Thinking of Joining A Team (Or Starting A Team)? • Jen Dillard

Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

Jen Dillard the founder of Jen Dillard Real Estate Team with Hasson Company goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Jen shares advice on starting/building a team and what she’d advise a newly licensed agent. Jen also discusses what her team is doing to keep active and motivated during these challenging times. Jen talks about open houses and their importance in this market. Last, Jen describes what she expects when interviewing a new potential team member.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Jen Dillard can be reached at [phone].

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
Have you thought about joining a team? Or maybe starting a team? And you’re not quite sure where to start? Or we’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, and I am your guide and host to do the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with superstar agent Jen Dillard. But before we in fact, here’s what we’re gonna be talking about, aside from how awesome Jen is, we’re gonna be talking a lot about teams today. And if you are a practicing agent, maybe you’re a solo agent, or you’re already on a team, or maybe you are thinking about joining a team or starting a team. We’re going to cover a lot of that today. So we are super excited to talk to Jen. Before we do that. Just a quick reminder, please, the best way you can help us aside from being a great listener like you are, of course right now is by telling another realtor about us. So just think of one other agent in your office. Or if you’re a solo person and you own your own firm. And it’s just you the next agent you meet out there. Tell them about our show. We appreciate it. It’s the way we’ve grown for the last five years. And it seems to be working for us. So we’re super grateful to all of you for continuing to spread the word. So share, tell a friend and also leave us a review whatever app you might be listening to my voice on right now. Let us know what you think of the show. Whether you’re on Apple podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher or Google Play Amazon wherever. Let us know what you think this show we read everything and then we want to get better and continue to improve. So enough for me but we’re going to talk about teams so let’s bring on our amazing superstar guest Jen Dillard.

Today on the show our guest is Jen Diller from the Jen Dillard real estate team with the Hassane company in Hood River, Oregon, and the Columbia River Gorge area at the Pacific Northwest right. Let me tell you more about Jen Jen Dillard is a real estate mogul based in Hood River, Oregon. With over 200 million in lifetime sales. She leads a team of 14 agents that sold over $78 million in real estate last year. She runs an in house home staging company and is a busy mom of two. I always heard if you want to get something done give it to a busy mom gentle it is over budget. But she’s also besides that selling and staging are just part of Jen’s story. She’s also committed to sharing what she knows about building a successful team in real estate or any entrepreneurial environment with others especially female leaders and fellow moms. Please check out Jen’s website which is J D R E so Jen Dillard real estate so J D R e team.com. Please also follow their team on Instagram which is J D R E team and also follow Jen herself on Instagram which is Jen Dillard. We are going to have all of those links in our show notes. So you can just head to the show notes. Follow Jen there Jen, welcome to the show.

Jen Dillard 4:33
Thanks for having me. DJ. I’m so happy to be here.

D.J. Paris 4:36
Jen is so sweet. We had a plumbing issue at the office where the water was shut off. So everyone left and then I raced over here to do the interview. I was at home this morning. And then Jen and I were just about to start and the power went out. So I’m hopeful that we will get through this without any additional interruptions But Jen has been very patient and we appreciate that skill. in it. So it’s always funny to see sometimes last minute things how it gets gets a little screwy. Just like every sort of every real estate transaction, there’s always a bump in the road to I guess. So this mirrors, a lot of our listeners, you know, average day. But anyway, Jen, I would love to really introduce our audience to you. And I’d love to hear about your journey into real estate. Can you share that with us?

Jen Dillard 5:27
Absolutely. So I got started in real estate when I was 21 years old. So like two years ago, and I’m just getting I’m 37. So you did the math, but got started in real estate at 21. And got started in as a property manager and real estate and then after that, sold condo conversions in Seattle, and, and worked in the real estate market until about until the 2000 Oh, eight housing crash we all remember so fondly. And so once that happened, I dabbled in real estate, but I kind of shifted my focus a bit. And then fast forward a few years, and I had my two beautiful children. And when my daughter who’s my second child when she was about six months old, I said to my husband, you know, I really want to get back to work. You know, want to do something that fills my bucket and gets me excited and passionate again. And he’s like, Well, what was that? When was the last time you felt that passion and drive. And I said real estate. I just missed it so much. And so I got went back full force. That’s when I really took off, I got back into real estate I joined an independent brokerage in the Seattle area and, and then and then fast forward a few years from that I moved to Hood River and started my team. And here I am.

