The Personality Test That Changed How She Closes Deals with Michelle Terry

Michelle [00:00:00] If you don't have a mentor, you need a coach. And even as you progress, you should have a mentor and a coach.

Suneet [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Reside Platform Podcast. I'm your host today, Suneet Agarwal, and I'm hanging out with Michelle Terry. They're a realtor, a broker, and the owner of the Michelle Terry team out of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Michelle, what's going on?

Michelle Hey, how are you?

Suneet Good. I'm super good. You've been in the business for over 28 years. You must have seen a lot of cycles and crazy stuff in that 28 years, and you've consistently been a diamond-level top producer. Let's get into it.

Suneet [00:01:00] For agents who are listening, for listeners who are listening, and for me—I didn't know you'd been doing this for 28 years—what's the origin story for Michelle Terry being in real estate?

Michelle Oh my gosh. The origin story? Suneet, I actually came from nothing—like big zero, right? Built a house at 19 years old, right out of high school, and fell in love with that process. I fell in love with the process of building, so naturally I went and got my real estate license shortly thereafter and started building a big business with builders.

Suneet Oh, wow. And was that in your same town that you live in now?

Michelle Yeah. Well, I live in a little community. It was in the neighboring town. So my first home was in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, and now I live one town west, which is Brookfield.

Suneet [00:02:00] What are some of the things you've learned about the real estate agent side—the production side—in the last 28 years?

Michelle Oh my gosh. Some of the things that I learned is that you always have to pivot. What you know today—what's working for you today—may not be the same system and process that's going to work for you next year. You really have to pay attention to the market and pivot to where the market's going.

Michelle I remember having to pivot to short sales and become the best short sale agent back in the mid-2000s.

Suneet Oh, wow. Yeah. So like that pivot—what did you do to pivot? Did you get some education? Did you figure it out? Did you take a course? What did that look like? Because I think that's so important.

Michelle [00:03:00] Oh my gosh. Yeah—when I started out in the business, it was all new builds. It was new builds and anything under the sun, but that was my primary focus. And being a developer myself, that was a big part of my business.

Michelle But as the market started to slow down in the mid-2000s, people were struggling, and in my area—I live in this small country area—we service about 15 towns and two major hubs. But here in this area, when people were struggling, they didn't have answers.

Michelle Agents didn't have answers. Back then, I went to Delaware and took the CDPE course and learned all about short sales. I brought it back to my community, and I still do things like that today: go out, look for what's new, learn the material, and bring it back into my community and really leverage that.

Michelle That was a big deal for me back in 2008. And I would say that I probably did about 100 short sales in a year. We ended up breaking into that marketplace and buying a bunch of flip properties and rental properties while we were doing those short sales.

Suneet [00:04:00] So that's a real coachable moment—and I moonlight as a coach. You saw an opportunity, and you probably heard about the short sales happening in other places, so you traveled somewhere, learned about it, and came back. And that's so good. The pivoting is so good because don't you think that people just keep on trying the same old stuff even when it's getting hard?

Michelle Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of small—what happens in our industry, I've seen it over and over again—when it's time for us to make a pivot. And Suneet, you know we're going to make a pivot right now, right? Things are changing in our worlds, and the agents that pivot will do really well, and the ones that don't will probably be out of the business.

Michelle I've brought in probably more than 120 real estate agents into this business, and it created some competitors, created some longtime team members, and I've seen a lot of people just give up too—and not pivot, not really dig into what the needs are for today's market—and leave the industry.

Suneet [00:05:00] And then I remember when I was in my first office, there were some more old-school agents, right? And they were still trying to do the same thing that had worked. Like, they were still trying to do short sales in 2016, right? And they were struggling for business because there weren't many short sales by that point. They were still chasing the old REO asset managers when the asset managers barely had anything to do.

Suneet So I think that's for everybody listening, right? And that's how we met—from you joining the Reside platform—because you saw something and you wanted to be educated, so you went to that room.

