Real(ty) Talk
Real(ty) Talk
Adapting to Real Estate Changes and Morning Routines
Curious about how a 3:00 AM start can revolutionize your life? Join us for a this week with Franco Shamoo, who shares the powerful morning routine that’s been key to his success for the past three years. Franco delves into his unique practices, including the use of ancient Amazonian traditions in his meditation, to set daily intentions and find grounding. Hear about the profound physical and emotional benefits he’s experienced and how these early morning rituals have fueled his achievements.
We also explore Franco’s commitment to physical fitness and its impact on his professional success. From pre-dawn CrossFit sessions to therapeutic baking, Franco reveals how he maintains mental clarity and physical endurance. On the professional front, he provides valuable insights into prospecting, client outreach, and navigating the ever-changing real estate landscape. With new NAR regulations on the horizon, Franco offers strategies for agents and realtors to adapt and excel.
Tune in to this episode for a blend of personal habits and professional wisdom that’s sure to inspire and inform.
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Suzanne Seini:
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So I'm up around 3.30, 3 o'clock Every day, every single day. Well, I'd say maybe six days a week. There's some days I might wake up, like around five or six, wow.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. Realty Talk Podcast part two. With Agent F. We had a great conversation. We did A lot of interesting subjects, but we have a few additional subjects that we want to get into that probably have some more meat, and so we wanted to break it out.
Speaker 2:Suzanne stepped out. She did, she left For business. She might be back. She might be, we'll see. We're going to keep going. Hopefully she'll come back. She'll definitely come back to the business, but I don't know what the meeting she's going into might be. They're talking about you, of complicated transactions, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So a couple other questions for you, which I think are you know, really. You know, I think I understand a lot of it, but we asked a little bit around. You know what's made you so successful? I want to hone in on you. Know you as an individual, your daily routine, because I, you know, currently I'm mentoring a couple of agents at the brokerage. Yeah, and you know, I've mentored other people over the last 10 years or 15 years of my career, and younger generations are always looking to more experienced people for guidance and input.
Speaker 2:What I've seen with most successful people is that they have a serious routine and they look at the way that they spend their time, you know, and they ask questions like is this chunk of time adding value to my life, right? So I'd love to just get more about you know what you do on a daily basis. You know, physically, emotionally. I don't know if we can talk about spiritual here. I guess religion is probably okay to talk about, but I don't know if we can talk about spiritual here. I guess religion is probably okay to talk about, but I don't know. You know what you want to get into, but like, what makes you tick?
Speaker 1:like what is a typical day for Franco Shamu okay, let's go start here, okay, so, so, before I start work, any kind of work whatsoever in the morning, I get up. I guess I'm up around 333 o'clock every day, every single day. Well, I'd say maybe six days a week. There's some days I might wake up, like around 5 or 6. Wow, what time do you go to bed? Probably about 9, 9.30, sometimes 10, when I actually fall asleep. Yeah, so you operate on like five or six hours of sleep, yeah, well, and here's why I was going to tell you okay, so, so, when I get up, I get up and I make myself a cup of tea, I go downstairs and I get into, set myself up to meditate. So I meditate for about maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, just depends. Right, yeah, everything's really quiet. What have you?
Speaker 2:I do that and is there like a specific practice of meditation? Or you breath, breathe like what? Is it focused on breathing? Or is there?
Speaker 1:a. So I do, I do a little bit of breath work, I'll do that, and I lead into the meditation and I do this thing called rap a. So it's an, it's an ancient snuff, it's it's mixed with comes from the Amazon. It you get it from a shaman or you get it from a temple, and what it is? It has a little bit of tobacco in it, but it's spices and what have you, and they come in different forms and they do different stuff and it's really what it's used for. It helps ground you, it helps settle your mind, it creates clarity, and you do it before you actually go into a meditative state. So there's a little bit of breath work. You do that. It's called rapé it's called rapé.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's like you sniff it, yeah, and it's like it comes in that you have like a bone pipe. I've never showed this to you before.
Speaker 2:No, oh wow, I can't believe we never talked about this.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll have to introduce you to this.
Speaker 2:Next podcast, next podcast. We don't have to administrate it here.
