Luxury Real Estate Broker in New York City with Over 20 Years experience, and Authority on Social and Video Marketing in the RE Space.
[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 Podcastt today. I have Randy brew here with me today. He's got a team. He's an agent, he knows how to be successful. Randy, welcome to the show.
Randy Baruh 0:51
Thank you so much for having me. This is great. I'm excited to join in
Umar Hameed 0:56
me too. And I like these kind of unscripted conversations. A lot of time people ask me, Can you send me the questions you're going to ask us I have no frickin idea because this this thing called Systems theory where when you and I come together, and depending where I happen to be where you happen to be, it's just a different connection and something organic and brilliant comes out of it. So tell me, Randy, what do you think is needed to be successful?
Randy Baruh 1:20
Well, number one, I think it's important to come up with a plan, figure out what you want, come up with a strategy to get there and put in the hours and the time necessary to to put yourself in the direction of where you want to go.
Umar Hameed 1:36
So let's pause there just for a second. So you're Randy, you're a real estate agent. And then you decide this cockamamie idea. I'm going to build a team. And when you went to build a team, you probably had a vision of what you wanted to create. That may have changed. But when you first decided to build a team, what was the vision of what you wanted to create? And let's kind of break that down and kind of learn leadership and success from your experience. So what did you want to build when you start
Randy Baruh 2:00
salutely? Absolutely. So I've been doing real estate for over 22 years here in New York City. For the first, I would say 14 years of my career, I did not have a team, it was just myself, pounding the pavement working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And when the when I first got my first team member, which was my assistant, it was just a way to delegate some some responsibility, right, so that I could focus on CEO tasks, instead of, you know, to maintain it exactly. So once I had my assistant in place, I was able to take on more opportunities take on more clients, buyers, sellers, renters investors, I had a lot more time to work on my business and build my business. And then as the business grew, I brought on a couple agents to help with, again, saving time allowing me to serve more clients, and spend more meaningful time building my business and really focusing on my customers, because the main thing for our team is we're really, really client focused. And we want to make sure that every single person that works with us is getting, you know, incredible customer service and time. So when I brought in my other two team members, it was really as a way of servicing my clients and, and helping more people, you know, realize their real estate goals. And so, you know, I have a vision of scaling my business and growing even further. And it's impossible to scale your business at any business, just doing it on your own. You're giving less time and less quality time to your clients. And you know, they're not satisfied. And so how do I, you know, give more time to my clients? How do I, you know, help more people find homes here in New York City, you know, I have to bring in more agents.
Umar Hameed 4:08
So let's take a look. So I'm looking at your team. So take Haley. So what was an unexpected surprise when you brought Haley on board in terms of hidden skill set hidden talent?
Randy Baruh 4:20
Haley, with Haley, she was recommended to me by a mutual friend, she had already been working in Corcoran, but she wanted to work under a seasoned agent. I've been doing real estate for a really long time. And she was coming from another corporate office. So she already had the corporate training under her belt, but she was is still, you know, not not old enough in the business that she's not willing to learn and take on new things. And so, you know, Haley was a newer agent. She's been a couple years in the business so she's still really hungry, ready to learn and ready to grow with the team.
Umar Hameed 4:59
Brilliant So you said you brought an assistant on board. And one of the things I hear consistently from people that are really successful in this business is that I wish I would have brought an assistant on sooner. And that's their advice to young up and comers. Soon as you can get that don't think of it as an expense. Think of it as freedom to, like you said SEO tasks are worth $1,000 An hour and licking stamps is worth $10 an hour. How dare you steal from your company, when you're doing $10 An hour tasks? You're stealing from the company? So would you
Randy Baruh 5:32
I agree, I think that I wish I brought her along and assistant earlier, I think it could have scaled my business much quicker. At the same time, I think that many agents, you know, are hesitant to invest in themselves. And I think investing in an assistant is the best investment that you can put into your business at first because just scheduling appointments, if I'm taking around a buyer to new properties, or a renter, or scheduling my own appointments to meet with different sellers or different agents, that requires a huge time commitment, okay, let's have setting up seven appointments, you know, one person is free at 12, the other person's three at 1230, you want the third person at one o'clock, but now they can only do 1130, you have another appointment 1130 staff to shift the first person later, right. And it's and it's just so time consuming. So bringing along someone who can offload some of these admin tasks, so that you could focus on you know, what you do best. And if that's working with sellers, working with buyers, you know, creating some amazing videos for your social media channels to create, you know, a strong digital presence, which is extremely important in this day, you know, we delegate a lot, I have an operations manager, who's also my executive assistant, I have two agents, I have a videographer, I have two different videographers, I have a social media manager, you know, and then there's other ancillary job positions that we work with, I have a marketing assistant, who then will hopefully become a marketing manager. So it's really you know, you need to put together a great team in order to service your clients and help you grow your business.
