Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Ryan Serhant: Become a Real Estate Rockstar | E59

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Are you ready to become the ultimate sales machine and sell it like Serhant? This week on YAP, Hala chats with Ryan Serhant. Ryan started off his career as an actor, and when he couldn’t make ends meet he looked to real estate to pay his bills. As fate with have it, very early in his career Ryan auditioned for Bravo's Million Dollar Listing and was selected amongst thousands to participate in the reality tv show, which went on to be super popular and propelled Ryan into stardom. Ryan took the opportunity to fully step into the role he played on the show and forced himself become the incredible real estate and sales guru he is today--- selling over 1 billion dollars in real estate each year to date! Tune in to learn how learn Ryan's key sales principles like the "balls up" approach and his "3Fs" approach: follow up, follow through and follow back.  If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. Booba one will save you on all your eats. Savings can't be beat. Up to 10 percent of your order. Join Booba one and save $0.00 delivery fee and percentage off discount subjects to older minimums and participating stores. Taxes and other fee sell apply. I'm a big believer in positive energy.

I said big money energy. I think that there are two types of people in the world. There are the people who get into a car and look out the window and see rain and clouds and there are people that get into the car and look out the window and see sun shining. Even if it's raining, you get excited about the rain because you know it makes things grow. And I've always been one of those people like life is just too short to be negative and to be upset. Like you can have bad days. I definitely have bad days. I get stressed out. I get angry all the time. But at the end of the day, those are fleeting emotional moments that I have that are

in response to certain things that are happening to me. but I am super pumped that I'm alive today, right? I don't have coronavirus. Everything's going to be okay. You're listening to YAHB, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halitaha, and on Young & Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world.

My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value for my guests, people who are much smarter than me on their given topic by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. Today, we're talking to Ryan Serhan. Ryan started off his career as an actor, and when he couldn't make ends meet, he looked to real estate to pay his bills. As fate would have it, very early in his career, Ryan auditioned for a million Listing, and he was selected amongst thousands

to participate in the reality TV show, which went on to be super popular and propelled Ryan into stardom. Ryan took the opportunity to fully step into the role he played on the show and forced himself to become the incredible real estate in sales guru he is today, selling over $1 billion in real estate each year to date. Hey Ryan, welcome to Young Improfting Podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy you're here. It's not often that I get to interview a fellow New Yorker. Really? Yeah. So tell me, how did you decide to start living in New York and starting your family here in New York? Oh man.

Why New York City? I graduated college in upstate New York and I came here in 2006 with a little money saved up because I wanted to do theater and I had never been to the west coast really so I didn't want to go to LA and New York seemed like the best place to do that. I got an apartment with two of my roommates and we made a one bedroom into a three bedroom on 66th and first and now I'm just still here. Oh, so it's just my chance that you're here. Yeah, and now I mean listen, New York is, and I say this all the time, like I owe my my life to New York City. Yeah, I may know my life to my mom, but second to my mom, I owe my life to New York City because without New York

I wouldn't have had all of the different opportunities that I had because I went from being like in the same city on the same exact block, I was passing out flyers, hand modeling, modeling pants, doing a free piece of theater and renting apartments at the same exact time and meeting really, really, really interesting, intellectually curious people across the street. And you can do it all in New York City because it's a melting pot. Everybody is here. And there's unlimited, unlimited opportunity in this city. Yeah. So I think in New York every day.

Yeah. New York is amazing. Land of opportunity. I totally agree. Yeah. You started off your career in New York City. Like you mentioned, you were a real estate agent only because your acting didn't really work out right away. I know that you got killed off of a soap series and you started off as an actor

and then you went into real estate in your 20s and essentially you got this casting call for a million dollar listing or you found out about it and you ended up auditioning for them and you got the part amongst thousands of other people who tried out. So tell me about that point in your life. What was it like leading up to that point where you got that information about that audition and how did you just take the plunge to go do it even though you were just starting out, you really weren't an established real estate agent at that point from my understanding. Oh yeah, no way.

It's funny, right after you graduate, you kind of don't feel like you're an adult yet. You know, it's like this extended summer job that just keeps going. And because I didn't go to grad school or go get a real job, you know, I was just living off of savings, which I'd done for the past four years in college anyway.

And I was making ends meet by doing odd jobs and doing a soap opera for 500 bucks in episode type thing. And it never really felt like, oh wow, I'm grown up, I'm an adult, and now I'm in New York City, and I have to pay bills and taxes and have my life. Like it all just sort of slowly happens. But I put acting to the side

because I just wasn't happy anymore. I try the business of being an actor in New York City is brutal on your mental well-being. You know, it's just hard like in you. And I would see actors who were twice my age, you know, in their 40s and 50s and 60s who were still trying for their big break. And they were still waiting tables or bartending.

The same way they did when they were 19 or 20, and it just life goes on. And you get comfortable with that monthly budget you got, and you get comfortable with that job. And then before you know it, 20 or 30 years flashes by, and it was so terrified that that was gonna happen that I said, you know, and I gotta make something happen. So I'm gonna go to law school, which I tried and totally bombed the LZAD.

Or a friend told me, get your real estate license. It's basically acting. You just have to turn it on with everybody and you memorize information about buildings and apartments and then just walk into apartments, talk about how awesome they are. And that's basically it.