Suneet We were talking before we started about going to the KFR event, right? I think it was the first time we met in person, right? Because you saw that recruiting—or you saw that we had a different vibe with the recruiting than the typical—and you went in.

Suneet [00:06:00] Let's talk about coaching too, because I know that you have a lot of experience there. What's your journey from being coached to being a coach and to where you are now look like with coaching?

Michelle Yeah. Coaching was always important to me. I remember being a young agent and I went over to Buffini & Company, right? Learned all about notes, relationships, and whatnot. So I started out there.

Michelle Coaching has always been a big part of my business. From there, I elevated to another company that really focused on systems and processes. I did that for quite a while, and I started with that company in 2017. I really wanted to develop systems and processes.

Michelle But what really attracted me to Reside was the action taking. A lot of coaches will talk about stuff and tell you what to do—and sometimes they're not doing it. They'll tell you what to do. But I watched everybody through Reside and this community; I watched everybody actually taking massive action. And that was resonating with me rather than telling somebody to do something that you're not even doing yourself.

Suneet [00:07:00] Totally. Thank you for that compliment, because that is a huge compliment. That's something that I'm serious about: taking action. Like you've heard my origin story—I could still be spinning my wheels on some nonsense if it wasn't for the action taking and environment that I put myself in.

Suneet When do you think is a good time for anybody—maybe not even in real estate—to explore getting coached?

Michelle Immediately. Right out of the gate. If you don't have a mentor, you need a coach. And even as you progress, you should have a mentor and a coach.

Suneet Absolutely. What do you think is the difference between a mentor and a coach?

Michelle [00:08:00] A lot of times a mentor is giving from their heart—they're just helping. They'll help when they can. And a coach will have a direct system to be able to put you on a path of progression. That's just what they do; there's a system built around it.

Michelle Where a mentor is just answering some questions here and there—they might help you if you call—but there's really not a direct path.

Suneet Yes. And I'm sure you can remember some big mentors in your life. I can too—and I've had them through different iterations of different things I'm doing.

Suneet Sometimes even a coach—like a coach could be a therapist.

Michelle I learned that early on. It's funny—Suneet, coming to you guys, I couldn't fathom that you could do a coaching call in 20 minutes until I understood that if your coaching calls are directed around action, they shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. Sometimes they shouldn't take more than 10 or 17 minutes.

Suneet [00:09:00] Yeah. Yes. Well, we have a call next week, I think, so we'll see.

Suneet What were some of the lessons that you remember from those early coaching days with Buffini? I'm a big fan of Buffini and their systems. I love those handwritten notes. I love that analog style, especially in this AI online world. Do you still do any handwritten notes?

Michelle Yeah. I definitely still do handwritten notes. I actually had a conversation with my team about this this morning. We've done some traveling lately, and we've met some incredible people. Building the relationship—whether it's with your buyers or sellers, other real estate agents, or anybody that you're looking to build a relationship with—if you take a couple minutes and just really come from the heart and write a note to them, that's going to go a long way.

Michelle [00:10:00] It's not AI, it's not a quick voice text or an email. It's literally you're taking your time, dropping it in the mail, and sending it to them. It's meaningful. So I still 100% believe in handwritten notes.

Suneet I want to write more notes. What should my process be?

Michelle Your process should be to have them sitting on your desk on Monday, and do not leave on Friday until they're all in the mail. Don't let them stack up.

Suneet Okay, good. And what do I write?

Michelle [00:11:00] Anything. Send out at least two a day—so if you do 10 a week, that's perfect. I've written handwritten notes—my kids have had a doctor appointment and I was just really connected with the doctor, or the doctor helped a lot—so just thanking them, taking a minute to thank them. It could be a hairdresser. It could be sellers.

Michelle So many times when you go to do a CMA, people are just looking for the business—the transaction. Take a minute and thank them for letting you into their home.

Suneet Yeah. And then what do you do? Do you put a business card in there for the doctor, or you just send it?

