Guru Jamie Smock with FC Tucker

Rick Ripma: 0:01

Welcome to Indy's Real Estate Gurus. We're recording today from the advisors Mortgage Group studios right here in Carmel, Indiana. And I'm Rick Ripma, your hardworking mortgage guy. I've been in mortgages and real estate for over 34 years, I have helped over 5200 folks finance their homes, my team, and I believe in custom tailored loans, not the one size fits all approach, we believe there is the right mortgage for you. And we believe we are the team to deliver it.

Ian Arnold: 0:27

And Ian Arnold part of Rick's hard working mortgage team. I've been in the financial industry for 15 years helping people rebuild their credit, and to get the best interest rates for them. I've also have a passion in helping you secure your future in generational wealth through if I could talk through real estate and helping you pay off your home faster and even get you into rental properties if you want to do that.

Rick Ripma: 0:53

And as we get started, if you have any questions on India's real estate market or on mortgages, go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. Or you can call in arayat 317672. Is that right? 317-672-1938. Man, you did that to me? 31767 to 1938. And today, we're really excited to have Jamie schmuck. Dice pronounced that right. Yeah. All right. And you're with FC Tucker. Yeah. And you have a great background. We want to talk talk some about that. But thanks so much for joining us. We're

Jamie Smock: 1:28

excited to be here. Thank you.

Rick Ripma: 1:29

You've done. You've made a transition into real estate. You've been in real estate for quite some time. But what did you do before real estate?

Jamie Smock: 1:36

Yeah, so my dream when I was in college was to be a, there were two things that influenced me. Rush Limbaugh was just kind of being a big deal back then. Right, late 80s, that kind of thing. And I was into talk radio, but sports was my life. I went to college to play hockey. And then they told me in order to do that, I had to choose a major and actually study something. And I said, Well, I guess I'll go into broadcasting and sports ended up being that avenue that I ended up on so I was a play by play broadcaster, mostly in ice hockey. I did a lot of other sports as well. Mostly in radio, but also a little bit of TV. So for 13 years, I was a professional broadcaster, mostly doing play by play sports. What college I went to the Brockport state. So I grew up in Western New York, Rochester, New York, and the State University of New York College at Brockport. Right so part of the SUNY school system there. And that's where I went to school.

Rick Ripma: 2:37

And how did you end up in Indiana? Yeah, so

Jamie Smock: 2:39

my wife's family all migrated from West Virginia to Indianapolis, many moons ago, just kind of my wife's brother got a job out here hired his other brother, they both married women here from fishers and kind of settled down, had kids, etc. We would visit all the time. And then eventually, you know, the business I was in, it was a lot of travel, a lot of hours, not a ton of pay, it was getting really difficult. And so once we had our second child, we kind of looked at things and said, man, we got to get closer to family, and didn't have much interest in going back to Western New York. Didn't have any interest in going back to West Virginia. And we knew the family was here in Indianapolis. And it's been the best move we've ever made. It's a phenomenal place to raise a family for sure.

Rick Ripma: 3:24

Yeah, it is a great place. So when you came here, did you get right into real estate? Or what did you do when you go Oh,

Jamie Smock: 3:30

actually, you know, I had a few meetings about broadcasting, I wanted to keep scratching that itch best I could, I wanted to continue to pursue it. And it just wasn't working out. I didn't have many contacts in Indy, you know, I knew a couple of guys. I remember, you know, sitting down and having beers with Mark Boyle and talking to him because I as a big fan of his and I got to meet him through somebody can't remember who it was and introduced me to him. And he was great and tried to help me a little bit as well. But there just wasn't a good opportunity for it. So I was a stay at home dad for about a half a year, maybe three quarters of a year. And then I guess it was less than that, actually. So it was only it was about a half a year and then ended up getting into real estate just was something that I was always interested in. Didn't know what it was about to work in the business. And went got my license kind of dove into it just to see what it would be like being my own boss for the first time in my life as well. And God was looking out for me because it was the greatest decision I've ever made in my life. I really, I don't I don't really miss the broadcast side of things a whole lot. I miss the energy of a game day. I miss the action and I like this right here. It's just all the other garbage. I don't miss that right. This right here. So but man real estate's been an unbelievable blessing to me and my family. I really, really enjoy it, you can be competitive in it, just like you can, in most industries, certainly is competitive, which I like that, you know, the wealth that you can develop is very strong. I like that as well. And then every day is different, right? You guys see that as well, even even in a business where you guys are crunching numbers all day, everything's different. You always run into something new, there's always a new challenge to tackle. And I think that's, I think I love that that aspect of it. So

Rick Ripma: 5:27

that's funny. When I talked to somebody, they've been in the business, you know, a year, two years, three years, and I go, you know, they, they, they think they've seen everything. Yeah, it's like, well, I've been in it for a lot longer than you and I have not seen everything. Yeah. And every day something else comes up. Yeah. Like where the what happened to here? Yeah. So how did you get you? You weren't from here? Yeah. You didn't have a great base of people here yet family, some family? How in the world? Did you get your business? Yeah,

