Making Agents Rich Episode 130 [0:00:00] For show notes, transcripts, links, and other things mentioned in today's show, you can go to makingagentsrich.com/130. But if I'm focused on only what happens in the next three months or six months of things then, yeah, everything's a big deal and I don't want that. I don't want to operate my business from a place of emotions. This is the only show on the Internet dedicated to making agents rich. If you are looking for bright, shiny objects or suffering from information overload, please stop listening now and get a therapist. But if you are seeking proven systems that will give you true freedom, you're in the right place. You are listening to the Making Agents Rich Show. [0:01:07] Today's show is brought to you by the Seller Getter at sellergetter.com. If you want to generate consistent seller leads every month without cold calling, door knocking, or relying on your sphere, go to sellergetter.com now and you'll be able to get your lead capture, traffic generation and your follow-ups all in one. Just go to sellergetter.com for more info now. Darin: You are listening to episode 130 of the Making Agents Rich Show and we are your friendly neighborhood podcasters. I'm Darin Persinger and with me is Jonathan "The Spiderman" Rivera. Jonathan: The Spiderman. Tsh. I'm shooting webs. Tsh, tsh. You know, making sound effects. Darin: Pshew, pshew. Pshew, pshew. Jonathan: Nice. So before we jump into the show, I wanted to talk a little bit -- and, MARSians, I hope you'll forgive me for taking valuable time from your learning. [0:02:05] But I wanted to talk a little bit about the change in direction or the pivot if you will that we are making with the show. Darin, do you want to let the MARSians in on what we have coming up for next year? Darin: You let them in on it. I'll listen. Jonathan: I thought -- it was your idea. Oh, man. So for the last year -- I think we have done it for this entire 2014 as a matter of fact. We have been bringing you the show two times per week -- Wednesdays and Saturdays -- and we are up over 129 shows now. We are actually going to scale back. We're going to scale back to one time per week. Darin, what's the thinking behind going to one time per week other than we're slackers? Darin: Less is more. Jonathan: That's it? Less is more? [0:03:01] Enjoy what you get? Darin: That's it. That's all that needs to be said. Jonathan: Well, I like the idea and the way that Darin sold it to me was that it gives us more time to promote the shows we're already doing because I think that we are bringing you high-level stuff and I think maybe it's overwhelming to do two shows a week. Plus, when I'm writing emails, it's hard for me to do proper justice to one show when I have another one to promote right away. So I think that we have a catalog here that we can pull from and I think we can still have the same effect with you guys, MARSians, so I'm wondering how you are feeling about that. If you want to go to Making Agent -- or, actually, not makingagentsrich.com. If you want to go to facebook.com/makingagentsrich, that's our Facebook page. We're going to be dedicating more time to that. Darin, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Darin: I'm going to be there hanging out every day from 9:00 to 3:00. [0:04:00] Jonathan: Oh, boy. I can't wait to see this. Darin: It's like office hours. Just stop by. Hang out. Come on in. Take some hard candy off the counter. Jonathan: Right. So we're doing more on the Facebook page to interact and engage with you guys and get you a deeper understanding of the content and the way of thinking that we bring to you. Another thing that we're working on right now is bringing more workshops. We're already doing workshops for our Insiders, our paying customers, we're doing workshops and now we want to do some more workshops with you guys that maybe aren't our customers yet and wanted to get to know more about us or want to know more about our programs. We're going to invest some time into workshops. I think this is good. I mean, I'm excited about it and I think it's a smart move and when you mentioned it, Darin, I was like, yes. Yes, we have to do that so we can spread out and do other things that I think will give us a little bit more leverage. But I just wanted to put that out there since we're in December, we're going to be starting this for next year. [0:05:03] I'm not sure. I think we're going to stick with the Wednesday and just drop the Saturday and then maybe we'll have some guests on once in a while and a bonus show. But we're going to once a week. Darin: You and I will always show up. I believe we should show up once a week and then we'll have bonus episodes so the least you'll get is once a week from us, maybe more on occasion. Jonathan: And we're bringing in the workshop aspect now where you actually -- Darin: And the