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June 12, 2025 40 mins

Episode Overview

In this episode, John Kitchens and Albie Stasek break down what’s really happening in today’s real estate market—and how top agents can rise above the noise and uncertainty. From wild inventory swings and buyer hesitation to negotiation gaps and pricing psychology, John unpacks what it takes to thrive right now.

He also dives deep into the power of CHSA and CHBA—two systems that helped agents sell thousands of homes by turning expertise and process into massive leverage. If you're tired of guessing, winging it, or losing business to discount agents, this is your wake-up call.


Key Topics Covered

Real Estate Market Reality Check

  • Why today’s inventory spike doesn’t mean a crash—and how this cycle is different from 2008.

  • The two types of agents in this market: those with experience and those who’ve only known easy.

  • How team leaders are coaching their agents through slower activity and harder conversations.

Why Buyers Are Freezing—and What to Do About It

  • The real reasons behind buyer hesitation: interest rates and fear of overpaying.

  • Why “waiting for rates to drop” is a flawed mindset—and how to reframe the conversation with data.

  • How to use job market trends, local lenders, and third-party validation to regain trust and urgency.

Mastering the Pending Ratio

  • How to calculate the pending ratio and use it to lead the conversation with confidence.

  • Why this one metric reveals the true pulse of your local market—and how to turn it into a script.

  • What a drop in the ratio actually means and how to prepare your clients accordingly.

Dusting Off Your Negotiation Muscles

  • Why most agents haven’t had to truly negotiate for years—and why that needs to change fast.

  • Getting creative in today’s deals: seller credits, timelines, and win-win structuring.

  • Relearning the art of negotiation with a “back to basics” mindset.

Differentiation: The Game-Changer in a Saturated Market

  • Why the “me monster” listing presentation is dead—and what to do instead.

  • How CHSA and CHBA systems build trust, confidence, and credibility faster than any trophy wall.

  • Real-world examples of how agents beat the “800-lb gorilla” in their market by being different.

Pricing Psychology & Stopping the Listing Stigma

  • How overpriced listings are killing agent trust—and what to say to win listings with logic.

  • Using hyperlocal trends (zip code and subdivision) to nail pricing strategy.

  • The danger of “buying

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Seven figure success starts whenyou start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcastexperience as your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger andtransform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
What is happening?

(00:22):
Dude, that intro, I love the intro.
But I'm, I'm looking at these picturesof me when I didn't shave for like
five months and holy hell, I mean,holy Moses beard going on there.
I'm just like, oh my God,that thing got long and full.
I look, I look at, Ilooked like I was like 70.

(00:45):
I'm like only 65.
I look, uh uh, I look back on when, whenmine was out of control and I was like.
Good gracious, what theheck was going on there?
Yeah, I mean, I, I had an awareness too,like I, you know, I would walk into the
bathroom and I'd get in the morning and,you know, my hair 'cause it, you know,

(01:06):
I'd grown my hair a little longer too.
And it, it literally looks like thebride of Frankenstein beards out here.
And my.
Am I, did I just wake up for, fromlike a dream that I was a real estate
agent and coach, but I'm reallyhomeless, living under a bridge, or
I see it so good.
I, I think, I think forme, uh, it's, it's good.

(01:30):
I, for me, I, I, I fell in love with afterI, I got it, you know, trimmed up, right?
I would go, go and, and, uh.
Sasha would, would get it all on point.
And so I was like, yeah, it looks good.
And then like three dayslater it's like, horrible.
And I'm like, well, I'mgonna go back to her.
She's gonna make it look good again.
So anyways.
Yeah.
What's, what's good, brother?
So I'll tell you, you know, we're,we're the topic we're gonna talk about.

(01:52):
You know, it's, uh, it wasprobably way, way back in the
day when I couldn't grow a beard.
Thankfully I couldn't then becauseI would've went very quick, um,
with this, this housing marketdoing some, some interesting things.
We're gonna unpack it today.
Um, you and I, we've livedthrough really great markets.
We've, we've, we, we lived throughthe recession oh 8 0 9 2010.

(02:16):
Um, and this is different.
And it's different in a good way.
And really, you know, we're talkingabout inventory levels, obviously.
It's, it's what everybody's experiencing.
It.
When I say everyone, we were, we were justtalking before we came on here, is that
when we see these statistics that we'reabout to share, um, they're, they're,

(02:37):
they're, they're national averages.
Particularly in the us.
Um, but it's happening even worse.
Anything you're seeing here in the usby the way, if you're an agent in the
us just just think, you know, knowthat you're still on a, a vacation
in, in, in, in the, uh, in theVirgin Islands right now compared to
what our friends up north are goingthrough and trying to get a home sold.

(02:59):
Um, having said that, again,just to reiterate, we know
that real estate's local.
Um, you know, in, in inventoriesright now, they're up 20% over
last year from the same time.
This year, it's a 20% increasein number of homes for sale, and
the statistic I read was there'sabout a half a million more buyers.