Jamie Smock: 5:50

that was a tough one, too. So you know, the one thing I picked up, so I was mostly in the minor leagues, broadcasting, right. So anybody who knows a little bit about that knows, if you're going to broadcast in the minor league, that they allow you to do that, if you're going to produce some revenue somewhere. So you got to do some sort of sales, ticket sales, corporate sales, whatever it might be, I did pick up some good habits and some good sales skills through that awesome. Plus, when you're a broadcaster, let's you know, you're thinking on your feet, you're marketing all the time, you know, you kind of pick up some sales skills, inevitably anyhow. And so a lot of that translated. So the one thing that I knew how to do was to cold call. So I started in real estate business in November of 2007. Market was tanking. And it really just started tanking big time. And I knew it, my thought my whole thought was, hey, if I can make it now, for the next year or two, eventually this will turn around. And if I can make it through this time, then I'm then I know, I'll be able to make it when the market is back to. I don't want to call it easier. Never seems like it's easy, but it's just different, maybe a little more neutral, maybe, you know. And so I just cold called at that time, you can imagine the amount of expired listings on the market. So I called every day I would print out my sheet. The internet was not as big as it was. So I was still able to use yellow or white pages, criss crossed books, those kinds of things. And man, I just hammered the phones all day, every day. And that was how you know and then obviously, you're doing open houses and different things to try to generate business. Anyway, I did them all. But the most successful thing I did was cold call. And I just cold called like you could not believe because you're right. My sphere of influence was about 10 people. I didn't know anybody. And so it was truly cold calling but it worked out man. One thing led to another led to another and before we knew it, it took me a couple of years and then things took off.

Rick Ripma: 8:00

But there wasn't much social media then didn't have social media.

Jamie Smock: 8:03

Like I said, the internet. I don't know if Zillow was even around in oh seven or they I mean it was you know, 180 plus percent of the market was a distressed sale. So we were looking at a lot of foreclosures short sale. I remember getting into the business with Marion County's tax situation or I guess the property tax situation everywhere. But Marion County appear to be the messiest. We had weekly meetings on all that you can remember. That was back when Mitch Daniels said enough's enough. Yes. And kind of gave us our percentages on the property tax maximum was a disaster for a while cleaned it up with a pretty good idea. I remember at the time, it was a little controversial, but I think overall, you know, I can't tell you. I know we're gonna get off track here a little bit. But that's one thing when I'm working with a buyer that comes from from another state, and they say, what are the taxes like around here? And I say, Well, your primary residence is capped at 1%, residential, it's 2% for an investment property 3% for commercial, and it's like, Well, what a simple process that is, when you come from a messy, you know, you come from New York, Illinois, some of these other states, you get here and you're like, it's what you pay 3000 in taxes, what it's, you know, low taxes, but very simple to define as well. And I think I think I think we all like a simplified tax system of some sort, you know, so

Rick Ripma: 9:21

it's just like the feds have done with our which, you know, with our income tax. Oh, I have simplified, very simplified that anybody. Anybody with a 500 CPA can maybe get it somewhat. Right.

Jamie Smock: 9:34

Right. Exactly. So yeah, you I wish they would, I wish they would clean that makes that easier. But So anyhow, that was I forget the question where we were on

Rick Ripma: 9:46

what you were talking about, how you did your how you got the business going and how the industry was at the time because it was such a I mean, back then it was such a different industry and then, and so we were I got off track, but we were talking about how you got got going. Yeah.

Jamie Smock: 10:03

And just the cold call was the primary generator. Yeah, that's, you know, if I look back at the business I have now in my database, and I kind of take the family tree of it started with this listing and went from here to here. And I met these people in all that that expired group was everything to me, that was, you know, I have never calculated the percentage of the business overall of what I have now that have came from what started. But it's huge, huge.

Rick Ripma: 10:32

Do you still do any cold calling?

Jamie Smock: 10:35

Not much. So that side of the business changed quite a bit, I would still encourage people to do it the way that I did. It was again, it was different, right? So to get phone numbers now is very difficult. Right? So back then everybody had a home phone? And oh, 70809, right. We all kept the home phone. And we love these new cell phone things that were coming in. Right, right. So I had a Blackberry at that point, if you know what I mean, like, that was having a keyboard, like that was a big deal on a phone, right? So to have the smartphone that was just in its infancy. So everybody had a home phone. So I was able to reach people all the time, it's much more difficult now to get legitimate numbers, and you can pay services to get it. And I understand that. But it's just a lot more difficult to track things down. Now, just over the last, what, three, four years, our expired amount of listings to is very minimal, right, you could clear those phone calls in a matter of 30 minutes, I was calling pretty much all day every day. That's how many expired listings were out there. And I don't know if we'll ever hit that market again or not. So it's changed. So no, I don't do much of that anymore. Every once in a while, I reach out. But it's usually because I see something that I really like, like, wow, that's a wicked house. And I would love to have an opportunity to market that day, you know, or I love that neighborhood or, you know, something of that nature, where I'm just intrigued by it. So

