Growing up in the family business founded by his parents in 1980, Conrad Zurini has developed a real passion for Real Estate and a commitment to improving the overall client experience. With over 20 years of experience in both Selling and Managing, he has had many achievements in both sales performance and industry development.
Born and raised in Hamilton and a graduate of McMaster University, Conrad is an active member of the community and is committed to improving the city where he grew up and in which his business operates today.
He is an integral part of developing affordable housing and city revitalization projects specifically within the Hamilton region. His other areas of focus include; land development, commercial investment and luxury residential properties.
Conrad Zurini is the President and Broker of Record for RE/MAX Escarpment Realty Inc.; servicing the community with its 8 locations. Through his active role in sales, Conrad remains a leader in the industry and maintains a relevant insight into client expectations, market trends and the latest technological advances in Real Estate marketing.
As such, he is better able to train his sales team and all agents at RE/MAX Escarpment to continue to be the top producers in the community. In July 2011, RE/MAX was awarded the JD Power and Associates Award for Highest Overall Customer Satisfaction for both Buyers and Sellers and Conrad has made it his mission to ensure this award keeps coming back to his Company and its Agents.
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on The No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:40
Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of The No Limits Selling Podcast. Today, I'm here with Conrad Zurini.
Conrad Zurini 0:47
Yeah, Conrad Zurini, well done. My companies are called REMAX Escarpment and REMAX Niagara. Went to different brands throughout southern Ontario, the Golden Horseshoe, so to speak.
Umar Hameed 0:57
Brilliant. So when did you start this business? And did you have this phenomenal growth in mind when you started or did it accidentally happen?
Conrad Zurini 1:05
Yeah, so 11 years ago, we started with approximate around 75-80 agents, but I had a vision to grow it much larger. So we decided to bring about the people, like it's all about relationships and partnerships. So right away, right out of the gate, I decided to bring in a major bank as a in house, in house lender. We actually created a mortgage brokerage as well and create a law firm as well because in Canada, we don't use, lawyers still close the deals. Title is, there is a title, but it's a it's a title...
Umar Hameed 1:41
It's not like the US [garbled].
Conrad Zurini 1:41
Not like the US, exactly. So lawyers still do the transaction, register the mortgages and all that kind of stuff. So we brought all these people together and thought, "How can I start to leverage their knowledge of the business." So we started this one stop shop, and we called it "In The Square" and we actually created a space where all the partners were together, and we had synergies. And we also had an insurance company as well, property and auto insurance. So that's how it started. And then slowly but surely, again, we would we would do market updates, we created some really great momentum with all the partnership, a lot of great knowledge sharing and we started to grow. And now we're at just over 900 agents and two different brands. And it was very strategic and it was we grew kind of, as we as we dominated an area, a geographic area, then we decided to okay, we kind of put another office and we've kind of done that so we are uninterrupted. So from the US border like Fort Erie, which is a small little town on the other side of Buffalo.
Umar Hameed 1:42
As it often.
Conrad Zurini 1:51
Yeah, so from Fort Erie all the way to Oakville, which is just outside Toronto and Mississauga. Yeah, so and again, we are it's continuous, because I always wanted to have continuous, unbroken service for consumers. And I also want to have data, pure, clean data. So we do showing data, all kinds of data that we study consumer behavior, data, and things like that, as well. So I wanted to have a pure and consistent that we'd be able to offer our consumers a better a better way to make a decision.
Umar Hameed 3:12
Brilliant. So there's many questions, and I'm gonna miss half of the ones I've gotten my head but let's go back to data. Did you read the book, "Good to Great"?
Umar Hameed 3:19
Yes.
Umar Hameed 3:20
So in "Good to Great", one things they take a look at is, what do you measure? They have the hedgehog principle, like, where's the passion? What are you passionate about? What could you be best in the world at? And how do you measure it? And for Walgreens as an example, they could measure a million things with computers but what they chose to measure, above all was profitability per shopping bag became the driver for the entire company. So there's lots of data that runs your business. Are there any particular data sets that are more important than others that are predictive or if we monitor this, we're going to be successful?
Conrad Zurini 3:55
Yeah. We started to look at how successful our agents were at retaining their clientele, I think that's where it really started. And we looked at how, how successful was the company at retaining that particular client. The company was very successful because we, in our, in our little neck of the world, we have about over 30% market share just our own company in the area. So we felt that we were doing very, very well with that, but we felt the individual agent wasn't doing as well. So we created kind of like, electronic pre list.
Umar Hameed 4:26
Right.
