What if the "secret" to massive real estate success isn't actually a secret at all? Josh Anderson, who's been crushing it in Nashville for 19 years straight, breaks down the refreshingly simple approach that's generated his referral-based empire: consistently keeping his word and doing what's right. 🎯
When Josh started on April Fool's Day 2006 with just $5,000 to his name, he committed to the fundamentals - making phone calls, writing handwritten notes, and connecting genuinely with people. Even as the 2008 mortgage crisis devastated the industry, his business grew 25-50% because he maintained his lead generation schedule while others abandoned theirs. 📈
The cornerstone of Josh's philosophy? Dedicating 3-4 hours daily to lead generation, no matter what. "I've never done anything super sexy in our business," he admits. "Consistency is the currency of business." This discipline allowed him to outwork agents with more experience but less commitment. 🌟
Unlike many successful agents who step away from production only to jump back in when markets shift, Josh deliberately stayed in the trenches. He also learned early to hire quality over affordability - "Go hire the most expensive person you can find and hold them highly accountable" - while focusing his energy on revenue-generating activities. 💰
After turning 40 during the pandemic, Josh expanded his focus beyond real estate to health and wealth-building, implementing smart tax strategies and traditional investment approaches. His advice for agents chasing shortcuts? "Fall in love with doing what’s boring consistently, it works." The path to extraordinary results lies in small actions performed consistently over time. 🚀
Ready to transform your business through the power of boring consistency? Listen to our newest Master Series episode to gain insights that could reshape your approach to sustainable success. 🎧
Speaking of success, if you aren’t using AreaPro yet, you’re missing out! Head over to areapro.com/rmg today and watch your business take off to new heights 💥
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
If I'm boiling it all down, it is just keeping your
word and doing what's right anddoing it very consistently.
I've never done anything supersexy in our business.
It's always been like go makephone calls, go love on people,
go shake hands, go break bread.
You know people do businesswith.
People they know like and trustgo break bread.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know people do business with people they know,
like and trust Real estateprofessionals.
Welcome back to the RMG AgentPodcast.
I'm your host, reed Moore.
We are doing one of the thingsthat I just love the most, and
that is interviewing incrediblepeople for the Masters Series.
The Masters Series is agentsthat I think, selfishly, you
should listen to, becausethey've been in the game a long
(00:45):
time, they've taken their shotsand they have a history of doing
a great job servicing clientsin their respective areas, and
so I get the opportunity todayto interview a beautiful human
being, not only physically, butin other ways as well my friend
Josh Anderson from Tennessee.
All right, brother, thanks forbeing here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Of course.
So, man, we've been able to runtogether now for, gosh,
probably the better part of 15years, yeah, man, and just being
able to see what you've beenable to do in your business,
consistently, over and over andover again build a huge business
, a very profitable business.
I just, I love the fact thatyou took the time here to be
able to do in your business,consistently, over and over and
over again, build a hugebusiness, a very profitable
business.
I just, I love the fact thatyou took the time here to be
able to share this with otherreal estate professionals.
(01:30):
So, thanks, thanks again, man,appreciate it Absolutely.
So just want to start theconversation by asking the
question, you know, why shouldsomebody listen to you?
Here's, here's Josh Anderson,and we have a whole room full of
you know people ready to listento you.
Why should they listen?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, you know, I think the I think the biggest
thing is I've been in thebusiness for 19 years, as of
April 1st, and you know, I meanI've gone through several
different shifts and cycles andmicro cycles and you know, I
think we've tried just abouteverything in this business,
with varying degrees of successand failure.
I've failed, a lot wasted a tonof money, ton of time, energy.
(02:14):
If I could go back and, youknow, fix some of those things I
don't even know that I would,because this is part of what,
like, brought me to here and,you know, getting to sit in
somebody like Gary Keller's youknow, top agent group.
I just remember the first timeI was in that, in that
mastermind, like I, I declineddinner.
I went back to my, my hotelroom and laid on the bed and was
(02:37):
like it, literally my brainhurt and I also wondered why,
like, how did I even get intothis room?
And I also wondered why, like,how did I even get into this
room?
You know, at the time, I thinkthe I think it was like twenty
five million dollars in volumeto to qualify, which is nothing
now, yeah, yeah, but at the time, you know that was probably
2010, when there was a reallycrappy market, maybe 2011.
(03:01):
Anyway, so that's a big, long,drawn out answer on why I think
everybody has lots ofopportunities to listen to
people.
I'm in the trenches every dayalongside my team.
I am constantly recruiting forour team.
I get a lot of agent referralsaround the country that have
people that are moving to thenational market, and the
majority of our business isreferral based, and I think that
(03:24):
says something in the marketthat we're in, to continue to be
able to work with a lot of thesame clients that we've worked
with for almost 20 years now.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So when, when the random agent says my business is
referral based, that can becode, for I have no idea where
where people come from, butthat's not you.
So how did you get there to you?
Or you genuinely have areferral based business that
sells a lot of real estate.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I think in the very, very simplest form.
This is going to sound silly,but I do what I say I'm going to
do, and I think we're in aworld where, like, people's word
literally just doesn't matteranymore.
They empty promises or like,for example, read if I, if I
said, hey, read, I'm gonna, I'mgonna send you those comparable
(04:09):
sales before the end of the day.
If it was 933.
And I was laying in bed, Iliterally would get out of bed,
open up my laptop and go do it,because I told you I was going
to do it before the end of theday.
And so, just as simple as ifyou tell somebody you're going
to do something, you do it andyou do it at a super high level.
I think people remember thatkind of stuff and I think it
(04:31):
sets you very far apart intoday's world.
It's kind of like my parentsmade me write tons of
handwritten notes growing up andit sets me apart because I
still, I still write handwrittennotes and people are like man,
you could have just sent a quicktext or an email and I'm like,
but you didn't, you wouldn'thave remembered it, and so you
(04:53):
know, I know that's.
There's probably a ton ofdifferent ways I can.
I can tell you things thatwe've done to get agent
referrals, but really, if I'mboiling it all down, it is just
keeping your word and doingwhat's right and doing it very
consistently.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
There's something about you know, I've, I've I've
shared this with people in thepast like consistency has been
my arch nemesis and my biggestally, right, my arch nemesis.
And then everything in my lifethat I'm consistent in has just
been a knockdown drive at drugout fight.
It hasn't come naturally Right,um.
But the other thing is is thatwhenever you are consistent
especially if you've been in,you have been doing something
for almost 20 years there isjust this, um, almost, uh, you
(05:28):
know, like compounding interestwith something as simple as
doing what you're, what you'reyou know, doing what you said
you're going to do, and at thispoint in your career, that's,
that's a big deal.
How did you, how did you start,uh, in real estate?
Like, what was, what was thefirst few years?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
like, Well and real quick, before I answer that you
said, you said something thatI've started saying a lot over
the last couple of years isconsistency is the currency of
business, and and it's like itdoesn't seem like that big of a
deal until you look back after15 or 20 years of doing it and
being like you know what.
I did this one thing every dayfor three hours and it built my
(06:05):
business, and you can dowhatever you want for the rest
of the day.
If you lead gen and lead followup every day for three or four
hours, your business takes careof it.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
It works, yeah, so um , it's interesting to kind of
riff on that.
It's just I was.
I was thinking about how muchconsistency we expect out of
companies that serve us, right.
I even think about places.
I've got a few places whereI've had one of the best meals
ever, right like amazing, wentback, had the same meal,
(06:34):
massively disappointing.
And I'm not a raving fan ofthat restaurant.
I'm not.
I'm not going to write anegative review, but there's
just something about theexpectation that we expect.
The reason someplace like, evenlike starbucks, is so
successful is, every single timeI go, I get it this way.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
It's, it's a big deal for sure so first couple of
years in the business, um, youknow, uh.
So I got in the business april1st of 2006.
So april fool's day jokes on me.
It's gonna, yeah, like what Ican do this part time.
So I graduate in finance andeconomics from LSU, moved back
(07:13):
to Nashville I'm originally fromNashville moved back there
after being in Louisiana, workedat an investment bank and then
a private client asset firm forlike a year and a half Because I
had this idea.
I created this idea in my headabout finance and how sexy and
fun it was going to be.
And then I realized it wasterrible.
And I love that.
(07:34):
That's what I graduated in,because economics there's so
much of real estate andeconomics that play into all the
things.
Yeah, you know all the things,yeah.
So I got into the business in2006.
I had $5,000 to my name.
