The Core Truth with Peter Hernandez

Adapt to the current macroeconomic situation and spot the opportunity. Pay attention to what's going on in the world, don't become afraid of it.

For many of you early in your careers you are struggling to get your businesses going. For me, I spent ten long years trying to get my business going, kind of hitting that same mediocre level year after year, after year. It wasn't until I learned the skill of developing a positive mental attitude that my business and career took off.

One of the most important lessons I've learned as an agent, as a business owner, as an executive, as a manager, is learning to stay in my lane. If everyone stays in their lane and doesn't try to get involved in everything else, it runs more efficiently and smoothly. Stay in your lane.

I'm joined by Dave Werth, a leader, business coach, and Director of Business Development at Douglas Elliman. Dave has 15+ years of experience building, leading and consulting for businesses that range from start-ups to eight-figures in annual revenue and some amazing real estate agents you might know!

I've been around for 50 years doing this business, and I have never, ever seen a marketplace where inventory's so tight. For sellers out there, what a great time to sell. But this is for agents. Don't be afraid to take an overpriced listing right now. And further, don't even be afraid to call all of your clients and say, “if you could get a stupid price for your property, what would that price be”...

360 degree coaching means that I learn from you, you learn from me, and at every level in the organization, we can learn from each other. Not having a company of know-it-alls, leaving your ego at the door, but saying to the person that you're working with, "I want you to coach me on this". Because everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach.

Sometimes agents will say "it doesn't matter where I am, nobody cares. They just want to list with me." But I just completely disagree with that. If I'm at a company where the culture, the environment inspires me, motivates me, where I'm learning constantly, where people are smarter than me, where there's agents that are better than me, people fully engaged in the business there to help their agen...

1. Marketing. Clients complain that they didn't market the property enough. A lot of that is just not showing the clients what you're doing marketing wise and keeping them up to date on every aspect of your marketing.   2. Follow up & follow through. Clients feel like you're not doing that. You're not following up with the clients. You're not doing what you said you would do to market the...

So many agents qualify buyers by 'are they pre qualified with a bank?' Yeah, you got to get prequalified by a bank for sure, but I think that's the least important qualification for a buyer. I have four things that whether it's a buyer or seller, is the way to qualify clients to figure out whether or not you should be even working with them. If they hit all four of those requirements, I say work w...

Like a great sports team or rock band, even a great movie. Every entity needs a very, very strong leader, somebody that represents the company. I think what you have to decide, is that you or do you need to have someone else do that for you? Either way is cool, but make sure you have a real strong person out front, leading the company, being that front person.

Am I mentally sharp? Am I physically fit? Am I emotionally balanced? Am I developing my spiritual side? These are the areas I focus on every day. Working on yourself every single day to me, is one of the greatest gifts of life. To get a little bit better, incrementally better. I think this makes us a better person. It makes the world better. I think self improvement is a no-brainer. 

Have you ever wondered what your value proposition is? What's your purpose in your business and your career? Is it about you or about others? Which mindset do you think works better?

This is a question every business person and entrepreneur must ask themselves. Because if you market to everyone, you market to no one. Whether you're building your brand, building your value proposition, or even writing a business plan, identify your clients, your target market by considering their pain points, their dreams and aspirations and their fears. Because using the old theory, of spray a...

Did you realize that other agents within your firm and outside your firm are your secondary clients? Let me give you three tips to build great relationships with other agents. I guarantee it, you'll get more deals done.

As a young man, when I entered the real estate business my dad pulled me aside and he told me, "your reputation is everything". He basically said this: it takes years to build a good reputation, but seconds to tear one down.

Maybe you're not sure. See if you have the proper support structure and systems in place. Here's a few things to consider. If you do all these things, you are guaranteed to be successful.

When you want to scale your business and you want to really grow big, the secret is getting a great operator because somebody that's really good at operations is going to give you the ability to scale. There are several things that operators do that are a unique skill set.

Everybody needs a coach. Top CEOs, top real estate agents, top athletes, all have coaches. When you're picking a coach, make sure they have what you want, make sure they have experience and have done well in what you want to do. And finally, make sure they get you.

At the end of the day, when you really think about why some people succeed and why some don't, I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's work ethic because work ethic trumps intelligence.

When you finally sit down to do your business plan, I always recommend you start with a SWOT analysis. Here you consider your strengths, your weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats to your success.

We often hear about this concept of “there's no hero's welcome”. But what does it mean when we say no hero's welcome? For some reason, I don't know if it's jealousy or people are afraid themselves for not doing what they want to do, but people tend to try to discourage us from taking on whatever we want to do. There's always going to be those people that are going to tell you you can't do it or no...

Anxiety, worry, burnout, hard time sleeping, no time for yourself, no balance in your life - we're facing this every day as real estate agents, and we aren't taking time to focus on the 5 pillars. The reason these things don't happen is because we want to be there for our clients and we want to be the best professionals we can.

We know inventory is really, really tight right now and we know it's super competitive out there. So if you want to get really, really good on your listing pitch, record yourself on video.

I was thinking the other day about when I go to the CrossFit gym, the people I work out with, whether they're at the college level or my age or anywhere in between, they're all so smart. They're all at the top of their fields and they're doing CrossFit, they're doing it consistently and they're enthusiastic about it. And then the conclusion I drew from that was that smart people think it's importa...

Is “vision” separate from “why”? Are they the same thing? I would actually say they're different, and I think they're both very, very important to actually accomplishing your goal. I might even put more importance on vision, because vision can become your why. “Why” is important too. But there's something about having a clear vision where you know exactly what you're going to build or exactly what...