Conrad Zurini 4:26
It's called Realintro. It's, it's, it's a eputational management website, mobile website for agents, that actually helps has them rank much higher on Google. So when people search somebody, so suddenly, Umar they're going to, you know, they're going to "Hey, Umar was suggested to me, I'm going to search him so you always want to control your first five." But what we built in this was a, it was an opportunity for them to send it to a client. And then the client would would review different we call them the widgets so everybody puts their stats. They've got their warm and fuzzy testimonials. Have some marketing materials thinks about the company. So we would ask, they would monitor what the what the consumer picked. And then when they go, we'd go meet with the actual home the seller, they would actually know what they were into where they enter the warm and fuzzies, where they enter the data points and things like that. So then they could focus their presentation on what was very, very important to the consumer. So we've always been all about that, analyzing consumer, creating a bespoke strategic marketing plan for that particular home based on their, the way they absorb information and knowledge. So that's what we really kind of dug into because we wanted to get those numbers up where they would use the same realtor, because National Association Realtors says it's about 23%, we were probably around that 30-35,36% and over 70% as a company.
Umar Hameed 5:46
Wow, that's pretty huge. So I love AI. And was looking at this one particular interesting use of AI. So there's a problem with dairy farms, the dairy business really sucks because you have to milk the cows often. And so a lot of young people don't want to participate in that industry, because they're like, you know, quality of life is really low.
Conrad Zurini 6:07
Yes.
Umar Hameed 6:07
So they created this new dairy farm where they gave all the cows a Fitbit that went around their necks. And when Betsy wants to be milked, she comes up to the milking station, it identifies her with the RFID tag, the gates open, she comes in, they automatically wash the others, the suction device comes in, they milk the cow, they open the door, pat her on the button, and she goes out in the field and it's all automated. And what that did was two things, number one, it became a tourist destination, all people want see the automation, young kids want to see the cows. So all of a sudden they've got a new income stream. But the thing that intrigued me was, they know when cows get sick, because they got a Fitbit, they know the gait of the cow, and then go, "Oh, let's see got sick here, did the gate change four weeks ago," her gate changed, that was predictive of her getting sick. So instead of waiting a month to call the vet, soon as the gate changes, we can call the vet and it's like a small little bill and the cows happy. So all of that said, you're collecting a lot of data for your agents, are there any predictive numbers that you can go, "Oh, wait a minute, Joan is falling off the pace or somebody's ready to explode?" Do you see any trends like that, that you can predict where agents need help? Or celebration?
Conrad Zurini 7:24
Well, you know, it's interesting, because the next generation of our real intro is we're building an algorithm. Well, we've already started playing kind of a match game on our website now. So we're trying to it's very binary now so consumers would come in and, and pick different disciplines, different areas, and then we'd serve them up some agents but but the next gen or the next reiteration of it is AI. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna be able to match so, "Umar, you're like a foodie, you like golf, Conrad realtor, I like I'm a foodie, I like golf. And we're gonna kind of match the two together," because what we feel is that, you know, it's it's so interesting how do you empower a consumer to pick an agent, it's...
Umar Hameed 8:00
Right.
Conrad Zurini 8:00
it's the, the agent, it's a crapshoot. And it's the agents with the biggest marketing budget, which no disrespect, because we have we have that win every day. How about a platform where a consumer can be empowered, Okay, so once that once they've weeded out all the people that don't kind of match with their personality, then they can actually we layer it with stats, days on market, your listing, sales ratio, all that kind of thing. So a consumer can say, "Hey, this particular agent, not only do they fit where I'm coming from, but they also will, they also have the, the numbers to back it up as well."And we're gonna be doing side by side comparisons of realtors based on on their stats, almost like, you know, baseball cards in a sentence, right? And looking at their stats all side by side. Because, you know, everybody, the big cop out, and I find always with coaches, and everybody says, "Well, you don't keep in touch." The reason why you lose that that client is you don't keep in touch. I think it's at the beginning, where you it wasn't a pure match, something happened during the transaction. I don't know what it was where you became an adversary, or instead of an advocate or whatever it might have been, that just rubbed them the wrong way.
Umar Hameed 9:06
Set the tone.
Conrad Zurini 9:06
Set the tone and then they always seem to remember that. But if we were to match people at the very beginning, and you don't even have to mirror the other client.
Umar Hameed 9:15
Right.
Conrad Zurini 9:15
Because you are already a mirror of that client, I think if we can match people better together, because everybody's so different and that's the beauty of business.
Umar Hameed 9:23
Not only match but match and measure.
Conrad Zurini 9:25
Yes.
Umar Hameed 9:25
So the theory is, the hypothesis is this and then we monitor. But let me ask you a question, Conrad, is there somebody in your life right now that you don't speak to often that you know, could be three years but when you speak to them next, but it feels like you just spoke to them yesterday? There is no time that's lost, there's a connection there...
Conrad Zurini 9:25
Yes.
Umar Hameed 9:32
...that transcends time. Who's that for you?
Conrad Zurini 9:46
Well, it's probably a there's an answer, yy dad's, my dad's sister. That we don't talk enough but we just want it's funny because we just went out for lunch or actually dinner the other day was getting a an MRI where she lives, she lives out of town. out. And my niece and while my cousin and her we went out for dinner, and it was like we had lost...
