Hi I’m Mitch, an energetic and passionate real estate marketing, sales, and investment expert who’s been featured and quoted by top media outlets across Canada and the US such as Canada Am, CTV Television, Sirius XM, Huffington Post and I currently sit on the Forbes Business Development Council.
With a degree in business and a specialization in Finance, I entered the real estate industry in 2006 as an investor purchasing student rental properties near universities and colleges in Ottawa. Those purchases ultimately led me to obtain a real estate license for both my own transactions and to help teach others how to build wealth through real estate.
After a decade selling on the client side, I transitioned to working with developers in 2017, assisting in the sales and marketing of large scale residential developments. From successfully selling out a unique seniors housing development marketed as a passive, fully managed investment to getting stalled developments back on track to hit critical sales milestones, I’ve quickly made a large impact in the industry utilizing and expanding my wide range of skills.
[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 0:41
Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode of The No Limits Selling podcast where we talk to industry leaders that and figure out how they do what they do, how they grow their people, and how they grow their organizations, and how they grow their revenue. And today, I have Mitch Parker, Mitch Parker, welcome to the program and tell us what you do.
Mitch Parker 0:58
All right. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's an honor to be here today. So my name is Mitch Parker. And I've been involved in the real estate industry for 17 years now, I originally started as an investor, I got a real estate license to buy my own properties and started teaching other people how to build wealth through real estate.
Umar Hameed 1:18
You watch Scarface, don't get high on your own supply. So you became an agent, please go on.
Mitch Parker 1:23
Became an agent for access to the MLS and just organically started showing people how to build wealth through real estate. I worked on the client side for a long time, right. And then I switched over I was in house with a developer running all their marketing and sales for a long time, I worked for an external marketing company doing marketing and sales for a lot of the top developers in the GTA. And my recent transition is back over to the client side. But helping teams expand, train and ultimately increase the volume and their productivity.
Umar Hameed 1:53
Brilliant. And just for you, dear viewers and listeners, GTA is Greater Toronto Area. Oh, yeah. And Toronto is like a mega city. It's how many what's the population these days?
Mitch Parker 2:02
So the the actual core is over 2 million now. And the greater is, I believe it's up to three and a half now kind of thing where I think the number is, but you know, it's it's really come into its own. In the last I would say five years, you know, people when you when you were traveling to a different country, if you said you're from Toronto, people wouldn't really know where you are talking about, right? They'd be like, Oh, is that in Canada? And they would barely know, now. It's like, you know, Toronto, right? They either know, the real estate or they know Drake.
Umar Hameed 2:31
What's kind of interesting is I used to live here about 18 - 20 years ago, no Holy crap. 91, 30 years ago, I used to live in Toronto. And back then, when there was something like a big Star Wars movie, or Phantom of the Opera, it only opened in three places in North America, New York, LA and Toronto. So even then it was a mega city in terms of how important it was for audiences. So Mitch, leading teams is challenging, but leading Realtors is extra challenging. So what's that like? And how do you kind of what's the best way of describing your role in getting realtors to perform at a higher level?
Mitch Parker 3:10
So it's a great question. And, you know, I think every agent or every person that comes to the team, or the who I'm working with, right, they all have different goals and objectives, right? Some are fueled by money, some want recognition, others are looking for a number of other reasons. And so finding out what really motivates people and their ultimate purpose and why is super important, because then that can almost light the fire under them. Absolutely. And they need a lot less external accountability, once they discover what really drives them forward.
Umar Hameed 3:45
So let me kind of dig into that a little bit. So if I went out in another office in this building, and I went to someone, what's the most important thing when you get a job? Number one, answer money compensation. But I say, okay, that's important. How important is your boss? Well, that's really important, that's actually more important than the money, and how important are your co workers, and how important is learning and all of a sudden money comes down to number eight. So when you first ask realtors, what's important to you? Some of them are going to say money, and some of them gonna say recognition. How do you dig down a little bit deeper to validate that's exactly what they want, as opposed to the illusion they have of what they want? Like, do you have a story where you were working with an agent, and you help them discover No, this is what you think it is. But what really drives you is this, women or whatever. you know?
