The Secrets to Becoming #1 in Six Months and Packing Out Real Estate Webinars, with Darryl Davis
Dec 19, 2023Season 3Episode 98
Clark St Capital
Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #98!
We have a special guest today: Darryl Davis, an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and bestselling author. Darryl's impressive journey in the real estate industry began at just 19 years old, and he quickly became a top performer. He's now been speaking for 30 years and holds the prestigious designation of CSP-certified speaking professional.
In this episode,
Darryl will be sharing his definition of self-promotion.
He will be revealing how he became the number one in his office within six months.
He'll also share his strategies for maintaining consistency and effectively managing his business.
But that's not all! Darryl will also spill the beans on their secret to packing out webinars with over 800, 900, and sometimes 1,000 reservations per week. How do they create such a strong desire for people to attend?
Plus, Ed and Darryl will discuss the importance of having honest people in your corner who will always tell you the truth.
If you're eager to learn more about Darryl and his incredible insights, head over to darrylspeaks.com. Don't miss this engaging and informative episode!
We have a special guest today: Darryl Davis, an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and bestselling author. Darryl's impressive journey in the real estate industry began at just 19 years old, and he quickly became a top performer. He's now been speaking for 30 years and holds the prestigious designation of CSP-certified speaking professional.
In this episode,
Darryl will be sharing his definition of self-promotion.
He will be revealing how he became the number one in his office within six months.
He'll also share his strategies for maintaining consistency and effectively managing his business.
But that's not all! Darryl will also spill the beans on their secret to packing out webinars with over 800, 900, and sometimes 1,000 reservations per week. How do they create such a strong desire for people to attend?
Plus, Ed and Darryl will discuss the importance of having honest people in your corner who will always tell you the truth.
If you're eager to learn more about Darryl and his incredible insights, head over to darrylspeaks.com. Don't miss this engaging and informative episode!
And this is Real Estate Underground Readings and salutations. Real Estate Undergrounders. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today is a unique show in that one of the things that I'm always looking to understand is different perspectives of our market and the real estate world, and so, with that in mind, I'm always talking to mortgage brokers and bankers and insurance agents and realtors and brokers, and so the cool thing is, we have a gentleman by the name of Darrell Davis. Thank you so much, sir, for joining us. We are. You know, darrell is a world renowned realtor broker, based in Long Island out towards the Hamptons, I believe and you know not only that, but he's also a world-class coach, a best-selling author and a mentor to I would have, I imagine, thousands of realtors across the country, and so you know, I'm really excited about this episode because we're going to hear this from, you know, a partner's perspective in terms of Darrell's viewpoint on the market, where we're going and how we got here. So, darrell, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for having me, ed. I appreciate it and thanks for doing this for your underground folks. This is really valuable content and they're blessed to have this. Thank you kindly, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:
So, darrell, for those of us out there that don't follow you necessarily on social media or the web, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll get into the conversation?
Speaker 2:
Sure, I started at Real Estate when I was 19 years old, long Island, new York, as a real estate agent, quickly rose the ranks and did really well. I became a manager of an office. We opened it up brand new became number one our first six months. Then I yeah. So then that claimed the fame. I decided I want to start doing some seminars enjoy live seminars, delivering them. And so I've been speaking now for 30 years. I'm not a real practicing realtor anymore. The majority of my clients are realtors and yep, but yeah, so I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm a CSP, which is a certified speaking professional. Less than 2% of all speakers in the world have that designation, so I'm honored that I have that. And here I am talking to Ed Matthews now.
Speaker 1:
There you go, and so I'll try to keep the ums and ahs to a minimum, given that I'm talking to him. But one of the things that I was just talking about this yesterday actually, with another real estate professional local here we were talking about the market and deal flow and all that, and you know there are so many commonalities with how a broker will hit the ground running. I come from the perspective of technology world and we think in terms of concentric circles In realtor world that is neighborhoods. In investor world that is neighborhoods. The whole idea is from a real estate investment perspective, is you want to create awareness, you want to build relationships and rapport and ultimately relationships become friends, create trust by serving that community to the point where when someone needs to sell their home or trade up or buy a property or whatever that you've sucked the oxygen out of that market, you're the obvious choice to pick up the phone or shoot an email to say, hey, I would like to hire you to help me buy my next house or sell this property.