Umar Hameed 10:06
A second.
Conrad Zurini 10:07
...a second.
Umar Hameed 10:07
And that's what you're trying to do what it sounds like is that you make that connection up front.
Conrad Zurini 10:11
Yes.
Umar Hameed 10:12
And then it...
Conrad Zurini 10:12
Then it's yes and it's super easy. Look, I'm the laziest guy in the room, I will tell you. So I used to sell I was actively selling 25 years ago.
Umar Hameed 10:20
Right.
Conrad Zurini 10:20
The other day, I get a call, and it has some initials on it. 7:30 in the morning, I pick up the call and, and he says, and I said, "Hello, Conrad speaking," at 7:30am I'm thinking, was it somebody from [garbled] because somebody [garbled], I'm thinking who could call me at 7:30. And the guy says, "Hey, it's John has the actual name is John," because it's John. And he said, "You sold me a house, a new build, 20 years ago, and you were so patient with my wife and I, we'd love you to help us buy a house again." Now, I have not communicated with these people like decades. Exactly two decades, I'm not even kidding. So I'm not active selling so I, I did actually meet with them. And it was like we had not lost a bit of time exactly. We connected and the funny thing is John, and I would always and her name was believe it or not as Mary. So hopefully the listen to the story. But John and I would group together because Mary's got a very strong personality, and John's salt of the earth. And John and I pick on Mary. And we picked up right where we left off, which was amazing.
Umar Hameed 11:24
[Garbled] damage.
Conrad Zurini 11:24
Yeah. So maybe it wasn't such a good idea but John took the lead to call me. But but the thing is this it's interesting because yeah, I think that's what it really comes down to, I think that that's what it's all about. Like I'm I'm all about communication and I, but I enriching communication like don't just send and I always make fun of people that send newsletters with beer can chicken recipes, like we are not like why are we the dispenser of recipes?
Umar Hameed 11:49
That's a cookie and inauthentic.
Conrad Zurini 11:52
Yes.
Umar Hameed 11:53
So my personal theory is this, is that, A, there's a better version of Conrad in there somewhere. And right now, when you look at your agents, the 900 plus, there's some agents that stand out and some of them kind of go, you know, "If Jane would just be more confident here," because everyone around her can see she's a rockstar, for some reason, she just isn't. That when she steps into who she truly is, you don't have to put on ears.
Umar Hameed 12:17
Yes.
Umar Hameed 12:17
And then that's what people connect with, is when they connect with you, and you're the authentic self that's where magic happens.
Conrad Zurini 12:23
Yes. Without authenticity, and they are always talking about that authenticity. But it's funny because a lot of coaches and the big like I said, the big Capote is, "Well wait a minute, you, you're not you're not communicating to them enough." But I think if you give them this great experience, and this true, authentic self. I'll give you a great example, we had an agent, her name was Joe. She's still with us, she's kind of semi retired. Back in the day when we advertised in newspapers, she would do a border of elephants, you know, nose, the snout, like trunk to tail, trunk to tail, all around her at. Innocuous, nobody really. But the people that were collecting an into elephant, note, they loved it and they would call her just because of that subliminal elephant image. But it was there, it was subtle, but there and they connected. And she became known as the elephant lady, but for more positive reasons, yeah. And she used to collect elephants and she used to the kids used to come into her office and they'd get to pick an elephant, she would have like 400 or 500 different elephants, because we would all give her all the elephants.
Umar Hameed 13:20
Right.
Conrad Zurini 13:21
And she collected them and kids would come in and they would make their day. And she had this whole career based on this elephant commonality...
Umar Hameed 13:29
Love it.
Conrad Zurini 13:29
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 13:30
So in my worldview, every single human being on planet Earth has a purpose in life. The only problem is, most people don't know what it is. And nobody has done to go to a meditation retreat for two years, but there's ways of doing that. And when we teach people what their purpose is, they can actually make that their brand as a realtor. And what that does is they don't have to pretend to be something, this is who I am. And when you do that people get attracted to that. And word according to Umar, we each have three phases. We have this space, we show the outside world, look at me, I'm pretty amazing. I'm smart, by the way I am. And my wife would say you're not as funny as you think. But anyway, then you've got other people that are like I'm broken, I'm a victim, and that's their mask, they show the outside world. Then they have a sense of who they are, this is who I am but then this a true authentic self. And I think part of the journey is of life is finding that true, authentic self. Because then you don't have this illusion of who you think you are, you know who you are. And when you've got that incompetence, this is what you show the outside world and that's the sense I get a view is that what I see here today on this interview, is what you'd be who you'd be if you're hanging out with friends, or John and Mary.