Mitch Parker 4:29
Sure. So you know, one conversation that I have with people sometimes is, what's your goal? What's your revenue goal for the year? And everybody's automatic? default answer is a million people, right? A million dollars. I should say everyone's automatic answers a million dollars per year. And it's like, Well, why do you want to make a million dollars?
Umar Hameed 4:49
So is it a million or is it $1 million $1 trillion? So we were doing it for the listeners we were doing the Austin Powers Dr. Evil thing with the pinky. So yeah, so they see a million so million dollar response.
Mitch Parker 5:00
So my first question is, so that's great. If you made $500,000, would you be happy? And most of the time, they say, Yeah. And it's like, okay, what your number is not a million? It's 500,000. If you made 250,000, would you be happy? Yeah. Okay, so number is not 500,000, it's 250. And you kind of keep scaling downwards until you hit their number. And that is what I would say, is the base of how you figure out what really is going to motivate somebody. And then I think it's just a matter of you, you deal with enough people and you have enough conversations, and you're transparent with enough people to the point where you start to understand people, when even if they come to you, and they say, I'm really motivated by money. After you know, 15 minutes of talking by asking the right questions, you can find out pretty quickly, is it really money? That's the motive. And listen, if money is the motive, I literally praise the Lord, I think that's, that's fine. If you're self aware, to know that money, listen. Realtors work exceptionally hard, the good ones work insanely hard. And they are often driven by money and by recognition are the two biggest factors. And so I think if you understand that, and you run with it, and you embrace that, that's great.
Umar Hameed 6:13
And sometimes when you keep on doing the money thing, you know, with $100,000, via How much do you earn now? I earn $40,000. Now, before you find that out, what do you want to earn a million dollars, and sometimes you come down, and they're going to be happy with 50. And it's like, okay, then money actually isn't a motivator at all. Because you might as well stay where you're out why go through real estate is a painful business. So here's the paradox. The reality is real estate is a super easy business, except for doing the behaviors you need to do to be profitable. And so that's all mindset. So tell me where mindset comes in. And maybe give me an agent story I was working with this agent changed their name to protect the innocent, where it was their mindset, getting in the way, making them doubt themselves, or stay away from prospecting.
Mitch Parker 6:57
So one thing that I've dealt with before, so there's a few points that I make on that. So one is I totally agree real estate's not a complicated business, where it becomes difficult and where most people struggle is consistency. Yes. So you know, we sell pre construction, it's very heavily reliant on our current existing database, right, and online leads, and the agents get onto the phone, and they have conversations with people, and you're ultimately converting people to him interested in this development to I'm buying the site, right. And there's no difficult part in that process. It's just consistently making calls, following up texting people doing that. So everybody can do that for a day, two days, three days. And then I see over time, it legs that that cliff, right, you hit the cliff. So it's ensuring that agents stay engaged, ensuring that they're focused on the long term goals of what they really want to accomplish. And it's ensuring that they push through the boring part of it, because every career no matter what you do, at some point gets boring. And so if you can push through that boring component, yes, into the point where it just becomes an automatic habit, then you're winning, because then you don't even think about making the calls. It just becomes automatic. And what happened.
Umar Hameed 8:18
Kind of adding into that thought, every single human being on planet Earth has a purpose in life. And the only problem is, most people don't know what that purpose is. And when you uncover that purpose, and on the path to that purpose, if prospecting is part of it, then it just becomes something you do wholeheartedly because it's allowing you to fulfill who you are as a human being. And I think, ultimately, as leaders, as agents, as building owners, figuring out the fundamental stuff of being human, what's your purpose? What are your values, where the biggest fears are, where the biggest opportunities for you to grow and shine are, is your duty as a human being, because when you do that, it allows you to freaking shine, and that light inspires other people to go on the journey as well.