(03:23):
Then there are homes, uh,you know, home sellers.
And so, you know, when you, when youthink about that, when I think of it,
the first thing I think of is we, youwere saying too, is that that's how
I grew up in real estate like this.
That feels more normal to me.
And I also wanna speak to twodifferent groups of agents out
there that might be listening.
Group number one.

(03:44):
The, the OGs, the old men likeus, the old, old women and old
men like us that have been doingthis for 20 years plus years.
Um, versus maybe someone, maybe you gotyour license about five, six years ago.
And, and we all see thingsthrough a different lens.
And the lens of a 25-year-old,20-year-old veteran.

(04:05):
That's, that's seen the, the upsand downs of a, of a really, really
challenging market where we havenot only high inventory levels, but
everyone's upside down in their mortgage.
Even if you do get one under contract,you're looking at anywhere from 60
days was, was fast to get a a, a shortsale closed and across the finish
line it could, it could take six.

(04:26):
Some of these things took me six months.
Mm-hmm.
'cause the banks didn'tknow what they were doing.
No one knew what they were doing.
And then, um, versus today's market.
You know, last year, 2024, theysay was the, the least amount
of homes sold since I think 95.
But it still felt, it did not feelas, as, uh, as ugly as oh 7, 0 8, 0 9.

(04:50):
So from depending on the, the lens,you're, you're seeing this through.
If you, if you've only had your, yourlicense and been at this about six years.
You're thinking, oh God, this isthe most awful thing in the world.
If you've had your license 25, 20years, you lived through that last
recession and housing crash of oh 8,0 9, well then you're thinking we're

(05:10):
gonna, we're gonna make it through this.
But here's the biggest difference thatI want to point out, is that buyers
right now are hitting the brakes.
The question is why?
The second question, once wefigure out why they're doing
it, is, is that the right move?
John, you're coachingsome of the top teams.
I mean some, some selling 600,700, over a thousand homes a year.

(05:34):
Some of these we're talking aboutthe best of the best in real estate,
top of the tr, the real trends,um, you know, top 100, 200 lists.
What are, what are yourteam leaders seeing?
The ones that are out theretaking these listings?
And I know it's, it's,it's very local, right?
So, I mean, but you're, you're coachingagents, you know, from east coast to
west coast, from from, from north toall the way down, you know, into Texas.

(05:58):
What are you seeing, what arethe team leaders telling you?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, a lot of them,especially if, if they've been in
the game for a while that have aa, a great brand, they're still
attracting the opportunities.
Right.
The, you know, the opportunitiesare still still coming their way.
I think it, it, it's a lot of leadershipchallenges, primarily, um, and, and

(06:19):
educating and helping their agentsbecause most of the team leads, right.
You know, team members.
They haven't.
They haven't got to ridethrough a tough market.
Most, most agents on a team.
So it's, it's a lot of, a lot ofcoaching, a lot of training, a
lot of things that, you know, youhave to dust off to, to sharpen.
And we, I was talking to a, to a teamthis morning and it really kind of,

(06:42):
they're starting to feel it, right?
Because, you know, like youand I were talking about,
like Columbus is hot, right?
I mean, that, that marketis just absolutely on fire.
Whereas.
You know, talking to, to this other marketin Virginia and they're hyper-local.
They dominate a, a, a tight geographicalarea and have for decades now they're
starting to feel it in there, right?

(07:03):
So, you know, what's theconversations that have to, to have,
and it really comes back down to.
Leading the team and thenleading the market, right?
Being, being vocal, being educational,really putting out, like we said on
a national scale, but really a, alocal scale really what's happening.
And we revisited somethings to pay attention to.

(07:24):
And I mean, I, I pulled up one of ourold market reports because one of the.
Statistics, one of the numbers thatwe always paid attention to was the
pending ratio and, you know, thepending ratio for you guys to, to
kind of understand the direction inwhat's happening in the marketplace.
'cause that's kind of will tell the story.
Pending ratio is just number of pendingsin, in your market, divided by number

(07:47):
of actives, plus number of pendings.
So if you had, for example, 50pendings, but you also have 50
active, so that's, that's a hundred.
So your 50 pendings divided by the ahundred, the 50 active and 50 pendings,
gives you your pending ratio, whichis 50%, which is awesome, right?
When that number starts to, to getdown in, you know, the thirties,

(08:12):
the twenties, low twenties, creepingbelow twenties, you're like.
Uh, oh, hold on.
Right.
And whereas if it, if it's high, thatmeans things are moving fast, things are
coming on, but things are moving fast.
So I think that's really a, areally good indicator, a really
good metric to pay attention to.
You just, you gotta under, you know,get the data and look at it and.

