Episode #18: Spheres & Centers of Influence

[00:00:00] I think if you grow up in this area, you're kind of have that reliance of

[00:00:06] going to go to my friends and family because it's all like let's call it like low hanging fruit.

[00:00:10] Yeah, and we have them around here and maybe they're just like us. They've been here.

[00:00:14] Yeah, forever. Yeah. And so, so you have that trust. It's like that's kind of like a crutch almost.

[00:00:20] Yeah, that you use like, oh, well, you can fall back. Oh, well, I know people. I can

[00:00:25] you have like that instant network to kind of like build yourself on. And when you're new,

[00:00:32] like someone's coming into town, you don't have that. So you really, I think have the ability to like

[00:00:41] do everything. Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate insurance and everything in between.

[00:00:54] Join us as we take you along our own brokerage building journeys with additional wisdom from our

[00:01:00] network of business experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk.

[00:01:10] Hey, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Gardy. And I'm Sean Mooney.

[00:01:17] Today's topic to is tell me building your network and finding your centers of influence. Okay?

[00:01:26] So let's tee it up. All right, I'll dive into this. So,

[00:01:33] centers of influence or sphere of influence as we call it in real estate. A lot of people say you're

[00:01:38] S.O.I. Really? Yeah, and you're C.O.I. You know why? Some insurance stuff right there. That's the why.

[00:01:45] So, sphere of influence in my world is it can be looked at a couple different ways.

[00:01:52] You can have high quality sphere of influence to start or you can just have anyone

[00:01:56] and everyone, which is more about quantity. Most big companies in real estate I find go with more of the

[00:02:02] quantity approach over the quality and just think you know a lot of people that's awesome. Let's go

[00:02:07] after those people. I've always done it a little bit different. So when I'm, you know, let's go back to

[00:02:14] myself as an agent when I started. And I think when I started initially I had like somewhere around like

[00:02:18] 500 contacts. Now it was like this is my this is my S.O.I. It's my sphere of influence.

[00:02:24] So with those 500 people, I looked at the beginning like how do I want to reach out

[00:02:29] to these guys and girls? Do I want to be that guy that makes phone calls and checks in with

[00:02:37] everyone, which a lot of big companies tell you to do that. But I want to text message them,

[00:02:41] do I want to email them? I think for me was my S.O.I. in the beginning. My first step was to lead

[00:02:46] with value not to just reach out and say, I'm a real estate agent. Do you know anyone? Do you

[00:02:51] have a need, which is what a lot of people trying to teach you to do? When you're saying sphere of

[00:02:55] influence, you're saying anyone and everyone that I know, is that how you define it? Yeah in the

[00:03:01] beginning, how I headed up was really those 500 people. So I was anyone and everyone. So all the

[00:03:06] cell phones and emails that I had when I started, that's how I looked at my S.O.I. and we can dive into

[00:03:10] like, you know, how it changed as I went. But let's start with that in the beginning. So when I had that

[00:03:16] leading with value, the way I looked at that was I want to email my S.O.I because it's cheap,

[00:03:24] it's efficient like everyone checks your email all day every day. It's less personal. I feel

[00:03:30] like when you text someone, it's like sometimes it's a personal space and they're like, yeah,

[00:03:33] I don't want business in my text messages where I like check in with people. And the phone

[00:03:38] in today's day and age in 2023, honestly is like super intrusive. So even back then I said,

[00:03:46] emails my method. So I took my S.O.I. I started emailing a monthly newsletter with valuable

[00:03:54] content. It was blog posts that I did. I used to share some recipes. I used to do a thing called

[00:04:00] Tim's Preferred Partners where I talked about some of the business contacts that I worked with

[00:04:04] and I'm like giving out their information telling my audience why they should work with them.

[00:04:07] They should list things. So with my S.O.I. in the beginning, I took that 500 and I put them on a

[00:04:13] regular email drip campaign. Was there an expectation sending out that list of what you might

[00:04:20] hear back or what I might get out of it? Yeah. Like what like yeah, with just or was it just

[00:04:26] blanketing this amount of people and just more of a recognition to say, hey, I'm Tim, I'm a

[00:04:33] reorder this one I do. It me up. So in the beginning with my S.O.I, I did a few different things

[00:04:40] like email was probably the backbone of my reaching out to them and letting them know that I'm

[00:04:45] in real estate. Like here's what I focus on. Here's what I know. You know, here are the people I know.