Umar Hameed 7:24
So what I'm gonna put you on the spot here, but I'll keep count, and I'll help you fill some of these spots in Yeah, sure. An agent that has been in the business for a while, five years, seven years, depending on who they happen to be. And they're deciding to build a team, what are the five pieces of advice you'd give them to make that transition from solo operator with, you know, some help to actually getting agents and building a team? So what's number
Randy Baruh 7:49
one is you want to have, first of all, get an assistant, and then work with that assistant to create systems, you can't bring on other agents and grow your team without systems already in place. You don't want to think of these systems while there's already other agents there no way to talk about systems systems, working with buyers working with sellers working with renters, investors, systems, how do we list a property, you need to have systems in place, you know, in order to bring people on, you know, so the first thing I would say, you know, you want to hire a great assistant, come up, find someone who's reliable, who want who's interested in operations. You want to be a great leader, you want to be a great listener, and communicator, you want, like I said, systems in place, so that everybody has a foundation, which to grow on,
Umar Hameed 8:42
hold that thought for a minute. So on the systems that you build, they have to be living and breathing documents. So as you move along, you find more efficient ways, or there's just something that is fundamentally wrong, but you didn't realize that the circumstances have changed. And so yeah, so living and breathing documents that just get better and better as you go. And the only other thing I'd add to it is, especially if you know you're in a brokerage, or even beyond, there are so many generous people in this industry that we're in that you can go and ask someone else, what's your system, and they will be more than happy to share it with you. So don't be shy. Two big
Randy Baruh 9:20
feelings. Yeah, one of the things that's really helped me when I started really growing, is I've got a coach, I got a business coach, a real estate business coach, and I work with Tom Ferry, who is you know, I think the best. Just kidding. He's amazing. He's fantastic. And you know, he helped me come up with a business plan. So you want to come up with a business plan. We also have a flowchart of every single job and each responsibility. I
Umar Hameed 9:50
love it. I hope so. Let me just give you a applause because ain't getting a process and I putting in a flowchart makes it easy for people to really understand how the whole thing works so brilliant.
Randy Baruh 10:02
Exactly, exactly. So, look, I've been doing this a long time, and we've had some stops, steps forward a few steps back a few steps forward again. And you know, there are some great agents who I've learned to model after. So you know, it's nobody wants to, or you shouldn't need to remake the wheel. You know, find a mentor, find someone who's doing what you want to be doing, and, and create a mastermind group with that person. I'm working. I'm building a mastermind group right now, with real estate agents all across the country, that we could share ideas. You know, I always try to come from a place of abundance instead of scarcity. When you look out your window, any window in New York City, you're looking at hundreds of other windows, you I would say like every four windows represents an apartment, every four to seven windows, there are a lot of apartments, Co Op condos, a lot of townhouses, there's a lot of property in New York City. So I've always looked at things from how, how can I help when people ask me, I don't feel certainly everybody wants a great listing. And if I'm walking into a listing pitch, and I see another, you know, Agent coming out, you know, I feel a bit of a sense of competition, because I think I'm the best agent for any listing and, you know, will, will do a great job, and every good professional feels that way. But at the end of the day, you know, there is a lot of business to be had, there's millions upon millions of people who are looking for places to live here in New York City, and, you know, come from a place of abundance and offer help, advice, Insight if you can, because I'll tell you, every single thing that you put out there comes back to fold, if you're looking, you know, looking at things from that perspective, I think,
Umar Hameed 11:51
absolutely, I think thing added to that is you know, if you're like I'm gonna help Randy out, because the universe will give something back to me, not kosher. It's like, Randy needs help, I want to give him help. And then sometimes Amazing things happen.