(08:34):
Uh, for, for us, like we were students,like, we obsessed about the market.
I mean, we were, we were studying,looking at everything, looking at
product, looking at inventory, lookingat, uh, what's coming on, what's going
off, what's, what's selling, what'snot selling, what's it selling for?
And I think, you know, a lot of agentsover the last few years, they've
been very reactive to where theyhaven't had to spend a lot of time

(08:56):
obsessing and studying the market.
So I, I would definitelysharpen that skillset.
But the other skillset, and this iswhat we talked about this morning.
Is they probably need to revisitand start, um, sharpening
their negotiation skills.
Um, as we start to tend get intothis market, it's getting creative.
It's um, you know, how do we, you know,what do we throw in, what do we keep out?

(09:20):
How do we, how do we, you know,make it a situation that's, that
everybody's gonna feel good about,to bring people together and yeah.
And so, uh, that was just kind of anaha for them as they've, you know,
been team lead for, for decades andhad, and, and have a great tight team.
And, and she's, she's like.

(09:40):
Yep, that's exactly where we needto pay attention to right now.
So it's like, you know, Dustin off.
Dustin off.
Chris Voss, Dustin off.
You know, all thenegotiation stuff is key.
Let, let's talk about that.
I. Interesting point, kind of talkingabout the two subsets of agents, you
know, your our, our, our young guns, ournew, new people that just, and I say new.
I don't, don't take that.
Any of you new people.

(10:01):
Don't take 'em the wrong way.
We love you.
We, we, you're the, you'rethe, you're the future.
So we wanna see you thrive.
But if you've been, let's say,you know, you, you just got
into it six, seven years ago.
Have you really needed.
Strong negotiation skills when you lista a property or if even if you're on the
buyer side and you're just submittingyour highest and best, because that's

(10:24):
what, if you were licensed five yearsago, you were trained in that market.
That particular market, when thatwas, was that a home hit the market.
You had to be fast.
You had to come in strong, highestand best, best terms know how to put.
Uh, appraisal clauses in therefor, for the gaps, appraisal gap
clauses, and learn all those things.

(10:46):
That appraisal gap, that wasn'teven a thing 10, 15 years ago.
Like they, I don't evenremember that term.
It just didn't even exist.
Yeah.
And so now they had to learn a wholenew language, but negotiating, like
literally negotiating back and forth withone offer, with one buyer, one seller,
and really just hammering out terms.

(11:07):
You didn't have to be really thathighly skilled at that over the
last, you know, five, six years.
Right, right.
'cause of the, the, the way the marketwas, you had to be good at, you had to
be fast, you had to be aggressive ina sense of getting that offer in fast.
You know, making sure you knewwhere your buyer was financially,
what they could do, what they can'tdo, what they were willing to do.

(11:29):
You still had to be good, veryskilled at at, at communicating.
What those options andwhat they were getting out.
Okay.
Like, you can pay this,the comps are down here.
You can, you know, youcan pay whatever you like.
Um, you know, and we even had, you know,agents, which we never recommended no
inspections, but how many offers and,and deals did we see coming in that

(11:51):
had no inspection contingencies, right?
All that's gone.
So now we're back to negotiating 1 0 1.
Mm-hmm.
And um, honestly, it was one of myfavorite parts of, of me too, man.
Me too.
I loved negotiating.
Sometimes I like negotiatingtoo much, you know?
But, um, it's now if you have nottaken the time to study your market,

(12:16):
you can't just say you're an expert.
You have to be an expert.
You have to know these numbersinside out and backwards.
We're talking not just like,obviously I'm up in northeast Ohio,
you're in the Pittsburgh area.
We're not talking about the entire market.
I'm talking about the zip code.
And then after you that.
It goes deeper than the zip code.
Mm-hmm.
Allison just went on a listingappointment here in, in my

(12:37):
development here where I live.
And we had, you know, I went with herand we, we did the analysis together.
I went with her on the appointmentand we would get hyper into this
particular development, you know,this particular subdivision.
And the cool thing isthere's no inventory here.
There's a few specs out there, andother than those which are overpriced.

(12:58):
There's no resale.
So when resale hits, if it's pricedright, it's selling, there's one of
two things happening, and this is,I'm just using this as an example.
Either it's selling infour, four, or five days.
IE it's priced right, or it's selling in90 days with one or two price reductions.
Those are, those are the only two things.

(13:19):
And so you know, when you're counselinga seller, you have to be able to
articulate that, that you are the expert.
You've looked at the data and explainto them which one do you want to be?
Yeah.
And, and we, we, we heard thisback, you know, 10, 12, 20 years
ago of agents buying listings.

