Guru Kim Meeker with Meeker Realty Group

Unknown: 0:00

Hello

Rick Ripma: 0:06

everyone, before we get started, I just wanted to remind you for the most up to date information on mortgages and in these real estate market, go to hardworking mortgage guys.com. That's HardworkingMortgage guys.com. I'm a critic of the hard work and mortgage guy. And I've been I've had the honor of working with over 5200 mortgage, borrowers helping each one find their best mortgage option. As a certified mortgage planner. I know my team and I can guide you through the process and make make it an easy step and an easy process to go through as easy as it can be in mortgages. And is not available today. So Ian will not be joining us. But I have somebody I'm really excited about. I have known Kim Kim Meeker and I have known her for we established 28 years, I thought it was longer, it seemed longer. And we sold new homes together at a builder. And now she picked up she moved, she went to California and she is one of the queens of the California real estate market. She is phenomenal. And I think she's actually which we'll find out. I think she's thinking about opening some an office here in Indiana, so be in both areas. So I am really excited about it. I can tell you Kim's a wonderful person. She has a tremendous work ethic. Ken, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

Kim Meeker: 1:30

Thank you for having me. Appreciate.

Rick Ripma: 1:32

You're welcome. Well, yeah, it's a little easier when I've known somebody as long as I've known you. I mean, not that we communicate all that much, but it is. I just feel like you know, it's funny how Facebook does now, by just staying on Facebook and LinkedIn, you get a pretty good idea of what is going on in people's lives and you feel like even if you don't see them all the time, you know. So do you feel the same way?

Kim Meeker: 1:59

Yeah. I feel like we've honestly, I felt like, you know, really even all my friends back in India as well. Like, I just feel like we just never skipped a beat. You know, you could pick up the phone. It's like you were just together yesterday, practically with Facebook. That is nice. Having having that.

Rick Ripma: 2:18

Yeah, I noticed that with my kids, my kids. They they, when they got together with their cousins after months and months. There was like they never left were when I was a kid. It was not that way it was you know, you kind of had to get to Reno him again. But they never felt like they didn't because they were with them all the time on the social media front. So with that, I normally I start with finding out how you got into into it. But let's let's real quick just jump into the social media. It appears to me you do a lot on social media. Is that is that one of your your focal points?

Kim Meeker: 2:55

It is? Absolutely. It's definitely been, you know, trying it's a way for you to stay belly to belly with people when you can't be face to face. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Social media is definitely key. I think whether it's relationships, or in sales or running a business, you have to be in front all the time. And it's nice that we have social media that we can leverage today because back when you and I started in an in home sales period, there was no social media. I think we were just I think I'm gonna totally data's here. I think we're just getting pagers.

Rick Ripma: 3:32

Yeah, well, yeah, I think we were getting I remember that while we were there. I got my first cell phone.

Kim Meeker: 3:43

Yeah, one of our bosses actually had the big the big old, like, construction cell phone number that the case had to carry around with your phone inside of it. Oh, gosh. Yeah,

Rick Ripma: 3:53

that's those days are gone. Thankfully. Yeah. But that got us to where we are today. So it's, it's awesome. Now you even have a social media manager? Is that correct? I do. And she helps, I'm assuming. So if I if I'm a real estate agent out there, and I'm listening, how important do you feel that is is to have somebody doing your social media is that A is that a high net worth item to have have have done for you as a as a real estate agent.

Kim Meeker: 4:24

So it really just depends on where you're at in your business, right. So a solo agent, someone that's just getting started with their business may have a lot of sweat equity time to put in and do their own social media management themselves. And I highly recommend that they do in the beginning just so that they can understand how the platforms speak to each other how everything works. And it also helps to remind them to stay on social media, right? Because just like anything, you can do it for a week or two and then you forget and you get busy with all the other things that are going on you forget to do it. So celebrate You can absolutely do it by themselves. Once you start to gain momentum, and you have more business you want to leverage, right. So then you take the next step. And you can hire an in house Marketing Manager, you can hire a virtual assistant marketing manager or you can hire a company to do it. So when I first when I took my social media and I decided to have someone helped me with that part time, I hired someone to do that for me part time.

