Guru John Wischmeier with In Homes Today with EXP Realty

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Hey, Rick, we had John wittmeyer on today for nominal agent. The biggest thing I think is his background is nowhere close to being a real estate agent. He was basically doing landscaping had a degree in landscaping, and then and then he'll tell you the story but then got into real estate.

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But that is just crazy.

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It is. And you know, what I liked about is is number one, he worked. He's a hard worker. Number two, when he got into real estate, he struggled. And he didn't succeed and tell his wife told him to do it differently than they were telling him to do it. And he figured it out what worked for him and he did phenomenal. He went from from not selling anything in the first six months to being the Rookie of the Year in the in the in that and Columbus, Indiana. Yeah. That's amazing.

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It is crazy on how each each person is method can be different and you can still succeed. That's correct. Yeah.

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So tune in to hear what his method was and his brilliant and phenomenal phenomenal stories.

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Welcome

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to indies real estate gurus, your ultimate guide to the dynamic world of real estate in Indiana, and I'm recruited by your hard work and mortgage guy and I've been in real estate and mortgages for over 24 years.

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And I'm Ian Arnold, a loan officer on Rick's hard working mortgage and we're both with advisors mortgage together will empower you with expert advice market trends is a festival stories from Guru realtors and local experts.

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Whether you're a homeowner and Vesta are pro Join us as we navigate the thriving indie real estate market now get ready to unlock the doors of success one episode at a time.

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John wittmeyer out of Columbus Indiana and your your brokerage is called it's a brokerage is in homes today.

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brokered by exp a brokered by exp I just didn't want to get wrong, so I want to make sure in homes today, so if somebody wanted to get a hold of you they got in homes. today.com Yes, absolutely.

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That's your that's a great website now. That's easy. Yeah,

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no, that's extremely hard. How do you spell in homes today? I just don't understand.

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Well, I know we got I can't spell. That's why we're bad spellers. So I like to start like, where did where did you grow up? And where were you?

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Where were you raised? Where'd you grow up? Okay, born and raised Columbus, Indiana.

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You know, small, small communities south of Columbus.

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You know, my my mother is from Columbus. My father's from Seymour, Indiana. John Mellencamp land, okay.

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You know, and they sing like John Mellencamp No, no, no.

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Johnny Cougar.

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Yeah. Johnny Cougar.

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So, so you were you raised in in Seymour.

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No, actually Columbus. Okay. So, yeah, my dad was the first wish Meyer to come up to Columbus.

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Alright, so that was a long drive long, dry.

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So you say you grew up in Columbus. Where do you go to go to school? Where'd you go to college? Or?

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Okay, went to Columbus East High School. Okay. So Columbus has two high schools. bitter rivalry, of course, as most communities East has the oldest, I'll just say it live the better football team. We've we've won multiple state championships.

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That's the one he went to.

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And then actually went to IUPUI for a short, short time and then went to Vincennes University.

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Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I went to be IUPUI for a very short time to okay, but then I didn't I didn't go anywhere else because I that school was not my thing. So Vincenzo

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Well, here soon, nobody will even know what IPI is and they go away after this year. Right. I heard that. Yeah.

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Just

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IU Indianapolis.

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Yeah. It'll be you Indianapolis. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's

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that's good. So you say you went to IUPUI then you went to Vincenz. And then you went back to Columbus. Yes.

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Okay. And what did you do what what did you do and then how did you end up in real estate?

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Okay, so you know my my dad had worked in a factory just on the line or whatever for like 20 to 23 years for who clump comments No it's actually real Reliance electric okay. So it's kind of similar but different. Okay. You know, and he he had a dream of always owning his own business okay. And he was a growing up he was what I call it a pickup truck landscaper. So he would he would work he you know, this six to three o'clock shift at the factory and then go straight to mowing, mowing yards, mulching, you know, trimming, all that kind of stuff. And so as a kid growing up, to be honest, if I wanted to see my dad, I went I went along and worked with him.

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You know, and you know, he always had this I did a revision of, of getting out of the factory. And I was maybe a little bit of that ticket, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

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And so I was, so I said, Why don't I go to school for landscape design? And so that and that's Vincent's had a very good program for that at the time. I think they still do. But um, so I went and, you know, got my degree in landscape design and all that kind of stuff, got the all the, you know, the licenses for spraying trees, lawns, all that kind of stuff.

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So, you know, odd fact that, you know, today when I'm showing homes and somebody will, you know, you're showing a home and somebody makes a comment about, oh, what's, what's that pretty tree that's blooming, you know, I typically will know the name, and I get some of the oddest looks, because, you know, they're like, Well, how do you know that? I had to learn, you know, hundreds of trees. Oh, yeah. You know, the, not only the column name, but the botanical name as well. Right.

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So it's just odd fact, it's a it's a, probably a really good background for real estate.

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I mean, to me, landscapes, a big part of buying a home and what probably vision that you have as elantech, land scape architect helps a lot.