workshops. Jonathan: -- interact with us live which I think we have been missing. Because we know there's a lot of you out there that maybe aren't on our email lists or maybe aren't downloading every single episode but it's certainly an opportunity to get one-on-one with us or one-to-many in a workshop but get some time and get to know us and get to see what else we have going on. I think that will beneficial for us and for you. Darin: I like it. Jonathan: So that's a big announcement. I didn't know we would ever get to it but here we are going -- we are pivoting. The show is not ending. Not at all. We are still going to show up every week. Darin: No. No, no, no, no. [0:06:02] Jonathan: In fact, it's going to be so much easier for us to do one show a week that I think we might get ahead a little bit. But I think this is a time for us to invest in other things like community building with Darin, 9:00 to 3:00 on the Facebook page, and workshops where I'm planning at least a workshop every other week. If not, a workshop every week. We'll see how that works out. Darin: Okay. Jonathan: But one thing that you guys know about us is that we show up and we deliver so you can count on that. Darin: Yes. We're like the postman. Jonathan: We deliver. Darin: Uh-hmm. Jonathan: All right. So, all right, announcement's out of the way, little jokes here and there. What do we have lined up for today, Darin? Darin: The topic, it might just be -- I'm going to be a father soon but I'm really focused on long-term versus short-term stuff right now so I want to have a conversation with you about that. [0:07:01] Jonathan: Okay. So we'll be talking about that in just a little bit but, first, the Numbers Never Lie. Darin: Fourteen. Jonathan: Fourteen. How old I was when I kissed my first girl. No, just kidding. Darin: Really? Is that true? Jonathan: No. Tell you what though, 14 was when I actually had my first like girlfriend that was more than just a week or anything like that. Darin: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm. Jonathan: Getting too personal. Darin: Yeah. Hope Rachel doesn't listen to this show. Jonathan: Oh, she knows about my history. She interviewed me. She interrogated me. Darin: Yeah? She knows about the girlfriend at age 14? Jonathan: Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Darin: Wow. Okay. No, that's not what -- none of these numbers are -- Jonathan: It's not about me? Darin: -- ever about you. Jonathan: Why not? Darin: No. Never. Just one time though I need to talk to Rachel and find out a number and throw that in there and make it about you. Jonathan: That would be weird. Darin: Creep you out. [0:08:00] Jonathan: Funny. So 14, what is it? Darin: Fourteen. Check this out. This will blow the back of your head off. The average smartphone user -- so you have to have a smartphone. Jonathan: Okay. Darin: But the average smartphone user checks Facebook 14 times a day. Jonathan: Aha. Now I see why you want to be on Facebook more often. You are trying to catch these smartphone users. Darin: I want to be where people are. Jonathan: Smart. You're a smart guy. So 14 times a day. Gee whiz, man. That's just one social network so imagine all the times they are checking their emails and checking the Tweezer and the Pin thing. Wow! Crazy. Darin: I love it. I love it. I'm in two worlds that are so in opposition of each other. My belief, Jonathan, is that -- our first podcast was called "Marketing and Productivity" and I'm glad we didn't stick with that because that puts me at such opposing views because the marketer side of me loves knowing that smartphone users check their Facebook 14 times a day. [0:09:11] Jonathan: Yeah. Darin: But the productivity side of me is like -- Jonathan: "What's wrong with you?" Darin: "Whoa. That needs to stop. That is ridiculous." Jonathan: That's what we try to do inside our programs too is where we try to convert anybody that's using social media to no longer use it and instead just go in and run ads on it, right? That's one of the tricks we teach people. Darin: Yeah. So with that, I want to give a bonus tip. I want to give a tool -- Jonathan: Okay. Darin: -- actually and you need to be using Google Chrome for this tool. It's called the News Feed Eradicator. News Feed Eradicator, and it's a Google Chrome extension. What it does, Jonathan, is it strips out your news feed out of your Facebook. Jonathan: Whoa. Darin: You still see all the things off to the side so I still have access to all of my pages. Jonathan: Uh-huh. Darin: I still have access to the Ads Manager and I still see my alerts and I can still post. [0:10:04] But what I like about this is I don't get caught up in just the constant scroll of looking at what everyone else is doing so I can still run my ads, I can still comment on things if people -- of the notifications I get if I get a private message or a