Speaker 2:
Yes, absolutely, it's definitely when it comes to any business we were talking about this before we got on that you've got to promote yourself, promote your business. My definition is self-promotion, to have people know your name, face and what you do for a living.
Speaker 1:
That's for realtor, we replace, let's say, for a business, whether it's an investor, we would replace that face with the name of the company, the brand, the logo whatever, the fact is that in both cases, whether investor or broker agent, you're using your brand, whether that's your team or your office, or the logo sitting behind me or whatever, but ultimately it comes down to two human beings having a conversation and figuring out if they can work together.
Speaker 1:
That's everything, one of the things that you said when we were in the beginning and I know this from having read one of your books that the fact is that hitting the ground running for an investor, hitting the ground running for a realtor, really hard At last, I think. I remember seeing that the average first year realtor makes about 20 grand. If not mistaken, it may even be less. There's a lot of reasons for that. I'm curious what are your insights in terms of why so many professionals struggle in that first year and how did you do it? How did you become the number one office in six months of launching your professional career?
Speaker 2:
That's actually maybe a different answer for the first one. The first one how does somebody hit the ground running and not hit this? Why somebody, so many failure, don't succeed? I think, whether it's an investor or a real estate professional, is when they start doing something that they don't know how to do. The first phase of learning is learning all the stuff you don't know. So, instead of going like, so we'll think, let me learn how to do this, and when I go, learn that I'll have knowledge, I'll be educated, I'll be enlightened, I'll know how to do this. So they have an expectation they're going to get smarter, right.
Speaker 2:
But actually, in the beginning, the first thing you will learn is all that you don't know, all the stuff you have to learn, and so if this is even a word, you actually feel stupider in the beginning, and that that takes a lot of people out. Yeah, they become overwhelmed, they, they, um, they don't have the patience. So, so it's important. So what I tell agents which, again, I'd say this would be true for investors too is you've got to give yourself permission to fail, you've got to be patient, because that first phase of learning all that you need to learn, all that you don't know is actually a good thing. Right, and not have that overwhelm you, right? Not have that overwhelm you. Once you see all that you have to learn, I'll give you for instance, like just with me, I'd said to you that you know, I wish I had bought more property when I was younger. You know, I started real estate 19 years old. I'm 55 years old now. Imagine if I had bought a one house every year since I was 19, where would I be now?
Speaker 1:
you wouldn't be sorry to say it.
Speaker 2:
I was just gonna say that and you took the words right out of my mouth not to, not to insult you, baby, but you know, you know realities, reality, so so, um so.
Speaker 2:
So now I'm starting to. You know, I've got, you know, bigger pockets. There's these places, resources. I go for the investing and I'm like, all right, I need, I need, now that I've gotten some more properties, I need a better way to manage it, right? So we're doing a rehab and I'm like, I'm sure there's an excel file for this, but wouldn't be cool if there was a software that could help me keep track of expenses and projections and stuff on on a flip. But we're not flipping it, but anyway. So, uh, and there's a bunch of choices out there, sure, and so just just to figure out that software, which is the best software? I mean, I'm like comparing, I'm looking, I'm taking time and I feel like the time that I'm taking is kind of waste. Wasteful because I'm not really going anywhere, I'm just learning software that it seems so unimportant, but it is it's part of the process?
Speaker 1:
yep, it is, and uh, offline, I'm happy to tell you what we use and uh and uh, it's actually really, really good. So love to hear. They're not a sponsor. So you know, um, the got it. So, uh, you know, as far as um, you know, systems go, you know that is one of the ways to consistency is to create a repeatable process. That's simple, right, and so you know, in in terms of your business, whether that's as a realtor, as an investor or whatever, you know what are some of the things that you look to put in place um to be able to stay consistent and and manage your business well, it's.
Speaker 2:
You just gave the answer there it's. It's systemized. You know, having systems being being organized, um, the, uh, the one of the first books. You know, when I started my profession, uh, as a real estate agent, 19 years old, I didn't know so much. I didn't know, and um, but I was always a student, like I always wanted to. I embraced education, and so when I decided to open up my own training business, I was in my 20s and I, so I was, oh, I've always read a lot of books, and one of the books that was pivotal for me was E-Meth, revisited by Michael Gerber. Yes and um, it's a great book and actually, um, uh, the his firm coaches me personally, okay, and so this, uh, this concept of this book basically means you know, you should have a business that's not people-dependent but system-dependent and uh, and there's so many great examples in that book.
