August 28, 2024 • 42 mins
In the fifth episode of "Work Hard, Play Hard, and Give Back - A Real Estate Podcast," host Michael Litzner interviews Sean Farley, the team lead of the Novus Real Estate Group powered by Coldwell Banker American Homes. Sean shares his journey from being a gym teacher and Wall Street professional to becoming a successful real estate leader. Discover how Sean’s innovative marketing strategies and commitment to community engagement have set him apart in the competitive real estate industry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome to Work Hard, play Hard and Give Back a
real estate podcast.
I'm Mike Litzner, the brokerowner of Cowell Banker, and
today I'm here with Sean Farley,team lead of Novus Realty Group
, powered by Cowell BankerAmerican Homes.
Sean brings a tremendous wealthof experience in the real
estate industry to the tablehere.
I'm so excited to have you hereas a guest on the podcast there
(00:30):
, sean.
But before we get into anyquestions, I just want to remind
our audience please wait to theend.
We have the drop the micquestions always exciting, a
little more interesting,hopefully a little bit funny.
And please don't forget to likeand subscribe.
Hit the button there for us All.
Right, so we got great thingsgoing on here, sean, michael.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, good to be here , buddy boy.
I love it.
Awesome what a setup we gothere.
I feel like I'm on the Boomerand Cotton show here.
This is great.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, come on, Don't lower our standards.
We're way above that.
Come on, don.
I know, I know We've got tohave some fun here.
So look, real estate.
You've been in real estate fora while now.
You've had worn many hats.
Well, maybe you can talk aboutyour path.
So, before real estate whatdoes Sean Farley look like?
Wow, what did I look like?
Before real estate I look likebefore real estate.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I look like the guy from the Lucky Charms box who I
still look like had a bunch ofcareers.
I started as a school teacherin the early 90s.
What grade I started with?
I was a gym teacher.
I started a grammar school inQueens Village, which was great,
great first experience.
Yeah.
So the kids, they used to callme Jim because I was the gym
teacher.
I always got a kick out of that.
The teacher said come on lineup, we're going down to gym.
And I, just as time went on, Iwanted to change my career.
(01:41):
I did go to St Francis PrepHigh School for another seven
years, taught there Same jobphys ed teacher and then did
Wall Street for 10 years and forthe past, whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
How do you go from teaching gym to Wall Street and
what does going to Wall Streetmean?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, going to Wall Street, you know it was
something I kind of alwayswanted to do and I loved being a
teacher, and it was a toughdecision, but also tough to go
down there at 31 years old,because you know you got 22 year
old kids out of college tellingyou to go fetch them coffee, so
I had to go through all thehazing and stuff like that.
I loved it, though.
Great job.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So what tasks?
What was your role in WallStreet?
I'm curious how that reallyhelped shape you as the real
estate icon that you are today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, icon, I don't know about icon, but I like that
, thank you.
I was what's called an equitysales trader and I went from
that into just.
You know, I had kids late inlife.
You know, my first kid came at41, 42 years old.
Okay, so I didn't want to missany time with them and I went
out and started Novus rightafter that, in late 2012.
(02:39):
Well, when did you get your realestate license?
My real estate license Iactually got originally in 2003.
I didn't do much with it, Ikept it and I re-renewed it
again in 2012.
My experience was with realestate from a personal level.
I had a house in Saratoga atthe time and we had a couple of
rental properties up there andit just wasn't great.
I always felt like there couldbe more.
(02:59):
Where Novus came from was theword new.
It means new in latin.
Right, I wanted things to be alittle bit different.
I mean, we came on the scene,mike.
We did everything from sponsorblock parties to to.
I mean we sponsor every teamunder the sun.
Really, that whole give backthing.
I love that, you know, I Ireally do love that, and that's
one of the things.
It's one of the reasons why Iwanted to come to colwell
because it's a perfect match forus.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah I think when you look at marketing and a lot of
agents ask us this questionwhat's the best way to market
yourself?
And connecting to the communityis such a fundamental and easy
way to not only contribute andbe a positive influence but at
the same time you're gettingyour name out there, you're
getting known.
So I think it's genius.
(03:41):
It's so fundamentally simple,but yet genius because it's
overlooked by so many agents.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I agree.
Well, a couple of things.
First of all.
I mean I always I wouldn't,even we wouldn't be at the
Caldwell stage where we're atnow without Monique Baum and my
partner.
She has just been, you know,without her.
She's the engine.
You know I am the marketing guyand stuff like that, but she's
the engine, no doubt about it.
So absolutely nowhere withouther.
But I'll tell you a couple ofthings.
If I was talking to a personwho was getting into real estate
right now, I would say a fewthings to them right away,
(04:07):
please.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well, you know what?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The first thing the first thing I would say, mike,
is I'd say to them number one bedifferent If you think that
you're going to go into thisbusiness.
Right, marketing couldn't beany different, but you got to
remember, that's for sure.
Yeah, I mean, it's a littlecrazy and I know that, but I
(04:29):
definitely would advise peoplebe as different as you can give
to the community, though, andwhen I say be different, what
I'm really saying is dosomething that's going to make
them look at your page, makethem laugh a little bit.
Maybe maybe you don't takeyourself so seriously, seriously
, but then they look at yourpage and then, at the end of
your zany whatever you do youtell, hey, this is what's going
on in real estate right now.
(04:49):
This is what's happening, thisis the teams we sponsored, stuff
like that.
Yeah, that would be the firstthing I would tell them.
The other thing I would tellthem is make sure that, no
matter what, you do not forgetyour community.
We started in floripark.
We originally started actuallybelieve it or not in garden City
South, then Franklin Square.
We ended up in Floor Park.
Floor Park's my hometown.
They've been very good to usand I love them all.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's a great village over there.
It really is.
It's a very cool vibe downtownand the train station.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, it is, and I think that they've been very,
very good to us.
I think, in return, we have toget involved as much as we can,
and we try to get involved asmuch as we can because it's very
, very important.
It's important that people seeyour name, and it's also
important that you let them knowthat you're there for them
(05:34):
right when they need, whetherit's a contribution to a charity
or or to play in a golf outingor whatever you know.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So let me just ask you I want to go back just a
little bit so you have thislicense, your license as an
agent.
I guess you're doing itpart-time.
Do you go full-time first andthen become a broker, or is kind
of like this advent?
Like you know, I'm goingfull-time so I might as well
jump into brokerage.
What was the thought processfor you?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
no, I was all in.
I was all in, I wanted to.
I wanted to do thingsdifferently.
Um, our marketing is is, is so,and I'm not just talking about
me jumping out of windows intopools.
That's a little crazy.
It doesn't make them look,though, that's for sure.
Yes, it does it gets hiseyeballs it definitely gets the
eyeballs on you.
You know, I think for us it'swhat could be different.
I've been told by people andit's a compliment you don't want
(06:18):
to say, oh great, I am, I knowI'm a great marketer I've been
told by people, man, you marketso well.
It's so different.
Yeah, one of the things we didjust to give you one example is
you know, um, I have a very goodrelationship with dylan davis,
who's a jockey.
Yeah, uh, up in saratoga.
I also have a very goodrelationship with mike luzzy and
with with his son, lane luzzy.
They're all jockeys.
Dylan's been wearing our, ournovice letters on his leg up
(06:38):
racing around saratoga andbelmont and aqueduct for a lot
of years.
Yeah, I cannot tell you howmany times people text me from
up in saratoga they're onvacation saying you know what?
I just saw dylan davis, he justwon a race.
It just reminded me I need tocall you because I'd like to
sell my you know, my folks houseor my grandpa and before you
know it, that that bit ofmarketing it gets, it brings you
(06:59):
into a hold.
It's a reminder.
Yeah, that's what's good.
Yeah, you give back it's helpfulright when you do stuff like
that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's a reminder to people of what you do and how
you market exactly because theworst thing you could do as a
realtor, agent or anything, isbe overlooked or forgotten.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You know don't need to be a secret agent.
Right exactly, you never wantto be a secret.
You need to.
I've heard that term a while,yeah, a while ago.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You need to own the forefront of their mind when it
comes to that real estate space,which is really what you're
telling me is the secret sauce,and it works, it works, it works
for you, it works for a lot ofgood people out there.
So you jumped in if I'm hearingyou correctly into the
brokerage space because you hadyour own vision for how you
wanted to shape your businessand how you wanted to promote it
(07:41):
and market.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
And you know as the years went on.
You know there's always bumpsin the road and things you're
learning.
You work for yourself.
There's a lot of sleeplessnights.
The grass isn't always greener,don't?
I know it, I don't have to tellyou but I would say, probably
right around 2018, 2019, Moniqueand I kind of kicked it up a
notch with our marketing how wewere going to structure this
whole social media thing.
I didn't have Instagram to 2018.
(08:04):
I didn't have it yeah, and youknow we yell out let's go all
the time.
It just means let's go, likeyou get a lot of people who need
to be pushed when you'resitting in that kitchen and
they're not sure yet.
That being said, it's a fineline because you also have to
have a lot of patience.
It's an emotional thing forpeople and we like to understand
it.
We don't like to just push them, but sometimes it's like hey,
(08:24):
you're there, you're close,let's go, it's time.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, I always say that to agents.
It's like you can't be sellingall the time, because if people
don't need our services today,you can't sales pitch them into
buying or selling a home spacein their brain, so that when the
life changes or which whichaffects all of us, you know and
(08:47):
the need to buy or sell aproperty comes into play, it's
like who am I going to use it's?
it's already almostpre-preordained, so to speak so
you got to put the work in upfront, absolutely to be in that
conversation and to you to yourpoint.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
There's the expression ABC always be closing
, yeah, Not so fast.
Abkw always be kind and workingOkay.
And what I mean by that is youhave to treat your client.
This is like I said.
It's an emotional thing forthem to sell a house, Right, you
have to kind of go through itwith them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You do?
You have to show them.
Hey, I got you.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Right, you know, I know that piano is important to
you.
We're going to figure it outRight, take it easy and you have
to.
When I say always be kind,always be working, you know
every single situation you get.
Don't forget your clients,right.
If you sell a house for them,take them out to a nice
restaurant, right, or take themto a Yankee game.
Don't forget their kids'birthdays.
(09:43):
Don't forget.
And I think that I would tell,like I said, I go back to what I
would tell people.
What I would tell peoplegetting into this business is um
, make sure you're different,right, and make sure you do not
forget your community, becausewhat happens is we do a few
listings in your community andyou forget, they don't forget,
right, and they forget you andthey and they'll forget you and
(10:03):
you're back to being that secretagent again, yeah, and you
really can't rest on yourlaurels in this business because
you get, you'll get smoked.
So you have to always be kind,yes, consider it.
And you always have to beworking.
Wherever you are, you should beworking.