Mitch Parker 8:59
And I think the other interesting thing is, people tend to place so much pressure on themselves, to find their purpose, and that if they search long enough, it's going to all of a sudden appear from the sky one day. Whereas I think the reality is, you're sort of on this journey where the purpose is changing as you grow. Because every time every day that passes, you gain more information about life. And so your perspective changes. And so I think the focus needs to be less on the end, and more on what can I be doing now, to move me along to where I think I ultimately want to go. Cool, but if you get there, and it's not where you want to go, that's okay. You just have to adjust and spend some time thinking about where you think the next step is.
Umar Hameed 9:47
Brilliant. So when you have a team, you have high performance in a team, and you got people that are doing a decent job, and then low performance, how do you balance your time between the three groups?
Mitch Parker 9:58
It's a great question and it's One thing that we're always tweaking, I think a lot of it comes down to systems, it comes down to communication. And then it comes down to being adaptable, to be able to easily shift from your learning the one on ones, versus another group is doing advanced objection handlers. And so what we've done with the team, specifically here on my condo resource, is we've broken down the training really into four different parts. So every agent is always in one of those four quadrants, right? And so it becomes very easy to know, what is the material are going to be covered? How do you move somebody from quadrant one to quadrant two, what's required, and then everybody is on a different journey, and ensuring that they're all progressing forward is so is so important. So having that system, I believe, is key.
Umar Hameed 10:48
So let's say, I'm not sure what the number is, I'll let you clarify the seed, the number is 30. Transactions, agents can get in a sometimes luckily, right out of the gate, but sometimes, you know, it might take two, three years to get to the 30 transaction. And then they stay stuck there for a while and they do the jump up to like the 50 or the 60. What insight do agents need to have to make that jump faster, because by 30 transactions a year, they know what they're doing, they're doing the behaviors, what gets in the way of them making the next jump up to the next level, do you think
Mitch Parker 11:20
So, so pre-construction and resale, I think are very...
Umar Hameed 11:25
Two different animals.
Mitch Parker 11:26
...in terms of expectations, resale is a bit more of a challenge to do larger volume,
Umar Hameed 11:32
Right.
Mitch Parker 11:32
because you physically run out of time, you have to drive clients around, you have to do open houses, your client, who you put four offers with in the east end of the city, all of a sudden decides that maybe the West End is better. And so you're restarting the process. So it's very time heavy. Whereas in pre construction, when we have a launch, you can sit at a table for a weekend with all these leads funneling in, and really be very efficient with your time and sell, you know, 1012 units in a weekend, if not a really good job. And that's what some members of our team are doing, obviously, the more advanced agents, but the great thing is, when I'm working with our team, it doesn't take that long to get to that point. So nice. 30 transactions a year is actually well below our threshold expectation. We want every agent to be consistently writing between five and seven deals every month. Nice. Yeah. And then again, like because it's scalable. It's not like doing resale, where it really comes on manager.
Umar Hameed 12:30
And this is the first pre-construction conversation I've had in the 210 episode.
Mitch Parker 12:35
Nice.
Umar Hameed 12:35
So I'm learning to.
Mitch Parker 12:37
So I think the answer your question,
Umar Hameed 12:39
Yeah.
Mitch Parker 12:39
of how do you take the agent from the baseline of your expectations, because it doesn't matter what that number is. But it's the baseline of your expectations to that next level. So it comes down to ensuring that they're open minded, ensuring that they're coachable, and trainable. And then really sitting down with them one on one and figuring out where are they lacking, right? Because everybody's on a constant improving.
Umar Hameed 13:00
So give me two real world examples of two different agents. And like I said, always, the caveat is, "Don't say who it is."
Mitch Parker 13:07
Sure.
Umar Hameed 13:07
But say, the reason I want you to do that, then you're thinking of a specific human being and his specific circumstance to tell me about to those conversations where they were stuck, and how you help them get the epiphany to get unstuck and get to the next level.