So that sounds stupid. And so I got my real estate license and I was just doing rentals. And so I put acting to the side, even though I trained to do it my whole life. So it was kind of like, oh man, failure. Now I'm a rental real estate agent in Korea town in New York City. Like, is this why I went to college? And then there was a casting call from a really narrow listing that said they were looking for the best real estate agents under the age of 35. Come to an open call, basically the Hudson Hotel and Times Square.

And I went with 3,000 people. And until I went to that audition, I basically was kind of treating real estate almost like my make ends meet business. I want to be able to figure out how to pay rent and not be stressed about money all the time and make my own hours. and I was kind of like in a limbo period, I guess I could say, up until I got cast on the show. Yeah. Set the stage in terms of how successful you are today.

Let's talk in terms of numbers. I don't know. I work 16 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't know if that's really successful or if that's terrible, because there's a big price to pay, right, with success. I would say that I sell about 2.7 to 2.8 million dollars worth of homes at every day. Wow.

We do just about a billion dollars a year. And that's between residential homes and commercial sales. I lead a team of about 64 people. We sell majority of our real estate in New York City, but we do a lot in the Hamptons, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles. And we do some stuff internationally, but it's super complicated, so I try to keep things based here. That's amazing, congratulations. So let's take it back to your time. You just started on a million dollar listing. You were an inexperienced real estate agent.

How did you use acting to boost yourself confidence, to make sure that you had the right skills as a real estate agent? How did you use your previous experiences to then become a professional real estate agent or salesperson as you like to say? Big money energy. That's kind of what I call it. I didn't have the experience, but I knew I had to be confident in a room, even if I didn't feel confident. That all comes down to the energy that

you have. So when I went into that audition, I told them what they needed to hear. I wasn't uncomfortable, I wasn't nervous, I wasn't like, oh man, they're seeing right through me. I walked in there as if I was somebody who was in an audition, right? When you go to, all for an audition, you know, you're 22, but you're going to go audition to pay a millionaire real estate broker or a, you know, an investment banker. You put on a nice tie and suit and you go in there and you read the lines and you're a confident investment banker. So I did the same thing. I wore my best suit and walked in there and said, I'm the greatest real estate agent that's ever lived. I did the same thing. Like I wore my best suit and walked in there and said, I'm the greatest real estate agent

that's ever lived. I am 25 years old. I don't know why you're still looking. They're like, wow, this guy is maybe two confidence. And it's just sort of one from there. And then I, you know, Bravo and NBC Universal, basically it was like a metaphorical shotgun with a head where they said,

you've got to sell real estate, otherwise we are gonna shame you to the entire world. So you have to do well. If you fail, you know, at listings and everything, then we're gonna put you on TV as a failure. And so that was, like, fears a real thing. So, like the last thing I wanted to do was be a loser real estate agent

who couldn't sell anything. So I worked my ass off to sell all that stuff. That first season I lost like 10 pounds from stress, running around the city, cold calling. All that change was the fear of shame. But I sold a lot. From then I've used that as like my wall, my fear of public failure is really what drives me, I guess. Something that's stuck to me when you were talking is that essentially you had an

affirmation like, I'm the best real estate salesperson, right? So how important is the law of attraction to you in terms of your success and ensuring that you hit your goals? I'm a big believer in positive energy, you know, that's why I said big money energy. I think that there are two types of people in the world. There are the people who get into a car and look out the window and see rain and clouds and there are people that get into the car

and look out a window and see sun shining. And even if it's raining, you get excited about the rain because you know it makes things grow. And I've always been one of those people. Life is just too short to be negative and to be upset. You can have bad days. I definitely have bad days. I get stressed out.

I get angry all the time. But at the end of the day, those are fleeting emotional moments that I have that are in response to certain things that are happening to me. But I am super pumped that I'm alive today. I don't have coronavirus. Everything's gonna be okay.

You know, life is gonna go on. And I live in New York City. I sell $20 million home is for a living. I what, I don't, I'm not a rougher. You know, I'm not working on the ranch. Yeah. Now I'm not in a country where my rights get taken away from me, like life is great. Yeah, totally.

So I put out that positive energy as much as possible and selling is the transfer of enthusiasm, right? Like I don't sell homes ever. I don't think I've ever actually sold a home. I think the homes that I sell are the skeleton around the excitement that I transfer to people. So my enthusiasm for a home is really what I'm selling.

Because you're gonna buy a house anyway. Like, you're looking for a house, right? And so I'm gonna show you homes if you're on the buyer side with me that I think are great. And this one that you like, I like it too. This is awesome. Let's imagine you living here and your kids, baby footsteps are going to be here and your

dinner parties and blah, blah, blah, blah. And let's talk about the deal and you're going to get a great deal. That's excitement and you get excited about that. And that's when people open up their wallet. It is very hard for me to negotiate with someone's wallet, but I can negotiate with people's feelings all day long. Oh, I love that. So selling your enthusiasm.

Yeah, sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. That is all it is. Very cool. So let's talk about your work ethic. Previously, you said you work 16-hour days. I think you wake up at like 4.50 AM, you go to sleep at 11 PM, something like that. Or you keep working until 11 PM if I remember correctly.