Conrad Zurini 14:42
Oh exactly. And I had a very transparent experience like back in the day we used to present offers we didn't have DocuSign so we would have kitchen table like this, which was amazing. And you drive back to their house at 11:30pm and get it signed and I kind of missed that that whole, you know, part of it, but again, I always tried to, I never tried to demonize the other side but I always tried to say, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is what they're doing. This is my, this is my thoughts, this is why they've come back with the sign back. You know, I always said their five year olds playing soccer, maybe it's about the number, but maybe we can deal with the, the closing date, or some of the other other conditions or terms." And that's what I always said, I always played this, you know, armed, like, I always made them included them into this whole transaction.
Umar Hameed 15:25
Nice.
Conrad Zurini 15:25
Where a lot of realtors were like, "Oh, I gotta keep it to myself, I'm not gonna do this."
Umar Hameed 15:28
"I'm the expert," yeah.
Conrad Zurini 15:28
But I think I've always believed in transparency. And look, we're in the age of the self-educated consumer and they often no more than we know. And I think it's all about, you know, feeding into that, look, they're gonna have six weeks, eight weeks, they're going to be right into the real estate transaction. We're into it. 24/7, why not include them be a part of it's a huge investment. And I think I've always believed in that and, and yeah, it's very interesting. How do you get that true, authentic self? How do you attract people that law of attraction, I, you know, talked about passion pages with people
Umar Hameed 16:02
Absolutely.
Conrad Zurini 16:02
They try them for a little while. They all tell me, "Conrad it really, really worked," and then like, 6-7-8 months later, it died.
Umar Hameed 16:08
It died, yeah.
Conrad Zurini 16:09
But I think that's really what it's all about. Because if you look at any of my social media, it's me, doing Soundbite, Soundbite, Soundbite says, I love sharing, I love opening it up, it's funny. I have so many of my competitors that watch my sound bites. And I see so many of my competitors using the things I said, in my Soundbite so but, but that's what it's all about, right? It's all about the...
Umar Hameed 16:30
Absolutely.
Conrad Zurini 16:31
...making a better industry and making better, better, better self and the whole experience.
Umar Hameed 16:34
I think so. And it's part of that, how do you connect with people in a way that's authentic? Because when you do that this is where you get trust. And when you were talking about one of the things I was thinking about is, data is available everywhere. But data is bullshit. What's genius is analysis. And I think that's where the consumer can look at the data. But it's the realtor, if this trust there, they can put it into context. This is what it means and that level of trust that they have with their prospect makes that data more believable and more useful. I think that's why people hire real estate agents, if they really think about it is. Because the transaction "quote unquote," isn't that difficult but there's lots of areas to make mistakes. And if you've got someone that knows what they're doing, and they can interpret what's going on, what are the other people thinking, "This is what we should do." That's the magic of real estate.
Conrad Zurini 17:22
Oh, I agree. I think you're right about the data. And I always say if you can tell people something, two things they did not know, you build that incredible trust bridge and I think that's really critical. But a lot of agents are lazy. And I think one of my pet peeves is average price. So in Canada, we have a thing called the benchmark price, which our Canadian Real Estate Association created. So it takes the high highs out and the low lows interest, it seasonally adjust. And also what it does is it looks at you know, two bedrooms versus four bedroom, five bedroom, three bedroom and all that kind of stuff. And it puts it all together. And it's called the benchmark price, or we have the home price index home price index shows you trends. And the benchmark price puts it in terms of dollars and cents. So people can kind of understand, you know, it's almost like average price. So there's areas in Canada, where they don't talk about average pricing, where like Calgary, for instance.
Umar Hameed 18:07
Right.
Conrad Zurini 18:08
They don't even deal with average price, because average price is very deceiving.
Umar Hameed 18:10
It's yesterday.
Conrad Zurini 18:11
Yeah, and...
Umar Hameed 18:11
And the price is like.
Conrad Zurini 18:12
Exactly. And the other problem is, so you either have a bunch of low, low, low, low priced inventory pulling it down, or some high price inventory, pulling it up. So this benchmark is, is the, well, excuse the pun, it's the benchmark...
Umar Hameed 18:25
Yeah.
Conrad Zurini 18:25
...for pricing. And it really gives a good indication where the market is. And it's interesting because if you look at average price versus benchmark price you can make, you could really misguide people on it. And that's what one of my big pet peeves I just sort of blog about it is the media, using average price and applying the new interest rates to the average price and all that kind of stuff. And really the average price, they're starting with the wrong number to begin with. And it's really causing consumers a lot of confusion. I think it's beholden upon us in the industry, to kind of educate and give that other perspective. So take the data, but take good data, proper data, do the proper analysis and do a deeper dive because a lot of the data is widespread Canada or you know, statewide or provincial wide. I think you gotta go really deep into the neighborhoods and really analyze where there's some opportunities and things like that, like a little deeper dive. And that's what that's what realtors are all about that whole local, that whole local knowledge broker like brokering local knowledge, right?