Michelle You know what, Suneet? I don't.

Suneet [00:12:00] Yes. And I was hoping you would say that. It's not always like—don't be like that cliche realtor from the TV show, right? Like kind of what John's been talking about a lot lately: the relationship equity.

Michelle Yeah. And I'll tell you: I think one of the problems in our industry right now is so many agents have gone to being all transactional and not deepening the relationships. I've caught myself doing that. You get really busy. You want to build a relationship. You like the people.

Michelle I always say it's the only business that you can be in where you're divorced every six weeks, right? You're with them every single day. You're talking to them on the phone. You really like them, but new business comes, and you want to stay connected, but you're busy doing the new business.

Michelle Well, if you build a system—or a couple of systems—behind the relationship, that doesn't happen. You can stay connected long term.

Suneet [00:13:00] Yes. And if the system is just send out 10 cards a week that are laying on your desk—oh my God, you are inspiring me so much right now to send some notes out today. Don't be surprised if you get a handwritten note from me. Do you get special cards, or you just get whatever?

Michelle We buy boxes of 100 on Amazon, and they have all different covers for all different reasons. I buy cards everywhere. If I go to one of my little shop-in-stores—the Lilly Pulitzer store—if I see a cute little handwritten note, blank notes, I'll pick them up. So I have tons of them.

Suneet Oh, I love that. I'm going to totally do this.

Suneet Hold me accountable because—and I'm saying it live for everyone to listen to—I will be sending 10 cards a week.

Michelle Yes, absolutely. Okay. Well, I'm going to be checking. So 10 cards—that means you should have four by the time we get on our coaching call next week.

Suneet Okay. I will do it.

Suneet [00:14:00] You are a DiSC Profile certified trainer. How did that come about? Because I think back in the day—or maybe a decade, 20 years ago—the DiSC Profile was talked about a lot. I feel like the talk about the DiSC Profile has diminished now, mostly because it's hard. It's not something you can just read a book and learn. So how did you become DiSC certified? What got you interested?

Michelle You really want me to tell you that? Okay. All right. I'll tell you how I became DiSC certified.

Michelle What really happened is I'd hear about it and I'd read a couple books about it, and it was intriguing to me. I was approached by someone—he was a commodore for the state police—and he was teaching DiSC.

Michelle [00:15:00] He approached me and said, "Hey, can we do a certification class?" And I'm like, "Absolutely." He's like, "I'm only going to charge you what it costs me to do the DiSC assessments, but let's do this big huge class." I do this big huge class. I fill the room, pack the room. It's neat.

Michelle Then the bill came. I looked at the bill and I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" It was astronomical. I wasn't expecting that. So I really loved the material, and then I'm like, "Okay, well, I have all these tests that he did. I'm just going to go out and do this myself."

Michelle I tracked down the Wiley company out of Minnesota. I contacted them and I said, "Hey, I like the material. I want to be a teacher." So I flew out to Minnesota, took a course for three days, and I started reading books, and I started watching videos, and became DiSC certified.

Michelle It's actually helped me a lot in my business, and it's helped my team members a lot too, because they can understand wiring systems and be able to talk to people the way they need to be talked to.

Suneet [00:16:00] So was it initially for your real estate business rather than doing leadership?

Michelle It was initially for the real estate business—100%. I was fascinated by it, and I just kept learning, and I wanted to teach the agents.

Suneet And for those people who are listening who have never heard about the DiSC Profile, can you explain it to me like I'm a six-year-old?

Michelle Okay. So the DiSC theory was adopted by—well, it was something, it was a theory from Myers-Briggs.

Michelle Basically, the theory is that all people have all traits, but they're most likely dominant in one or two traits. There's a D, and the D would be dominant—like a dominant personality—a doer. Remember D for dominant and doer.

Michelle [00:17:00] Think about a wheel spelling DISC: D-I-S-C.