Speaker 2:
So since an early age, I've always been about system and how we run our business very systemized. We've got a system for just about anything, and so that's how you create predictable results. I'll give you, for instance, so in in our business, for in speaking and training, one of the lead gens that we'll do is free training, free webinars right, where people attend, they learn and at the end, they want to become a power agent, which is what we call our coaching members. They sign up. Now I don't know what the I don't remember what the industry average like to do free seminars, what that, what that is. But we but I know we break records consistently every week and we do this every week. We have over 800, 900 reservations, sometimes 1500 every week.
Speaker 2:
Now, from what I think I hear, if you get 100, you're lucky. Yes, now the. The reason why we do that is because what we're talking about here I got a system. Yep, we figured it out. How to promote it, what's the email? What time? I mean down to the time of when we send it, and if we're now, we're late, I get twisted with the team. It matters, it's got to be. That's the system.
Speaker 1:
It's proven. Anyway, yeah, right on. Well, that's really impressive. The fact is, is that that consistency, that robust consistency of what you're talking about? You know, nothing happens until someone raises their hand and says, hey, I need a problem solved, or hey, I'd like to take care of an opportunity, and so you know the things that the themes I'm hearing as you're talking through how you operate are things that really resonate with me in terms of consistency, but also education, right, I mean utilizing education as a tool to kind of bring people into your world. And so you know, I'm curious about that. You know there's always that, that balance between providing strategy and providing tactics, right, and I'm curious what your philosophy is on that. And when you do the trainings and you know the upfront webinars and whatnot?
Speaker 2:
Well, I'll tell you. You know, the strategy for these free webinars industry-wide is you tell people this is what you need to learn in order to be successful, but it doesn't matter what the success is. It could be to be a realtor and investor. I was on a webinar about learning how to master the piano. I was the attendee, and so they'll tell you this is what you have to learn, but they don't tell you how to do it Right, so the whole hour is basically a tease job. If you want to know how to do it, you got to take my course. Now that's fine, but it feels like you ate Chinese.
Speaker 1:
You're hungry an hour later, or you feel a little less fulfilling right.
Speaker 2:
It's not fulfilling. So we've never done to me. I just can't. I would feel out of integrity doing that. I've never done that. I mean my 30 years. If I do a live seminar, I don't tease people, I teach them because here's my thinking. So our hour seminars is content. It's like if it's a matter of if you just attend the webinar and do what I tell you to do, you're going to have results. You're going to have. My philosophy is if I, if I, if, because, if I can win your heart, if you love what I just taught in an hour I mean I got 30 years over here. I'm not giving you everything I know in an hour, right? So if I helped you, if I didn't help you, then you know sorry. If I helped you, then why would you not want to continue with me? So I invite you to participate and become our coach, remember, so that way you can have access to all of me.
Speaker 1:
So that's how the approach. Yeah, I mean, if you, if you got value out of the 1% of the things I just talked to you about in great depth, you know, where do you see the other 99%? Right?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I may be doing it. I may be doing it wrong. There's a lot of these gurus, but this is how I do because it's again, for me, it's an integrity issue 100% you.
Speaker 1:
You and I come from a similar approach in that you know, my job as a webinar host or a speaker is to make the folks that are listening a little bit smarter than they were when they walked in the door. And you know, if you buy from me, great. If you don't, man, let's find them. Going back to my life, my life's pretty good.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we'll continue to help the people who want us and say live via to the others. Yeah, wish you well.
Speaker 1:
So in terms of I'm curious about your system, your marketing system. So to get, when you said 800, I had lights going off in my head like, ooh, this is interesting. Okay, let's, let's, let's drill into that. So, so in. You know, obviously a huge piece of that is probably a really robust list management capability and you're probably have a pretty good idea of who the realtors are anywhere in the country. So that's got to help. But you know, I'm curious how you create desire to you know the be able to attend those webinars. You know how do you, how do you pull people into your, your world? Is it direct mail? Is it digital? Is it a whole bunch of others?