Mitch Parker 13:20
Okay, so one would be a lot of people come. So this agent or use this agent came in, when they spoke to clients on the phone, it was very, they told them things, right, it wasn't asking them questions, right? They were doing most of the talk, right? And so I'm sitting down with them listening to their phone calls, and seeing that they're not converting. And when they finish three or four calls, I'm adjusting them each call little bit. But at the end of it, the summary is, if you're doing most of the talking on a call, you're going to lose.
Umar Hameed 13:56
Yeah, or the way I've always heard is whoever talks the most wins, and you win no sale. Right? Exactly. Yeah. When what you got so brilliant.
Mitch Parker 14:05
So that's one example. So what we were able to do is take their conversation from more of like a tell style, where they were, I said, what you're doing on the phone is great if you're standing in front of a room or at a seminar, because you're giving people like the overview, and then you're answering questions at the end, when you're actually speaking to a human, it has to be more of a natural, organic conversation.
Umar Hameed 14:29
That and also you're actually addressing what their focus is, right, as opposed to just telling them everything because 90% of what you told them is boring. Just those two things that they're interested in questioning gets you there. Yeah. And before you go to the next one, one of the things I've done in the past is getting someone that works on the phones to say okay, do me a favor, who's your best friend is like a John, call John up and invite him to the movies this weekend and record that call, right and then have them do a client call and then having listened to both and hear the tonality of their voice right If and just it's stark, and people go, Oh my God, here I sound natural and warm. And over here, my throat is tight. And you can hear the tension in it. And sometimes that's transformative when they can hear themselves in the two different arenas.
Mitch Parker 15:12
We have we have all of our agents actually record their pitches. Cool. Yeah. So they record their conversations, whether it's with a client, they record the audio, or when they're learning a sight to actually record what they're saying. So they can do that.
Umar Hameed 15:26
Have them call a friend to and you'll notice the difference in warmth. Yeah, it's there. And that oftentimes gets them to understand it quickly. So what's the second thing second agent that out?
Mitch Parker 15:36
So another? Another example that I would say is, and this is, I'll give the example based on it being one agent, but a number of agents struggle with it. Yeah, it's, it's transitioning from having the conversation with the person on the other end of the line, where you're in a position of control, or you're ultimately having a good conversation and forming them, but getting what you want out of it, right, which is ultimately, you know, in pre construction, a worksheet or an appointment at the sales center, or a sale. And so there seems to be a lot of struggle with agents who they're almost like afraid to ask. So it's a common one that I have, I have it with a lot of agents. And it's just how do you solve it, you basically normalize the process for them and explain to the clients on the other end of the line, that this is a normal part of the process. Whereas I teach all my people in the team, you know, more than 99% of the general public about real estate about the process. Most people are not studying the latest pre construction project, yes, on a daily day or day to day basis, right. And so when you're speaking to the clients, they're going to rely on you for the information. And it's very powerful, when you're answering their questions and asking them the right questions, to get to a point where you're saying, and I just want to let you know, how are you familiar with the pre construction process? No, here's what it is. It's a normal process. We go through it all the time with all of our clients, and just setting that expectation. How this is normal. Yeah, on the other end of the phone, that person's like, oh, okay, this is a normal process, send when you ask for a worksheet, when you ask for a bank draft, and you ask for an appointment at the sales center. It's just, this is what we do all the time so...
Umar Hameed 17:20
So that's like a leadership one on one and most leaders don't do it. And it's just setting expectations, whether you're leading a team or a sales conversation, it just lets people know, like, okay, I get this makes perfect sense, as opposed to give me this and say, Well, why do you need that? Yeah, and it just, same thing with leadership, when you guiding people say, I want you to do this, there's questions there. But if you frame it up with expectations, get to joyful collaboration and obedience.
Mitch Parker 17:46
And people also need to understand why they're doing what they're doing. Absolutely. So there's always a reason for the activities that happen. And so by simply taking two minutes to explain it to the person, I think goes a long way to get them to ultimately say yes.
