922: This One Action DOUBLED Rachel Scheid’s Real Estate Commissions

August 6, 2020
30 Under 30 Honoree Rachel Scheid started her real estate career on a team where she learned the ropes and how to convert cold leads. Once she left the team, she decided to focus less on cold leads and more on the people who know, like, and trust her. This alone helped Rachel double her annual income. Listen and learn how to generate more business from your SOI, what it takes to convert cold leads, and Rachel’s strategy for turning a single sale into 15 separate deals.
Rachel Scheid 2 Listen to today’s show and learn:
  • Chicago under quarantine [1:53]
  • Rachel’s introduction to real estate [2:58]
  • Rachel’s tips on converting cold leads [5:24]
  • Why Rachel decided to become a solo agent [6:55]
  • A big reason NOT to rely on cold leads [10:41]
  • How the industry has changed in the last 10 years [13:35]
  • How mindset affects an agent’s business [19:48]
  • A solid strategy for converting prospects [24:38]
  • Why communication is key when it comes to conversion [29:42]
  • How to turn a single sale into 15 separate deals [32:01]
  • Advice on honing leadership skills [35:29]
  • How to break through your goals.
  • Plus so much more.
Rachel Scheid As Agent Development Manager for City Central Region, Rachel Scheid provides unmatched marketing support, meaningful coaching and personalized attention. Her main focus is to bring her agents to the next level, helping them grow their business and enhance their skill set. Effective marketing is key to increasing production, and Rachel gives her agents the support they need to reach today’s tech-savvy buyers and sellers. As an expert in Coldwell Banker’s cutting-edge technologies, she assists with creating digital and print flyers, brochures and postcards and offers invaluable insight on personal, social media branding and targeted market analysis. Effective staging and property pricing are also important, and Rachel is always available to provide advice and answer any and all questions. Related Links and Resources: Thanks for Rocking Out Thank you for tuning in to Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars, we appreciate you! To get more Rockstar content sent directly to your device as it becomes available, subscribe on iTunes or StitcherReviews on iTunes are extremely helpful and appreciated! We read each and every one of them, please feel free to leave your email so that we can personally reach out and say thanks! Have any questions? Tweet meFacebook me and ask Pat anything. Don’t forget to head on over to Bare Naked Agent for Pat’s answers, and advice. Thank you Rockstar Nation, and keep rockin!

Aaron Amuchastegui: Real Estate Rockstars, this is Aaron Amuchastegui. Today we’re interviewing Rachel Scheid. Rachel has a big story about how quickly that she went from being an assistant to being a manager and managing a bunch of teams and a bunch of agents and coaching people through success. She’s one of realtor.com’s 30 under 30 that they’ve picked this year. We reached out to her to see if she’d come on the podcast and share some stuff with us and she said that she would. Rachel, hi, how are you?

Rachel: Hi. I’m well, Aaron. How are you?

Aaron: I’m good. Where do you live, where are you at right now?

Rachel: I am in sunny and hot Chicago, Illinois.

Aaron: All right. What is Chicago been like over the last six months? Every place in the country is different, I’m getting ready to go on a road trip and we heard that some states it’s like nothing has happened, other states its quarantine and craziness. Where does Chicago lie in all that?

Rachel: I feel Chicago and Illinois have done a really good job at lowering our amount of cases. Masks are required pretty much everywhere you go, as far as our real estate offices, we’ve been back open with a limited amount of people allowed in each office, masks to be worn when you’re not in a private office like I am now for about a month. It’s pretty good you stay sanitized, we have outdoor seating which is nice. We’re in the best weather we have all year, that’s a perk. We’ve just been staying safe.

Aaron: What are they going to do about outdoor seating when the Chicago winter hits?

Rachel: Oh goodness, I think everyone’s hoping that we’re caseless by then so we can all be inside but who knows? We’ll have to see.

Aaron: You’re right, during the summer it’s a great place. Everywhere there’s all these restaurants that have been pushed out in the streets. In Santa Barbara, they closed one of the outdoor areas just so restaurants could fill the streets with stuff out there as they’re adjusting. Sunny Chicago right now. Rachel, where did you get into real estate? Were you up in Chicago?