[00:04:51] So that's really how I started in the beginning. And then again, you're going to have natural networking

[00:04:55] so like getting together with friends and family, going to barbeque, wetting, baptism, you know,

[00:05:01] bar mitzvahs, all this stuff. There's lots of things that happen that you're just going to

[00:05:05] naturally socialize with your S.O.I.V. influence. I would take also like my high trust people

[00:05:12] in my S.O.I.V. influence so like insurance for example. You and I would get together for like beers

[00:05:17] every now and again we get together for coffee. Like we'd introduce each other other people where

[00:05:21] all three of us would get together. So that was like another way I kind of hit up my S.O.I. with the

[00:05:27] email itself. You know what I did is they pretty much just followed like industry averages like you

[00:05:31] should be getting somewhere and don't remember the exact numbers but maybe we're in like 20%

[00:05:36] open rate and then you want to get click through and like you know that 3 to 5% range or something

[00:05:40] like they're actually clicking on the blog post or actually clicking on the listing or the recipe

[00:05:45] or the contact. And I looked at that as like where are our businesses differ? Is that you have to

[00:05:54] do more transactions with clients to get to a certain dollar amount so like more policies

[00:06:02] have to be written? In real estate I might only have to do one or two a month. So it's less about

[00:06:09] it's not that you don't want to have conversion you do but you start looking at conversion in

[00:06:13] different ways and like more of the the in person stuff in my opinion stuff like that or referrals

[00:06:19] like where did that deal come from and and like tracking things but how about with you like so

[00:06:25] your center of influence in your world tell me about that. So I've always looked at it

[00:06:32] when you say that it's weird because it's a totally different kind of definition as to how I

[00:06:39] receive it or how I define it with people that we interact with and the way I've always looked at

[00:06:46] was centers of influence meaning not like a client per se but more so someone that has the ability to

[00:07:00] steer business your way. Yeah almost like business builders. Yeah exactly. So the way we look

[00:07:07] it is like all right who are your centers of influence? Your centers of influence or attorneys, accountants

[00:07:14] um business owners those types of people that you can get in front of that you can build a relationship

[00:07:23] with that can influence others and and direct people in towards your business. So how did you start

[00:07:31] it enough when you started with your your COI when you started doing that? This is funny because COI

[00:07:38] is actually a certificate of insurance which is like a very standard insurance term. I throw

[00:07:44] all you insurance nerds out there. But yeah tell me like how did you hit up those people in

[00:07:50] the beginning? Like what was your method? I was email that was really what I like doing like what was yours.

[00:07:55] So I did a lot of in person to try to build out my center of influence and that is predominantly

[00:08:05] like those business types that I described trying to meet them and in all kinds of ways.

[00:08:13] We're you know asking for like oh who do you who do you're counting you know and trying to

[00:08:18] speak to someone who can get you in your foot in the door with that type of business owner. So

[00:08:25] for your in person was it more like let's get a cup of coffee let's get lunch let's get beers all

[00:08:30] of well initially it was different networking groups you know we've done one in the past WPN

[00:08:37] Chamber Chamber of Commerce was one we had a separate different business association

[00:08:45] that I find the ranks in became the president of this business association doing that today.

[00:08:54] Now, but nonetheless it was a great opportunity who being in front of business owners where you could

[00:09:04] network and tell them what you do for living and how you help other people and just try to kind

[00:09:11] of make those and build and foster those relationships in the hopes that they need an insurance

[00:09:19] person one day and oh Sean we know Sean there's a relationship there awesome I think really

[00:09:26] finding you know I got off a call earlier today actually with a business banker who we were helping

[00:09:35] clothes on a building on Friday and it was last minute thing where they're kind of scrambling

[00:09:46] and he reached out to someone that I knew it's hey I'm really jammed up on this you know property

[00:09:52] we're going to settlement yeah and we're still like 11th hours scrambling to get this deal done

[00:09:59] and reached out to a mutual friend of ours and referred us to them and like Lickety split we

[00:10:08] got this done for them nice and the insured was like wow yeah that was awesome yeah I'd like

[00:10:14] do that they literally had been working this deal for months and just out of the blue kind of like

[00:10:20] asked a mutual friend hey do you know anybody and then we kind of like jumped in and got the deal

[00:10:28] done and allowed them to close but I think the important part was okay in this process I was

[00:10:35] dealing with the banker and he does a lot of these finance deals for these business owners that are

[00:10:42] buying different practices and stuff like that so I reached out afterwards as a follow up hey

[00:10:49] how did it go with closing yeah you know just just kind of like a routine follow up and oh

[00:10:55] settlement was great everything worked awesome you know thanks for your help and then I said

[00:10:59] don't mind say hey you know we we come across these a lot and we're able to help a lot of these

[00:11:05] business owners that are in a similar situation yes you kind of took that and said how do I

[00:11:11] start building like more of a relationship with you yeah because we just we like under promise and

