“Realtors are so busy trying to be all things to all people that nobody has an opinion.” That’s the opinion of agent (and top producer and speaker and …) Leigh Brown, who sat down with Samantha DeBianchi for the second episode of SamSpeaks! “They sound like a broken record because they’re so afraid to say, ‘This one might not be your best choice. Now, y’all want to buy it, that’s cool, but …'” Watch the whole interview here:
Some highlights:
- “We have to learn how to be authentic without being assholes.”
- “There’s a point that comes when you have to say, ‘Look: What I am and what I believe is more important than this random person’s opinion.'”
- “That old adage of ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?’ We know words hurt, but we haven’t trained and taught people to say, ‘I’m going to build up a defense mechanism to manage hurtful words.'”
- “Stockbrokers really do drink — they drink more than Realtors do.”
- “The agents who are concerned about deal after deal after deal are the ones that screw up the industry.”
- “The consumer prefers a Realtor who is engaged in the local community and not just bullshitting by saying ‘I’m going to come to your neighborhood cookout and hand out business cards.'”
- “You as a Realtor touch all these different consumers, you’re touching these neighborhoods, you’re involved in all the angles of the transaction — you can transform the place where you live.”
- “Anybody who gets their license and wants to get coaching ought to be asking all these little coaching companies, ‘When is the last time you bought or sold a house and helped somebody?'”
- “None of the brand or the brokers are the single clearinghouse for the best information. They’ve all got good stuff, but I’ve learned the most from being outside my local market and outside the brand.”
- “If you tell me you don’t like the carpet in a house, I have a script for that: ‘If this wasn’t here, would you buy the house?’ That doesn’t even sound scripted.”
- “I wouldn’t trade any of my working days with my dad for anything, because it gave me the opportunity to know my whole dad.”
- “[My competitors] stopped hating me as much because of social media — because they could see that I had babies…there’s a piece of humanity that social media gives to us, and we have to be careful not to lose it now.”
- “I’m trying my best to be a proponent of professionalism in the industry.”
- “You have to know what you offer that’s different than ‘a website.'”