Michelle An I would be inspirational. They're inspiring, they have integrity, they want to be life of the party. Usually you can tell these people— a lot of them like to dress flashy, they like dressing nice, and they like bling. That's an I.

Michelle An inspiring person can lose their focus quite often. They just want to be the life of the party. It's hard for them to finish things and to remain focused.

Michelle S would be systematic—you can think about supportive: systematic and supportive for somebody like your administrators. People that have a role to help people, and they're not doing it just because they have to; they do it because they actually want to. They want to be behind the scenes.

Michelle And then C is cautious and reflective. The best way I can explain a C is an accountant—spreadsheets, they love numbers. If you're working with somebody that's high C and you don't give them any data, they're not going to have trust in you.

Michelle [00:18:00] So as a real estate agent—I'm a high D followed by I. Those are my dominant traits. But if I go do showings and I have new clients and I just push them to do it—like, "Get this offer signed. Let's just go"—and I don't stop to show them the numbers or show them material or explain why this is a good deal, I'm going to lose them.

Michelle That's why I think it's important to understand that wiring system. Most people have a higher trait in two out of the four. We have all four, but like me, my S is almost nonexistent and my C is at mid-level. If I want to research, I will, but I don't love it.

Suneet Okay. You explained that perfectly. Thank you.

Suneet [00:19:00] How do you use that when meeting a new real estate client?

Michelle I use it with the real estate clients and real estate agents. My wiring system's been trained to pick up on traits. People that talk with their hands, they're usually a D or an I. Then I need to identify: if they're fast talkers and direct, I know they're a D. So I don't want to bog those people down with details—I just want to get it done.

Michelle If they're super focused and I hear them talking about entertaining and friends being important, I'm going to focus on the great features of a house, and I'm going to give them some vision on what they can do at that property—barbecues and hosting parties, things like that.

Michelle People that can't make a decision, I might need to show them why it's a good decision for them. That's an S.

Michelle And then a C: I better start digging up the research. And if I can't do it, I need to find somebody that can help me do it.

Suneet [00:20:00] Wow. So within that first meeting or within that first phone call, you're looking for signals. You're probably subconsciously doing it now, right? It's not like an intentional thing like, "Well, let me see. This person said this, so they're this." You can just pick it up.

Michelle Yeah. You just know what their needs are. If they start asking you for electric bills, they start asking you for solar contracts—electric bills—they want to know how much other utilities are, ages of everything—I know that they're a high C, and I need to make sure I have all the details ready for them.

Michelle And if I don't have it, they don't want to work with me.

Suneet [00:21:00] So good. What about the DiSC profile application when being a team leader and managing agents?

Michelle All right. Managing agents—do you want me to tell you some things I learned the hard way? Okay.

Michelle On the DiSC scale, we only put about 25% of our faith into DiSC. People are people, and people adapt. I learned the hard way that I'm a 98% D—I'm a doer. I need to get things done, and I don't like a lot of details.

Michelle But I've learned on my team that if I have too many doers and we're too many high Ds, we're all going to butt heads, because we also like to do things— we'll take your suggestion, but at the end of the day, we're going to do it our way.

Michelle If you have a full team of all high Ds—that's my household. Everybody has their own way to do things, and you're definitely going to cross paths once in a while.

Suneet [00:22:00] Yeah. So how do we apply it though? Based on what we talk about—and I mean, you don't have every agent that comes in do a DiSC profile, right?

Michelle Yes, you do.

Suneet Okay. When do you do that?

Michelle I do it before they're on the team.

Michelle So I have a DiSC profile, and we actually display our DiSC profiles. We display them in our team room. We do that because we want the team members—I want them to know how to approach me.

Michelle I don't want to be in the middle of something and I'm totally focused on that. I want to help them, but I want them to understand how I'm wired, and I want them to be able to talk with me and get all the answers that they want. And I want them to do that with each other too.