I absolutely swore that I wouldnot ask my dad for a single
(07:55):
penny.
No way not happening.
And so that was that.
At the time.
That was when Gary was like twohours of lead generation a day,
930 to 1130.
And so I was like, okay, and Iwas like what, if I do like
three hours a day, like I'lljust do a little bit of extra
because I don't have anything inmy pipeline anyway.
So I started doing three hoursa day.
(08:18):
I did eight by eight campaigns.
I did handwritten notes toeverybody that I knew in
Nashville which was basically myparents' friend, and so that
was it, man, I just did.
I did all the things that youcould do if you didn't have any
money, yep, and literally Iremember at some and so.
So the market was good for abouta year and a half before 2008
happened, wasn't even a year anda half, but 2008 happened and I
(08:44):
was so ignorant to what themortgage meltdown was that my
business actually grew 25 to 50%from 2008 to 2012.
So it was like, wow, this iscool.
Everybody else was having liketotal freak out modes.
And you also have to understandat the time I had zero overhead
.
Are you sure I didn't own Ididn't own a $2 million office
building like I do now and allthe different things.
(09:05):
I mean I literally had zerooverhead and I was, you know, my
wife and I were like each youknow, it was like we'd go have
happy hour, like, hey, we can goget $1 beers, you know
somewhere.
So we were still post-collegelike living very inexpensive, um
(09:27):
, but all that to say is, like,man, I did the basics.
Looking back on it, I dideverything that the Red Book
said to do.
I mean to a T.
I put everybody in an.
My original CRM was an Excelsheet and it was literally their
name, phone number, emailaddress and like a note section.
And I just and then and then,like we were coming out of 2011,
10 or 11.
And Gary was like y'all need tobe doing three or four hours of
(09:48):
Legion a day, and so I rampedit up and started doing like
four hours of Legion a day.
I mean, I've never doneanything super sexy in our
business.
It's always been like go makephone calls, go love on people,
go shake hands, go break bread.
You know people do businesswith people.
They know like and trust.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, it's.
This is a pretty.
You know it's not always easy,but it's a pretty simple
business, like people.
People have to buy houses andsell houses and want to be
invest in houses, and we helpthem.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting, like the, you
know, in our, in our industryit's industry it's rare to see
somebody who does the consistentwork of lead generation, and
maybe you could say it's rarethat people pop up above the
average when it comes to theirincome, and there's definitely a
correlation there.
What did you do to you knowwhat was the story?
(10:41):
You told yourself around thatthree or four hours of lead
generation, because leadgeneration is, you know, it's
the hardest thing that mostpeople do every day, right, yeah
, and then what have you done?
What have you found?
Works with other agents whomaybe didn't have your mindset
of, just like, okay, I'm goingto work.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
A couple of things that I thought when doing the
lead gen was first of all, Ilooked at all the different ways
you could lead gen and it justseemed like the most efficient
was picking up the phone.
I couldn't go have 20 coffees aday and my goal was to have 20
contacts a day, and so my thereason I started picking up the
phone so much was because I saidhow am I going to compete
(11:19):
against that guy that's been inthe business for 12 years?
The only way to do it is gettons and tons and tons of
repetition, and he's not doingthat repetition because he's out
busy showing houses.
So I can study all the statsand do all the things that he's
probably not doing because hefeels like he doesn't need to do
it anymore because he's beendoing it for a while.
Yeah, and so that was the onlyway I felt like I could I could
(11:41):
catch up with other people wasgo put in an extra hour here.
I was going in on Saturdays andcalling expires and withdrawals
from like 11 to one everyweekend, every Sunday.
I mean I did 75 open houses myfirst year in the business, so I
was just trying to do a littlebit of everything to get exposed
(12:02):
and at the end of the day, youknow, it was kind of like well,
you know, you get super duperuncomfortable and outside your
comfort zone.
That's where the magic happens.
And that's what I heard.
So I was like I hate makingthese phone calls, but if I can
fall in love with the idea ofmaking phone calls and after six
months of doing it I can seesome kind of like something,
(12:25):
then like I'll keep doing itCause somebody told me right
when I first got in the businesswhatever you do, you got to do
something for at least 90 daysor 180 days, depending on what
type of marketing it was.
And I was like all right, I'mgoing to do this hardcore Cause
I don't have any money.
I'm going to do the phone callsand the handwritten notes
hardcore for like six months.
If it doesn't work, I'll figuresomething else out.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, and it worked.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Well, because I found out, if you call, if you make
two or 300 dials a day and youget 20 people on the phone, it's
just a numbers game.
If you talk to a hundred peoplea week, even if you're really
crappy at your scripts and youdon't know what you're doing,
somebody will be like I'll workwith you.
I mean, I remember, I remember,I remember getting my first
listing.
The guy was literally he waslike I sent him all these really
(13:09):
crappy postcards that I likemade myself.
And, um, finally he called meone day and I remember exactly
where I was sitting and he waslike hey, um, this is Steve
Goddard, I'm calling you.
Uh, how old are you?
You look like you're in highschool still, do you have your
license?
And you're in high school?
And I was like I don't have anobjection handler for this.
(13:31):
Yeah, yeah, I was like this iswhat I said to him.
I go well, why does it matterhow old I am if I can sell your
house better than you can?
And then it was dead silent.
I was like, oh, this is notgood.
And finally he said, ok, canyou come over tomorrow at two
thirty?
And I was like, oh, nobody hadsaid yes, so I was like yeah,
(13:56):
and then I got off the phonewith him.
I was like I don't even have alisting packet or a listing.
I don't even know what you'resupposed to bring.
Yeah, so that was like my firstlisting appointment and I was
so happy he was a for sale byowner, uh and I, 19 years later,
I literally called him lastweek and talked to him oh my
gosh, that's amazing and youjust got to put yourself out
there and you got to getuncomfortable and you just got
to listen, listen for lots ofno's so you can get to a yes.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, I love it.
So this created this.
My hallucination is is thatthis created a problem for you,
that it created for a lot ofpeople in your position that
have been really successful?
And I was talking to BrianGubernick around around this
cause.
We've had kind of a friend groupfor a long time and he said you
know, we all, we all just builtour relationship when we were
(14:40):
at that place where we're justflat out grinding and doing
deals right, you look over, youknow, you look and you see a
Josh, you see a Brian, andthere's just this level of you
know respect that you havebecause you know that
everybody's been in the trenchesand they've been doing this
thing and having success, bedoing the things that that
nobody else is willing to do, orat least at that level.
But then that comes withanother layer of challenge and
(15:00):
that is at some point you havetoo many people to be able to
service well yourself.
So when did that transitionhappen?
And all of a sudden you're like, oh, congratulations, you get
to be a business owner now.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So I remember going to lunch with my cousin who owns
a big landscaping company inNashville and he's like, how's
it going?
I was like, man, it's good, I'mbusy, but it's not enough.
And he was like, well, tell meabout your business.
And I said, well, hey, I said,and we talked for a minute and I
(15:33):
said, well, what, when am Igoing to start getting
consistent referrals?
And he was like year numberthree, literally the start of
your third year in the business.
So I got in the business, aprilof 2006.
He said, literally three yearsin, I swear to you at the three
year mark, like literally to theanniversary I started getting
(15:54):
referrals consistently.
That was April of 2009.
By 2010, I was drowning inbusiness Like I was, and that's
so.
In 2008 or early 2009, I hiredmy first part-time assistant and
I just remember going, you know, made the biggest, oldest
(16:15):
mistake in the world.
I bought, I hired the cheapestthat I could, you know, and I
hate that it was off ofCraigslist.
It was the whole thing, youknow and.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure I ran her offearly, early and um, so hired my
first agent, my first buyer'sagent, who really took a lot off
my plate in 2010.
(16:36):
Um, she made $92,000 her firstyear, which was like at the time
in 2010.
I mean, that was like thebottom of the market, so she was
cranking.
And then I came back from megacamp when it was in September of
2011.
And me and this guy named AaronArmstrong came back and we're
(16:57):
like man, we got to go implementthis showing agent model.
It was like this mythical thingand that's really yeah, and that
was like Gary mentioned it andit was like, nah, it's not going
to work.
And that's really the firstreal thing outside of hiring my
first buyer's agent.
But that was the first realthing that really changed my
(17:18):
business, because that was thatallowed my next buyer's agent to
do, you know, a hundred andsomething transactions.
And in 2011, that was like forfor her and Brianna, that was
like unheard of.