Yes, you shouldn't be pitching,you should be working, working
on knowing, uh, the names ofyour clients, children, how they
did in the lacrosse tournament.
It's's not an act.
It should just come naturallyRight.
(10:24):
Once it becomes an act, they'regoing to see right through it,
correct, and then they're notgoing to use you.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yes, exactly.
So walk us through.
You built your brokerage.
You know the Novus Realty Groupand this past, you know year,
you know three.
Me go back a little bit and sofar as you've built a pretty
impressive group of people andwho I've met and some great
agents on your team I think weplayed golf together.
(10:50):
We had a good time.
They're good salt of the earthpeople.
But you had 23 people in yourbrokerage and you know you're
doing.
You know about $80 million ayear in sales transactions,
which is pretty impressive andgrowing and even through some
bad years.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We've done that.
Look, I mean, there's probablynot enough time in the show to
tell you what my team means tome.
And in our negotiations, ofcourse, we spoke about that and
we spoke about how close we area family.
You know, I can honestly saythis prior to becoming Caldwell
and even now that we areCaldwell, yeah, we never once
(11:27):
had another.
I know people are going tolisten to this and say no chance
.
We've never once had anotheragent, had one agent stab
another in the back.
Yes, everybody's workedtogether.
Yeah, hey, you know that person.
You know what that guy was mylittle league coach.
I had been talking to him a fewmonths ago.
We'll share it.
Like, do you know what I mean?
Like a listing came along thatwas in question.
We've never can you imaginenever having an issue in 12
years of a business in this?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
industry.
It's almost impossible.
It's a highly competitivebusiness and it's you know.
You have type eightpersonalities that are out there
working in the field.
It's not so much that they runinto each other, it's how they
handle themselves when they do.
That's the important part.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And look, when everything was going down with
Colville, we started ournegotiations in March.
There's always going to be like, oh you know, changes, I don't
like change.
Yeah, that's been a race soquickly.
Your staff I mean everybodyover in East Meadow, lori, in
Franklin Square, I mean I can'teven.
You know, you and Tom, you knowit's funny.
(12:20):
When I first met Tom, yourpartner, he talked about giving
back and how, when he waslooking over our numbers, he
said, wow, it really impressedme what you give back to your,
you know, in Rockville Centerand Florida Park and places
where we have offices.
It really really impressed himand that impressed me.
And I have to say anybodylistening right now, if you're
that guy who's got that smallbusiness, who you're fine anyway
, even if you're a goodsalesperson, now you were abc on
(12:49):
me that day, this all happenedafter golf, standing on a patio
overlooking the 18th hole, Imean I remember this, you know
so, yeah, um, to me it was, itwas, it was a great match made
in heaven and um you knoweverybody's happy.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Everybody's very happy.
Let me ask you a question, socan you walk our audience Sure
Through the whole concept of thedifference between running a
brokerage and the benefits of ofrunning a team and
repositioning Novus Realty Groupas the Novus Realty team?
You know so you obviously sawwhat we were doing and you're
(13:21):
looking towards the future.
Ok, so how has it impacted youas well as your team?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
well, you know I could say this, and you know
there's no way I can even answerthis question without
mentioning monique one more time.
Yeah, monique bowman's my, mypartner, by the way.
Monique is awesome, she'sincredible she is.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I mean, we know that, everybody knows that.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yes, you know she's like it's unbelievable because
she's like a partner, but butshe's also like mommy to
everybody, and everybody callsWillow and look, that enables me
to do what I do to market, togo to games.
I mean, I'm going to arestaurant on Monday night with
some clients.
We're going to the Yankee game.
A week later I have a clientI'm taking out today.
And I'm not saying that notevery other brokerage and team
(14:02):
leader doesn't do that.
I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is, when youthink you do it a lot, double it
.
Yeah, because that's where thebusiness comes from.
Yeah, so, to answer yourquestion, having a good dynamic
duo so you're not in two placesat one time, as you want,
correct, all right.
Also for us, you know there arestresses that go away with
(14:23):
having a team behind you likethat, and one of them is you
know, we're able to have all ofour open houses prepped really,
really well.
Gail, who was with usoriginally, who's now going to
be becoming an agent, she did anamazing job for us and to have
her do that for so many yearswas so helpful.
We've had a bunch over theyears that have done that stuff.
So now that she's going tobecome an agent, she'll see how
(14:45):
helpful it is in using your teamApplying.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Applying, applying all the experience that she was
exposed to.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
And I think that we were a little limited in our
time that we had to spend onsocial media in terms of I mean,
I don't think there's a dealthat goes up that we don't know
what everybody at Coldwell Bankis doing all over this area.
So it's always nice to see thatwe can see what everybody else
is doing.
Even something like this, thispodcast, I think it's great.
Anybody who's listening rightnow they have to believe me,
(15:12):
None of these answers werepre-rehearsed.
This is all coming from theheart.
I am so happy we are where weare.
You guys were very fair to usand we're to try to give you
everything we've got.
We know we will.
I think it's been a tumultuousrate level that we're at right
now, yeah, and I think that'sgoing to get fixed eventually
hopefully.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know, I'm kind of curious, like because when we
were talking about how thesynergies would line up, you
know, one of the things that Iknow we really delved into is
the redundancy of trying toduplicate things.
Well, whether it's payrollcompliance, you know, uh,
(15:54):
training, you know.
So, having that centralized andbeing able to plug into those
resources, how does?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
that help you.
You know it helps you becauseevery single time we think we
need to go over a topic, we'llget an email that says oh, by
the way, we're going over thistopic tomorrow.
It's like you're ahead of thegame.
Yeah, I'm going to tell youright now.
That's where I lacked.
Yeah, I wasn't ahead of thegame within the, the, the um, I
don't say the admin part of it,but more of the, because it's
such a good job.
I would say the confines of thebusiness, within the confines
(16:19):
of the business.
It's hard to pay attentionbecause things are changing all
the time.
We've seen the changes.
Oh, man, and then keep gettingchanging at a faster and faster
pace and they are, and I thinkyou know, educating the,
educating the agents the way youdo, yeah, and for us to be able
to educate the clients is areally, really good thing.
Our clients never question usyeah, and now that I think with
the colwell name behind us, it'sgoing to get even easier.
(16:39):
Yeah, when I say never questionus, our clients trust us,
implicit yeah.
And I'll go back to what I saidbefore Nobody ever stabbed each
other in the back.
Number one, number two we reallyhaven't had a lot of clients
who've said no, no, you're wrong, right, do you know?
One of the best this is goingto sound like an unusual thing
for a real estate thing One ofthe best recommendations we get
are from people who didn't hireus.
Do you know that?
(17:00):
Oh, yeah, I know that soundscrazy.
No, I feel you on this.
And I've had people call me andsay oh, you know what.
You sat in front of me, youtold me the truth on where we
should price it.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
And we hired somebody elsebecause they came in and told us
we were worth a billion dollarsand now we've changed the price
15 times.
We've had 27 open houses andguess where we sold it Exactly
where you said we should havesold it.
We would have told them to putit there and price it right and
(17:23):
let them fight.
We probably would have gottenmore money.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
One of the biggest challenges every realtor faces
is that they call it in theindustry buying listings right,
and you want to be forthrightand honest and true and yet you
know, sometimes honesty can costyou.
So it takes a lot of guts tolook a client in the eyes and
just stick to the truth, eventhough you know you're competing
(17:45):
against somebody who's throwingnumbers out, because they're,
yes, people.
And then it's hard for aconsumer to turn around and say,
wow, this other person'stelling me a hundred grand more.
I really like Sean and I thinkhe's telling the truth, but if
he's wrong, he's costing me ahundred grand Exactly right, and
it's human nature, by the way,yeah absolutely it doesn't make
him a bad person.
It's a lot of money to lose ifyou're wrong, and then what
(18:05):
happens is many times it'sexactly what you just said.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It's a fine a lot to make sure you tell them the
truth and you're honest withthem.
Yeah, it takes a lot more towalk when they don't listen.
Yes, because now you got to seethe other guy down the road
list it, yeah, and you're likeall right I lost.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I lost market share, exactly.
But you know what you didn't,you really didn't, but we've all
we've all made.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
We've all made the mistake right.
We've all taken the ones thatare too high, exactly, and you
end up.
You know you're getting burnt.
You know you're spending moneyon marketing.
You know you're driving around.
I'll be doing a drone video forsomething.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
It's just it's and you get this.
I've had had this a while back,obviously, and like, these
people look at you and it's likewell, if you're that good at
marketing, what do you mean?
You can't get my price.
I'm like, look, if I could sellhouses for a hundred thousand
dollars more than the worth, Iwouldn't be in brokerage.
I'd just be buying houses atmarket value and reselling them
for a hundred thousand more thanthe work.
Exactly, exactly so it's what Ithink, but they don't know.
People don't understand how ourbusiness works, and that's the
(18:57):
tricky part.
So it's so.
It's a matter of operating inthat environment and continue to
communicate, which is what youwell, I love what you really
were saying.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, it's connection and communication to the client
.
It is true, you have tocommunicate it to them and, like
I said, all times out of 100,they're going to sit and say you
know what?
We just do what you do.
We see what you do.
You're getting results.
Now, you know, I have severalthousand people who follow me on
Instagram and Facebook andstuff like that, which, for one
(19:26):
person, is a lot.
It's fantastic, it's good, andpeople do know who I am.
I've been this crazy my wholelife.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I mean you know, me too.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I mean who I am.
I've been this crazy my wholelife.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I mean, you know me too.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I mean right, so like so for me it's almost like, oh,
he's just connected from thebeginning.
Plus, we got the same colorhair.
So you know, you know it's,it's a um uh.
When they know you it's alittle bit easier.
But I gotta tell you I got alot of phone calls and, and you
know, dms on.
I don't even know what a dm wasuntil got Instagram.
Now I know my daughter's helpedme with that stuff.
But I'll tell you what.
You get a DM, you get a privatemessage or you get a text
(20:01):
message that says, hey, you know, I've seen what you do and I
love it.
Yeah, we had a guy who was aclient of ours a while ago.
This was in Wontore and he hadthis giant pool and we put a big
sold sign in big sold sign andI dove through the sold sign.
So people might be like, well,what's this guy selling tools?
No, but you're looking, aren'tyou looking?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Because when you look oh, by the way, you got about
10 houses for sale down theblock when did you get this idea
?
from One of the things I thinkis your gift, and we talked
about this is that is your focuson marketing your creativity,
if I may, and again, when wetalked about putting this deal
together and you joining theteam is taking stuff that drain
your hours, like payroll andcompliance, because they are
(20:42):
just drains of your resources,and like letting with removing
that off you, letting you flowerand focus on your gift.
And now, as you're doing this,where do you come up with an
idea that the house has a pool?
I'm jumping in?
Were you wearing a suit orsomething?
No, I was wearing a bathingsuit.