Umar Hameed 19:23
Brilliant. So I came into this office, this is in Burlington, on Brant Street. And it has a really nice look and feel of the office. Like we're sitting at this table right here. It's really nice. This could be in any boardroom. So there's a brand that you're creating. This is the only part of the brand that I've seen,
Conrad Zurini 19:42
Yes.
Umar Hameed 19:42
is you waiting outside for me greeting me which is very nice and two just kind of the look and feel of the place. So talk to me about your offset different looks and feels or is there a certain level of quality like what are you going for? What kind of experience are you trying to create before you answer that? One of the things that really fascinates me is when you see architecture, ithere's architecture that's nice, there's architecture that makes you feel something, which is magic. So what are you trying to get people to feel? And does it change office to office?
Conrad Zurini 20:10
Yeah, it's interesting. Well, so some of we're big investors in our offices, so we've had older offices in the fleet. And, and one of the issues when you have 14 offices, and they're all open, so we have finger readers, so every office has, if we don't have fobs, we've for 10 years, we've had a finger reader. So we always say you can't...
Umar Hameed 20:27
You wants your voice to give to give you the finger.
Conrad Zurini 20:28
Yeah, exactly. That's our line. You want someone give us the finger and we're okay with it. So basically, yeah, they, you know, they could just zoom in, zoom out to office so we wanted to have that accessibility. So we had some older offices that we had to upgrade. And but we, we always took something of what was in the old office, and
Umar Hameed 20:44
This one has a bank [garbled].
Conrad Zurini 20:45
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so we tried to always do something with the old office, but the original office, so there was some 70s offices with wood on the ceiling back in the 70s. So we recreated that, and again, in something more, more of a modern feel to it. But the cornerstone of all our offices was education, because our culture is a culture of curriculum. So curriculum is no people just think curriculum is studies. Well, it's, it's the whole lifestyle of the student, it's, it's the buildings, it's your right, it's the architecture is how people feel. It's events that you do for the students. So we tried to create that in a, in an office environment. So big cornerstone of most of our offices, if we would have gone to any of our large offices is we have these meeting rooms that are have flexible walls that open up and they are training centers. So we have training centers, probably in about, I would say eight of the 14 offices, because that's the thing. We were all about meeting, masterminding, collaborating. We would do meetings, like our annual meetings, we do seven, we do seven meetings 11 days, we did a traveling, road tour of of office.
Umar Hameed 21:53
Modern idea, you just go going around.
Conrad Zurini 21:54
Yeah, just go, exactly. And we would do that we do market updates. Now, now, you know, after COVID, virtually we've gone that virtual. So now we've gotten even hybrid now. So we have, we created a large we have 120 seat training center that's almost like a television studio so we can have a studio audience. We have robotic cameras in the ceiling, so that the people at home on Zoom land can can see the audience.
Umar Hameed 22:15
Nice.
Conrad Zurini 22:16
And we have speakers in the room so when the Zoom land person asked a question, it's in the room, so they feel like they're in the room. And it's very, you know, it's very three dimensional. And...
Umar Hameed 22:24
Brilliant.
Conrad Zurini 22:24
...we have guests coming and going. So we made it like, like you would be on let's say, on a talk show. So we created that whole experience, and then people at home, and then there's that studio audience because we found you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Because people still maybe want to watch you know, want to absorb information at home, in their in their pajamas, so to speak, right? So really the court, if you went to any of our offices, that would be one of the front center, it's usually read the front, it's a training room. So again, we're all about education, evolving, processing of information. So that's the first thing that you would see. And we have a lot of people in the offices now we offices, some of our offices are 12 and 13,000 square feet, believe it or not, like people want individual offices there, they're bringing their assistants there, and things like that using the facilities for that they're meeting their their teams there. So there's always something going on in one of those, there's always an event going on somewhere.
Umar Hameed 23:14
Brilliant. So here's my description of best way to describe a company and its culture. If you had a white sheet of paper, just like you did an elementary school science class, and you put a magnet underneath it, and you sprinkled iron filings on the paper, they would move to the lines of flux. So the paper is the company. There iron pilings are the behaviors and the attitudes of the staff. And the magnet underneath is the culture or the beliefs of the company. So when you have 1000 agents, different personalities, how do you maintain culture like this? Probably a vibe, you want a connection you want, caring, doing better, how do you measure culture? First, what is your culture? How do you measure it? And how do you course correct when people are not quite getting it?