Speaker 2:
you know stuff that we want to make you tell us about right now, or you know, I wish, I wish, I wish I could share, ed, that it was some that, some magical formula and no missile secret. It really isn't. I'll tell you why. I think, in the simplicity works like if there is a secret ingredient. I'll get to that in just one second. But strategically, we do have our list. It's an op, you know. People have opted in participate with the list. We email them basically five days after the seven, so the webinars every Wednesday, right? So we'll email them on Friday, on Saturday, on Sunday, actually six days, so we mail them once a day for that next upcoming webinar with the titles. So there's that. The emails are crafted really well. So we have an opt-in list, crafted email very well. We used to try Facebook advertising, paid advertisement. That didn't work for us. It was a waste of money, I. So I honestly think that if there is a weapon to, it is that we started doing it during the pandemic. Ok, and and and.
Speaker 2:
In the real estate industry for realtors, there was a panic, right, how the hell do you show a house without physically showing the house? And so there was a lot of like the feeling of oh my gosh, we've got to learn a new way to do things like fly an airplane and build it at the same time, and so the fact that we stepped up as a company, trying to help realtors navigate this new real estate reality and and doing once a week. That's that's why we did it, because, all right, let's figure this out together. I think that just planted a tremendous credibility Plus. I've been doing this 30 years. I mean, if a realtor is an active realtor if they haven't heard of me, then they're probably not an active realtor. Not to sound arrogant, it's just that, I'm longevity.
Speaker 2:
I've been around. I've been around and been in the business for that long. That and and people know me All right, so so I have that credibility, that respect in the industry, the weekly proven myself. I'm committed to you, building value. So now, here it is. You know, three years later, I think we've trained the community to say, oh, darrell's got his Wednesday webinar. It's valuable, he cares, let's see. So I think that's what it was. I've been overnight success. It took three years.
Speaker 1:
Of course. Well, actually, I would submit 27 to 30 years. Right, that's right. Ok, you know, it's sealed.
Speaker 1:
It's the old Pablo Picasso story where, you know, this couple walks up on a older gentleman and he's you know they're in Madrid and he's, he's painting. And the husband realizes only cow, that's Pablo Picasso. And and so, you know, the couple goes up. You know, master, I would be honored if he would paint my wife. The Picasso says sure, let have a seat, I'll sketch her out and come back in an hour. And so that happens. The couple comes back and Pablo says OK, well, you know that'll be 5000 euros. And he said you know, the husband says 5000 euros, you only took an hour to do it. He said, no, no, no, no, I took a lifetime to learn how to do this, right, and you know, I think that webinars and books and you know, anything else you can use to educate, is a time compression, right, in terms of you know, when, when I, when I read a book of yours or I attend a seminar, what you're doing is distilling a large block of your life and life experience into that period of time that that we're interacting, whether that's the written page or an hour or whatever, and you know the goal is always it sounds like that you know you're going to help me take that leapfrog, or leapfrog that time, so that I don't have to spin my wheels where you got hung up or where you know the folks that you're studying got hung up, so that I can, you know, walk in the door as a 19 year old potential, you know, go toward a realtor and benefit from the advice of a 30, you know, a 30 year veteran day one.
Speaker 2:
That's what we tell our kids. Right, it's like listen, I got, I got years on you, you know, let's save yourself some time. Why don't you listen? You know so.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, good luck with that. I have teenage daughters, so I'm still in the. I'm still in the phase of eye rolls and, dad, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:
Okay, cool, yeah well, teenage, teenage girls are there, they're awesome, they're fantastic, so so, so you know, kind of building on the theme of the book, you know, one of the things that I've always found is that you know leaders, whether that's you know executives running businesses, or coaches and mentors or you know anything else, leaders are always readers, right, and? But these days that is different in that it doesn't have to be a physical book. It can be webinars, conferences, podcasts, videos on YouTube, whatever. So I'm curious, you know audible books, you know. I'm curious how you you know how you consume information when you're looking to sharpen the saw, so to speak, and, and I'm also very interested in to learn who you pay attention to these days- Well, as I said earlier, so I have my own personal coach that coaches me, yep, but I tap into.
Speaker 2:
I'll be honest, I become less of a reader. That in my old age.
Speaker 1:
But I'm only a year and a half behind you, so that you're not. You're not that old, yeah, I yeah, well.