Rick Ripma: 5:31

Yeah, yeah, I think it's leveraging is very important. But you always have to get going on your own first. It's kind of like follow up. And this is taking us back to the, to the Estridge days, the new home construction days. When I was there. I had the first follow up system I had was a was a what do they call it a box? That was you put recipes a recipe box, right? I had? Yeah, I had two

Kim Meeker: 6:02

cards. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 6:05

Exactly. And I had one that was dated by when I needed to do the follow up. And one that was dated by there was done by their name. And, and then I was the first person to go get a computer. And I put a I put a program on it because my brother was a computer person. And I use that. But even before that, it went from the it went from that box, it went to a a typewriter that had a memory. You can save people's names with one with the the, what I was gonna say the letters I pre written so I could do that anyway. But that you get.

Kim Meeker: 6:42

Let me let me remind you of something like this is how, what an impact that you made on my on my life. 20 years ago, in the beginning of my career, in home sales, even though I had the mortgage background before I came in a new home sales, but I'm learning how to work with customers coming in whether it's coming in the door in a sales model or not. What you taught me was invaluable. I use it to today, you taught me how to use that black box. You remember you actually did some sales meetings and you said well, Rick uses this. And this is how he uses his three by five cards. And then if you remember, we moved it over to a filing system. Then once I took the lead sheet, and I put it in the the filing system, and then you my friend actually are the one that turned me on to act, which was my first Yep. Well, the black box was the CRM, right. But then act became our CRM and I had the hardest time getting away from AP, even when I moved out to San Diego, and learning to use a different CRM because I was looking at like top producer, some other CRMs that were I was being introduced at that time to come in into the resale market. And so but that app, you my friend, you're the one that introduced me to that program.

Rick Ripma: 8:10

I, I knew I introduced a lot of people, it's really nice to hear that somebody else actually used it. You know, as you know, there's probably many people you've done the same thing for, and many of them never actually use it. And that's, that's nice to hear that you use it. I'm glad you did. And I think I personally believe it's one of the reasons that I've been successful. And and, and what I do is because I have a very strict follow up system. And I do that, and I'm guessing that's a big piece of what has driven you and grown your business. Is that you? You had a system? Yeah. Yeah, that would be that would be my guess. So

Kim Meeker: 8:52

very simple, right? It just Yes. You know, it's like they say, you know, the best site CRM is that CRM that you use the best to follow up system that you use. You have to It's the money is in the follow up, right? The relationships are in the follow up. Right?

Rick Ripma: 9:09

Right. Yes, it's important for anybody to do that. And it's also important, I think it's invaluable for that customer that you stay in touch with them. And they and as you just said, they actually it's the relationship to actually become more than just a customer, they become friends. Because you talk to them all the time. Yes, and you can follow up and again, go back to social media. If you join them on their social media sites. You're now seeing them a lot you're seeing what happens in their life that milestones of their life all show up and you do feel a connection that you don't have if you if you don't have the that but you know the social media, but you also need to follow up you also need to call them once in a while. We call every once every quarter, we call every single customer that's done business with us, you know, and And a lot of people forget about those those ones. And I know you do the same thing because I was reading some of the stuff you were doing. And it's like, dang, she's doing the same thing. Because it works, right? Yeah. It's amazing. So how did you end up getting in to real estate? And I guess, let's, let's keep it to like, how did you end up doing it in San Diego? I think it's fascinating. I'd like to actually get started before San Diego because I have told everybody ever since you did it, I'm like, I'm an I'm impressed as can be because she just you picked up your entire family, and you moved to San Diego. And that takes an amazing amount of belief in yourself, and the commitment and gumption or whatever you want to call it. How did you do that?