D.J. Paris 6:52
It for any of our audience that I wasn’t familiar with Hood River. But Oregon is such such an amazing state. It’s one of our most beautiful states, I think. And I come from Illinois, and we don’t have too much beauty here in Illinois. But but the the topography of Oregon is just incredible. But can you tell us a little bit about where Hood River is located for any of our audience that isn’t familiar?

Jen Dillard 7:16
Yes. So Hood River is located about 45 minutes to an hour east of Portland, Oregon, and about two hours from Bend, Oregon. So we are separated by the Columbia River. So the other side of the river is Washington. And we live on the Oregon side. But we serve as both Oregon and Washington. So most of our Realtors on our team are duly licensed in Oregon and Washington.

D.J. Paris 7:40
And so just out of curiosity, um, do you have to join two different associations then as well? Whatever the Washington one is and the and the Oregon or are they similar? No, you

Jen Dillard 7:50
do have to take the Oregon exam and the Washington exam. But you are but it is a reciprocal state. There are reciprocal states. So but no same association.

D.J. Paris 8:01
Oh, that’s incredible. Because here we are, the moment you join another state least the ones that border Illinois, you gotta join a whole nother Association as well. So one of the one of the other million reasons to maybe move to Hood River. Because oh my goodness, what a beautiful part of the country for anyone that is hasn’t been to Oregon. Just go, just go. But anyway, we’re not here to talk about Oregon, as much as I would love to. But I would love so Jenna in particular, aside from being a top producer, and a total superstar. She has this incredible team and mostly female, right? The vast majority of your team members are women. Which makes sense because most of most more realtors are women than men, of course, in our industry anyway. But you are very passionate about team building. And I think 2022 If nothing else is at least a year of the team. It seems to have been, you know, brewing for some time. And now, all our listeners keep asking me about is let’s talk about teams. So I’m so grateful to have you on. So let’s talk about that. What how do you think about teams because you run a really successful team? How do you think about it? Because you’ve seen there’s so many different ways to structure a team. And of course, you know, we just want to give a lot of great advice to our listeners who are thinking of either starting one or joining one.

Jen Dillard 9:27
Yeah, so I think that starting a team is a good time to know when to start a team is just really knowing when you’re feeling pushed to like if there’s you are not able to service your clients and you are feeling bogged down by you have too many buyers, too many sellers, you can’t really give everybody that great quality of service. Maybe it’s time to add a team member and so that way you can still provide that great service to and to more people. Another thing that another reason that I grew my team is that I can’t be everywhere. One Surprise, surprise. So there are clients, the Columbia Gorge area is a pretty, you know, good size area. And there are there are people that, you know, there’s areas that are 45 minutes an hour away that I don’t service. So we’ve, we’ve started growing our team that way by finding great agents in those areas and having them still be a part of the team but service all different areas of the gorge.

D.J. Paris 10:26
Yeah, it makes sense. And I think to what I’ve, what I’ve noticed that teams have started to do in the last few years, and I’m really curious to get your thoughts on it is I think a lot of times agents in the past would go to their firm, for training, support coaching, and, and many firms do provide that and I respect, you know, firms that that can do that. But it put a lot of put a lot of stress on the managing broker, because the managing broker or I’m not sure what they, if they’re called Managing brokers in, in, in Oregon, but here in Illinois, we call the managing brokers,

Jen Dillard 11:02
principal broker managing broker. Cool, yeah. So I

D.J. Paris 11:05
think they had to wear a lot of hats, right, they had to recruit agents, they had to take care of the existing agents, and of course, do all the training and coaching. And I think oftentimes, that would just be a lot and all the compliance stuff, too, right. So then, I think these teams have provided this other avenue for agents to really get mentored, get coached, get, get taught by people who are out in the field doing it most managing brokers, at least most of the ones I know, there, too. They’re sitting in offices busy taking care of everything. They’re not always on the front lines working with clients. So I’m curious to get your thoughts about that.