(13:40):
We're gonna start seeingwhat that looks like.
And if you're unfamiliar with what thatis, John did, did you guys in in Oklahoma?
Yeah.
Our number, our number onecompetitor, that's the only
way they can compete with us.
They, they, they bought the listing,so they overpriced it and then
they dropped their commission.
I mean, that was, that washow, how they bought it.
So they dropped the commission.
Raise the price maybe 10, 20%more than they knew that it was

(14:03):
gonna sell for a hundred percent.
Because they're bankingon the price reduction.
Yep.
Right.
They're banking on the price reduction.
So, you know, this is justa little, a little tip for
you listing agents out there.
One of the things that we, Isay at every listing appointment
is beware of the listing agent.
If they're interviewing multipleagents, beware of the listing

(14:24):
agent who buys a listing.
Mm-hmm.
And you'll watch, look at the sellerand the seller's gonna be like.
What, what do you, what do youmean they're gonna, you mean
they're gonna buy my home from me?
No.
What they're gonna do is they're gonnainflate the, they're, they're gonna pull
the same numbers that we're looking at.
You can't just make these numbers up.
These are the same numbers, the sales,what's on the market, what's not on the
market, what's impending, and then they'regonna come up with this inflated number to

(14:47):
put a big smile on your face and make yourheart warm and think that you, they can
actually get you that price when there's.
There's just no waythat it's gonna happen.
Now, you could have bought listings fouror five years ago and you might have
actually gotten the price right, like youcould get away with buying the listing.
Mm-hmm.
And now, um, it's gonna be a detriment.

(15:08):
It's gonna be a detriment becauseafter now, it's taking an average of
40 days nationwide for a home to sell.
That's up a little bitfrom 35 days Last spring.
So last spring, 35 days wasthe average market time.
Now it's up to 40.
And if you're on the market longer,let's say 60 or 90 days, we're, we're, it
goes right to that stigmatized listing.

(15:30):
And you gotta have these be ableto have these conversations.
So John, we talked about the,the two reasons why buyers
are sitting on the fence.
Number one, I want your take on this.
They're waiting forinterest rates to drop.
Because there's like chatter.
They're watching the news, they'rewatching all these outlets.
Maybe they're gonna doit, maybe they're not.

(15:51):
Trump wants 'em to lower it, you know?
Um, the Fed's saying, no, we're,we're, we're holding tight.
You know, in comes up, um.
What would you say if, you know,you, you were faced with a, with a
buyer's, like, you know, I'm gonnawait for the, the, the rates to drop.
Yeah, I mean that's, I mean, that'sa, a, a real conversation and you're
gonna have to back it with data.

(16:13):
Um, and, and as much of you knowthat, that you can find to, and, and.
If you've got a, a local insight, a locallender, somebody that is kind of really in
tune to, to what's happening and kind ofwhat the projections are, I think you're
gonna hear that that ain't happening.
Um, I think the big thing topay attention to is, is really
gonna be, um, you know, the.

(16:36):
The job, what's happening with jobsand what's happening with jobs on
a national scale, but also localscale is, is gonna be really,
really important to pay attention towhat's, what's happening with that.
I mean, that was always, um, a bigthreat of ours was, was, you know, being
a military town, what happens if theystop bringing, you know, troops in?
What if they.

(16:56):
Shut down the base.
I mean, that was always realconversations with, with base,
you know, base realignment.
So we were always concerned,you know, what, what was
happening with with the jobs?
What was, what was going on?
So, um, I think, I think reallylooking at that, but being
educated, but also providing someproof, because remember people.
Are gonna just really gravitate tothe story that they want to hear.

(17:21):
So they're gonna go look for people tosupport their belief and their story,
and they're not gonna believe you.
That's why you gotta beable to back that up.
So that's where I would start to,you know, push agents right now.
'cause those conversationsare gonna come up.
Then I think you've, you've got to beable to, to have some data and have
some, some other than you, right?
That's why we do third, you know,three threeway calls, right?

(17:41):
You need, you need to be able to on,on the recruiting side of things.
That's why you do three way calls.
And, but you need, you need that,that validation and, and that, you
know, to be able to back that up.
So that's where you wanna startmaking those connections and having
those conversations and being ableto get those as much proof and what
we're hearing to be able to, youknow, to educate your, your clients.

(18:02):
Well when, when people are waiting forrates to drop, that, that kind of reminds
me of like someone who's looking to getinto investments, but they're waiting
for the stock market to crash and thatI'm gonna get in then like everyone's, I
don't know too many people, if any, thathave ever just timed the market perfectly.
Yeah, it just, it doesn't happen.
You get into the market,you stay in the market.

(18:22):
Stock market typicallyhave, has always improved.
Yes, you're gonna have dips.
Yes, you're gonna have big, you know,big hockey stick growth points, but
eventually everything kind of evens outand it's historically always gone up.
Same thing in real estate.
Real estate has always,you know, appreciated.
You look at it over 30 year period.

(18:43):
If you owned a home 30 years agoand you still own that home today,
you, you know, assuming you haven'ttaken equity homes out of it,
you're sitting on some wealth there.
So timing the market, nobody wakesup and says, honey, the rates drop.
Let's go shop for a house.
It's usually a life event that happens.
So my advice would be like, even ifthe rates were to drop significantly

(19:06):
and there's no, you know, the, the onlything that's gonna cause rates to drop
is if the economy starts to weaken.
So let's just play that out.
The economy starts to weaken, jobreports come out, jobs are down.
Um, we start seeing unemployment rise.
Well, guess what?
Is that gonna trigger you to buy a home?
Now?
Yeah.
Now, now, now what?