Rachel: Actually, I was living in Philadelphia at the time. I used to work for a souvenir photography company, the people that take your picture and then sell it to you later. I used to do that, I was that annoying employee that would make you pose and then sell your own photo to you later. I was in Philly at the time and one of my best friend’s mothers was a top producing agent out of our Evanston North shore markets, the group of suburbs just North on the Lakeside from Chicago. She was looking for an assistant that would also get licensed. She knew I wanted to come back to the city and that’s how it all began. I certainly did not think that I was going to be where I am today back then.

Aaron: Tell us about your experience over those first few years. It was like, “Hey, come on and get your license.” What happened over the next couple of years?

Rachel: My first two years in the business, I was her licensed assistant which was actually perfect. I started when I was 21. At such a young age, being able to do everything without the full weight of it resting on my shoulder. I didn’t have to go out and get the clients, I just had to process all of the paperwork, handle all of the marketing, and then once I got licensed, I did a lot of the open houses, bio tours, but it felt really good to not have the whole success and failure of the business on my shoulders.

After those first two years, I got a little taste for real estate and I was asked to join a team in the office. I was going to be their Chicago agent while they focused on the suburbs in the North shore and it was a really unique experience. Collectively the two other realtors on the team had over 42 years of experience between the two of them, here I was 23 years old with two years of experience and none of them really selling or prospecting for clients. It was a really unique opportunity. We did pay for leads those three years, a lot of my early years in selling was all about converting cold leads, constant follow-up, drip campaigns and really just saying yes to every single showing that you could possibly imagine.

Aaron: There’s a lot of new agents that listen to our podcasts that come on here, what advice would you give them when it comes to cold leads? You spent a lot of time trying to get those leads. What did you learn during that time and what are some things that you wish you would’ve known when you started?

Rachel: I think patience is so key. Often cold leads are not going to convert in that first phone call or that first text message. You have to patiently cultivate them but you also have to stay top of mind. It’s this delicate balance of not being overly aggressive while being the first realtor they think about that minute they’re ready to make the switch.

What was invaluable for me was phone calls which as a millennial, I really hate but as a millennial in real estate, I had to be down for that. Lots of phone calls, follow-up texts, and then most importantly, utilizing a CRM, a Client Retention Management system that I could drop all of those emails and contacts and set up drip campaigns. They were hearing from me in email weekly without me even really doing anything, that was like set it and forget it and then they were getting calls and texts for me, biweekly to start to warm them up.

When I ended up leaving the team, I went into my own business and I wasn’t paying for leads but what I found is the business I cultivated with those leads early on became my referral business, became the people that were like, “Don’t worry, don’t search on Zillow, realtor.com. We’ve got the right realtor for you.” It’s really about consistency and patience.

Aaron: When you were doing those firstly, I think you mentioned in there you switched to your own business but you still had all the referrals from the customers that you had worked with in the past.

Rachel: Yes. After three years of being on the team, I decided to go solo. I felt I learned so many invaluable things from being on the team but when you’re on a team, you don’t always get it to market the way you want to market or cater to the business you want to cater. You’re reliant on that team lead and they’re the rainmaker, they make the rules. I approached a time in my business where I thought, “I want to run my own show and see what happens.”

That year I doubled my income, I doubled my business because I realized a lesson that I wish I had learned when I first started but it’s really that 80/20 rule. 80% of your business should come from your sphere, people who know you, like you, trust you, the seven degrees of Rachel Scheid but for the three years I was on the team, I was so focused on cold leads, I didn’t talk to my people for three years. I didn’t talk to my friends about real estate, my family, I didn’t try to get referrals from anyone who already knew me. My first year off the team I enacted that very quickly and like I said, doubled my income and saw a lot of success just from prospecting the people I already knew.

Aaron: It’s such a good reminder, too. We agents come on and we talk about all these methods to get leads, all these methods to get new customers and new clients. We’ve got this top of funnel where people are doing outreach from letters and calling and all sorts of different things that so many of our people talk about. But something important that you brought up there is, as you get that focus, don’t forget to remember to tell people all the time that you’re an agent, telling all your friends that you’re an agent, like what you’re doing, the people that you know close to you. It’s like the other extra stuff is a bonus, but I’m always amazed at how many people go to list or sell a house. It really is going, who do I know, who do I know out there? I see a post on Facebook all the time. I need an agent who’s out there.