Speaker 2:
Well, you know, when you start, when you listen, I feel older because, a little bit more of my history I became an emancipated minor at 16. My, when my dad passed, my mother and I weren't doing well, so I basically had been living on my own since I was 16. And so I feel older because I had to grow up sooner, but anyway. So I'm sorry my team is bothering me here, but, to answer your question, really how I tap into resources is is my team and, honestly, my wife. My wife is brilliant, so she's my consularity, so I run things by her. When I don't trust my decision and or I need to get another objective because she can be critical and which is great, and so she'll look at it from a real critical eye Then my president and vice president they're just brilliant folks as well. Now that's my support structure that I tap into. Yeah, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 1:
You say that because you know, having a someone who's always going to tell you the truth and hopefully, multiple people that will always tell you the truth unvarnished is invaluable, regardless of the business right. You know you need somebody to be able to. You know, when you ask an honest question, you need, you need the unvarnished truth in order to make the decisions you have to make Right. And so you know, whether that's as a you know, whether you have mentors or a coach or team members that you rely on or you like you, you married very well. I would submit that my wife is, you know, a solid 30 to 50 IQ points smarter than me. So I, too, married well.
Speaker 1:
But you know, the fact is is that the you know, having those people who will always tell you the truth is invaluable, and I always tell people it's. You know I have plenty of cheerleaders in my life, right? You know, if I want to, if I want to, you know, feel good and hear how awesome I am. I'll go have breakfast with my mom, right? You know she thinks I'm great, and so, in fact, I'm having breakfast with her mom, and you know, the fact is is that, while I certainly value that, and I adore my mom, you know. The fact is that in business, I just need you to tell me what the straight dope is. Right, right.
Speaker 2:
Right, yeah, that's true, having that good support system that everybody brings different skill sets and if you can pay attention to you know to like, like some of the people I'll reach out to, may have great business skills but not as creative. And you've got I've got some that are really creative but maybe not strong in the business skills. So sometimes you may have to tap into two or three different perspectives to then come up with your own strong, collective one.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so right, and you know it's interesting, there was a. There's a story, and I'm not a butcher but I'm going to, I'm going to try and tell it anyway. You know, there was a general who was deciding on, you know, a particular strategy and you know Basically what he did was he brought in captains and colonels and listened, and majors, and listened to them debate the various aspects of the strategy and what would work and what wouldn't, and didn't say a word and then said okay, guys, thank you very much, I know what we're going to do, here's what we're going to do. And you know, the private sitting on the side of the room said how did you figure that out? Like, how did you understand that? And he said you know, my job is not to figure it out, my job is to put really smart people in place to be able to tell me their perspective so that I can then have. You know, you're never going to know everything, but I can have as much good information as possible to then base a decision upon Right.
Speaker 1:
And you just described the same thing in terms of the way your business works Absolutely, Yep, yep, yep. So so, so I'm curious, you know, in terms of your personal life, your non coaching, non mentor, non real estate life. How do you like to spend your time? What do you do for fun?
Speaker 2:
Well, I'm an avid theater goer, and so I try to get to theater whenever I can, and of course, I love fine dining to boot. Usually those two go well together. I'm actually going to New York City this Saturday with my son to see Hamilton. I've seen Hamilton, I've seen it twice. I'm going a third time, just him and I. My wife's not going because she's seen it twice with me, so he hasn't seen it and I want him to see it, and he's a theater goer because he's always gone with me growing up. So, yeah, so it's a boys night out.
Speaker 1:
That's fine, excellent, excellent. And so, darrell, if someone wants to learn, you know, I know there are real estate agents out in the audience and or if some investors are thinking about you know getting their license, you know what is the best way to reach you, get in touch, learn about you, know what you do and and how you can add value and help them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, just go to my website. Darrell speakscom D-A-R-R-Y-L. Two hours. This is the right way to spell it Darrell speakscom, and yeah, that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1:
Fantastic. Well, Darrell Davis, thank you so much for your wisdom and your time today, and I'm grateful for for you spending a little bit of time to give our, our folks, a whole bunch of gold nuggets.
Speaker 2:
So thanks, thanks, ted. Thanks again. Appreciate it. Good to see you, darrell.
Speaker 1:
All right, bye-bye, but this has been the real estate underground podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. It helps us grow. Until next time, happy investing.