Jen Dillard 11:38
I think that’s so true DJ, I mean, they’re this market is ever changing. It’s always changing. There’s always something new and exciting, which is what I love about it. But also something that if you’re not in the field, and you’re not part of the change, and and seeing things firsthand and have your finger on the pulse, then how are you supposed to train and to educate, you know, the agents that are working for you on what’s going on, if you’re not actually out there and seeing it firsthand. So I think that’s very true. I love being an active agent. I think I’m out there, I’m working. I’m in the trenches with them. And we talk about it often. And we sit and talk about each scenario and what’s going on, and how can we help each other and collaborate. So

D.J. Paris 12:22
win win win us? Just sorry, what happened? I don’t know. It’s all right. Yeah, thank you.

Jen Dillard 12:33
Shake it off. Just jump back back in. Oh, good.

D.J. Paris 12:37
This is why I need a calming motherly presence. Not that your mother leaves with that you are a mom and your mother. I mean, it is like my take no offense. I am I am I am. I am a rough guy who gets ah, you know, and then

Jen Dillard 12:55
my team. You’re like, Jen,

D.J. Paris 12:57
you’re like, This is no big deal. It’s fine. So thank you. We went offline for a brief moment, probably due to the construction that’s going on here in the office. So sorry about that. We are back. Jen. I’m so sorry. Please continue.

Jen Dillard 13:11
No worries. I think just what I was saying is that we were talking about how being in the trenches and being a part of what’s going on in the market and having your finger on the pulse is an important part of being a mentor and a team leader.

D.J. Paris 13:26
Yeah, and I think too, that teams are are really a way to expand the services that an individual practitioner just isn’t able to do all by themselves. And if I what the question I was asking when we got disconnected that you probably didn’t hear was if you were starting over fresh today. And obviously there’s this part of you that’s been around for quite some time now. And been successful. Would you tell you the yourself if you were brand new to join a team day one, what would be your advice to the brand newly licensed Jen Dillard?

Jen Dillard 14:05
I would say join a team right away 100% I think I wish that I had I hadn’t been on a team until I started my own. And I think that for me personally, I’m a team player. I love being around other people. I love feeding off of their energy. I love the camaraderie we have such an amazing culture on our team. And everybody, there’s everybody gets along so well. We love to collaborate. There’s no drama. It’s just, it’s just a fun atmosphere. And everybody works really hard. We have all of our agents are full time agents, and they are all producing agents. And so it makes it really fun and exciting. And it’s I mean, what how great is it to be able to share your successes and share the excitement of it to have a transaction and then also when things don’t go well and being able to commiserate or vent or have a shoulder to cry on. Yeah, so to have all of that.

D.J. Paris 14:59
So Support, right? Like if nothing else, teams or at least healthy teams can provide a tremendous amount of support. And right now is a time when a lot of agents are wanting support because we know it’s a challenging environment right now, we just had an amazing, while I hate to say the word amazing because of course, COVID was was not amazing in any possible way. But the real estate market had a pretty good couple of years during that time. And now we’re starting to see the pullback a bit rates are going up buyers, you know, the amount they can, their purchase power is has decreased. And inventory is still pretty, pretty low. So this is a time where I think there’s a lot of and we’ve also been kind of hanging out with ourselves for the last couple of years, we’re now slowly starting to reintegrate to have interpersonal communication. But I’m, I think that is, is it’s often understated and probably probably more important than we realize, I suspect because you I saw it in your face, when you said it’s just fun to be around other people who are all working together, there is something to be said for one plus one equals three, right? Like the sum is greater than the than the parts. Can you talk a little bit about how you how that helped get your team through the pandemic? And through some of those trust struggles even today?

Jen Dillard 16:25
Yes, so we have a group chat that we it’s the JDRF team group chat. And if everybody luckily has an iPhone, so we can name it, because if they had an Android,

D.J. Paris 16:37
just go green bubbles on the JVR, etc. It’s

Jen Dillard 16:39
fine. Yes. So we have this group chat, and we stay in, in touch and and contact constantly throughout the day. And just hey, do you have a question? I’ve never had experienced this before. Have you guys ever What do you do in this situation? Just answering questions, or, Hey, I’ve just closed on 123 Banana Street and everyone’s like gay high fives, great job. And it’s so important to have that and to have that support whether you’re in person or not. And so yes, we meet in person we meet once a week, our office is actually pretty active. We have people in the office, a lot of time, I think for a lot of brokerages people aren’t in the office as much as they used to be, but our our team likes to hang out at the office. And so we have that, but just having that constant communication through COVID. And through those times where we felt isolated, but we still had the support of our team, I think was really, really helpful.

