The Future Belongs to the Brave

Being an entrepreneur means you are always in a constant state of evolution. However, the pace of commerce is currently moving as fast as lightning and as human beings, our natural state is to take a comfortable route. I force myself to be in a constant state of discomfort, because when I'm in discomfort I know that I'm evolving and growing.

The future belongs to the brave. When you think of brave, you think of our wonderful men and women in the armed services putting themselves in harm's danger. Thankfully, for most of us who work in real estate, we're never going to have to do that, and if you are in real estate and you have been in the armed services, we are indebted to you as a nation. The bravery I'm talking about is bravery in business. How does one muster up the courage to take some rather large leaps of faith when there isn't necessarily the evidence there?

The real estate market is going through a shift. Interest rates are going back up. The US economy and the global economy--it's changing. As human beings, we tend to not like change. I'm one of the weirdos who really love change. I embrace it and I look forward to it—I find it quite exciting. Many people are very averse to change, and I respect that. When change happens, sometimes discomfort can set in—or worse, fear. Fear can begin to penetrate our belief structure, and then we can let fear take the wheel. When fear takes the wheel, we always crash.

“Success is Being Able to Try One More Time”

?I'm going to give you some examples of giants of industry that could have easily quit when they hit a brick wall. When they were facing fear or uncertainty or discomfort, they could have taken the easiest, softer route and they didn't. And these are all people that you know, but you wouldn't have known them if they had essentially decided well, it's a little bit too risky.

Probably one of the biggest inspirations for me in business is Richard Branson (a fellow Brit). I watched him do all of these outrageous stunts as I was growing up in the seventies and eighties. For me, the stunts seemed fun for him, but they also seemed to be publicity stunts. And I've read his biographies and autobiographies and it came to pass that that's exactly what they were. They were the perfect blend of fun and publicity and risk that allowed him to grow the Virgin companies to what they are today, which I believe is over 200 companies. I want to tell you the story of when he began—when he was launching Virgin Airways. He was working with a particular bank and he put all of the Virgin Airways structure in place. All he needed to do was finance it to finish the deal.

Richard Branson goes home (on a Friday afternoon, after the bank is closed) and lo and behold, sitting on his doorstep is his bank manager who says, "Richard, I'm terribly sorry, we don’t really feel that what you’re doing is in the best interests of the company. Therefore, not only are we not going to fund this, but we're actually calling all of our notes and you're going to have to pay the bank back, all of the money that you've borrowed for Virgin." Richard had to pay. He had to make the payments to make sure Virgin Airways would go through by Monday morning.

Most people at that point would see their whole world shattered in front of their eyes. Instead of begging and scraping (which is probably what the bank manager wanted so that the bank could get a better deal), Richard said, "You know what? Get the f out of my house. I'm not going to work with people that drop bombs on me like this on a Friday night,"—while he was facing utter annihilation of the Virgin Empire by Monday morning. He rang around all the other industry leaders he could lay his hands on over that weekend to see if he could scramble to find the money. And he says very poignantly that he was happy with it either way. If he figured it out, great. If he didn't figure it out, what's next? And I have to say those words have always been very powerful to me because I'm a“what's next person”. Virgin Airways, one of the most successful airlines happened, and the rest is history.

Honda. There must be millions and millions of Hondas around the world. Honda was actually fired from an engineering company because they didn't think his skills were very good. The poor guy was broke. He couldn't figure out a way to live, but instead of going to work for someone else and instead of panicking—he followed his gut. He followed his dream. The rest is history. He has a very, very poignant phrase, "Your success represents 1% of your work, whereas 99% represents failure." Powerful stuff.

Dyson. His vacuums were rejected 5,000 times. 5,000 times before he managed to get investors to come aboard. He probably went through all the investors in the world that would invest in vacuum cleaners. "Learn from your failures as one can never learn from success," he says.

Edison. It took 1000 failures to find the light bulb. He said, "As humans, giving up is what we are best at. Success is being able to try one more time."

The Connection Economy

What does this mean for the real estate world? We’re currently in a massive shift. Every week there seems to be a new portal, there seems to be a new iBuyer. The ground is literally shaking under our feet (which in California that makes us very nervous) and it's natural and understandable for us to want to withdraw, become conservative, and resort to techniques that we know used to work. I am here to be the hand on your back to say please, now is not the time for any kind of conservative behavior. Now is the time that we need to suck up that courage and go out and do what we do best. It’s time to utilize the connection economy.

What can never be replaced is you. There are skills that you as humans can learn that the computers and iBuyers and all of the other stuff that's going to be coming and deluging our industry can never be learned. If you do not have these skills, as Zig Ziglar says, they can be learned.

Teachable Skills

When you meet someone, you can be engaging. Engage with people, listen to them, hear their story. What’s the motivation for them? Why do they want to move? When you listen intently to people, when you hear the words that they're saying and listen to them as a story rather than as a client or as a commission—something really incredible that happens. You begin to be perceptive. You begin to have empathy. You begin to create loyalty. You are creating these connections that are all housed in this wonderful bubble known as trust. Trust is something that cannot be manufactured. It's either real or it isn't. You can't do a carbon copy of trust. And when people find you trustworthy and they find you funny or they find you knowledgeable or they find you inspired or you inspire them, those are the facets that can just never be repeated by all of the portals. These things are teachable skills.

I was speaking with a very well-known agent in the Los Angeles area yesterday. Someone that I admire and who is very successful. And I said to him (I'm just going to call him Joe for this story), "So Joe, tell me about your marketing. What marketing do you do?" He said, "Pete, I don't really market." I said, "Do you do any ads?" He's like, "No, I don't really do any ads." I ask, "Do you do postcards?" He answers, "Nah, not really." I then ask, "Do you do any letters?" He then answers, "Nah." I ask, "So what is it that you do?" He said, "I constantly reach out to people all the time. I'm constantly just touching my database day after day after day after day after day after day after day." And this guy is one of the most successful agents, probably one of the top 50 agents in Los Angeles and it was very comforting for me to hear that someone else is a big believer in this way to run their business. Because once the fear sets in, people start going, "Oh, maybe I should buy Zillow leads or maybe I should put money into iOffers" because we begin to panic.

I am here to say to you, and I believe this to my very bones, that what makes the difference between us and what's going on in our industry is utilizing the connection economy. We all have connections. Let's utilize them. Let's make coffee dates. Let's go out for dinners. Let's get in front of people. Let's attend kids' birthday parties. Let's wish them a happy birthday. Let's give them a call. There are a million freaking reasons. I'm putting my money where my mouth is because I've neglected some of my database and I've made a point this year of digging into it and digging into the dark crevices, and I'm here to tell you it works. It really, really works.

Technology can augment what we do. We can use Zillow to augment what we do. We can use iOffice to augment what we do but basing our business and placing it into the hands of other people such as these portals—it’s something that I could never do.

Just when you're beginning to panic and when you're thinking, "Oh my God, it's getting more difficult," remember these words: utilize the connection economy. Look up Zig Ziglar. Look up Seth Godin. Look up bloody Gary Vaynerchuk. We're all saying the same thing.