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Sure, sure. You know, and it was sales, you know, just like real estate, or veteran sales, you know, just people right now, it's a people oriented business, we ended up starting a garden center, we had a nursery where we were growing trees, shrubs, I had the entire landscape department that we did residential and commercial, you know, so, so I did that. Quite, you know, I was there probably 13 to 15 years, my brother and I ended up entering the business as well. My wife worked with us, with us as well. And, you know, at some point, you know, we, we started investing in other things, and we, we started a development company. So, you know, just as kind of a side project, but we, we developed a housing development in Columbus.

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Okay. And from ground zero, you know, we bought land, and it was actually in city limits that we did, it was on larger lots like one to three acres. And, you know, so the transition into real estate at that point, you know, we hired a real estate agent to handle sale, selling those lots and things like that.

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And, unfortunately, at the time, I have this history of starting businesses, and then the apocalypse happened. You know, so we actually opened this development. About a month before. September 11. happened, Oh, okay. And so, everybody knows what happened in real estate, right after that, you know, there was almost nothing selling, right. Nobody wanted to do anything. So, so here, we were sitting with this, it's not a not a small piece of dime that you have sitting there. And, but you know, as time time went on, I would come home, and like, what's my real estate agent doing? Or he was telling me this today, and I don't understand it. And my wife, Kimberly, being Kimberly, she finally got fed up with me asked, coming home and saying those questions. And she said, why don't you go out and take a real estate class? You know, figure it out. And so I, you know, there's not that many real estate classes that at the time, and, you know, it wasn't that much on internet and things like that. So I took local real estate course. Okay. And so I found it very easy. You know, it was just easy to do. And then, so then I asked her, Okay, I completed that, what do I do now? And she said, Well, go get your license if you want. And I did that. And it just LeapFrog.

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I fell in love with it, and ended up transitioning out of the family business into basically another family business. Because, you know, Kimberly ended up joining and then now we've got children in the business and things like that. So it just kind of morphed, morphed into real estate.

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So I have a question. So what do you do differently? How you were treated as a client, for when you had a real estate agent, not knowing what's going on stuff like that? Maybe they were using different terminology with you, what do you do differently now that you are a real estate agent for your customers? I,

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I really try to explain things, you know, and, you know, I, you know, I, I feel like I have a good sense with people. So I you know, I can typically tell if somebody's not understanding something, so I really try to get that explanation down. You know, and funny, funny thing is, you know, I was probably just like a typical client, you know, a lot of us as real estate agents, we work pretty darn hard for for our clients and but they don't see what we're doing in the background day in and day out.

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And in hindsight, I had a really good agent, you know, it's just probably wasn't explaining quite as much to me, and he probably was doing all the things that need to do in the background.

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You know, I just didn't know that. So, so it's probably, I think it's, you know, for any agent out there, you know, it's probably important to think about, make sure your sellers know what you're doing, you know, on that day to day basis.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I started quite some time ago, years ago, calling everybody and process and alone. Just once a week, just to tell them everything's going fine. Right?

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Call the real estate agents called the borrowers and you just tell them everything's going okay. And it was somewhat of a result of one of my agents that I work with. He said, Yeah, I was at a seminar and they said, We need to call our people once a week and just tell them everything's okay. Because if you don't, what builds up in your head? Is all the negatives.

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Yeah. Is that what you?

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Oh, yeah. And actually, on the being a real tour and say, on being on the lending side, as a real tour, you know, I actually love those updates, you know, on that weekly basis, you know, you know, because what you don't know, you don't know? Right? So just any kind of update that hey, everything's okay. You know, is great. Yeah.

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And as as a lender, the reason we didn't do it is everything's okay. What are we going to tell him? Yeah, but as a if you never thought to put yourself in the, in the real estate agents, you know, or the or that your borrowers mindset and think, Okay, well, if I don't tell them, they don't know, you know, because everything's fine. So, but it does, it makes total sense to most agents. Once in a while, I'll get somebody who's not too thrilled that I call them once a week. But the vast majority of them are very thankful. Yeah. They like especially the listing agent.

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Yes, yes. You see that? Listed agents

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love us. It's funny that, like ones that we have never talked to, we call them and then we're like, hey, we just wanna let you know, things go. They're like, Wait, why are you calling me? Hold on?

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I'm not used to this, right? No, it's fantastic.

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I love that.

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So what what has given you the passion to keep this going?

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At I'll mention my wife again, because she, Kimberly has basically said, I don't, I don't know, if I ever want you to retire. You know, maybe slow down. But, you know, not retire, you know, I have a brain that never stops. And so I'm always, you know, I'm always looking for, you know, what, what are we doing? Well, today, that what do we need to be doing tomorrow, that still working six months from now a year from now?

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So it's always, it's always looking forward? And I think what drives me, you know, with just keep going in real estate, you know, the, it's an, it's an ever changing piece. You know, you know, it's like this year, you know, there's a lot of agents that are up in arms with changes that are happening on the real estate sector, you know, and, you know, nothing's passed his law yet, on that on that national piece. Looks like it could, but um, you know, it's just another changing piece.