Oh yeah, I was definitelywearing a bathing suit.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Okay, and, by the way , you got to remember something
To make it fun and right.
It's only one take.
Yeah, you can't be the guy in awet bathing suit jumping into a
pool.
That's not fun.
You got to look dry.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know it's one.
Take on that.
One Can't mess that one up.
No, Look, you know I don't know.
The answer is I don't know.
Like I said, I've been likethis my whole life.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
You know I've been doing impersonations of people
and I do all these.
You know I've been a guybreaking chops on everybody.
Wait, you do impersonations.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I just learned something new I do I do a bunch
how much you got any bourbon inthis thing.
I'll tell you what.
There's no bourbon here.
Okay, that's my Rodney there wego.
That's pretty much it for me.
Justin's laughing back there.
Justin, I've been doing RodneyDangerfield since I was about
nine years old.
My father's like you're noteating Thanksgiving dinner
(21:51):
tonight unless you do, Rodney,for the whole table.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I say things like hey , hey-old with a running.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Oh, my voice is part of it.
My point is all you're doing isyou have to be yourself in this
business, but you have to.
I said it 50 times You've gotto be different, Be yourself and
be different.
And if you're the type ofperson who's scared to step out
of that shell, give me a call.
I'll help you.
If you're from Caldwell thefirm, don't call me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Call somebody else.
Well, are you entertainingadditional recruits?
Are you looking to build yourteam?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Oh, yeah, I mean our team, our team that we started
with, and of course, I would,you know, and I anybody who's
like I said, anybody who'slistening, who wants to.
You know, just let your hairdown, you, just you let it all
out the best.
This is what I tell people too.
There's many people scared toget in front of a video, even
their own phone, right, but Itell them, the good news is
you're by yourself.
(22:38):
So if you screw it up, do itagain, right, exactly.
You know how many times I haveto do a bunch of takes because
you know, like, the other day, Iwas doing this thing.
I was, I was doing this thing.
I saw this picture on a wall.
You'll see it if you look me.
So all I did was stick my headin front of him and go.
Like the people were crackingup laughing.
It got, like, you know, 2,500views, two listings out of that.
(23:01):
Really, well, yeah, becausepeople oh, by the way, again
it's back to oh, I thought aboutyou, I was thinking about you,
I got to give you a call.
I know you're in the businessthe house too.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Exactly, I recently bought a.
I had seen this Jeep that I hadfixed up.
It's got the American flag.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen it.
I love it.
It's cool, right, yeah, it's.
What year is that Jeep?
It's a 1991.
It's been pretty much fullyrefurbished and again it's back
to that type of stuff.
It's a constant reminder.
But Wait, the wrap.
Tell them about the wrap.
Well, the wrap.
So the wrap's all American flagday.
I got it.
It has been.
I made sure I had the Novuslogo on the back.
It's.
We were just Novus at the timeand I drive to a red light.
This is the first day, so I gotit at 12 o'clock.
(23:40):
By two o'clock I'm at a redlight in Valley stream.
I get a guy come over.
He's got a Marine tattoo on.
He goes.
I love that Jeep.
Follow me.
I want you to sell mygrandmother's house which we did
no-transcript.
(24:04):
The lacrosse there's a biglacrosse tournament every year
so you help out with that help.
Multi-equip yeah, they take theNets.
Booy four is a big company thatthat sells all the equipment at
these things.
So the company Buoy Four, theseguys borrow our van In Floral
Park.
If I can mention the HansFamily Foundation, okay, please.
We hold them near and dear toour hearts.
(24:26):
This is the iconic accidentthat happened 15 years ago today
ironically oh, is it Really?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
With the three little girls who lost their?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
lives, yeah, and we're so close with the family,
with the Hans family and withWarren and Jackie and their
daughter Casey yeah, andeverybody involved in the
foundation, and they have a hugeevent every year.
They borrow our van for alltheir events.
We actually got the van so wecould help out with stuff like
that.
You know Perfect.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It means got the vent so we could help out with stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know it means a lot to us.
Yeah, it really really does so.
Yeah, and they're justwonderful, wonderful people.
So, uh, it's just, it's acharity that's so near and dear
to us.
Ironically, it's 15 years today.
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, yeah, we just started to talk.
No, that's awesome, that'sawesome.
I'm glad you shared that.
Um, I want to kind of gobackwards a little bit to
something.
So, um, I'm hearing all aboutthe unique marketing and you can
.
It's, it's apparent and obviousyour personality jumps out off
the screen.
I'm sure and I'm going back tothe nine-year-old Sean who's
(25:24):
doing Rodney impersonations andI'm thinking there's a rumor out
here that you did commercialswhen you were a youngster.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I did good rumor too.
That rumor is true by the way,it's a true rumor.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Okay, so it's not just BS.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
No, it's true, Did you?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
do more than one commercial or just one
commercial.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, I got a couple of crazy stories.
This is great.
So I had a very short-livedcareer.
You have to understandsomething.
I was about eight, yeah, butI'm doing the part of a
four-year-old, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I could read.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I'm like all right, no problem, I was the sizzling
bacon kid.
Remember that bacon?
Yeah, hey.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Ma, did you bring home the bacon?
Uh-uh, brought home thesizzling.
Don't bring home the bacon,think lean.
Bring home the sizzling.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Evidently they took it off the shelves because it
was bad for people's health.
So if anybody got sick fromthat I apologize.
I was only seven or eight.
I don't think you're culpable.
I don't think so.
So, yes, I did Sizzling BaconRuffles, potato Chips.
I did a bunch of commercials,but again, it was easy for the
directors that I looked so young.
Yeah, you know, I was eightyears old and I'm doing these
commercials where I'm playing apart of a four or five year old.
Yeah, guess what the kids I wasauditioning against.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
They couldn't to this .
Yeah, of course my hair's notso red anymore, but yeah, so you
know.
So how do you get?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
into commercials at eight years old.
I was with my mom.
We went into the city with ourfriend Edie Collins.
Her son was doing them, hernephew Ryan was doing them, and
the guy goes I heard this kidtalking out there, bring him in
here.
So I went in there, so we starttalking and he goes you want to
do commercials?
I'm like, yeah, do I get paid?
That's the first thing I asked.
Of course they did pay me acouple bucks and then it just
(27:00):
kind of snowballed.
We did a lot.
I did get this is true, I didget the part for Kramer vs
Kramer the movie.
Oh really, yeah, my motherwouldn't let me do the movie
because we're Roman Catholic andthere was a nude scene.
So she pulled me the part.
They gave it to some other kid,but I don't know, maybe he's
got his own real estate companytoo somewhere else I doubt it
though.
Yeah, right, um, so that's true,and then that was kind of, you
(27:20):
know, that was again.
It's just, you just got to beyourself.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
That's awesome yeah, that's pretty funny.
All right, so before I go anyfurther, um, I just want to
remind our viewers again stayfor the drop the mic question at
the very end and don't forgetto like and subscribe.
So we talk a lot about playinghard and we've actually touched
on this a little bit.
Tell us about the.
You know the personal life ofSean falling, you know so like
(27:44):
well, I'm so.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I have a lovely wife.
Her name is Kristen.
I have three beautiful girlsGracie, katie and Lexi.
Yeah, they are, they'reincredible and we, you know, we
live for them, you know.
And again, I think I'll go backto what I said before I I had a
great job working in the city.
I just didn't want to do itanymore, I didn't want to be.
You know, texting was justbecoming popular at the time.
(28:06):
I remember when I left, like itwas it was around but it wasn't
as prevalent as it is now.
Right, and I I remember being onthe train and I'd see all these
guys texting like they're somiserable at six o'clock in the
morning on the train and I'mlike I don't want this, I don't
want to do this anymore.
So when I left I had allintentions of never, ever,
missing anything of theirs andas a father I can honestly say
I've never missed a thing.
(28:27):
Never missed a softball game,never missed.
You know, I have my older oneand my younger one.
They're dancers.
I've never missed anythingGreat.
You know, they dance at MissColleen's Elite Dance Studio in
Rockville Center and they loveit and I've never missed
anything of theirs because Iknow it's important to them and
I couldn't do that, I couldn'tsay that my middle daughter,
katie, she's an artist and she'san actress, really so that ham
(28:49):
business runs in the family,yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Come on getting commercials.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Let's see, she's getting all the.
She's getting a lot of the lead, I shouldn't say all the leads.
She gets a lot of the leads andshe's a great team player.
She doesn't get a lead in thepark.
She's, she's good, you know.
So, so, so proud of her, and mywife's just an unbelievable.
She's actually, ironically,working at St Francis prep,
(29:13):
where I used to work really hardat everything, right, so having
a family, making sure you allowenough time for them.
I'm the one who gets yelled atfor being on the cell phone too
much, instead of me yelling atthe kids.
Unfortunately, just ourbusiness doesn't sleep, but it's
something that they've grown tosort of understand.
But we do a lot.
We do a lot with them.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We try to make as many memories as possible
memories as possible now, withthe sheer demand of being in
real estate.
It's a seven day a week,24-hour job, as it seems like,
and then, of course, thefull-time job of being husband,
dad, yeah, you know.
Um, what does sean foley do forrelaxation?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
you know um, I guess I guess sleep for relaxation
right now I'm only kidding.
Um, look, I love, uh know, I'mfortunate enough to belong to
Hempstead Golf and Country Clubwhere I met you.
Yes, which to me, you knowthat's been, it's been a it's
hard to explain because it'ssuch a home.
I mean, you know we hold theplace near and dear to our
hearts both of us.
Yes, yeah, and you know that'slike another family, you know,
(30:12):
and it's been great.
I've been fortunate up there tomeet so many people who have
become such good friends.
There was never the real estatepitch.
I never bring up real estatethere ever.
They come to me because theykind of know that I'm very, very
in tune with it.
But I've had, like Floral Parkand Rockville Center, all those
(30:33):
friends that were so good to me.
I think the clients reallyappreciate that.
They know it's a long day, theyknow it's sometimes an
expensive day and theyappreciate that.
They look and say you broughtme out for a great day, I'm not
going to forget you.
And again it just comesnaturally.
What's your handicap down to?
Well, now it's up to.
I did have my hip replaced lastyear so I slowed it down a
(30:58):
little bit, but I'm up to aboutan 11.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So that's okay, I'll take that All right.
Well, you're not working hardenough, because my handicap is
way higher than that.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well, I'll be 55 years old on Sunday, so I said
if I could business.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, I mean what the heck?
Blue skies, green grass youcan't complain about much, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Hit a bad shot move on.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Exactly, you know Exactly.
I don't call a bad shot if Ihit a bad tree.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You hit a bad tree.
Yeah, I haven't seen you playyet because we were in different
groups the last time.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Trees yeah, because I'm find a way to hey this guy's
gonna need a tree wood.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
You know what I mean?
Yes, uh.