I’m sure a lot of people were responding like, “Duh, don’t you remember? I’m an agent,” but you need to remember to tell your friends and tell those people as you’re doing that. How many houses did you sell your first year when you went out on your own?

Rachel: I believe I was between like 10 and 15. The other key thing I realized is when we were paying for leads, you don’t really have a lot of control over the average sale price of those leads coming in. When you’re running your own business and you’re prospecting your sphere, or even doing a geographic farm, you can really target. I learned if I just raised my average sale price by $75,000 or $100,000, what that meant for my bottom line, it’s working smarter, not harder, which was so great. I was able to keep a really- run a tight ship and keep those relationships alive. I wasn’t trying to churn and burn out 35-40 deals by myself and lose relationships. I wanted to stay in those teens numbers so I could be very hands-on with my clients.

Again, going to people that already knew me, liked me, trusted me. Then we’re upsizing. A lot of the clients I helped when I was taking the cold leads, that was three to four-year mark. They start to sell those first-time purchases and upsize. Then you get the sale and the purchase on the other end, which was very helpful.

Aaron: No, that’s a great point. When you target certain price points, obviously the higher the price, the less deals you have to do to get the same lifestyle. It’s a different version of the 80/20 rule that you talked about. Was it mostly sellers on at that point? Your first year, because it was mostly people that were trading up or was it on both sides?

Rachel: I was pretty much on both sides. I still helped a lot of first-time buyers. I have always been a big believer in helping renters as well. If you prospect renters correctly, they will become buyers. That’s a quick, easy way to make money that I then funneled straight into marketing dollars. That was a good way to keep the business lights on, so to speak, and do that. I think it just is about being that invaluable resource. One thing that’s very different that I learned, with sellers, it’s a lot less time in the sense of you’re not running to Timbuktu to do four hours of showings and then coming back and scheduling new showings. It’s a lot more hyper-localized and really took into account a lot of the marketing skills specifically with social media that I had cultivated over the last several years.

Aaron: When you went in as became a solo agent with Coldwell Banker, you were one of the youngest agents or maybe the youngest agent. What are some pros and advantages that came out of that for you?

Rachel: I was actually with a different company at the time, but in that the rest of it still stands. I’m only 29 now. At the time I went solo, I want to say I was 26. I’ve frequently been the youngest. For if you look at the average age range of realtors in our industry, it was very eye-opening and rewarding because I was in an office with very experienced agents who were legacy agents who had been doing business, some of them for upwards of 20 years. I’ve started forming coaching and mentoring relationships with the agents in that business because it became a quid pro quo. My experience with social media, my ability to connect with today’s buyer and seller, frankly. Real estate has changed so dramatically in the last several years. Before agents had business come to them naturally because there was no Zillow. There was no Redfin. There was no Trulia. There was no Google. People, consumers felt I had to use a realtor. The last 10 years, that’s changed. You can get almost any answer you want from looking online. The value proposition changed.

I was working with a lot of agents in that office on how to leverage their social media and their brand presence, how to change their value proposition from being “I’m a realtor. I have access to the houses” to being “let me explain these stats that you’re finding, let me explain why this is a great purchase. Or why this house over here probably isn’t the one for you.” In return, they coached me a lot on negotiating skills, helping me price properties, things that just take time, and wisdom in the business that at 26, I just didn’t have.

Aaron: You got to start training agents that were older than you. That’s a funny thing, but that is how technology works. Even my daughter now knows how to do different apps and things that I don’t know how to do, which makes me feel way older than I really feel. That’s the reality as technology happens. You got to show them how that was, and then they could show you some of the tips that they had, or maybe referral business and things back that way. How did you transition from then being an agent and a member of a team to becoming an assistant manager and a manager and how big is the company that you’re running now?

Rachel: Sure. At the time that I was solo, my managing broker realized I was helping so many of the agents in ways that even she couldn’t coach them on because she wasn’t as familiar with the new technology with social media. The company invited me to be an assistant manager for a different office. I went into that with 56 agents, again, average age range much above mine, but it was a really unique experience to be able to help me both grow a little bit in my business. I was still able to sell at that time but it really enlightened me to the fact that I find a lot more personal success in helping other people to develop themselves and develop success. I went from leaning heavily towards sales to realizing I could leverage my leadership skills and my coaching ability to help other people achieve their level of success in real estate.