Rick Ripma: 12:05

I've had a I got a call, probably three, four months ago, from a real estate agent, just cold calling. And he obviously had my name, and I've been in my I'm guessing I've been in my house over 30 years. So I'm guessing he bought a list of homes in my area who would be who'd be ready to sell who would likely be ready to

Jamie Smock: 12:24

sell? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen those. There's a lot of software's out there offering that right. And I'm never against it, I should probably do more of it. There's probably a lot of realtors out there saying the same thing I am that, you know, it's funny. I remember having coffee one day with a financial advisor, good friend of mine. And he just over a conversation. This was I don't know, seven, eight years ago. And he was telling me about how they get started in their business, right. So they get hired. And then they just get plopped a big folder and it says here you go. And you just start making calls. And these are cold to quasi warm calls of companies and people and individuals. I don't know what they're doing. Maybe they're calling and trying to see if they can manage the 401 K for the problem. Yeah, it is right? I don't know, right. But whatever it is, he just made this kind of comment where he was just kind of giggling when he said it. He was like, you know, sometimes I wonder why I ever stopped making cold calls. And I was sitting there listen to that nothing. Yeah. Like, why didn't I ever stop making cold calls? I generated a whole business. Right? And then I kind of stopped doing it. And I do oftentimes think about that and say, What if I just kept doing nothing but cold calling? Right? It's a tough way to do a business. But it worked. Right?

Rick Ripma: 13:47

Yeah, I don't know. And it definitely something that somebody getting new into the business you you're highly rad

Jamie Smock: 13:52

to do it, you got to do it. You gotta get you got to you got to experience the rejection of it. You because you're gonna make when I did my numbers, it was it would take me 100 phone calls to get one listing. And so, and there were that many expireds though, where I could call, I'd be calling more than 100 in a week, right? For sure. I was probably call it 20 to 30 a day. Yeah. And so it would take me you know, a while to get a listing appointment, right? So 100 calls one appointment, so you got to kind of be into that groove. Yes. You're not easy to set up about that.

Rick Ripma: 14:32

And you got to set the time apart and everything else Correct.

Ian Arnold: 14:35

Well, how about this? If somebody is wanting to get in touch with you? How would they do that Jamie

Jamie Smock: 14:39

II and that's a fantastic question. No Cold Calling. Me cold. Don't hesitate doing that. Now. I'll tell you that. I'm sure you guys get them too but best way to reach me I'm best by phone man text or call 317-695-3369 is my number 3176 Is 953369 I can give you my email address. But honestly, the easiest thing is just go to Jamie smock.com J A MIESMOCK. Just Jamie smock.com. Everything you need to know is there. We've got a small team, if I can't handle anything at the moment, we've got great qualified experts that can that can help you out as well. So we've set ourselves up to kind of be able to move in many areas and be flexible. So

Ian Arnold: 15:28

all right, and Rick, and how would they get a hold a viewer I

Rick Ripma: 15:30

go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com Or you can call 31767 to 1938. That's 31767 to 1938. I remembered it. Good job. So

Jamie Smock: 15:42

you guys have been together for a while and Ian still needs to ask you how they get in touch with you.

Ian Arnold: 15:47

I like to. I like to touch this memory. Oh, is that what it is like the intro? So you heard how he fumbled with a number. Oh, boy. He's used to the old again. He's used to the having to memorize every number on your phone. Right? He doesn't remember him? Yeah.

Jamie Smock: 16:04

Yeah. So when people want that rotary phone. That's it. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 16:08

I remember that. My dad was in fact, my grandfather was one of the people who helped develop the touchtone phone. Because he was at Western Electric and engineer,

Jamie Smock: 16:18

one of the greatest inventions back in that day was not the rotary or touchtone. Phone. It was the 30 foot cord on your phone. Yes. Come on. Now. That was the first cell phone that's freedom. Before the wireless before that, that big antenna you'd pull out on your phone. I mean, whoever invented the cord that you could, you know, maneuver around the kitchen and get down the hallway quietly with your girlfriend around the wall. Yeah, that was yeah, that was a big invention. It

Rick Ripma: 16:45

was a big deal. Yeah.

Ian Arnold: 16:46

The other nice thing is most people don't think about is used to have to pay extra for long distance calls. That's true. And now for instance, my wife has a 260 number. We don't change it because that's the number she's normally she just has Yeah, so technically, that would be all long distance. But there is no such thing as long distance. It's just out of the country. Right.

Rick Ripma: 17:10

Thanks for listening to India's real estate gurus, the gurus we interview share valuable insights. They reveal their strengths, personalities and how they'll work for you. While we hardworking mortgage guys, secure your best mortgage, real estate gurus work hard to they avoid problems the amateurs don't see. They listen, they find unrealized opportunities. If you're buying or selling a home, a real estate guru is a valuable asset. If you're even thinking of buying or selling a home, keep listening and definitely call one of India's real estate gurus.

Ian Arnold: 17:40

All right, Jamie. So I considered a guru you are well,

Rick Ripma: 17:43

you're on the show what we only have gurus on. All right. Very good. All right. We

Ian Arnold: 17:48

have made 100. You made it through. Oh, 708. with not having a business setup prior you are considered a guru.