D.J. Paris 17:36
You know, I love that so much the idea of support. Again, it’s it’s not I don’t mean to, to to get stuck on a particular topic. But I think for a lot of our listeners, you know, there so a lot of our listeners are in teams, a lot of them are solo practitioners, too. And, you know, we don’t really need support when everything’s going well, right? When things are going great. It’s a party we’re celebrating, we’re having a good time, where we really need the most support is when things aren’t going well. And I I’d say joining the team, or if you don’t have the ability to do that, or don’t want to do that finding a peer support group where you can do these kinds of things, hey, guys just got a new lead or just had a listing presentation or heading into a buyer consultation, wish me luck. Those are the kinds of things that not everybody wants or needs. But a good percentage of us, really, and I wanted to say one more thing, I read this study, and I have to I don’t have it in front of me, I apologize. But this is for many, many years ago, there was a study that was that really speaks to your group chat, your group text sort of system that you guys have set up that even if you witness to people being kind to each other or supportive of one another, even just the act of witnessing that creates almost the same benefit as the person who’s receiving the support. So you have created this, this hub of constant reinforcement of great job, we’re here for you. We’re together, we’re all in this we’re all a team. And boy, I just have to imagine that really keeps everyone’s spirits up when things are challenging.

Jen Dillard 19:12
It really does and I think that you can see it in. We’re active on social media and video and all of that. And I think seeing even photos or doing videos together I think you can see and you can feel that we actually as genuine, we have fun. We enjoy being around each other. We work hard. All of it is clear. It’s easy to see that and I think that’s probably why the team has grown. I haven’t recruited once I haven’t called and tried to recruit somebody from another brokerage not because I don’t believe in that but because it I haven’t had two people call me and they say hey, I saw your team looks like so much fun and like the culture seems so amazing. I’d love to join the team and I think that’s just because we put out that energy that truly is genuine

D.J. Paris 19:59
and right now As I’ve meant to get back to my point of things are challenging things aren’t picture perfect today, right? Low interest or high interest or rising interest rate environments, I apologize, rising interest, still pretty low interest rates, but rising interest rate environments, buyers are freaked out buyers purchasing power has gone down low inventory. How are you guys working through that? What are what are you guys? And I say guys, of course, I mean, men and women, what is your team? What are you? What are you doing to keep your team cohesive during some of the struggles?

Jen Dillard 20:33
I think just continuing to meet regularly and to train and talk about just talk about what we’re going through talk about scenarios. If this scenario comes up, this is what you do in this scenario, if this scenario comes up, this is what you do. And also Hey, what are you guys see? What are you feeling? How are your open houses last weekend? Tell me about that. Just talking about talking it out and being able to sit in the room with the whole team. And everybody just pitches in and talks about what they’re going through? And what’s what they’re seeing out there. And then being able to come up with solutions and go around and everybody pitches in their thoughts. It’s powerful.

D.J. Paris 21:10
It is I we do we have managed meetings, in my, in our company here and our management team, we have about 10 people, and we get together. And I’m constantly amazed. I’m on the marketing side of how many great marketing ideas I get from people that aren’t marketers that are you know, different roles. And they’re like, Oh, I’ve got an idea. And I’m like, well, it’s better than what I could come up with. Because that really does groupthink kind of thing is is it can be a negative, but it can also be a real positive in just getting more ideas to people. And in your case, you know, yeah, all these agents are having different experiences. And right now things are goofy, right? Like I I can right now. Today, the stock market fell substantially. So I was thinking, I wonder what financial advisors are getting all these probably really urgent phone calls from investors going where’s my money is going, you know, and they have to have responses to that. Well, of course, real estate has similar sorts of things with interest rates going up, and inventory being being tough. I have a question for you about if you were looking to join a team, and you were a brand new agent. So back to this idea that you just got newly licensed, or you know, maybe you’re in your first couple of years as a solo practitioner, and you’re like, I think I need to join a team. What would you look for? And because we know that most most markets in the country have lots of different options for teams, what might you suggest to yourself to look for in a team,