Oh yeah, so, you know, for 110or 15 transactions now it's
probably normal, but, um, thosewere some of the first things
(17:40):
that really like transformed ourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
What did you have to learn?
Um, going from somebody who was, you know, you're, you're out,
you're out, you know, huntingand killing, and now you're,
you're creating this giant.
Uh, you know, wake of success,disaster, yeah, that, um, what
were some of those?
What were the?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
what were some of the things you thought it would be
like and it wasn't, and thenvice versa yeah, I think the
first thing that I had to learnand I think this is the first
thing we all have to learn isthat your client actually
doesn't care that you do theentire process.
Like, um, I realized on liketransaction number three in,
like the history, like in 2006,when I lost an earnest money
(18:22):
check that was lodged underneathmy chair and lodged underneath
my car seat that I probablyshouldn't touch paperwork ever.
Yeah, and 19 years later, Idon't touch paperwork, and but I
had to realize that, like I'mreally good at a couple of
things, I really suck at all therest of them and I need to hire
(18:44):
for all those positions andthat if it's done so well, the
client actually doesn't care.
Yeah, so that was.
That was like the early on stuff, because I think, as a realtor,
you're like oh my, my clientwants me to do it and I don't
think your client wants you todo it.
I think they're working withyou because they, like you, know
you trust you, or they thinkyou're good at negotiation or
whatever, but I don't think theyexpect you to take photos, do
(19:08):
the video, do the paperwork, allthe stuff.
So go what I tell people now,which is not what I did go hire
the most expensive person thatyou can hire.
Even what I did Go hire themost expensive person that you
can hire, even if you're a soloagent, like, don't worry about
the $12 or $15, $17 an hour job,go find somebody at 50 or $75
(19:30):
an hour and hold them highlyaccountable and then you go do
what brings in the money, whichis the lead generation and the
shaking of hands.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I was just thinking back.
You know the commitment to leadgeneration as your sole focus,
regardless of all the otherthings that you think are the
focus.
It creates unbelievableopportunity.
Right, and I was thinking likemy very first assistant.
I took her through the hiringprocess, did as good of a job as
I thought I knew how to do atthe time.
She lasted one day and Iremember it was somewhere around
(19:57):
one o'clock and she was sittingthere pale, almost green, with
overwhelm because she was reallyinexpensive.
Got her from abercrombie andfinch uh, you know the uh that's
, you know yep and uh, andsomewhere around 1 30.
I look at her.
I just said, hey, how you doing.
She's like not good I'm.
You think you can get your oldjob back.
(20:18):
She's like I'd like to do that.
So that was it.
But the next one was somebodywho was.
She was a nursing student andshe was way overqualified.
She needed a job and I neededsomebody who was overqualified
and she changed the trajectoryof my.
I mean, she, she, she committedto be with me for a year and
she was with me for about twoand a half years.
(20:39):
And as soon as you experiencethat for the first time, you
realize that somebody else isbetter in your business than you
are and actually it turns outthey may have, they may even
care more about your businessthan you do to some in some ways
.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I've got one of those right now.
It's pretty cool, it's amazing.
That's the piece that think, um, as a new agent that has a
business that's going up anddown and very inconsistent, they
can't wrap their head around.
Why would I pay the most amountof money?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I'm like because it's going to change your business
even just the resumes you get gofrom sandwich artists.
Uh, I appreciate that, Iappreciate.
But then all of a sudden itgoes from there that to a former
paralegal and that's, that's abig difference, right, yeah, so
okay.
So my my external like, uh,watching Josh Anderson over the
(21:31):
years, uh, was that maybe atcertain points in your business
you were surrounded with people,by people who were trying to
get out of the day to day ofreal estate and the heavy
lifting of of sales, and itseemed like you always resisted
that or maybe you resisted thatmore than others and that that,
(21:52):
in the long run, has has workedfor you really well.
Is that?
That's a hallucination?
But is there any truth to that?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I actually had this conversation several times over
the years.
I never got out of productionbecause I saw so many people
that were in Gary's group getout of production and the second
the market changed even a microamount, they jumped back into
production and I said I want tobe so dang insulated that I
(22:21):
never have to get.
If I'm getting out, I'm nevergetting back in and and I
haven't I've never experiencedbeing so insulated from that,
any of those positions.
I mean I could get out tomorrow.
I enjoy taking 50 to 100listings a year like it's super
easy for me.
50 to 100 listings a year Likeit's super easy for me, and
(22:43):
there's definitely things Iwould rather go move on and do.
But I never got out of itbecause I saw so many people get
back into it.
I don't love that and I alsothink it's like one of the
things you said earlier was, orright before this was just
agents being able to filterthings.
Like I think agents get socaught up in the busy like
(23:04):
there's a lot of stuff that youcan get up at.
You can get to the office atseven o'clock in the morning and
be really busy till 5 PM andlook up and go.
I didn't do anything productivetoday and I think it's very
difficult for a new or neweragent to decipher what's busy
and what's productive.
(23:25):
And that's the reason I'vealways just kind of hammered
lead gen because, honestly, it'skind of fixed everything in my
business for 19 years.
Like anytime I'm having aproblem and I go lead gen more,
I end up having better listingsor more listings and more money
in the bank and I'm like, oh,more money in the bank, I can go
hire that person now or I cango do that marketing, and so
(23:47):
it's never.
I've just said it fixeseverything.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, it was cool to watch you go through that and
it's interesting.
One of the things I learnedfrom a mutual buddy of ours was
that you know in your business,you, you, you tend to fall to
the last level you mastered.
And if you watch somebody kindof building a sales team now or
whatever, there's this there.
Maybe there's always been thistemptation, but it's to go from
like I crushed it at sales or atleast did good enough to turn
(24:12):
heads, and then I hire myassistant, I hire a team and I
hire and I do all this stuff,and now I have all of this
overhead, I have all of thesesystems, I have all these mouths
to feed.
I don't actually know how tohold any of it accountable
because it got built so fast andwhen there's like any, like you
said, like micro shift, I don'tgo from here to here, I go from
(24:33):
here to here and it's that fastand it's really expensive.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's like on Tetris and that.
So, yeah, I mean, that's why,you know, I think we could have
probably grown faster than wedid, but I'm, I just think,
growing slow and steady andhaving a good business and then
just adding on things over timeor layering in things, and
(24:57):
there's still a bunch of stuffwe want to do.
I love, love, being in the realestate business.
It's just, you know, ourindustry is changing
dramatically.
It's.
It's kind of cool to see, andsome of it's a little bit scary
to see.
Um, some of it, you know,there's a, there's a lot of,
there's a lot of, uh, moneycoming into the, a lot of tech
(25:17):
and a lot of different stuff.
And, looking back, I wish I had, I wish I had done some shared
services and some some differentthings.
Um, you know, just investmentwise for not even title
companies, but, like, I thinkabout all the things that touch
real estate, which is likeeverything, um, hvac companies
and just all these differentthings out there.
(25:38):
Yeah, I think one of thecoolest things um and I know
you've got more questions for me, but I like one of the coolest
things about real estate hasbeen well, there's been a couple
One the opportunity to meetpeople like you over the years,
like, and I think we all got tomeet each other when we were
like early on, and then we gotto see each other's careers
(25:59):
progress so much.
Yeah, because you know, early,early days at KW was awesome.
I mean, it was like we neverknew who was going to be great.
And then we all, you know, apile of us ended up in Gary's
top agent group and, man, thosewere some of the most real
conversations.
Um, out there was just beingable to sit in that room and we
(26:20):
all had the same damn strugglesof trying to go from A to B, um,
or go from one to two.
Damn struggles of trying to gofrom A to B or go from one to
two.
And you know then the otherpiece, so the relationships of,
of real estate, and then itallowing you, if you make enough
money and you're serious aboutit, allowing you to do wealth
building like true wealthbuilding, and that's been really
cool, so okay, so talk to meabout that, because that's you
(26:43):
know, one of my businesspartners says that you know,
real estate agents are therichest poor people that they
know.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Right, and they all drive Range Rovers.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And like it's, it's, it's amazing yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So I mean, it is not uncommon and maybe just in life,
but specifically in salesindustries maybe, where you see
somebody who makes five hundredthousand dollars a year and
their net worth is negative andit's not like they peaked at 500
.
It's like they've made a lot ofmoney for a long time, Right,
so was was the investor uh, likethe, the heart of an investor
always with you, or did you, didyou pick that up along the way?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, so I got into real estate.
So I graduated in finance andeconomics.