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It's just being a professional learner. You know, you may have to learn a little bit different verbiage do a different form, stuff like that. But it's, it's just business. Yeah, you have to figure out how to sell it. Yeah. Right. Right. And how to do that. That's one thing I've actually working on very diligently so that I can give agents something to help them sell it. Yes. Because it's good.

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Because a lot of its financing.

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I mean, it's how it's going to affect financing. But just like you so we don't actually know what it is. Because it's not done yet. So we think we know what's going to happen. Right?

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But it's, it's a difficult thing. And it's funny, you're the same way as I and my wife.

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She got she knows I'll never retire I'll slow down. But I can I'd be I couldn't do it. I gotta I gotta have something to do. I got to have reasons to get up every morning and work towards things right. So I completely understand that. So you, you started the the landscape company, you did that? You got into real estate. And and that and I don't think you started with exp. So how did you? Where did where did you start? And how did you end up with exp?

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Actually, only when I started in real estate, the top company in town at that time, it's changed over years, of course, as it does everywhere, but since the century 21 office, that was the top brokerage in town and gosh, they were founded in like 1950 Wow. And so I didn't even I probably should have interviewed some other places, but I didn't I just went in and talk to them and started working. Okay, you know what they, the one thing that was in hindsight, and I really try to work with this with any agents that are were coming on board with us, you know, what they, and that was 20, over 20 years ago. You know, they basically said, okay, here, you know, send some note cards and call, here's some cold call list. And I am terrible at cold calling. I am the absolute worst now, you know, like, if there's a, if there's a problem with a transaction or something, I'm perfectly fine talking with somebody, but just to call, call somebody out as far as a cold call.

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Not your thing. I'm terrified.

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Yeah. And that's okay.

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So I actually sat there, I hit was probably six months in, and I hadn't sold anything. I was floundering. And I was basically telling Kimberly, hey, I should probably I think I made a mistake, I should probably just maybe exit exit this business.

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And, you know, she said, you know, being Kimberly, she said, Well, why don't you do something a little bit different than what they're telling you to do. And so, you know, I really started watching the top agents, and what they were doing and started researching a little bit more, you know, I probably had started prior to that six months, but, and then that, and then, all of a sudden, that second half of the year, things started clicking, you know, just by little, it's like that one degree shift, you know, shifted and ended up by the end of the year, I was Rookie of the Year for the region, and it just snowballed from there.

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No, so what did you change? And what what what is it that worked for you? Because one of my one of my things that always have been after I after I learned sales, so I've been in sales my entire life, 40 years, right? My entire adult life, so over 40 years, but I noticed that people would tell you, you know, you'd watch somebody who's really good at what they do, then they'd become the manager, and they would tell you what to do, which wasn't what they did. Right?

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Right. Yes. That because that's what everybody tells you what to do. So they don't want to tell you what they did. They want to tell you what everybody tells you because they think that's the right thing, even though they didn't do it that way.

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Right. So So what did you change that worked for you? So if somebody's out there, they're floundering. They don't want to make cold calls. What did you do? What was the change? But a couple things, a couple of things, probably, you know, one is, what I, what I noticed real quickly is the average agent did not treat it like a business.

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And so I started actually, truly mapping out planning and just treating it like a business, then I really dove in, you know, I had a really good sphere that I hadn't tapped into, right. And so I, I dove into working on that sphere, and actually attending events and getting my face out there. You know, like, we have a really good Chamber of Commerce in Columbus. And so attending their events and things like that, and what I and then also, somebody invited me to a BNI group, and that that ended up snowpack. I think it was good for about 6 million in production per year. Wow. You know, so it was a really good group. So just two or three things like that, you know, just really catapulted but it was just, it wasn't that big of a shift. It was just, you know, I call it FaceTime, you know, like getting out, like so many agents. It's like, their secret agents. Yeah. You know, and they don't go to they don't spend the time to go to events and things like that. And, and it's not, you know, you're not going to things like that to tell everybody you're in real estate.

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That if you just get that consistent, Martin, pitch marketing, you know, just getting your face out there. I think that's yeah, that played huge benefits for me, because ultimately, it's a people business. Yes, that's really what it is. Right? All

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right. So somebody's listening to this. And they have question about whatever trees in their backyard that they're about to sell, or they just want you to not have do cold calls.

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And they they have questions whether they buy or sell it, how they get in touch with you.

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Best way is, of course, calling and call text or the email, what's the best phone number?

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Best phone number is 812-344-3480.

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So a 123443480 a lot of fours and eights in that that's good.

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Yeah, there is.

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It's good. You picked that one out on purpose. It's a good it's a good number. And then are they can you said they could call or text with that? They can. They can go online. They can email me at John at in homes today.com Or just go to in homes. today.com And we have a really interactive website.