Rick Ripma: 17:56

And not being from here. Yes.

Jamie Smock: 17:57

Yeah. Good point.

Rick Ripma: 17:59

It's amazing. Sorry, I know you got something. But was it between like 2009 10 and like 2018 19 were hardly anybody became a real estate agent, because we talked to tons of people who were before 2008 or nine, right in that timeframe. And then after 2018, and very few people who actually got their license during that mid the middle of that is that

Jamie Smock: 18:24

well, certainly in oh seven Oh, wait, I can remember coming in with a graduating we'll call it a graduating class. Right. And in my specific office of where I was in Casselton, they had an area, the bullpen that's where you went, when you started, you got a cubicle and your phone it was what you had, right. And then you work your way up into an office, whatever the case might be. Everybody's a little different. That's why it was in Oh, seven when, and I can remember coming in with three or four. And it wasn't even midway through oh eight where I was the only one left that ball that bullpen went from 1012 people down to just a few you know. And so, you know, I think we saw a lot of people jump in the business over the last couple of years. I think oftentimes, this is a business people see, for whatever reason, they just see it as being easy. And it's and it's not easy. It's not an easy business to

Ian Arnold: 19:20

HGTV told me it's the easiest thing in the world.

Jamie Smock: 19:24

That's what I kind of explained to people as well as we're not going to go look at three homes and then have a spritzer in the cafe to negotiate this thing verbally over the phone like this. We're not going to that's not the way it's going to work. But even the idea of just running your own business and being 100% Commission and there's constantly with people with their hands in your pocket like you pay a lot of like expense. Yeah, so first home ever sold. You know, I didn't get a dime that check went back to pay off everything I had borrowed up to that point or whatever. Now, it is a it's a cool Business and that, unlike a restaurant or whatever, you can start it fairly inexpensively. You know, you can you can actually start a business fairly inexpensively, right? So from that standpoint, I love the business model, but this is a difficult, difficult business. And so and I don't know the numbers, people know the numbers as far as how many agents are out there. And then the average agent only sells two or three homes a year, right? Isn't it? Something like that again?

Rick Ripma: 20:32

A handful, like 80% Yeah,

Jamie Smock: 20:35

so yeah, anyway, so I think depending on what the markets doing, we see people dive in, dive out and kind of thing and but the Guru's they stay in it for the long haul, and try to develop, try to improve and try to bring a better experience to buyers and sellers all the time. Right, right. Oh, that's kind of what we're doing. That's

Rick Ripma: 20:56

what we've seen. Yeah. So that's the biggest thing. And it's part of why we do this. We want people to know, we, you know, if somebody's listening, and they haven't, they're thinking about becoming a real estate agent, they need to know it's not like HGTV. This is a hard. It's a rewarding business. And everybody who I've talked to who's in it all the Guru's they love the business. But it's not easy.

Jamie Smock: 21:17

No, absolutely. And that's, and I enjoy those shows, too. I watch just about every house flipping show there is out there. I like I like all those kinds of things. The Million Dollar Listing New York, I love that show, I've got to tell you, but it's very unrealistic. And the one thing I don't like about it is they are really commission hungry. They're always talking about how much this means and how much that means. And it's kind of not the way that I was nurtured in this business at all. I had the right mentors that kind of told me, Hey, you just take care of people. And don't worry about your wallet. That'll all take care of itself if you're doing your fiduciary responsibility. And so that's the only thing that rubs me the wrong way with that, too. But I and you know, it's like you're saying I think people see that on TV and assume Hey, you know, I My goal is don't a private jet. I'm gonna get into selling real estate

Rick Ripma: 22:11

give people the wrong impression does

Jamie Smock: 22:13

it does.

Ian Arnold: 22:14

Alright, so I know your FC Tucker now. So did you. When you're got your license? Did you start right with them? Or do you start trying to only company ever been with Okay, yeah. And how do you think they helped you become the person you are now? Wow.