Kim Meeker: 10:58

Well, so even before Estridge, you know, so little bit about like, my, my personality, and just who I am, I've just always been, you know, I've just always had a spire internally inside of me, and I've just always had dreams. And I'm just, I made a commitment to myself at a very young age, that I'm never going to give up on my dreams. I will never, ever give up on my dreams, and whatever, you know, with that everybody has a different meaning for that, I think and what it means. But at a very young age, I was disappointed a lot by adults and stuff. And I just, I always was the quiet one, believe it or not. And I just sat back and I just took everything in. And I was always paying a lot of attention to everything, right. And I just, you know, I just made a commitment to myself, to never give up on my dreams and my goals. And my mom would even tell me all the time, like you, you know that you got to reach for the stars reach for the stars, she would always say, you know, be aware of your surroundings, go for this, go for that. And so I just growing up with a single mom, and having a lot of time, a lot of time to myself and I had to raise myself, I just I developed that strength at a very young age. And I also was very humbled in the same moment to so coming into. When I was 18. I actually packed up my bags and I moved out to San Diego with $760 in my pocket. That's when it first started. So I moved out here I was in the mortgage industry. I was actually a telemarketer for a mortgage company from Indianapolis. Diversified mortgage. I don't know if you remember them. They were around while they were out of Ohio. And I was a telemarketer there and I was their top telemarketer. But I wanted to come out to San Diego to also go to college, but I had to pay for my own school. Right. And I couldn't afford the school back in Indianapolis. So I did come out here they have junior colleges out in San Diego. So I went to I signed up at a local junior college. And I was the mortgage companies telemarketer out here in San Diego. So that's kind of where it was all birthed. And I used to literally go down the courthouse, eight hours a day, I would write down and go through the data. And I would write down the name address and the interest rates of people that I'd have to go to the criss cross book. And I'd have to extract out their phone numbers and put it on that three by five card. And then the telemarketers back in Indianapolis would call those people and set appointments for the loan officers to do second TVs. And some Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I lived out and see Diego, I lived in San Francisco. And when the market crashed in 92 is when like literally I showed up I was in the mortgage business. I was a loan officer slash loan processor. I was doing both jobs for a credit a company that we had the accounts of like the big companies at that time. So we were doing a lot of employee loans and revise and purchases. And I literally showed up to the front door. Now mind you, I was 22 years old, making almost six figures that year, very young at making the kind of money but I was showed up to the door and it was locked. The market literally shifted almost overnight. And when that happened, my mom's health wasn't very good. And I said you know what, I need to go back to nd I'm just I'm gonna get back to me so I packed up and so that's what I did back I have always, I always knew that I would be back out here. I just didn't know how I was going to get back out here. And so fast forward, when I moved back, my family's business was inside an office building that had another builder in there. And they were on the top floor, and their mortgage company was on the first floor. So I went back, and I worked for their mortgage company, actually. And so when I did that, how the new home the new home dream was birthed is that, again, California was making almost six figures that year, I think my I think I made $92,000. And this was back in 9291. Sorry, so I was 21 and a half on this, on this 22. And so when I moved back to nd I, I couldn't get a job making more than 25,000 a year. Now I know. Back then it was decent money. But I was like, oh my god, this is like panic mode for me. Like somebody's only making 25,000 a year, right. But I did it for the interim. And then I had I did a loan for a sales consultant for this national home builder. And when I saw her W two, it came across my desk, I'm like, that's what I need to do I need to sell home. I gotta get back up to that income level, right? That's what I did. So I when I interviewed with the salesperson, the sales manager, I met him on hallway. And I said, Hey, if you guys have any positions open as as, as a salesperson, I'd love the opportunity to interview with you. Like at 2021 22 years old, I was already like, hey, and he kind of looked at me, he's like, Well, go get some experience somewhere else. And then let me know. That's exactly what he said to me. And I thought, okay, game on like, right. You know, I mean, I felt like he literally mean said, Yeah, whatever kind of laughed me off like a Ulis. You're just, you know, and so. So I took that information, the competitive nature and me and I went back and I did as much research as I could. Like, I want to know who all the builders are. I want to know who the best are. And so I went back, I quit that job, right. And so I started door knocking on the bill on the doorstep of the builders, I started cold calling. Right. And so I didn't know about asteroids at that time. But I knew that I knew that without a college degree because I didn't have a college degree. Okay. Back in Indy, like to get into pharmaceutical sales or a new home sales. Like you had to have a degree like everybody wanted you to have a degree, right? And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna have to come in the backdoor somewhere. I gotta show my numbers. I gotta show prove my work, right. And so what I did is I knocked on the door of a small builder that was just getting up and going and called built more homes. I don't know if yep, yep. And so I went in, I interviewed with the owners at one of the sales models, and I got the job. And oh, my God, this is amazing. But no training. No problem. You know, you're you're pretty enough. You got this right. But you know, you don't know what you don't know. Right. Right. And because I had that mortgage background, because I was the telemarketer for you know, through high school. And because I went and I did all that handwork that was before. Yeah. When I saw the handbook with the stuff in San Diego, and understanding notes and payments and 40 year mortgages and stuff. That's what I use. Nobody gave me scripts. Nobody gave me scripts. I got a model home. I showed up. I sat at the desk, and I was like, Okay, what do I do now? So when people would come in, I have my floor plans up. And I went and I made a payment for each floorplan. Okay, that's how I thought I took 56 houses my first year. That's