(19:27):
Yeah, now the rates come down and theaffordability is still a challenge
because less people have jobs thanthe actual ability to get a loan.
So it, it's kind of a catch 22.
It's a game that I wouldn'tplay personally, you know?
Um, buy where you're comfortable.
But if it's time to buy, ifit's time to move, uh, move.

(19:47):
Let's go to the second reason.
The second reason buyers are sitting onthe fence right now is they're thinking
that maybe prices are gonna come down.
I mean, it would, it would makesense if we start to see inventories
rise, if there's 500,000 more buyersthan there are sellers right now.
You would think priceswould have to come down.
Here's the differencebetween 2008 and nine.

(20:07):
Today.
Prices are still slightly going up.
They're not going up at a rate that thatwe've seen over the last eight years,
but they're still holding steady Pricingis still holding steady, if not in
certain areas, they're still creeping up.
This is the, this is oneof the big challenges.
Now they're predicting that maybe.

(20:28):
Just a prediction.
By the end of the the, this year,fourth quarter, they may start
to dip maybe at the most 1%.
It's 1% reduction in inpricing, and that's all local.
So it kind of begs to say is like, yes,you should pay attention to local or
national trends, but you should notbe hanging your hat on it when you're

(20:51):
going out to a listing appointment,meeting with a home seller and trying
to advise them on where they need to be.
You need to be looking at the trendsin the zip code and then even in the
closer into the community, um, that,that, that home is in, if it's a
highly desired, I was using this asan example here where I live, there's
literally nothing for sale in resale.

(21:13):
When that listing hits themarket, they're gonna be it.
Now they could still sit if theyoverpriced the home because that is the
mar where the market's at right now.
Um, but here's anotherthing for sellers out there.
30%. This is in Ohio.
There's, I think they, that was areport that came out about cash buyers.
30% of homes in Ohio last year soldwith cash and there was no loan.

(21:39):
So when, when you havethat kind of cash power.
Then interest rates don't evenmatter in that type of transaction.
And, and it shouldn't stop people frompulling the trigger and, um, and, and
getting their property moved and, and,and doing what's driving that whole thing.
Whether it's, Hey, look, we're, we'veretired, we're sitting on a home with.
3,500, 4,000 square foot and it's justtwo people living in it or whatever it is.

(22:03):
Um, I don't know.
Those are my takes.
It is, it's, it, it gets back to, youknow, how you grade every opportunity
and you, you have to identify,you know, timing and motivation.
I. Um, and I think motivationbeing the big one because like you
said, with the buyer sitting on thesideline, they ain't really motivated.
And, and so I think being able to gothrough and, and making sure you're

(22:24):
doing a good job, you know, in your,in your conversation, and this is
really true, be being a true expert.
Right.
We were talking about how valuableand important it is to have,
have a, have a system like CHSA.
To be able to go through, to identify.
'cause a lot of the things thatwe're talking about here are,
you know, the principles that weneed to hit on inside of CHSA and

(22:45):
then also with buyers on CH HBA.
And it, it, it all comes downto timing and motivation, right?
You set the appointment,qualify the appointment.
What's your timeframe?
Why are you making a move?
You know, what if it happens?
If it doesn't sell right?
You, you can really start touncover, you know, Hey, what
happens if we go, you know.
30 days and, you know, multiple offers.

(23:07):
We can't get into a home.
I mean, what's, what's plan B?
You're, you're reallyjust trying to uncover.
And so like for us, we, we, we graded'em on timing, timing and motivation.
There they had to be aas likewho were your AA sellers?
Who were your AA buyers?
Right?
Like.
We have to sell, we have alife event like timing now.
Right.
That's a, that's who you'regiving your attention to.
That's who you're talking to every day.

(23:27):
That's like you're, you know,really trying to, to help
them accomplish whatever it isthey're trying to accomplish.
Yeah.
And then, and John, you, you, you,you had touched on the CHS, just for
people that don't know what that is,can you just kind of break that down?
'cause I know that you and Jay.
Where you, you mastermind that youguys wrote it in, I think 2010 or 11.
It's right when I, right before I,we started, we started, we started

(23:49):
with it in, in, uh, in 10 and wereally vetted it all out throughout
11 and, and then we launched.
Um, and CHS a's Certified Home SellingAdvisor, and it's a really a proven system
that allows you to move away from the,the old look at me presentation, the

(24:12):
old school me monster, look at all ofour accolades, look at our awards, look
at all the things we've done, because.
Sellers.
I mean, they want someproof, but they don't care.
Um, and then on, on the buy side, wehad to, because since we had CHSA, we
had to create one for the buy side.
So it was certified home selling, uh, uh,buyer buying advisor and, you know, CHSA,

(24:34):
there were, there were two things thatwe were able to pull out of production.
To be able to escapeproduction, it took two things.
One was understanding the financialmodel, which Greg Crabtree, um, helped
us, um, you know, simple numbers, straighttalk, big profits, and then us working
with him to really understand the model,understand top line revenue, understand.