[00:11:18] completely over delivered totally and now I'm going to add you to my COI yep because I think you

[00:11:25] and I should talk a little bit more maybe do some more in person so that you can keep again you're

[00:11:30] going to build a rapport you're going to build a relationship naturally that way but you have a really

[00:11:34] good starting point you have an anchor of being like we delivered yeah they were so well and you

[00:11:39] made it happen and they're like wow that was that was impressive so now you're like okay now I'm

[00:11:45] going to cultivate that yep because I don't know them like how I know them is I just build them out

[00:11:51] and delivered so now I want to put put them in my COI that let them know that I'm reliable

[00:11:59] that I'm in a high trust field which you are and anytime you're anyone else you know needs a

[00:12:05] quote or gets into jam or anything like you're not just saying every time you get in the jam like

[00:12:09] talk to me well you are saying like I got my name no more people because you saw what I could do

[00:12:15] hey everyone this is Tim your favorite bricks and risk co-hosts but don't tell Sean I hope you're

[00:12:21] enjoying this episode and I'll get right back to it in a moment our audience grows to word of

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[00:12:39] with a friend we greatly appreciate your time and trust now back to the show what's funny he was like

[00:12:51] all right so like what states do you want to shorten sin because I'm in this group of

[00:12:56] bankers well that run nationally and we're kind of in this you know not a text chain but you know

[00:13:05] some sort of internal communication where they discuss things and he's like these things happen all the

[00:13:10] time and you know I'll be talking to this banker out in Minnesota and you know he's like would

[00:13:17] you be able to do that and I was like now you know that's not something we can do but we do you

[00:13:23] know Pennsylvania New Jersey Delaware Maryland like anytime this comes up and they overlapped

[00:13:29] so some guys do some states he does Ohio Pennsylvania and another agent that's Delaware Maryland

[00:13:34] and so he's like oh well I can I can bring you in to this group chain and I can just

[00:13:42] take four of these people that cover that area and you'd be a great resource for some of these

[00:13:48] guys because we're constantly getting tripped up on this same exact scenario that you know

[00:13:54] you just deliver it on so again getting your foot in the door delivering building that relationship

[00:14:02] showing them that you can you know really provide a service and then then bringing in other people

[00:14:08] for you to help yeah no that's awesome and I'll go back to what I was sharing initially where

[00:14:14] it's like hey I got these 500 people which now I think is a list of maybe like 6500 like 7,000 people

[00:14:19] I have in my own contacts they're more or less just kind of like merged in with everyone we have

[00:14:25] as a company yeah and then we have company drip marketing that we do so we do we do

[00:14:29] monthy email newsletter we do quarterly reports we do fall tips we do spring tips we do a

[00:14:36] happy home anniversary so we have like I think it's like 19 touch points through drip yeah but these days

[00:14:43] now that I have the most important people my business builders like you're talking about like

[00:14:49] high trust people like you said business owners accountants you know financial planners attorneys

[00:14:56] all all these relationships that I have where their networks have super high trust in them

[00:15:02] because they're in difficult industries like you and iron it's like they're very personal like they

[00:15:08] they really they bail you out of situations when you need help you know for me it's like when someone

[00:15:13] buys a piece of real estate usually it's the most expensive thing they're ever purchasing in their life

[00:15:18] so I'm in a very high trust field unfortunately I have a very low barrier of entry to get into

[00:15:22] real estate like you could be done your classes in a few weeks take your tests a few weeks later

[00:15:27] and bam you're in real estate six weeks later you got a license you have no idea what the hell

[00:15:31] you're doing and then exactly and then now those people in your life are like hey Tim can you help me

[00:15:38] buy a 500 thousand dollar house I'm gonna say hell yes I can because I'm licensed but do you really

[00:15:43] even know what you're doing but what I will say is that you know going with the leading with

[00:15:48] value through the email first but then again like the networking group we had I do some of

[00:15:53] other things that that you did where I would be like let's just go get coffee and catch up like

[00:15:56] you and I have done that I've done that with a lot of people in my life it's not just people I've

[00:16:00] known you know for a long time that also happened to be in high trust industries like me

[00:16:05] like you meet these people over time you you meet the friend of a friend you get that

[00:16:10] cold call you deliver and then once you deliver and you feel like you're both on the same page

[00:16:16] and that person's like super appreciative maybe they gave you an amazing Google review

[00:16:20] then you have you have to be the one to take the lead to add them to your SOI your COI

[00:16:27] and you have a different like they're getting all that drip from me just because they're part of

[00:16:33] my contacts but you have to hand select those people and figure out what do I want to do with them