So, like, I wanted to work at ainvestment bank and I wanted to
, like I loved all that and Idid for a little while and I got
out of that to specifically getmy real estate license to
specifically buy investmentproperties.
But what I realized was I was27 and I was previously making
(27:42):
$31,000 a year and I went to $0a year once I got my license,
making $31,000 a year and I wentto $0 a year once I got my
license.
And, believe it or not, thebanks, if you don't have any
money or a job, the banks don'tgive you a loan.
Now they'll give you, they'llgive you.
You know they had those awesomeninja loans back in the day but
I didn't have any money.
So they, you got to havesomething.
(28:04):
So my first three or five yearsin the business I do I look back
and go man, I made some peoplea lot of money.
If they're still holding someof those properties like I made
them I made.
I look back on some deals Iwish I'd bought.
Yeah, but you know I'm not.
It doesn't bother me because Itook every dollar I had and put
(28:24):
it back into the business andthe brand and that's done pretty
well over the last 19 years.
So I'm good with that piece.
But you know, three or fouryears ago I did get super
serious about wealth buildingactually probably five or six
years but just got reallyserious about buying properties,
but not even really buyingproperties.
(28:46):
It was like making sure my kidsare on salaries, doing the
Augusta rule, maxing out myhealth savings account Cause you
can kind of triple dip on thatUm, just all the little things
and and and really just likeboring tried and true long-term
rentals.
I don't buy Airbnbs, um, andthen a lot of it was really just
like and I hired a reallyexpensive tax strategist because
(29:11):
I was like man, there were someyears I was paying two and
three and four hundred thousanddollars in taxes, and I don't
say that to like humble brag oranything.
I hated it.
I hate to even tell people thatI paid that much money in taxes
people that I paid that muchmoney in taxes.
But I think you have to.
You have to make that happen,to go wait, I can make $0 more
next year and just learn how tohave some tax efficiency and get
(29:35):
$100,000 raise.
And so I really went hardcoredown that, down that path and
you know I joined Brett's BeWealthy group and did some
different things and really Idid those to force myself into
accountability of wealthbuilding and it's been, it's
been pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
One of the cool things and again one of the
reasons we do this in the masterseries is, you see this, like
these, these really logicalsteps, right, like I'm working
really hard at the doing theright things and I'm making
peace with doing that for a verylong period of time, right.
And then over the course oftime, that transitions into
wealth building and wealthbuilding transitions.
Like there's that, uh, thattime where all of a sudden you
(30:14):
know you go from being in thewrong room to the right room
when it comes to taxes.
The wrong room is a bunch ofpeople that are like telling you
like, oh yeah, like I have thishuge tax bill, but hey, that's
what it looks like, right, ha haha.
And then you and then yourealize, like that's not the
room that you want to be in.
You want to be around the room,that people that make that much
more or more money and are like, no, here's actually how I kept
(30:34):
all my money by working withthe IRS as opposed to, you know,
being stupid.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So so I think I think um, not everybody does this,
but I've seen you and a lot ofother people.
It seems like we get, we startapproaching our.
I've always been, I've alwaysbeen like a relatively healthy
guy.
My family's healthy, We've beengrowing up, we always ate
healthy and all that stuff solike.
But when I hit 40 and that wasthe year of covid I literally
(31:05):
health and wealth became mything.
So I went from being all in onreal estate as an agent to all
right, you know you can, you canlive off of three and four
hours of sleep.
When you, when you get startedin real estate and like you're
trying to cheat the system alittle bit and but but it's one
of those things, after a certainperiod of time it's like no, no
(31:28):
, no, I want seven to eighthours of sleep, I want to work
out, I want to do some yoga,Like I want to do the things and
doesn't matter if you make ahundred million dollars a year,
if you weigh 500 pounds and youcan't enjoy life and you can't
walk around the block with yourwife or daughter or kids and you
can't go throw football, likenone of it matters because
(31:49):
you're not going to get to enjoyany of it.
So those have been my twofocuses, since turning 40 is and
I feel better than I felt maybeever.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
It's awesome just to see the the trajectory.
One of the questions I have foryou is, if you are sitting
together, if you're sitting downwith the agent let's say
they've been in the business foroh, five years, right, which in
the last five years, that'sjust long enough to still not
know anything.
But but you've been doingsomething for a while, right.
The last five years have beendifferent, right, or unique.
Maybe there's a good chancethat that conversation is going
(32:29):
to go in some direction towardshacks or get rich quick, or
here's the short version, or allof that stuff.
What would you say to thatagent to try to help them see
that maybe the long, consistentroad is the right road?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Well, first I would say, if I was going to do any
hack in the world today I'vetold my kids this if I was going
to have a hack, I'd go learn AI.
I'd spend like my waking hoursdoing everything AI, because
that is going to be our future.
It just is.
I don't care if you like it oryou don't like it.
(33:04):
Hopefully it stays in goodhands, but AI is going to be the
future.
Yeah, oh, it's here and it'swell you think about it.
It took a really long time toget here.
Look how much it's changed justin the last 12 to 24 months.
I mean it's you've got to thinkAI and chat GPT.
They're like infants, they'relike young.
(33:26):
Just imagine.
I mean, I asked my kid on Sunday, coming back from our farm.
I said, hey, what do you thinkthe world's gonna be like when
you're my age?
And he was like I'm actuallyscared for it.
And I was like, well, you don'tneed to be scared, but like
it's gonna be very differentbecause it's gonna be so rapid.
(33:46):
Technology is going to movefaster than we've ever seen it
move.
So, to answer your question, Iwould just tell them to go study
any businesses over the lasthundred years and how they got
there.
And, at the end of the day, allthose businesses the really
good ones, on solid foundations,they grew slow and steady and
(34:09):
they were super consistent.
Consistency, I mean you canlook at it with regard to money
and just like compound interest,like there's no, there's no,
there's just isn't a quick getrich quick scheme.
There just isn't one.
I know people think there areand there's always some new take
on it, but at the end of theday, the businesses that are
(34:32):
sustainable and scalable andthey stay around, they all just
were built over decades, that'sit yeah, it's funny because it's
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
My experience has been.
It's the same thing with health.
Right, you know everybody everyonce, everything like right now
, but it's habit formation, it's, it's making decisions over a
long period of time thatactually just change you right
at the core level actuallychange your body, like
regardless of what you want.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
like it takes anywhere from one to three years
to like, truly change your body.
Like can you lose 10 pounds inthree months?
Sure, but like if you trulywanted to see a consistent
change.
It's going to take 12, 12 to 36months, depending on all
several variables, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well, and it's one of that, my big takeaways from
this is just your perspective,and that is that.
The perspective is, you know,if you have a short term view of
things, you know, 10 to 36months sounds like a very, very
long period of time, over thecourse of a lifetime, over the
course of your journey, to havesomething that's sustainable,
(35:41):
something that sticks around,something that you're proud of,
something that builds, you know,maybe, legacy in your family,
whether it's wealth or health,that's.
That's not actually a longperiod of time.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, I think you've got to go back to like I don't
know, gary's the one that alwayssays it, so I'm going to, I'm
going to credit him with likeyou can be anywhere you want to
be in five years.
Yeah, the other pieces I read.
I read somewhere last year likeyou can do whatever you decide
to do.
If you do it for 18 minutes aday, you're by the after one
year, you're ahead of 90% of theentire world at whatever it is.
(36:15):
That's amazing 18 minutes a day,like if you just, if you just
worked out for 18 minutes a day,you're ahead of 90% of the
entire population, not inAmerica, in the entire world.
Yeah, yeah, If you did wealthbuilding for 18 minutes a day,
you'd be ahead, at least from aknowledge perspective.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, I love it.
I love it, man.
Well, josh, I really appreciateyou taking the time to do this.
Any parting words of wisdomsfrom from wisdoms plural.
What wisdoms do you have for usas we uh wrap up?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I mean, man, at the end of the day, like I just tell
people I think you got to getback to the basics and fall in
love with doing boring.
That is consistent, that worksand I know that's not what
anybody wants to hear but likewe all have the same hours in
the day, like go find podcasts,go read books.
Like there's we have more waysin 2025 to become an expert or
(37:19):
do make money or whatever youwant to do.
Like we have more options thanwe've ever had.
Like you have the time.
It's just whether do you wantto get up and do it, like
everybody says, oh, I don't havetime to work out, yeah, you do.
You just scrolled your phonefor the last hour.
You could have been in the gym.
Or hey, you just you just sataround like mumbling and you're
(37:42):
got a crappy mindset like gomanifest.
