February 19, 2025 • 34 mins
“What are your plans for your business when you’re done selling?” is not a question a lot of agents think about before they decide to retire, nor the value of their database.
Nick Krautter, author of The Golden Handoff, joins us to share his process for adopting clients from agents who are winding down their businesses or changing markets.
During this part of our conversation Nick shares:
- How he got from 200 to 2000 clients in two years by adopting other agents' clients.
- The challenges Nick encountered the first time he tried to adopt someone else’s book of business
- How to identify who is a good candidate to give your book of business to
- How to find people who are looking to retire or change markets
- Scripts to help approach someone about taking over their business
- Partial handoffs
- Practical steps to take to make the transition as smooth as possible
- Setting expectations for success
Are you looking to grow your business quickly or looking to retire and are unsure what to do with your book of business? Then listen in for part one of our two-part discussion with Nick to learn some actionable steps you can take to do so.
To learn more from Nick check out https://goldenhandoff.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nick Krautter (00:00):
At some level, you have to feel a little guilty
that you're ignoring this. Youhave to know that you're losing
opportunity. You have to knowpeople are gonna call a
different agent because you'renot really trying to help them.
You're not really staying in infront of them. So instead of
just losing that and gettingnothing for it, why don't just
be intentional.
Chris Whitling (00:29):
Hello, and welcome to Forward Slash Real
Estate. I am your host, Chris.This is the podcast where we
talk about the intersectionbetween technology and real
estate. Today, we're gonna betalking about once you've used
that technology to generate allthose leads and you've been
doing that for years, now what?What are the monetization
strategies that is going to helpyou keep making money from that
(00:51):
when you wanna do something likeretire, or move to a new new
location?
So I'm gonna intro our guestNick here in a second. But
first, I gotta give a little bitof FOMO, feel to Todd Tremontae.
So every year, we do Real GrowthSummit. Used to be named named
the, unofficial Rubik's userconference. And for the past two
(01:11):
years, we've come away from thatconference watching someone on
stage and go, oh, wow.
We have to have them on thepodcast immediately. So second
year in a row. Nick, just withthat, tell us who you are and
what you do. And, it's gonnabecome apparent real quick to
people why we're talking to you.
Nick Krautter (01:29):
Okay. So I like to start by saying I am a
realtor. I just got started in osix in Portland, Oregon. You
know, I fell in love with thebusiness. I was working fourteen
hour days, six, seven days aweek to go from zero clients to
200 over about four years and,had great mentorship and moved
to Portland, Oregon in 'five,which was just like a magical
(01:52):
time to move to a place that wasgrowing dramatically and and be
a part of that story for twentyyears.
But while we're talking isbecause during the great
recession, a lot of really goodrealtors in my office started to
take other jobs, retire, move.And I figured out how to, what I
(02:12):
call, adopt their clients. So Ibought their books of business.
They endorsed me to theirclients. And all of a sudden,
you know, I spent four yearsbusting my butt to get to 200
clients.
And over the next couple years,I went from 200 to 2,000 clients
working way less because insteadof getting every client one at a
time, I was getting two, three,four hundred clients at a time
(02:36):
from my from my deals with theserealtors who were retiring,
moving, changing careers. And itreally opened my eyes to how you
could grow way faster and stillby referral. And I ended up
writing a book about it calledThe Golden Handoff, and that's
why I was at the conferencespeaking.
Chris Whitling (02:56):
I was about to say I've got I've got the book
right here as well. You know,we're gonna be talking for the
audience. We're gonna be talkinga lot about, what's in this
book. So definitely work firstof all, let's just give them a
plug right now. Where can theyfind this?
Amazon?
Nick Krautter (03:10):
Amazon. Yeah. It's the best place to get it.
You'll have it in a day or two.Make sure you go to Golden
Handoff dot com as well.
There's a ton of resources inthe book. If you sign up on the
website, you'll get a link todownload all of those in a
format you can edit. So you cangrab the announcement letters,
contracts, scripts, dialogues,all that, and put it into
action, very easily.
Chris Whitling (03:31):
So we've already set set stage here a little bit
because, you know, I think somepeople are probably hearing,
okay. Hang on. This guy is,like, sort of growing by m and
a. And then maybe anothersection of the audience is
probably hearing, I'm thinkingabout retiring. Is this the exit
ramp?
Like, so if someone's readingthis book,
Nick Krautter (03:50):
like Yeah.
Chris Whitling (03:50):
What perspective are you who who are you writing
it for?
Nick Krautter (03:54):
It's written for both people. I struggle with
that at the beginning becauseoriginally, I thought I was
gonna write, a a retirement howto book. And I I was talking
with a mentor of mine who wrotethe forward, a guy named Rick
DeLuca, who's like a real estateguru, speaker coach guy, who
coached me and my team for awhile back when I was starting.
And he said, Nick, the audiencefor all the people that wanna do
(04:18):
what you're doing by growingtheir business way is way bigger
than the number of people whoare looking for that retirement
strategy because hopefully youonly need that once. Right?
If you do it right. But whatwhat's crazy to me is just that
in real estate, people don'thave a plan for their business.
Right. They like you. We weretalking earlier.
You know, they buy rentals, youinvest in the stock market, you
(04:40):
do kind of those traditionalthings. But then there's this
huge blind spot where peopleforget that their client
relationships and their book ofbusiness is worth a fortune. But
well, they don't do
Chris Whitling (04:50):
anything to talk about it all the time. You know,
whether it's like there's nosuch thing as a bad lead or
there's gold in the old, youknow, like. So the concept
should be there. And I love thatyou're pointing directly at the
database and, like, there is amonetary value associated with
that whole thing.
Nick Krautter (05:05):
Yeah. And then the I think being aware of that
at all is really the start ofmaking a decision of do you
wanna do something with it ornot? I hope that everyone does
because, you know, one of theside benefits that I didn't
think of originally was theclients are actually really
(05:26):
happy when their agentintroduces them to someone else
that can help them because theydon't want to have to go
interview people again and askfor, you know, all their friends
at work. If Who do you use? Doyou like them?
And go have meetings andinterview people and try to find
a new broker. If you've gotsomeone good and they refer you
to someone and say, this personwill help you. They're great.
(05:49):
Clients are stoked. And so, it'sOnce you realize that there's
value there and once you realizethat even if you don't care
about that or don't need it, butyour clients will value it and
that's why you're in thiswonderful position is right.
They've supported you your wholecareer and working with you. It
The way to unlock it is you haveto have someone to do the work.
(06:11):
Right? There has to be someoneto show the houses, write the
contracts, answer the questions,negotiate. There has to be
another broker and a realtorinvolved.
And so helping connect those twopeople is is really the secret.
And then it's so easy to dealwith the money because it's all
based on referral fees. Andthat's something that every
realtor is super familiar with.And it's super fair because you
(06:33):
only pay
Chris Whitling (06:34):
I don't wanna give too much away yet because I
wanna give a give people areason to listen all the way
through the episode, because youhave some really good answers,
on a lot of that stuff. But, youknow, maybe real quick we go
back because you said youstarted your career in Portland,
Oregon in 02/2006, and then youessentially adopted this, you
know, what kinda sounds to melike an m and a type strategy,
(06:55):
but you were buying thedatabases to as the, you know,
sort of great recession was,forcing people out. Can you talk
to me through, like, when thatlike, the first time that you
bought the first one and thechallenges that you ran into on
that, you know, transaction, Iguess.
Nick Krautter (07:12):
Yeah. The first one was tricky. They actually
said no the first time. And
Chris Whitling (07:16):
Oh, really?
Nick Krautter (07:17):
Yeah. Because I was doing pretty good. I was
busy. I was starting to build aa team. I didn't have a lot of
people.
I think I had a buyer's agentand a part time assistant.
Chris Whitling (07:26):
Yep.
Nick Krautter (07:27):
I knew I needed to keep growing. Like, we were I
was interviewing people and andthinking, you know, those next
steps that I needed to take,just because there's only so
many hours in the day. Characterin the book, she's real. I
actually I think we just closeda deal with one of her clients
or got a listing last week. AndMhmm.
(07:48):
We originally started workingtogether fourteen years ago. But
I asked Renee, hey, can I helpyour clients? I didn't really
have a plan. I just Yeah. I knewshe had great clients.
She worked at, like, really highend stuff, great neighborhoods,
referral based. She was a reallygood broker. She wasn't getting
out because she failed. She wasgetting out because she had a
second child and didn't want tohave to work the hours it takes
(08:11):
to be successful in real estate.And so she originally said no.