[00:16:40] so like some other things that I do besides the in person meeting like an additional touch so

[00:16:43] they're getting all of that yeah how you kind of take it to the next step I'll try and do like

[00:16:50] one or two in person's a year I'll usually do at least one hand written note something I'm

[00:16:57] incorporating that I just incorporated this year which is fantastic we're going to have this guest on

[00:17:01] soon is I now send quarterly magazines to you know some of the top people in my life I think

[00:17:09] it's about 160 people so these are like others all those high quality high trust people

[00:17:14] as well as like repeat clients you know the people the business builders we talked about so they get

[00:17:18] this magazine and then sometimes I'll do I'll do a drop off like a pop-eye gift so that's

[00:17:25] something that I'm like I've done before I've done it through the mail I'm like looking at

[00:17:29] that as a different strategy because you know we're in November 2023 now and the market has slowed

[00:17:37] down because there's inventory issues just not enough real estate to buy interest rates are high

[00:17:42] they're currently like they were at 8% not that long ago they're around like seven right now so

[00:17:47] you got to get back to basics and this is really like talking about our our severe

[00:17:52] influence our center of influence like is that is that more so like building your funnel or is that

[00:18:00] that you just want to remain like on these people's radars or like what's the what's the intent

[00:18:06] that you would say like by doing that like what's the main goal I would say I mean everyone knows

[00:18:11] him in real estate yep either I've already worked with them I've worked with someone they know

[00:18:15] where they just like know who I am you know through stuff that I've done whether it's like you know

[00:18:19] I've done some podcast interviews before you know I try and stay front and center with like in

[00:18:24] person networking so I know like a lot of people but honestly I look at the same way as I did the email

[00:18:31] marketing to always lead with value I do it I do that my in person networking too even the handwritten

[00:18:37] note I'm just checking in to be like how are you like how was your summer how was your holiday

[00:18:42] season whatever it is I just want to know how they are and let them know that I care that I'm just

[00:18:47] reaching out and then when I'm doing more of my in person a lot of what I do I'm just trying to see

[00:18:52] what they have going on in their life and what can I help with like I have lots of good contacts you

[00:18:57] included that is someone's like hey you know what I'm moving I'm like who do you use for insurance

[00:19:02] like you have like a trusted relationship or you just hey it's been with all stay for 10 years

[00:19:07] and I just never question it yeah and if they give me the latter I'm like you should talk to my

[00:19:11] boy Sean like Sean owns his own brokerage he can custom fit your insurance needs to one of

[00:19:18] his carriers rather than saying I have a one-size-fits-all so I usually tell people it's like hey those

[00:19:23] conversations are just going to be beneficial to your life and it has nothing to do with real estate

[00:19:28] like they're not buying a house right now we're just catching up so like leading with the value is

[00:19:34] what I usually like to say you always want to be going into these things with with giving them something

[00:19:39] that they would appreciate whether it's the note that tells them you care the email newsletter

[00:19:43] that tells them what's going on in and around Philadelphia or giving them a referral for their

[00:19:48] insurance like that's how I look at all of all of my time. Well it's a differentiation too

[00:19:53] totally right so like you're doing something above and beyond you're doing more than

[00:20:01] any other agent that they would know or a friend or you know just if you boil it down to just

[00:20:06] a friend who provides a service yeah you're going above and beyond and you're really

[00:20:14] carving out and showing people how you're different why you're different and letting them know

[00:20:19] like you're not just you're more than a real estatey. Yep I would say yeah no and I would agree with

[00:20:28] all that so here's here's a good segue question so you and I are both from Philadelphia

[00:20:36] grew up in the suburbs but living the city for a little bit back in the suburbs have families

[00:20:40] like we know a lot of people yeah so it's easier in my opinion who keep cultivating building up

[00:20:47] your network when you grew up in the in the market that you're working because you have history

[00:20:52] you have intimate knowledge like you've you've lived in different places so like you're like

[00:20:57] and you're like a true expert but let's say you're not from Philadelphia and let's say let's say

[00:21:02] you're from Tampa, Florida I'm just going to throw that out there so you're from you're moving to Tampa

[00:21:07] I'm moving to Tampa next week let's say yeah and I'm in real estate like in your opinion how would someone

[00:21:15] get started that isn't from that area that they grew up in or they were an expert and they're

[00:21:21] starting new like how would you do it you have no contacts in Tampa like how do you do it

[00:21:26] Craigslist okay no little weird but we gotta be weird right you got you know purple cow right

[00:21:35] now I think that if it's someone new to the area I think it's actually this is going to sound weird

[00:21:42] I think it's almost an advantage to you right so you don't know anyone