Some like let's make it happen,yeah, so, but but that all
works if it's just super basicand super consistent.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah I love it, man.
Thanks for sharing your, yourmastery and your wisdom.
Man, I I mean, uh, it means aton to me.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I really appreciate it yeah, man, I appreciate you
having me.
Yeah, it's good catching up.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah, you too, man all right, everybody, thank you
for being here with uh, joshanderson and myself.
If you have referrals to sendto nashville, tennessee, nobody
better than josh.
Obviously he takes great careof clients, he's the real deal
and he's just an amazingresource.
So, as always, go to rmg agentpodcastcom for our action guide,
for our resources, and ifyou're like me and you love
(38:25):
being a market expert, go toareaprocom slash RMG.
Check out that product.
We think every agent shouldhave it and we'll see you next
time on the RMG Agent Podcast.
Take care.
If I'm boiling it all down, it is just keeping your
word and doing what's right anddoing it very consistently.
I've never done anything supersexy in our business.
It's always been like go makephone calls, go love on people,
go shake hands, go break bread.
You know people do businesswith.
People they know like and trustgo break bread.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know people do business with people they know,
like and trust Real estateprofessionals.
Welcome back to the RMG AgentPodcast.
I'm your host, reed Moore.
We are doing one of the thingsthat I just love the most, and
that is interviewing incrediblepeople for the Masters Series.
The Masters Series is agentsthat I think, selfishly, you
should listen to, becausethey've been in the game a long
(00:45):
time, they've taken their shotsand they have a history of doing
a great job servicing clientsin their respective areas, and
so I get the opportunity todayto interview a beautiful human
being, not only physically, butin other ways as well my friend
Josh Anderson from Tennessee.
All right, brother, thanks forbeing here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Of course.
So, man, we've been able to runtogether now for, gosh,
probably the better part of 15years, yeah, man, and just being
able to see what you've beenable to do in your business,
consistently, over and over andover again build a huge business
, a very profitable business.
I just, I love the fact thatyou took the time here to be
able to do in your business,consistently, over and over and
over again, build a hugebusiness, a very profitable
business.
I just, I love the fact thatyou took the time here to be
able to share this with otherreal estate professionals.
(01:30):
So, thanks, thanks again, man,appreciate it Absolutely.
So just want to start theconversation by asking the
question, you know, why shouldsomebody listen to you?
Here's, here's Josh Anderson,and we have a whole room full of
you know people ready to listento you.
Why should they listen?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, you know, I think the I think the biggest
thing is I've been in thebusiness for 19 years, as of
April 1st, and you know, I meanI've gone through several
different shifts and cycles andmicro cycles and you know, I
think we've tried just abouteverything in this business,
with varying degrees of successand failure.
I've failed, a lot wasted a tonof money, ton of time, energy.
(02:14):
If I could go back and, youknow, fix some of those things I
don't even know that I would,because this is part of what,
like, brought me to here and,you know, getting to sit in
somebody like Gary Keller's youknow, top agent group.
I just remember the first timeI was in that, in that
mastermind, like I, I declineddinner.
I went back to my, my hotelroom and laid on the bed and was
(02:37):
like it, literally my brainhurt and I also wondered why,
like, how did I even get intothis room?
And I also wondered why, like,how did I even get into this
room?
You know, at the time, I thinkthe I think it was like twenty
five million dollars in volumeto to qualify, which is nothing
now, yeah, yeah, but at the time, you know that was probably
2010, when there was a reallycrappy market, maybe 2011.
(03:01):
Anyway, so that's a big, long,drawn out answer on why I think
everybody has lots ofopportunities to listen to
people.
I'm in the trenches every dayalongside my team.
I am constantly recruiting forour team.
I get a lot of agent referralsaround the country that have
people that are moving to thenational market, and the
majority of our business isreferral based, and I think that
(03:24):
says something in the marketthat we're in, to continue to be
able to work with a lot of thesame clients that we've worked
with for almost 20 years now.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So when, when the random agent says my business is
referral based, that can becode, for I have no idea where
where people come from, butthat's not you.
So how did you get there to you?
Or you genuinely have areferral based business that
sells a lot of real estate.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I think in the very, very simplest form.
This is going to sound silly,but I do what I say I'm going to
do, and I think we're in aworld where, like, people's word
literally just doesn't matteranymore.
They empty promises or like,for example, read if I, if I
said, hey, read, I'm gonna, I'mgonna send you those comparable
(04:09):
sales before the end of the day.
If it was 933.
And I was laying in bed, Iliterally would get out of bed,
open up my laptop and go do it,because I told you I was going
to do it before the end of theday.
And so, just as simple as ifyou tell somebody you're going
to do something, you do it andyou do it at a super high level.
I think people remember thatkind of stuff and I think it
(04:31):
sets you very far apart intoday's world.
It's kind of like my parentsmade me write tons of
handwritten notes growing up andit sets me apart because I
still, I still write handwrittennotes and people are like man,
you could have just sent a quicktext or an email and I'm like,
but you didn't, you wouldn'thave remembered it, and so you
(04:53):
know, I know that's.
There's probably a ton ofdifferent ways I can.
I can tell you things thatwe've done to get agent
referrals, but really, if I'mboiling it all down, it is just
keeping your word and doingwhat's right and doing it very
consistently.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
There's something about you know, I've, I've I've
shared this with people in thepast like consistency has been
my arch nemesis and my biggestally, right, my arch nemesis.
And then everything in my lifethat I'm consistent in has just
been a knockdown drive at drugout fight.
It hasn't come naturally Right,um.
But the other thing is is thatwhenever you are consistent
especially if you've been in,you have been doing something
for almost 20 years there isjust this, um, almost, uh, you
(05:28):
know, like compounding interestwith something as simple as
doing what you're, what you'reyou know, doing what you said
you're going to do, and at thispoint in your career, that's,
that's a big deal.
How did you, how did you start,uh, in real estate?
Like, what was, what was thefirst few years?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
like, Well and real quick, before I answer that you
said, you said something thatI've started saying a lot over
the last couple of years isconsistency is the currency of
business, and and it's like itdoesn't seem like that big of a
deal until you look back after15 or 20 years of doing it and
being like you know what.
I did this one thing every dayfor three hours and it built my
(06:05):
business, and you can dowhatever you want for the rest
of the day.
If you lead gen and lead followup every day for three or four
hours, your business takes careof it.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
It works, yeah, so um , it's interesting to kind of
riff on that.
It's just I was.
I was thinking about how muchconsistency we expect out of
companies that serve us, right.
I even think about places.
I've got a few places whereI've had one of the best meals
ever, right like amazing, wentback, had the same meal,
(06:34):
massively disappointing.
And I'm not a raving fan ofthat restaurant.
I'm not.
I'm not going to write anegative review, but there's
just something about theexpectation that we expect.
The reason someplace like, evenlike starbucks, is so
successful is, every single timeI go, I get it this way.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
It's, it's a big deal for sure so first couple of
years in the business, um, youknow, uh.
So I got in the business april1st of 2006.
So april fool's day jokes on me.
It's gonna, yeah, like what Ican do this part time.
So I graduate in finance andeconomics from LSU, moved back
(07:13):
to Nashville I'm originally fromNashville moved back there
after being in Louisiana, workedat an investment bank and then
a private client asset firm forlike a year and a half Because I
had this idea.
I created this idea in my headabout finance and how sexy and
fun it was going to be.
And then I realized it wasterrible.
And I love that.
(07:34):
That's what I graduated in,because economics there's so
much of real estate andeconomics that play into all the
things.
Yeah, you know all the things,yeah.
So I got into the business in2006.
I had $5,000 to my name.
I absolutely swore that I wouldnot ask my dad for a single
(07:55):
penny.
No way not happening.
And so that was that.
At the time.
That was when Gary was like twohours of lead generation a day,
930 to 1130.
And so I was like, okay, and Iwas like what, if I do like
three hours a day, like I'lljust do a little bit of extra
because I don't have anything inmy pipeline anyway.
So I started doing three hoursa day.
(08:18):
I did eight by eight campaigns.
I did handwritten notes toeverybody that I knew in
Nashville which was basically myparents' friend, and so that
was it, man, I just did.
I did all the things that youcould do if you didn't have any
money, yep, and literally Iremember at some and so.
So the market was good for abouta year and a half before 2008
happened, wasn't even a year anda half, but 2008 happened and I
(08:44):
was so ignorant to what themortgage meltdown was that my
business actually grew 25 to 50%from 2008 to 2012.