Speaker 1:So, and what ends up happening is that you set your intentions for the day, right, so you set your intentions. So, talking about spiritual and what have you, so you set your intentions today, and usually when I'm doing that, I'm setting my intentions what I want my day to be like, and so on, and that usually includes the business right.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're thinking like personal business, family Personal business everything, yeah, everything is going through my mind and so on. So that's kind of all in my mind I do the rapé Rapé is pretty quick, quick meaning, like it just hits you in your system really hard, real fast.
Speaker 1:What ends up happening is that you, your nose starts draining, tears are coming out a little bit slightly. You purge, um, sometimes more days that are stronger than others. Just depends on what's going on the day before or that week. What have you? Yeah, once that drains out, uh, you blow your nose, you kind of let it all go. Then I go into a meditative state, then I mess up meditating and then I have my meditation sounds and so on, and that usually lasts about. I mean, honestly, it just depends. It depends on when I can clear my mind. So at that point what's happening is that I'm trying to clear my mind, let everything go and just take the frequency in, and it's not easy. I mean, this is very difficult, but once you get to that point, you can do that, you can manage it. Then I'm able. Let's say it lasts about a half an hour. Then, once I'm done with that, then how?
Speaker 2:long have you been practicing that? About three years? Oh wow, what inspired you to do that?
Speaker 1:So about four years ago or maybe a little bit longer than that, and I want to say it was right around, I think it was right around COVID four years ago, maybe a little bit longer than that, and I want to say it was right around, I think it was right around COVID when I started doing this. So I've always I was always inquiring about plant medicine yeah, I mean like ayahuasca and psilocybin being used for treatment and what have you. Yeah, so I met some people that actually that had some experience with shamans. They would go out to a retreat, like a wellness retreat. Yeah, um, you know, for several reasons, you know, they can maybe have trauma in their life, maybe they're going through like a problem with their family, whatever it may be. Yeah, so I was invited Right and, um, uh, and I've always wanted to do this, and so it was my first experience. I went out and um, and that's how it started.
Speaker 1:I don't want to get into too much detail on that, but I start looking more into that. My personality is that once I kind of dive into something, I look at something, I do a lot of research, and I do that with my business too as well Anything that I saw some interest in. I don't just go into it blindly. There's a lot of research and development in it. I'll research the heck out of it before I kind of make that decision if I'm going to do this or not do it. Is this good for me, not good for me, and so on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I noticed. One of the things I've noticed about you is that you're extremely inquisitive, but you're, you know, inquisitive in a positive way, but you need to know the facts before you're you know before you're in it, right?
Speaker 1:before you make a full commitment. That is correct. I appreciate that. Yeah, that is true. Data is very, very important to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Information and the source that it comes from Right, right, so, anyway. So, through that is how I kind of, you know, embarked on this whole thing. Right, got it and so, and it fit for me, yeah, it. So I started practicing this and this is how I do this and I get ready to go to the gym. My gym day starts right around 5, 45, 6 o'clock. I work out five days a week, six days a week. What kind of workout are you doing?
Speaker 1:So I've been doing what they call CrossFit for about 14, 15 years, maybe 16 years, I can't remember. It's been a long time. Yeah, uh, so it's like a hit workout. Yeah, it's high, intensive, uh, training. I think most people understand what it is now. Um, uh, you know, some olympic lifting is a little bit of gymnastics. What have you? Yeah, that's been the training. Um, I do, uh, I do some endurance. I haven't been doing that much recently, but cycling, cycling, swimming, running. So fitness is a big thing, big part of my life. Yeah, it always has been. I always felt that maintaining your physique is extremely important Staying physically fit, your mind plus your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's extremely important. Here's another thing that's interesting about me interesting fact that you might not know about me Sometimes what happens the days that I don't go to the gym? I will go through that meditation process breath work and what have you and then I bake. Yeah, I'm a secret baker. Think about that. What do you bake? So that's another thing that's a hobby of mine, like the Great British Baking Show.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, like Wake and Bake, wake and Bake. Okay, no, no. So I have been cooking for myself since I was probably about 14, 15 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And. I did it because I needed to lose weight. Cooking, yeah, uh, for myself, since I was probably about 14, 15 years old. Yeah, yeah, and, and it was, it was. I did it because I needed to lose weight. Right, so it's part of my health and fitness. Yeah, so over the years, um, I have managed to figure out, like taking certain recipes that are just general conventional recipes and turn them into make them healthy.