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Yeah, that's the You do I went on it. It's it's an it's such an easy I love in homes today, it's just very easy. And you can get a hold of either I had hard working mortgage guys.com That's hard working mortgage guys.com. Or you can give us a call at 317-672-1938. That's 317-672-1938.

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All right. So, before we get into one of my fun questions, I got another different question for you. So if somebody were to drive by your house right now, how would their lane How would your landscape look like? Does it look good?

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I'll say okay, okay. Yeah.

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What would you do differently?

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Um, take, take more time to actually spend, spend time we have I spend more time with extracurricular activities than probably in my own life. It takes it takes time to make you're either you hire somebody to do it, or you're right.

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He has a college degree in this. I know he can do it.

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Well, why don't you guys still have the landscape company? No, no, actually closed about four years ago. Yeah. My dad had been in it 30 years and decided to retire and my brother was done as well.

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Okay. So so you don't have them to have come to take care of my yard for Right. Right. Yeah. To cut your own yard.

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Yes. Okay. I don't. All right.

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Well, I'm funny thing is my my mom and dad. They're in their early 80s. They know they have a manicure three acres. Okay.

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Yeah, they've lived there since 1963. Wow. And they're still out there. You know, mowing the grass. They have. I don't know how many yards of mulch per year. They're spreading themselves. Wow.

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Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking today on my way in, I thought, you know, I haven't cut grass and forever, but I think when I retire or when I slow down because I'm not going to retire, but when I slow down, I might buy a nice good riding lawnmower, and just cut my own grass. That's a few years off, but I might I might not but I'm just an idea cuz I got an acre and a quarter. So okay, it takes

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quite a bit.

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Alright, so. So you since you don't do your own landscaping, alright, so what do you do for fun?

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For fun? I cycle. Oh, okay. Ride it ride a bicycle. Awesome. That's, that's probably if, if I had any pastime, it's it's a hobby.

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Alright. So

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go ahead. Do you meet with a group or? Yeah,

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typically a couple times a week with a group. I, I work out five, six days a week. You know, a lot of my like, through the week, I may be just on my indoor trainer.

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And, you know, I can I mean, like, like this morning, I put in 1011 miles. And then I can do some work as I'm sitting there.

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So I'm returning emails and stuff like that. There's a really good Wednesday night group that that meets up, we'll do about 30 miles on a Wednesday night. And then on Saturday mornings, I meet a group and we'll we'll do anywhere from 50 to 100 miles.

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Okay, so I love to ride. And now I have an electric bike. I have an electric bike that requires you to pedal or it doesn't go right so it's not not one that like a motorcycle. It's it's it, but it allows me to go ride 60 Miles like that, right where I couldn't do it otherwise. So I was so but I've looked and tried to find it looks like there's a really good path for riding in Columbus or there's a good area is yeah, so. So Columbus, you know, they've got miles of people trails, okay, they've made a concerted effort to try and connect the entire city with people. Okay, now, I ride with a crazy group that we like going west wild, west and southwest to like Brown County. Okay, because the guys I ride with, we like to ride hills. And so we seek out the hilliest train basically that we can find. I do two on my electric bike. Yeah.

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Yeah, otherwise I don't want to Hill anywhere anywhere in sight.

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So you go so I prefer to ride the roads, but I thought there was like a, I thought I was looking and there's some phenomenal trail long trail that goes through is it just their normal paths? Is that Yeah, it's people trail system. And we're also fortunate that down in Columbus, you know, we're right next to Brown County State Park.

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Right. So there's tons of mountain bike trails there. You know. I'm fortunate my daughter and son in law. I also own a bike shop in Columbus. Oh, they just opened one up in Fountain Square. Oh, really?

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Jeffersonville? Wow, okay.

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Oh, let's, let's let's do a little endorsement.

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What's the name of the company?

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The

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bicycle station.

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Okay, so check that out.

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Yes. The bicycle station. Yeah. And so do they sell electric bikes or Oh, yes, they sell everything. Yeah, I think electric bikes are amazing. You know, it's it's bringing so many people Pour into cycling, you know that, you know, just like, you know, the guys I ride with Yeah, we ride pretty darn fast. And you know, all that stuff that the electric bike, you know, for somebody that normally couldn't keep up all of a sudden, that changes the game, right? You know?

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Yeah, my son. He's he does Ironman guy, so he rides Chicago, and but I can ride with him now. I could have never ridden with him before because I can't ride 2025 miles an hour for for 50 miles. I can't even on my electric bike do that. But but that's awesome, because it's what a great bonding experience.

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Yeah, your son? Yeah, it's phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, it makes all the difference. So I'm gonna get back to real estate a little delicate. So one of my favorite questions is, is what is your what would you consider your superpower superpowers?