So it was like, wow, this iscool.
Everybody else was having liketotal freak out modes.
And you also have to understandat the time I had zero overhead
.
Are you sure I didn't own Ididn't own a $2 million office
building like I do now and allthe different things.
(09:05):
I mean I literally had zerooverhead and I was, you know, my
wife and I were like each youknow, it was like we'd go have
happy hour, like, hey, we can goget $1 beers, you know
somewhere.
So we were still post-collegelike living very inexpensive, um
(09:27):
, but all that to say is, like,man, I did the basics.
Looking back on it, I dideverything that the Red Book
said to do.
I mean to a T.
I put everybody in an.
My original CRM was an Excelsheet and it was literally their
name, phone number, emailaddress and like a note section.
And I just and then and then,like we were coming out of 2011,
10 or 11.
And Gary was like y'all need tobe doing three or four hours of
(09:48):
Legion a day, and so I rampedit up and started doing like
four hours of Legion a day.
I mean, I've never doneanything super sexy in our
business.
It's always been like go makephone calls, go love on people,
go shake hands, go break bread.
You know people do businesswith people.
They know like and trust.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, it's.
This is a pretty.
You know it's not always easy,but it's a pretty simple
business, like people.
People have to buy houses andsell houses and want to be
invest in houses, and we helpthem.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting, like the, you
know, in our, in our industryit's industry it's rare to see
somebody who does the consistentwork of lead generation, and
maybe you could say it's rarethat people pop up above the
average when it comes to theirincome, and there's definitely a
correlation there.
What did you do to you knowwhat was the story?
(10:41):
You told yourself around thatthree or four hours of lead
generation, because leadgeneration is, you know, it's
the hardest thing that mostpeople do every day, right, yeah
, and then what have you done?
What have you found?
Works with other agents whomaybe didn't have your mindset
of, just like, okay, I'm goingto work.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
A couple of things that I thought when doing the
lead gen was first of all, Ilooked at all the different ways
you could lead gen and it justseemed like the most efficient
was picking up the phone.
I couldn't go have 20 coffees aday and my goal was to have 20
contacts a day, and so my thereason I started picking up the
phone so much was because I saidhow am I going to compete
(11:19):
against that guy that's been inthe business for 12 years?
The only way to do it is gettons and tons and tons of
repetition, and he's not doingthat repetition because he's out
busy showing houses.
So I can study all the statsand do all the things that he's
probably not doing because hefeels like he doesn't need to do
it anymore because he's beendoing it for a while.
Yeah, and so that was the onlyway I felt like I could I could
(11:41):
catch up with other people wasgo put in an extra hour here.
I was going in on Saturdays andcalling expires and withdrawals
from like 11 to one everyweekend, every Sunday.
I mean I did 75 open houses myfirst year in the business, so I
was just trying to do a littlebit of everything to get exposed
(12:02):
and at the end of the day, youknow, it was kind of like well,
you know, you get super duperuncomfortable and outside your
comfort zone.
That's where the magic happens.
And that's what I heard.
So I was like I hate makingthese phone calls, but if I can
fall in love with the idea ofmaking phone calls and after six
months of doing it I can seesome kind of like something,
(12:25):
then like I'll keep doing itCause somebody told me right
when I first got in the businesswhatever you do, you got to do
something for at least 90 daysor 180 days, depending on what
type of marketing it was.
And I was like all right, I'mgoing to do this hardcore Cause
I don't have any money.
I'm going to do the phone callsand the handwritten notes
hardcore for like six months.
If it doesn't work, I'll figuresomething else out.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, and it worked.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Well, because I found out, if you call, if you make
two or 300 dials a day and youget 20 people on the phone, it's
just a numbers game.
If you talk to a hundred peoplea week, even if you're really
crappy at your scripts and youdon't know what you're doing,
somebody will be like I'll workwith you.
I mean, I remember, I remember,I remember getting my first
listing.
The guy was literally he waslike I sent him all these really
(13:09):
crappy postcards that I likemade myself.
And, um, finally he called meone day and I remember exactly
where I was sitting and he waslike hey, um, this is Steve
Goddard, I'm calling you.
Uh, how old are you?
You look like you're in highschool still, do you have your
license?
And you're in high school?
And I was like I don't have anobjection handler for this.
(13:31):
Yeah, yeah, I was like this iswhat I said to him.
I go well, why does it matterhow old I am if I can sell your
house better than you can?
And then it was dead silent.
I was like, oh, this is notgood.
And finally he said, ok, canyou come over tomorrow at two
thirty?
And I was like, oh, nobody hadsaid yes, so I was like yeah,
(13:56):
and then I got off the phonewith him.
I was like I don't even have alisting packet or a listing.
I don't even know what you'resupposed to bring.
Yeah, so that was like my firstlisting appointment and I was
so happy he was a for sale byowner, uh and I, 19 years later,
I literally called him lastweek and talked to him oh my
gosh, that's amazing and youjust got to put yourself out
there and you got to getuncomfortable and you just got
to listen, listen for lots ofno's so you can get to a yes.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, I love it.
So this created this.
My hallucination is is thatthis created a problem for you,
that it created for a lot ofpeople in your position that
have been really successful?
And I was talking to BrianGubernick around around this
cause.
We've had kind of a friend groupfor a long time and he said you
know, we all, we all just builtour relationship when we were
(14:40):
at that place where we're justflat out grinding and doing
deals right, you look over, youknow, you look and you see a
Josh, you see a Brian, andthere's just this level of you
know respect that you havebecause you know that
everybody's been in the trenchesand they've been doing this
thing and having success, bedoing the things that that
nobody else is willing to do, orat least at that level.
But then that comes withanother layer of challenge and
(15:00):
that is at some point you havetoo many people to be able to
service well yourself.
So when did that transitionhappen?
And all of a sudden you're like, oh, congratulations, you get
to be a business owner now.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So I remember going to lunch with my cousin who owns
a big landscaping company inNashville and he's like, how's
it going?
I was like, man, it's good, I'mbusy, but it's not enough.
And he was like, well, tell meabout your business.
And I said, well, hey, I said,and we talked for a minute and I
(15:33):
said, well, what, when am Igoing to start getting
consistent referrals?
And he was like year numberthree, literally the start of
your third year in the business.
So I got in the business, aprilof 2006.
He said, literally three yearsin, I swear to you at the three
year mark, like literally to theanniversary I started getting
(15:54):
referrals consistently.
That was April of 2009.
By 2010, I was drowning inbusiness Like I was, and that's
so.
In 2008 or early 2009, I hiredmy first part-time assistant and
I just remember going, you know, made the biggest, oldest
(16:15):
mistake in the world.
I bought, I hired the cheapestthat I could, you know, and I
hate that it was off ofCraigslist.
It was the whole thing, youknow and.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure I ran her offearly, early and um, so hired my
first agent, my first buyer'sagent, who really took a lot off
my plate in 2010.
(16:36):
Um, she made $92,000 her firstyear, which was like at the time
in 2010.
I mean, that was like thebottom of the market, so she was
cranking.
And then I came back from megacamp when it was in September of
2011.
And me and this guy named AaronArmstrong came back and we're
(16:57):
like man, we got to go implementthis showing agent model.
It was like this mythical thingand that's really yeah, and that
was like Gary mentioned it andit was like, nah, it's not going
to work.
And that's really the firstreal thing outside of hiring my
first buyer's agent.
But that was the first realthing that really changed my
(17:18):
business, because that was thatallowed my next buyer's agent to
do, you know, a hundred andsomething transactions.
And in 2011, that was like forfor her and Brianna, that was
like unheard of.
Oh yeah, so, you know, for 110or 15 transactions now it's
probably normal, but, um, thosewere some of the first things
(17:40):
that really like transformed ourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
What did you have to learn?
Um, going from somebody who was, you know, you're, you're out,
you're out, you know, huntingand killing, and now you're,
you're creating this giant.
Uh, you know, wake of success,disaster, yeah, that, um, what
were some of those?
What were the?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
what were some of the things you thought it would be
like and it wasn't, and thenvice versa yeah, I think the
first thing that I had to learnand I think this is the first
thing we all have to learn isthat your client actually
doesn't care that you do theentire process.
Like, um, I realized on liketransaction number three in,
like the history, like in 2006,when I lost an earnest money
(18:22):
check that was lodged underneathmy chair and lodged underneath
my car seat that I probablyshouldn't touch paperwork ever.