Umar Hameed 18:01
Just going back to high school, you know, if teachers told kids why you need to learn this more effectively, did kind of go okay, because most kids are like, Why are we learning this? Right? And the parents are saying, I'm not sure where you're learning it either.
Mitch Parker 18:14
Yes, exactly. It's the lessons that come from it.
Umar Hameed 18:17
There's an expression that I love is like, adults don't raise kids, kids raise adults. So being a leader, leading your charges, how have you developed as a leader, because sometimes when you have to teach stuff and guide stuff, you kind of get your own distinctions and epiphanies, your whole? Yeah, that's why we do it. So where have you grown as a leader, just by doing what you do?
Mitch Parker 18:39
Every day. I mean, it's, so I, there's that transition point that a lot of realtors specifically reach in their career, which is you just run out of your time and what you can do on a personal level. And if you want to keep growing, you need to expand beyond yourself, right. And that's where I think a lot of agents struggle, because they go from great salesperson on an individual basis to now I need this totally different set of skills and leadership, and enable people to see my vision and buy into my vision, so that I can get them what they want. But at the same time, they can get me what I want, right? It's got to be that mutual relationship. Brilliant. And so how do how have in terms of my personal life, I mean, I was an agent for a long time, right? And then and I still am still an active broker. And then I started managing a team when I was on the development marketing side of it. And now with this team of resale agents, I'm learning every day, I think you have to be it's important to be open minded. It's important where and I tell my guys and my you know, the girls on my team all the time. If you guys see something and you think it can be done better. Tell me if there's a problem. I want you to openly be able to write me and discuss the problem and so the learning is never done. You're always improving. Um, how do you become a good leader? I think it's listening more than you speak. And then I think it's always thinking of the high level vision of the team. Because that's what takes the priority is you have to the team has to drive you net, like, at the same time and in sync in a direction that you all want to go in. And that becomes very easy to differentiate the people who are buying into it, right, and the people who are not, and the people who are not, they're just not the right fit. And it's nothing personal. And it's a very friendly, open conversation. But it's like, I just don't think you're going to work here. Big work out well here, because we're all going this way. And you seem to want to be going that way.
Umar Hameed 20:43
Right, makes sense. Brilliant. So a couple of things before we end this interview. Number one, I think happiness is a measure of a great life, great leadership, great relationships in a moment, if you could tell me what makes you happy. And if you can just look at the camera when you what makes you happy.
Mitch Parker 21:02
So I mean, everybody always jokes that I'm super happy guy to begin with anyway, so really what makes me happy, I love animals. So anything helping animals is very, very near and dear to my heart. The other thing is I like seeing other people succeed. So if I'm able to teach them a lesson or help them record a real estate video, we just shot a an agent's first development video, like this week that I just edited and put together and like just seeing the the look on his face. When he watched it. He was so happy he like showed his mom it was like the funniest thing ever. So like, I got a lot of personal reward from that I got a lot of happiness from that. So I'd say like helping others and the animals is a big part of my life as well.
Umar Hameed 21:39
Brilliant. Second question we're gonna ask looking at the camera is what's one mind hack, or a tool you use to be more productive, happier, more efficient? What would you share with our listeners and viewers, this little technique that lets you become awesomer?
Mitch Parker 21:55
Let you become awesomer, so one, do what makes you happy. You'll never ever come to end of life regretting if you always lead with what you believe will ultimately make you happy. And then another point and almost was only supposed to have one but I'll throw a second one in there as well. Provide as much value to other people when you're having conversations as possible. If you can't ask for something in advance. Before providing value. It's something that I explained to my team all the time. And when you do provide value, you separate yourself from the competition and people are way more likely to engage with you and ultimately give you what you want at the end of the day.
Umar Hameed 22:36
Brilliant, Mitch, thank you so much for coming on the program. I learned a lot and thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Mitch Parker 22:41
Thanks for having me. It was great to be here.
Umar Hameed 22:48
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.