Rick Ripma: 19:21

awesome. Yeah. So yeah, but you had you're a good salesperson and you're and you're highly motivated. So you, you do what we all do. You go what do I have to do to make this work and you figure it out. That's what you did. And sometimes that might be better. Yeah, you had to figure it out. If somebody wanted to get a hold of you for any real estate needs now, are you in Indiana yet or are you coming this way to have

Kim Meeker: 19:49

still it's still on the back burner? Okay, so definitely could possibly come come together. Right now I'm last year was really building out this systems and and processes that I need to have all together to make it a an environment that agents can come in and learn and thrive in. And then we'll take this and duplicate it back in Indianapolis most

Rick Ripma: 20:15

likely. Okay. So how would somebody get a hold of you if they're looking for real estate in California and actually, we're specific in California, how would they get ahold of you?

Kim Meeker: 20:25

So I'm actually in Temecula. It's just north of North County, San Diego. So we serve Riverside and San Diego counties. And if they need to connect with me just come to Meeker Realty group.com. They can get a hold of me fairly easy, right? There are a Google anchor Real

Rick Ripma: 20:43

Estate Group. Yeah, yeah. And it's m e ke, R. Meeker real estate. Yes. And to get a hold of either I go to HardworkingMortgageGuys.com. That's HardworkingMortgageGuys.com. And we always ask one question, it's a little off the subject. But we we love to ask this question. And if anybody is looking behind me, they can tell I'm kind of a car guy. What was your first car?

Kim Meeker: 21:13

Oh my gosh, my first car was a Toyota Celica GT. I mean,

Rick Ripma: 21:22

you love that car. I can tell.

Kim Meeker: 21:25

You know what it was it did it did the job. So we'll leave it at that road down the street.

Rick Ripma: 21:39

It's funny, because everybody has interesting memories in their first car, most people. And there's two kinds of first cars. It's the first car you have let your parents kind of give you or whatever. And then the first car you actually go out and get yourself. But it's that very first car that tends to have a I don't know, a special place in your heart. For some reason. We kind of at least I love cars. So I get attached to him II and loves cars. He gets attached to him. So it's just kind of how it is. Yeah.

Kim Meeker: 22:10

I always say, you know, I mean, some girls, you know, they've got their shoes and their other stuff. I've got my cars. I love cars.

Rick Ripma: 22:18

Yeah, that's Do you have anything special right now? Car carwash?

Kim Meeker: 22:22

Um, let's see here. I have. I do have my mom car. And it's not a minivan I do I have an SL 550.

Rick Ripma: 22:31

Oh, awesome. Yeah, that's a mom car. Because your kids or your kids are not sitting around home. And they're probably too big to fit in that car anyway.

Kim Meeker: 22:41

So yeah, Jim. Jim doesn't fit in there very well. He didn't think so man. And then the boys are they fit in there. They fit in there. Nathan's a little tall. Nathan's on six, five over six, five. So

Rick Ripma: 22:57

I knew I knew from the pictures, they look pretty tall. And I knew Jim's a big guy. So I figured, you know, Paul wise. So what are you known for? Or what is your superpower? As you look at real estate, what's your superpower?