Jen Dillard 22:37
I would recommend doing your research, making sure that you really dig in and ask for recommendations from people, not other realtors, but people in the area. Who have you worked with who have you had a great experience with as a realtor. And And then furthermore, just really making sure that the culture go to a team meeting, go to a you know, a meeting and make sure that you really liked that culture and that you fit in you resonate, your your personality fits in you resonate with them. That’s those are really important things. These are the people that you’re going to be surrounded with all the time every day. So making sure that you really feel comfortable is important. So those are some a few of the things that I think are.

D.J. Paris 23:21
Yeah, I think that’s a great point, like making the list of all the people that you’ve worked with that you go, I liked that person I liked the way they did business, I really thought that they had a lot to offer their client. And maybe I’d like to, you know, start to experience, you know, what, what they deal with back in the back office. I think that’s a, it’s a great, great understand. And I’m curious too, so you’re, you’re a very successful team lead. And I think a lot of realtors think, Boy, I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call Jen Dillard. She’s way too busy. She’s got a million things going on. She’s running this massive team. So I’m curious. What steps might somebody take to you know, if they say, Oh, I really want to join Jen’s team. Obviously, they can go to your website and fill out a form, which by the way, anyone is around that area and Oregon where Jen and her team work and are looking for a different option or different team maybe that might better meet their needs. certainly reach out Jen and her team would love to speak with you. But you know, agents come to me all the time. They’re like, well, I don’t really know how to how to how to go up to somebody and say, Hey, I’d like to join your team that really does take a certain amount of courage and vulnerability

Jen Dillard 24:38
and so I’m curious why not on a date? It is. It is. Yeah, so I would I like when people are persistent. I think that persistence, and you know, send me a message on Instagram. That’s great. But if you also follow it up with a phone call or an email and you know, two different areas of can munication that’s where it really gets my attention. I’m like, okay, this person is serious, this person really is interested. And I always my doors always open to have a conversation. And I think that if we you come in you have a conversation with us, you feel like it’s a good fit. We feel like it’s a good fit. And I think that yeah, we are always open to grow. As long as it feels like it’s a good, it’s a good, it’s a good fit from on both sides.

D.J. Paris 25:28
I agree. And I’d love to get your opinion about leads, because this also becomes a big topic. And of course, every team does it differently. Some teams have leads, of course, some don’t. And I’m not here to suggest teams should have leads or they shouldn’t. But I’m curious, I know sometimes. Individual realtors will think well, if I join a team, that’s going to be the solution to my marketing problems, because they probably have a lot of leads. And that’s going to be my savior, so to speak. So I’m curious to get your thoughts on leads and the team’s sort of role in that.

Jen Dillard 26:06
Yeah, I think that being on a team sometimes means you get leads, which our team does, you know, give leads out to our agents. But I think that being able to prospect and come up with your own, you know, go get your own business, that’s what really incentivizes me to give leads, if you’re out there, and you’re killing it, and you’re, yeah, I can see that you’re active out in the in the market, you know what you’re talking about, you’re doing well, your clients are loving you, then I’m going to keep giving you more leads. If I see that you’re just sitting there, and you’re just waiting for a lead to come to you and you’re not going out and finding your business. I’m less in I’m less interested in giving you more leads, because I how do I know that you’re going to take great care of the client? So

D.J. Paris 26:53
that’s such an important thing you just said and I know it’s probably self evident to you. But I think it’s an important point that I want really to resonate with our audience that what Jen, Jen just said, is it in some for some of us might be counterintuitive, like, hey, the busier I am and meaning not busy as far as having clients, but the more active I am in building my business, the more that attracts more business to me, because people like Jen go, Hey, DJ is really on top of things. He’s racing around getting business. I want to reward his effort with some leads. And I think that is how most team leaders think about it, too. So I don’t think this is just a Jen Dillard thing, I think. Yeah, and but I’m so grateful that you said it because it is absolutely the truth. It’s sort of like givers get right like that, that sort of idea of putting yourself out there and giving as much as you can actually met see a lot of stuff too, without that being the main intention. So if you want more leads, go impress other people in your company with how much activity you’re putting into generating leads, because and I also think, and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take over the interview. But I also think sometimes when people are doing, and I’m curious to get your thoughts, when people are doing certain activities to generate leads on their own. And then they bring that to a group or their office, sometimes somebody will be like, You know what, I have a little tweak for you on this. And that might just be the tweak that is needed to make it even more effective. You know, this idea of like, Oh, I’ve done that before. But try this instead of that.