Jamie Smock: 22:27

So many ways. I like the FC Tucker company. There's a lot of great brokerages out there. Don't get me wrong. I'm never one to trash others. I think others have different business models. I liked the idea of being an independent broker at the time. So, you know, we were just recently merged there about a year ago with Howard Hanna, which is a little bit of a larger regional brokerage. And so we kind of have even though we're still FC Tucker, we're here we've kind of got a little bit of an expansion. And I like to see that there's some there's some big growth and the people with Howard Hanna are fantastic. But I love the idea of being an independent broker. So you know, back in, oh, 70809. The ability then to send out one email and reach six to 800 agents who were doing most of the business in the area was tremendously powerful. The infrastructure of what they had a marketing department, an IT department, a social media department, as that was coming around. There's a lot of infrastructure there that, you know, again, we talked about the ease of starting a business, you know, you think of some other businesses where you're hiring, or starting a department here in a department, they're in a department to have all that built in, have all that muscle behind you. That was powerful to me, I liked it. And, you know, they had been around 100 years, right. 1918 was there when they started. So we just celebrated 100 years there a few years ago and 18. And I just liked it, the people I met very professional, very successful, and the infrastructure there was now with all that said he and I can look back on it. How many years is from Oh, seven to now? Whatever that is? Yeah. 16 Yeah, 16 year, I can look back on it now. And I can tell you that that's what I've noticed. But truth be told, the reason I chose them is that location A Casselton was across the street from the church I attended where I dropped my kids off for preschool. And I would go in, I could drop Caleb off, go to work, and then get out of work pick him up at four o'clock and come home. And that was the reason why I worked at that location. And so and then my daughter ended up going there as well. So when I started in the business, and I'll say he would have been three and she was one and then it rolled by the time I'm he was five and out, she was three and going in, and I had that for another three. So there I was six, seven year window of dropping kids off picking him up. That's why I chose where I ended up. And I just bettered my complete, complete God thing. He has blessed me in so many ways. But he was overseeing that for sure. Because the people I ended up working with the office I ended up working with could not have been better. All of it has just worked tremendously. And it's the best thing I ever did. But that was why I truly did it. I knew they were a good company. I knew I had the backing, I had interviewed with a couple of other smaller brokerages as a little nervous into getting into what we call a mom and pop situation. I look at them. Now I understand what they are the service, you know, they're a great business. But when you're new coming in, you know, I kind of really liked the infrastructure that Tucker had.

Ian Arnold: 25:57

Alright, and how would somebody get to work with you and Tucker?

Jamie Smock: 26:01

How would they get to work with me as far as the home buying home, whatever, they get in touch with you getting in touch with me? So the best way to do that, and he and it's a fantastic question. They can reach me by phone text or call at 31769533693176953369 websites, the easiest thing, Jamie smock.com, it's JAMIESMO CK, but Jamie smock.com. You can go there, get my email address, my phone number, everything's right there where we're at. So we work all of Marion County and the surrounding counties. So pretty much anything in the metro Indianapolis area, we work it and we'd love to help you out. We're a full service real estate team. So we handle anything from investment, new construction, resale, multifamily doesn't matter. We're involved in all of it. And we feel like we've got pretty good systems down to help you seamlessly through all those transactions and, and rentals,

Ian Arnold: 26:55

I want to see if you can do just as well as he did, Rick, how did he get ahold of us?

Rick Ripma: 26:59

I think it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 317-672-1938. That's 31767 to 1938.

Ian Arnold: 27:10

All right. And now we'll get into the question of the week. And the question that week is sponsored by Hey, Rick and I, the hard working mortgage guys where we believe in helping and supporting you and your realtor by sending constant updates on your loan process. Nobody likes to live in a black hole not knowing what's going on. So contact record hardworking mortgage guys. Alright, so here's a question for you. And then I have most of you don't have a pseudo question, but because you told me that your kids age and how long you've been in the business. I have a second question. What was your first car?

Jamie Smock: 27:38

My first car was a 1972 Impala. My brother Steve gave it to me for free. That was a good deal. Yes, it was a very good deal at the time. It's still a very good deal. Man. That car was an absolute tank. It was a perfect car to start driving in. And I know he's got great memories from that car. And I got great memories from that car. I love that car. And it went man that car. I don't know how many hundreds of 1000s of miles we put on that thing. But it got handed down. It was my grandfather's car. At one point somehow Steve ended up with it than I did. It was great.

Rick Ripma: 28:14

And the fact that it was handed down to kids just learning to drive. That still lasted a long time. Well, yeah. That's a big deal. Well, you

Jamie Smock: 28:22

remember the size of those cars? Oh, yeah, it had a 400 engine. And I can remember, the first day I got my license where I could drive on my own. I went out and I had made a wrong turn. So I was trying to get out of this. There was apartment complex right across the street from our neighborhood. And just jamming in through that thing and report verse and hit. Oh, went right into the big brick. You know, it said Hey, welcome to meadow Glen, or whatever the apartment was, and took out probably four or five bricks and might have scratched the car. I mean, like who cares, right? That was not a vehicle that you weren't carrying collision insurance on that vehicle. That's for sure.

Ian Arnold: 29:05

So what was your kids first Carson's

Jamie Smock: 29:07

so well, I've got one that's in college. He drives a 2010 Toyota Corolla?

Ian Arnold: 29:13

I don't think it'll last them forever.

Jamie Smock: 29:15

I think it should. I think it should. So and then my daughter's getting ready. She's probably gonna just jump into what I've got now, which is a 2011 Jeep Liberty. So yeah, not bad.

Ian Arnold: 29:28

First car I mean, it's always something somebody Yeah, it's still it's that hey, I don't have to ride my bike anymore. I drive this Yeah. All right. So

Rick Ripma: 29:37

my my niece's both had liberties my brother in law, he has a liberty and I always find it funny because when you ask them what they have, they say that they have a Jeep

Jamie Smock: 29:47

Yeah, see, I'm the opposite. I don't enjoy the vehicle. I don't really like it myself. But it's I don't I don't I'm not part of that Jeep family that by any means, you know, waving everybody I don't wait. You drive by it and I just kind of go like this and So, as I know, I'm the embarrassing model among the GE

Rick Ripma: 30:03

family so you don't have your name all plastered all over

Jamie Smock: 30:07

chromed it out. I haven't done you know, no, no big whatever's there always haven't tricked out with accessories. No, I have none. Yeah, it's a point A to point B, point B vehicle for me right now.

