Doorify Real Estate Podcast

Fresh Ideas on Compensation & Client Relationships with Jeff Lobb

• Doorify MLS • Episode 72

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The real estate industry is shifting fast, and agents need fresh strategies to stay ahead. From redefining compensation to building stronger client relationships, today’s guest shares hands-on advice for real success.

I’m thrilled to welcome Jeff Lobb, the CEO of SparkTank Media and Coach52. Jeff’s been at the heart of real estate since the late '80s, covering every role from agent to executive. 

With his coaching company, he’s all about helping agents, brokers, and industry pros grow and thrive in an evolving market. We discuss practical approaches to handling buyer and seller conversations, especially in light of recent industry changes. Jeff also shares strategies on leveraging social media and farming techniques to boost your business. 

It’s a conversation packed with actionable advice for agents and brokers across the board. So, hit play to catch every tip that will help you move forward with confidence.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • Redefining compensation and adding value in client conversations
  • Building and maintaining strong client relationships during the holidays
  • Creating a lasting presence in your local market

Links from this episode:

1ae5b43598204883b524f061d4880e6d10fca88c (for podfollow.com)

Jeff Lobb [00:00:00]:
The buy side is simple as I'm going to explain to the buyer that when we're working together now, not only are you hiring me to just show you homes, because a lot of people think we just show homes. Showing homes is probably the easiest and simplest thing we get to do. The real hard work comes in is when we actually come to an agreement and start to write up an offer to get you to the closing table. That's what I really make. My biggest value to you is.

Matt Fagioli [00:00:29]:
Hey, guys, welcome Back to the Doorify Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Matt Fagioli, here with the one, the only, Jeff Lobb, who is the CEO of SparkTank Media and Coach 52, and just, you know, one of the smartest guys in the industry. So, Jeff, welcome to the Doorify Real Estate podcast, bud.

Jeff Lobb [00:00:49]:
Thanks, man. It's always a pleasure. It's good to see you too.

Matt Fagioli [00:00:51]:
Yeah, right. Long time. Well, you know, Jeff, we are getting pretty darn close to the end of 24. Everybody's trying to figure out 25. We got the election in the rear view. You know, nobody's more connected to what's going on than you, so I want to hear all of that. But before we dig there, can you just kind of tell everybody, just a quick little what's Jeff's backstory and how'd we get here?

Jeff Lobb [00:01:17]:
I'll make that short because the backstory, like, literally goes back to 1988. I started in real estate, but we won't go there. I've been an agent, a broker, owner, had franchises for a bunch of years. I was an executive of a fairly large franchise brand for about 10. And then once we parted ways, I started my own coaching company where we speak, train and coach agents, teams, and brokerages. And we have some great partnerships in the mortgage space and title space as well, helping them make money. And we got some specialized products that you and I kind of work on together, too.

Matt Fagioli [00:01:45]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, again, you've been in the space forever. You have the resume that everybody wants as an agent, as a broker. Like, we want to listen to people who have sold a house. Right. That's criteria number one. So you've done a bunch of that. Maybe as importantly, you have a wife who's a big time broker.

Matt Fagioli [00:02:03]:
So you. You have fresh insight into what's happening on the ground today, you know, from. From Tiffany, for sure.

Jeff Lobb [00:02:10]:
Yeah.

Matt Fagioli [00:02:10]:
So what's your take, Jeff? I mean, gosh, we've been through so much this year. I don't know where to start, but let's start with, you know, the NAR settlement and all the changes there. You know, how are you. How are you talking to people, agents and brokers about, you know, what that new climate looks like?

Jeff Lobb [00:02:25]:
Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, it was the. For many people, it wasn't even a big change at all.

Matt Fagioli [00:02:30]:
Right.