So, look, you know, I, as faras me, as what I like to do, I
love to do that.
I love spending time with mykids and we do a lot of that.
Uh, we, every time we dosomething cool.
We call it making a memory.
Yeah, I mean.
So.
My daughter was sick last week.
The other two were down in inpennsylvania at a dance
competition.
She got better and she lookedat me "'Can we make a memory and
(31:55):
just go right now' I said,let's go.
So four hours later I waseating more chocolate bars than
the Reese's peanut butter guy.
Forget about it.
I came home about 20 poundsheavier, but it was great.
It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So let me ask you a different question.
Sure, who would you considerhas been, like, the biggest
influence on your life?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I have to say by far my parents.
Okay, you know, they you know Igotta tell you, when I was
starting to be you know, Istarted to become an adult.
So you call it whatever youknow, 19, 20, whatever the real
adult is 21,.
When you get out of college andyou're thinking about what
you're gonna do, my father justasked me.
He said just do me one favor.
Just, you know, and I'm notknocking, coming to police
(32:36):
officer.
He just didn't want me to dothat, you know, cause he was a
policeman for so many years andI'm so appreciative of his job,
Tough job.
And he asked me not to do thatand he said but I'll support you
in anything you do.
My father wanted me to go towall street when I was 18 years
old.
I know he is the one who, if Ihave to sit down and have some
sound advice, I know I can sitdown with her and I can trust
(33:00):
what she's going to give it tome straight and I'm going to
trust her.
So my parents were absolutelythe biggest influences on my
life Now.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I met your father and he seems to be quite the
character also.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
He's a character.
Is that where you get thatenergy from?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I guess so he.
I guess so he is a character.
I'll tell you that he must havebeen a wild man in his youth.
Call it instinct.
I don't know if that's fact, Idon't know.
I'm louder than he is.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh yeah, If you're on the golf course, if you're on
the tent pole, you'll hear me onthe third hole.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
That's a fact, by the way.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Last Saturday I heard you.
That's definitely folly.
No, I heard, let's go, let's go.
Well, I say that after everyball goes in the hole, so you're
going to hear that about 18times around.
But my father is not as loud orwild, but there's an episode.
I always compare my father tosomebody.
There's an episode ofGilligan's Island.
Poor Justin probably never evenheard of the show he's too
young, but he probably hasGilligan's Island.
(33:52):
There's an episode where theguy is called Simon the Likeable
and every time you meet him youlike him.
My father is like Simon theLikeable.
Yeah, he's a guy who the secondyou meet him, as soon as you
hear his laugh, you instantlylove him Contagious.
It's contagious, you can see it,he's got like that smile, his
body language.
Exactly, he just cracks up,there's an aura about him.
(34:17):
That's just fun, and my motheris his biggest fan so she laughs
right behind them because youknow, so it's, it's nice and I'm
very blessed.
You know, my father's 85 yearsold, my mother's 79, um.
So I'm very blessed to havethem both um and I, and I
treasure it.
I try to, I try to spend asmuch time with them as I can
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's good.
I'm glad to hear that.
Otherwise I have to, you know,sit you down for a good time you
put me in a different colorjersey that was another match
made in heaven, same color.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
We're almost the same blue, youknow?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
yes, exactly exactly um very happy, everybody's happy
, they really are so good.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
So let's come back to the charity, because obviously
we talk about work hard, playhard and give back and that's
the you know real focus.
I think we've tried to build awell-rounded agent career and
obviously hard work is at thefundamental, but not losing
focus on family and personal andwho you are personally is
important, because with sevenday a week job you can lose
(35:07):
yourself a little bit and thentrying to keep that time with
giving back and I know youtalked about the Hands
Foundation but I know you do alot of other charity work and
stuff Anything else near anddear to your heart.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, I mean I like to share a story about you know.
There's a basketball coachnamed Rick Pitino.
He coaches St John's now.
Rick's had an incrediblepedigree in the game of
basketball.
Absolutely it's funny.
I met Rick at a.
It's actually a really greatstory.
If I may, please, please, I met.
Rick at a Yankee game in 2003 or2004.
I don't remember the exact year.
So we were talking and he tooka liking to me and he said you
(35:38):
know it's something about you.
I took a liking to you.
I don't know what it is aboutyou, but you know.
So we started talking, webecame friends.
But I've never done in my lifeand I went alone because I was
supposed to go with my friend,Tommy, who sadly lost his son to
SIDS Sudden Infant DeathSyndrome.
Now, I had been telling CoachPatino about this.
That night we were just talking.
I said that's why I'm alone atthe game and I was lucky enough
(36:01):
to get up there during a raindelay because my friend, a
friend of mine named JJ, got methrough there.
Long story short, we becamefriends and he said to me you
know, I lost a son to sids.
Now, I had forgotten that andI'll never forget the way he
treated me.
And he said we have afoundation in my son's name, the
daniel patino foundation.
So I did not know this.
Yeah, so they actually pulledthe bus over to tell him the bad
(36:24):
news in 1987 when he was thecoach of providence, right?
So that's the other one that Ialways hold near and dear to my
heart and there's always a few.
Yes, there's so many, and StBaldrick's and all these,
there's just so many.
But when you ask me near anddear to my heart, I always think
of the Hans family, yeah, and Ithink of the Patino family,
(36:45):
yeah, and there's been sometragedy in my hometown.
There's been the Malone girlswho passed away.
They have a nice thing thatthey do for them every year.
Recently we had this kid,Christopher Pataglia, who passed
away.
He was a Kellenberg kid.
So anytime you hear stuff likeand there's so many more, and if
(37:06):
I'm leaving anybody out, Ireally apologize, obviously, but
you know we don't rehearse anyof these questions, so I'm just
giving you what's on the top ofmind at the moment.
But you know you can't.
You have to always make surethat you don't overstep, but you
try to help out as much as youcan and contribute as much as
you can, and sometimes you can't.
You know I've had conversationswith my friend, Warren Hanson.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I said look, you know this year I got to tone
understanding.
But when you can you do, that'sit.
Yes, yeah, I, I like that.
That's that, I think, is thefundamental truth when you can
you do, when you can you do andthat's the at the heart of what
giving back really is right,absolutely so, that's awesome.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
All right, good, um, so what Iwant to do is I want to pivot to
(37:41):
the drop the mic question, allright.
So here's the drop the micquestion.
So we, we had a little insightahead of time about your
commercial success as a youth,and so, and we see your
marketing today and we say, okay, sean Farley has the
opportunity to represent anyproduct on TV in a commercial
(38:04):
today.
What product are you gonnarepresent?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Hmm, wow, that's definitely a drop the mic
question.
So I have the opportunity torepresent any product.
Does it have to be real estaterelated?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
No, huh Um that's a drop the mic question for sure.
I know it wouldn't be sizzling,it wouldn't be sizzling.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'd get in trouble for that.
I don't think it'd be ruffleseither.
I think I've moved on to thechips that don't get you as
heavy.
Well, you know what?
I'll tell you what.
Not that he needs it, becausehe's already done so.
Well, but there's a guy namedMike Rapoli who I went to
college with.
Mike is the original vitaminwater guy and he's gone on to be
(38:46):
a success.
I think my passion because I'mwatching him with his passion
it's horse racing.
Probably horse racing in somerespect.
Okay, I lived in an apartment inFloral Park.
When I first moved out of myparents' house, I was about 22,
I guess 23.
I bought a place in Floral Parkand every day these old ladies
would sit in the courtyard andthey'd see me going in and out
of the apartment and they werelike how'd you do today?
(39:07):
I'm like good, great.
I didn't know what the heckthey were talking about.
How was today Good?
Then they'd say, like, did youhave a lot of mounts today?
I'm like mounts.
I'm like yeah, I guess.
Yeah, a lot of mounts.
I had no idea what the hellthey were talking about.
I know where this is I said yeah, I'm going to go to Saratoga on
vacation.
So like well, how many horsesare you going to be riding?
I'm like wait a minute.
(39:28):
Do you people think I'm ajockey?
They thought I was a jockey.
From that moment forward, Ifell in love with horse racing.
I always wanted to be one bythat time, believe it or not,
and I'll never say this.
By that time I was too tall.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I was like 5'7" and I in some capacity.
All right, so we'll put your uhname in the hat for belmont
park or for the national racinguh nyra is it myr, yeah, I'm in
all those hats.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yes, yeah, I'm on all those gambling websites.
I love them, um, but yeah, so Iguess.
Yeah, naira bets.
I mean, if I'm up here, brandy,they better pass you know what?
Go over to get a check here Imean these guys.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Why not?
Why not?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I'll be your agent uh , if they make bigger horses,
maybe I can get up on one.
But yeah, that was my dream soI figured I would answer that.
So I'm sorry, I stayed sospeechless for so long I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
No, I'm glad I didn't think I would ever find you
speechless, so I'm amused bythat already.
So that was worth.
It was worth the wait.
Good, I'm glad it was worth thewait so okay, I think we're in
a good spot here.
I just really want to thank ouraudience for joining us today at
the work hard, play hard andgive back a real estate podcast.
Um, again, please like,subscribe and uh, tune in to our
next episode in in, uh, twoweeks it drops.
(40:36):
Okay, sean, it was great havingyou on the show today.
I really appreciate it yeah, Iappreciate you taking the time
to be here and share yourexperience and uh stories with
our audience here, and so ifanyone our audience wants to
reach out and and work with orreach Sean Farley or the Novus
Realty team at Coldwell BankerAmerican Homes, where do they
(40:57):
find you Well?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
I mean, we use Instagram, such a great platform
, so I'd say just, you know,shoot me a message on Instagram.
We're Sean Farley, underscoreNovus, underscore Realty.
Novus is N-O-V-U-S and it'spronounced Novus, not novice.
If you call me novice, justcall somebody else.
Uh, it just makes it sound likeI don't know what we're doing
and we know everything that wedo.
Um, so it's yeah, so it's seanfoley, underscore novice,
(41:19):
underscore realty, and then youcan call our main line is
monique's line, it's914-608-3939, and uh, yeah, I
mean, look if anybody's outthere and if anybody's out there
that's going to get into realestate and you want to be part
of a really really good and areally good winning team.
I mean, I have to say that withthe acquisition, our market
share in that area has gone uptremendously right away so it's
(41:40):
great, great for you, great forus.
No-transcript place.
Half of them come back anywaybecause they're unhappy.
So it's, you know so, and wedon't lose a lot of people.
We've had the same team forgreat group, really really nice.
(42:02):
I mean, you've been out withthem.
Yeah, you know, it's just agreat, great group of people.
It really is.
And again, I apologize, Icouldn't name everybody on the
team.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
No, no, no, it's good , it just came to my head.
Anyone have a call.
You got the office number.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Do you want to give it?
Yeah, I there.
You go there.
You have it Surprised.
Nobody took that one.