Rick Ripma: 30:18

And that's that works. It does. Yes. I

Jamie Smock: 30:21

used to drive a really nice car and I don't know, I just kind of got over that and said, Just give me something get me from point A to point B.

Rick Ripma: 30:28

Yeah, I I just liked the luck. Not necessary. The quietness. I have a 750 BMW. Yeah. And it is so quiet. Yeah. And it has it just drives so well.

Jamie Smock: 30:42

I know. I miss I had an e 350. And I miss Yeah, exactly. It was a power pillow. It was nice. And I miss it. There's no doubt about it. But

Rick Ripma: 30:52

yeah, it's the quietness. For me. It's the way it rides in the quietness more than anything else. Yeah. And I mean, I bought it used I got a great deal on it. It was, you know, I didn't feel like you didn't when I got done, I felt like I got a pretty good deal on the card, you know, is a great car. But anyway, let's get on to on to more exciting things for most people, not for me. I like cars. So yeah, but what would you say is your superpower or superpowers?

Jamie Smock: 31:18

So I just had this question asked me a few weeks ago, my superpower has morphed a little bit. That's crazy. Somebody just asked me this not long ago, because it's not a question typically yet. I up to 50. Now, so it's changed. But I'd say up to about five or six years ago, I could I had a tremendously large bladder, I could hold my pee for a really, really long time. And I consider that to be a superpower. And you still know not as much. And now I'm 50 I've kind of lost that superpower. So now rather

Rick Ripma: 31:51

have that or be able to fly.

Ian Arnold: 31:53

Yeah. You got to land and several times.

Jamie Smock: 32:01

It's raining. Yeah. It's interesting. I'm not sure which one I would take. But it's probably morphed a little bit now. I could probably out talk anybody. I could talk more than anybody. Maybe maybe is that my superpower? I'm not sure.

Rick Ripma: 32:20

It's important. What we do. Yeah, you gotta be able to communicate. I'd love the ability

Jamie Smock: 32:23

to be able to heal somebody that would be pretty cool. That'd be awesome to be able to touch somebody to heal him of any issues. But superpowers I don't think I have any superpowers. Unfortunately, I may have had one at one time, like I said, But currently, I'm not so sure I have any superpowers. Except I can talk all the time.

Ian Arnold: 32:40

So as your wife must be pretty quiet. Or she's

Jamie Smock: 32:43

not overly quiet. I don't know if you just stole the time in your home. You know what it is? And she's perfect is what she Oh,

Ian Arnold: 32:51

no, my wife is perfect. Your wife can't be perfect. Sorry.

Rick Ripma: 32:54

They can both be perfect.

Jamie Smock: 32:58

Don't don't get all selfish about them. Yeah, I can. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 33:04

She's perfect for him. Yes. Ah. Perfect. Yeah. Sometimes when you talk a lot, she they have to shut us off.

Jamie Smock: 33:15

And I'm kidding about that I do. I like to talk to people. I like people in general. That's one of the things that I love the most about this business. But there I do like my quiet too. So I'm not constantly talking. But I I do talk a lot.

Ian Arnold: 33:31

And that's all right. I mean, you have the you have the job where your job was to talk for a while. So it's hard to just cut that off. Yeah. So let's hear you talk a little bit more.

Jamie Smock: 33:40

Don't failed the super power.

Rick Ripma: 33:43

There's more superpowers. Yeah, because, but we'll go on.

Ian Arnold: 33:47

What do you think your most memorable deal was?

Jamie Smock: 33:49

Most memorable deal? Probably the first time I sold something in the seven figures was a memorable deal. I didn't. I didn't know if I could ever do that. Indianapolis. There wasn't a ton of that at the time. It's pretty crazy. Now there's a lot, a lot, a lot more of it. It's amazing to see actually the way that's transformed since I got in the business. But I think that would be memorable. And then, and there's probably a lot if I go back and think on him. Well, I'll tell you what, here's one. So when I was chasing down expired listings, there was an individual in New Jersey that owned four or five investment properties on the near east side. And they had gone expired. There were I think there were three three homes actually. And I hounded this guy. I think he owned a furniture business out in New Jersey. I called I called I called somehow I got a hold of his fax machine. I faxed him I was faxing him. letters like every other day chasing him down. Wanted to list these houses. I wanted to sell them. They were like $30,000 houses and on One of them. So there I was pretty excited. He eventually signed a listing contract with me. I never sold any of them. But I went down. They were not 30,000. They were less than that these were 15 $20,000 houses in tough areas. And I remember putting a sign in the yard and going in this house, he had had a cousin that I met who gave me keys and said, Here you go. And we're all vacant. Well, the one house that I walked in was an obvious drug house, there were mattresses laying around, people were piling garbage in the backyard, so bad that the violations from the city had to be incredible. And so I walked in the house, took a look around, went upstairs saw what was going on, I was like, this is not somewhere I need to be. I was like, but put a lockbox on the door anyway, stuck a sign in the yard and started listing this thing, I started to market it. And whoever has whoever was frequenting the house was not happy that I had locked the doors and shut all the windows and lock the windows, etc. And instead of messing around with the lockbox or anything else, they ripped the front door off. Wow. And I met somebody was just kind of the cool part of the expired stories. This is where it all through that listing, I met somebody who called me and said, Hey, do you know that door has been ripped off your house I I own a property across the street that I ran out. You know, I don't really like what's going on over there. I say hey, thanks for letting me know. And I went over there. And I tried to secure it. But honestly, it was a bad situation. But I met that guy who ended up listing three or four homes over the next couple of years with started doing some business with them, and all that just kind of spidered in that area. And so that was pretty memorable. Because that was like one of the very first listings I ever had was a big deal to me. Again, I wasn't gonna make but a couple I was gonna make dinner off that commission didn't matter. I was just happy to have a sign in the yard. Like I got a listing. And then somebody went and rip the door off the front of the house so that they could use it for shelter at night. It was a scary situation, man whenever I had to go over there, but