Jen Dillard 28:30
Yeah, I like having the other agents on my team come in and do trainings for the rest of the team. I like them to do the trainings, I have one agent on my team who’s amazing at cold calling, he was in sales, that was his background, that’s where he got started. And that guy is incredible on the phones. So I love to have the team sit and listen to him and to you know, and to do a calling challenge and things like that, like just having Listen, I have another agent on my team. That’s amazing at reels, she does a great job. So having her come in and do a training on how she does reels. And because we’re on a team, and we’re collaborative, we’re not competing with each other. We’re collaborating with each other. It’s great, everybody’s happy to share.

D.J. Paris 29:12
I love that and having people with different specialties, even though they might still be doing all of their own business. But maybe they’re really good at like you said social or they’re good at open houses or buyer presentations or listing presentations or whatever. And then saying, hey, let’s let’s do some best practice sharing. I absolutely just think that is just the fastest way to get good at something. And I would love I am about to ask so I’m gonna ask you a question. I’m going to take a quick break. While so you can think about the answer. I don’t think you’ll need any time to think about this. But I would love to hear how important today so it’s now the middle of June to 2022. How important are open houses today for lead gen nation. So before you answer that, I want to take a quick moment to highlight our sponsor, we love our sponsor, and our one of our favorite companies in the entire real estate tech space is follow up boss. Now I’ve interviewed hundreds of top Realtors in this country for this podcast and the CRM that is used by more than any of my guests is follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Don’t take my word for it though, Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States, he’s his follow up boss. And he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your existing tools and lead sources. Also the best part they have a seven day a week support. Because we know real estate happens nights and weekends. So you’ll get the help you need when you need it. And let’s get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to continue to use their their services, they’re going to give you for a limited time. They’re going to give keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice the amount of time they give everybody else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free, but only if you visit this special link but visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with a follow up boss. Okay, Jen, let’s talk about open houses. How important are they in 2022

Jen Dillard 31:35
open houses are back and they are in full force. Open Houses are critical right now. Because, as you’ve mentioned a few times in this interview, they the interest rates are rising, buyers are getting a little scared things are slowing down a little bit or neutralizing I like to say. And so having an open house creates this kind of it allows people to come and look at the house without feeling pressure to reach out to an agent and to engage in that sort of, you know, relationship, but it’s kind of like risk free. They can go they can look at the house. And I think that that it’s back and I think that it’s doing they’re doing very well right now because of that, in my opinion. And

D.J. Paris 32:21
do you get a lot of unrepresented buyers coming

Jen Dillard 32:25
in. So open houses are great do open houses all day long, but most important is making sure you’re tracking who’s coming into your open house. Are you writing? Are you having them fill out a form that their you know, their name, their email address, or phone number? Are you following up with them follow up us. You know, making sure that all those that’s so important. Yes, you have these phone numbers, you have these email addresses, but follow up and make sure that you reach out and you even if they weren’t interested in the house, they’ll remember you if you call and you follow up with them, and you stay, continue to nurture them.

D.J. Paris 33:02
So I want to drill down just a little bit. So when do you tell your team so someone comes in unrepresented to an open house, one of your team members is doing an open house, they fill out the form name, email, phone number. Okay, what’s step number one after they leave, and how quickly, I would love to hear what you recommend.

Jen Dillard 33:22
After the open house, you send an email individually personalized. Thank you, Jeff. And Jodi, thank you so much for coming to my open house today. It was a pleasure to meet you by law. If you’re interested in this house, please let me know. Otherwise, I’d be happy to set up a search for you. And, you know, so engage in conversation, and then and send that to each person that came into the open house. And then

D.J. Paris 33:50
I’m sorry to get so granular but or next day or what’s the same day?