We tried for sold.
It wasn't available, so wesettled for home.
Perfect Great day today, thoughI appreciate being on the show.
It was great yes.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
So great to have you here, buddy.
Thank you, mike.
All right awesome.
Hey, welcome to Work Hard, play Hard and Give Back a
real estate podcast.
I'm Mike Litzner, the brokerowner of Cowell Banker, and
today I'm here with Sean Farley,team lead of Novus Realty Group
, powered by Cowell BankerAmerican Homes.
Sean brings a tremendous wealthof experience in the real
estate industry to the tablehere.
I'm so excited to have you hereas a guest on the podcast there
(00:30):
, sean.
But before we get into anyquestions, I just want to remind
our audience please wait to theend.
We have the drop the micquestions always exciting, a
little more interesting,hopefully a little bit funny.
And please don't forget to likeand subscribe.
Hit the button there for us All.
Right, so we got great thingsgoing on here, sean, michael.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, good to be here , buddy boy.
I love it.
Awesome what a setup we gothere.
I feel like I'm on the Boomerand Cotton show here.
This is great.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh, come on, Don't lower our standards.
We're way above that.
Come on, don.
I know, I know We've got tohave some fun here.
So look, real estate.
You've been in real estate fora while now.
You've had worn many hats.
Well, maybe you can talk aboutyour path.
So, before real estate whatdoes Sean Farley look like?
Wow, what did I look like?
Before real estate I look likebefore real estate.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I look like the guy from the Lucky Charms box who I
still look like had a bunch ofcareers.
I started as a school teacherin the early 90s.
What grade I started with?
I was a gym teacher.
I started a grammar school inQueens Village, which was great,
great first experience.
Yeah.
So the kids, they used to callme Jim because I was the gym
teacher.
I always got a kick out of that.
The teacher said come on lineup, we're going down to gym.
And I, just as time went on, Iwanted to change my career.
(01:41):
I did go to St Francis PrepHigh School for another seven
years, taught there Same jobphys ed teacher and then did
Wall Street for 10 years and forthe past, whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
How do you go from teaching gym to Wall Street and
what does going to Wall Streetmean?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, going to Wall Street, you know it was
something I kind of alwayswanted to do and I loved being a
teacher, and it was a toughdecision, but also tough to go
down there at 31 years old,because you know you got 22 year
old kids out of college tellingyou to go fetch them coffee, so
I had to go through all thehazing and stuff like that.
I loved it, though.
Great job.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So what tasks?
What was your role in WallStreet?
I'm curious how that reallyhelped shape you as the real
estate icon that you are today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, icon, I don't know about icon, but I like that
, thank you.
I was what's called an equitysales trader and I went from
that into just.
You know, I had kids late inlife.
You know, my first kid came at41, 42 years old.
Okay, so I didn't want to missany time with them and I went
out and started Novus rightafter that, in late 2012.
(02:39):
Well, when did you get your realestate license?
My real estate license Iactually got originally in 2003.
I didn't do much with it, Ikept it and I re-renewed it
again in 2012.
My experience was with realestate from a personal level.
I had a house in Saratoga atthe time and we had a couple of
rental properties up there andit just wasn't great.
I always felt like there couldbe more.
(02:59):
Where Novus came from was theword new.
It means new in latin.
Right, I wanted things to be alittle bit different.
I mean, we came on the scene,mike.
We did everything from sponsorblock parties to to.
I mean we sponsor every teamunder the sun.
Really, that whole give backthing.
I love that, you know, I Ireally do love that, and that's
one of the things.
It's one of the reasons why Iwanted to come to colwell
because it's a perfect match forus.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah I think when you look at marketing and a lot of
agents ask us this questionwhat's the best way to market
yourself?
And connecting to the communityis such a fundamental and easy
way to not only contribute andbe a positive influence but at
the same time you're gettingyour name out there, you're
getting known.
So I think it's genius.
(03:41):
It's so fundamentally simple,but yet genius because it's
overlooked by so many agents.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I agree.
Well, a couple of things.
First of all.
I mean I always I wouldn't,even we wouldn't be at the
Caldwell stage where we're atnow without Monique Baum and my
partner.
She has just been, you know,without her.
She's the engine.
You know I am the marketing guyand stuff like that, but she's
the engine, no doubt about it.
So absolutely nowhere withouther.
But I'll tell you a couple ofthings.
If I was talking to a personwho was getting into real estate
right now, I would say a fewthings to them right away,
(04:07):
please.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well, you know what?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The first thing the first thing I would say, mike,
is I'd say to them number one bedifferent If you think that
you're going to go into thisbusiness.
Right, marketing couldn't beany different, but you got to
remember, that's for sure.
Yeah, I mean, it's a littlecrazy and I know that, but I
(04:29):
definitely would advise peoplebe as different as you can give
to the community, though, andwhen I say be different, what
I'm really saying is dosomething that's going to make
them look at your page, makethem laugh a little bit.
Maybe maybe you don't takeyourself so seriously, seriously
, but then they look at yourpage and then, at the end of
your zany whatever you do youtell, hey, this is what's going
on in real estate right now.
(04:49):
This is what's happening, thisis the teams we sponsored, stuff
like that.
Yeah, that would be the firstthing I would tell them.
The other thing I would tellthem is make sure that, no
matter what, you do not forgetyour community.
We started in floripark.
We originally started actuallybelieve it or not in garden City
South, then Franklin Square.
We ended up in Floor Park.
Floor Park's my hometown.
They've been very good to usand I love them all.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's a great village over there.
It really is.
It's a very cool vibe downtownand the train station.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, it is, and I think that they've been very,
very good to us.
I think, in return, we have toget involved as much as we can,
and we try to get involved asmuch as we can because it's very
, very important.
It's important that people seeyour name, and it's also
important that you let them knowthat you're there for them
(05:34):
right when they need, whetherit's a contribution to a charity
or or to play in a golf outingor whatever you know.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So let me just ask you I want to go back just a
little bit so you have thislicense, your license as an
agent.
I guess you're doing itpart-time.
Do you go full-time first andthen become a broker, or is kind
of like this advent?
Like you know, I'm goingfull-time so I might as well
jump into brokerage.
What was the thought processfor you?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
no, I was all in.
I was all in, I wanted to.
I wanted to do thingsdifferently.
Um, our marketing is is, is so,and I'm not just talking about
me jumping out of windows intopools.
That's a little crazy.
It doesn't make them look,though, that's for sure.
Yes, it does it gets hiseyeballs it definitely gets the
eyeballs on you.
You know, I think for us it'swhat could be different.
I've been told by people andit's a compliment you don't want
(06:18):
to say, oh great, I am, I knowI'm a great marketer I've been
told by people, man, you marketso well.
It's so different.
Yeah, one of the things we didjust to give you one example is
you know, um, I have a very goodrelationship with dylan davis,
who's a jockey.
Yeah, uh, up in saratoga.
I also have a very goodrelationship with mike luzzy and
with with his son, lane luzzy.
They're all jockeys.
Dylan's been wearing our, ournovice letters on his leg up
(06:38):
racing around saratoga andbelmont and aqueduct for a lot
of years.
Yeah, I cannot tell you howmany times people text me from
up in saratoga they're onvacation saying you know what?
I just saw dylan davis, he justwon a race.
It just reminded me I need tocall you because I'd like to
sell my you know, my folks houseor my grandpa and before you
know it, that that bit ofmarketing it gets, it brings you
(06:59):
into a hold.
It's a reminder.
Yeah, that's what's good.
Yeah, you give back it's helpfulright when you do stuff like
that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
It's a reminder to people of what you do and how
you market exactly because theworst thing you could do as a
realtor, agent or anything, isbe overlooked or forgotten.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You know don't need to be a secret agent.
Right exactly, you never wantto be a secret.
You need to.
I've heard that term a while,yeah, a while ago.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You need to own the forefront of their mind when it
comes to that real estate space,which is really what you're
telling me is the secret sauce,and it works, it works, it works
for you, it works for a lot ofgood people out there.
So you jumped in if I'm hearingyou correctly into the
brokerage space because you hadyour own vision for how you
wanted to shape your businessand how you wanted to promote it
(07:41):
and market.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
And you know as the years went on.
You know there's always bumpsin the road and things you're
learning.
You work for yourself.
There's a lot of sleeplessnights.
The grass isn't always greener,don't?
I know it, I don't have to tellyou but I would say, probably
right around 2018, 2019, Moniqueand I kind of kicked it up a
notch with our marketing how wewere going to structure this
whole social media thing.
I didn't have Instagram to 2018.
(08:04):
I didn't have it yeah, and youknow we yell out let's go all
the time.
It just means let's go, likeyou get a lot of people who need
to be pushed when you'resitting in that kitchen and
they're not sure yet.
That being said, it's a fineline because you also have to
have a lot of patience.
It's an emotional thing forpeople and we like to understand
it.
We don't like to just push them, but sometimes it's like hey,
(08:24):
you're there, you're close,let's go, it's time.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, I always say that to agents.
It's like you can't be sellingall the time, because if people
don't need our services today,you can't sales pitch them into
buying or selling a home spacein their brain, so that when the
life changes or which whichaffects all of us, you know and
(08:47):
the need to buy or sell aproperty comes into play, it's
like who am I going to use it's?
it's already almostpre-preordained, so to speak so
you got to put the work in upfront, absolutely to be in that
conversation and to you to yourpoint.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
There's the expression ABC always be closing
, yeah, Not so fast.
Abkw always be kind and workingOkay.
And what I mean by that is youhave to treat your client.
This is like I said.
It's an emotional thing forthem to sell a house, Right, you
have to kind of go through itwith them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You do?
You have to show them.
Hey, I got you.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Right, you know, I know that piano is important to
you.
We're going to figure it outRight, take it easy and you have
to.
When I say always be kind,always be working, you know
every single situation you get.
Don't forget your clients,right.
If you sell a house for them,take them out to a nice
restaurant, right, or take themto a Yankee game.
Don't forget their kids'birthdays.
(09:43):
Don't forget.
And I think that I would tell,like I said, I go back to what I
would tell people.
What I would tell peoplegetting into this business is um
, make sure you're different,right, and make sure you do not
forget your community, becausewhat happens is we do a few
listings in your community andyou forget, they don't forget,
right, and they forget you andthey and they'll forget you and
(10:03):
you're back to being that secretagent again, yeah, and you
really can't rest on yourlaurels in this business because
you get, you'll get smoked.
So you have to always be kind,yes, consider it.
And you always have to beworking.
Wherever you are, you should beworking.
Yes, you shouldn't be pitching,you should be working, working
on knowing, uh, the names ofyour clients, children, how they
did in the lacrosse tournament.
It's's not an act.
It should just come naturallyRight.
(10:24):
Once it becomes an act, they'regoing to see right through it,
correct, and then they're notgoing to use you.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yes, exactly.