Michelle [00:23:00] On my team right now, I have someone that's been with me for 10 years. They're a big producer, and in the past I've rebuilt my team a couple times. I've had people come to me and say, "I don't think they like me." And I'm like, "What do you mean they don't like you? They love everybody." On the other side of the coin, they're calling me saying, "Oh, I really like this person."

Michelle But the other person is like, "Well, they don't talk to me." Well, yeah—because they can't. They're not wired that way. So if they have their profiles with their wiring system displayed, I would send someone to the board and say, "Why don't you go read their DiSC assessment and you'll understand why you feel like they don't like you. They actually like you a lot."

Suneet Wow. That's so good you have them displayed as a reference. Brilliant.

Suneet [00:24:00] If an agent or team leader wants to learn more about DiSC, where should they start?

Michelle I think you can Google. There's links on the Wiley company site. There's a lot of online assessments. There's a book—the very first thing I did when I was interested in DiSC is I read a book.

Michelle It has a purple cover, and it's called Personality Profiles.

Suneet Personality Profiles.

Michelle Yeah. And that broke it down in a really easy way. I would read that book, and then there's a lot of resources in the book so you can get more information.

Suneet Okay. I'm going to write that down right after this.

Suneet [00:25:00] That's another example of what I'm loving to learn about you: short sales were something that could increase your business, so you went somewhere and took a course. DiSC profile—you saw an opportunity to get better at your business, so you went somewhere, took a course, then became trained in it, and then started teaching the course. That's super good. And that's how you pivot, which is full circle from what we started.

Suneet What other skills—like the DiSC, like even short sales—do you think people should be thinking about in today's environment?

Michelle I think in today's market it's really important to understand finance options. We just went through Q1, and it was a tougher market. I'm in Massachusetts. I've been in the business since 1997, and our Q2's looking awesome. Our Q1 was difficult.

Michelle Being able to take a buyer and understand 2-1 buydowns or some different programs where they can—maybe there's like an ARM program that they're doing. So I think agents really should understand different finance options. That's pretty important today.

Suneet [00:26:00] Where do I learn about finance options?

Michelle Find your favorite lender.

Suneet Yes. I actually own a mortgage company, so I can just ask the person down the street.

Michelle Yeah—ask Suneet. They'll teach you.

Suneet Yeah. Well, no—don't ask me. Ask my guy, Dan. Because there's DSCRs and all this stuff. And what I've seen—I've got an agent in my organization who's a solid agent, been with me for like 11 years, and they really figured out the DSCRs.

Suneet Their name is Tony Wayne—been with me for over a decade—and they talked to my senior loan officer who works for me, Dan Herbert. And Tony's putting together DSCR buyers nonstop. It's remarkable.

Michelle Can we talk about that for a second?

Suneet Yes.

Michelle [00:27:00] In December, I had a client in need to get out of a hard money loan. They're going to be matured very quickly, and the house isn't ready to be sold yet, but they're freaking out because the hard money is coming up, and they're not going to extend.

Suneet It's a good reason to freak out, right?

Michelle So I'm sitting down and I'm going into ChatGPT—and I learned this from you, right? I'm going into ChatGPT and I'm saying, "What options does this person have? I'm going to list this house—what options do they have?" I find the DSCR loan. They're an investor. I find that DSCR loan and I'm like, "Holy crap." Never knew that they existed.

Michelle We flipped their first property into a DSCR super quick. They had the equity, they had the rentability, and we were able to flip them over to a DSCR. So that's December—and if we fast-forward, I'm helping two more clients use DSCR right now with some of their investments.

Suneet [00:28:00] Awesome. Yeah, and it's great options. And I love what you said—you went into ChatGPT, right? So how important do you think AI is in today's world?

Michelle I think it's incredible, and I think that if people are not adapting to AI, they're going to be left in the dust, and that's probably the biggest pivot that we need to make in our business.

Suneet Yeah. So what do you do with AI in your business besides use it to figure out loan options for people?

Michelle Everything. Give me two of your favorite things.