That was so important for me to learn at that time. I was doing quite a bit with that in my local and state associations, which I find is very important when the president of the Coldwell Banker local operating company that I’m now part of met me at a few events and then gave me a call and asked me to become the managing broker of our West loop branch at the time, which was a huge compliment and also a little bit of a risk on the side of the company because I was 28 years old and I don’t think another major brand, at least in our city had hired a manager that was ever that young with, even though I had seven years of experience in the industry, that doesn’t compare a lot to the agents within the offices that I’m being asked to serve.

Aaron: He found you at some event, said, “Hey, would you do that?” That was a big risk because you were going to be one of the youngest. Now you’re doing a lot of coaching and guiding and you’re trying to help agents succeed. What are some of the biggest things and challenges that agents face right now that you have to help them come through with that?

Rachel: In the last couple of months, we’ve actually restructured a little bit of our city at region in order to give our agents three hyper-specialized managers. I went from an office that I grew from 14 to 30. Now I help oversee 350 agents in three of our offices and I focus heavily on agent development. Again, a lot of that coaching, a lot of that training and engagement, and the last several months have been COVID which has completely changed the landscape for real estate.

Luckily in Illinois, we fought here to make sure that real estate was an essential business. We’ve never been fully shut down from selling. I know some of our area states where like Michigan, you weren’t able to show property at all. A lot of it’s been helping agents adjust to new technology, utilizing FaceTime, Google Duo, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, whatever it is because if it’s not something that you use frequently, a lot of agents had a hard time adjusting that into their value proposition.

The second most important thing which I argue should always be the most important thing is mindset. I am a huge believer that 90% of this career is mindset, keeping positive, keeping motivated, knowing how to navigate the cyclical market we’re in but also the emotional roller coaster that comes with it. You could have a great month, the best month I ever had I made $30,000 in commission in one month and that was great. I felt so awesome. Didn’t make another commission for two more months, because that’s the industry we’re in. It’s about building out pipeline and that can really mess with your self-esteem. It can mess with your mindset. It can derail you from your business plan.

If you don’t have that accountability partner, that coach to help you stay on track and keep yourself positive which is especially in a time like COVID where everything is already just not fun. It’s so important to keep on track with your business.

Aaron: If somebody comes to you right now with that mindset and they say, “I’m super depressed right now. I feel like it’s never going to get better. Even though real estate is working, I can’t go do the things that I was doing.” What are you telling them? What are you telling the agents?

Rachel: It’s really important for being in my position to listen to the pain points and understand where’s that coming from. A lot of realtors are relationship and referral-based. This not being able to go out, not taking clients to coffee, this not taking people out for lunches is hurting us emotionally and mentally from that interaction standpoint but also could be hurting the business. I start to work with them on if that was your business model in the past, how can we change that into today’s COVID world which equals How can I bring that lunch, that coffee, that treat to a client without asking them to leave their home and potentially endanger themselves or their family members? I can drop off something to them that we can engage with. I could host, I actually participated in several Zooms which made me a little fatigued from the screen but it was very fun.

We had like virtual mixology classes where the lender who was putting this on actually ordered- had Binny’s delivered to my apartment with the necessary fixings to be part of this mixology class which was great. She probably still spent less money than if she had taken us all out and she still delivered a gift to me. I got to be part of this amazing Zoom where I learned how to make a peanut butter and jelly whiskey drink, which I would never ever think of doing on my own. It’s about identifying that.

The other key thing is building relationships. When agents come to me feeling discouraged whether it’s COVID or not, I try to leverage the agents I already have out of my 350 that I help co-lead to really see is there somebody that they can have an accountability partnership with, somebody that’s rocking and rolling or is just so good at staying positive and setting mindset.

Can I hook them up with that? They have me as the managing broker helping them with that but then also a colleague and that’s so important. My agents are very collaborative and supportive. That’s the environment we have here in our Coldwell Banker offices. I’m very proud of that because you don’t have that headbutting competition feeling where I’m not going to talk to Josie about real estate because what if she steals my business? What if she steals my ideas and gets to be more successful than me? We do not have that culture here. I am able to help my agents find those resources, both with me and their fellow agents who are in the field selling and I think that’s invaluable.