And she gave her book ofbusiness to an agent that was
kind of struggling thinkingthat, oh, he's got way more
time. But, you know, I say thisjoke on stage all the time. You
know, if someone's bad atbusiness and you give them more
clients, they don't suddenly getgood at business. They just do
bad business with more people.
Chris Whitling (08:31):
That's right.
Nick Krautter (08:31):
But what really happened is there was just no
follow-up. Right? Like, hedidn't wanna make the calls.
When he got appointments, hewould ask her to come to the
appointment. So now she'sworking two jobs and splitting
the money.
And so after six months, shecame back to me and said, okay,
this isn't working. And I shouldhave hired you. And I said,
said, okay, this isn't working,and I should have hired you. And
I said, well, here's the goodnews. The market's been
terrible.
Most people haven't moved. Buteven in that six month window
(08:55):
from when she's worked withsomeone else before I took over,
first thing I promised her is,you know, she's like, hey, this
guy didn't call anyone. I said,okay, I will call everyone in
this list. I will sit at my deskand call 300 people and I'll do
it in like however many days ittakes until I am done. And and
(09:16):
that's what I did.
We found five or six people thatwere listed or buying with other
agents in just that six monthperiod. And that was in a time
when the market was pretty slow.Probably similar to where we are
now in terms of deal volume.Right? So imagine if the
market's going gangbusters likeit was a couple years ago.
That might have been 10 peoplethat she's already lost because
(09:39):
she's not in the game, but noone else is there to, like, talk
to these people.
Chris Whitling (09:43):
Right. And talk about, like, ROI on time spent,
you know, like, five or six on300, you know, contacts. I don't
know. Like, 2%, you know, Ithink that's a that's a three
point rate that most people willbe pretty happy with.
Nick Krautter (09:57):
Oh, yeah. And I mean, you look at it, like, in a
good database, you know, five to10% of the people on that list
are actively thinking aboutbuying or selling right now.
Yeah. Like, in you're listeningto this. You've got a database
of 500 people.
50 of them are going to dosomething. They're thinking
about it. And so it's just thethe trick, right, in in what you
(10:18):
guys do a good job with. And andand really the secret is, like,
how do you manage 500relationships to make sure you
can connect with those 50 peoplewho really wanna talk to you?
And that's the part that's hard.
Yeah. Right? If you only had totalk to the people that wanted
to talk to you, it'd be veryeasy. Unfortunately, no one's
cracked that code completelyyet. Everyone's trying.
(10:39):
There's billions of dollarsbeing spent on that mystery. But
that's why salespeople still getpaid to put in the work to call
people to to figure out whoactually needs me.
Chris Whitling (10:50):
That's right. So it sounds like the first piece
of learning there was really thethe person that you do the
handoff to matters, which Ithink is probably intuitive.
Like, if you were going to, I'mthinking about the way that a
lot of referrals in real estate,manifest where it's like, hey,
you know, mister realtor thatI've used before, I'm now moving
(11:10):
to a new state. Who do you have?And there's a lot that goes into
that.
Like, it seems obvious that youwould also put thought in who
you're going to give access toyour database because you
there's, like, a level ofcredibility that's transferred
between you and the personthat's taking it over.
Nick Krautter (11:26):
Oh, yeah. No. I mean, who you choose to work
with. So if you're the agentwho's retiring or you're moving
and you're going to hand offyour your clients to someone,
yeah, you want to put a lot ofthought into it. There's a whole
chapter in the book about how togo through that process and make
sure you have the right people.
And, you know, I sold myresidential business a couple
years ago, and I interviewed 10different agents and teams when
(11:46):
I did that. And, you know, for alot of them, these are people I
knew personally, that I had donedeals with, that had great
reputations. Like half of themdidn't want to take on that many
more clients Mhmm. Because theydidn't have enough people to,
like, do it well. So there's asweet spot, right?
Like, you don't want someonethat has no business and assume
(12:08):
that they've got free timebecause they're they're doing
something wrong if they've gotno business. You don't want
someone that needed to hire 10other people and is so far
behind the curve that they can'tkeep up with what they already
have because they're gonna betoo busy. So there's like kind
of a sweet spot of people thathave the systems and tools and
(12:30):
experience that allow them totake on some growth. Almost have
you kind of almost want someonethat has a track record of
success, but they maybe havemore agents than they really
need and they can kind of growinto it. That's where
Chris Whitling (12:47):
you got a little bit
Nick Krautter (12:48):
of headroom.
Chris Whitling (12:49):
A little bit of headroom.
Nick Krautter (12:51):
Yeah. Where, hey, everyone. We're gonna need to
call these we just got 500 newclients, and they don't go, oh,
no. You want them to go, oh,yes. You know, they're they're
excited.
Like Yeah. You want people to,like, oh. Which come on.
Chris Whitling (13:04):
If you're saying oh no to a bunch of new leads,
like, might wanna rethink theself talk there.
Nick Krautter (13:10):
But I'm telling you, dude, I don't know how many
great agents I know that, like,will skip calls one week because
they're already so busy. Andthey're like, I'll I know if I
call these people, someone'sgonna want an appointment and
I'm so busy and I haven't seenmy kids and my, you know, I
haven't been to the gym thisweek. You know, people sabotage
themselves and again, you do getto a point. The reason why
(13:31):
people have teams is becausethey run out of time.
Chris Whitling (13:33):
That's true.
Nick Krautter (13:35):
They're better at getting business than they have
the ability to handle it. And,that's a good by the way, that's
the problem you want. You don'twanna be, oh my gosh. I've got
the best systems, tools, people,but we have no Right. You don't
want to talk to.
Chris Whitling (13:51):
Well, I mean, it's a this is a whole topic for
another podcast
Nick Krautter (13:54):
where
Chris Whitling (13:54):
it's like, great. You have done all the
right things, and now you havethe problem where you're sort
Nick Krautter (14:01):
of checkmated between, you know,
Chris Whitling (14:01):
I have all this business, but it's requiring all
of my time, and I really need todo some, like, deep strategic
thought on, like, how to, like,accommodate the growth.
Nick Krautter (14:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Whitling (14:13):
So it sounds like, you know, you were you
you've learned a little bitabout, like, you know, the
business that's receiving theleads, what they need to be. So
I guess you must have gonethrough this first one and said,
okay. This works for me. Whatdid you start to look for? Like,
how did you how do you findpeople that are, you know,
either on the cusp of retiringor getting ready to move?
(14:35):
And then and then what does thatconversation look like when you
approach them and say, you know,hey, I'm interested in taking
over your database?
Nick Krautter (14:42):
You know, you start with your relationships.
So start with the brokers you'refriends with that, you know,
start at your office. Let youryour managing broker, principal
broker, know that you'reinterested in in helping people
who are relocating or who arechanging careers or retiring.
And that's a great that thatwas, like, a huge resource for
me was my team leader wasinstrumental in letting me know
(15:04):
who wanted to talk to me. And tothe point where after I worked
with Renee and she was gettingchecks every month, you know, it
was a big success story for her.
And so I had people coming to mewanting to sell their businesses
to me because they saw that, oh,well, Renee's getting a check or
(15:25):
two every month. Nick's doingall these calls. He's doing what
he says he's gonna do. So Iwanna work with him on this. And
so it it started to kindasnowball for me.
And then we got to a point whereI kinda had to say, we don't
have enough people to keep up.We can't add 300 clients every
six months, not at the speedthat the team was growing. We
(15:47):
had to, like, kind of hit pauseand go, okay, let's just wrap
our arms around what we havebecause I don't want to I don't
want to screw the whole thing upby dropping the ball and not
keeping our promise Right. Toour clients and to those agents.
Right?
Because those retiring agentsbecome your best clients.
They're referring you tons ofpeople. And, I I think that what
(16:10):
you so start with your brokerageis is the lowest hanging fruit.
And then the people that you coop deals with. And there's a
script I use that's very easy.
It's funny because when youbring this up, and I before I
share this script, people havethis crazy anxiety about calling
people and asking them about itbecause they feel like they're
gonna get yelled at or peoplewill be mad at them. And you
(16:33):
don't wanna call someone andsay, hey, I see your
production's way down. When areyou gonna quit? That would be
the wrong way to approachsomeone. Not a good move.
So if that's what you'rethinking, don't do that. You
should have anxiety about thatconversation. The way to
approach it that's reallyproductive is to say, hey,
Chris, you know, I've reallyenjoyed working with you on the
couple of deals we've done. I'vereally admired how you've run
(16:55):
your business and and had thisgreat career. I'm curious.