Yeah, and 19 years later, Idon't touch paperwork, and but I
had to realize that, like I'mreally good at a couple of
things, I really suck at all therest of them and I need to hire
(18:44):
for all those positions andthat if it's done so well, the
client actually doesn't care.
Yeah, so that was.
That was like the early on stuff, because I think, as a realtor,
you're like oh my, my clientwants me to do it and I don't
think your client wants you todo it.
I think they're working withyou because they, like you, know
you trust you, or they thinkyou're good at negotiation or
whatever, but I don't think theyexpect you to take photos, do
(19:08):
the video, do the paperwork, allthe stuff.
So go what I tell people now,which is not what I did go hire
the most expensive person thatyou can hire.
Even what I did Go hire themost expensive person that you
can hire, even if you're a soloagent, like, don't worry about
the $12 or $15, $17 an hour job,go find somebody at 50 or $75
(19:30):
an hour and hold them highlyaccountable and then you go do
what brings in the money, whichis the lead generation and the
shaking of hands.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I was just thinking back.
You know the commitment to leadgeneration as your sole focus,
regardless of all the otherthings that you think are the
focus.
It creates unbelievableopportunity.
Right, and I was thinking likemy very first assistant.
I took her through the hiringprocess, did as good of a job as
I thought I knew how to do atthe time.
She lasted one day and Iremember it was somewhere around
(19:57):
one o'clock and she was sittingthere pale, almost green, with
overwhelm because she was reallyinexpensive.
Got her from abercrombie andfinch uh, you know the uh that's
, you know yep and uh, andsomewhere around 1 30.
I look at her.
I just said, hey, how you doing.
She's like not good I'm.
You think you can get your oldjob back.
(20:18):
She's like I'd like to do that.
So that was it.
But the next one was somebodywho was.
She was a nursing student andshe was way overqualified.
She needed a job and I neededsomebody who was overqualified
and she changed the trajectoryof my.
I mean, she, she, she committedto be with me for a year and
she was with me for about twoand a half years.
(20:39):
And as soon as you experiencethat for the first time, you
realize that somebody else isbetter in your business than you
are and actually it turns outthey may have, they may even
care more about your businessthan you do to some in some ways
.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I've got one of those right now.
It's pretty cool, it's amazing.
That's the piece that think, um, as a new agent that has a
business that's going up anddown and very inconsistent, they
can't wrap their head around.
Why would I pay the most amountof money?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I'm like because it's going to change your business
even just the resumes you get gofrom sandwich artists.
Uh, I appreciate that, Iappreciate.
But then all of a sudden itgoes from there that to a former
paralegal and that's, that's abig difference, right, yeah, so
okay.
So my my external like, uh,watching Josh Anderson over the
(21:31):
years, uh, was that maybe atcertain points in your business
you were surrounded with people,by people who were trying to
get out of the day to day ofreal estate and the heavy
lifting of of sales, and itseemed like you always resisted
that or maybe you resisted thatmore than others and that that,
(21:52):
in the long run, has has workedfor you really well.
Is that?
That's a hallucination?
But is there any truth to that?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I actually had this conversation several times over
the years.
I never got out of productionbecause I saw so many people
that were in Gary's group getout of production and the second
the market changed even a microamount, they jumped back into
production and I said I want tobe so dang insulated that I
(22:21):
never have to get.
If I'm getting out, I'm nevergetting back in and and I
haven't I've never experiencedbeing so insulated from that,
any of those positions.
I mean I could get out tomorrow.
I enjoy taking 50 to 100listings a year like it's super
easy for me.
50 to 100 listings a year Likeit's super easy for me, and
(22:43):
there's definitely things Iwould rather go move on and do.
But I never got out of itbecause I saw so many people get
back into it.
I don't love that and I alsothink it's like one of the
things you said earlier was, orright before this was just
agents being able to filterthings.
Like I think agents get socaught up in the busy like
(23:04):
there's a lot of stuff that youcan get up at.
You can get to the office atseven o'clock in the morning and
be really busy till 5 PM andlook up and go.
I didn't do anything productivetoday and I think it's very
difficult for a new or neweragent to decipher what's busy
and what's productive.
(23:25):
And that's the reason I'vealways just kind of hammered
lead gen because, honestly, it'skind of fixed everything in my
business for 19 years.
Like anytime I'm having aproblem and I go lead gen more,
I end up having better listingsor more listings and more money
in the bank and I'm like, oh,more money in the bank, I can go
hire that person now or I cango do that marketing, and so
(23:47):
it's never.
I've just said it fixeseverything.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, it was cool to watch you go through that and
it's interesting.
One of the things I learnedfrom a mutual buddy of ours was
that you know in your business,you, you, you tend to fall to
the last level you mastered.
And if you watch somebody kindof building a sales team now or
whatever, there's this there.
Maybe there's always been thistemptation, but it's to go from
like I crushed it at sales or atleast did good enough to turn
(24:12):
heads, and then I hire myassistant, I hire a team and I
hire and I do all this stuff,and now I have all of this
overhead, I have all of thesesystems, I have all these mouths
to feed.
I don't actually know how tohold any of it accountable
because it got built so fast andwhen there's like any, like you
said, like micro shift, I don'tgo from here to here, I go from
(24:33):
here to here and it's that fastand it's really expensive.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's like on Tetris and that.
So, yeah, I mean, that's why,you know, I think we could have
probably grown faster than wedid, but I'm, I just think,
growing slow and steady andhaving a good business and then
just adding on things over timeor layering in things, and
(24:57):
there's still a bunch of stuffwe want to do.
I love, love, being in the realestate business.
It's just, you know, ourindustry is changing
dramatically.
It's.
It's kind of cool to see, andsome of it's a little bit scary
to see.
Um, some of it, you know,there's a, there's a lot of,
there's a lot of, uh, moneycoming into the, a lot of tech
(25:17):
and a lot of different stuff.
And, looking back, I wish I had, I wish I had done some shared
services and some some differentthings.
Um, you know, just investmentwise for not even title
companies, but, like, I thinkabout all the things that touch
real estate, which is likeeverything, um, hvac companies
and just all these differentthings out there.
(25:38):
Yeah, I think one of thecoolest things um and I know
you've got more questions for me, but I like one of the coolest
things about real estate hasbeen well, there's been a couple
One the opportunity to meetpeople like you over the years,
like, and I think we all got tomeet each other when we were
like early on, and then we gotto see each other's careers
(25:59):
progress so much.
Yeah, because you know, early,early days at KW was awesome.
I mean, it was like we neverknew who was going to be great.
And then we all, you know, apile of us ended up in Gary's
top agent group and, man, thosewere some of the most real
conversations.
Um, out there was just beingable to sit in that room and we
(26:20):
all had the same damn strugglesof trying to go from A to B, um,
or go from one to two.
Damn struggles of trying to gofrom A to B or go from one to
two.
And you know then the otherpiece, so the relationships of,
of real estate, and then itallowing you, if you make enough
money and you're serious aboutit, allowing you to do wealth
building like true wealthbuilding, and that's been really
cool, so okay, so talk to meabout that, because that's you
(26:43):
know, one of my businesspartners says that you know,
real estate agents are therichest poor people that they
know.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Right, and they all drive Range Rovers.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And like it's, it's, it's amazing yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So I mean, it is not uncommon and maybe just in life,
but specifically in salesindustries maybe, where you see
somebody who makes five hundredthousand dollars a year and
their net worth is negative andit's not like they peaked at 500
.
It's like they've made a lot ofmoney for a long time, Right,
so was was the investor uh, likethe, the heart of an investor
always with you, or did you, didyou pick that up along the way?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, so I got into real estate.
So I graduated in finance andeconomics.
So, like, I wanted to work at ainvestment bank and I wanted to
, like I loved all that and Idid for a little while and I got
out of that to specifically getmy real estate license to
specifically buy investmentproperties.
But what I realized was I was27 and I was previously making
(27:42):
$31,000 a year and I went to $0a year once I got my license,
making $31,000 a year and I wentto $0 a year once I got my
license.
And, believe it or not, thebanks, if you don't have any
money or a job, the banks don'tgive you a loan.
Now they'll give you, they'llgive you.
You know they had those awesomeninja loans back in the day but
I didn't have any money.
So they, you got to havesomething.
(28:04):
So my first three or five yearsin the business I do I look back
and go man, I made some peoplea lot of money.
If they're still holding someof those properties like I made
them I made.
I look back on some deals Iwish I'd bought.
Yeah, but you know I'm not.