Aaron: That’s probably similar advice too that agents can follow as they’re reaching out to their prospects. Their prospective clients, as they’re having these discussions, you talked early on about really listening to the pain points. Listening to the pain points, listening to the way that they want to do it, and then trying to pivot and show it a little bit different. Can you think of anything else that either from your experience in recruiting or these COVID pivots that you would tell agents if they’re trying to get these new clients of things that they can practice right now?

Rachel: Sure. Even though I’m not out there prospecting for buyers and sellers, I recruit. That’s a huge part of any manager broker’s job. When you boil it down, I’m doing the exact same thing that a realtor is doing when they’re prospecting. I really learned that real estate is a numbers game that is leveraged by the relationships you have. If you can master prospecting on the numbers side of it and keep really good notes and leverage those relationships, you’re going to see a return on your investment of time. For example, one of my recruiting measures I have to meet is 25 calls a week. 5 calls a day, 25 calls a week, and touches. If I have to leave a voicemail, I follow up with a text. That results in a minimum of three appointments set either that week or next week to meet those agents.

For you agents out there that’s to meet clients, to meet buyers and sellers and all that math boils down to two recruits per month agreeing to come into my office at Coldwell Banker or on the agent side, two new clients signed on whether it’s a listing, a renter, a buyer, an investor, that’s how the numbers shake out. 25 calls a week, 100 calls a month, 3 appointments a week which is 12 appointments per month will result in those two client sign-ons. I think that for me, it took probably two months to get into that rhythm as a recruiting manager to, first of all, make the calls because in real estate, we tend to put prospecting as a time block that we always move to the next day. Oops, I didn’t get to it today. I’m so sorry. I’ll just move you to the next day.

There’s been a few days where I get to Thursday and I have to make 25 calls in two hours because I’m so behind in my calls. The point is, it took me two months but the math works. If you are diligent, if you keep your prospecting in those timeframes for at least three months, then you’ll learn where’s my return on investment? What is my percent? Maybe I’m making the calls but I’m not getting any appointments. I’m getting two maybe, so now I need to add a couple more calls to get that right appointment. Maybe I’m getting the calls, getting the appointments but I’m not getting the sign-on. I probably have to work on my buyer presentation or my listing presentation because something is happening during those meetings that they’re not choosing me, they’re choosing someone else. It’s hard to answer those questions.

Why aren’t they using me? Why didn’t they list with me? If you don’t have the systems in place to check at what point did it stop working? At what point could you make changes? For a lot of people, it’s honestly the calls. It’s the scripting. How do I talk to someone on the phone to get them to meet with me? Especially in COVID when meeting in person can be a little tricky. It’s about getting the Zoom meetings. In Chicago, we are slightly open. We can do outdoor dining. I always encourage agents give the choice and ask the client on their comfortability level which automatically starts to establish a level of trust because in the pre-COVID days, we would just say come meet me. Not everyone’s always comfortable with that even before COVID. For safety and things. There’s a lot of ways but really it’s those numbers and it’s staying consistent with them that you’re going to start to see that result.

Aaron: I know so many agents have trouble with someone holding them accountable. They know they need to make the five dials a day but like you said, they keep pushing it off a day or they know they need 25 a week and then they push it off a day or a week and it keeps going. Do you have any tricks or ways that you’re able to tell yourself, no, this is why, or is it just after three months you saw it work so now you’re hooked?

Rachel: A little cheat for me is because I am a managing broker, I do have authority that I have to answer to, so that helps me stay accountable. When I was selling and I left my team and I went solo, all of a sudden I had no team leadership, no leads and I had to hold myself accountable to see that success. The biggest way I did it is for those prospecting times, I went to the office. I was in the office. I was not in my dining room. I was not doing the laundry and the dishes in the background while being like, “Oh, crap, I should probably make my five calls now.” I really made myself dedicated to one to two hours per day in the office during which time I prospected.

Then I’m also a firm believer in one hour, a day of education, whether it’s a fabulous podcast like this one, or reading a couple of chapters in a real estate book, or having a one-on-one meeting with someone you respect in the office and picking their brain, or in the case of our company, we have hundreds of classes people can take online or visit our marketing YouTube page to learn a tool. When I started doing that, being in the office for even just those two hours a day, I was able to hold myself accountable. Again, start to see that referral come in. If you don’t ask for that business, it’s very unlikely you’re going to get it even from a good friend.