notification alert on one of the pages and I can comment. I can still do the work side of it; I just don't get caught up in the stalker side of it. Jonathan: That's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. Darin: News Feed Eradicator. Jonathan: News Feed Eradicator and you have to be using Chrome. Yeah, that's very interesting because it is easy to get sucked in. All you need is just one little hook and there you go, like, "Oh, what? Darin had a kid? What? He had a new baby? I got to congratulate him." Whatever. All that stuff -- Darin: Yeah, and then you're looking at -- Jonathan: -- pulls you in. Darin: -- all of the pictures of it. Yeah. Or you see something about kitten videos and you click over to that. You're on BuzzFeed and then you go from BuzzFeed to YouTube and then 90 minutes goes by. [0:11:04] Jonathan: Nice. Darin: So I just eliminate that from my ability to see it. Jonathan: All right, good. So a little extra bonus there, tools. We don't often give those out but I like it. So, Darin, what's our feature topic for today? Darin: Okay. Long term versus short term and this is like your long-term strategy versus your short-term action. What are you focused on? As I just get older and wiser, this kind of goes back to the episodes of the carrot versus the stick, problem solver versus goal setter. I'm just becoming more clear that there's always a yin and a yang. Facebook is great for marketing, horrible for productivity. Jonathan: Yeah. Darin: There's always a yin and a yang. There's always two sides of the coin and so I'm trying to balance out this idea of long term versus short term right now, Jonathan. [0:12:07] And I just wanted to share with you what we're thinking on the Persinger Group business and get your feedback on that. Jonathan: Okay. That sounds like fun. Darin: So I'm taking a longer-term view of Persinger Group and here's my thinking on this is by the time we're done having kids and they're all the way through high school, it'll probably be at least 25 years from now. Jonathan: Okay. Darin: So that puts me like at age 60. And what I'm looking at in our business right now is you've heard me talk in past episodes like the past episode I talked about Facebook advertising that we were doing versus the 24 leads that we generated, how many people would we have had to cold call and annoy and interrupt in their day to get those 24 leads. [0:13:06] And so knowing that I want to be in business here in a local community for the next 25 to 30 years, I would have to take a very long-term view about our approach because it's not about just generating business this week, I'm focused on providing goodwill to the community for many years to come. So what Katherine and I have been talking about is the long-term view that we are taking is making the minimum amount of profit. So stick with me. Just stick with me on how this makes sense. Jonathan: Okay. Darin: Making the minimum amount of profit that we can make in our lifetime and then hopefully one of the kids will want to get into the business at that time and letting them maximize the profitability going forward. [0:14:03] Jonathan: Okay. Interesting. This is like -- Darin: What do you think about that? Is that like a crazy thought? Is that -- Jonathan: Well, I understand it. Yeah, I definitely get it and it's like opposite of what we have talked about in some other shows where we talked about not looking further than three years ahead. So you're looking now -- I guess it is because you're going to become a dad -- what your picture looks like in 25 years from now, one of your kids carrying on your Persinger Group legacy. Darin: Yup. Exactly. The perfect word. We're looking at the legacy play of it here also. Jonathan: And why is that important? No, I'm not supposed to ask why and this is going to be very, very difficult. Darin: Ha, ha. Sucker. You can't ask me that. Jonathan: Ah. What can I do to understand this better? I don't know the question to ask but what's making you look at the big picture like that? What's making you look at the longer game that far out? [0:15:04] Darin: To me, it's a strategic play. It is selfish that I don't think enough people do it and so therefore I think we have a competitive advantage. Inside the Referral Getter, the very first thing that I give the members of the Referral Getter, Jonathan, is figuring out the lifetime value of a client. Remember that? Jonathan: Right. Yeah, yeah. Darin: And so that number sits on my board right over there: the lifetime value of a Persinger Group client is $112,500. I want to get that. I want to fully benefit from that lifetime value so -- we've done the episodes where we look at ourselves as advisors of: Let's get started in real estate investing. Let's help you with your retirement. Here's how you can start to cash flow. Hey, how about buying a vacation home, a second home