Conrad Zurini 24:06
Yeah. So again, our culture is a culture of curriculum. So it's looking at the the agent in their whole life, from the social life to education to actually you know, the simple thing of processing transactions and all that kind of stuff, and tools and technology. So that's really what we're all about. So we've done something a little different. So we don't have a manager in every office. So what we've done is we created a group of specialists. So we have, we have, you know, the old days used to call their marketing department, now it's an agency. So we have graphic designers, we have people that specialize in, in online advertising. There were some of our people, our Google premier partners, they're building landing pages. We're teaching our agents how to create their own online lead generation ecosystem. And also we have we also inside salespeople that are nurturing leads off of our websites and then we distribute them back to the team. So, at the end of the day, all the entire staff from the front desk is all about how do we service our agents completely. We were the first people we actually have, we actually have a appointment center with human beings. Now a lot of the appointments are done online, but there's always something that goes wrong. An agent doesn't have the lockbox or whatever the codes not working or something, there's always something goes wrong or or seller like wants to call and not email and what have you. So we have human beings actually answering and we found, that's a huge thing for us. And we also look at the date of appointments by price category and everything like that. So part of our thing is we can't measure it, we don't often do it. Okay. And we want to give data back to the sellers like this is what's happening. So our number one, let's say our number one sale price in their areas, like two to 3 million, they're priced at two and a half million, they haven't had any showings. Well, then we say, hey, you know, Houston, we got a problem here. So we got to make an adjustment. And we can show them that that data point, they understand that completely. So we're all about numbers, we can't measure it, we don't do it. My mom who's been worked with, we're partners, and we work together, my mom is there in her office from 10am to probably 8pm. Okay, and the entire staff knows that she's legendary. Her office is kind of in the middle of the whole organization. So a lot of people are there sometimes late at night. And people see the way we work, like my sister. So I have my both my sisters are among business. And as we grew, we pulled them and they weren't always there.
Umar Hameed 26:26
Nice.
Conrad Zurini 26:27
But as we grew, there was opportunities for them to join us. But I wasn't gonna hire them if they didn't bring a specialty to the organization. So my sister Joey brings an IT specialty. My sister Mary brought she went to work for property management company. So she brings the property management side of it. So that kind of thing we have, we have a company coach, business coach, we have a videographer on staff. It's not about video of homes, but it's about personal videos, and I distribute video and how to edit video. So we he's got his own team, we have a full on agency that does like I said all that on the...
Umar Hameed 26:56
Marketing.
Conrad Zurini 26:57
...marketing, we have an uptrend. So we're in what's the first of its kind in Canada, which is the REMAX collection, which is an upper end. And again, there's thresholds and the people that are in this office. So it's again, it's more boutique, like in the style of London, you know, the London high office, so...
Umar Hameed 27:15
Right.
Conrad Zurini 27:14
...the locations, right those locations. So we did in that tradition, and it's a downtown here, and the same thing we did in Niagara on the Lake as well. So again, we have a specialist that did high end, and she's bringing all that so she now helps the entire team do go into that high end territory. So and what's interesting is because it's a confidence builder, because I think people need confidence center that realm, and we create a whole bunch of tools to back them up. And we just teach them how to present them and use them and measure them to help their consumers make better decisions. So really, that's what it's all the way through. So all the way through from the person that just answered the phone to our, to our customer service and our appointment center and our ISAs, it's all kind of follows through in terms of, how can we help consumers first because they're paying the bill. And a lot of our tech, a lot of our websites are very consumer focused, we have a neighborhood site so people can analyze by neighborhood, we have an upper end site, luxury sites. So actually, we're going to be launching an iBuyer. So we...
Umar Hameed 27:17
So what's that mean in English?
Conrad Zurini 27:19
English, the instant buyer. So you know instant buyer remember Zillow got involved in instant buyer and they kind of bought all those homes, but we're actually ours is called realibuyer.com. So it's the real estate agent is front and center through the whole transaction and helps guide people along under a different platform, rather than the MLS, it's going to be a smaller closed platform. We're looking at there's there's I find there's d plus and c minus listings that are not making on the market because consumers are saying, "I don't want that vulnerability of you know, maybe I'm a little bit of a clutter, you know, bug or whatever it is," but we want to be able to have those, those homes come to the market. And now that we're into this market where it's shifting a little, we I think people want to say, "I want my home sold," okay, and maybe in a small way we test the market in a smaller, smaller format with with realibuyer with with agents involved. And and then you know, then with cash in hand go to buy. So it's it's time, the time is ripe for it to happen in Canada, and we're gonna be launching that probably Septembe-October.
Umar Hameed 29:13
Brilliant. Two more questions for you.
Conrad Zurini 29:16
Sure.
Umar Hameed 29:16
Maybe, three. So you run this company, there's probably areas that you need improving. And right now there's probably more polishing left and not much cutting left to do. So we're just an area that you're focusing on you to be a better leader?
Conrad Zurini 29:31
Well, I, you know, when we started this conversation, you said, Well, this is a great format, you can think about it. I'm taking my Mulligan or whatever. I don't know what it is, or my lifeline, maybe I call somebody you know, I think you know, it's funny, it's, um, we don't brag enough. Like these are great opportunities...
Umar Hameed 29:52
Yeah.