I think that’s important, there’s that meme. That’s like what my mom thinks I do, what society thinks I do, and what my friends think I do. When you look at the real estate one, everybody thinks we’re balling. We’re just on private yachts. I’m wearing my Louis Vuitton to get into my Tesla that the valet brought up to me and they don’t see all of the hard work, all of the education, all of the training, all of the pain and suffering to get to that closing table a lot of times. It’s because we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk with our clients. We don’t talk with our friends about real estate. I think that when I started changing that, when I did the prospecting, when friends would ask me, “Hey, how’s work?” I actually had good answers for them. That’s when my business really started to change.

Aaron: Telling people about the work. I also as we jump back a second, I love those numbers that you came up with too, 25 calls a week, turns into three meetings. Then if you’re doing three meetings a week, then every two weeks, essentially, you’re going to turn that into a client on each side of that. You guys that are listening out there, the numbers work. Rachel is also saying that if the numbers don’t work somewhere, if you’re making 25 calls and you’re only getting one meeting and you’re making 100 calls, you’re only getting three or four meetings instead of the 12 meetings, then you need to change what you’re saying on the phone. If you do get the meeting and you meet with 10 people and none of them hire you. Then you have to improve that stage in it.

It’s similar to when we look at listings, one of the things that I try to tell people too is if you’re getting a lot of showings, that means that the price looks good online and the pictures look good. If you’re not getting a lot of showings, then the price either looks bad or the pictures look bad. It’s the first step. The listing is what gets people there. Then if you’re getting a bunch of people there and nobody makes an offer, well, then there’s something wrong with what’s happening there. If you’re getting a lot of showings and you’re not selling it, then you got to go check it out. Either it’s priced too high or there’s something wrong with it. If people aren’t going, it’s similar to that prospecting stuff too, you can see long line what’s working, what’s not working.

Rachel: That’s exactly it. I think that if you can really master that mindset and focus on that, you’re going to see a huge turn in your return, in your investment on that. At the end of the day, that’s the numbers part. Then you’re leveraging the relationships that you make during that. Every one client should give you three referrals per transaction. If you just take a first-time buyer. I have a first-time buyer from that transaction. They should love me so much and I should be prospecting them so hard that they give me three referrals. Then when they go to sell with me and buy with me, that’s six referrals from those transactions. Then they’re going to go and sell that and then downsize into their last. One client, first-time buyer is a minimum of five transactions.

If off of each transaction, they give you three referrals, that’s 15 deals from just one person in your database. I think it’s so important. We talk about doing those 25 calls, it’s to ensure that your relationship with that client reaps 15 deals during the life cycle of that client. If every one of your clients can help you get to 15 deals. The math then just goes crazy. I’m not really great at math. I’m not going to add all that up for you, but you can see how that goes out from there and how your business can truly grow without paying for a lead. That’s just 80% of the business. The other 20% of the business is open houses, maybe you pay for leads. Maybe you do geographic farming, whatever that might be, but 80% of your business comes from those number breakdowns. That’s so important for realtors to not only understand, but to track and to make sure they’re getting an ROI on their time.

Aaron: The real estate industry has changed. You talked about at the beginning where agents used to- people had to reach out to them. There wasn’t a way to really create business. They could put an ad or something else. They had to, it was people that they knew they had, they couldn’t just make it come out of nowhere, but today people can make it come out of nowhere. Technology gets it to where your business is going to be proportional to a level of work and effort that you put forth. Those different things that you’re doing and for it’s a little plug for Rebus University too. Rachel’s talking about if you get the appointment and you don’t land them, we’ve got so many classes inside Rebus that we discounted to 5% of what the normal prices are for people to– It’s like how to win that listing appointment.

How to present that listing and succeed. There’s all sorts of different classes that we have in there teaching people. If you get to the point too where you’re putting forth the effort and some of those numbers aren’t happening. You’re not getting 3 out of 25 and 1 out of 3, go to Rebus University. See what we have in there. We’ve got courses for each level of that.