What are your plans with yourbusiness when you're done
selling? And what most agentswill say is, that's crazy. I
don't know. I kinda thought I'djust keep doing this, but I
really am burned out or I reallywant to relocate. But I've got
all of these clients here and Idon't want to start over again
(17:15):
from scratch.
And so then you there's your nowthere's your opening. How can I
help solve your problem? Yeah.Now the only person this doesn't
work for, right, is if, Chris,you say I'm I'm gonna try to
quadruple this business over thenext five years, and then, you
know, I'm gonna hire morepeople, and then I'm gonna try
(17:36):
to grow it more. And if you'vegot like this endless ambition.
Chris Whitling (17:39):
Yep.
Nick Krautter (17:40):
And you're on this growth warpath, then that's
not an opportunity for me tohelp you as a, you know, take
over your business. But the coolthing with the partial handoffs
is even if you were like, yeah.I'm kinda burned out. I'm not
really digging in and callingall these people. I'm not really
marketing.
Then I could say, Chris, well,what do you what are the types
(18:02):
of clients and the types of workyou love doing? And you say, oh
gosh, I love listings in thesethree neighborhoods. Because I
know them. I know theseneighborhoods better than any
other broker. I have a greatsuccess rate.
I love the price point. But man,I'm so burned down on working
with buyers that want to buy inthe suburbs, and I'm in the car
(18:22):
all day, and in traffic, and Ihate it. And then I go, well,
Chris, let me help all thosebuyers. I'm just I'm still
growing my business. I I wantI'm excited about being in the
car all weekend.
I wanna help those people.
Chris Whitling (18:35):
I I love this because we you also just
introduced a it's sort of like athird option, you know, because
I I think
Nick Krautter (18:41):
that Yeah.
Chris Whitling (18:41):
So far our conversation has been kind of
binary, you know. It's likeeither either they're continuing
in business or they're not andthat's how the conversation is
structured. But I love this, youknow. It's almost it's almost
like a plot twist on like a likean ISA type service or something
like that where it's like, hey,I can I can solve this problem
(19:02):
for you in this other area?Like, let's talk about the
things that you don't likedoing, and let me take them.
Nick Krautter (19:07):
Yeah. No. And that's the thing is, like, this
solution has been staring me inthe face for, like, ten years.
And I thought I was doing agreat job by making my list of
retiring agents and staying intouch, just like you do with
home sellers. Like sometimes youcall someone and they're ready
to sell, and sometimes they say,hey, my kid just started junior
high.
Call me in eight years whenthey're done with school, and
we'll be moving. Right. And soyou put it in your hey, every
(19:29):
year I'm gonna check-in. Hey, doyou wanna move school districts?
Are you gonna wait the eightyears?
And then I'll I'll help I'll behere to help you. You know, I
literally had clients in mydatabase where I was like, call
them in, you know, eight yearsfrom now because they'll be
ready to sell. The kids will beout of off to college. But the
real solution isn't waitinguntil someone wants to be
completely done because twoproblems. One, it takes forever.
(19:52):
And by then, they've probablylost touch with a lot of their
people. So if you can findsomeone when they're in that
phase where I'm gonna keep doingthis for a while, but I'm not
trying to grow, you can findwhat is that partial handoff
option? Right? What is the thingthat, Chris, you don't wanna do
that I can take off of yourplate? Because at some level,
(20:13):
you have to feel a little guiltythat you're ignoring this.
You have to know that you'relosing opportunity. You have to
know people are gonna call adifferent agent because you're
not really trying to help them.You're not really staying in in
front of them. So instead ofjust losing that and getting
nothing for it, why don't justbe intentional. You know, make
the decision to you know what?
(20:34):
I don't wanna work with buyersanymore. I wanna work on these
listings. I'm really good at it.It gives me the time to just be
with my family and do otherstuff. And so I'm not gonna work
with buyers.
And I'm gonna but but findsomeone that's excited about
helping them. Right? So youeither build a team or you can
you can kind of hack the teamprocess with a handoff.
Chris Whitling (20:53):
Maybe just to rephrase, you know, what you're
what you're saying there. Like,it sounds like your ideal
prospect for for, you know,entering this arrangement is,
like, you're looking for someonethat is entering a career
transition. Right? So Yeah. Andand that way, you can you can
you as the agent that's tryingto assume the business can be
fairly well assured thatthere's, like, some freshness in
(21:15):
the in the database.
And it's not just cold becausethey actually quit calling their
leads two years ago and now arejust kind of, like, living off
the off the sort of referralsthat are coming out of it.
Nick Krautter (21:27):
Yeah. If you think of like a career is like a
rocket launch. Right. So rightat the beginning, like you're
just burning fuel and you'regoing straight up. Right.
And that's kind of like when Iwas new and I was doing fourteen
hour days, six, seven days aweek and I was loving it. You
know, I was super exciting. Iwas learning the business. I was
growing a business. I was hiringpeople.
I was making more money than Iever made before. And that
(21:49):
rocket goes up and then it kindof reaches like this part where
it plateaus. And you can keepgoing, right? You might have a
couple stages in your rocket.You might it might be forty,
fifty years.
You're just, I'm gonna just I'mgonna have a team of 50 people
and we're gonna do a billiondollars in sales. Like, there's
people probably listening tothis. There's a couple that are
like that. But most people,their rocket goes up. They get
(22:09):
to some point where they'rekinda comfortable.
And if you're at a point whereyou can ignore any clients or
say no to business, you're at apoint where you should find
someone to take all the stuffyou don't wanna do. Because
that's the sweet spot where,like, you've you basically your
last booster's burned out andyou're about to start doing
this. And at that apogee, right,at that peak, that's when you
(22:33):
have, like, the peak engagementwith your clients and you can be
intentional about, hey, I'm myrocket's gonna do this, but this
other rocket's gonna keep goingup. Right. And I'm gonna put all
my people on this rocket and I'mgonna just take care of what I
can handle over here withoutactually losing it.
Chris Whitling (22:50):
I wanna switch tracks here a little bit
because, like, I I think that,you know, by now, if someone's
listening to this and they'renot, like, convinced that this
is awesome, I don't know. Rewindand listen to it again. But,
like, when you're actually yeah.And where I wanna go with this
is, like, the actual mechanics.Right?
So we we always try and leavepeople with, Like, this is,
(23:10):
like, very practical steps of,like, things that you can go
execute on right now. Yeah. So,you know, when when you've got
access to this database, someonesays yes. Like, hey. I'm I'm in
career transition mode.
Nick, I want you to take overmy, you know, my database. Like,
what are your first steps, youknow, when you get the, you know
well, actually, maybe you caneven just tell me. Like, how
(23:32):
does this usually manifest? Dothey give you a login to their
real geeks? Do they give you aCSV?
Like or here's a copy of myiPhone. Like how does this
unfold?
Nick Krautter (23:41):
Yeah. So you make the connection. You sign a
contract, which is basicallylike a referral agreement for a
lot of people. And I
Chris Whitling (23:47):
got a bunch of questions about that. We're
gonna come back to that.
Nick Krautter (23:49):
Yeah. Yeah. So I think what's really important is
and I like to do this offplatform. So whatever platform
you're using for your CRM,export it to a CSV where you
have names, phone numbers,emails and addresses. So just do
a big export dump.
I like to print it out. So evenif it's like 20 pages long, just
print it out and get togetherwith the retiring agent. And you
(24:12):
sit down and you go over ittogether and you take notes. So
you're filling out notes on theclients. It is crazy how much
the return agent will rememberabout these people.
Yeah. And there will be a ton ofpeople where they go, oh, oh,
yeah. I guess I never wrote anote about that, but those folks
talked to me about selling thisyear. I you should call them
first. Oh, you know, I've beenshowing that guy houses.
(24:34):
I don't know if he's reallygonna buy. I haven't checked
with him in a while, but he waslooking for x. And so you start
filling in the notes. You alsosee if there's information
missing. So you're like, hey.
There's no phone number for thisperson. And they go, oh, it's in
my cell phone. I just neverupdated it. And so you you fill
in the gaps. You learn kind of astory of who these people are
and what they need.
(24:55):
You help identify kind of yourtop 10, top 20, top 50. Who
should you call first andfollow-up with the most? You
know, in a perfect world, youalso have a list of follow-up
tasks for these people where,like, the agents has scheduled
out in the future, like, theperson that's gonna move in
eight years when their kids aredone with high school. And you
can plug that into your system.In a dream world, you've got the
(25:19):
same platform.