Where did you get your work ethic from? Because I read that you didn't really grow up poor or anything like that. You were up in middle class and oftentimes I was the same thing. People think that you don't have a strong work ethic if you didn't grow up poor. So tell me, where did you get your work ethic from? My dad, for sure. He made me do me and my little brother. We had to do manual labor jobs since the day I

can remember. If we wanted anything, we had to pay for it ourselves. There was no allowance. My first video camera I'd just save for on my own. And literally, what he would say is you can make money doing anything. Just figure it out. And so I would do the smallest things. He paid me to pick up sticks, right?

We outside Boston, there's a lot of trees. And instead of getting hiring a yard guy to come and rake up the yard and rake up all the sticks and branches, I would do that and pick it all up and he pay me per stick. And I just knew, I was like, wow, there's endless sticks. Like I could pick up all these sticks and my dad'll pay me and I can't remember what it was.

It was like, I don't know, I don't know, 10 cents a stick or something, but it added up, right? You pick up all these sticks and my dad will pay me. And I can't remember what it was. It was like, I don't know, I don't know, 10 cents a stick or something. But it added up, right? You pick up enough sticks. You can make some real money. And that's kind of the same idea that I have now. Like, I look at people like sticks. Like when I go out into New York City

and I see millions of people on the street, like, man, if I just picked up 10 of those, you know, my dad will pay me, except now it's not my dad. And he was always street, like, man, if I just picked up 10 of those, you know, my dad will pay me except now it's not my dad. And he was always, I like, he made me write an essay on the power of not being lazy when I was 10 years old. Like he really, really drilled into me the power of hard work because he, my dad as first baby when he was 18 years old, his mom died when he was 13, his dad died, sorry, his brother died when he was 21.

He raised his family basically on his own, put himself through college, figured out finance, got himself a job, put himself through everything. And I think you do that, like, I think it's possible. Yeah, you've got it easy then. I totally have it easy. Yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah, hard work is literally a talent, I think. So who does to you? It's hard to teach, you know. So there's a very popular saying that reminds me of you that showing up is half the battle. Can you talk to us about the lessons you've learned in terms of showing up and how that's helped you become so successful? Yeah, you can't do anything if you're not there.

I tell that to my team members all the time, my agents who come to me and they're like, well, I need more business. I'm like, I haven't seen you in two days. What have you been doing? Like, oh, I've been busy. What have you been busy with? And I, like, will really drill into it and people get embarrassed and nervous

because they haven't actually been busy. Showing up is 75% of the battle. The other 20% is luck. And the other 5% is, you've got to be there. You've got to be in the room. You've got to be part of the conversation. You've got to be in the room. You've got to be part of the conversation. You've got to put yourself out there.

People have to see your face, hear your voice, shake your hand. Like that's what the world is all about. The deals that I do today are based on relationships that I started by being in the room 10 years ago. And the room that I'm in today will hopefully open up doors for me 10 years from now. When I'm 45, you know, I'll look back to 2020 and say, thank God, I actually went to work

that day. And I went to a meeting yesterday, as an example, and I didn't really want to go to it. It's like, why am I going to this meeting? It's like, for some tech thing platform, and they asked me to come. So a couple of people on my media team were like, hey, let's go. And I was like, I got so much other stuff to do. I just want to like clean email and I got to make all these calls. But I went.

At the end of the meeting, I was like, holy shit, but I take back not wanting to go because I met three other people there. I got connected to two other people that are looking to buy apartments. The CEO was actually somebody that I definitely, definitely should know. I just didn't pay attention to it. And I feel like people pass those opportunities by all the time because they're like, either, why should I go and waste my time? Or I don't know, it's not for me or, oh, it's not going to work out.

So I put myself in as many different positions to have opportunities as possible because you've never, ever, never know. That reminds me of something that you talk about often. And it's some of your sales advice to have as many balls in the air as possible. But you actually have a lot of rules when it comes to these balls and the ball throwing. So could you just share this analogy with our listeners? The book, so like Sir Ham was initially called Balls Up.

I sold it to the publisher as Balls Up and then once they bought it, we were writing it. They came to me and they're like, listen, we need to talk. I don't think these are the times when we're going to put a book on the shelves that says balls up. But the idea is it's kind of like my game theory for sales, right? Instead of spending all of your time on trying to do one deal, sales is all about having a pipeline.

It's a volume business. I'm selling things right now, and I'm sitting here at this table with you because I figured out how to leverage myself and how to continue to sell things, and I sell lots of different things now. But you want to have as many balls in the air as you possibly can, and then figure out a system, an actual system, right? A system for follow-up, a system for discipline, a system for your daily routine that enables you to catch as many of those balls as possible. That way, when balls fall, which is like a deal dying, or you don't get that job, or that interview doesn't happen, it's okay because you have 16 others in the works.

And if you do that, then you're always driven by positive momentum, and then you're living in the river. And it's like, I grew up outside Boston, there were running rivers that are great, and then there are these stagnant ponds that are gross and smelly and have dead things in them. That's what you are if you don't have things in the fire. And if you're not in constant motion.

And so that's kind of how it works. And there's a whole system for it. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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New episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. Find the Millionaire University podcast on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you ensure that you always have a stream of opportunities? What do you do? I made five new people every single day. At least, minimum. That is my job I am not a real estate broker. I don't sell homes my main job when I think about it like what's my job today is

To meet five new people get their contact information put it into my phone. Yeah, that's it Those five people will then get my newsletters. I will follow them on social or they'll follow me We will follow up with each other We'll see how we can make different opportunities together for each other because the world is short, small, and we'll see what happens. You never know. And five times 365 times the last 12 years is a lot of people. And I'm not going anywhere.