(24:57):
Profit, healthy profit margin.
Understand your gross margin.
What goes at what, what do you keep?
What comes to the company afteryou pay your agents and your broker
and then you know you gotta operatesalaries and expenses and what's the
proper allocation for each to, toyour gross and then your top line.
Once we had that, we understood the model.

(25:17):
And you know what happens?
I mean, it's the same,same with you, right?
You know, you escape productionand I mean, it was one of the
reasons that you looked at expwas you had the real reality.
You were staring productiongoing, it's like getting outta
jail, you know, for the weekend.
You gotta go right back.
You were really looking at like, oh shit.
Like this is a reality.
And, and so, uh, understanding that,but CHSA was the other because.

(25:42):
Prior to that, it was apresentation around our accolades.
Hey, you know, look at our rankings.
Look where we rank in the city.
Look where we rank in the state.
Look where we rank in the region.
Look where we rank in the country.
Look where we rank in the world.
Right?
Look at our trophies.
Look at our plaques and, and so,well, the branding that a team leader
does is usually around their name.
Just like Jay Kinder.
Yep.
Yeah.
In Lawton, Oklahoma.

(26:02):
You couldn't drive three miles down theroad and see his face on a billboard.
And so that branding carries weight.
And I think what you're saying is.
You needed a system that anybody in theJ Kinder, the, the J Kinder home selling
team, which was the, the brokerage, right?
Yeah.
That any agent could use thesystem, walk in and have a closing

(26:25):
ratio, at least close to Jay's.
I don't know if anybody you knowis gonna get it at Jay's well
of, of well, was better, yeah.
Was better.
Sta had a higher, had a better ratio.
Um, just, just, just hisdemeanor and his, his ability to.
Build rapport and connect.
Jay's great at it as well.
Sta you know, you just, he'salso, you know, twice the size of

(26:47):
kinder, you know, bald head, kindof intimidating dude too, right?
But, you know, he's smile and, and youknow, he can really connect with you.
Uh, but it worked with anybody.
Right?
Here's, here's the thing,here's the litmus test.
Brett Jennings was that, I knowhe's the first billion dollar man.
He was the first one toget to a billion sold.
Your market.

(27:07):
It's happened since, but he, I,I believe he was the first one We
can be on Team check this RunningWing, a team built off of CHSA.
He runs the certified home sellingsystem to close a billion, so
it works in Silicon Valley.
When we built it, itworked in Lotton, Oklahoma.
At the time our averagesales price was 130,000.

(27:29):
And I remember Brett Jennings isbringing in commission checks of 130,000.
Exactly.
And so when, when they presented thisto Dan Kennedy, Dan goes, I love it.
It's gonna resonate with the affluent.
And it, it really does.
It works in any market and it's builtoff of principles and everything

(27:52):
that you were talking about there.
We're talking aboutthe law of negotiation.
We're talking about the law ofdifferentiation, the law of exposure,
the law of execution, right?
Um, the law of law of cooperation,why you wanna cooperate with the
other agents in your marketplace.
Um, but you know, fundamentally the, the,the, the first law drives it all right?
That's the law of expertise, andthat's what we're talking about, right?

(28:14):
Being a true expert, being atrue advisor, advising them.
And, and it goes back to your pointearlier about buyers sitting on the
sidelines, you know, asking the questions.
It's more consultative selling,and it's like, listen, why, why are
you guys sitting on the sidelines?
Hey, if, if rates were half theprice, would you, would you.
Would you jump?
What would you do?
You're, you're just tryingto uncover true motivation.

(28:34):
And we've been talking aboutthis for the last couple years.
I just believe it's a market ofhave toss, not a market of want tos.
Like literally buyers and sellers haveto make a move or they're not moving
and you just gotta do a better job.
You gotta speak that.
Your marketing, your content, yourconversations have gotta be, you
know, it's what we talk about, right?
Meet 'em where they're at,where, where are they at in their

(28:55):
head, and how can we join thatconversation to the truly motivated.
So John, I wanna unpack the, those twothings again and circle back to the
CHBA because, um, yes, the law won.
And by the way, uh, go tohoney badger nation.com.
The site is finally redone.
We can go see it, you know,feel free to check it out.
And you can actually,we have these courses.

(29:17):
If you're, if you're part of ourorganization, honey Badger Nation,
you can take these courses for free.
Uh, I paid literally tensof thousands of dollars.
Take 'em for free.
Uh, if you're part of our organization,go ahead and, uh, honey badger nation.com.
Scroll down and check 'em out.
But, so the two biggest reasonswhy buyers are on the fence

(29:37):
right now are because of rates.
And they think that maybe they're gonnacome down and, and maybe they'll get
a better, you know, a lower paymentand b, maybe pricing's gonna down.
Ultimately, what's stopping them is fear.
So when you think about it,it's either you, you, when,
when fear outweighs motivation.
They stop, they freeze, they paralyze.