Right? So you're, like, call upreal gigs and you say, hey, can
you transfer over this list andkeep all of the notes in the
native format? Or you have alittle shared login, or you add
them to a team, you know,however you facilitate that. If
you don't, obviously, you haveto do an export import. You make
sure that when you do that, youtag them and source them as
these are Chris's clients sothat you know which ones you're
(25:42):
paying the referrals on andwhich ones are are your clients.
And then there's an announcementletter that comes from you.
Right? So it comes from Chriswho's the retiring agent and
says, hey, I'm partnering withNick. Here's what's going on.
He's great.
You know, he sells a billionhouses. He does a good job. You
know, I'm moving to Florida and,you're in great hands. So
(26:05):
whatever it is. So or or, hey,I'm going to be focusing on
listings in these neighborhoods.
I'm going to continue to helpyou with that. But if you're
thinking of selling somewhereelse or you wanna buy a place or
invest, Nick's gonna bepartnering with me to help you
with that. So whatever yourscenario is, you explain to
people what's gonna happen andwho I am. And then I call and
introduce myself to all of thepeople I'm helping. So, hey,
(26:30):
this is Nick Crowder.
I promised your realtor, Chris,I would call and check-in and
see if you had any real estatequestions or needs I can help
with. That's it. One sentence.And you're not asking them to
list their property or go lookat homes or tell me what you
want to buy today. It's Ipromised your realtor I would
call you and check-in and see ifyou had any questions or needs.
(26:51):
I can help with. And that's howyou start. And then if someone
says raises their hand and goes,oh, I'm glad you called. We need
to move. That's easy.
Right? You just go do it. Ifnot, have a couple stats about
your market. Have a littlebullet point on some trends. And
then let them know what's gonnahappen next.
(27:12):
So I'm gonna you're gonna get mymonthly market updates. I do x
number of classes a year. We doa client event. We would love to
have you come and and meet withthe team. And so you let them
know what's gonna happen in thefuture.
And from there, you just treatthem like you treat your own
clients. So they end up getting,again, different marketing
(27:33):
lingo, the touches, the themarketing pieces, the however
you describe all the differentways you stay engaged, you know,
over the course of a year andmultiple years. You just treat
them like you treat your ownclients and you help them out.
Chris Whitling (27:48):
Yeah. And I mean, these sound like fairly
easy calls to make. Right?Because it's sort of, from your
perspective, cold. But fromtheir perspective, you know,
they have a pre preexistingrelationship with that guy.
Like, you're taking over thebusiness, you know, and you're
not you're not really pressingthem for anything. You're just
sort of trying to figure outwhere they're at.
Nick Krautter (28:06):
Totally. And it's so warm. I remember the first
time I did the calls, I wasnervous that people would think
that, like, they got sold, like,a pallet of old t shirts or
something. And and it's not likethat at all because remember
before I call them, Chris, we'vesent them a letter on your
behalf on your letterhead withyour return address. So, like,
you're hyping me up the wholetime.
(28:27):
Right? So you're you're lettingpeople know what's happening,
which most agents don't do.Right? So you're you're positive
communication. You're thinkingabout how to help your clients.
You're not just like leavingthem high and dry. You're hyping
up your adopting agent. You'reexplaining who I am and why you
picked me and and you you didn'tjust pick a random person down
(28:47):
the hall. You interviewed peopleand you made sure, hey. I like
how Nick does business, and he'sgonna execute this marketing
plan that gives him the bestodds of helping my clients as
possible.
You're never gonna win a %, butyou certainly you know, your
batting average is gonna behigher if you just put in the
work and you do the steps. Andand that's really just do the
(29:11):
things that made it work in thefirst place, which is, you know,
calling people, emailing themupdates, providing information,
being a valuable resource.
Chris Whitling (29:20):
Okay. So you're you're trying to be like be a
resource to the people thatyou're taking over. And this is
kind of like a question that Ithink we've probably talked
about in other podcasts. But, Imean, from your perspective,
especially with the plot twistthat you're taking over someone
else's database, like, what doesthat follow-up cadence look
like, especially as those leads,you know, maybe start to get
cold?
Nick Krautter (29:40):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's a lot, it's a
big lift upfront because youwant to have the communication
in a couple different ways. Andand a lot of times people ask,
like, well, how long is thishandoff period? Right. Where
you're kind of co marketing.
Chris Whitling (29:52):
That's a great question.
Nick Krautter (29:54):
It depends on how big your list is. Right? And it
so I would say the bigger thelist and the more you have going
on, you you might co market for,like, a year. Now from the
retiring agent's perspective,they're not really doing it.
Right?
Like, you and I might record avideo like this. In fact, we
might record four or five ofthese in one one shot, that you
(30:17):
use throughout the year. And youcan segment your database.
Right? So that, hey, I'm gonnapull up a list of Chris's three
hundred clients, and I'm gonnasend Chris video Chris and Nick
talk about the market video one.
And then two months later, I'mgonna send Chris and Nick video
two, and then three and four.And so maybe every other month,
we're sending out a video justlike this about a topic. And,
you know, some of them are gonnabe seasonal, some of them are
(30:40):
gonna be maybe market specific.I'll probably bug you in January
and we'll, like, hey, let's lookat the market report from last
year and projections for nextyear or this year, whatever, and
and and say, here's whathappened and here's what we
think is gonna happen. But fromthe retirees perspective, they
(31:00):
really don't have to do thatmuch if they don't want to.
With a partial handoff though,the thing that's cool is, like,
let's say you're like me and,like, I love talking to my
clients about real estate. Ijust don't wanna have to go do
all the showings and go to allthe inspections. Right? So I'm
happy to have a conversation andand do a buyer consultation and
talk to someone and then connectthem with the right agent that's
(31:24):
going to help them whetherthey're, you know, a buyer,
seller, or investor. You can dothat all day long and stay
involved and stay engaged in thestuff you want to do but not
have to do the stuff you don'twant to do.
And so that cadence really isWell, one, I think you want to
have a marketing plan that ispart of your contract that
(31:44):
spells out. Like, for me, it wasreally important that whoever
took over my real estatebusiness would call everyone on
that list twice a year. Andbecause my list was 800 people,
we split it up over four agentsso that we could have a good
expectation of success asopposed to one agent having to
(32:07):
call 800 people twice a year,which is very, very different
than having to call 200 people.
Chris Whitling (32:11):
Right. And this is where I think, you know, I
just want to call out for theaudience. You know, we're sort
of perspective shifting here,you know, because what you just
said, you know, and let merepeat just to make sure I have
it right.
Nick Krautter (32:20):
Yeah.
Chris Whitling (32:21):
You know, when you left so I'm assuming this is
when you left the Portlandmarket. You had a healthy size
database, and you wanted to makesure that it got the attention
that it deserved because youwant the, the residual income,
from that database. And so youasked for it to be or or
orchestrated it to be broken upbetween several agents so that
you knew that it would get theattention that it deserved.
Nick Krautter (32:43):
So Yeah. There's kinda like how I when I ran my
own team, I was I was the onethat was, like, kinda the buck
stops here. I'm responsible. Butat the end of the day, if if if
something needs to happen and noone else is at the office, it's
gonna be me, you know, answeringthe call, fixing the lockbox,
doing whatever we need to do.But I knew that just from having
(33:04):
done it for so long, there is alimit to how many people you can
have relationships with and stayengaged with.
Because these other agents, bythe way, too, you know, this
isn't these aren't their onlyclients. Right? They have other
leads and clients andopportunities that they're
helping and working with. And,you know, my client list is a
part of their success, but itisn't 100% of it. So for me, we
(33:29):
felt like about 200 was like areasonable number that they can
handle.
And that realistically, if youfocus for a week, you can get
through that list pretty easily,you know, in in about a week.
You know, that's 30 calls a dayfor seven days. You're done.
And, you know, for some people,that might seem like an enormous
(33:50):
amount of calls. I lived on myphone.
So, like, for me, it was like,man, it seems like it's a normal
Wednesday.
Chris Whitling (33:56):
I I hope. I my my aspiration for our audience
is for them to think that that'snot a huge amount of calls, you
know, because hopefully, you'reusing, you know, the the online
lead generation engine to, youknow, really fuel that, which
means you're gonna have to makecalls. You're gonna have to,
like, stay in touch with thoseleads that, that you're
generating. We've kinda set thisup, like, okay. You know, you've
(34:19):
you've figured out, you know,who you wanna talk to.