[00:21:49] so you're not like it's like painting with a blind canvas almost yeah and like you can

[00:21:58] go to any group that you want you can reach out to anyone that you want I mean

[00:22:06] almost like skies the limit to like start building your yeah because I think you're COI

[00:22:10] I think if you grow up in this area you're kind of have that reliance of

[00:22:16] going to go to my friends and family because it's all like let's call it like low hanging fruit yeah

[00:22:21] and we have them around here and maybe they're just like us they've been here yeah forever yeah

[00:22:26] and so so you have that trust it's like that's kind of like a crutch almost yeah

[00:22:31] that you use like oh well you can fall back oh well I know people I can you have like that instant

[00:22:38] network to kind of like build yourself on when you're new like someone's coming into town

[00:22:45] you don't have that so you really I think have the ability to like do everything you know

[00:22:54] I mean finding your niche finding who operates in this area I mean that's kind of the

[00:23:00] ideas that I was kind of picking around before we were even you know prior to us coming on was

[00:23:06] you know finding the people that operate in your space I think that's like one of the keys that

[00:23:14] can drive success and it really doesn't matter what industry you're in you know find the

[00:23:19] operators in your space reach out I mean a lot of times you know as well as I know is

[00:23:26] so many people are willing to like yeah give time you know if somewhere would reach out to you

[00:23:33] on a cold email linked in or social media and said hey saw you on this podcast you know

[00:23:41] could I grab a cup of coffee with you yeah what are you gonna say yeah I would say yes I mean

[00:23:45] well you're gonna know if it's straight up or not straight up you're gonna know someone's trying to fix

[00:23:49] yeah yeah you're a cold cold email talking about every time I'm straight on the often

[00:23:53] you talk about everyone like someone being straight on be like yeah I really enjoyed this episode

[00:23:57] let's say you're talking about sphere of influence and influence I'm getting into real estate I saw

[00:24:02] your thing I really liked it you know would you meet would you meet give me some ideas well it's interesting

[00:24:08] you say that so like actually right before I came here today I got a tax message from someone

[00:24:12] I've never met so obviously I didn't have them scripted yeah right so I get a tax message

[00:24:19] funny you and says I'm such and such yeah I'm thinking of joining your brokerage can we talk

[00:24:25] which is super humbling to get to a point at any point when you start a business that someone

[00:24:32] recognizes who you are maybe they've done a little research and what did they tell you like how

[00:24:37] they came to you or like how they found you or like what I came to find out that they live in the

[00:24:42] same area that our offices located so and again I haven't even had this call yet so we basically

[00:24:47] just were texting today because that's that's how he reached out yeah and we're gonna chat tomorrow

[00:24:51] but to your point like someone reached out and said like I know who you are and I'm reaching out

[00:24:58] because I'm interested in learning more whether it be you is a solo agent whether that be

[00:25:04] a business owner or just like a leader in your market like yeah you're gonna take that meeting

[00:25:10] and to your point like you can do that in any market like maybe instead of like doing an email

[00:25:16] campaign to the 500 people you know that like you said low hanging fruit already have that they

[00:25:21] already know you they're like you they already trust you you have that it's easier to do that

[00:25:25] but you could easily go to any market let's go back to Tampa and find people on LinkedIn you know

[00:25:31] find people in Facebook groups you know find people on meetup.com that are just looking to get

[00:25:37] together for running or art or their foodies or they go out to the movie like whatever it is

[00:25:43] during to music and you can go meet these people by just living your life and then when you connect

[00:25:50] with the two or three that you really like or the one or two you're just gonna add up to your

[00:25:54] contacts and take it to the next level so even if you're not from the area and you're looking

[00:26:00] to build your SOI or COI like that's a great approach and I agree with that I think that's a great

[00:26:06] tip man. Yeah it's it's literally there there's so many different ways to go about it and there's

[00:26:12] not one right way or one wrong way I think it's like if you're going out trying to make the connections

[00:26:21] it's easy enough to do that with all of the tools that are out there today and really just

[00:26:28] developing relationships and you're gonna know after a couple of people that you reach out to you

[00:26:34] you're gonna know who potentially could drive business like this banker that I was dealing

[00:26:41] with recently I know that he could be a great referral source for our business and then hey

[00:26:46] but you introduce me to a couple more you know once you make that relationship but you introduce

[00:26:51] me to a couple more I mean it's it's snowballs totally and I don't I don't think that

[00:26:58] being from out of the area I don't think that that should dissuade you you know from doing it

[00:27:05] well said man so we're gonna end on that note today folks so thank you for tuning in again to

[00:27:10] another episode of Bricks and Risk here thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and

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