00:25:54.599 --> 00:26:33.480
superpower is just basically treating it like, and I've already mentioned this treating it like a business. And just being that professional, you know, you know, a lot of people say this treat others like you want to be treated, that, you know, get getting yourself out there. You know, a, it's not that. It's not that I'm better at showing a home than another agent. It's, you know, you want me though, when it comes time for that negotiation, that the contracts, you know, think things like that, you know, it's a, because in today's environment, it's it's writing contracts that that can win.

00:26:33.809 --> 00:26:47.609
Right, you know, and so knowing as much as you can, yes, yeah, that makes in this environment, when there's a lack of inventory, you got to do everything you can to stand out in your in your offer, right?

00:26:44.009 --> 00:26:51.690
And I'm sure and Columbus, everybody knows who you are.

00:26:47.880 --> 00:27:04.619
Yes, that helps a lot to to get a real estate agency and an offer coming from somebody they know they like, and I can already tell your, your demeanor, and your the way that you are is easy to work with.

00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:17.460
And I think that's a big I think it's a superpower. Because I'm sure you don't seem like you get you know, something bad comes up, you just handle it. You don't. You can't you don't get your emotions involved. So which helps the right.

00:27:17.700 --> 00:27:39.900
Yeah, your customer, right. You know, a mentor. Early on in my real estate career. Said simple words, never want the transaction more than your client. And I I've lived with that all the way through. It's just keep a keep a level level head. If you're, you know, if you some have somebody ready to jump off the edge of the cliff, you're there to talk them off.

00:27:39.930 --> 00:27:50.339
Right. So yeah, and it's that I think that's one of the areas that an agent really shows their worth.

00:27:45.509 --> 00:27:57.420
Because that's, that's, you know, if you have somebody who also gets upset, it's going to take a lot of times minor situation and make it into a major situation.

00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:18.900
What are you talking about? I want the real estate agent and family to jump off Cliff they're going with because you're gonna grab hold. I just think if I'm going somebody else who's coming with me, take your wife with you. She won't like that. So, how so your family?

00:28:11.099 --> 00:28:19.859
Are they now in real estate? Or how does this all?

00:28:20.190 --> 00:28:36.509
Yeah, so my, I have a wife and two sons and working in our, we call it the wishmaker group. Yeah, so my wife, my wife, and one of my sons are licensed and my other son is in currently getting licensed.

00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:42.390
That's awesome. So who's the boss? You are your wife?

00:28:44.670 --> 00:28:48.029
Actually, my son Zane is the boss. Oh,

00:28:49.289 --> 00:28:52.109
totally switch. You

00:28:54.269 --> 00:29:57.150
know, we had a in our previous brokerage. And so Zane was actually our state manager. And so he the way his brain works, he loves dealing with the MLS, the state laws, all that kind of stuff. I liked the sales portion. I don't like sitting there just reading and, you know, things like that. So, you know, he was basically the one answering a lot of the questions. You know, he's he's got that mentality where, gosh, if even if an agent or a client is having a real problem, you know, and sometimes agents have problems with another agent or signing. You want Zayn on your side. You know, he is he has that calm demeanor and can just really calm a tense situation down. So, so when I say he's, he's the boss, you know, he's, you know, he was That's awesome. Yeah. Does it does it cause him some struggles when he's trying to tell his mom and dad what to do? No, yeah, no problem telling me.

00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:00.210
Do you have an issue? Listen, that was my Next.

00:30:01.709 --> 00:30:28.289
Because kids have trouble listening to their parents. I know that yeah, you know, because we've we've raised very strong willed children. So, you know, even my oldest son, Ashton, that's, that's getting licensed. You know, he's, he's very good on that marketing piece and stuff like that. And, quite frankly, they know, way more than I do on the technology piece. You know, I would, I would be remiss to say that I know more, right, you know, yeah, you know,

00:30:28.710 --> 00:30:35.279
and all future girlfriends or wives have to know they had to get in the real estate business. Now. That's the family that

00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:44.130
may be better that they aren't, they just never know. So So what is your dream of where this your your business goes?

00:30:45.210 --> 00:31:09.720
Okay, so I'll just say, I, first off, I chuckle with the word dream, because our past brokerage, it was actually called Dream. And the dream was actually owning multiple offices. And of course, with that you need agents to support the office, you know, so that that was the dream, you know, through COVID, and things like that, it's, it's very hard.

00:31:10.680 --> 00:32:17.099
First off, getting agents on onboard, and then getting enough agents that actually wake up to win every day, you know, because you need to, you need a fair number of sales. And so, so that was that was the struggle throughout just getting people to treat it, like a business and that consistency piece, things like that, you know, the dream now, you know, family business, but, you know, we have, you know, agents in our office, you know, I've got one one agent candy, I mean, we call her family, that she she really helps keep me on track. She's such a such a good person, that, you know, it kind of reminds you daily, you need to keep up, keep up with that, you know, and be that be that good person to everybody. You know, Dream moving forward, though, you know, not having the complete brokerages. It's like Zayn, for instance, instead of just being bogged down on that managerial side. Now, all of a sudden, you know, he's out there having fun.