You've figured out the actualtransaction, the the the
marketing plan. You're makingthe calls. You're having those
conversations. But now, like, Iwanna go back and talk about
contract because that's reallywhere, you know, it's like,
okay. Yeah.
We negotiated the contractupfront, but now we've got this,
like, income that's coming fromit. And you've hinted at it a
(34:41):
couple times that this isessentially a referral, like,
transaction split.
At some level, you have to feel a little guilty
that you're ignoring this. Youhave to know that you're losing
opportunity. You have to knowpeople are gonna call a
different agent because you'renot really trying to help them.
You're not really staying in infront of them. So instead of
just losing that and gettingnothing for it, why don't just
be intentional.
Chris Whitling (00:29):
Hello, and welcome to Forward Slash Real
Estate. I am your host, Chris.This is the podcast where we
talk about the intersectionbetween technology and real
estate. Today, we're gonna betalking about once you've used
that technology to generate allthose leads and you've been
doing that for years, now what?What are the monetization
strategies that is going to helpyou keep making money from that
(00:51):
when you wanna do something likeretire, or move to a new new
location?
So I'm gonna intro our guestNick here in a second. But
first, I gotta give a little bitof FOMO, feel to Todd Tremontae.
So every year, we do Real GrowthSummit. Used to be named named
the, unofficial Rubik's userconference. And for the past two
(01:11):
years, we've come away from thatconference watching someone on
stage and go, oh, wow.
We have to have them on thepodcast immediately. So second
year in a row. Nick, just withthat, tell us who you are and
what you do. And, it's gonnabecome apparent real quick to
people why we're talking to you.
Nick Krautter (01:29):
Okay. So I like to start by saying I am a
realtor. I just got started in osix in Portland, Oregon. You
know, I fell in love with thebusiness. I was working fourteen
hour days, six, seven days aweek to go from zero clients to
200 over about four years and,had great mentorship and moved
to Portland, Oregon in 'five,which was just like a magical
(01:52):
time to move to a place that wasgrowing dramatically and and be
a part of that story for twentyyears.
But while we're talking isbecause during the great
recession, a lot of really goodrealtors in my office started to
take other jobs, retire, move.And I figured out how to, what I
(02:12):
call, adopt their clients. So Ibought their books of business.
They endorsed me to theirclients. And all of a sudden,
you know, I spent four yearsbusting my butt to get to 200
clients.
And over the next couple years,I went from 200 to 2,000 clients
working way less because insteadof getting every client one at a
time, I was getting two, three,four hundred clients at a time
(02:36):
from my from my deals with theserealtors who were retiring,
moving, changing careers. And itreally opened my eyes to how you
could grow way faster and stillby referral. And I ended up
writing a book about it calledThe Golden Handoff, and that's
why I was at the conferencespeaking.
Chris Whitling (02:56):
I was about to say I've got I've got the book
right here as well. You know,we're gonna be talking for the
audience. We're gonna be talkinga lot about, what's in this
book. So definitely work firstof all, let's just give them a
plug right now. Where can theyfind this?
Amazon?
Nick Krautter (03:10):
Amazon. Yeah. It's the best place to get it.
You'll have it in a day or two.Make sure you go to Golden
Handoff dot com as well.
There's a ton of resources inthe book. If you sign up on the
website, you'll get a link todownload all of those in a
format you can edit. So you cangrab the announcement letters,
contracts, scripts, dialogues,all that, and put it into
action, very easily.
Chris Whitling (03:31):
So we've already set set stage here a little bit
because, you know, I think somepeople are probably hearing,
okay. Hang on. This guy is,like, sort of growing by m and
a. And then maybe anothersection of the audience is
probably hearing, I'm thinkingabout retiring. Is this the exit
ramp?
Like, so if someone's readingthis book,
Nick Krautter (03:50):
like Yeah.
Chris Whitling (03:50):
What perspective are you who who are you writing
it for?
Nick Krautter (03:54):
It's written for both people. I struggle with
that at the beginning becauseoriginally, I thought I was
gonna write, a a retirement howto book. And I I was talking
with a mentor of mine who wrotethe forward, a guy named Rick
DeLuca, who's like a real estateguru, speaker coach guy, who
coached me and my team for awhile back when I was starting.
And he said, Nick, the audiencefor all the people that wanna do
(04:18):
what you're doing by growingtheir business way is way bigger
than the number of people whoare looking for that retirement
strategy because hopefully youonly need that once. Right?
If you do it right. But whatwhat's crazy to me is just that
in real estate, people don'thave a plan for their business.
Right. They like you. We weretalking earlier.
You know, they buy rentals, youinvest in the stock market, you
(04:40):
do kind of those traditionalthings. But then there's this
huge blind spot where peopleforget that their client
relationships and their book ofbusiness is worth a fortune. But
well, they don't do
Chris Whitling (04:50):
anything to talk about it all the time. You know,
whether it's like there's nosuch thing as a bad lead or
there's gold in the old, youknow, like. So the concept
should be there. And I love thatyou're pointing directly at the
database and, like, there is amonetary value associated with
that whole thing.
Nick Krautter (05:05):
Yeah. And then the I think being aware of that
at all is really the start ofmaking a decision of do you
wanna do something with it ornot? I hope that everyone does
because, you know, one of theside benefits that I didn't
think of originally was theclients are actually really
(05:26):
happy when their agentintroduces them to someone else
that can help them because theydon't want to have to go
interview people again and askfor, you know, all their friends
at work. If Who do you use? Doyou like them?
And go have meetings andinterview people and try to find
a new broker. If you've gotsomeone good and they refer you
to someone and say, this personwill help you. They're great.
(05:49):
Clients are stoked. And so, it'sOnce you realize that there's
value there and once you realizethat even if you don't care
about that or don't need it, butyour clients will value it and
that's why you're in thiswonderful position is right.
They've supported you your wholecareer and working with you. It
The way to unlock it is you haveto have someone to do the work.
(06:11):
Right? There has to be someoneto show the houses, write the
contracts, answer the questions,negotiate. There has to be
another broker and a realtorinvolved.
And so helping connect those twopeople is is really the secret.
And then it's so easy to dealwith the money because it's all
based on referral fees. Andthat's something that every
realtor is super familiar with.And it's super fair because you
(06:33):
only pay
Chris Whitling (06:34):
I don't wanna give too much away yet because I
wanna give a give people areason to listen all the way
through the episode, because youhave some really good answers,
on a lot of that stuff. But, youknow, maybe real quick we go
back because you said youstarted your career in Portland,
Oregon in 02/2006, and then youessentially adopted this, you
know, what kinda sounds to melike an m and a type strategy,
(06:55):
but you were buying thedatabases to as the, you know,
sort of great recession was,forcing people out. Can you talk
to me through, like, when thatlike, the first time that you
bought the first one and thechallenges that you ran into on
that, you know, transaction, Iguess.
Nick Krautter (07:12):
Yeah. The first one was tricky. They actually
said no the first time. And
Chris Whitling (07:16):
Oh, really?
Nick Krautter (07:17):
Yeah. Because I was doing pretty good. I was
busy. I was starting to build aa team. I didn't have a lot of
people.
I think I had a buyer's agentand a part time assistant.
Chris Whitling (07:26):
Yep.
Nick Krautter (07:27):
I knew I needed to keep growing. Like, we were I
was interviewing people and andthinking, you know, those next
steps that I needed to take,just because there's only so
many hours in the day. Characterin the book, she's real. I
actually I think we just closeda deal with one of her clients
or got a listing last week. AndMhmm.
(07:48):
We originally started workingtogether fourteen years ago. But
I asked Renee, hey, can I helpyour clients? I didn't really
have a plan. I just Yeah. I knewshe had great clients.
She worked at, like, really highend stuff, great neighborhoods,
referral based. She was a reallygood broker. She wasn't getting
out because she failed. She wasgetting out because she had a
second child and didn't want tohave to work the hours it takes
(08:11):
to be successful in real estate.And so she originally said no.
And she gave her book ofbusiness to an agent that was
kind of struggling thinkingthat, oh, he's got way more
time. But, you know, I say thisjoke on stage all the time. You
know, if someone's bad atbusiness and you give them more
clients, they don't suddenly getgood at business. They just do
bad business with more people.
Chris Whitling (08:31):
That's right.
Nick Krautter (08:31):
But what really happened is there was just no
follow-up. Right? Like, hedidn't wanna make the calls.