Jeff Lobb [00:02:30]:
For many people, it's just like we're just doing business as usual. But I think there's a significant amount of agents in the space that just really don't know how to have good conversations with people. Because when you have to now discuss compensation, there's many agents who are willing to just do whatever it takes to just get a signature. And they don't know how to show. I hate the word value, but they don't know how to show why they should be compensated at a higher dollar figure. And I'm watching right now, unfortunately, a lot of people losing money and leaving it on the table, which they should not be doing, but it's being done. And I don't know if it's out of, you know, some desperation or fear of loss, but then I have other agents that we actually work with that are actually making a hell of a lot more money, which is what we should be doing, making more. So I think this gave us an opportunity to make more money, especially whether you're on the list side, if you're on the buy side, if you know how to have that conversation and do it right, they're making more money than they did prior to the NAR settlement.

Jeff Lobb [00:03:29]:
And that's what I love about sometimes change.

Matt Fagioli [00:03:33]:
So walk me through that. What does that look like? I'm a listing agent. I have a new listing opportunity. How do I act differently now than I would have then? Then?

Jeff Lobb [00:03:41]:
So there's. There's a couple ways to handle it. It depends on what side of the fence you're on. So if I'm playing listing agent side and I have that conversation, and I. I think with the listing side, too, there's always been a challenge with agents showing way more value to the homeowner through visual context. Like, I mean, let's stop talking about, you know, we do this and we do this and we do this and we do this because I did a session at Inman in Vegas, and we had three top producers on the stage. We're talking about, how do you differentiate yourselves? And what's funny is we went through the process that if I'm a listing agent and you're a listing agent, and you have on some kind of beautiful Pretty brochure that you do virtual tours and you do this many open houses and you do this and you do that. All that being said, if the next person comes along and says the same thing to the consumer, you're identical.

Jeff Lobb [00:04:32]:
There's nothing different. Yet. Your virtual tours are some slideshow, weird clunky thing. My virtual tours are a $500 video walkthrough with drone footage. That's not the same. When you show the differences of the marketing, your Instagram marketing, now, the consumer gets a visual differentiation. That's when you can ask for more money. That's when you're starting to say, listen, this is what makes us different.

Jeff Lobb [00:04:57]:
So, listing side, it'd be simple. Let's explain how the NAR transaction settlement happened. Here's how it now works. And then I would simply say my fee for marketing and listing the home to get it sold is three and a half to four percent. And we can discuss from there now that three and a half to four is mine. The buy side, we could talk about how that's going to happen, but either they could pay the buyer themselves or they may ask us to participate in that, but either way, we can work on a 3 and a half or 4% for my listing side.

Matt Fagioli [00:05:25]:
Gotcha. So what's, what's the right way to handle the buyer's compensation conversation as a listing agent?

Jeff Lobb [00:05:33]:
To the listing side?

Matt Fagioli [00:05:34]:
Yep. To the listing side.

Jeff Lobb [00:05:36]:
The listing side is simple. It's, you know, today's world. Now, the way I would go back and show them visually how it used to always be, that it was always negotiable, and this was always how we did it. However, in today's world, the buyers will have a responsibility to either pay their own agent or they may ask us to participate. However, as representing you as the seller, we're going to look at every offer individually, meaning what is their physical dollar amount, what are the objections and contingencies, and are they asking us to participate in that compensation or not? Bottom line is we're going to look at the best net dollar amount to you, the best terms and the best dollar. So there's some agents that may ask us to compensate. There may be some that ask us for some or half, and others may not ask at all. So what we're going to do is, and this is why you hire someone like myself, is we're going to look at every transaction not only just for dollars, but terms and what works best for your timing.

Jeff Lobb [00:06:33]:
And then we'll make a decision.

Matt Fagioli [00:06:35]:
Yeah, that makes total sense. And then how are you coaching agents on the buy side?

