Keith Bryan fills in for Kyle Whissel on this episode of The Whissel Way Podcast. Keith and Jason talk about the importance of networking and the huge role it plays in growing your business, they then share several groups that they are apart of that you can get involved in you are looking to start taking your networking to the next level.
Join our Facebook Group!
- Well this is the Whissel Way. This is, I don't even know what episode this is, we've been doing it for a while now.
- 118.
- You know we've been doing it, yeah seven or eight. Like Tom was saying we've been doing our radio show for nearly, it'll be a total of five years in June, we'll start our sixth year that Kyle and I have been doing The Whissel Weekends. But Kyle really wanted to do this podcast to let people know the uniqueness and what we do at Whissel. And he calls it The Whissel Way. And it is a different real estate than your old school real estate.
- Absolutely.
- And Keith got a chance to host it a couple weeks ago, Kyle was hosting it last week. As we've been talking on the radio, Kyle and I are actually going to the Super Bowl, and so Kyle is preparing to get, you know we're going to be gone this weekend, so he's getting everything put together, so he said "Hey Keith can you run the show?"
- Me?
- Yeah. So, Keith, run the show, kick us off.
- All right. Hey, well it's a pleasure and an honor to be here today to run the show. And given thought to this week's podcast, really wanted to spend the time, Jason, is we just finished up a segment talking about BNI, Business Network International, and LeTip, the importance of networking and getting out of your community, you know, over the last year, working with Whissel Realty, I had a lot of exposure to Tom Ferry organization. And Tom Ferry is constantly remind us the importance of staying top of mind. And getting involved in any networking organization really gives you maximum exposure for the least amount of effort. I heard years ago the saying, work smarter, but not harder. Right?
- Sure.
- And if you're going to work hard, work hard smarter. And through business networking, as an independent sales agent, like myself and Jason in sales as well, and others that are out there listening to this, get involved in a networking community, and think of it from this perspective: once a week, for an hour and a half, whether it's LeTip or BNI, you're going to sit down and get to know a group of 40 and 50 male and female professionals within your community.
- Yeah
- And Jason, let me ask you, on average, how many people are each one of those going to know? A hundred?
- At least. Like minimum, everybody knows at least a hundred people. So if you're talking about 50 people times a hundred, now you're over to 5,000.
- 5,000
- Right.
- Absolutely. And to spend an hour and a half once a week having influence and reach to an audience of 5,000, that's just unheard of. If you sat down and dialed as fast as you could, you might dial 50 numbers an hour at that.
- Yeah, but you couldn't have 50 conversations.
- No, no, no. Not at all.
- Not unless you said, hi, bye.
- Yes. And in any relationship in any business transaction, what are the three things that they say that most people make a decision in buying something? They want to know you, like you, and trust you.
- Absolutely.
- And if every week, you're spending time getting someone the opportunity to know you, to like you, and trust you, what do you think they're going to do next time a friend comes up to them and says, hey Bob, you know I'm thinking about refinancing my house. What would you say as a networking member? You would say, hey, I know a great guy over at Team Home Loans.
- Right.
- Jason Hall. I know him; I like him; I trust him. Here's a great referral. So, the benefits of networking saying in mind if you're planning on succeeding in this industry, you have to do it. And over the last year with Whissel Realty, Kyle has not stressed enough the importance for his team, first agents like myself, even him, I'm sure, Jason's picked it up on a time or two. We need to be out there farming, door-knocking. If you're not getting in front of people, face-to-face, and people knowing who you are, closet salesmen, they don't succeed in this business.
- Right. And we want to be unique; we want to stand out, right? So as I talked about during the radio show, the Bank of America gets mortgage operations to India back in 2010, and somebody's calling there, but they're not showing up at their door like you or I could. Right? They're not sitting down, and that's a definite uniqueness that 30 years ago, that was the norm. Just the cost of employees has changed the way some businesses operate. And you want to get face-to-face, what we call belly-to-belly, you know, lunches and meetings, and I can tell you doing networking for 30 years in almost nine years now in our LeTip group, if you're a real estate agent out there, you can't join an existing BNI or LeTip group rarely because that is like the hardest position to get.
- It's the most coveted position.
- Yeah. Everybody wants to be the real estate agent
- The mortgage guy.
- The insurance, and the mortgage guy. And so guess what? Those are literally the three people that start a new chapter. Now I know you, one of the mortgage guys you know, and probably an insurance guy,
- I do.
- Will be starting a chapter here in Oceanside. Because those are very unique positions; they're very sales driven. And it's hard to get into an existing group because once you're in, as long as you follow all the by-laws and do all the stuff, you have that spot down. But I'm kind of excited for you and a little bit jealous. You guys get to make your own group. You guys get to start it from the beginning.
- Absolutely.
- And so let's talk about that.
- Yeah, it's kind of almost a dream come true. It's one of those things that just happens to fall in your lap. As a man of faith throughout the year, I've come to believe if you're doing the right thing all the time, good things tend to follow. And this happens to be one of those things that, a few months ago, a friend of mine came to me and said, hey Keith, we're thinking about starting a group over here in Oceanside- a business networking group. Are you interested?
- Yeah.
- Your position as a realtor
- Yeah.
- Is wide open.
- And you're like, yeah.
- And he's like, yeah, right? Exactly. He told me a little bit about it. He said, as a professional real estate agent, you're going to have the opportunity to give and eight minute spill every couple of weeks to a room full of potential clients.