And so those people, and oftentimes it's more people, you know. But if I haven't hit five because I've been stuck in the office all day or something, I will literally like go to the deli and just meet two new people or like go to Starbucks. And I will I will literally tell people, Hey, I'm a real estate broker. I have a personal quota that I got to meet five new people every day. I've only met four. Can you be my number five? And people when you say when you're dead honest with people, people are like, uh, sure, I guess weird. Why do you do that? And then it opens up a conversation and when you're dead honest with people, people are like, uh, sure, I guess weird. Why do you do that? And then it opens up a conversation

and now you're talking to somebody about your work ethic and this and you're like, well, actually, my son is doing um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, do people recognize you now when you go up to them? Now it's slightly easier, but no, not all the time. I sometimes halfway through a conversation, people will be like, you look familiar. I'm like, yeah, maybe.

But people go, you know, they've seen million to our listing maybe on like a jet blue flight five years ago. And like you kind of look like that guy kind of from that real estate show, but you also kind of look a little bit like Tom Brady, but not really. I don't know, did we date? I'm like, no, we definitely did not date, dude.

That's funny. Well, at least you still are like approachable enough and you, you know, you can still approach people randomly on the street. So from what I remember, you actually were a very shy child, right? You grew up with a little awkwardness, social anxiety, a little overweight.

I have some younger listeners who listen to the podcast. What's your advice in terms of getting out of your shell and becoming the confident person that you are today? Like you're super confident now. How did you change that? Yeah, big money energy. I mean, I'm a big believer, like I said, in the power of positive energy and like a vision board.

So who do you wanna be? What is that image of? Even maybe it's somebody you know, maybe it's that cool kid in school or maybe it's an actor or someone on YouTube, like print out that person's face and put it by your bed or in your journal or in your locker, you know, or in your car and just imagine like you can be that person

or you can be even better than that person and position yourself out there just that way and know that no one cares. No one cares about the way you feel. And if you are uncomfortable, and so for me, I was overweight, I had really, really bad skin. I had premature gray hair for when I was 16 years old, and I was super pale. To combat the gray hair, because I was really embarrassed about it, I would die it, and then dark brown hair die from the pharmacy is actually black. So I feel like super white with really jet black hair,

riddled with acne with my little belly, running around. And what I realized later on is all the things that I was nervous about, no one else was paying attention to because all they were caring about was I paying attention to their crooked teeth. I'm nervous that they were paying attention to my skin,

but they're concerned that I'm paying attention to, they're really bad haircut that they got yesterday. And to me, I just met you. Your hair looks great. I don't understand. And so, you know, it's remembering that no one cares and what's the worst that can happen. Something my dad told me that really opened me up

when I was growing up, because I was too nervous to ask out. Girls or anything, he's like, are you afraid that any of these girls are gonna punch you in the nose? I was like, I mean, I don't think so. It's like, okay, that's probably the worst thing that can happen is someone punches you in the face

because that'll physically hurt or try to like harm you. Are you afraid any of these girls carry knives? Like, no, no, no, it's like North Shore Boston. None of these girls carry knives. It's like, okay, so what's your problem? Just ask, and what are they gonna do? Say no, at least you know, right? And then move on.

There's lots of other people. And that's what the sales business is for me today. I ask everybody, can I sell you a home? No, okay, great, I'll keep you posted. Next, like it's, what's the, yeah, what is like, the worst thing someone can do is punch you in the face or send you to jail, right? Those are the three terrible things

that could happen to you. Everything else doesn't matter, no one cares. You carry yourself with the confidence of the person you know you can be, it's inside you. You have it already, just pull it out there and people are gonna be excited about it. Put a smile on your face, sell enthusiasm for who you are and people will be attracted to it.

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before sell it like Sir Hunt, and you currently run one of the top sales teams in New York and in the nation, Nest Seekers. Tell us, how do you effectively run that sales teams? Like, what are your general principles to be so successful with them? No, man, just cry all day long. Managing people is really hard.

What I would say is, I don't have an exact system. My best system is I talk to every single person who works for me every day. That's the simplest piece of advice that I could give. It's not on the phone, some of them it's on the phone, some of it's by text, some of it's just by social, like an agent of mine posts a listening, a double-type at comment. They need to hear from me as a leader every day, where leaders make mistakes is they don't touch base. Like you have to think about everyone who works with you in some way shape or form like any regular relationship.

Imagine if I went home and saw my wife every day, but didn't talk to her, because I was just too busy. Didn't say anything. But deep down I love her, but she would know something's up, something's weird, how come he's not talking to me. Same thing goes for your employees. It's a little bit different, but it is actually kind

of the same and it's easy. Even just sending an email like that says, you in the subject line and in the body of the email says, are awesome. Hope you're having a great day. Yeah. People appreciate that. It's like, and then you're good for like the week

with that person. And then you can touch base the next day. Little things, you know, little comments. Like it goes a long, long way. And then on top of that, like I have great people who work for me that manage that help me manage problems and issues, you know, at the end of the day, like your issues as a leader and as a manager

are never dealing with good things. No one ever comes to me with good problems. Yeah. If someone comes to me, it's because they couldn't figure it out on their own, and it's typically something bad. So most of my day is managing 60 plus agents and all of their bad issues. Right? And figuring out how to deal with it and keeping them calm

and staying calm yourself and trying to manage it and then trying to quarterback as much as I possibly can. That's great advice. I think being a manager, like you said, is all about like showing your appreciation and enthusiasm towards them and ensuring that they're feeling great to do their job and feeling appreciated.