Speaker 1:So I do that with baking oh cool and um, but it's become more of a um, uh, not meditation, but it's um, uh. It's more therapeutical than anything else. Yeah, I zone in, I put on my music and I just kind of go at it, yeah and uh, and I don't have a recipe in mind as I go into it. I just look in the closet, look at or look in the cabinets, look in the fridge, whatever's there, and I just put it all together, oh cool, and I've been doing that for probably 10 years. Wow, sometimes I'll do two or three a day. Look in the closet, look in the cabinets, look in the fridge, whatever's there, and I just put it all together, oh cool, and I've been doing that for probably 10 years. Wow, yeah, sometimes I'll do two or three a day, which is funny.
Speaker 2:Really here's what's interesting?
Speaker 1:I don't eat it Really. Yeah, ever I give it away, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I give it away. Yeah, I, or friends or whatever. I think I brought you guys some stuff one time too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you did bring some stuff here. You had like chocolate covered dates and yeah, there's like other, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, anyway, that's another thing. I kind of do so, but that's kind of my morning thing, whatever. And then the workout, and then when I I will go to grab a cup of coffee because it's still early, yeah, seven o'clock in the morning and your wife goes with you to work out. Yeah, she goes with me, yeah, she's with me, she actually meditates with me, she does the rap with me, she does Really, we do it together. Yeah, wow, yeah, we do this all together and, by the way, this is the which is my wife and I, and we have a smaller team In any case. Then after that we'll grab a cup of coffee, usually, and for about an hour we'll sit down and talk about our day and so on. Yeah, we head back home to the home office and then, from right about from 9 o'clock to about, I want to say, 12 o'clock, it's prospecting time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's the time where we make our phone calls Right, Make phone calls, emails, get a hold of clients, setting up appointments, kind of going through our emails. Sometimes you and I will talk, but all that prospecting happens right around that time. That's the window there and then we have a system in place. We'll call our clients existing clients, what have you, just kind of bring them up to the market, what have you? But there's going to be sometimes we have leads like new clients and so on. We'll make sure that we touch at least five new. We'll try to touch between five to ten new clients a day. Prospects a new day.
Speaker 1:Each of you, Each of us, yeah, that's usually a goal that we try to reach. And then, yeah, and we just you know, I mean, that's kind of the system that we have and then, usually leading into the weekend, hopefully, if you're an agent selling property, what have you? If there's open houses, we're kind of preparing for that right, Either preparing to do an open house or preparing to get a property on the market. What have you? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:In some cases you have multiple open houses, yeah, sometimes multiple and so on, kind of figuring out who's going to do this open house, who's going to do that one. So we kind of arrange all that stuff. Yeah, and that happens later in the week, like Thursday and Friday.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that kind of goes on.
Speaker 2:How many units do you think on an annual basis? You and your team close on either side.
Speaker 1:I want to say maybe about 25 to 30, somewhere in the range.
Speaker 2:But higher dollar value deals, yeah, I.
Speaker 1:But higher dollar value deals, yeah, I mean they're, I think, all over 1.7 million, most of them average-wise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So do you attribute most of your success? Because that's a lot of volume when you look at the average agent in California I don't know the exact number I think there's 450 or 500,000 licensed agents in California.
Speaker 1:I haven't checked recently, but I know there was like 1.2, 1.3 nationwide and I think majority of them, or close to half of them, are in California. Yeah, and I think majority, and then out of that I think majority of them are between LA and Orange County.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that average age does like less than a half a deal a year and you're doing 20 or 30 deals a year Do you think your routine generates a lot of your success? Is it your mentality Like? What's separated you from you know? Call it the average agent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, okay, well, a couple things. So those numbers are kind of skewed, okay, because there's a lot of people that have licenses that actually don't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that don't practice. Yeah, that don't practice.