One of the last things I wanted to ask you, Rachel, was you’ve done a lot of stuff in leadership, building up your brokerage office. What’s some advice you could give to somebody that says, “Hey, I actually want to become a manager. I want to get there. I want to go from being the assistant, I want to go from being an agent. I want to become a manager, or I want to get involved more in my local association.” What advice would you give somebody who says, “Hey, I want to start doing that. I don’t just want to be an agent anymore. I want to get involved with upper level.”

Rachel: I love that question because I think that is so important. We do have to continue to build the future of real estate. That’s one of the things that my president said to me when he hired– “You’re the future of real estate, I want you to help take that these offices to that level.” I would say to realtors the first thing that I did was I asked questions and I got involved. I served on my Chicago association of realtors, YPN, their young professional network committee for four years. But out of that grew a whole network of agents, both within the company I was at at the time, externally lenders, home inspectors, all of these people that could help me grow personally and professionally. I leveraged those. I grew within the association, both on the local level. Our Illinois realtors association has a leadership development course that they choose 12 realtors every year throughout the whole state to be a part of. I was honored to be chosen in the 2019 class of that.

It’s all about honing those leadership skills, taking what you’re already really great at, and make you even better and more comfortable with the things you might not be as good at, like being interviewed live. Believe it or not, was never one of my fortes until I had to go through media training with the Illinois realtors to be better at it, but all of those really led me to this position. The president, the hiring person in charge of hiring managers met me at a few events, talked with a few other people in the industry about me. Then that drove him to want to set a meeting with me. I sealed that deal. I’m not asking anybody and you should never ask anybody to give you things.

It’s about giving you the opportunity to have a seat at the table and earn everything from there on out. I really believe if I had not gotten involved with my associations at a young age, young in business years, not necessarily my actual age, I wouldn’t be where I am today. If you’re sitting out there and you’re thinking to yourself this selling stuff is really great, but I also love helping other people develop. I love brokerage. I like recruiting. I want to do that. Start by getting involved with your local and state association. Start asking your managing broker if you can host some trainings and coaching because that’s also important. I was already doing that one-on-one with agents and I was asked to do social media presentations in my office. You learn very quickly if that’s something you like to do or if it’s something you hate to do.

I think that’s the best way because the last thing you want to do is just be thrown into a managing broker role and realize which happens a lot. Agents like to think that they’re going to be really good leaders. Sometimes you’re a wonderful leader in your business, but leading other people to success is a different skillset. Entirely. You go from caring just about yourself and your business to caring about everyone else and all of their businesses before anything else. Before you just dive right in and apply for that managing broker position or ask for that, take some of those steps early on so you can really determine if it’s the right fit for you.

Aaron: A lot of people want to run a business and they want to run a team. They want to have a lot of employees and after they go like, “Wait, that’s not very much fun to do it that way. It’s a lot easier when I was just worrying about myself,” like you said.

Rachel, congratulations on so much success so quick in real estate and all the different things that you’re getting to do with it now. If our listeners wanted to reach out to you, if they wanted to ask you some coaching questions or any follow-up, what is the best way they can find you?

Rachel: I believe in being accessible always. Probably social media would be a great way. Slide into my DMS, everyone. You can find me on Instagram at just Rachel Scheid. That’s my handle. Then on Facebook, it’s Scheid Sell Chicago. It’s pretty easy to find. I’m assuming through this podcast, my full name and spelling will be available.

Aaron: We’ll have the links on there. Any of you guys can look down at the bottom of YouTube or bottom of the podcast page, wherever it is and you’ll see it. That’s yes. It’s not because it’s not how you would guess. You definitely want to look up the spelling before you look up Rachel Scheid.

Rachel: Thank you. I really encourage you, please do reach out. I respond to all of the things I get as long as it’s legit and not creepy and we’re all on social media so you know what I’m saying? Because I think that that’s so important. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Chicago or even Illinois, real estate it’s the numbers. It works in every state, works in every city. Your demographic, your marketplace might be slightly different than mine but I’m really happy to help in whatever way. I will follow for follow too. If you need some help with Instagram or Facebook I’m happy to follow you and just through there, advise you on how well you’re doing and maybe incorporating one or two other things to see a bigger return on your following and your liking.

Aaron: That sounds awesome, Rachel, so thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. There was a lot of stuff in there that people are going to be able to take and go apply it in their business right now. I hope you have a good rest of your year. Thanks again for joining us.

Rachel: Thank you so much for having me.

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