Jen Dillard 33:55
100%? Yes, same day, and then you give it two days. And then you follow up. Jeff and Jody, this is Jen Dillard, I reached out to you after my open house, I just wanted to follow up make sure you got my email as if there’s a phone number you call you got to go to all the areas of communication that you have access to. If they don’t respond, maybe send a text some people just have to find their way of communicating. Some people prefer to communicate via text. Some prefer to commute and you can even go a step further with your with your sheet. You can say what prefer What is your preferred method of communication

D.J. Paris 34:37
yeah, that’s, that’s a it’s a really great idea because to assume that everyone wants text or phone or email, of course we’re all different and wow, that’s really smart. So yeah, add that checkbox everyone listening to your open house sign in sheet, preferred way of communication. I do really appreciate that when I fill those forms out online like for a doctor’s office or They oftentimes will will ask that same question. So following up, I’m curious, have you do you have a general idea of the and of course, every, every individual person is different. But the average time from the moment somebody walks into an open house, and obviously not everyone who walks out of the open house ends up becoming a client. But for those that do become a client, what’s the lead time because we’re talking about following up? How much time is typically required. And again, I know, it could be two days, they could buy a home two days later, but what’s the average time that you see, and this will just give our audience a sense of how long they should expect, on average, to stay in touch?

Jen Dillard 35:39
Six to 12 months? Perfect. Six to 12 months? And again, it can be the like you said, they could be like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t like this house. But I just saw this house, this is the one can we go look at it and boom, and that does happen. But I would I would, I would plan for six to 12 months?

D.J. Paris 35:58
And do you have like, do you recommend people create a schedule so that for the next six or 12 months, they know for sure, here’s, you know, the general guidelines of how I’m going to stay in touch? Just curious how if you use technology for that, or if you do it manually? What is sort of your thoughts on that?

Jen Dillard 36:15
We do we have it. So we break it down to we use monday.com. That’s the software that we use, which they can and we break the break it down. And so there’s steps for everything. Okay, you just engaged with a buyer, here are the steps, okay, you’ve just engaged with the seller, here are the steps. Okay, you got a listing contract signed, here are the steps. Same for buyers. And so we break it down and make it foolproof.

D.J. Paris 36:42
I love that. So systematize, we’re talking about creating systems. And then all you have to actually do is run the system. Right? You don’t have to wake up and think, What am I doing today? What should I do?

Jen Dillard 36:57
Yeah, like, and how satisfying is it to check a box.

D.J. Paris 37:02
So I love it as well. And it just makes it you know what I’ve realized about life, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, because it took me to I’m 46 now, which is depressing. But I, so I’m older than you. So I can say that. Jen is still super young, she’s in her early 20s. But But But But But for real, what I’ve realized is systematizing anything in life really reduces anxiety, and it reduces clutter in the mind. And it just actually makes life easier, it’s sort of the irony of it is creating a system actually makes you gives you more freedom.

Jen Dillard 37:45
I feel like that was the biggest growing the growing pains of the team growing at the pace that it did. And in our in, you know, our transactions growing at the pace that they did is that is the growing pains of the systems and processes because we had to implement new systems and processes and we had to do them quickly. And we had to hire and we had to so that I feel like was the biggest stressor was was getting those systems and processes in place. And now that they are and we have the people to support, it’s like such a breath of fresh air.

D.J. Paris 38:18
And as a new agent, Wouldn’t you love to be plugged into a team that’s kind of already got that all figured out. And you don’t have to rebuild all of it. Because there are so many ways to build those systems and so many different variables, and software providers and just lots of different tools. Wouldn’t you love just to plug into somebody’s system, and you maybe make modifications if you need to. But like, that’s another major reason to join a team is it just helps. Assuming the team has systems, it helps get your systems in order. Yes,

Jen Dillard 38:52
I completely agree.

D.J. Paris 38:55
And one last thing, if you were interviewing a team member, what do you look for in a team? In somebody that says I want to join the Jen Diller team? What are you looking for in that individual? Because I think this will help our audience when they go to really they’re interviewing sometimes for these positions. So what do you recommend?