Randy Baruh 12:05
It's just putting goodness out there putting putting, you know, putting your personality out there. And it's like, you know, it's not necessarily a quid pro quo, I'm not doing something for one person in order to get something in return. If you're a good salesperson, whether it's selling homes or selling, you know, rings, whatever it is, you should be a people person. People, people are the best salespeople because we like people, we like helping people. It's it's in our DNA. And so you know, if you're in it for you know, that everybody needs to have their Why do you need to have their big why? And, you know, my big Why are my kids, I have pictures of my kids right in front of my desk, I look at them, and they're looking back at me and I'm feeling like, I better do a good job for them today. But, you know, everybody needs their own big why and, and come at come at it from a place of gratitude and abundance. And I think that, that then you're going to be your authentic self, people are going to know that you are having their best interests rather than your best interests. And the universe just kind of a will align in a weird way. I don't mean to get to, you know, new agey, but it's just that's the way I
Umar Hameed 13:24
get to let me get new agey and tree, huggy lately, I've been looking back at you know, not my best moments in my life. And I look back and you know what caused that is I wasn't coming from a place of love. And when I look back at each one of those, and I think that's always a good default position is in this transaction with Randy as I'm interviewing him, am I coming from a place of love? And if I was, then my goal is to make you look like a star, baby. Yeah, because you're a guest on my show. So my missus would do this. When we got married. She came to my house. Randy, my house is your house. Because a su casa and it was such a cop out. And my wife's like, No, this isn't Randy's house. Randy is a guest here and we need to make him feel special. Because what I was doing was you're gonna be or get it yourself is what I was really saying. And she's saying no, right? We get a silver thing. We get Randy up here we make sure he's okay. And I think that's the lesson I'm learning is very much how you approach things if you come from love, and it just changes the way you show up.
Randy Baruh 14:28
Your wife is a smart woman and I'll tell you the same. So we have a group we have a beautiful home up in the Catskills and we bring friends all the time. And it's very much like hey, you get what you want out of the fridge. My wife is like no, these are our guests, our neighbors all the time they're here at the house you get them a beer you help them out you know make them feel special or else they're not going to want to come back and and Willie you know honestly, I think that the world needs that needs more of that I think that the world needs more people to look at things from that perspective, to care for our fellow human beings to go that extra mile and make everybody feel special. I mean, it's just that energy, the world needs more of it.
Umar Hameed 15:10
So I happen to be in Toronto today. And about a month or so ago, Rogers cable, which is like Comcast in Canada, they had a major outage on their internet. So I'm at Costco, and I'm just getting a few essentials. And as I'm going up to the checkout counter, the lady behind me goes, Do you have enough cash to pay for that? Remember, like, all the credit card terminals are out, and I don't have enough cash for that. She looks at what I'm buying. reaches in a wallet gives me a $50 bill. Oh, my God. Here's my business card. Just pay it back when you get a chance. Wow, it's like you're so generous. And by the way, you'd be surprised to know that this young lady is a realtor.
Randy Baruh 15:50
Oh, wow. Well, there you go. trusted me
Umar Hameed 15:53
not knowing me. And so that's the generosity that's out there. Yeah. And just that one little tail helps a lot of people out go, Oh, my God, this like amazing out there. So Randy, tell me about somebody that helped you out. I know you've been in real estate, but in your life, somebody that might have come in just for a moment, just to lend a hand that was meaningful for you?
Randy Baruh 16:13
That's, that's an amazing question. And I am going to ask just like for a moment to think of it. I mean, there's, there's so many people, there's so many people that have offered help and assistance. I mean, everyone from you know, my, my wife, hurt her calves like jumping up and catching a Frisbee, ended up tearing her calf just week, dropping two feet off the ground. And our entire community was bringing food over every single night for dinners for me and the kids. And for my wife as well. You know, it's it's important to be part of a community that has each other's back. And that's one of the things I love about New York City. You know, there's so many occasions This is such a kind hearted city, I think we get a bad rap for being so, you know, brash and aggressive, which is absolutely true as well. But the other side of that is the warm heartedness of this of the city. You know, I remember during the blackout of 2012, or 2011, where similarly enough, the whole everything was out. I remember, there was a pioneer supermarket right down the street from my house. And people were just taking just personal, like they were just taking personal checks. And nobody takes personal checks anymore, right. But we're directing traffic helping one another. I mean, I wouldn't even be where I am today, if it weren't for the kindness of so many people from from aunts, uncles, family members, neighbors. You know, we have two kids, two little kids, one is age six, and one is age 10. And just, you know, when the chips are down, when someone's sick when someone needed something, we're all there for each other. And, and it's impossible to pick out one, one instance. You know, there's just so many instances. Absolutely,
Umar Hameed 18:12
yeah. Randy, before we part company today, two questions for you. One, what specific thing makes you happy, spreading joy.