When he got appointments, hewould ask her to come to the
appointment. So now she'sworking two jobs and splitting
the money.
And so after six months, shecame back to me and said, okay,
this isn't working. And I shouldhave hired you. And I said,
said, okay, this isn't working,and I should have hired you. And
I said, well, here's the goodnews. The market's been
terrible.
Most people haven't moved. Buteven in that six month window
(08:55):
from when she's worked withsomeone else before I took over,
first thing I promised her is,you know, she's like, hey, this
guy didn't call anyone. I said,okay, I will call everyone in
this list. I will sit at my deskand call 300 people and I'll do
it in like however many days ittakes until I am done. And and
(09:16):
that's what I did.
We found five or six people thatwere listed or buying with other
agents in just that six monthperiod. And that was in a time
when the market was pretty slow.Probably similar to where we are
now in terms of deal volume.Right? So imagine if the
market's going gangbusters likeit was a couple years ago.
That might have been 10 peoplethat she's already lost because
(09:39):
she's not in the game, but noone else is there to, like, talk
to these people.
Chris Whitling (09:43):
Right. And talk about, like, ROI on time spent,
you know, like, five or six on300, you know, contacts. I don't
know. Like, 2%, you know, Ithink that's a that's a three
point rate that most people willbe pretty happy with.
Nick Krautter (09:57):
Oh, yeah. And I mean, you look at it, like, in a
good database, you know, five to10% of the people on that list
are actively thinking aboutbuying or selling right now.
Yeah. Like, in you're listeningto this. You've got a database
of 500 people.
50 of them are going to dosomething. They're thinking
about it. And so it's just thethe trick, right, in in what you
(10:18):
guys do a good job with. And andand really the secret is, like,
how do you manage 500relationships to make sure you
can connect with those 50 peoplewho really wanna talk to you?
And that's the part that's hard.
Yeah. Right? If you only had totalk to the people that wanted
to talk to you, it'd be veryeasy. Unfortunately, no one's
cracked that code completelyyet. Everyone's trying.
(10:39):
There's billions of dollarsbeing spent on that mystery. But
that's why salespeople still getpaid to put in the work to call
people to to figure out whoactually needs me.
Chris Whitling (10:50):
That's right. So it sounds like the first piece
of learning there was really thethe person that you do the
handoff to matters, which Ithink is probably intuitive.
Like, if you were going to, I'mthinking about the way that a
lot of referrals in real estate,manifest where it's like, hey,
you know, mister realtor thatI've used before, I'm now moving
(11:10):
to a new state. Who do you have?And there's a lot that goes into
that.
Like, it seems obvious that youwould also put thought in who
you're going to give access toyour database because you
there's, like, a level ofcredibility that's transferred
between you and the personthat's taking it over.
Nick Krautter (11:26):
Oh, yeah. No. I mean, who you choose to work
with. So if you're the agentwho's retiring or you're moving
and you're going to hand offyour your clients to someone,
yeah, you want to put a lot ofthought into it. There's a whole
chapter in the book about how togo through that process and make
sure you have the right people.
And, you know, I sold myresidential business a couple
years ago, and I interviewed 10different agents and teams when
(11:46):
I did that. And, you know, for alot of them, these are people I
knew personally, that I had donedeals with, that had great
reputations. Like half of themdidn't want to take on that many
more clients Mhmm. Because theydidn't have enough people to,
like, do it well. So there's asweet spot, right?
Like, you don't want someonethat has no business and assume
(12:08):
that they've got free timebecause they're they're doing
something wrong if they've gotno business. You don't want
someone that needed to hire 10other people and is so far
behind the curve that they can'tkeep up with what they already
have because they're gonna betoo busy. So there's like kind
of a sweet spot of people thathave the systems and tools and
(12:30):
experience that allow them totake on some growth. Almost have
you kind of almost want someonethat has a track record of
success, but they maybe havemore agents than they really
need and they can kind of growinto it. That's where
Chris Whitling (12:47):
you got a little bit
Nick Krautter (12:48):
of headroom.
Chris Whitling (12:49):
A little bit of headroom.
Nick Krautter (12:51):
Yeah. Where, hey, everyone. We're gonna need to
call these we just got 500 newclients, and they don't go, oh,
no. You want them to go, oh,yes. You know, they're they're
excited.
Like Yeah. You want people to,like, oh. Which come on.
Chris Whitling (13:04):
If you're saying oh no to a bunch of new leads,
like, might wanna rethink theself talk there.
Nick Krautter (13:10):
But I'm telling you, dude, I don't know how many
great agents I know that, like,will skip calls one week because
they're already so busy. Andthey're like, I'll I know if I
call these people, someone'sgonna want an appointment and
I'm so busy and I haven't seenmy kids and my, you know, I
haven't been to the gym thisweek. You know, people sabotage
themselves and again, you do getto a point. The reason why
(13:31):
people have teams is becausethey run out of time.
Chris Whitling (13:33):
That's true.
Nick Krautter (13:35):
They're better at getting business than they have
the ability to handle it. And,that's a good by the way, that's
the problem you want. You don'twanna be, oh my gosh. I've got
the best systems, tools, people,but we have no Right. You don't
want to talk to.
Chris Whitling (13:51):
Well, I mean, it's a this is a whole topic for
another podcast
Nick Krautter (13:54):
where
Chris Whitling (13:54):
it's like, great. You have done all the
right things, and now you havethe problem where you're sort
Nick Krautter (14:01):
of checkmated between, you know,
Chris Whitling (14:01):
I have all this business, but it's requiring all
of my time, and I really need todo some, like, deep strategic
thought on, like, how to, like,accommodate the growth.
Nick Krautter (14:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Whitling (14:13):
So it sounds like, you know, you were you
you've learned a little bitabout, like, you know, the
business that's receiving theleads, what they need to be. So
I guess you must have gonethrough this first one and said,
okay. This works for me. Whatdid you start to look for? Like,
how did you how do you findpeople that are, you know,
either on the cusp of retiringor getting ready to move?
(14:35):
And then and then what does thatconversation look like when you
approach them and say, you know,hey, I'm interested in taking
over your database?
Nick Krautter (14:42):
You know, you start with your relationships.
So start with the brokers you'refriends with that, you know,
start at your office. Let youryour managing broker, principal
broker, know that you'reinterested in in helping people
who are relocating or who arechanging careers or retiring.
And that's a great that thatwas, like, a huge resource for
me was my team leader wasinstrumental in letting me know
(15:04):
who wanted to talk to me. And tothe point where after I worked
with Renee and she was gettingchecks every month, you know, it
was a big success story for her.
And so I had people coming to mewanting to sell their businesses
to me because they saw that, oh,well, Renee's getting a check or
(15:25):
two every month. Nick's doingall these calls. He's doing what
he says he's gonna do. So Iwanna work with him on this. And
so it it started to kindasnowball for me.
And then we got to a point whereI kinda had to say, we don't
have enough people to keep up.We can't add 300 clients every
six months, not at the speedthat the team was growing. We
(15:47):
had to, like, kind of hit pauseand go, okay, let's just wrap
our arms around what we havebecause I don't want to I don't
want to screw the whole thing upby dropping the ball and not
keeping our promise Right. Toour clients and to those agents.
Right?
Because those retiring agentsbecome your best clients.
They're referring you tons ofpeople. And, I I think that what
(16:10):
you so start with your brokerageis is the lowest hanging fruit.
And then the people that you coop deals with. And there's a
script I use that's very easy.
It's funny because when youbring this up, and I before I
share this script, people havethis crazy anxiety about calling
people and asking them about itbecause they feel like they're
gonna get yelled at or peoplewill be mad at them. And you
(16:33):
don't wanna call someone andsay, hey, I see your
production's way down. When areyou gonna quit? That would be
the wrong way to approachsomeone. Not a good move.
So if that's what you'rethinking, don't do that. You
should have anxiety about thatconversation. The way to
approach it that's reallyproductive is to say, hey,
Chris, you know, I've reallyenjoyed working with you on the
couple of deals we've done. I'vereally admired how you've run
(16:55):
your business and and had thisgreat career. I'm curious.
What are your plans with yourbusiness when you're done
selling? And what most agentswill say is, that's crazy. I
don't know. I kinda thought I'djust keep doing this, but I
really am burned out or I reallywant to relocate. But I've got
all of these clients here and Idon't want to start over again
(17:15):
from scratch.