(29:59):
And so the beauty in the CHSA, the CHBApresentations is that it's designed to
not only position you as the expert,build trust, build authority for you
as they, so that they listen to you.
And in doing that, once you masterit, you're now able to reduce or even

(30:19):
eliminate that fear because now you'rereplacing their fear with trust.
You're replacing their fear with theconfidence, and you can only do that
by following the system to the t. Iwanna touch on one other thing, and this
really is why I believe that if you,you, you go and take the course and you
start to use this, like, I, I, I soldthousands of homes with this thing.

(30:42):
My team and I anyway.
Okay.
This is, this is, this was the system.
We didn't have fivedifferent ways of doing it.
It was one way of doing it.
And Brett Jennings, I don't care ifyou're selling in Silicon Valley,
Cleveland, Ohio, Lawton, Oklahoma,Lakeland, Florida, wherever you're
at, Dallas, Texas, it works.
Is that it differentiatesyou from everyone else.

(31:04):
You know, a hundred percent.
You might have, uh, a, an 800pound gorilla in your market.
And what I mean by that is liketheir marketing's everywhere.
Maybe they're just a big brokerage.
We have a big one witha big green sign here.
They have a lot of market share.
So, so maybe that's you, and maybeyou're not selling three, 400 homes.
Maybe you're, you're selling 10or 12 and you want to get to 26.

(31:28):
The number one thing you need todo is differentiate yourself from
the competition, and the way todo that is the C-H-B-A-C-H-S-A.
Why?
Money moves to difference, not similarity.
If you, you plan on trying to come in, youmaybe use your team's accolades or your
brokerages accolades against the other 800pound gorilla listing agent who gets all

(31:51):
the listings, they're probably gonna win.
But if you have a completelydifferent approach.
You use these step-by-step systems,money moves the difference.
I used to beat agents who wereselling double or triple what
I was selling back in the daybecause I differentiated myself.
I learned the system in 2012, I wanna say.

(32:11):
I think that's when you 12.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Talk to me a little bit aboutdifferentiation and why agents really
need to start mentally thinkingabout differentiation when they're
having these conversations, the waythey're having these conversations.
The way they're communicatingwith their clients.
A hundred percent.
I mean, that's law too.
Law of differentiation.
And it, it's, it's how you aregonna differentiate, you know,

(32:34):
their property to stand out.
Especially now inventorylevels are, are climbing.
They're not, you know, tothe levels that they were.
But they are, they're, they're,they're, they're climbing.
And, and so how are you going todifferentiate that property to make
it stand out and not be cookie cutterlike, like all of the rest and.

(32:55):
You have to have it in there.
So we learned this lesson thehard way when we opened the
brokerage in, in Texas in DFW.
When you, you go into a massive marketthat's gonna take a lot of time and
a lot of money to have the brandpresence that we were able to establish
in, in a small market like Lawton.
And, and so we, we quickly were like.

(33:17):
Uh oh.
Nobody knows us, nor do they care.
What do we do?
And that's where, you know, at thattime, our differentiation when you
worked with us, that's where wedid the, uh, prepec for the major
mechanicals because we wanted tonegotiate from a position of strength.
So we got out ahead of it.
Then we had the two hour touch up.

(33:37):
We're not gonna recommendthat you hire a stager.
We're actually gonna bring twoof our stagers in for two hours.
They're gonna use everything in your houseto get your home stage and photo ready.
And then our professionalphotographer came on top of it.
That was what you got when you hired us.
Mm-hmm.
And, and so that was how we chose todifferentiate our value proposition
to, to sellers in the market ofwhat we were gonna do for you,

(33:59):
different than what everybody else.
So that was just, thatwas just an example.
Yeah, I like that.
The two hour touchup.
I should've, dang, youguys never coached you.
You guys kept that in your back pocket.
I always do that all day long.
We did a two hour touchup,but I never called it that.
Yeah.
Called it staging.
Another good example talkingabout staging, staging, staging.

(34:20):
That's a great example of you guyswere, you're staging the property.
Yeah.
We called it a two hour touch up.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
And, and you know, how didwe, how did we offset that?
Well, it all rolled into our.
Listing transaction fee right now.
Did we, did we have some slippage?
Did we have, you know,money out on the front end?
Of course.
Right.
But that was our decisionin the model at the time.

(34:42):
To do those three thingscost us about $670.
Our transaction fee was 6 95.
Did we have slippage?
Yeah, it was a number I paid attentionto on a, on a consistent basis because
our listing taken to listing sold ratiowas only 82% and a, a, a super hot
market of North, north, you know, DFWI.