So walk us through.
You built your brokerage.
You know the Novus Realty Groupand this past, you know year,
you know three.
Me go back a little bit and sofar as you've built a pretty
impressive group of people andwho I've met and some great
agents on your team I think weplayed golf together.
(10:50):
We had a good time.
They're good salt of the earthpeople.
But you had 23 people in yourbrokerage and you know you're
doing.
You know about $80 million ayear in sales transactions,
which is pretty impressive andgrowing and even through some
bad years.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We've done that.
Look, I mean, there's probablynot enough time in the show to
tell you what my team means tome.
And in our negotiations, ofcourse, we spoke about that and
we spoke about how close we area family.
You know, I can honestly saythis prior to becoming Caldwell
and even now that we areCaldwell, yeah, we never once
(11:27):
had another.
I know people are going tolisten to this and say no chance
.
We've never once had anotheragent, had one agent stab
another in the back.
Yes, everybody's workedtogether.
Yeah, hey, you know that person.
You know what that guy was mylittle league coach.
I had been talking to him a fewmonths ago.
We'll share it.
Like, do you know what I mean?
Like a listing came along thatwas in question.
We've never can you imaginenever having an issue in 12
years of a business in this?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
industry.
It's almost impossible.
It's a highly competitivebusiness and it's you know.
You have type eightpersonalities that are out there
working in the field.
It's not so much that they runinto each other, it's how they
handle themselves when they do.
That's the important part.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And look, when everything was going down with
Colville, we started ournegotiations in March.
There's always going to be like, oh you know, changes, I don't
like change.
Yeah, that's been a race soquickly.
Your staff I mean everybodyover in East Meadow, lori, in
Franklin Square, I mean I can'teven.
You know, you and Tom, you knowit's funny.
(12:20):
When I first met Tom, yourpartner, he talked about giving
back and how, when he waslooking over our numbers, he
said, wow, it really impressedme what you give back to your,
you know, in Rockville Centerand Florida Park and places
where we have offices.
It really really impressed himand that impressed me.
And I have to say anybodylistening right now, if you're
that guy who's got that smallbusiness, who you're fine anyway
, even if you're a goodsalesperson, now you were abc on
(12:49):
me that day, this all happenedafter golf, standing on a patio
overlooking the 18th hole, Imean I remember this, you know
so, yeah, um, to me it was, itwas, it was a great match made
in heaven and um you knoweverybody's happy.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Everybody's very happy.
Let me ask you a question, socan you walk our audience Sure
Through the whole concept of thedifference between running a
brokerage and the benefits of ofrunning a team and
repositioning Novus Realty Groupas the Novus Realty team?
You know so you obviously sawwhat we were doing and you're
(13:21):
looking towards the future.
Ok, so how has it impacted youas well as your team?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
well, you know I could say this, and you know
there's no way I can even answerthis question without
mentioning monique one more time.
Yeah, monique bowman's my, mypartner, by the way.
Monique is awesome, she'sincredible she is.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I mean, we know that, everybody knows that.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yes, you know she's like it's unbelievable because
she's like a partner, but butshe's also like mommy to
everybody, and everybody callsWillow and look, that enables me
to do what I do to market, togo to games.
I mean, I'm going to arestaurant on Monday night with
some clients.
We're going to the Yankee game.
A week later I have a clientI'm taking out today.
And I'm not saying that notevery other brokerage and team
(14:02):
leader doesn't do that.
I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is, when youthink you do it a lot, double it
.
Yeah, because that's where thebusiness comes from.
Yeah, so, to answer yourquestion, having a good dynamic
duo so you're not in two placesat one time, as you want,
correct, all right.
Also for us, you know there arestresses that go away with
(14:23):
having a team behind you likethat, and one of them is you
know, we're able to have all ofour open houses prepped really,
really well.
Gail, who was with usoriginally, who's now going to
be becoming an agent, she did anamazing job for us and to have
her do that for so many yearswas so helpful.
We've had a bunch over theyears that have done that stuff.
So now that she's going tobecome an agent, she'll see how
(14:45):
helpful it is in using your teamApplying.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Applying, applying all the experience that she was
exposed to.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
And I think that we were a little limited in our
time that we had to spend onsocial media in terms of I mean,
I don't think there's a dealthat goes up that we don't know
what everybody at Coldwell Bankis doing all over this area.
So it's always nice to see thatwe can see what everybody else
is doing.
Even something like this, thispodcast, I think it's great.
Anybody who's listening rightnow they have to believe me,
(15:12):
None of these answers werepre-rehearsed.
This is all coming from theheart.
I am so happy we are where weare.
You guys were very fair to usand we're to try to give you
everything we've got.
We know we will.
I think it's been a tumultuousrate level that we're at right
now, yeah, and I think that'sgoing to get fixed eventually
hopefully.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know, I'm kind of curious, like because when we
were talking about how thesynergies would line up, you
know, one of the things that Iknow we really delved into is
the redundancy of trying toduplicate things.
Well, whether it's payrollcompliance, you know, uh,
(15:54):
training, you know.
So, having that centralized andbeing able to plug into those
resources, how does?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
that help you.
You know it helps you becauseevery single time we think we
need to go over a topic, we'llget an email that says oh, by
the way, we're going over thistopic tomorrow.
It's like you're ahead of thegame.
Yeah, I'm going to tell youright now.
That's where I lacked.
Yeah, I wasn't ahead of thegame within the, the, the um, I
don't say the admin part of it,but more of the, because it's
such a good job.
I would say the confines of thebusiness, within the confines
(16:19):
of the business.
It's hard to pay attentionbecause things are changing all
the time.
We've seen the changes.
Oh, man, and then keep gettingchanging at a faster and faster
pace and they are, and I thinkyou know, educating the,
educating the agents the way youdo, yeah, and for us to be able
to educate the clients is areally, really good thing.
Our clients never question usyeah, and now that I think with
the colwell name behind us, it'sgoing to get even easier.
(16:39):
Yeah, when I say never questionus, our clients trust us,
implicit yeah.
And I'll go back to what I saidbefore Nobody ever stabbed each
other in the back.
Number one, number two we reallyhaven't had a lot of clients
who've said no, no, you're wrong, right, do you know?
One of the best this is goingto sound like an unusual thing
for a real estate thing One ofthe best recommendations we get
are from people who didn't hireus.
Do you know that?
(17:00):
Oh, yeah, I know that soundscrazy.
No, I feel you on this.
And I've had people call me andsay oh, you know what.
You sat in front of me, youtold me the truth on where we
should price it.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
And we hired somebody elsebecause they came in and told us
we were worth a billion dollarsand now we've changed the price
15 times.
We've had 27 open houses andguess where we sold it Exactly
where you said we should havesold it.
We would have told them to putit there and price it right and
(17:23):
let them fight.
We probably would have gottenmore money.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
One of the biggest challenges every realtor faces
is that they call it in theindustry buying listings right,
and you want to be forthrightand honest and true and yet you
know, sometimes honesty can costyou.
So it takes a lot of guts tolook a client in the eyes and
just stick to the truth, eventhough you know you're competing
(17:45):
against somebody who's throwingnumbers out, because they're,
yes, people.
And then it's hard for aconsumer to turn around and say,
wow, this other person'stelling me a hundred grand more.
I really like Sean and I thinkhe's telling the truth, but if
he's wrong, he's costing me ahundred grand Exactly right, and
it's human nature, by the way,yeah absolutely it doesn't make
him a bad person.
It's a lot of money to lose ifyou're wrong, and then what
(18:05):
happens is many times it'sexactly what you just said.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It's a fine a lot to make sure you tell them the
truth and you're honest withthem.
Yeah, it takes a lot more towalk when they don't listen.
Yes, because now you got to seethe other guy down the road
list it, yeah, and you're likeall right I lost.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I lost market share, exactly.
But you know what you didn't,you really didn't, but we've all
we've all made.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
We've all made the mistake right.
We've all taken the ones thatare too high, exactly, and you
end up.
You know you're getting burnt.
You know you're spending moneyon marketing.
You know you're driving around.
I'll be doing a drone video forsomething.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
It's just it's and you get this.
I've had had this a while back,obviously, and like, these
people look at you and it's likewell, if you're that good at
marketing, what do you mean?
You can't get my price.
I'm like, look, if I could sellhouses for a hundred thousand
dollars more than the worth, Iwouldn't be in brokerage.
I'd just be buying houses atmarket value and reselling them
for a hundred thousand more thanthe work.
Exactly, exactly so it's what Ithink, but they don't know.
People don't understand how ourbusiness works, and that's the
(18:57):
tricky part.
So it's so.
It's a matter of operating inthat environment and continue to
communicate, which is what youwell, I love what you really
were saying.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, it's connection and communication to the client
.
It is true, you have tocommunicate it to them and, like
I said, all times out of 100,they're going to sit and say you
know what?
We just do what you do.
We see what you do.
You're getting results.
Now, you know, I have severalthousand people who follow me on
Instagram and Facebook andstuff like that, which, for one
(19:26):
person, is a lot.
It's fantastic, it's good, andpeople do know who I am.
I've been this crazy my wholelife.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I mean you know, me too.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I mean who I am.
I've been this crazy my wholelife.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I mean, you know me too.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I mean right, so like so for me it's almost like, oh,
he's just connected from thebeginning.
Plus, we got the same colorhair.
So you know, you know it's,it's a um uh.
When they know you it's alittle bit easier.
But I gotta tell you I got alot of phone calls and, and you
know, dms on.
I don't even know what a dm wasuntil got Instagram.
Now I know my daughter's helpedme with that stuff.
But I'll tell you what.
You get a DM, you get a privatemessage or you get a text
(20:01):
message that says, hey, you know, I've seen what you do and I
love it.
Yeah, we had a guy who was aclient of ours a while ago.
This was in Wontore and he hadthis giant pool and we put a big
sold sign in big sold sign andI dove through the sold sign.
So people might be like, well,what's this guy selling tools?
No, but you're looking, aren'tyou looking?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Because when you look oh, by the way, you got about
10 houses for sale down theblock when did you get this idea
?
from One of the things I thinkis your gift, and we talked
about this is that is your focuson marketing your creativity,
if I may, and again, when wetalked about putting this deal
together and you joining theteam is taking stuff that drain
your hours, like payroll andcompliance, because they are
(20:42):
just drains of your resources,and like letting with removing
that off you, letting you flowerand focus on your gift.
And now, as you're doing this,where do you come up with an
idea that the house has a pool?
I'm jumping in?
Were you wearing a suit orsomething?
No, I was wearing a bathingsuit.
Oh yeah, I was definitelywearing a bathing suit.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Okay, and, by the way , you got to remember something
To make it fun and right.
It's only one take.
Yeah, you can't be the guy in awet bathing suit jumping into a
pool.
That's not fun.
You got to look dry.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know it's one.