And knowing too, and not to cut you off, sorry, but. No, of course. Knowing too that it is, like you're all in it together. Like listen, if you're the boss, right, or you're a manager, even if you have just one person underneath you, they know that you're the boss. You don't have to remind them, like they get it. They know they work for you,

they understand what the pecking order is. It's up to you to remind them that they work with you not for you. No one who's ever worked for me has done a great job because who wants to work for anybody? Yeah, especially in sales. Yeah, they want to be part of the team, they wouldn't be part of the team. They wouldn't be part of the process. You know, everything that everyone underneath you

does for you, you make them feel like they're doing it with you and it's together. Yeah. They will work 10 times harder. Completely. I know you have a lot of stories. You have a story that really showcases the value of saying yes, with Mr. X. No, God. Essentially, you followed this mystery man to Paris to land one of your first and biggest deals. Would you share that story with our listeners? Oh, man, how much time do we have? I'll try to make it as succinct as possible.

Like, one of my first listings I ever got was really, really overpriced. It was a listing on the Upper West Side, 45 West 67 Street. No other agent would take it because it was so overpriced. So that's probably let's do it. And if you have no listings, you know, like I did at the time, that's what I did. And then you put the listing online,

you put it on the internet, you put it out there to the world. And our company's always been really good at marketing internationally so that people could see listings all over the world. And I got an email from somebody that said they wanted to buy that apartment and where could they send the money.

I was like, this seems weird and scammy. But I had no other business at the time. I didn't know what to do. So I wrote back, well, that's not really how we do it here, but happy to talk to you if you want to make an offer. And they called me. And I talked to them on the phone. So I had a real voice who sounded real.

I mean, you say you wanted to make an offer and you can't remember. But you made an offer of like $8 million. And I had no idea who he was or where he was from. He definitely was not from the United States. He said he was gonna send me a proof of funds which showed up the next day as a DHL piece of paper with a photo of his accountant on it that just said, Mr., I call him Mr. Axe

because I can't give out his name, but Mr. Axe does not commit to things that Mr. Axe will not commit to. And I was like, all right, good enough for me, sure. I've been $8 million offer, and I presented it to the seller, and as a real estate agent, you have a fiduciary responsibility to vet all your clients and make sure you're presenting real offers.

And kind of went out on a little bit of a limb, and the seller was like, well, is this a real buyer? I'm like, yep, how do you know? They sent me a proof of funds. All checks out. All's good. $8 million. We should counter.

So we countered. We got the deal done at 8.3, and I connected him to an attorney at the whole while being like, this is the weirdest thing ever. Some random dude on the internet from this other country just contacted me because he wanted access to my bank account

to send me $8 million. And now maybe he's going to buy an apartment. This is what New York is all about. And he signed a contract and then disappeared. And I had no idea what happened until everyone got really, really upset and really angry and what happened to this guy. Where's the money? There's no deposit.

And people kept telling me, listen, this is what people do, right? They take contracts out for properties in New York City. They sign contracts. And then they go and they scam people out of money. So they properties in New York City, they sign contracts, and then they go, and they scam people out of money. So they go to people in different countries all around the world, and they say, listen, I got a $10 million apartment in New York City.

I have a contract for $8.3 million. Give me $10,000 coming on it with me, we're gonna make tons of money. And they do that to like 100 people. Oh wow. Right? And they make a lot of money that way. And fast forward, like, I don't know, four or five months or so,

I'm on the West Side Highway and his attorney that I introduced him to calls me and says, you're not going to believe this, but I just got a wire for $830,000. You were officially in contract on 45 West, 67th Street. It's like, holy moly, wearing contract on the biggest deal of my entire life. This is insane. I called the seller. They couldn't believe it. They thought this guy had totally just disappeared. Leigh-moly wearing contract on the biggest deal of my entire life. This is insane. I called the seller. They couldn't believe it.

They thought this guy had totally just disappeared. Yeah. And then he disappeared again. So we had no idea what was going on. Signed contract and then sent money and then disappeared. And so then we couldn't close. We didn't know what to do. And in New York City, you have to sign applications.

You have to do board packages, right? To fill out applications. You get approved by the condo board and all that. And you wouldn't do it, you literally wouldn't respond. And months and months go by. And I'm trying to figure out how to stay on top of them, how to follow up. And I sent them a BBM back in the day when we all had blackberries.

It said something like, hey, I know you mentioned you have a home in Paris. I'm actually gonna be there tomorrow if you wanna meet and go through the application and schedule a closing date. Not thinking you would reply, but just like, just trying to find ways, anything, just like, dude, please respond, you're my biggest deal ever.

I need this closing. Why, please, don't be a con artist who's stealing money from everybody. And he wrote back right away. He's like, okay, that sounds good tomorrow, 8 p.m. And gave me an address. He's like, oh, shit. I'm not in Paris, I'm in New York City.