Kim Meeker: 23:11

I guess you know, I would say, I'm not sure if it's just one power, it's all mixed into one per se, I would just say, motivation drive. Just being consistent. You know, when you don't want to get up, you got to get up, you got to go, you know, but I think for me, it's really just being consistent. Rick, you know, getting back to the basics, stayed with the basics and be consistent. And just because that's your that's your platform, right? So you know, I always say when I get on stage, I'm on stage, like you can't not take you can't take me off stage. Right. And so what I mean by that is, when I'm performing, I perform, and I will always perform at the highest level. And the only reason I got the only way I got here was by being consistent sticking with the basics, and adding on and complementing my tool belt with the other tools that I need to be successful.

Rick Ripma: 24:07

Right. As you grow you we all have to do that. Yeah, as you grow, that's what you have to do.

Kim Meeker: 24:13

So as you fail to because if you don't have a system, right, and you haven't developed the right environment for yourself to thrive, when you do fail, you tend to derail. Right. Right. And so you can always talk yourself out of something, it's a lot easier for us to talk ourselves out of something than it is to talk ourselves into something. Yes.

Rick Ripma: 24:40

And you know, with the fail I think that's important because a lot of pretty much everybody who is successful, has failed. Yes. Yeah. And, and so anybody like if there's real estate agents that go you know, the They're listening, and they're struggling today because it is a different market. They need to understand, we've all failed. It's changing, figuring out why you're failing and changing what you need to change. Figuring out what is working and keep doing what's working, and listening to mentors, you need mentors. Do you have any mentors? Or have you had mentors through your career?

Kim Meeker: 25:21

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, and, and mentors are. Third, they're just critical, right? A coach, a mentor. So you look up, you put yourself in rooms that are so uncomfortable, that it forces you to grow, right? And so, you know, whether it's today been in the industry for 30, something plus years, or when I first got started, I always or being with that first builder, I've always forced myself, if I want to get what I want. If it doesn't scare the holy crap out of me, I don't do it. If the room doesn't scare the holy crap out of me, I don't go in. Right, because somebody else's comfort level is going to be somebody else's painful level. Right? Yeah. You know, and I just, you know, what, I invite everyone to try to think that way, no matter where you are, what stage of your life you're in, no matter what industry you're in, if you're an agent, or, you know, whatever you're doing just get a little bit uncomfortable every day, more uncomfortable every day. Do athletes get to where they're at? Because they because they don't have a coach? No, they have. They have a mentor, right? And for the, you know, beginning agent or solo agent that might not have the income to afford a coach, nowadays, having YouTube there are a lot of coaches put their content out there for free. Right. And you can go on you can Google, you know, even agents like myself, and like you, you know, as a lender, you know, we're putting content out there to help other agents grow. Right?

Rick Ripma: 27:05

Yeah, that that's a lot what this show is about. It's one of those things we want to accomplish is help that, you know, one of the things as you as you look at it, and you're if somebody's going through the struggles, I've had many agents on here who has said, Hey, call me, I'll help you. I mean, it's amazing the community that we have, and how about you probably have, I know you have a big a team, what's your team set up? And I'm sure that you have plenty of agents, you're helping at this point in time. You're mentoring?

Kim Meeker: 27:37

Yeah. So what where we're at if you know, I do have I have what I call it team brokerage, a little bit different than, you know, the good ol team, I think we've come so far, from when we were all trying to start up teams, you know, 567 years ago, and the before that in the real estate community, it was partners, right? You had two agents that work together, you have your own book of business. But if you have XP you can't show a property or not able to get some to something your your partner with business partner would go show that property right? Well, we've evolved into these teams, because again, of leverage, right? So where we're at now and why I call myself a team brokerage is I have, we've put together systems and processes and a community within a community of the brokerage to be able to facilitate a, a, I'm going to call it a community because I prefer to call it a community where agents can come in, and they can collaborate, they can learn and they they get the secret sauce, right? We're opening up our playbooks, right and saying, you know, if you are looking to do this, this is what you need to do. So we're also providing coaching and guidance, but it's all based off of putting together an environment that people can come into and thrive versus having the door shut, right. I mean, gosh, right, when you and I first got started, I mean, just in our sales meetings, having you and Dave there and other people that had quite a bit of experience with car sales in their background, and just being able to listen to you guys talk. I was I was a sponge. You have to be a sponge, right? So the key brokerage is set up where we're facilitating an environment that everyone can feel safe and come in and learn under and then take your business to the next level. You're not building my business, right. It's not Kim Meeker team. It's Meeker Realty Group as a group and a community,