And so then you there's your nowthere's your opening. How can I
help solve your problem? Yeah.Now the only person this doesn't
work for, right, is if, Chris,you say I'm I'm gonna try to
quadruple this business over thenext five years, and then, you
know, I'm gonna hire morepeople, and then I'm gonna try
(17:36):
to grow it more. And if you'vegot like this endless ambition.
Chris Whitling (17:39):
Yep.
Nick Krautter (17:40):
And you're on this growth warpath, then that's
not an opportunity for me tohelp you as a, you know, take
over your business. But the coolthing with the partial handoffs
is even if you were like, yeah.I'm kinda burned out. I'm not
really digging in and callingall these people. I'm not really
marketing.
Then I could say, Chris, well,what do you what are the types
(18:02):
of clients and the types of workyou love doing? And you say, oh
gosh, I love listings in thesethree neighborhoods. Because I
know them. I know theseneighborhoods better than any
other broker. I have a greatsuccess rate.
I love the price point. But man,I'm so burned down on working
with buyers that want to buy inthe suburbs, and I'm in the car
(18:22):
all day, and in traffic, and Ihate it. And then I go, well,
Chris, let me help all thosebuyers. I'm just I'm still
growing my business. I I wantI'm excited about being in the
car all weekend.
I wanna help those people.
Chris Whitling (18:35):
I I love this because we you also just
introduced a it's sort of like athird option, you know, because
I I think
Nick Krautter (18:41):
that Yeah.
Chris Whitling (18:41):
So far our conversation has been kind of
binary, you know. It's likeeither either they're continuing
in business or they're not andthat's how the conversation is
structured. But I love this, youknow. It's almost it's almost
like a plot twist on like a likean ISA type service or something
like that where it's like, hey,I can I can solve this problem
(19:02):
for you in this other area?Like, let's talk about the
things that you don't likedoing, and let me take them.
Nick Krautter (19:07):
Yeah. No. And that's the thing is, like, this
solution has been staring me inthe face for, like, ten years.
And I thought I was doing agreat job by making my list of
retiring agents and staying intouch, just like you do with
home sellers. Like sometimes youcall someone and they're ready
to sell, and sometimes they say,hey, my kid just started junior
high.
Call me in eight years whenthey're done with school, and
we'll be moving. Right. And soyou put it in your hey, every
(19:29):
year I'm gonna check-in. Hey, doyou wanna move school districts?
Are you gonna wait the eightyears?
And then I'll I'll help I'll behere to help you. You know, I
literally had clients in mydatabase where I was like, call
them in, you know, eight yearsfrom now because they'll be
ready to sell. The kids will beout of off to college. But the
real solution isn't waitinguntil someone wants to be
completely done because twoproblems. One, it takes forever.
(19:52):
And by then, they've probablylost touch with a lot of their
people. So if you can findsomeone when they're in that
phase where I'm gonna keep doingthis for a while, but I'm not
trying to grow, you can findwhat is that partial handoff
option? Right? What is the thingthat, Chris, you don't wanna do
that I can take off of yourplate? Because at some level,
(20:13):
you have to feel a little guiltythat you're ignoring this.
You have to know that you'relosing opportunity. You have to
know people are gonna call adifferent agent because you're
not really trying to help them.You're not really staying in in
front of them. So instead ofjust losing that and getting
nothing for it, why don't justbe intentional. You know, make
the decision to you know what?
(20:34):
I don't wanna work with buyersanymore. I wanna work on these
listings. I'm really good at it.It gives me the time to just be
with my family and do otherstuff. And so I'm not gonna work
with buyers.
And I'm gonna but but findsomeone that's excited about
helping them. Right? So youeither build a team or you can
you can kind of hack the teamprocess with a handoff.
Chris Whitling (20:53):
Maybe just to rephrase, you know, what you're
what you're saying there. Like,it sounds like your ideal
prospect for for, you know,entering this arrangement is,
like, you're looking for someonethat is entering a career
transition. Right? So Yeah. Andand that way, you can you can
you as the agent that's tryingto assume the business can be
fairly well assured thatthere's, like, some freshness in
(21:15):
the in the database.
And it's not just cold becausethey actually quit calling their
leads two years ago and now arejust kind of, like, living off
the off the sort of referralsthat are coming out of it.
Nick Krautter (21:27):
Yeah. If you think of like a career is like a
rocket launch. Right. So rightat the beginning, like you're
just burning fuel and you'regoing straight up. Right.
And that's kind of like when Iwas new and I was doing fourteen
hour days, six, seven days aweek and I was loving it. You
know, I was super exciting. Iwas learning the business. I was
growing a business. I was hiringpeople.
I was making more money than Iever made before. And that
(21:49):
rocket goes up and then it kindof reaches like this part where
it plateaus. And you can keepgoing, right? You might have a
couple stages in your rocket.You might it might be forty,
fifty years.
You're just, I'm gonna just I'mgonna have a team of 50 people
and we're gonna do a billiondollars in sales. Like, there's
people probably listening tothis. There's a couple that are
like that. But most people,their rocket goes up. They get
(22:09):
to some point where they'rekinda comfortable.
And if you're at a point whereyou can ignore any clients or
say no to business, you're at apoint where you should find
someone to take all the stuffyou don't wanna do. Because
that's the sweet spot where,like, you've you basically your
last booster's burned out andyou're about to start doing
this. And at that apogee, right,at that peak, that's when you
(22:33):
have, like, the peak engagementwith your clients and you can be
intentional about, hey, I'm myrocket's gonna do this, but this
other rocket's gonna keep goingup. Right. And I'm gonna put all
my people on this rocket and I'mgonna just take care of what I
can handle over here withoutactually losing it.
Chris Whitling (22:50):
I wanna switch tracks here a little bit
because, like, I I think that,you know, by now, if someone's
listening to this and they'renot, like, convinced that this
is awesome, I don't know. Rewindand listen to it again. But,
like, when you're actually yeah.And where I wanna go with this
is, like, the actual mechanics.Right?
So we we always try and leavepeople with, Like, this is,
(23:10):
like, very practical steps of,like, things that you can go
execute on right now. Yeah. So,you know, when when you've got
access to this database, someonesays yes. Like, hey. I'm I'm in
career transition mode.
Nick, I want you to take overmy, you know, my database. Like,
what are your first steps, youknow, when you get the, you know
well, actually, maybe you caneven just tell me. Like, how
(23:32):
does this usually manifest? Dothey give you a login to their
real geeks? Do they give you aCSV?
Like or here's a copy of myiPhone. Like how does this
unfold?
Nick Krautter (23:41):
Yeah. So you make the connection. You sign a
contract, which is basicallylike a referral agreement for a
lot of people. And I
Chris Whitling (23:47):
got a bunch of questions about that. We're
gonna come back to that.
Nick Krautter (23:49):
Yeah. Yeah. So I think what's really important is
and I like to do this offplatform. So whatever platform
you're using for your CRM,export it to a CSV where you
have names, phone numbers,emails and addresses. So just do
a big export dump.
I like to print it out. So evenif it's like 20 pages long, just
print it out and get togetherwith the retiring agent. And you
(24:12):
sit down and you go over ittogether and you take notes. So
you're filling out notes on theclients. It is crazy how much
the return agent will rememberabout these people.
Yeah. And there will be a ton ofpeople where they go, oh, oh,
yeah. I guess I never wrote anote about that, but those folks
talked to me about selling thisyear. I you should call them
first. Oh, you know, I've beenshowing that guy houses.
(24:34):
I don't know if he's reallygonna buy. I haven't checked
with him in a while, but he waslooking for x. And so you start
filling in the notes. You alsosee if there's information
missing. So you're like, hey.
There's no phone number for thisperson. And they go, oh, it's in
my cell phone. I just neverupdated it. And so you you fill
in the gaps. You learn kind of astory of who these people are
and what they need.
(24:55):
You help identify kind of yourtop 10, top 20, top 50. Who
should you call first andfollow-up with the most? You
know, in a perfect world, youalso have a list of follow-up
tasks for these people where,like, the agents has scheduled
out in the future, like, theperson that's gonna move in
eight years when their kids aredone with high school. And you
can plug that into your system.In a dream world, you've got the
(25:19):
same platform.
Right? So you're, like, call upreal gigs and you say, hey, can
you transfer over this list andkeep all of the notes in the
native format? Or you have alittle shared login, or you add
them to a team, you know,however you facilitate that. If
you don't, obviously, you haveto do an export import. You make
sure that when you do that, youtag them and source them as
these are Chris's clients sothat you know which ones you're
(25:42):
paying the referrals on andwhich ones are are your clients.