Jen Dillard 39:15
I am looking for somebody who knows about the team show that you’ve done your research and that you you know, who are we have you done? Your research? Have you looked us up online? Have you looked at our website? Have you? Are you familiar with us? And then next I want to know, I want you to show your personality. I want to see how you’re going to interact with clients. are you just sitting there waiting for me to ask questions and just answering them with boring answers? Probably not the right bit. Show your personality show what’s different about you why why would somebody pick you to be the realtor? Show me that I want to see that. So those are some of the things that I love to see. I love to see passion and drive and somebody that’s going to reach out to me like I said for a difference Social media or social media and different communication channels, that I know that they’re really interested in they they’re really excited about the opportunity. I love those people.

D.J. Paris 40:09
Yeah, it really is like asking someone out on a date, like you said, you have to put your your best self forward. And that doesn’t mean you have to look a certain way. But you have to make sure that they know who you are and what you’re willing to bring to the table.

Jen Dillard 40:24
Do you come dress professionally?

D.J. Paris 40:27
Yeah, boy, there is a huge variance in in how Realtors dress, right? We, we have 800 agents in our company here. And so we certainly see a wide range of choices in dress. And I always say there is no downside to dressing really well, there’s actually no very little chance of having a negative impact. However, on the other side, if you dress maybe a level lower than what the client expects, then you know that you’re going to have you’re gonna have a tougher hill to climb to win that person over. Yes. Yeah, so dress dress for success. It it’s it’s not gone away. But I think the main message, Jen, that that you’ve been describing is, teams can be a real force for good and they can actually give provide more value to the client. Also, to the realtor, the realtor now has hopefully additional better resources, people to support them in the tough times, and just place to bounce ideas off of. And boy, I’ll tell you, if I was a realtor starting out, and I was in the Bend, Oregon area, I would well I guess I’m sorry. Yeah. If I was, obviously, in between Portland and Bend, Oregon, and I was living there. I heard Hood River District, I would be reaching out to Jen because not only and I think, Jen, you just said something really important in it. And if you go to Jen’s website, which I’m going to encourage everybody to do in just a moment, you will get a sense of what her team is like, just by watching some of the content that they’ve created. There, you can see just in the still images of the fun that they have, and also tracking them on social, you get a good sense of what the team is like. Now, it’s not everything, of course, you want to meet them, too. But I think that’s such a really good idea as getting a sense of the culture. And I think by watch, you know, that’s what’s really cool about social media and also having a web presence is you get it, you get a little glimpse into someone’s culture. And I think this is a great opportunity for individual agents to explore other teams cultures and see what feels like a good fit. And then just like asking out someone on a date, you have to find your courage and then reach out and say, Hey, I would like to talk to you about opportunities. I am such a big fan. And by the way, if there’s any buyers, sellers, renters investors in in Jen’s neck of the woods. Boy, her and her team would love the opportunity to to work with you directly. They’re one of the very top teams in their area, and very well respected. They’re amazing. And Jen, do you mind just sharing? What What’s the geographic boundaries of what your team sort of deals with?

Jen Dillard 43:17
Yeah, so we service pretty much everything from from Portland all the way to Golden Dale Lyle area. So yeah, those are that’s pretty much what was that?

D.J. Paris 43:33
I was just saying no, that’s that’s it’s a huge area, the area up huge team. And I think it’s a really great reminder that if you are thinking about joining a team or thinking about maybe changing teams, now’s a good time when things are maybe a little bit slow, more slow than they were a year ago where we didn’t have time to do that. But for anyone out there who is interested in working with Jen, or learning about her team and how its structured, please visit their website which is J D R E team. Again, Jen Dillard real estate. So J D R e team.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And also please follow them on on Instagram, which you can find them at J D. R E team. And at Jen Dillard. We’ll have links again in the show notes. Jen, thank you so much for being on our show. I appreciate you. Hanging with us through some of our tech difficulties today. Thankfully, we got through without the power going out good.

Jen Dillard 44:31
Yeah. Thanks for having me so much. DJ was great.

D.J. Paris 44:35
We’re super grateful. And for everyone before you sign off, please, we only ask our listeners and viewers to do one thing, which is tell a friend to think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this conversation with Jen and send them a link to this episode. You can find us on our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is there and we have about 400 episodes there now. So Jen, thank you so much. We are huge. Fans have you and your team and your company and we wish you all the best. Thank you for taking time to be on our show.

Jen Dillard 45:07
Thank you