It doesn't bother me because Itook every dollar I had and put
(28:24):
it back into the business andthe brand and that's done pretty
well over the last 19 years.
So I'm good with that piece.
But you know, three or fouryears ago I did get super
serious about wealth buildingactually probably five or six
years but just got reallyserious about buying properties,
but not even really buyingproperties.
(28:46):
It was like making sure my kidsare on salaries, doing the
Augusta rule, maxing out myhealth savings account Cause you
can kind of triple dip on thatUm, just all the little things
and and and really just likeboring tried and true long-term
rentals.
I don't buy Airbnbs, um, andthen a lot of it was really just
like and I hired a reallyexpensive tax strategist because
(29:11):
I was like man, there were someyears I was paying two and
three and four hundred thousanddollars in taxes, and I don't
say that to like humble brag oranything.
I hated it.
I hate to even tell people thatI paid that much money in taxes
people that I paid that muchmoney in taxes.
But I think you have to.
You have to make that happen,to go wait, I can make $0 more
next year and just learn how tohave some tax efficiency and get
(29:35):
$100,000 raise.
And so I really went hardcoredown that, down that path and
you know I joined Brett's BeWealthy group and did some
different things and really Idid those to force myself into
accountability of wealthbuilding and it's been, it's
been pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
One of the cool things and again one of the
reasons we do this in the masterseries is, you see this, like
these, these really logicalsteps, right, like I'm working
really hard at the doing theright things and I'm making
peace with doing that for a verylong period of time, right.
And then over the course oftime, that transitions into
wealth building and wealthbuilding transitions.
Like there's that, uh, thattime where all of a sudden you
(30:14):
know you go from being in thewrong room to the right room
when it comes to taxes.
The wrong room is a bunch ofpeople that are like telling you
like, oh yeah, like I have thishuge tax bill, but hey, that's
what it looks like, right, ha haha.
And then you and then yourealize, like that's not the
room that you want to be in.
You want to be around the room,that people that make that much
more or more money and are like, no, here's actually how I kept
(30:34):
all my money by working withthe IRS as opposed to, you know,
being stupid.
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So so I think I think um, not everybody does this,
but I've seen you and a lot ofother people.
It seems like we get, we startapproaching our.
I've always been, I've alwaysbeen like a relatively healthy
guy.
My family's healthy, We've beengrowing up, we always ate
healthy and all that stuff solike.
But when I hit 40 and that wasthe year of covid I literally
(31:05):
health and wealth became mything.
So I went from being all in onreal estate as an agent to all
right, you know you can, you canlive off of three and four
hours of sleep.
When you, when you get startedin real estate and like you're
trying to cheat the system alittle bit and but but it's one
of those things, after a certainperiod of time it's like no, no
(31:28):
, no, I want seven to eighthours of sleep, I want to work
out, I want to do some yoga,Like I want to do the things and
doesn't matter if you make ahundred million dollars a year,
if you weigh 500 pounds and youcan't enjoy life and you can't
walk around the block with yourwife or daughter or kids and you
can't go throw football, likenone of it matters because
(31:49):
you're not going to get to enjoyany of it.
So those have been my twofocuses, since turning 40 is and
I feel better than I felt maybeever.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
It's awesome just to see the the trajectory.
One of the questions I have foryou is, if you are sitting
together, if you're sitting downwith the agent let's say
they've been in the business foroh, five years, right, which in
the last five years, that'sjust long enough to still not
know anything.
But but you've been doingsomething for a while, right.
The last five years have beendifferent, right, or unique.
Maybe there's a good chancethat that conversation is going
(32:29):
to go in some direction towardshacks or get rich quick, or
here's the short version, or allof that stuff.
What would you say to thatagent to try to help them see
that maybe the long, consistentroad is the right road?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Well, first I would say, if I was going to do any
hack in the world today I'vetold my kids this if I was going
to have a hack, I'd go learn AI.
I'd spend like my waking hoursdoing everything AI, because
that is going to be our future.
It just is.
I don't care if you like it oryou don't like it.
(33:04):
Hopefully it stays in goodhands, but AI is going to be the
future.
Yeah, oh, it's here and it'swell you think about it.
It took a really long time toget here.
Look how much it's changed justin the last 12 to 24 months.
I mean it's you've got to thinkAI and chat GPT.
They're like infants, they'relike young.
(33:26):
Just imagine.
I mean, I asked my kid on Sunday, coming back from our farm.
I said, hey, what do you thinkthe world's gonna be like when
you're my age?
And he was like I'm actuallyscared for it.
And I was like, well, you don'tneed to be scared, but like
it's gonna be very differentbecause it's gonna be so rapid.
(33:46):
Technology is going to movefaster than we've ever seen it
move.
So, to answer your question, Iwould just tell them to go study
any businesses over the lasthundred years and how they got
there.
And, at the end of the day, allthose businesses the really
good ones, on solid foundations,they grew slow and steady and
(34:09):
they were super consistent.
Consistency, I mean you canlook at it with regard to money
and just like compound interest,like there's no, there's no,
there's just isn't a quick getrich quick scheme.
There just isn't one.
I know people think there areand there's always some new take
on it, but at the end of theday, the businesses that are
(34:32):
sustainable and scalable andthey stay around, they all just
were built over decades, that'sit yeah, it's funny because it's
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
My experience has been.
It's the same thing with health.
Right, you know everybody everyonce, everything like right now
, but it's habit formation, it's, it's making decisions over a
long period of time thatactually just change you right
at the core level actuallychange your body, like
regardless of what you want.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
like it takes anywhere from one to three years
to like, truly change your body.
Like can you lose 10 pounds inthree months?
Sure, but like if you trulywanted to see a consistent
change.
It's going to take 12, 12 to 36months, depending on all
several variables, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well, and it's one of that, my big takeaways from
this is just your perspective,and that is that.
The perspective is, you know,if you have a short term view of
things, you know, 10 to 36months sounds like a very, very
long period of time, over thecourse of a lifetime, over the
course of your journey, to havesomething that's sustainable,
(35:41):
something that sticks around,something that you're proud of,
something that builds, you know,maybe, legacy in your family,
whether it's wealth or health,that's.
That's not actually a longperiod of time.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, I think you've got to go back to like I don't
know, gary's the one that alwayssays it, so I'm going to, I'm
going to credit him with likeyou can be anywhere you want to
be in five years.
Yeah, the other pieces I read.
I read somewhere last year likeyou can do whatever you decide
to do.
If you do it for 18 minutes aday, you're by the after one
year, you're ahead of 90% of theentire world at whatever it is.
(36:15):
That's amazing 18 minutes a day,like if you just, if you just
worked out for 18 minutes a day,you're ahead of 90% of the
entire population, not inAmerica, in the entire world.
Yeah, yeah, If you did wealthbuilding for 18 minutes a day,
you'd be ahead, at least from aknowledge perspective.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, I love it.
I love it, man.
Well, josh, I really appreciateyou taking the time to do this.
Any parting words of wisdomsfrom from wisdoms plural.
What wisdoms do you have for usas we uh wrap up?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
I mean, man, at the end of the day, like I just tell
people I think you got to getback to the basics and fall in
love with doing boring.
That is consistent, that worksand I know that's not what
anybody wants to hear but likewe all have the same hours in
the day, like go find podcasts,go read books.
Like there's we have more waysin 2025 to become an expert or
(37:19):
do make money or whatever youwant to do.
Like we have more options thanwe've ever had.
Like you have the time.
It's just whether do you wantto get up and do it, like
everybody says, oh, I don't havetime to work out, yeah, you do.
You just scrolled your phonefor the last hour.
You could have been in the gym.
Or hey, you just you just sataround like mumbling and you're
(37:42):
got a crappy mindset like gomanifest.
Some like let's make it happen,yeah, so, but but that all
works if it's just super basicand super consistent.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah I love it, man.
Thanks for sharing your, yourmastery and your wisdom.
Man, I I mean, uh, it means aton to me.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I really appreciate it yeah, man, I appreciate you
having me.
Yeah, it's good catching up.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah, you too, man all right, everybody, thank you
for being here with uh, joshanderson and myself.
If you have referrals to sendto nashville, tennessee, nobody
better than josh.
Obviously he takes great careof clients, he's the real deal
and he's just an amazingresource.
So, as always, go to rmg agentpodcastcom for our action guide,
for our resources, and ifyou're like me and you love
(38:25):
being a market expert, go toareaprocom slash RMG.
Check out that product.
We think every agent shouldhave it and we'll see you next
time on the RMG Agent Podcast.
Take care.
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