Rick Ripma: 37:10

I'm impressed you'd walk through it. Yeah, I think I'd have turned around. And

Jamie Smock: 37:15

nowadays, I'd probably do it a little differently. I've gotten a little smarter over time. But yeah,

Ian Arnold: 37:23

he needed dinner. Man. Did I ever

Rick Ripma: 37:27

think I'd have just put a lockbox on the door and said, you know, wrote beautiful property? Come see. Yeah. Yeah. That would be bad. Yeah. So you've gone from that to what does your team look like?

Jamie Smock: 37:40

So we're a pretty small operation. So I've got Lawrence Horseman is a full time licensed agent in our office. He's been in the business now for a little over two years. And then Rhonda Jagger is our part time got our kind of our office manager, if you will, she makes sure all the transactions, i's are dotted T's are crossed, and does a little bit of marketing for us as well. So that's pretty much it. We're just we're a pretty small operation. I've never had more than two other individuals on my team. But I probably got my eye out to expand a little bit. Now I'd like to kind of change things a little bit with the way we function and get a little more efficient. So I'm I got my eyes open anyway.

Rick Ripma: 38:21

Yeah, but still from a $15,000 listing to a couple team members. And yeah, huge volume. And you know, being a guru, that's a big, that's a big change.

Jamie Smock: 38:30

So the first time I've ever been called a guru, I gotta tell you, I'm, you know, it's really nice. Yeah, I appreciate you guys.

Rick Ripma: 38:38

We really truly only have gurus. We don't monitor we don't call

Ian Arnold: 38:44

people who aren't gurus, we we spray paint your car. So thanks for telling us. We're gonna have guru spray paint on your car, you can spray paint

Unknown: 38:53

on the other side, seal this.

Jamie Smock: 38:59

Yes, it's come a long way. It's been an awesome journey. And you're always learning, right? So there is we can do better. There's no doubt. And so our team will do better we'll get we'll get more efficient, little more streamlined, improve our systems. We're always trying to do that every year. So that's what we'll continue to do. Man, I'll tell you one of the most difficult things right now you guys probably see it too is there's so much technology being thrown at you. I'm a little bit. You know, I've got a little bit I'm a little bit over technologized is that I don't know if

Rick Ripma: 39:35

that's a word of what it is now. Yeah.

Jamie Smock: 39:38

You know, you got to kind of filter through and see what am I going to use? What am I not and everybody's throwing technology at you and I it's just almost cumbersome. And so I think that's one of the keys though going forward is we're going to have to use it in a smart way. We're going to have to create efficiencies through it, but not be burdened by A overwhelming technology to you know, I can't function with everything in my life being some app. And you know, it's we've got to, I still enjoy relationships and personality and talking to people and making phone calls and doing those things. So we're that's kind of where we're at right now, to be honest with you, Rick, we're on that cusp of figuring all that out now. And we're gonna grow with it.

Rick Ripma: 40:27

Yeah, relationships are the most important anyway. And even even people who are really into technology, the kids who grew up with it, they actually do want relationships they want to meet, they want to, like they want to meet with their lender, they don't want to, they want to talk to them, not just text and email, they want to actually talk to somebody don't have to necessarily in person, but they want to talk they want to, that's important to them. I find with technology, at least for me, my biggest problem with technology is I actually enjoy technology, I try to take on it, I try to take on too much of it too fast. And when I slow down and just do you know, I do this one and learn it, it's because once you've learned the app, yeah, a lot, because they don't change it on us, which they'd like to do. But as long as once you learn the app, you can do pretty well, you know, even old guys like me.