I have no plans, I go to Paris whatsoever.. I have no plans to go to Paris whatsoever, and I have no money to get there. So I scraped together some savings and figured out how to get to Paris literally in 18 hours notice by flying, what was it? Air Lingus to Dublin. And then Ryan Air, I think it was from Dublin to Paris.

And I went to the location and he told me to go to, which was a bar, and then he didn't show up for hours and hours and hours, and like crying into my buggett. And I didn't know what to do, so I was leaving in the morning. And then he walked in the door with like an entourage of people

that was just totally crazy. And he didn't want to talk about the apartments, but so at least I knew he was real, but he was a bit scary. And all of his friends were very scary people. And he didn't want to talk about the apartment, he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he just wanted to see me drink.

Shot after shot after shot of Tequila. And I'm like texting my mom on the side, I'm like, I'm sorry, I didn't tell you, I went to Paris to meet a mystery man I met on the internet. So now getting drunk. So now I'm gonna be drunk, I'm gonna be sold into slavery, or I'm gonna be killed, I don't know what's going on. And eventually, I got him to look at the application,

he scribbled some stuff down, and then he left. Somehow I got to the airport. That whole evening, it's a total blur, came back, submitted the application sort of. The board didn't want to accept it because it was like half done, kind of, but they had no choice because in Aconda, you just had the first ride of refusal. So the condo board then either had to buy the apartment

from the sellers or accept it. But then he disappeared again and we couldn't find him until one day and this is the end of the story. One day early in the morning, he calls me, this is like a year after that first email and call and says to me, I'm in New York, I want to close. That's not how it happens here, but okay, sure, no problem. Called all the attorneys, got everyone together, said,

he's here, I'm sorry, this is to do this, do this. And this was, I wanna say, 2011, I wanna say, so the market was, or 2010, the market was awful, right? We were in the middle of the recession. So it's not like anyone else was buying this apartment. Today would be a little bit different. He said he's at the Mandarin Oriental on Central Park. I ran up there, waited, never came down,

waited for hours, he had all the attorneys there, totally think that this whole thing is still a scam. I'm like, no, you don't understand. I met him, I met him, I met him. Finally, he comes down with a whole entourage of people, a fleet of black, like bulletproof tinted escalades, like flies, like volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer,

a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, a volunteer, no, no, no, we go to JFK. So I start texting my mom again, and I'm like, I'm gonna do it again.

Now I'm with that same mystery man in one of his cars, heading to JFK. We go to the back of JFK where I've never even been before, and there's this massive airplane, I don't know what it was, like a 737 or something. He gets out, science papers, buys it, gets back in the car, says, now we go close,

goes to the closing, pays in cash, gets a photo of me and him for his BBM, and turns out that he makes like a billion dollars a month. Wow. Right. And he can, he's in the energy business, I'll leave it at that. And he was drunk one night, somewhere in the world, and thought it would be fun to buy an apartment in New York City, because one of his friends had and found the pretty photos. And so on my picture and sent me an email and they called me.

And then he wasn't really taking it seriously until I followed up with him over and over and over. And then he felt bad for me. And so he bought it. And since then, he has, we've done like 300 million together. Every deal is painful. it's all awful, but he's very, very real and it's worth it every time, but that deal taught me the power of follow-up.

The power of follow-up and the power of valuable persistence, because they never harassed him, right? It wasn't an annoying, I was always just checking in, sending him information, hey, this thing closed over here, you're getting a great deal, hey, this is what's happening, this is what's happening. And he also said later on, he's like, and I knew you weren't, you didn't have plans to come to Paris.

No, he knew. But you actually, I cannot believe you actually did that. I was so surprised when you said you were there. And that's why I bought that apart. Your dog is an important part of your family. Don't settle when it comes to their health. Make the switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science with nom nom. Nom nom switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science

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He just decided to say yes, and that's super important. So let's stick on follow up I know that there's three different kinds of follow up, follow back, follow through and follow up. Could you explain that to our listeners? Yeah, it is basically like my secret sauce because when I came to New York City, I didn't know anybody, I'm not from here. I grew up outside Boston, so I knew some people there,

but like my parents aren't helping me. You know, I didn't go to school here and have all my school friends. I knew like Midtown, I knew where all the hand modeling castings were. That was it. I had to meet new people every day, like I told you. I had to follow up with them to one day get their business. That's what the system is. It's called follow up, follow through, follow back. It's my three Fs and I do it every single day. It's in my calendar. In the morning, first thing, I follow up with everybody from either yesterday

or the week or everybody that I need to follow up with, hey, you said you were gonna do this. Hey, this is happening. Hey, just wanted to touch base. Hey, this is listing, whatever it might be. Follow through is doing what you say you're gonna do. So if I tell someone I'm gonna send them something by noon, you actually do it.

Something my dad taught me really well. Like, you're only as good as your word. And if you say you're gonna do something and you don't do it, you were forever banned in people's minds. If you say you're gonna be there on time, be there on time. If you say you're gonna be late, then okay.

You know, just be honest, be upfront, and follow through with what you say you're gonna do. And then follow back, which is really important, is every day I follow back with past clients. Finds a soul things two, ten years ago. People I met last week who aren't even interested, you know, just touch and bay, saying, hey, what's up? Following back with deals that died, finds I sold things to 10 years ago. People I met last week who aren't even interested, just touch and bay, saying, hey, what's up?