(35:04):
It still had slippage, but we were okaywith that because we had to create some
differentiation until we could get a brandpresence to where, you know, that that
number was gonna go up a little bit more.
So that's an example.
Right?
But what the beautiful thing with CHSAis it, it's almost, it's like a buffet.
You pull out the variables becausein CHSA, there's 115 variables in the

(35:28):
home selling process that we identifiedand, you know, determine if your home's
gonna sell at the top, the middle, orthe bottom of the market was really
dependent upon how many of the variableswe were gonna proactively manage.
And you go throughexposure, differentiation.
Obviously expertise beingthe first one, cooperation.
How we're gonna cooperate with theother agents, because there's in
town buyers, out of town buyers andbuyers working with other agents.

(35:50):
How are we gonna, you know, wedon't wanna alienate ourself like
a lot of companies are right now.
Alienate ourself from that buyerpool that are working with other,
that are working with other agents.
Law of acquisition, how are wegonna acquire opportunities,
negotiation and, um, execution,which is really about your team.
And like, like, listen.

(36:10):
It is the best process.
I will, I will put it up againstanybody's process and it's so good.
One of the things that we neverdid, and I, I've been working
hand in hand with, with Georgia,she has massive differentiation.
If you guys have not paid attentionto, to what she's doing, she is a
storyteller that just happens to sellreal estate and she tells stories

(36:32):
in her videos and her content.
She is winning social media at amassive level, and she is in arguably
the toughest market in Canada and.
Listings are just stacking andstacking and stacking and stacking.
And when you spend two to 2,500to bring a listing to market and
you've got 50, $60,000 just sittingthere and upfront costs, right?

(36:57):
You've gotta have a great systemto really be able to educate your
sellers of what's gonna happen.
And so we've overhauled CHSA for Canadawith, with her and her team's help.
It's amazing.
And so now you arm somebody thathas social media with a proven
process, game over, right?

(37:19):
Who's gonna, who, whocan compete with her?
Now they can't competewith her own social.
Now she's got a proven system to helpclients and sellers sell their home
up, up to 18% more than the, thanthe traditional real estate agent.
That's tough to beat.
Tough to beat al. Yeah, man.
Hey, let me, let's checkthis out real quick.
So just for, for, for any, lemmesee if I can, lemme do this.

(37:43):
Uh, yeah, so check it out.
Little sneak peek of thenew Honey Badger Nation.
That's not it.
That's not it.
There it is.
All right.
So we got, you can nominateyour honey back for the month
award that's in your pipeline.
So reshare, reshare, oh geez.
Kill that one.
Bring up the other one.

(38:04):
Okay.
Whoops.
Yep.
Wrong one.
All right, so let's do this.
Screen share.
Screen share, present or screen share.
And then put the new one up there.
Yeah.
Where'd that go?
Oh, honeyed nation.com.

(38:25):
There it is.
Share that here.
Boom.
There we go.
There we go.
All right, so honey badger nation.com.
And here we've been talkingabout C-H-S-A-C-H-B-A right now.
Will this scroll with me?
I've never, is that scrolling?
Yes, sir. Alright.
Get some merch.
We got merch.
Get your merch.

(38:46):
We got some fresh merch.
We got our, um, our legacy, wegot our new, the sweet honey
badger, uh, hat here inside out.
I, I carry this bag literallyeverywhere I go, but down here
to resources you have your.
Your login courses, if you're part of ourorganization, you're gonna get it free.
Uh, if you're interestedin that, hit me up.

(39:06):
DM me.
We'll, we'll, uh, share with youhow to become a member for free.
Um, and down here wehave these two videos.
And these are the videos.
These are the whiteboard videosthat we would send a seller.
Before a listing appointment.
Watch this.
That way it does a lot ofthe heavy lifting of what
our system's about for you.
Really Cool.

(39:26):
Also a buyer one in there as well.
And, um, just all kinds ofgreat resources in here.
We got tear, tear sheets, placemats, all this stuff for our members.
And, uh, so yeah, check them out andmake sure you, um, you educate yourself.
Get differentiated.
You will start to win listings overyour competition and it'll be fun

(39:50):
and you're gonna make more money andmake income and, and you'll, you'll,
you'll have less sleepless nights.
There you go.
Yes, sir. I love it.
Yeah, it's good stuff, man.
I think, um, you know, back to, youknow, the final thing, it's really.
You know, control the controllablesand, you know, get out to the front
end of the things within your control.
And in this game there's only a couple.

(40:11):
And if you could just really allocate70 plus percent of your time on, on,
you know, the things that are withinyour control, no matter what the
market does, you're gonna be fine.
Like, you're gonna be reallyfine if you can do that.
What the focus, what thefocus, what the focus.
We all have control over our focus.
All right, brother.

(40:31):
Appreciate you, John.
Appreciate you reach out to any questions.
We're here for you.
We'll see you at the top.
See you, brother.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got somethingvaluable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow andvisit John kitchens.coach for
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.
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