Rick Ripma: 29:40

right? Yep. Yeah, and it's important metrics. I've mentioned this before, but my son brought it up to me. And I've never thought of it he says that there's there's horizontal mentors and there's vertical mat mentor. So you're, what she just mentioned is when we work together, use you would say things other. Lisa would say things others People would say things. And I go, Okay, how do I implement that in my structure? So you were mentoring at that point me. And I would mention something and maybe you did the same thing or somebody else did. And that's a that's that's the, you know, horizontal. But the vertical is then when somebody else comes in, and it is tough, and it has changed, I remember, I won't mention his name. But when I started, I wanted to do follow up. And he had all these letters, and he was the manager, he had moved from sales to management. And he wouldn't give me his letters, he wouldn't let me use it, because he made them. He didn't realize we were all on the same team. Today, he would. But that's just what happened back then. But you do need those strong mentors to help you become successful. It's not if it's not a negative, it's a huge positive, and you'll become a mentor to so it's, it's extremely, it's just what you have to do in my opinion.

Kim Meeker: 30:56

Yeah. So we actually bring in agents to the team, and then I can also bring them to the brokerage, they can be both it could be on our team brokerage, or they can be just at the brokerage. And I mentor them either way, right. So they're gonna get the support and the knowledge, and they know that somebody's there and in their core, right, they don't have to do this business alone. And, you know, there's still some of that going on today, where people don't want to open up their playbooks. And that's okay. Right. That's, that's totally okay. But we did we get into a growth mindset or a fear mindset, right?

Rick Ripma: 31:35

Yes. And I think that's, that's a big piece of it right there. I think you hit that dead on, there's people who, they don't think there's enough out there. I'm sure that you feel the same way. I've been doing this long enough that I realize there's more than enough out there. I don't have to worry about somebody else. I just just do mine and them getting them getting the deal didn't take one away from me. Right

Kim Meeker: 32:01

now, in fact, you know, it could even help you bring many more to your right. To the bottom line, right? Because if you're positive and you're, you know, you're upbeat, and you're you have that growth mindset, you stick in that in that space. You know, I always tell I tell the team as well. If you might, my voice actually started with my mom did it to me, but I gave it to my boys as well, every day that they would leave for school, I would tell them goes make sure you smile at somebody today. And you know, the thing is, they never they never looked at me like okay, Mom, whatever you never received that. I'm like, okay, Mom, cool, checkout, you know, whatever. But they always it just reminds you to stay in that space of giving. Right? And so you're a giver. If you're a giver, you're going to give, give, give give, and others even if they take it's okay, it's okay. Eventually, they'll start to give to it's just you pass, you pass the baton. Right? Yes. And so go ahead, you're having a bad day, or good day doesn't matter. Just pay it forward, forward to smile for some smile at some because you just never know what kind of day they're happy.

Rick Ripma: 33:21

Yeah, and who you give to doesn't mean that's where you're gonna get something back from. But it does come back. It just may be from some other area, maybe from somebody else you just never know. So you don't worry about it, you just do it. That's why we do this. That's part of what this is. This is about giving the real estate agents, some will, some won't. That's okay. But we want to help. We think everybody, you know, people need the help right now. And so that's why we're doing it. Right. So we think it's important.

Kim Meeker: 33:50

It's so important. It's so important. It's just you know, there's so many opportunities out there that we can all win together.

Rick Ripma: 34:01

Right? Right. And that's a better celebration. Winning together, I think. Yep. So what what key activities would you recommend a realtor invest their time in?

Kim Meeker: 34:15

What key activities would I recommend activities?

Rick Ripma: 34:19

What key activities would you suggest? or recommend a realtor invest their time in?