Take on that.
One Can't mess that one up.
No, Look, you know I don't know.
The answer is I don't know.
Like I said, I've been likethis my whole life.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
You know I've been doing impersonations of people
and I do all these.
You know I've been a guybreaking chops on everybody.
Wait, you do impersonations.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I just learned something new I do I do a bunch
how much you got any bourbon inthis thing.
I'll tell you what.
There's no bourbon here.
Okay, that's my Rodney there wego.
That's pretty much it for me.
Justin's laughing back there.
Justin, I've been doing RodneyDangerfield since I was about
nine years old.
My father's like you're noteating Thanksgiving dinner
(21:51):
tonight unless you do, Rodney,for the whole table.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I say things like hey , hey-old with a running.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Oh, my voice is part of it.
My point is all you're doing isyou have to be yourself in this
business, but you have to.
I said it 50 times You've gotto be different, Be yourself and
be different.
And if you're the type ofperson who's scared to step out
of that shell, give me a call.
I'll help you.
If you're from Caldwell thefirm, don't call me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Call somebody else.
Well, are you entertainingadditional recruits?
Are you looking to build yourteam?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Oh, yeah, I mean our team, our team that we started
with, and of course, I would,you know, and I anybody who's
like I said, anybody who'slistening, who wants to.
You know, just let your hairdown, you, just you let it all
out the best.
This is what I tell people too.
There's many people scared toget in front of a video, even
their own phone, right, but Itell them, the good news is
you're by yourself.
(22:38):
So if you screw it up, do itagain, right, exactly.
You know how many times I haveto do a bunch of takes because
you know, like, the other day, Iwas doing this thing.
I was, I was doing this thing.
I saw this picture on a wall.
You'll see it if you look me.
So all I did was stick my headin front of him and go.
Like the people were crackingup laughing.
It got, like, you know, 2,500views, two listings out of that.
(23:01):
Really, well, yeah, becausepeople oh, by the way, again
it's back to oh, I thought aboutyou, I was thinking about you,
I got to give you a call.
I know you're in the businessthe house too.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Exactly, I recently bought a.
I had seen this Jeep that I hadfixed up.
It's got the American flag.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen it.
I love it.
It's cool, right, yeah, it's.
What year is that Jeep?
It's a 1991.
It's been pretty much fullyrefurbished and again it's back
to that type of stuff.
It's a constant reminder.
But Wait, the wrap.
Tell them about the wrap.
Well, the wrap.
So the wrap's all American flagday.
I got it.
It has been.
I made sure I had the Novuslogo on the back.
It's.
We were just Novus at the timeand I drive to a red light.
This is the first day, so I gotit at 12 o'clock.
(23:40):
By two o'clock I'm at a redlight in Valley stream.
I get a guy come over.
He's got a Marine tattoo on.
He goes.
I love that Jeep.
Follow me.
I want you to sell mygrandmother's house which we did
no-transcript.
(24:04):
The lacrosse there's a biglacrosse tournament every year
so you help out with that help.
Multi-equip yeah, they take theNets.
Booy four is a big company thatthat sells all the equipment at
these things.
So the company Buoy Four, theseguys borrow our van In Floral
Park.
If I can mention the HansFamily Foundation, okay, please.
We hold them near and dear toour hearts.
(24:26):
This is the iconic accidentthat happened 15 years ago today
ironically oh, is it Really?
Speaker 1 (24:32):
With the three little girls who lost their?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
lives, yeah, and we're so close with the family,
with the Hans family and withWarren and Jackie and their
daughter Casey yeah, andeverybody involved in the
foundation, and they have a hugeevent every year.
They borrow our van for alltheir events.
We actually got the van so wecould help out with stuff like
that.
You know Perfect.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It means got the vent so we could help out with stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know it means a lot to us.
Yeah, it really really does so.
Yeah, and they're justwonderful, wonderful people.
So, uh, it's just, it's acharity that's so near and dear
to us.
Ironically, it's 15 years today.
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, yeah, we just started to talk.
No, that's awesome, that'sawesome.
I'm glad you shared that.
Um, I want to kind of gobackwards a little bit to
something.
So, um, I'm hearing all aboutthe unique marketing and you can
.
It's, it's apparent and obviousyour personality jumps out off
the screen.
I'm sure and I'm going back tothe nine-year-old Sean who's
(25:24):
doing Rodney impersonations andI'm thinking there's a rumor out
here that you did commercialswhen you were a youngster.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I did good rumor too.
That rumor is true by the way,it's a true rumor.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Okay, so it's not just BS.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
No, it's true, Did you?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
do more than one commercial or just one
commercial.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, I got a couple of crazy stories.
This is great.
So I had a very short-livedcareer.
You have to understandsomething.
I was about eight, yeah, butI'm doing the part of a
four-year-old, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I could read.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I'm like all right, no problem, I was the sizzling
bacon kid.
Remember that bacon?
Yeah, hey.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Ma, did you bring home the bacon?
Uh-uh, brought home thesizzling.
Don't bring home the bacon,think lean.
Bring home the sizzling.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Evidently they took it off the shelves because it
was bad for people's health.
So if anybody got sick fromthat I apologize.
I was only seven or eight.
I don't think you're culpable.
I don't think so.
So, yes, I did Sizzling BaconRuffles, potato Chips.
I did a bunch of commercials,but again, it was easy for the
directors that I looked so young.
Yeah, you know, I was eightyears old and I'm doing these
commercials where I'm playing apart of a four or five year old.
Yeah, guess what the kids I wasauditioning against.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
They couldn't to this .
Yeah, of course my hair's notso red anymore, but yeah, so you
know.
So how do you get?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
into commercials at eight years old.
I was with my mom.
We went into the city with ourfriend Edie Collins.
Her son was doing them, hernephew Ryan was doing them, and
the guy goes I heard this kidtalking out there, bring him in
here.
So I went in there, so we starttalking and he goes you want to
do commercials?
I'm like, yeah, do I get paid?
That's the first thing I asked.
Of course they did pay me acouple bucks and then it just
(27:00):
kind of snowballed.
We did a lot.
I did get this is true, I didget the part for Kramer vs
Kramer the movie.
Oh really, yeah, my motherwouldn't let me do the movie
because we're Roman Catholic andthere was a nude scene.
So she pulled me the part.
They gave it to some other kid,but I don't know, maybe he's
got his own real estate companytoo somewhere else I doubt it
though.
Yeah, right, um, so that's true,and then that was kind of, you
(27:20):
know, that was again.
It's just, you just got to beyourself.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
That's awesome yeah, that's pretty funny.
All right, so before I go anyfurther, um, I just want to
remind our viewers again stayfor the drop the mic question at
the very end and don't forgetto like and subscribe.
So we talk a lot about playinghard and we've actually touched
on this a little bit.
Tell us about the.
You know the personal life ofSean falling, you know so like
(27:44):
well, I'm so.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I have a lovely wife.
Her name is Kristen.
I have three beautiful girlsGracie, katie and Lexi.
Yeah, they are, they'reincredible and we, you know, we
live for them, you know.
And again, I think I'll go backto what I said before I I had a
great job working in the city.
I just didn't want to do itanymore, I didn't want to be.
You know, texting was justbecoming popular at the time.
(28:06):
I remember when I left, like itwas it was around but it wasn't
as prevalent as it is now.
Right, and I I remember being onthe train and I'd see all these
guys texting like they're somiserable at six o'clock in the
morning on the train and I'mlike I don't want this, I don't
want to do this anymore.
So when I left I had allintentions of never, ever,
missing anything of theirs andas a father I can honestly say
I've never missed a thing.
(28:27):
Never missed a softball game,never missed.
You know, I have my older oneand my younger one.
They're dancers.
I've never missed anythingGreat.
You know, they dance at MissColleen's Elite Dance Studio in
Rockville Center and they loveit and I've never missed
anything of theirs because Iknow it's important to them and
I couldn't do that, I couldn'tsay that my middle daughter,
katie, she's an artist and she'san actress, really so that ham
(28:49):
business runs in the family,yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Come on getting commercials.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Let's see, she's getting all the.
She's getting a lot of the lead, I shouldn't say all the leads.
She gets a lot of the leads andshe's a great team player.
She doesn't get a lead in thepark.
She's, she's good, you know.
So, so, so proud of her, and mywife's just an unbelievable.
She's actually, ironically,working at St Francis prep,
(29:13):
where I used to work really hardat everything, right, so having
a family, making sure you allowenough time for them.
I'm the one who gets yelled atfor being on the cell phone too
much, instead of me yelling atthe kids.
Unfortunately, just ourbusiness doesn't sleep, but it's
something that they've grown tosort of understand.
But we do a lot.
We do a lot with them.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We try to make as many memories as possible
memories as possible now, withthe sheer demand of being in
real estate.
It's a seven day a week,24-hour job, as it seems like,
and then, of course, thefull-time job of being husband,
dad, yeah, you know.
Um, what does sean foley do forrelaxation?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
you know um, I guess I guess sleep for relaxation
right now I'm only kidding.
Um, look, I love, uh know, I'mfortunate enough to belong to
Hempstead Golf and Country Clubwhere I met you.
Yes, which to me, you knowthat's been, it's been a it's
hard to explain because it'ssuch a home.
I mean, you know we hold theplace near and dear to our
hearts both of us.
Yes, yeah, and you know that'slike another family, you know,
(30:12):
and it's been great.
I've been fortunate up there tomeet so many people who have
become such good friends.
There was never the real estatepitch.
I never bring up real estatethere ever.
They come to me because theykind of know that I'm very, very
in tune with it.
But I've had, like Floral Parkand Rockville Center, all those
(30:33):
friends that were so good to me.
I think the clients reallyappreciate that.
They know it's a long day, theyknow it's sometimes an
expensive day and theyappreciate that.
They look and say you broughtme out for a great day, I'm not
going to forget you.
And again it just comesnaturally.
What's your handicap down to?
Well, now it's up to.
I did have my hip replaced lastyear so I slowed it down a
(30:58):
little bit, but I'm up to aboutan 11.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So that's okay, I'll take that All right.
Well, you're not working hardenough, because my handicap is
way higher than that.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well, I'll be 55 years old on Sunday, so I said
if I could business.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, I mean what the heck?
Blue skies, green grass youcan't complain about much, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Hit a bad shot move on.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Exactly, you know Exactly.
I don't call a bad shot if Ihit a bad tree.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You hit a bad tree.
Yeah, I haven't seen you playyet because we were in different
groups the last time.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Trees yeah, because I'm find a way to hey this guy's
gonna need a tree wood.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
You know what I mean?
Yes, uh.
So, look, you know, I, as faras me, as what I like to do, I
love to do that.
I love spending time with mykids and we do a lot of that.
Uh, we, every time we dosomething cool.
We call it making a memory.
Yeah, I mean.
So.