And then there's an announcementletter that comes from you.
Right? So it comes from Chriswho's the retiring agent and
says, hey, I'm partnering withNick. Here's what's going on.
He's great.
You know, he sells a billionhouses. He does a good job. You
know, I'm moving to Florida and,you're in great hands. So
(26:05):
whatever it is. So or or, hey,I'm going to be focusing on
listings in these neighborhoods.
I'm going to continue to helpyou with that. But if you're
thinking of selling somewhereelse or you wanna buy a place or
invest, Nick's gonna bepartnering with me to help you
with that. So whatever yourscenario is, you explain to
people what's gonna happen andwho I am. And then I call and
introduce myself to all of thepeople I'm helping. So, hey,
(26:30):
this is Nick Crowder.
I promised your realtor, Chris,I would call and check-in and
see if you had any real estatequestions or needs I can help
with. That's it. One sentence.And you're not asking them to
list their property or go lookat homes or tell me what you
want to buy today. It's Ipromised your realtor I would
call you and check-in and see ifyou had any questions or needs.
(26:51):
I can help with. And that's howyou start. And then if someone
says raises their hand and goes,oh, I'm glad you called. We need
to move. That's easy.
Right? You just go do it. Ifnot, have a couple stats about
your market. Have a littlebullet point on some trends. And
then let them know what's gonnahappen next.
(27:12):
So I'm gonna you're gonna get mymonthly market updates. I do x
number of classes a year. We doa client event. We would love to
have you come and and meet withthe team. And so you let them
know what's gonna happen in thefuture.
And from there, you just treatthem like you treat your own
clients. So they end up getting,again, different marketing
(27:33):
lingo, the touches, the themarketing pieces, the however
you describe all the differentways you stay engaged, you know,
over the course of a year andmultiple years. You just treat
them like you treat your ownclients and you help them out.
Chris Whitling (27:48):
Yeah. And I mean, these sound like fairly
easy calls to make. Right?Because it's sort of, from your
perspective, cold. But fromtheir perspective, you know,
they have a pre preexistingrelationship with that guy.
Like, you're taking over thebusiness, you know, and you're
not you're not really pressingthem for anything. You're just
sort of trying to figure outwhere they're at.
Nick Krautter (28:06):
Totally. And it's so warm. I remember the first
time I did the calls, I wasnervous that people would think
that, like, they got sold, like,a pallet of old t shirts or
something. And and it's not likethat at all because remember
before I call them, Chris, we'vesent them a letter on your
behalf on your letterhead withyour return address. So, like,
you're hyping me up the wholetime.
(28:27):
Right? So you're you're lettingpeople know what's happening,
which most agents don't do.Right? So you're you're positive
communication. You're thinkingabout how to help your clients.
You're not just like leavingthem high and dry. You're hyping
up your adopting agent. You'reexplaining who I am and why you
picked me and and you you didn'tjust pick a random person down
(28:47):
the hall. You interviewed peopleand you made sure, hey. I like
how Nick does business, and he'sgonna execute this marketing
plan that gives him the bestodds of helping my clients as
possible.
You're never gonna win a %, butyou certainly you know, your
batting average is gonna behigher if you just put in the
work and you do the steps. Andand that's really just do the
(29:11):
things that made it work in thefirst place, which is, you know,
calling people, emailing themupdates, providing information,
being a valuable resource.
Chris Whitling (29:20):
Okay. So you're you're trying to be like be a
resource to the people thatyou're taking over. And this is
kind of like a question that Ithink we've probably talked
about in other podcasts. But, Imean, from your perspective,
especially with the plot twistthat you're taking over someone
else's database, like, what doesthat follow-up cadence look
like, especially as those leads,you know, maybe start to get
cold?
Nick Krautter (29:40):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's a lot, it's a
big lift upfront because youwant to have the communication
in a couple different ways. Andand a lot of times people ask,
like, well, how long is thishandoff period? Right. Where
you're kind of co marketing.
Chris Whitling (29:52):
That's a great question.
Nick Krautter (29:54):
It depends on how big your list is. Right? And it
so I would say the bigger thelist and the more you have going
on, you you might co market for,like, a year. Now from the
retiring agent's perspective,they're not really doing it.
Right?
Like, you and I might record avideo like this. In fact, we
might record four or five ofthese in one one shot, that you
(30:17):
use throughout the year. And youcan segment your database.
Right? So that, hey, I'm gonnapull up a list of Chris's three
hundred clients, and I'm gonnasend Chris video Chris and Nick
talk about the market video one.
And then two months later, I'mgonna send Chris and Nick video
two, and then three and four.And so maybe every other month,
we're sending out a video justlike this about a topic. And,
you know, some of them are gonnabe seasonal, some of them are
(30:40):
gonna be maybe market specific.I'll probably bug you in January
and we'll, like, hey, let's lookat the market report from last
year and projections for nextyear or this year, whatever, and
and and say, here's whathappened and here's what we
think is gonna happen. But fromthe retirees perspective, they
(31:00):
really don't have to do thatmuch if they don't want to.
With a partial handoff though,the thing that's cool is, like,
let's say you're like me and,like, I love talking to my
clients about real estate. Ijust don't wanna have to go do
all the showings and go to allthe inspections. Right? So I'm
happy to have a conversation andand do a buyer consultation and
talk to someone and then connectthem with the right agent that's
(31:24):
going to help them whetherthey're, you know, a buyer,
seller, or investor. You can dothat all day long and stay
involved and stay engaged in thestuff you want to do but not
have to do the stuff you don'twant to do.
And so that cadence really isWell, one, I think you want to
have a marketing plan that ispart of your contract that
(31:44):
spells out. Like, for me, it wasreally important that whoever
took over my real estatebusiness would call everyone on
that list twice a year. Andbecause my list was 800 people,
we split it up over four agentsso that we could have a good
expectation of success asopposed to one agent having to
(32:07):
call 800 people twice a year,which is very, very different
than having to call 200 people.
Chris Whitling (32:11):
Right. And this is where I think, you know, I
just want to call out for theaudience. You know, we're sort
of perspective shifting here,you know, because what you just
said, you know, and let merepeat just to make sure I have
it right.
Nick Krautter (32:20):
Yeah.
Chris Whitling (32:21):
You know, when you left so I'm assuming this is
when you left the Portlandmarket. You had a healthy size
database, and you wanted to makesure that it got the attention
that it deserved because youwant the, the residual income,
from that database. And so youasked for it to be or or
orchestrated it to be broken upbetween several agents so that
you knew that it would get theattention that it deserved.
Nick Krautter (32:43):
So Yeah. There's kinda like how I when I ran my
own team, I was I was the onethat was, like, kinda the buck
stops here. I'm responsible. Butat the end of the day, if if if
something needs to happen and noone else is at the office, it's
gonna be me, you know, answeringthe call, fixing the lockbox,
doing whatever we need to do.But I knew that just from having
(33:04):
done it for so long, there is alimit to how many people you can
have relationships with and stayengaged with.
Because these other agents, bythe way, too, you know, this
isn't these aren't their onlyclients. Right? They have other
leads and clients andopportunities that they're
helping and working with. And,you know, my client list is a
part of their success, but itisn't 100% of it. So for me, we
(33:29):
felt like about 200 was like areasonable number that they can
handle.
And that realistically, if youfocus for a week, you can get
through that list pretty easily,you know, in in about a week.
You know, that's 30 calls a dayfor seven days. You're done.
And, you know, for some people,that might seem like an enormous
(33:50):
amount of calls. I lived on myphone.
So, like, for me, it was like,man, it seems like it's a normal
Wednesday.
Chris Whitling (33:56):
I I hope. I my my aspiration for our audience
is for them to think that that'snot a huge amount of calls, you
know, because hopefully, you'reusing, you know, the the online
lead generation engine to, youknow, really fuel that, which
means you're gonna have to makecalls. You're gonna have to,
like, stay in touch with thoseleads that, that you're
generating. We've kinda set thisup, like, okay. You know, you've
(34:19):
you've figured out, you know,who you wanna talk to.
You've figured out the actualtransaction, the the the
marketing plan. You're makingthe calls. You're having those
conversations. But now, like, Iwanna go back and talk about
contract because that's reallywhere, you know, it's like,
okay. Yeah.
We negotiated the contractupfront, but now we've got this,
like, income that's coming fromit. And you've hinted at it a
(34:41):
couple times that this isessentially a referral, like,
transaction split.
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