Kim Meeker: 34:25

Sure. Oh, my gosh. So going into 2023? Do we just kind of head into the 2000s for them, so the key the key is just you know, get your goals up and visual. Number one, you know, well, actually, number one should be your calendar. Right? You need to be selfish in order to be selfless. So get your calendar in front of you. You know, get up early, don't sleep until eight, nine o'clock in the morning, right? Get up early. invest some time into yourself first. You know Read, you know, do a workout, make sure you got your diet on point, drink your water, right. And then from there, start your day, right. But get your get your goals up and visual. And you know, Rick, this started back again, you know back in my days working with you all and you know, I don't know whose idea it was, but I got it at one of our sales meetings was the mirror, right putting your goals up on the mirror. And so one of our friends that we worked with, we used to use like our eyeliner,

Rick Ripma: 35:32

I never use my eyeliner

Kim Meeker: 35:38

until I figured out that the expo markers actually work on your mirror. But just get them up and I like my mirror, I love my mirror, because it's something I see every single day, whether I brush my teeth, or brush my hair, I'm in front of my mirror, right? And so get your goals up there, get your financial goals up there and get your trip get your prospecting goals up there. Right. The next thing is, is for 2023, you have to go on more appointments, you know what you did in 2021 2022, whether you're brand new agent, or I can speak to both fields here, whether you're brand new or existing agent 2021 2022. While it was very difficult, because we had to pivot, right going into genomic, you're going to need more appointments. And those appointments, then you you also want to have a go through what your what your your lead generation pillars are going to be. Right? So I would say calendar goals, and then you need to set more appointments. But in order to get the appointments, agents are going to grow, but I'm a brand new agent, I don't have any clients, where do I get my clients, we'll sit down with your mentor, sit down and go through and get yourself two or three lead pillars. You don't need 16 like I have right now, right? I just need like two or three lead pillars keep it simple stick to the basics. And, you know, those lead pillars can consist of as an agent, I love open houses, you know, coming from our background, I still even to today, I can go through a brand new neighborhood. And I can file away the elevations. I just have this, you know, I don't know it's Burton. We were trained that way. But I can sell for farming and open houses. For me, I'm super comfortable, because of having all those years of just having that and being trained on elevations. But certainly pillars no more than three. And if you only are comfortable doing two, then just do two, there's no right or wrong, I just wouldn't do more than three. You also really want to establish and get all your past clients down and on paper. Right and no, you know, and again, brand new agent might not have past clients, but you do if you download, there's an app that you can actually download all your contacts into your from your phone into a spreadsheet, you go through, you clean that out, and you call 10 people a week on that list, and you set an appointment, you know, try to go for two week or three a week with people that already know like and trust you even love you, you know, for family wise, and you just have it you know, you offer to bring them pizza and soda over and say can I have 30 minutes of your time I just want to talk to you about your real estate needs. I'm not going to sell you a house. I'm not even looking to list your home. I'm just training. It's that's basic, right? Yes. And then I already have the past clients, you have to follow up quarterly with them. You want if you pop by with them if you have a conversion ratio of one and five, for example. Now this is agents that are more established to have the past clientele, if you're contacting them every single quarter, and you're calling to be their real estate adviser. Right? You should end up with one transaction per quarter, just from one and five. All right. All right. So if you do that every quarter, and you're calling you know I'm not I don't have my calculator in front of me. But if you're calling say 20 people that might know like and trust you and some people might not only know five people, hey, just get them out. But if you're connecting with them, you should be able to extract the next five to seven transactions that year from there because the people that are referring business to you Are a lot easier to convert versus the colder. Right? Right?

Rick Ripma: 40:03

Right. And once you do that, then those people that you've just worked with are, if you do a good job are likely to get then refer you to. And that's how you build your business you build it slowly, isn't necessarily slowly, but that's how you do it. I find what you said, it's funny because you and I do exactly the same thing. You know, you have to have your schedule, you have to have your calendar, you have to, we have certain times you call people all day long, and you just do it. And you it's not once you start doing it, it's pretty it's you actually, if you miss a day you miss it, because it's really helpful. And we I even have,

Kim Meeker: 40:38

I can't do my follow up. I truly get super cranky, irritable, and I get cranky, because I know how important that is to move the needle. Right? versus going to hiding underneath a shell. Because I just know like, I love to be in front of people I love to be, you know what I love? I love taking care of people.