Randy Baruh 18:22
And that's why I'm so proud, appreciative of this conversation. You know, I love making videos, and I love making fun entertaining videos. One thing that I think differentiates myself from, you know, others in this business, is that we do these incredibly creative, almost little short films. I love New York City, I feel like I'm an ambassador of New York City. And so during the pandemic, I started making films, highlighting businesses in the communities that I represent anything from pizza places, to live venues, to all sorts of things. And this morning, I was at the gym, and someone who follows me on Instagram, wrote like, did you hear blabbity blah, some horrible thing that happened in the news today? Maybe you should talk about that instead of pizza places. Literally, this was when I was working out there. Like, did you hear some terrible thing? I'm not gonna say what it is happened. Maybe you should address that rather than talking about pizza places. And I was like, Look, I my job is, you know, online is to make people smile, and to spread joy. And you know what, I don't get political. I don't get you know, I just want to make people smile and make people happy. And that permeates through my business through the relationships that I have in life. And it's just me as a person. And so that makes me happy when I can make other people happy. And I'll tell you, I could do some big deal. You know what, at the end of the day, if my client isn't happy, it doesn't matter. or how much I made it my commission? Because I feel like it's a loss. Yeah, I want to show you I want to help people achieve their goals, and I want people to be happy and to be satisfied and to help them be successful. And if I don't get that emotional, you know, feeling then then I don't feel it was a successful transaction, whether whether or not we sold it for whatever record that we may have broken. Yeah,
Umar Hameed 20:27
love that. What is one piece of advice, you'd give people a mind hack that would allow them to be more productive, happier, six years sleep better? What's up once you
Randy Baruh 20:37
know what this is one thing that I started doing recently and has had a tremendous effect is time blocking. I've always been, you know, not great at managing my time. But in the last, I would say couple months, I've really committed to blocking out my time setting family time aside, putting it in my schedule, everything is in my schedule, I'm waking up, I'm I have now woken up, I wake up at 5am I take some time to meditate, I take some time to read something that nourishes my soul or my mind, I go to work out all of that to my schedule, the time I take a shower and get ready for work, that's my schedule, going to work. You know, everything is in my schedule. And you know what, if you're not controlling your day, then your day is controlling you and it has really taken a weight off of my shoulders, stress off of my shoulders and really allowed me to accomplish more and get in more time with my family and for myself.
Umar Hameed 21:42
Surrender you may find this hard to believe but I have lost money in the past. But you know what? I can always get more money and make it better. You lose time. That's gone baby.
Randy Baruh 21:52
Yep, tomorrow is not guaranteed. There is no guarantee that tomorrow will be here. And you know what, I I'm turning 52 In a few weeks.
Umar Hameed 22:03
But anyways, you don't look a day over 50
Randy Baruh 22:07
But you know, I for me, like once I hit those that 50 time, whether you can call it a midlife crisis or whatever, time becomes much more in your for thrown in front of mind. And so, you know, how do you want? How do I want my kids to remember me? How do I want my friends to remember me? How do I want to remember me? When you're when you're looking back on your life, you want to make sure that you've had a positive impact on this planet, on the people that you love, and other people that you don't love. And you know, you only have one shot and like you know, so being positive spreading goodness, positivity, happiness, joy. That's my mantra.
Umar Hameed 22:52
We are kindred spirits. Thank you so much for being on the show really, really enjoyed our conversation and I'm looking forward to our next
Randy Baruh 23:01
I can't wait as well. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Umar Hameed 23:05
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.