Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry

When you look at high performers, it’s hard to tell exactly what they do differently, but what’s clear is that their results aren’t the same as ours. Many people try to mimic them on the surface - eat what they eat, read the books they read, go where they go, but it doesn’t work.  You know what you’re supposed to do, you’ve got the tactics, the information and you spend thousands on coaching and m...

The NAR buyer’s agent litigation has been a huge topic and concern for agents across the country for months. Now that the lawsuit has been settled, there’s a lot of panic, knee-jerk reactions, assumptions and worries about what it means.  Are we in trouble? Should we be worried about our future? No.  It’s just too soon to make a final conclusion on the matter. Everyone’s thinking that this is bad...

In today’s market, most of us are coming up against the same problem - belligerent sellers who think their home is worth more than everyone’s saying it is. Under normal circumstances, that means no deal, but there’s strategy for these kinds of leads, creative finance.  Creative finance is an incredibly simple strategy that many in real estate treat as illegal or wrong. The truth is, the people who...

In a good market, the gap between great agents and average agents is virtually non-existent - it’s anyone’s game. When the market turns, the gap between the good and the great becomes so wide, it’s the difference between earning money and leaving the business entirely. Doubling your business in a down market is possible, but it’s not by chance.  You and your team have to be so different that selle...

Adults don’t need to be instructed, they simply need to be reminded.   Pain will always be the leader in the lessons of our lives. If you chase the pain, you learn the lessons quicker. Chase the pain of growth, the pain of the next level. The things you have avoided will always show up on your doorstep like a bill collector.  The better you get in your life, the better your business gets. How can...

In our industry, owning a brokerage has always been seen as the pinnacle of success. But for many owners who love what real estate offers but not running a brokerage, it’s a necessary evil.  Owning a brokerage is a doorway to many great things, but what happens when that starts to hinder your excellence in the areas you really care about? That’s where Keith Riddle found himself. After becoming an...

Making a change, whether it’s to a belief system, a business model or brokerage is something many people won’t do, even if it would benefit them. Only people who think critically and aren’t caught up in ego are willing to shift how they see things when presented with new information.  Being willing to change our beliefs publicly means people reminding us of what we believed or said before, or even...

Profit - it’s the whole entire point that we run businesses. For such a critical, and even fundamental topic, agents will talk about everything else but whether or not they are making a profit, and there’s a reason.  Staying on top of your numbers requires a scary level of maturity. Whatever financial decision we make has an impact on the bottom line, and that level of responsibility is so uncomfo...

In the conversation about scaling our real estate businesses, systems come up a lot, but that’s not the first and most important thing. Systems come a distant second to people, because ultimately, how can we step out of specific roles and tasks if we have no one to hand them off to?  Because we don’t put the necessary premium on hiring and people, we don’t get to fully experience their effect. Lik...

Intro Paragraph/Email  Without a doubt, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are 2 of the greatest investing minds of all time. Because they’ve been at it for so long, they’ve seen market highs and market lows,  and built a massive holding company where the main share trades at $538k.  These guys have got to know a thing or two about how to build and keep wealth. That’s why thousands go to their annu...

Anytime an agent gets an appointment from a cold call, it’s like walking into a war zone. They don’t know you, like you or trust you, so they aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy when you go and meet them…unless they’ve already viewed a ton of your content online.    Having a YouTube channel can take people from not knowing who you are to rolling out the red carpet for you. It warms the lead up before yo...

In real estate, agents, teams and business models don’t fit in one box, but we constantly fall into the trap of doing things one specific way. People start teams because it’s the next indicated step, what everyone else is doing or an ego boost, not because it’s what works for them. If ego, identity and emotion weren’t part of our decision making, the paths we’d take would be more authentic. If we...

We may not see it this way, but real estate isn’t as risky as we think. In fact, in many ways, we’re conditioned against taking risks, and that’s why leverage is such a hard concept for the majority of our industry. Think about the restaurant business - leverage is built in from day 1, you know that you’ll need a manager, front of house, chefs and servers so you take loans and do what you need for...

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” On any given day, we’re walking a tightrope between success and failure, but when we’re in a good market and a time of abundance, we don’t see how thin that line is. Right now, we’re in a time where our bad decisions, bad business practices and bad habits are being exposed.    Leadership is a constant conversation of caring...

2023 was rough for a lot of people. Agents and teams were selling less homes. Pending transactions hit their lowest number in 2 decades, and most pipelines were drier than ever before. On top of that, the NAR lawsuit verdicts shook things up for the entire industry, so many agents feel like they are getting hit from different directions.    There is good news on the horizon though. If you’ve manag...

At this time of the year, people tend to get more reflective about the last 12 months. December 31st hangs over our heads, and this imaginary finish line forces us to really think about what we’ve accomplished, and what we want for ourselves next year. This is especially true in real estate, considering what the market has been like and how it has affected a lot of people’s businesses.    As we ta...

With most of the people I see who have over 30 years in the business, it shows on their faces. I’m excited everyday, I look forward to my day, I look forward to meeting great people in the business everyday. -Rick Geha    I’m reminded of how exciting life can be if you’re willing to do the boring basics and the things that are uncomfortable so you can have the things you want. -Rick Geha    People...

Whether it’s a traditional real estate team, an investment portfolio or a fulfilling life - building anything great is a process of constantly asking ourselves big questions and challenging whatever we believe. It’s really easy to copycat our way to success until we find ourselves up the wrong mountain. The only way to combat this is to take everything we believe and pierce holes in it - play devi...

The gift of real estate is that we can generate leads the way we want, as long as we systematize it. Not everyone in real estate wants to cold call, door knock and have a business that relies on speed-to-lead. Some agents don’t want to do open houses because they treasure weekends with their kids. Laura Griffin found herself in this predicament, and the perfect solution presented itself - starting...

To have staying power in real estate, mindset and the ability to pivot is key. We have to be willing to make big changes to our models, and have the courage to do things differently. The problem is: many business owners get their identity so wrapped up in what they’ve been doing that making such a change is too hard.    We get so caught up in what we’ve done for the last 2,5 or 10 years that we wo...

In today’s special episode of the podcast, we’re bringing you into two episodes of No Days Off, Brian Gubernick’s show. If you care about getting better, there’s no such thing as taking time off from the things that allow you to grow and reach your dreams. Every new day is an opportunity to get better, and today, Brian shares how we can become better real estate investors.    Brian Gubernick is a...

When you look at successful and influential authors like Robert Greene and Ryan Holiday, it’s easy to think they are geniuses whose greatness comes easy to them. This gives us an excuse not to put effort into achieving what we want. In order to write their books, they have to enhance their identity, put a lot of work and intensity into that project, and have freakish commitment to accomplishing th...

In an industry that celebrates making rain, GCI, units and volume, it’s really easy to lose sight of why we got into real estate in the first place. Most of us got into this for our families and for freedom to spend time with them. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we forget and find ourselves working too much, prioritizing the next meeting,  appointment and commission check.    It’s only wh...

Real estate and mortgage are businesses where we can earn more by doubling down on the thing we know (production) or force growth through other people. Agents and LOs often choose the former, so they take steps away from buying back their time, experiencing freedom and making room for other opportunities.    Though doing more production pays us in the present, forcing growth through other people u...

In real estate, whoever controls the leads, controls the business - they call the shots. The rise of online lead sites like Zillow Flex means another way to generate leads, but also another entity making a claim on our earnings. The fact that a marketing company can come in and do something we can be equipped to do says a lot.    Our understanding of online leads and what the process of generating...