Michelle [00:29:00] Okay. A couple—I'll talk about the real estate aspects and team members. It used to be that we would go and have a client have a home inspection. The report comes back and your client's asking you what your recommendations are.

Michelle Old school, I would print that out, I would read that 88 pages, and I would take a yellow highlighter and I would highlight all the areas of concern. Then I'd have to go back and I'd have to make recommendations and type a list.

Suneet You just blew my mind. What a great use.

Michelle So now I still read it. I skim it. Then I put the home inspection in Chat, or whichever preferred AI I'm using. So I'll upload the home inspection. It gives me the recommendations. I give it back a couple more recommendations, and I tell it, "Type me a list." So I just took hours and brought it down to 20 minutes.

Suneet That is one of the best use cases I've heard for real estate agents. Bravo, Michelle. That's so good. One more.

Michelle [00:30:00] We have a lot of properties—we build houses, we flip houses, we have investments, we have vacation properties—all kinds of properties. So I did a little project: I pulled notes on all of them. I put all the notes in Chat and asked it to give me any red flags.

Michelle So I'm reading mortgage notes, I'm reading loan docs, I'm throwing settlement statements in—and I also saved 67,000 on a flip by putting all my bids in too. So I upload my bids and get recommendations off the bids.

Suneet Do you know what I love about the two things that you just said? None of them had to do with, "Oh, it helps me write emails or helps me write social media." You're using it to make money and to save your time—to add efficiency, make money, save money, and save time.

Suneet [00:31:00] Instead of treating it like Google, right? Or like: "Yeah, I got all my Facebook posts. I get one like and 100 views from ChatGPT," because everyone's doing that.

Suneet All right, last couple questions. What advice do you have for real estate agents today?

Michelle Coach and mentor. Coach and mentor. This is a tough time in the business, and you have to—don't waste all your time making Canva posts. Don't waste all your time controlling social media. You have to take action and have a mentor and a coach to be able to hold you accountable and help you move forward, because it's not easy right now. It's a tougher market.

Suneet There's always circumstances that don't make something easy, right? Like when the market's good, what's happening? There's 40 offers on everything and it's going 100 grand over list. Mentorship and coaching has no doubt 100% changed my life in every aspect.

Suneet [00:32:00] What advice do you have for the real estate team leader out there right now?

Michelle Hang in there. Hang in there. Keep giving it all you got. You're in that position for a reason. You are there because you deserve to be there, and you're a leader. Take leadership seriously.

Michelle Remember that your team members—they're going to do what you do. If you don't make calls, they're not going to make calls. If you don't show up, they're not showing up. If you don't have structure, they're not going to have structure.

Michelle [00:33:00] Look at yourself in the mirror, and that's your team.

Suneet Yes. I love that.

Suneet If somebody wants to learn more about you, learn about working with you, or send you a referral—what's your market called again?

Michelle I'm in Central Massachusetts.

Suneet What are some bigger cities that people can send you a referral for?

Michelle [00:34:00] Worcester, Massachusetts. Springfield. And we do Northern Connecticut too—anything from Hartford, Worcester, Springfield. Our team covers the entire state of Massachusetts. I work on Cape Cod too.

Suneet So anyone listening, you got a referral in Massachusetts—just call Michelle. They'll help you get it handled. What's a good way for someone to send you those referrals, Michelle?

Michelle I think the best would be to email me at michelle@michelleterryteam.com.

Suneet All right. We'll drop the notes in here.

Suneet [00:35:00] Michelle, this was really good. This was great. Everybody, I hope you got something out of it. I got three or four things out of it. I'm going to go after this and go on Amazon and buy the cards. I'm going to check out that DiSC profile book. I'll probably drop it in AI and have it give me a summary, but hey—that's where I'm at right now.

Suneet That home inspection thing is such an unlock. So great job.

Suneet Listeners, viewers—I hope you got something out of it. If you did, like and subscribe and share with a friend, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Reside Platform podcast.

Suneet Thanks, Michelle. Thanks, everybody.