00:32:14.039 --> 00:32:36.150
Now he's, he's in that transactional piece, not quite as much stress, you know, things like that. So, so we can really grow that end, Ashton getting his his license, he's going to really grow into that commercial piece. You know, I'll say Ashton was born with that gift of gab.

00:32:36.930 --> 00:32:49.500
So, you know, if he, if he was on here, you'd probably never get him to shut up. Yeah, he just has that deck. So anyway, you know, he's, he's getting into that commercial in there.

00:32:49.740 --> 00:33:46.319
That and that's why dope, especially in Columbus, that's a wide open space. Okay. Um, so, you know, I'm, I'm really stoked, you know, have a, I already do some commercial, but it's, you know, it is hard as a real estate agent to be successful in residential and commercial, you know, to different animals. Yeah. So, so I'm really, really pumped to get to get him going fully, fully engaged on that. You know, my wife, Kimberly, you know, she's got, she worked with me, almost from the start at the nursery garden center. You know, she's always been, you know, kind of that support person. And so, so now, you know, she gets to struggle with three distinct personalities between Zane Ashton and I, and just supporting, supporting that piece. Let's that's got to be a lot of fun for her to ever have her husband and her and two of her kids there. Yes. Yeah. That's a big deal.

00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:53.700
Yeah, no, yeah. I think I think she loves it. As long as she contain our, our strong willed personalities. Yeah, yeah.

00:33:53.730 --> 00:34:03.779
Well, she probably can't she's mom. You're not gonna mess with her. She's your wife. Right?

00:34:00.390 --> 00:34:03.779
You're smarter than that.

00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:19.590
All right. So I'm Ashley again. somebody's listening to this and they want to get in touch with you whether to talk real estate, whether they're talking about cycling now. Or they're living down there in Columbus and they want to ride with you. How can they reach out?

00:34:19.769 --> 00:34:27.480
Okay, definitely call me 812-344-3480 or hop on our website in homes.

00:34:24.659 --> 00:34:43.349
today.com Yeah, I love that and homes today. It's just awesome. And to get a hold of the inner I got a hard working mortgage guys.com That's hard working mortgage guys.com Or you give us a call at 317-672-1938 31767 to 1938.

00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:51.809
All right, so we're gonna take a little pause again, we like to ask the question of the week. So what was your first car? A Plymouth

00:34:51.809 --> 00:34:52.378
Duster?

00:34:52.769 --> 00:34:53.460
Okay, what?

00:34:54.389 --> 00:34:59.010
It was a 72 Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, green.

00:34:59.369 --> 00:35:02.760
Yeah, green bought it when I was 14. What size motor?

00:35:03.269 --> 00:35:08.280
Just a six cylinder. Okay, it was a I think what was it called a slant six? Yes.

00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:25.530
line six. I remember those. Yeah, it ran forever. You know, I I think when I bought it it already had 70,000 miles on it. I bought it off my uncle. You know, I know I'm not supposed to be driving on the road at age 14 But we lived out in the country actually had a a stock car race shop a quarter mile up the road.

00:35:25.559 --> 00:36:02.760
Oh, really, that they raised my parents took me to the stock car races every Saturday night. But and I was taught as a youngster because my grandparents lived quarter mile up the road. And they had us the Circle Drive on the farm. And so I was taught as a youngster though, when you hear those race cars starting up and coming down the road because they basically use that as a test strip. Okay, you know that I hit the field. You know, get off get off the road. Okay, I spent a lot of time going back and forth to my Yeah, grandparents, but I basically taught myself how to drive just going back and forth. up to my grandparents.

00:36:02.849 --> 00:36:13.110
Did they soup that car up? I mean, did you did you? No, no, no. I mean, you had a you had a shop right there that I know that I want to help. Right.

00:36:09.150 --> 00:36:24.420
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But that six cylinder. I mean, even back then, the cars didn't have a lot of weight. So you didn't didn't take as much horsepower. No, no, to get them to get them going.

00:36:20.489 --> 00:36:32.880
But that would be fun. So so now they had a you said your your grandparents had a circular drive? Was that it? Was that like your little on race track?

00:36:33.269 --> 00:36:41.070
Sort of? That's what I was thinking. Okay. I know you brought up for a reason I just wanted to make use it for what it helped me learn to drive on the snow and ice. Yes.

00:36:41.070 --> 00:37:24.329
You know, going, going around in circles. Yeah, I took my kids, when it was the first decent snow we had when I taught them how to teach them how to drive. I made them go out and we've gotten a parking lot and they slid the car all over the place. Because I believe that one of the reasons that a lot of kids have problems in the car die is because they overcorrect. They don't know how to do it when they get out of control. So I've taught my kids how you handle a car when it's out of control. Yeah, I think that's smart. So it probably helped you. Yeah. So did you ever actually race? No, no. Even with the the race track there and everything? Yeah, we have we have a real estate agent that he brought out. But Rob Kibler.