Conrad Zurini 29:52
...that I can showcase what we do and I do international speaking like with mentioned before we started like, it's great. These are the opportunities that we have to, to do that, and I think, speaking, speaking about what we do in our systems, and everything has made it even that much better. So that's what I found, I thought I found, you know what, I have to talk about it because, you know, the whole visualization thing. So I found I, if I talk about it, and people start to use it and adopted, there's some validation, because the, the problem is, it's how do I get my team to adopt adoption is the biggest key thing. So we had to create something where they would have a reason to adopt it. So a lot of these tools like realized by our uses real intro, we also have a site called duty, dutyagent.com, which is a virtual duty agent on duty. And again, it serves up real interest. So we had to create these things to get engagement, but I think part of it is, and what everybody says is, it's a fire hose, they come and join our company. It's a firehose of tools, and things, and they just get overwhelmed. And I think it stop, take a breath. I think that's what I have to do a lot more of take a breath, find opportunities, build engagement, because that's what keeps me up at night. How can I engage, you know, my agents to use utilize the tools? How can I convince them that these tools are, you know, really, the way real estate is going? Our dutyagent.com is very simple, people can search on it, okay, one of the options is they can search on it. And they can say, "You know what, I want to see this, I'm available, see this house today, between three and six o'clock who can show me," so our Realintro profile, so all of our people in Realintro will get notified of a certain area that you know, I know, some neighborhood, let's say downtown Burlington, they'll get notified that you free between this time and this time, and then it'll cap it at five. And then the consumer will be able to go through those residential profiles and decide and pick the ideal, which one, so and again, we've made it so easy, that they can flip a video on that neighborhood, or they can do some stats on that neighbors. So when they send their, their profile, the consumer can say, "Wait, this person really is on the ball." So this is where we're going and give that better experience and, and help people be attentive to the the needs of their consumers. So that's what keeps me up, take a breath, slow it down, that's that's really the key thing, because we're constantly coming up with new tools, and things like that. And we're not taking the breath and educating and showing people how to use them, use them properly. But it's one of those is that the stick or the carrot like sometimes you say if you do this, you're going to do business, right? And we have agents that practice everything we do and we point to them all the time. But a lot of people say, "Well, it's a lot of work, I'll stay with what I'm doing." But if you really want to know that's where we have to improve, and it's it's bragging more and bragging properly, I don't think we boast enough about what we're doing. I don't think we do that enough internally, because some people don't even know we had that tool, and to the outside world.
Umar Hameed 32:49
Brilliant. And I think intent is such an important aspect of life. Like your intent is to empower your agents.
Conrad Zurini 32:56
Yes.
Umar Hameed 32:57
"I want you to shine, this is a way for you to do that." And sometimes people take it as in, "Oh, God, not another frickin' tool. And what are they trying to do to me," and I think it's communicating that intent is like so critical. So two last questions, this one, I'm going to get you to look at the camera. And so here is the question, Conrad. What makes you happy?
Conrad Zurini 33:18
Oh, boy. Well, I think when we look at some of the numbers, and it's the adoption rate, and when when we get those success stories...
Umar Hameed 33:26
Let me pause right there.
Conrad Zurini 33:27
Okay, sure.
Umar Hameed 33:28
So this is Conrad, that human being.
Conrad Zurini 33:30
Oh, Conrad the human being!
Umar Hameed 33:30
The person in front of me like, what in this world, what makes you happy?
Conrad Zurini 33:36
Where am I the most happiest?
Umar Hameed 33:40
So I started this...
Conrad Zurini 33:42
[Garbled] time.
Umar Hameed 33:44
So I sold my house in May, May last year. And the thought was, have I made an impact in the world? And the answer was not enough. If I stay in this house with my comfortable clients, and my comfortable friends, nothing is going to change till I die. So I sold the house, got rid of all the possessions and went on a quest. And when I was in Greece for five weeks, as I was leaving, it occurred to me what I could do to make the world a better place. And so the Uber driver driving me there, I asked him this question, Antonio, what makes you happy? And he said, I work 12 hours driving an Uber. And in the evenings I go home and I take my eight year old son and my wife, and we walked by the Mediterranean. And that makes me happy. So I've been asking people around the world because it's never when I get the test that you got three so it doesn't count. Or I get the job or I get the girl or I get the whatever. It's no one has ever said that so far. It's always something attainable, simple, elegant, worthwhile. And the idea is somebody watching your happiness testimonial will go, "You know what? I could do that."