Jamie Smock: 41:15

So I don't know, I forgot the percentages, somebody did a study on the percentage of technology that's actually used by agents out there, right. And it's not much like it's 25 to 30% of what's thrown at you, you're actually able to use or that you enjoy using to manage your business. And so what you just said is exactly what I'm talking about. If I get I get a CRM system, which I really want a good CRM system, but I really only need it to do these three things, not these 300 things, right. And if I get caught up in these, you know, 297 other things, it's just it, you know, it ties you down, it just slows you down. And it's, that's where, and I agree with you, you use it for these three things. And then maybe you add three more things over the next year. But that's how slow I am with it. So I know it's a big part of it. We are adopting it. And we're continuing to use it better to create more efficiencies, like we've been talking about. But that's probably the biggest thing that's out there right now. I think it's probably an every industry, right? Yes. I mean, you can't tell me not everybody's having technology thrown at them. That's just right, the way our world has gone with the smartphone, right?

Rick Ripma: 42:31

Yeah, like, you're exactly right, you have to learn that piece. And not because because what happens is, is the shiny objects get get our attention, right. So you get you think I gotta have it for these three, and then they tell you about these other six, and you're like, I want to learn that too. That's gonna be really valuable. Well, then you try to learn too much. And then most people just never adopt it. They just never, they never get it or they become overwhelmed, or whatever it is. So and I'm saying this, I don't necessarily follow Maya. I tend to just jump in. But it is important just to learn little by little, and there's so much ways you can learn now you go on YouTube, it boggles my mind how much you can type something into YouTube, and somebody's there to show you exactly how to how to do it.

Jamie Smock: 43:19

There's not much social media that I like, but YouTube is definitely it's worth its weight in gold. I mean, you know, you're trying to change a tire and run into a jam. That's your answer. Yes. Right. Yep. It used to be called Uncle Pete, you know, and now it's now just go to YouTube. It's right there. That exact model, that exact problem that exact, you know, by a professional, it's crazy.

Ian Arnold: 43:43

Not only that is you can go because I replaced a couple of faucets and sinks and I was like, Well, how are these guys doing? So you just type in the model number and somebody's displaying that model number on how to do that exam? Like, that's just nuts. Yeah. Yeah. YouTube's Excellent. Excellent.

Rick Ripma: 44:01

What's something that you're most proud of in your business right now?

Jamie Smock: 44:09

Boy, that's I wasn't prepared for that question most proud of in our business, you know, we treat people really well. We take our business very serious. That's probably it. I know this, this. If it's not directly in the cheese, it's certainly borderline cheesy, right? So to say that, but I love the way we try to treat our clients that we're working with, I understand every day that this is the largest purchase you will ever make in your life and that this is an extremely stressful situation. And so I try my darndest to not put off phone calls, put off emails, put off texts, etc. Because I understand what's going on the other side of that transaction right I put myself in those shoes, I can emotionally pull myself out of it, I don't need to emotionally get involved in it, that's not going to help anybody, but just to attack a transaction knowing that, that I'm, I understand how important that is the other person, and I think we get that as a team. I think that's how we function, how we approach it. That's probably what I'm most proud of. We've never lost that. So that that might be it. I don't I don't know that. You know, we're always proud of the numbers, we produce it. But they but again, those take care of themselves, right. So I don't necessarily I create goals every year, but like, how many units and things like that, but in the end, things happen, man, it's like, you know, I wanted to sell a bunch of units this year, but the markets probably not going to allow the same volume and unit that we did last year, right? It's just a different market. So I can be mad about that. But I'd rather focus on each individual unit and how we're treating those people going through it, rather than I am, how many units did we push out and get done? So I don't know if that's probably what I'm most proud of.

Ian Arnold: 46:12

So let me ask you this, get off the real estate side. Let's have a little bit of fun. So if you're not selling real estate, what are you doing out there for fun?

Jamie Smock: 46:19

I love sports of any kind. So I don't play as much golf as I'd like to every year. I try to figure out in my business model. What am I going to do to create more golf. And so I don't play much, but I'd like to play more. I skate I play hockey once a week still still play. And love those guys that I play with every Tuesday night we skate. There are a lot of fun. And I enjoy that a lot. And then outside of that just trying to you know, hang with the kids and do that kind of thing. So stay involved in my church and stuff like that. But it's awesome. Just be around. People pal around I like just pal around. But sports is usually what's got my attention, man, if I'm watching anything on TV, or if I'm you know, I'm always it's pretty much sports driven. I just enjoy it.

Ian Arnold: 47:09

So if somebody wants to go play nine holes of golf with you and talk some real estate, how would they get ahold of you? The

Jamie Smock: 47:14

best thing they can do is text or call me at 31769533693176953369 if they go to my website at Jamie smock.com JAMIESM o ck, Jamie smoc.com They can go there, reach out to me. And I'll schedule it. And we can get out and we can hit 918 27 Whatever you want to do

Ian Arnold: 47:42

36 holes, let's go just

Rick Ripma: 47:44

want to ask because I have a different. Is there a period in between Jamie and smock or is there not just Jamie smart Jamie

Jamie Smock: 47:51

smart.com. That's the web domain. All right,

Rick Ripma: 47:54

perfect. And if you want to get a hold of Ian or I, it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com Or you can call us at three ones or yeah, just call no tax. We don't take tax on that number 317-672-1938 That's 317-672-1938

Ian Arnold: 48:12

And a reminder if you have any friends, family or coworkers looking to buy sell refinance contact record I will be more than happy to help them and do subscribe to India's real estate gurus.