Jeff Lobb [00:06:39]:
So the buy side is, you know, and it's hard because I don't like to get into numbers because we're not allowed to talk about numbers. But the buy side is simple, as I'm going to explain to the buyer that when we're working together now, not only are you hiring me to just show you homes, because a lot of people think we just show homes. Showing homes is probably the easiest and simplest thing we get to do. The real hard work comes in is when we actually come to an agreement and start to write up an offer to get you to the closing table. That's what I really make my biggest value to you is. So the way it works now is the buyers are responsible, typically for an agreement with us to pay our fee. And my fee for representing in the buy side is going to be X. And X would be probably a little higher than what maybe some others may ask, and they may say, well, listen, I'm not sure if I can afford that.

Jeff Lobb [00:07:27]:
I never heard of such a thing. There's a lot of objections that go with it. But I'm going to say, listen, part of. Besides hiring to show homes, part of what I do, though, is to not only negotiate the price of the home and the terms, you're also hiring me to make every effort to negotiate that fee to be paid from the seller, the proceeds of sale or the transaction. So that's also what I'm looking to get from the other side. That being said, here's our buyer's agency agreement, and here's how I'm going to work. So I'm telling them straight up, you hired me to not negotiate the house and the terms, but also negotiate this from the other side. I'm going to make every effort to get it paid throughout that transaction.

Matt Fagioli [00:08:03]:
Gotcha. Cool.

Jeff Lobb [00:08:04]:
That's.

Matt Fagioli [00:08:04]:
Well, that's very clear and concise, which, you know, it hasn't been. Everybody's been like, what do I say? What do I do? Well, Jeff, and I don't know that it's any different this year than any other, but this time of year, I know you're coaching tons of agents right now on how do I get next year ready? How do I get ready for next year? How do I kick off with a bang? How do I make 20, 25, you know, the best year I've ever had. So what's your words of wisdom there?

Jeff Lobb [00:08:29]:
Most people start to pull back during holidays, and I'm all for, like, you know, I'm a big family Guy too. I love holidays. But at the same time, you've got.

Matt Fagioli [00:08:35]:
You got what, 12 kids there.

Jeff Lobb [00:08:37]:
So let's not for that, put that out to the universe. There's only six.

Matt Fagioli [00:08:43]:
You're the only guy, the only guy on the east coast I know that has six.

Jeff Lobb [00:08:45]:
Only six. Only. Only six. It is chaos at its life. It's chaos. But look, I sold real estate for in chaos as well. We did it for many, many years. So look, there's a lot of noise.

Jeff Lobb [00:09:00]:
We got to put the noise aside. And there's too many distractions happening where agents are focused on all the things that they can't do or that's going to distract them from doing. Like, I really don't care what the interest rates are or what they're going to be. Real estate's going to happen tomorrow or not. I really don't care what the NAR settlement says. It's follow the rules, but at the same time, people are still going to buy and sell houses. Right. We get so caught up in all this stuff, we stop forgetting.

Jeff Lobb [00:09:25]:
What my real job is, is to go find people to create relationships that live in homes that may hire us to buy and sell. And we pull back on all those activities because we get distracted. So I don't care how many business plans you write up, I think the biggest challenge we have is get someone to hold you accountable. Because the accountability in real estate is so hard to get people to commit to, but yet works wonders when someone can truly push you through to get to the uncomfortable part of the business. That's the number one job. You get uncomfortable talking to people and putting yourself out there. And yet that's the number one thing we should probably be doing. It's the activities we lack on.

Jeff Lobb [00:10:07]:
So most of my clients, I would say to you, Matt, if you were new, I could probably tell your level of production by you sharing your calendar with me. Right?

Matt Fagioli [00:10:17]:
That's right. Yeah. How many calls you making? All that stuff. And this time of year, you know, you know, I love talking to people about the. Just the obvious blocking and tackling of, you know, Christmas card, Thanksgiving card, you know, give something to give a, you know, turkeys and, you know, pies and all the. I feel like the holidays is the easiest time to, you know, engage people, build relationships, not have to do anything salesy, just, you know, show up.