Following back with deals that died, maybe I could put it back together. And it is the lifeblood of my career in the way that my team does our deals, right? Non-stop, important, valuable follow-up. Do you think the time investment that you put into follow-up is worth it? Oh my God, yes, follow-up, it's free. That's the thing. We're in a service

business. Everybody's in a service industry. So it's, it's all free. It's just, I'm going to have a phone email in a calendar anyway. So it's just putting things in my calendar and then actually doing it. It's in sending an email, sending, especially in 2020, like sending an email, a text, a quick phone call or a DM is all free. You're going to do it anyway. So it's absolutely worth it. Like the amount of money that I have made, the amount of things that I've sold, I'm going to put some of the book to like, just from follow up, that deals that never, ever, ever,

ever would have happened otherwise, whether it's the Mr. Act story or people that I followed up with for, there's a deal I'm doing today. I was just telling you about before we started the podcast because the closing costs are so high. Yeah. All together, it's like a million dollars in taxes. The deal is for $12 million. I have followed back with them ever since I rented their daughter in

apartment in 2010, 10 years ago for $2,200 a month. Just with parents, just not just touch base, falling up happy holidays. I don't have to. I didn't really deal with them before, but I knew that one day maybe they'd want to buy a place, right? And they'd mentioned it to me, so they dropped a seed. Ten years later, future Ryan is super excited. I'm happy to sell them an apartment for $12 million. Wow. Right. It's amazing. Just that little time investment can go so far if you do it right. Yeah. Little bits of time. I give 1,000 minutes every day.

You have 1,440 minutes every day, actually. But like, 440 of those, you're eating, sleeping, go to the bathroom. And so you have 1,000 minutes every day in your bank of time. You are the CEO of your own bank of time. What are you gonna do with those 1,000 minutes? How are you gonna use them?

How are you gonna milk them? How are you gonna get the most out of them that you possibly can? And how are you going to make sure that you spend them wisely as an investment into tomorrow's thousand minutes? You know? Totally. That's what I think about every day. So let's talk about salespeople. Salespeople often get a bad rep. You know, they're known to be like very pushy before you were saying that you sell enthusiasm. So you obviously don't take that approach. What's your advice to salespeople who are just too pushy? Don't sell.

You don't focus on the sell. Bad salespeople are people who watch a pot boil water. You know how they say a watch pot never boils. If you heard that, if you sit there and you're waiting for the water to boil, it's like it takes forever. Right? Don't focus on the sell.

Okay, I think that when you are selling, no one likes to be sold. Everybody loves to go shopping with friends. So I have people like internet shopping because I don't want to be sold. I don't want to go into that store and have someone force them to try on shoes. But if they go into the store and someone comes up

and says, yeah, that jacket's awesome. You look great. Let me know if you need anything. Also, the huge sale right over there, those shoes are insane, crazy. They were 200 bucks yesterday. Today, they were 125. You look great. Let me know if you need anything. Also the huge sale right over there. Those shoes are insane. Crazy. They were $200 yesterday. Today, they're $125. You'd look sick in them. All of a sudden, you're like, you're not, you're just kind of selling me, but now I feel good about my jacket choice today. So that was nice of you. And wait, do you have a deal? Yeah, I guess I could try those. And then all of a sudden, you're in conversation. And then you're finding things in common

with people, right? If you can literally can be, you both hate the cold or damn, you don't have coronavirus, mean either, dude. Let's elbow. Literally, it's just conversation. It's the power of improv. That's why I tell everyone to take improv classes. If you are going to live life talking to other human beings, go take an improv class. It'll help you open up. That's the biggest advice biggest advice I have for, you know, that other question you asked in terms of,

like, how you go from being a shy, overweight kid with really bad skin, who didn't want to talk to anybody, you take an improv class and you learn how to be a dog on fire, giving birth to your grandmother on Mars in front of 20 other people. If you can do that, you can talk to a stranger on the street about the weather. And that opens you up, right? Because no other situation is ever more ridiculous than that. Okay, so I want to spend the next couple of minutes just talking about the market in general. How do you typically price a home? What are the factors that you look into? Yeah, I'll just let pull a number out of a hat really. Oh, you listen, you look at, I mean, there's a lot of things. First thing, you look at comparable sales.

What else like this home has sold recently? Mm-hmm. All right, so that's the first thing we look at. So if your house is similar to the house across the street and that house sold for $500,000, your house, okay, just based on comparable sales, probably worth plus minus $500,000, not because it's worth that, but because no buyer wants to ever overpay. And so your buyer is going to look at that house and say, well, that house sold for 500, I'm not spending more or I'll only spend a little bit more because

you did these value ads to it. The next thing you look at is what is actively on the market. So what else is my buyer gonna see? That is like my house. So if the house across the street, so for 500, that's great for them. But if now the market's a little bit different, and now there's eight other houses on the same block that are all on the market at 400,

you're not gonna get 500,000. You should've sold a year ago. Yeah. And then we look at condition. Like is this house moving ready? Can someone come in today? That's valuable to people. How much paint costs and all that stuff?

