MIe And, and you're a prime example of this. I, I used to work at a Buffalo Wild Wings in my twenties, and we were right by Goodyear Flight School, so we had always had pilots coming in there that were going to school.

MIe They are dedicated. Dedicated, I mean, they went through a lot to get there. What do you think an entry level pilot makes like, like they get outta school and maybe they get picked up by a commercial airline?

Nick Well, in, in 2005, my first airline job I made $18,600.

MIe Okay. Wow. That is, it's

Nick about $30,000. It's probably 30 to $40,000.

Nick First year. Paul,

MIe like entry level will be 80. Wow.

Nick Yeah,

MIe so if you're really good and you've been in it for a long time, how much can you make

Nick a couple hundred. [00:37:00]

MIe Can just let, um, I have a, I have a point here and I know we're gonna wrap.

Nick Did I blow up your point? Does it, is it gonna make sense? No,

MIe we've proven it even further.

MIe Your, um, because I know how dedicated you have to be to become a pilot. You're talking about the intricacies of the amount of time they spend just to get. Yeah, just the license. Not to mention all the time that you're gonna put in, like later on to get your hours where you like, well, like the barrier to entry is very, very high for, um, an airline pilot and you have to be so dedicated.

MIe And then it's like. 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. You know what I mean? Like can, you can't just have a good plan for your agents. Like if you wanna be the type of agent that, um, that, that can, you can make a million dollars with.

MIe If you had that level of dedication that an airline pilot had and you followed a system and you stuck to the, and you like honed in on your crap, [00:38:00] like, oh my gosh.

Nick It's

MIe wild. Can you imagine that you'd be the Nick McLeans of the real estate world you'd sell 5,000 plus homes?

Nick Well, this has been, this has been awesome, Mia, and it, it shows that we could talk about role play for a lot longer than we thought.

Nick 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, you're developing human beings and that's your currency. And that's, 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.

Nick So, Mia, thank you so much.