for you guys to go and bring the whole family together and create memories there? [0:16:06] I told you on the last episode our passion is real estate and so it's very easy for us to think in those terms of how do we service our clients into helping them become investors or buy a second home instead of just where they're at and paying huge fees to a mutual fund person and getting a dismal random return every single year. Jonathan: So, Darin, let me ask you this. So you're taking this long-term view so how does that play into the short term because you said we were talking today long term versus short term. Darin: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. So the short term still is the main metric that drives us is two listing appointments at this time and where we're at in our business and the size and the goals of what we are trying to achieve. Two listing appointments every single week. So we can't just go, "Well, I hope something shows up sooner or later" because we are really focused on the long term. That's idiotic because if we don't do something in the short term, we'll never get to the long term. [0:17:08] Jonathan: So does taking that long-term vision that you're taking now help you get clear in business or what does it do to -- whoa, I bumped the mike there. Sorry about that. But what does it do for your business today? Darin: Okay. I think the best way to answer that is one my friends said to me last night as I was sharing with him this. He's a business owner in the restaurant business and I had talked with him recently about business stuff and then we're coming back together for another conversation and I was sharing with him this long-term thing of like I want to achieve the goals that we have. It's not like I want to not have the home on the lake or the home in the mountains and the nice things. That's not what I'm saying by focus on the long term. I just don't want to get greedy with it. I want this thing to go for a long time to come. [0:18:10] By the way, Katherine pointed this out to me as I'm getting focused on the legacy play and the long term here. We named the agency the Persinger Group so a little bit of a narcissistic play there and if Katherine and I don't have a son, the Persinger name ends here on this side of the lineage that we can follow. But if we have daughters, Jonathan, and the daughters take over the Persinger Group, the name lives on through the business. Jonathan: You got it covered. Darin: See? See how I'm thinking right now? Jonathan: Yeah, you're thinking of The Brady Bunch over here. [0:19:00] Darin: So what was the question again? Sorry. Jonathan: I was just asking you and maybe the MARSians are wondering the same thing but how does that long-term vision or the long-term approach work to move you forward or benefit you today? I mean -- Darin: So what my friend was saying is he's like, yeah, I got to look at that because I had goals that I set when I was like 22. I wanted to be at a certain place when I was 35. It was easy to keep moving through that but now as I get closer to 35 and little problems come up, I get stressed out about it so I need to set new longer-term goals. Because what it is, is I don't worry about the fact that if we generate these 24 leads and no one lists with us next week, I don't panic and go, "Well, that didn't work" because we are taking a very long-term view. Something goes wrong? It's such a non-issue on the scheme of 30 years, I'm not going to throw a fit and get dramatic about it. It's a non-issue on that huge timeline. [0:20:04] But if I'm focused on only what happens in the next three months or six months of things then, yeah, everything's a big deal and I don't want that. I don't want to operate my business from a place of emotions. Jonathan: That is interesting. I'm going through something similar when you state it that way because I have been working on the business that we have, Making Agents Rich, and several other businesses, and I had been forced now to get a month and a month and a half ahead on content and things like that and when I miss things now, little things, I don't stress about it so much. I didn't put the right link or I didn't do this, well, next time. We have a bigger picture here so it's easier to keep moving forward when you hit those little bumps. So now I get it but I just feel like maybe I should be thinking even further ahead like you are since we're going to have our child soon as well. Maybe I should be thinking that way. [0:21:00] Darin: So it's something I wrote about in 5 Levels Of Success, this behavior economics experiment. I think I've talked about this on the show but the idea that they ask people: would you rather have $100 a year from now or $101 a year plus one day from now and a vast majority of people say the $101. So they'll wait the extra day to get that extra $1, right? Jonathan: Yeah. Darin: But then when they are asked: would you rather have $100 today or $101 tomorrow, the vast majority of people changed their decision-making and mindset and they respond with, "I'll take the $100 today." Jonathan: Yeah, the short view. Darin: Yeah. We can always make the right decision when we are presented with the long term. When we see further and think bigger, we make better decisions and that's just -- I want that to be the focus on our decision-making. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm going to dial back my intensity on getting the two listing appointments every week for our business. No way am I dialing that back because that's what we have to do in order to achieve the long term. [0:22:07] Jonathan: Yeah. Darin: I just don't want to cash out too soon -- Jonathan: Okay. Darin: -- is what it comes down to. Jonathan: Cool. Interesting. Now you have me thinking again. You and your stuff. Oh, man. So, Darin, do you want to do some tips or some questions to wrap up today's show? Darin: Okay, sure. As I try to figure out exactly how I'm thinking here, I'd say what is your long-term view or vision for stuff? And I was even thinking about this of like maybe this is a workshop that as you talked about that, that we could put together and I would call it the "20/20." Now, this isn't going to work for everyone depending on where you're at in your life but I think the vast majority of us, depending on like your age, for the most of us this could work is what does the next 20 years of your career, your business look like and then what does the 20 years after that look like and start to develop that vision. [0:23:09] Because that's what I'm kind of looking at, right? Like the next 25 to 30 years but then I'm looking at I'm going to be living another 20 years after that is done so what does that part of my life look like? Where are we traveling to? What are things that we've seen? What kind of income do I still need from my business and my income producing properties to live an enjoyable retirement? Then taking a look at your short term, what do you need to do this week? What do you need to do this week and every week to achieve your goals? I think two -- I don't know how to describe it but like a month is too long on like short-term stuff. Like, compress it, right? What do you have to do this week? Okay. What do you have to do today? So even though I'm taking a very long-term view because it's the yin and yang, I'm taking a very short-term view at the same time, like what do I need to do in this next 96 minutes that I call Focus 96? What do I need to do in the next 96 minutes to achieve this? [0:24:12] Jonathan: Ninety-six minutes. Interesting. Why 96 minutes? Darin: I'll go over that in another show. Jonathan: Okay. Darin: We don't have time for that today. Jonathan: All right, all right. Cool. A third one or do you want to wrap it there? Darin: I think maybe just reflect on your legacy play. And maybe for a lot of you that are parents you've already done that but, Jonathan and I, this is becoming a new thing to us. You know, that's what I'm looking at but maybe you need to look at -- Just a quick interesting number, I was watching something once about the ultra wealthy versus everyone else. The ultra wealthy have like a plan in place for the next three generations. [0:25:01] Jonathan: Yeah, that's true. Darin: So for their children, their children's children, and their children's children's children, they are setting everything up in place for that where most of us are living month to month. Jonathan: Wow. That's interesting. I'd like to see that. That sounds interesting there. Darin: Yeah, so start reflecting on like: what do I want my great-grandchildren's life to look like? That's a question behind the question, right? By asking that question, does that kind of change how we think about things now? Jonathan: Of course. It has to. There's no choice. Wow. That's a little deeper than I thought we were going today. You got me -- Darin: Ha, ha, ha, ha. Love it. Jonathan: -- fucking out over here. So, cool. Making Agents Rich number 130, plan your legacy, right? Darin: Uh-hmm. There you go. Jonathan: So, okay. I think that's a wrap for this show. We've been going a little long but obviously you know why because we're going to be shortening up the amount of times we come at you next year so we're beefing the episodes up just a little bit. [0:26:05] So thank you, Darin, for making me think. Really, thank you for that. Thank you, MARSians, for taking time out of your busy day to be with us and we'll see you on the next one. Yeah, that just happened. If you got that kick in the butt you needed to jumpstart your real estate business, then you can thank us by rating this show on iTunes. Thanks for tuning in, and remember to subscribe to get new shows delivered free. [0:26:39] End of Audio