Jeff Lobb [00:10:44]:
Yeah. You know, just be nice and be out there and. But you gotta be like, you have to be out there. It's not the time where you're going to sit in your Office or work on MLS stuff. And you've got to probably work three times as hard in these markets. And I'm okay to say it, to make, you know, to make the money you want to make, you're going to have to work maybe two or three times harder, but that's okay because it's a market shift and it'll shift again. So, you know, I think when I look at people's calendar sometimes, I always look at and I have this fun quote I like to use. It's called it's.

Jeff Lobb [00:11:15]:
I usually say it's. It's you lose money in the gaps of your calendar and the gaps of your calendars where you're losing money. And it's really simple. We have the same amount of hours every day as any top producer versus a brand new agent, right? Same eight, ten hours. It's what do you do with it, who you spend it with? So when I look at calendars and someone's got an appointment at like 1 o'clock and someone's got an appointment, the next appointment after that maybe is 4:30. What are you doing between the 1 and 4:30? What are you doing in the point, the appointment gap of one hour, what do you do? And most agents will find busy work to do. Oh, I'll go on email and check my emails or I'll go grab a cup of coffee. In that one hour, how many phone calls could you make to maybe old leads that never got back to you? How many phone calls could you make to your clients that have given you business and referrals over there just to say thank you? Like one hour, you can make a lot of progress that's in between that gap.

Jeff Lobb [00:12:10]:
And yet we spend most of it doing nonsense things. And it's huge. That one hour is a big difference. So we try and manage that not as a micro, but more as a, hey, you're losing money in that one hour. How can you make better use of it versus killing time?

Matt Fagioli [00:12:26]:
That's really good advice, Jeff. Yeah. You know, I think it's funny if, if people would think even in terms of like three phone calls a day and versus, I mean, let's face it, lots of people make zero. But you know, call three people that are on your list today, you know, now that's 15 in a five in a five day work week, you know, 60, 70 in a, in a month. You know, I think if you're listening to this, you gotta ask yourself like, did I actually talk to 70 clients last month or not? You know, and I think you know, for a lot of people, the answer is not, I didn't talk to sending clients last month.

Jeff Lobb [00:12:59]:
Right. And I think the other thing they get hung up on is, you know, like, if I'm calling a client that I've done business with, and I don't like the term past clients, because they should never be passed. They're just your clients. Right. It's like they're just always your clients, even if you just call them to, you know, wish them holidays or, hey, listen, I know you bought your home three years ago, but you know what? I'm working with a lot of people who have gained a tremendous amount of equity in their homes, and I'm just putting out special reports for my clients that'll show you how much equity I have and maybe just give you a snapshot. Would you like a copy? I'll send one out to you. I think, you know, home homeownership is great, but when you can make that much more money, maybe you don't realize it would happen in three years, which is like a copy. And then you put together a quick snapshot or a home intel report or one of these reports that can show them where they are, because that's helpful to people.

Jeff Lobb [00:13:44]:
It's very personal. That doesn't take much to ask. Right. So it doesn't have to be an awkward conversation. Just make it simple.

Matt Fagioli [00:13:51]:
Yeah, I think it's perfect time of the year, especially at your end, you know, to send out, you know, little videos of. Hey, just wanted you to know, like, here's. Here's your. Here's the numbers. Here's the numbers on your house. Here's the numbers that sold last year. You know, when I. When I was a practicing agent, I was the kind of guy that I worked to farm, and we sent out a report, usually February, we sent out a report, all the numbers from the previous year for that specific farm.

Matt Fagioli [00:14:16]:
It was all packaged up and all this stuff, and it was one of the most powerful things we ever did. You know, I would walk into people's houses six months later, and that report was sitting on their. On their desk or on their coffee table. You know, whatever. It's like, man, they're not throwing that away, you know, because that's. It's like, you know, it's annual. This is, you know, right up there with Time magazine or something like that, you know, on their. On their.