- Yeah.
- What? You mean, I'm going to have an opportunity to speak to these people about real estate, and they're going to go home and tell their family and friends about Keith Bryan over at Whissel Realty group? Well yeah, absolutely. I want to sign up and be a part of that. Now the caveat, the bonus to that for me is, it's in Oceanside. It's five minutes from my house. I live up in Carlesbad. I go to church up in Carlesbad. So you know, the first place I go to and I start talking to people about.
- The people at your church, absolutely.
- So now, not only do I get church on Sunday, Thursday when we meet, Thursday morning, 7:30, Bee and I, up at the Broken Yolk at Oceanside, I have a handful of my buddies from church I see on Sunday, and I do life with, I do ministry with. Now we're doing business together once a week. So it's just an extension of my already day-to-day living, but just in a different formula.
- Yeah. And that comes from, you said, Kyle Whissel. Not only do you hear it numerous times from Kyle Whissel, but Kyle Whissel's coach, Tom Ferry, who's a very very successful motivator, real estate coach for many many years, and he grew up under his dad, Mike Ferry, who's a very successful real estate coach in his own right. And those are the stuff that you get being a part of the Whissel Way.
- Absolutely. And here's a free tip for all of you that are part of a LeTip or a BNI group, I just had the pleasure of having lunch with the executive director of BNI here in San Diego. And his name's Ed Wilson, and at lunch, I said, Ed, I had this great idea for our start up chapter. I'm proposing to our group that every week we Facebook Live when we do our eight minute professional presentations. Right. Our speech. And my vision is, if one person is Facebooking it, then everyone in the group would be a friend of that presenter, then they'll share that Facebook Live broadcast and if you do the math, you have a room of 50 people and each one of them has 1,000 friends? You're just now Facebooking Live to 50,000 people.
- There can be some duplicates, so maybe it's 35,000.
- Okay, yeah.
- I mean, it's still a lot.
- To think of it, would it cost you to go out there and market to 35,000 people? It's cost you a boatload of money.
- It would.
- I have no idea what it'd cost. So it's the little things like that that are going to give you additional up and a business advantage being part of a networking group.
- Yeah. And you know, that's absolutely amazing. Kyle really has set the way. I had a chance to meet Kyle when he was nineteen years old. He was still going to USD.
- What was that, like five years ago?
- He was going to UCSD, and it's almost 20 years ago. And his dad was a commercial realtor, and also did a lot of unit stuff. That's what Dad did. That's Robert Whissel. They had a listing that kind of blew up, and the buyer's agent called me and said, hey, you pre-approved this client, the lender lied to him, can you help out? And I was able to close the deal in a couple days and it really impressed on Robert to say Kyle, you never want to be a real estate agent, but if you do, you need to go meet this guy Jason. And he came over and met, and we got belly-to-belly, and he said, hey, I don't know if I want to be a realtor, but would you help me? And that's how our relationship started. And now to see the success in what Kyle's put together, it's absolutely amazing, and that's the Whissel Way. But he sets the bar.
- Oh he does.
- Most real estate brokers want their agents to produce, and they just want to manage the office. Kyle's the top producer. Steven Winner did slightly beat him last year, first time ever
- Props to Steve.
- Props to Steve, and he does this show here once a month with us. But it is absolutely, he sets the
- Kyle always sets that. He's just, he's a go-getter. If you want to see a great go-getter and learn from it, and that's what you've got an opportunity to do, you've been on the team now a little over a year, right?
- A little over a year now.
- Yeah. Amazing how fast it goes.
- And just along those lines right there, it's when you're around other innovating individuals that you're going to pick up bits and pieces from them that you're going to be able to bring back and incorporate it into your business and help your business grow and succeed. I did the math. I think it's seventeen months I've been with Whissel Realty, and during that time, being able to collect great ideas from you, Jason, Kyle, from Steve and other people on the team, it's made an impact on my success and my production, over the last year and a half. So just that format that Kyle's preaching to all of us, and that I'm learning from the BNI up in Oceanside, and also from Tom Ferry and other good organizations. Bottom line is this: you can't be a closet salesman in any industry if you want to succeed. But if you want to succeed, one you got to step out of the closet, two, get face-to-face with people, and then three, surround yourself with other like-minded individuals who are going to share with you and are going to pour into your life and help your business grow.
- Yeah. That's it. You hit it right on there. It's been absolutely amazing just to see how the Whissel Way has grown. And how many agents you guys have, and how you continue to be the top team in San Diego year after year after year based on transactions, doing more transactions in San Diego than any other team consistently year after year after year. You guys are number one. That's absolutely amazing. So as we wrap up the podcast here, anything else you kind of want to say besides we're going to the Super Bowl? Kyle and I, we're going to have fun. We plan on getting tickets there.
- Go Patriots.
- Both you and I do like the Patriots
- Whoo hoo.
- The other guys on the radio like the Rams. Todd was the tie-breaker. He likes the Rams. But we have the Whissel Way every, like, when does it air, Tom?
- [Tom] Every Friday
- Every Friday we put this out. We tape it a couple days ahead. If you're watching it, you'll be seeing us at the Super Bowl, Kyle and I. Keith, thanks for coming in. Thanks for doing the Whissel Way and the radio show. We'll be back next Friday. See you guys.
- Thank you. See yah.