Conrad Zurini 34:58
Yeah, well, look, it's very interesting because you're going down that path about, you know, what makes you happy. You're, you're, you're on, your own path. And, and I would always when I sit up in front of an audience, especially brokers, I say, "Are you making a difference?" That's the question like, look, we there's so many other industries, so many other businesses to be in real estate can be very lonely, there's a combination of things, stressful. But at the end of the day, can you make a difference? Can you make a difference in your family's life? Can you make a difference in your community's life? And can you make a difference in your agent's life, and that's really where it were, and then your clients life if you're if you're a practicing realtor, you know, it's funny, and I go with my mom, because my mom's been in the business 50 years, and my mom's whenever she's not feeling very happy, she's got a special little file. That is these kind of agent testimonials or cards that, you know, they said, "You know, I tried something, and it worked." "And thank you for that few minutes, you know, just put me on, you know, put me on track. And thanks for understanding what I was going through." And I think, to me, and I have to borrow a page from her because I get the same thing. I know, on a weekend, when I'll get a text from somebody saying, "You know what, I saw that video you did. And I use that video, the dialogue in a very uncomfortable situation and it and it worked. And it felt right and it was natural and the client appreciate it." So to me, what makes me the most happy, again, I get to travel, I get to speak when people tell me that they text me or private message me and say, "You know, I did something that you talked about, or you brought something out in me that I never thought to me," that's probably, that's my happy place.
Umar Hameed 36:43
Wow. Yeah. Brilliant.
Conrad Zurini 36:44
That's my happy place.
Umar Hameed 36:45
Me too. That's the while in the work. When you get feedbacks, and you change my life, or this really helps, it's like huge. last question.
Umar Hameed 36:52
Is there...
Conrad Zurini 36:52
I love the Mediterranean thing.
Umar Hameed 36:55
If you gonna do it, do it there.
Conrad Zurini 36:58
Yeah. Read those texts while you're walking the Mediterranean, and now you've got it.
Umar Hameed 37:02
So what is a mind hack you'd like to share with folks, something that makes you more productive, happier, smarter, sexier, sleep better? What's a little simple trick you'd like to share with the world that they could use to just improve the quality of their life?
Conrad Zurini 37:18
What you know, it's a simple trick but it's, it's simple, but yet complex. I'm a voracious reader. And I, when I'm reading things, I'm looking at a filter of how I can apply it to my life. And I that's nothing new. But I don't think people do enough of it, or or listen to podcasts, I think it's really critical, I think, depends how you absorb information. But it to me, reading, applying, you know, when this whole pandemic came, I had to really, this whole virtual instruction, virtual life, like I just absorbed it and tried to find out the human behavior behind it and how to how to do it better. I think that's really what my personal thing is. Just stop, figure out where your the gaps are in your life and your business, and do some research. And there's an like, I always find to, I have a huge library. Sometimes I go to books that are 10 years old. And I find and I pull it out, and I just say wait a minute, like this is a time to revisit this and and reread, I think we don't do enough of that. Find that time to do it. I'm so blessed because I get to travel overseas. And I read probably by the time I'm done my trip to three books. Find and look and the other thing too, and I'll tell you, Seth Godin said it. I watched it on a video, probably about a 20 year old video, what changed his life was writing and writing a blog. It changed his life. And I started writing a blog, and it changed my life. And I thought, "Do I have a book in me?" "Possibly" right? I couldn't have a book in me. But I felt when I was able to articulate and pull my life in my life experience with what was going on today. It was liberating to me, just sit down. Let's start with analyzing stories and articles and give it your own two cents, and then start to develop your own voice. To me it was liberating and it made me a better human, a better leader. And yeah, and a better broker owner as well and industry person I think it did. It just did it forced me to research and do what I enjoyed. I enjoyed my university life very much. And I brought it back and the research and digging and finding those little nuggets that people really enjoy. I think that's that's critical and takes a little effort but it's it's soothing to me, I don't golf, I cook [laugh]. So, you know, when you're cooking, you're it's by yourself and you're kind of analyzing things it's and I read really I think it's that to me is been my best, the best tip that I can give you and start writing things. My biggest regret in my life as I never wrote a journal. And when I was selling when I was deep in the trenches, the stories and the the life experiences of the time and the people who came, like all lost, they come back, but I'll tell you if you can, if you can...
Umar Hameed 40:15
Capture it?
Conrad Zurini 40:15
Capture it, the that's the best.
Umar Hameed 40:19
Conrad, thank you so much for sitting down with me. And probably the biggest thing I took away was that last piece of advice, it's putting that filter on. When you're reading something, if it's like, "I'm gonna read this," that's fine. O, "Hopefully this teaches me something," it's fine. But if you go, "What can I apply?" It just focuses the mind and that stuff's just gonna pop up. If you didn't have that filter, it would not. Conrad, thank you so much for being on the show. And I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
Conrad Zurini 40:45
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was awesome that you could be in Canada. And this is a great platform. And I enjoyed I watched some of your podcasts do research on this. But you know, you kind of you change questions around a little bit so I couldn't do that much research. So I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much for this opportunity. It's been it's been amazing. So you're very talented, quite talented. Thank you.
Umar Hameed 41:11
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.