Speaker 1:So I don't know what that real number looks like. Well, looks like Well.
Speaker 2:I mean at the brokerage. I could tell you, you know, I think you know, at Innovate I think most people know, we were a partner in that business. You know 170 agents or something you know and I mean I think a full, a good full-time agent does maybe five or six transactions a year. That's like a good, not like a great agent, not top 1%, but that's a good agent. So I mean you're doing five times that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's the deal Consistency, right, right, staying consistent with the business, building relationships. I think the issue a lot of times with young agents, you know they're a little lost, they're not sure which way to navigate, which way to go Right, and I think they're fearful. Also to get a mentor or a coach, right. So I made that mistake too as well Earlier on didn't have a coach, didn't have anybody kind of mentor me.
Speaker 1:I learned very quickly that I don't know it all. Right, Right, it was very important for me to kind of surround myself with people that were much smarter than me, than me, much better than me. They have a lot more knowledge than me, right. So, getting a coach, having a mentor and have them guide you, yeah, cause you'll, you'll, you'll lose, you'll lose your path. Right, yeah, it's no difference than I think when in the fitness world, I think that you know you, you want to go lose weight, whatever. Yeah, you can probably go drop some weight, cut your calories back, what have you? Gym, having a coach, having a nutritionist will guide you continuously, guide you to reach those goals and keep that goal going. It's just the accountability Accountability, yeah. So I think that's extremely important.
Speaker 2:But you're at a place where you're able to hold yourself accountable to the process.
Speaker 1:I am, but we still have a coach though, so we still go back to our coach once a, just because there's market changes, right, things that are happening in the market, and then reminders.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, just reminders. I mean, look, I'll tell you, you know, I get lazy. I mean there's times I don't feel like doing anything. I'm like you know, I have a hard time believing that vacation, I want to relax, and then you do those things. That's fine, but you end up dropping the ball sometimes. So you've got to be reminded that you have a destination to go to, you have a commitment that you've made and I need to be reminded sometimes. But yes, I think, after all these years, I do know what I need to do. I don't necessarily always do it, but being patient, being consistent, continuously building relationships is extremely important. Yeah, 100%. But I think that's the difference is finding a plan and sticking to that plan. Yeah, and not pivoting constantly, just leaving right.
Speaker 1:So if you're that agent that's going to have leads and you're going to work those leads, work those leads. Don't give up after two weeks. If you're going to farm, farming can take a year. It doesn't happen in one month or two months. Stick to it. Yeah, it's a long-term investment. Make that commitment. Look at the amount of money you're going to spend. You know it's going to cost you maybe I don't know $4,000 annually over the year. Put that aside, you know you're going to spend that money. Focus on that. If you're going to do door knocking, whatever it may be If you're going to do networking, focus on the networking, and I recommend you do all of it. Actually A little bit of each one of them, for sure.
Speaker 2:But you've got three to four hours a day of dedicated prospecting time, yeah, and you also have an attention during that time to have five or ten conversations, correct. So there's a fair bit of accountability in your just general day and process.
Speaker 1:Correct. And then here's the thing, paul, I'll tell you Again there's agents that have different things that are going on right. They're doing this part-time Right, right, yeah, they have other jobs, right, and I get that. And I always say this, and I don't want to discourage any agent from not doing this business right, but it's not a I believe it's not a part-time business. If you want to be successful and you want to do 20, 30 transactions or whatever your goal is, you want to make half a million dollars a year, whatever. I don't know of any part-time agent that can do that, unless they're completely established and they've done it all these years and have a team now running it for them. That's a possibility, but it's a full-time job. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I mean for me, I think that's in everything right. So the quote that stands out to me the most is what you put in is what you get out. Yeah, right and that you know, for me that's global, that's like business, personal, family, correct. You know personally, I know I like to run. That's one of the reasons we probably connect so well is that we're both so focused on fitness. And you know, if I want to go and run a sub-three-hour marathon but I don't ever train, the cards aren't there, that's not.