Rick Ripma: 41:02

Right? Yeah, you always were. I mean, that's what you always did. It's and it's that always comes across and it's it does it you just don't feel the same, because you know, you're not doing the things to help others. And it's really up to us to do that. Because they don't know. The another another question? You know, if someone's looking to hire a real estate agent, you know, what is it that they would, you know, what should they look for? When they're looking to hire somebody like, so I'm thinking about listing my house, or I'm thinking about buying a house, I'm gonna I don't have an agent, I'm gonna look for an agent. How, what should I do? What? What would you recommend?

Kim Meeker: 41:44

So it depends if they've sold a home before not because they've sold a house before. My first question to them would be you, what are you looking for in an agent, you know, how, you know, they had a great experience, what can I do to duplicate and make that experience. So you know, a good experience for you, if they had a bad, I don't want him to go down the rabbit hole and tell me all this bad stuff that happens. But you know, more in to meet them where they're at. Right? And so you know, what's important to you, when hiring a real estate professional? I think it's really important to know your keywords when you do that as well, because a professional is someone that's going to have all the tools to make your your experience a better one. So that's probably the first question is I would ask myself, what's important to me when hiring a real estate professional? I would write that down. And then I would ask the agent, you know, share with me, you know, this was important to me, how would you handle this? I've had I tend to work best with people that do this, are you something are you able to accommodate my needs here? Right. And then from there, you know, what's, you know, part of that what's important to you? Is it going to be experience? Right? It's going to be marketing, communication. Those are typically your first top three.

Rick Ripma: 43:06

Okay. Yep. And, you know, it's, it's vital that people understand that. And the best way to find out is from people who do are in the business, I want to go back to what we were talking about before, just add, if there's agents out there in Indiana that are looking for help in that area of follow up and that type of thing, we actually have something called right away, which is a warm referral program, and it's all about follow up. Okay, it's totally about follow up. And, and because a lot of people, you can, you can call people you've cold calls your whole life. So you don't have a problem with that some people are scared to death to do that. But even some people just I find a lot of agents don't even have a good follow up system. From the time they close on and I've talked to some they have for the first month, they have a good follow up system, but then they then it goes away. And so our system, I can actually help people set it up. And as you mentioned, I've been doing follow up for 30 years. That's what I do. I can help set it up to make it make it work for him. And so it's those are the kinds of things that are important that people do, and even if they just want to talk to somebody about how to do it, I can help do that. But I just thought I should mention that because it's important. I think it's very helpful to people. We are coming up on our on the end of the show. So Kevin, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, how would they get ahold of you? What's the best way?

Kim Meeker: 44:28

Yeah, so I'm actually in an area called Temecula, California. We are the eighth top wine destination in the United States, just so you know. And so we're in Southern California. So Temecula is just north of San Diego. You can google us at mica Realty group.com. And then also go to my page, which is Ken Meeker. I find that's probably the easiest just to go to Google. And you can reach directly out to me, my direct cell number. Well, just go to Google, it's going to be easier for you or you can actually call 9514 or 564307 is another way to reach me as well.

Rick Ripma: 45:07

And we'll put it all in. And so if somebody's if they're looking at their driving down the road, they can't but if they go to the the podcast or the video, we're gonna have all that information up also, if not, we get to interact. So

Kim Meeker: 45:19

yeah, put to work if I, if I may, you know, the other thing with with how we're all set up and accessible nowadays, as well, no matter where you are, whether you're in Canada, United States or another country, it's okay. I'm here to help. You don't just have to be in California, you can be anywhere. As an agent, I always reach out to me. And I'll be a service to I'm here to help.

Rick Ripma: 45:42

Awesome, boy. I think that's awesome. And I find all top agents are like that. It's amazing. You think that they're, they're hard to get ahold of and they really are there to help. Every single one has been that way. So that's awesome that we appreciate that. If you need to get a hold of Ian or I, it's HardworkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardworkingMortgageGuys.com. And Kim, thanks so much for joining us. I know you're busy and we do appreciate you taking your time out. Thank you very much.

Kim Meeker: 46:08

My pleasure.