Matt Fagioli [00:14:38]:
I'm telling you, man, it was unbelievable.

Jeff Lobb [00:14:39]:
Great.

Matt Fagioli [00:14:40]:
Yeah. So, you know, I think that that's a bit of a lost art as well. In Terms of take. Yeah, we all have access to data, but what if you customize that data down to your farm and stuff like that, you know?

Jeff Lobb [00:14:50]:
Well, that's a. That's a good point you bring up as the farm, too. Because that's another thing I find really shocking is when I get in front of audiences, even from the stage, too, I'll just say, listen, how many people in this group have an area, you could define it as a farm, but a geographic area where you feel you have market share and dominance in that, like, are you a household name in a particular area? Right. And I find that. I'm going to say out of an audience of 200, I'll find maybe one like one if I'm lucky. No one has spent the time creating dominance in one area. And I don't mislead people by saying that doesn't mean you go take listings 45 minutes away and your buyers other ways. But one core.

Jeff Lobb [00:15:28]:
You were a big farmer, right? One core area where you had dominance that creates cash flow and repetitive business and fuels the rest of your business. Very few are doing that and have very little focus on it. And I'm still shocked by that.

Matt Fagioli [00:15:40]:
So I, yeah, I totally agree, man. I think, you know, I coach anybody in any business about the flywheel effect. And, you know, if you don't focus in on one thing enough to create that flywheel and that momentum and that, you know, in this case, we're talking about name recognition and things like that, and then you get this momentum that nobody else gets and the phone starts ringing and people like, oh, that's that guy. That's that guy who's the focus of that particular thing, you know, and then people think, oh, that I'm going to limit myself now. I'm only. I'm only going to be able to do that. And it's like, no, everybody's going to call you for everything anyway, right? Not to mention the fact that every buyer and every seller that's coming in or out of that thing, like, there's still going to be another transaction on the other side. So it doesn't limit you in any way, but it creates the flywheel effect on the thing.

Matt Fagioli [00:16:25]:
Right. Another thing I love talking to people about is just sort of micro farming. So if you're not that guy, you don't have or that girl, you don't have any. Anything one like that, you're maybe you're brand new in the business. Like, pick one building. Like, I know a guy who makes a fortune now that these are Very expensive condos. But, like, he's only known for that one building, you know, but like, nobody's selling anything else in that building. Right? Even that kind of dominance.

Matt Fagioli [00:16:51]:
And again, the mindset might go to, oh, well, then I'm only going to be known for that bill. It's like, well, no. Win that building. And then when, you know, duplicate.

Jeff Lobb [00:16:59]:
Yeah. So, you know, when I find that individual or two that say, yeah, I do have dominance in an area, like, there's people that do a good job at that. So I'm like, so for agents like that, the beauty is what created your success there. You can now duplicate it in the next farm area. You could either scale it as a team or you scale it as an individual. Like, that is scalable. And that's kind of how I built my business. I scaled farm areas.

Jeff Lobb [00:17:25]:
But we got to get agents to focus just on one to start. Become that guy or that gal. How do you become that person? Where they see you at, you know, Target and they recognize you. Oh, you're that. You're that real estate. Yeah, you're that real estate person I see all the time. That's what we're shooting for. That's when you start to feel you.

Jeff Lobb [00:17:43]:
You're winning.

Matt Fagioli [00:17:44]:
Well, so last question for you. You know, I know you're big on social media. You talk a lot about social to people. What's kind of happening there? What do you see changing? What's your advice to people for breaking through to a new level in social for next year?

Jeff Lobb [00:17:58]:
I think really we've got to go deeper on both community content and personal content. And I say that because everyone's still just about real estate, real estate. And I could get a vibe like, you're in real estate. Okay, great. I need to know more about you as the person you like me, you're like, you know, I got six kids you're going to see. You know, I'm coaching lacrosse or I'm an outdoors person. Like, people buy people first, right. Versus product.