Are you selling it fully furnished? How much would that cost somebody to fully furnish your house? Maybe that's a great value ad. Do you have a bigger lot? Do you have a pool? Like, what are all the different amenities that you get to offer that other houses don't? And then it's lastly based on how people search for real estate these days, and it's all starts on the phone now, or at least on the computer.

It's all about the search bracket. You price in the bracket. You have to. If you price outside the bracket, so if your home is worth, I don't know, it's going to be simple. If your home is, you think really worth $550,000, you don't price it at $650,000 to negotiate anymore. That's the way the world used to work,

with the hope of maybe getting somebody to make a law for. Because that buyer who can afford that house is not looking up to $650,000, because the bracket keeps them up to $600. So you're saying like in the app itself? I always, you've got a price within search brackets. And so within the MLS, within the app, within, you know, zilla, realtor.org, trulia, all that stuff,

price within your bracket, you want to, you want to be a heavyweight fighter and a lightweight fight, right? Not the other way around. If you over price, and if you're at 650,000, now you're dealing with somebody who's seen your listing, who's forced to look at homes up to 700,000, because that's the way the search brackets work.

And if you're your home can't compete with an $800,000 home that then reduced to 700,000, then you don't want to be in that fight. You're gonna lose every time. And yeah, you might get people to come by and come and see it, but they're gonna pass on you because they're just using you to shop. Agents and buyers, you're gonna say,

yeah, that home at 650 is nice, probably worth less, but this house over here that I'm forced to see is much, much better. So, that's a really good perspective. How about location? Does location matter so much anymore? Yeah, yeah, that's part of it with the comparable sales, right? What just sold and what is currently on the market?

Take New York City, for example. You know, if you are in Battery Park City, as much as you think your home is amazing, I can't comp it to try back, it's just a different neighborhood. It's close. And if there's no other apartments on the market for some weird reason, then sure, but there's probably other homes on the market and other things that have sold and you have to comp within your own neighborhood. And if you're in a condo building, you have to comp in your neighborhood, right?, and you have to comp within your own neighborhood. And if you're in a condo building, you have to comp in your neighborhood, right? And then you have to comp within your own vertical neighborhood,

which is your building. Yeah. Just because the building across the street got a great deal for their 20th floor apartment, and you're on the 20th floor of your building, your building might not be worth as much for the brand of that building. Yeah.

So you have to keep all that stuff in mind, but yeah, location, location, location. So another question that I have in terms of financials and buying a home, for first time home buyers, a big question people have is like, how much should I put for my down payment, right? A lot of people say 20% but then there's some people who say 10% or even 3%, so what's your advice on that?

So somebody who's buying a home like less than a million dollars. I know that's not your ball game anymore, but. Yeah, no, we do, listen, we are doing a deal right now for $299,000 a broker. Oh, okay. We do everything. I'm balls up, right?

I wanna do as many deals as I possibly can. You wanna put down at least 20%, okay? And if you can, you wanna put down 30. Oh, wow. 30% is healthy. It's not about what you put down. It's not about the purchase price. It's about your monthly payments. You live in your monthly payment. That is your budget, that your bills, it affects your Netflix budget affects your dinners. You

know, you live in the monthly payment. You don't live in a million dollar house. You live in a house that costs you $4,500 a month, right? Or a house that costs you $4,500 a month, right? Or a house that costs you $2,000 a month. And so whatever way you can skin the cat to get your payments the lowest possible, that's what you want to do. But you want to be smart about it, right? You don't want to over leverage yourself because the payments are small, but then you don't know what to do and you can't sell it. And then you're stuck because you lose your job and what happened. That's what happened in 2008. But just you always remember you live in your monthly payment and

you always want to put down at least 30%. Yeah. So something that we ask all our guests is what is your secret to profiting in life? My secret to profiting. And it doesn't have to be financial, it can be anything. It's the five new people every day. Like that's my whipped cream. Like that's my profit every day. The deals that I do every day, the time I spend with my family, the workouts I have in the morning, my connection to my own well-being,

like that's all, I'm gonna do it anyway. Like that's all part of my win. Like I know when I wake up, what I'm doing that day. I'm doing all that. But going out and meeting those new people, that's what the world's all part of my win. Like I know when I wake up, what I'm doing that day. I'm doing all that. But going out and meeting those new people, that's what the world's all about. Without people, earth is nothing, right?

Like it's, there's no cities, there's no roads, there's no cars, there's no movies, there's nothing. Like people make the world go around, they can also hurt it. But you wanna meet as many of those people as possible and it is so possible today to do that. And that rule is my profit. That's amazing.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Everywhere. Ryan Sirhant is my name, Instagram, Instagram, RyanSirhant.com, YouTube. He's our weekly vlog, YouTube slash Ryan Sirhhan, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, all that stuff. Yeah, he's totally out there, easily searchable. Thank you so much Ryan. It was such a pleasure.

What a great conversation. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. Follow up on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at Young and Profiting.com. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to write us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Reviews are the number one way to thank us, especially if you write a review on Apple

podcasts. And be sure to share this podcast with your friends and family on social media. You can find me on Instagram at YappwithHala or LinkedIn just search for my name, Hala Taha. Thanks again to Video Husky, the sponsors of our show. If you're looking for affordable video editing for a flat monthly fee, head over to cart.videohasky.com slash young and profiting for 30% off your first month.

Big thanks to the Yap team, as always, this is Hala, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben Podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft.

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