Speaker 2:That's true 100%. Maybe there's two people or three people on the planet today that could just go and naturally run a sub-three-hour marathon, Maybe not. So what I put in is what I'm going to get out. That's the net result. In business, it's the same. So if you are focused in five or six different areas to generate your income, but you want to be a million dollar producer in in the real estate industry, I mean you're putting time into these other things that are distracting you from being great at that one right.
Speaker 1:That is correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that resonates really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then the other thing, too, is that, once you get to that point where your business is doing well and you're generating income, I mean there's other avenues in real estate right. Right, so you can invest in property, flipping property right. Right, like Bye Bye House yeah, you know, you guys have a joint venture, a product right, where agents can actually invest with you and make a piece of the pie. Right, so those are opportunities, and we've done that several times with you and with other companies. Right, so those are opportunities too as well. There's property management there's you name it. I mean there's so many things that agents can, you know. Managing rental property right, airbnb does that. So it's all setting your mind to it and wanting to execute right, so I think that, honestly, I really think that at the end of the day, the agent has to just be willing and wanting to do it and understand that this is a truly successful business and they could make it successful and make a lot of money if they just focus on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I personally.
Speaker 2:Obviously it might come across the wrong way because we're so heavily invested in single-family real estate, but my actual belief is that it's one of the best industries on the planet today and will be for another 50, 60, 70 years.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of jokingly, but I personally believe, you know, humans are going to live on the planet for at least the next hundred years and when they live here they're going to want to live in houses, and when they live in houses they're going to want to be nice, right. And so you know there's a ton of competition, just like you know other industries. You've got to have an edge of some sort to be super successful in the top 1%. But I personally believe that this industry to create wealth is recession-proof. In fact, most of the high net worth, very wealthy people that I know made their money in real estate in a recession. Wealthy people that I know made their money in real estate in a recession. And so you know, I think it's just all about, you know, being willing to grind, being willing to go through phases where you're uncomfortable, right, and then having an intention, you know, with what your long-term you know vision is or whatever you know in real estate specifically.
Speaker 2:I would feel really bad if we didn't get to talk about. You know off subject, you know from what we've already discussed, but you know what we're going through right now in the next week or two, I think has a lot of agents out there. You know, in the world freaked out.
Speaker 2:So, I'd love to talk about kind of your perspective on the NAR changes, because that's happening now, right. So August 18th, 17th, you know, relation to a and we've talked about this a fair bit on the podcast, but we'll just do a quick recap A buyer's agent, or an agent representing a buyer now has they're offering on the MLS to the buyer's agent Compensation yeah, compensation-wise, and the buyer is going to have to commit to paying that buyer's agent either zero or something on that agreement so all of this stuff is going to be changing and it's in process.
Speaker 2:Now, one thing I learned today is that if we have properties that are on market and let's say we have, you know, we have, you know, I don't know $9 million worth of real estate that we're trying to sell right now on market we obviously believe that offering a 2.5% commission to the buyer's agent encourages brokers and agents to go and see the property, and so if that listing is active today once the 17th kicks over, that changes right. So it doesn't matter if your listing already exists or if it's new. On the 17th, there's a new rule and a new way to play the game. So what's your?
Speaker 1:perspective on that. Yeah, so here's the deal. Right, it's a moving target. Yeah, it's changing.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing. So what's my perspective on this? Okay, so it changes daily.
Speaker 1:So it's changing that's the other thing. Yeah, so I daily. So what's my perspective on this? Okay, so, um, it changes daily, so, um, it's a little like even today there's something new that came out yesterday, something new came out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when I last looked, there was like 45 new documents or revisions of the old documents, a total between 45 somewhere in that range, I think, maybe more, um, so it's a lot to go through, right, right, but look the gist of it. Really, what it comes down to, it's going to come down to the buyer's representation. That's what this really comes down to, right, right, and the compensation for that.
Speaker 1:And the compensation for that, correct, yeah, so here's what it is. You have three agreements, essentially, right. You have a buyer broker and a buyer right, you have a listing agent and a homeowner seller and then, once you're in the contract, then you have the buyer and the seller in agreements. You have three kind of agreements you've got to kind of work through, right, yeah, when you're in a transaction. I think my perspective is this I always felt that it was the real estate industry Agents, realtors weren't regulated enough.