Jeff Lobb [00:18:23]:
And secondly, to mix up your social flex, you got to get more community based. Like my. I'm a big, big fan of, you know, getting down and interviewing the business owners and prospecting with those local business owners. Because if I can get more business owners, and this is my favorite strategy, which I share in a full hour but condensed, prospect the business owners to help promote them around your farm area. Because when I can talk to a local bagel shop, pizzeria, the grinders and entrepreneurs of your community, not only do I get to create A relationship with them because they know hundreds of people that I don't. I also get social media content with them in it that they tag me in with their sphere. Then I get community content on the same bunch. Because I need to be known not just for personal real estate.

Jeff Lobb [00:19:12]:
I need to be known as the community person, too. So why are we not elevating why I should move to your area? Like, who's my favorite place to go? And there's so much out there to go do, entrepreneur wise. Like, we're missing that opportunity for not only social content, but the relationships and the potential referrals from those people. We're not doing it. So that's an easy play because it costs you no money other than time.

Matt Fagioli [00:19:35]:
That's right. Yeah. I mean, I think people miss all the time that maybe the best potential customers in your market are those business owners. And of course, they're also connected to everybody. Everybody's coming in and out of their shop. They're also the neighbors.

Jeff Lobb [00:19:51]:
So let me just drive that home with the detail of that. So those that might want to execute on this. The simplicity is. And you could do this a hundred ways, but go take a Facebook business page, since your business page isn't generating a ton of results for you anyway. It's public, it's on social. But go create a page that I would call, like, the best of whatever. The best of Sussex county. The best of whatever.

Jeff Lobb [00:20:13]:
And when you walk into that local business owner, you elevate them to with no ask for business. This is like a Gary V. Play right here. There's no ask. It's. It's give value first. So it's like, hey, I'm Jeff Lobb. I work with Matt Fagioli's real estate company.

Jeff Lobb [00:20:28]:
And listen, we're highlighting some of the best businesses in town. And while we sell a lot of real estate, my clients in real estate are always looking for new places to go. I would love to promote you and your bagels, pizzeria, catering, whatever you do on my Facebook page to my clients. Would you be okay if I promoted you? Like, how easy of a script is that? And when you get. And truthfully, when I really did this prior to Facebook and I built this little script I had, I did have a guy that straight sat back in his chair and he's like, well, this sounds good, but how much? What are you going to charge me now that, like, everyone's being sold? And I just. Whatever came out of my face at that moment sounded good, so I still use it. I just said no. We just sell a lot of real estate, and our clients are always asking to try new places.

Jeff Lobb [00:21:12]:
I just think you do a great job. I just want to promote you. That's it.

Matt Fagioli [00:21:16]:
Yeah. Who's going to say no?

Jeff Lobb [00:21:17]:
That's it. Like, who's going to say no? I just want to shoot some video. I want to take some pictures with you. And I got clients that I could put in my newsletter, but on my Facebook page, I'm going to put you on my best stuff because I think you're one of the best. I know he knows 500 people, and his wife is connected to the schools and everything else. That's the win.

Matt Fagioli [00:21:34]:
That's cool, dude. That's awesome. That's gold.

Jeff Lobb [00:21:37]:
Gold.

Matt Fagioli [00:21:37]:
Jeff, how does everybody find you and your amazing coaching at Coach 52? So they can get the latest from you and get ready for 25?

Jeff Lobb [00:21:46]:
Yeah, they can check out coach52.com. That's five. Two. I'm pretty simple to find on social at Jefflob on just about everything. And actually, Jeff Lob Social, Jefflob Social is my digital business card to connect with me just about everywhere.

Matt Fagioli [00:22:03]:
That's super cool, man. Thanks for being here and everybody listening to this. Thanks for being on the Doorify Real Estate State podcast. We'll see you guys all back here real soon.

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