00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:37.860
Yep. Okay. Yeah. He announces, at a lot of the races all over the country. Okay. Yeah. Even at his own. I don't remember outdoor world TV show? I don't know. Okay. Great guy.

00:37:39.210 --> 00:37:48.900
All right. So I like to hear stories. And since you've been in the business for a while, I guarantee you have some. So what do you think was one of your most interesting transactions you've had?

00:37:50.369 --> 00:37:57.090
Oh, my gosh. My brain actually went to showings.

00:37:57.750 --> 00:38:06.239
Actually, more than transactions, I think some of the things that you walk in on at a showing can be a little surprising. Let's

00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:07.710
go keep going. Tell us.

00:38:09.570 --> 00:38:35.639
Yeah. So let's see one time, walked in. There was a homeless person in there, and basically hiding in the closet. And you're basically you open up the closet, you see the person in there, and there, there's freaked out as you actually and I just kind of backed away and just got the clients out out of the home.

00:38:31.050 --> 00:38:51.630
Little little tents for for a moment. Yeah. You know, I showed a, you know, maybe I shouldn't be saying this on air, but showed showed a home. And luckily, I went upstairs first.

00:38:43.920 --> 00:39:06.659
And I opened up. You know, it was supposed to be vacant, but they still had a little bit of furniture in there. And basically opened up the bedroom door and somebody I think they were passed out because they didn't hear a thing, but completely in the buff.

00:39:10.860 --> 00:39:24.929
I mean, it's kind of, we laugh about it. But if for real estate agents, especially and I'm gonna say let's say a female walks into some of these houses, it'd be pretty. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So

00:39:24.929 --> 00:39:28.469
I was glad I walked in on that. First. Yeah.

00:39:28.619 --> 00:40:22.199
My niece is a real estate agent in North Carolina. And she post once a week. I don't remember what they call it, but basically, different things that you see and showings, okay, you know, just not not people doing you know, by the last one was a room that was just totally full of guns and the guy had a loader and he had, you know, cleaning equipment and I don't know how many guns he had on the rack, but, you know, above all the way across about 2530 rifles, you know, just They're all locked, safe, but, but it's just cool things they show and she gets a lot of business off of that just as people want to see what it is, you know, the different things I don't know, if they're all things she she sees, or if it's just things she finds and then puts them out there, but it's really interesting to something that's kind of cool.

00:40:17.460 --> 00:40:34.650
So, as you as you look at your business, where do you see it going? Now, I know you've got your son coming in, and he's gonna do commercial? And it's kind of like the last question, but where do you see your business going?

00:40:37.019 --> 00:41:23.699
Really only up, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's exciting, you know, because I, I kind of took with our last business, I kind of took a step back and wasn't selling as much, you know, I was just getting the normal referrals in, then, you know, things like that, you know, I think I still had past couple years 13 to 15 million in production each year, but you know, that just past clients and referrals coming in. So it's, it's pretty exciting, though, here this past few months, that we're getting back into it, and kind of letting Ashenden Zane kind of drive the technology side. And some of the things that's out there, right now, as far as just getting our name out there, you know, we're, you know, I was on the, on the phone with them with him this morning.

00:41:20.460 --> 00:41:37.380
And, you know, just talking about the lead gen, and just from the new platforms that they're doing right now, the leads that were just coming in overnight. So, you know, the growth factor, it really has me excited.

00:41:37.980 --> 00:41:50.010
So when you if there's somebody listening that let's say they're new to real estate, or thinking about getting into real estate, what what piece of advice, would you give somebody brand new into real estate are thinking about getting into real estate?

00:41:51.659 --> 00:44:07.469
First, I think the first thing getting in, because so many people get into my opinion, they get into real estate, because they either watch HGTV, or they they liked when they purchased a home that they they liked all these pretty homes, and they thought it was glamorous, you know, and, and they thought it was easy money, you know, that, wow, my agent just made, you know, 1000s of dollars on that transaction, you know, then agents getting into the business, you know, in mortgage is gonna be probably know, not that much different. But um, you know, on the on the real estate side, then they, they go take the class classes, and the entry level on real estate is not that hard, you know, you take a class, take a, take a couple of tests, and you're done. You know, the, but then they get in, and they, they get a business card, and they think, oh, all my family and friends were going to come running and you know, it's not the case. So, you know, you know, being a new agent, you have to first off embrace technology. You know, you have to wake up every morning. And like I say, when you have to work every day, you can't work part time and expect full time paycheck. Right? You know, and, and a lot of people a lot of agents think they're working full time, but their cash, if they truly broke it down? Are they actually are you actually working couple hours a day, right, you know, and they're probably not even doing that. So a lot of them think that, you know, they want so bad to have success, but they're just not doing those things that, you know, embracing that technology, getting out in front of people, you know, sitting sitting in an office, you know, maybe it used to be the 20 years ago, maybe it was the thing to do that now, you got to be out in front of people. Yeah, real estate special a mortgage the same way. You know, just like what you said you what you did to get your business as you started getting out. Yeah, and every agent we've talked to, and we've had a lot of people on the show. They, they say the same thing. Now some of them get out in front of people with social media. But but but they also get out in front of people.