My daughter was sick last week.
The other two were down in inpennsylvania at a dance
competition.
She got better and she lookedat me "'Can we make a memory and
(31:55):
just go right now' I said,let's go.
So four hours later I waseating more chocolate bars than
the Reese's peanut butter guy.
Forget about it.
I came home about 20 poundsheavier, but it was great.
It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So let me ask you a different question.
Sure, who would you considerhas been, like, the biggest
influence on your life?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I have to say by far my parents.
Okay, you know, they you know Igotta tell you, when I was
starting to be you know, Istarted to become an adult.
So you call it whatever youknow, 19, 20, whatever the real
adult is 21,.
When you get out of college andyou're thinking about what
you're gonna do, my father justasked me.
He said just do me one favor.
Just, you know, and I'm notknocking, coming to police
(32:36):
officer.
He just didn't want me to dothat, you know, cause he was a
policeman for so many years andI'm so appreciative of his job,
Tough job.
And he asked me not to do thatand he said but I'll support you
in anything you do.
My father wanted me to go towall street when I was 18 years
old.
I know he is the one who, if Ihave to sit down and have some
sound advice, I know I can sitdown with her and I can trust
(33:00):
what she's going to give it tome straight and I'm going to
trust her.
So my parents were absolutelythe biggest influences on my
life Now.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I met your father and he seems to be quite the
character also.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
He's a character.
Is that where you get thatenergy from?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I guess so he.
I guess so he is a character.
I'll tell you that he must havebeen a wild man in his youth.
Call it instinct.
I don't know if that's fact, Idon't know.
I'm louder than he is.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh yeah, If you're on the golf course, if you're on
the tent pole, you'll hear me onthe third hole.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
That's a fact, by the way.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Last Saturday I heard you.
That's definitely folly.
No, I heard, let's go, let's go.
Well, I say that after everyball goes in the hole, so you're
going to hear that about 18times around.
But my father is not as loud orwild, but there's an episode.
I always compare my father tosomebody.
There's an episode ofGilligan's Island.
Poor Justin probably never evenheard of the show he's too
young, but he probably hasGilligan's Island.
(33:52):
There's an episode where theguy is called Simon the Likeable
and every time you meet him youlike him.
My father is like Simon theLikeable.
Yeah, he's a guy who the secondyou meet him, as soon as you
hear his laugh, you instantlylove him Contagious.
It's contagious, you can see it,he's got like that smile, his
body language.
Exactly, he just cracks up,there's an aura about him.
(34:17):
That's just fun, and my motheris his biggest fan so she laughs
right behind them because youknow, so it's, it's nice and I'm
very blessed.
You know, my father's 85 yearsold, my mother's 79, um.
So I'm very blessed to havethem both um and I, and I
treasure it.
I try to, I try to spend asmuch time with them as I can
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's good.
I'm glad to hear that.
Otherwise I have to, you know,sit you down for a good time you
put me in a different colorjersey that was another match
made in heaven, same color.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
We're almost the same blue, youknow?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
yes, exactly exactly um very happy, everybody's happy
, they really are so good.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
So let's come back to the charity, because obviously
we talk about work hard, playhard and give back and that's
the you know real focus.
I think we've tried to build awell-rounded agent career and
obviously hard work is at thefundamental, but not losing
focus on family and personal andwho you are personally is
important, because with sevenday a week job you can lose
(35:07):
yourself a little bit and thentrying to keep that time with
giving back and I know youtalked about the Hands
Foundation but I know you do alot of other charity work and
stuff Anything else near anddear to your heart.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, I mean I like to share a story about you know.
There's a basketball coachnamed Rick Pitino.
He coaches St John's now.
Rick's had an incrediblepedigree in the game of
basketball.
Absolutely it's funny.
I met Rick at a.
It's actually a really greatstory.
If I may, please, please, I met.
Rick at a Yankee game in 2003 or2004.
I don't remember the exact year.
So we were talking and he tooka liking to me and he said you
(35:38):
know it's something about you.
I took a liking to you.
I don't know what it is aboutyou, but you know.
So we started talking, webecame friends.
But I've never done in my lifeand I went alone because I was
supposed to go with my friend,Tommy, who sadly lost his son to
SIDS Sudden Infant DeathSyndrome.
Now, I had been telling CoachPatino about this.
That night we were just talking.
I said that's why I'm alone atthe game and I was lucky enough
(36:01):
to get up there during a raindelay because my friend, a
friend of mine named JJ, got methrough there.
Long story short, we becamefriends and he said to me you
know, I lost a son to sids.
Now, I had forgotten that andI'll never forget the way he
treated me.
And he said we have afoundation in my son's name, the
daniel patino foundation.
So I did not know this.
Yeah, so they actually pulledthe bus over to tell him the bad
(36:24):
news in 1987 when he was thecoach of providence, right?
So that's the other one that Ialways hold near and dear to my
heart and there's always a few.
Yes, there's so many, and StBaldrick's and all these,
there's just so many.
But when you ask me near anddear to my heart, I always think
of the Hans family, yeah, and Ithink of the Patino family,
(36:45):
yeah, and there's been sometragedy in my hometown.
There's been the Malone girlswho passed away.
They have a nice thing thatthey do for them every year.
Recently we had this kid,Christopher Pataglia, who passed
away.
He was a Kellenberg kid.
So anytime you hear stuff likeand there's so many more, and if
(37:06):
I'm leaving anybody out, Ireally apologize, obviously, but
you know we don't rehearse anyof these questions, so I'm just
giving you what's on the top ofmind at the moment.
But you know you can't.
You have to always make surethat you don't overstep, but you
try to help out as much as youcan and contribute as much as
you can, and sometimes you can't.
You know I've had conversationswith my friend, Warren Hanson.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I said look, you know this year I got to tone
understanding.
But when you can you do, that'sit.
Yes, yeah, I, I like that.
That's that, I think, is thefundamental truth when you can
you do, when you can you do andthat's the at the heart of what
giving back really is right,absolutely so, that's awesome.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
All right, good, um, so what Iwant to do is I want to pivot to
(37:41):
the drop the mic question, allright.
So here's the drop the micquestion.
So we, we had a little insightahead of time about your
commercial success as a youth,and so, and we see your
marketing today and we say, okay, sean Farley has the
opportunity to represent anyproduct on TV in a commercial
(38:04):
today.
What product are you gonnarepresent?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Hmm, wow, that's definitely a drop the mic
question.
So I have the opportunity torepresent any product.
Does it have to be real estaterelated?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
No, huh Um that's a drop the mic question for sure.
I know it wouldn't be sizzling,it wouldn't be sizzling.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'd get in trouble for that.
I don't think it'd be ruffleseither.
I think I've moved on to thechips that don't get you as
heavy.
Well, you know what?
I'll tell you what.
Not that he needs it, becausehe's already done so.
Well, but there's a guy namedMike Rapoli who I went to
college with.
Mike is the original vitaminwater guy and he's gone on to be
(38:46):
a success.
I think my passion because I'mwatching him with his passion
it's horse racing.
Probably horse racing in somerespect.
Okay, I lived in an apartment inFloral Park.
When I first moved out of myparents' house, I was about 22,
I guess 23.
I bought a place in Floral Parkand every day these old ladies
would sit in the courtyard andthey'd see me going in and out
of the apartment and they werelike how'd you do today?
(39:07):
I'm like good, great.
I didn't know what the heckthey were talking about.
How was today Good?
Then they'd say, like, did youhave a lot of mounts today?
I'm like mounts.
I'm like yeah, I guess.
Yeah, a lot of mounts.
I had no idea what the hellthey were talking about.
I know where this is I said yeah, I'm going to go to Saratoga on
vacation.
So like well, how many horsesare you going to be riding?
I'm like wait a minute.
(39:28):
Do you people think I'm ajockey?
They thought I was a jockey.
From that moment forward, Ifell in love with horse racing.
I always wanted to be one bythat time, believe it or not,
and I'll never say this.
By that time I was too tall.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I was like 5'7" and I in some capacity.
All right, so we'll put your uhname in the hat for belmont
park or for the national racinguh nyra is it myr, yeah, I'm in
all those hats.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yes, yeah, I'm on all those gambling websites.
I love them, um, but yeah, so Iguess.
Yeah, naira bets.
I mean, if I'm up here, brandy,they better pass you know what?
Go over to get a check here Imean these guys.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Why not?
Why not?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I'll be your agent uh , if they make bigger horses,
maybe I can get up on one.
But yeah, that was my dream soI figured I would answer that.
So I'm sorry, I stayed sospeechless for so long I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
No, I'm glad I didn't think I would ever find you
speechless, so I'm amused bythat already.
So that was worth.
It was worth the wait.
Good, I'm glad it was worth thewait so okay, I think we're in
a good spot here.
I just really want to thank ouraudience for joining us today at
the work hard, play hard andgive back a real estate podcast.
Um, again, please like,subscribe and uh, tune in to our
next episode in in, uh, twoweeks it drops.
(40:36):
Okay, sean, it was great havingyou on the show today.
I really appreciate it yeah, Iappreciate you taking the time
to be here and share yourexperience and uh stories with
our audience here, and so ifanyone our audience wants to
reach out and and work with orreach Sean Farley or the Novus
Realty team at Coldwell BankerAmerican Homes, where do they
(40:57):
find you Well?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
I mean, we use Instagram, such a great platform
, so I'd say just, you know,shoot me a message on Instagram.
We're Sean Farley, underscoreNovus, underscore Realty.
Novus is N-O-V-U-S and it'spronounced Novus, not novice.
If you call me novice, justcall somebody else.
Uh, it just makes it sound likeI don't know what we're doing
and we know everything that wedo.
Um, so it's yeah, so it's seanfoley, underscore novice,
(41:19):
underscore realty, and then youcan call our main line is
monique's line, it's914-608-3939, and uh, yeah, I
mean, look if anybody's outthere and if anybody's out there
that's going to get into realestate and you want to be part
of a really really good and areally good winning team.
I mean, I have to say that withthe acquisition, our market
share in that area has gone uptremendously right away so it's
(41:40):
great, great for you, great forus.
No-transcript place.
Half of them come back anywaybecause they're unhappy.
So it's, you know so, and wedon't lose a lot of people.
We've had the same team forgreat group, really really nice.
(42:02):
I mean, you've been out withthem.
Yeah, you know, it's just agreat, great group of people.
It really is.
And again, I apologize, Icouldn't name everybody on the
team.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
No, no, no, it's good , it just came to my head.
Anyone have a call.
You got the office number.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Do you want to give it?
Yeah, I there.
You go there.
You have it Surprised.
Nobody took that one.
We tried for sold.
It wasn't available, so wesettled for home.
Perfect Great day today, thoughI appreciate being on the show.
It was great yes.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
So great to have you here, buddy.
Thank you, mike.
All right awesome.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.