00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:22.199
Physically, right. It's both and, and of the two, it seems to me like it's most important to get out physically in front of people. It helps to get out on social media, you embrace technology. So do you do much social media?

00:44:22.289 --> 00:44:28.079
Yeah, I'm, I'm probably on social. Well, I'm on social media a few times a week. Okay.

00:44:25.079 --> 00:44:58.230
Yeah. Because Because, yes, it's just one. Like for a new agent, it's, it's free. You can write in, it's not like you have to create new post every day, things like that. It's it's sometimes just, you know, gosh, just ask the agent, another agent in your brokerage when they get a new listing and just share it, you know, I mean, but it's that it's really the consistency that a lot of people fail on. Yeah. And it doesn't always have to be about real estate. No, in fact, a lot of times the things that aren't real estate do better.

00:44:58.349 --> 00:45:25.469
We've had agents on one of them to cough Shop. And he had over a million views on on a coffee shop another one did something else to I don't remember what it was, and they had like 3 million views. I mean, and picked up, you know, views are nice, but they don't really matter if they don't translate into sales better. They translated into more followers, which then will translate into sales because people are doubt, you know, you get a million people probably wouldn't all from your area.

00:45:25.469 --> 00:45:26.280
Right, right.

00:45:26.309 --> 00:45:50.849
But it's all about staying in front. I mean, let's be honest, nobody wants to hear, Hey, I just sold this house, Hey, I just list this house, Hey, I just did this. But or if you go, Hey, I listed this house. And then two days later, Hey, I just visited this restaurant. Oh, this was phenomenal. I mean, you still are in front of the people. And that's what it's about. And it's the same thing you were mentioning earlier, when you're like, hey, when I go all these places, I'm not going out there and say, Hey, I'm a realtor.

00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:56.489
Hey, I'm a realtor. You're just going out there. Hey, how's it going? How's your wife and kids?

00:45:53.099 --> 00:46:13.769
How's this? And if they do get Hay House real estate? Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. But you're not pressuring them. Right? So, all right. So since both your kids have gotten into real estate, and this might tie in, I will tiny bit to what you just said. But what words of wisdom have you given your kids work hard?

00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:19.139
Now, I agree.

00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:35.969
That's all that's, I mean, it's really just, you know, luckily, my whole family is, you know, we wake up every morning motivated. We don't have to go to seminars to get motivated. It's, you wake up every morning, you know, you, you start working you work out.

00:46:36.750 --> 00:46:47.460
You know, there's, there's all those pieces. So, so I that words of wisdom, you know, they've already got that piece, which is a very good first step.

00:46:43.409 --> 00:46:50.789
But then then it's just working, working hard, but work smart.

00:46:47.579 --> 00:47:17.699
And I don't even have to tell them that really, because, you know, they embrace that technology piece, where you kind of raised them that way. I mean, you were it sounds like your dad was that way, right? And so was it your dad or your wife's dad? The way my dad, your dad who's still cutting grass at 80 years old. And, and I mean, so they had great mentors to see and then learn it from them. And then they were smart enough to learn it. Yes.

00:47:14.699 --> 00:47:17.699
That's awesome.

00:47:18.300 --> 00:47:20.550
All right. So somebody's listening to this.

00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:31.139
And they want to contact you about buying selling a home, maybe even going out and finding what tree works best with their landscape. How can they get in touch 100 mile ride, 100 mile ride?

00:47:31.889 --> 00:47:53.519
Really 100 best first step to contact us is go to our website in homes today.com. You can scroll to the bottom, there's a QR code, and it has a really awesome search app. links directly to the multiple listing service. I read the reviews we get is they a lot of clients like it better than Zillow.

00:47:54.480 --> 00:48:09.389
Yeah, that's awesome too. And I'm not a big fan of Zillow. So I anything you can do to get go to someplace that is, it actually gives you better information. And and it's not I don't know, I just think it's set up better. Yeah, I agree.

00:48:09.389 --> 00:48:24.030
100% and to get a hold of BNR I got a hard working mortgage guys.com That's hard working mortgage guys.com Or you can give us a call at 317-672-1938 31767 to 1938. And please follow us for more indies real estate gurus.

00:48:24.300 --> 00:48:40.860
And reminder if you have any friends, family or coworkers looking to buy, sell or refinance let us know the Lord. Happy to help you. John, thank you for joining us on our show. It's been a pleasure. This has been awesome. We appreciate it. Yep. And maybe in a year when we have both your sons and here we can hear the real stories Okay.

00:48:42.659 --> 00:48:52.139
Went on MLS NUMBER 33041 returns in MLS number six, six we're finding your normal NMLS number is 1995469 equal housing opportunity some restrictions apply